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. While your at it, perhaps you'll send the defense attorneys, judge, and jury to prison too?  They (like the LEOs and prosecutors) acted wrongly, but in ignorance and good faith that they were doing the right thing. Properly educated on the issues, these people would have all looked at the admission evidence differently. Of course, if it's revenge one wants and not justice.... (But isn't that how we got here in the first place?  )"I'm not fluent in the language of violence, but I know enough to get around in places where it's spoken." | |||
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| Go ahead punk, make my day |
Talking to lots of LEOs around here and they prefer a life sentence to death anyway... especially for the pedophiles and rapists... $1.7M for 25 years of your life is a disgrace. | |||
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| I believe in the principle of Due Process  |
I suspect there would be fewer instances like this if the defense had the same resources as the prosecution. Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me. When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown | |||
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I'm not sure those on the side of justice acted in good faith and cares about doing the right thing. I'd be inclined to believe they were chasing favorable numbers and conviction rates. If so, any one who knowlingly participates in travesties of justice should be jailed. "Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it." L.Tolstoy "A government is just a body of people, usually, notably, ungoverned." Shepherd Book | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine  |
Yes, a thousand times. Those cops and CPS workers are not deliberately trying to convict innocent people, they just don't know enough to avoid contaminating their own investigation. That does not excuse the errors or make it up to the wrongly accused and convicted, but it isn't really helpful to accuse the investigators of deliberate misconduct. In fact, it can obscure the need for the sort of training Pulicords talks about. I had a case where a mom mistook normal childhood sexual curiosity as evidence of sexual abuse. She repeatedly asked the child who she "learned that from," and eventually got the child to name three or four different people. Mom, of course, finally settled on my client as the guilty party, and we were off to the races for a long, expensive, very unpleasant battle. Mom could never give up on her earliest conclusions, even after no other evidence surfaced and several experts concluded there was no abuse by anyone. It is really easy to convince a 4 year old to say almost anything by accident. If you ask over and over again, "Who touched your naughty bits?," the child will soon figure out that the answer that will stop the questioning is to name someone. Further questioning will produce more tales of abuse as the child figures out what answers satisfy the questioner. No one does this with malice, but they don't know how children react to the questioning. It is even more complicated than that, but the above gives a taste of the problem. I've seen tapes of CPS questioning kids. Most do a decent job, but some make horrible mistakes. The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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| Member |
As I recall, the social worker involved in the Jordan case elicited the responses by showing the children stuffed animals and asking them: "Where did he/she touch you?" Of course, the child thought they were expected to provide some answer. If they indicated that they were touched, they were then asked: "Did he touch you anywhere else?" Eventually, the desired result was obtained. | |||
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| Member |
My experience with prosecutors is that some will chase a conviction even when they realize that the defendant is innocent. In many ways prosecutors can be worse than slippery, lying, defense attorneys. All they care about is being proven correct, and their conviction percentage. -c1steve | |||
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| I believe in the principle of Due Process |
Yes, but a vigorous resourceful defense can chill their enthusiasm. You have to have the facts, the evidence, and make them listen. Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me. When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown | |||
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| Member |
What is built into the system for discouraging and/or penalizing the prosecution from chasing conviction metrics, especially when they know the accused is innocent? A lost case is not nearly discouragement enough. "Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it." L.Tolstoy "A government is just a body of people, usually, notably, ungoverned." Shepherd Book | |||
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| Speling Champ |
Don't discount simple human stupidity in these (and other) cases. The sheer amount of bullshit I've heard from everyone from cops to defendants to witnesses to lawyers that is ultimately believed by others-like jurors, who are also stupid-over the years is staggering. I might just be a little jaded and cynical though. | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine |
I would say that generally, they don't "know" that the defendant is innocent. Naturally, they would never write a memo to the file that says, "I know Don Defendant didn't do it, but I am prosecuting anyway." I am not talking about that, as we would all agree that is egregious. But it doesn't happen that way. What happens is that the case was not well developed in the first place or develops cracks, which the prosecutor doesn't recognize or is somewhat blind to because that is the nature of human beings. He's put a year's work into it, and has come to believe his own story. It can be very hard to not get high on your own fumes, especially because the whole team is with you. The case develops inertia. It isn't usually a deliberate attempt to railroad an innocent man. And remember most criminal prosecutions aren't like that anyway. In most, the facts aren't in great doubt. Jim-Bob is on the security camera, robbing the convenience store. Dwayne was hauled out of the car that just plowed into granny and had a BAC of .20. Juan bragged to his buddy after the fact that he shot up the opposing gang members. Only a tiny fraction of cases depends on evidence that is less than solid. That is cold comfort to the innocent man, but it does make prosecuting a prosecutor harder. Where is the line between knew, should have known, was careless, and just turned out to be wrong? Where should the line be that triggers potential liability? We don't want prosecutors pussyfooting around, worried that someone will second guess them later when they don't get a conviction. I agree that the desire to get convictions is an incentive that can and does create problems. How to solve that problem is not as easy as it may first appear. You can be fairly certain that someone who comes along and says, "Well, the answer is simple . . . " doesn't really know what he is talking about. Answers like that are never simple. The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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| Member |
In my experience (30+ years as a LEO and 8+ years as a defense resource) questionable prosecutions arise after the "People's" representatives find themselves personally invested in a case to the point where they lose perspective or feel they might incur liability by having made a mistake(s) at the onset of the investigation. Even the most diehard defense advocates (see "The Innocence Project") point out that the vast majority of errors made by police and prosecutors in confession/admissions cases do NOT involve any sort of malicious intent. Prosecutors get a lot more negative feedback from cases like this than by any kind of consideration for their percentage of "wins" in the courtroom. These are mistakes made by YOUR REPRESENTATIVES, who take their responsibilities seriously and acted in good faith. Making "the system" suffer financially means there's less resources devoted to preventing these mistakes in the future. Punishing cops and prosecutors for doing their jobs poorly but with good intentions, doesn't address the obvious training issues and would only result in poor morale. When cops and prosecutors feel they're more at risk by doing their job than playing it safe through inaction, the general public doesn't get the service they're paying for. Should defense attorneys go to jail or lose their license because they didn't know a reliable confession from an unreliable one? Most criminal defense attorneys I've trained (several hundred over the last six years) either didn't know that cops had access formal interview/interrogation training or (if they did) what it consisted of. Even if they had some training, I've seen "experts" for the defense put out some blatantly false info. If the problem is going to be seriously dealt with, what's needed is more formal education about this specific issue and how to avoid it. "I'm not fluent in the language of violence, but I know enough to get around in places where it's spoken." | |||
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| Member |
+1000! "I'm not fluent in the language of violence, but I know enough to get around in places where it's spoken." | |||
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| Member |
There just aren't words for a miscarriage of justice such as this. I agree with others about the testimony of the very young. It's a slippery slope since no bones about it, there are some really fucking sick offenders out there. I don't know what the answer is. In this particular case, those responsible should be held responsible somehow. | |||
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| I believe in the principle of Due Process |
Moreover, when evidence conflicts, who is to say which is right? A jury. There are isolated incidences of deliberate misconduct. Withholding evidence required to be given to the defense, concealing facts that might tend to impeach a witness. We had some gang prosecutors allowing an important informant who was incarcerated to spend time in the DA office unsupervised with his sweetie, and some other inducements to see things their way. I find it discouraging to realize that juries hear these crazy sounding stories and sign off on them. Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me. When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown | |||
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delicately calloused |
Me three. At this point in our long national corruption, I'd have to have the crime on tape somewhere before I vote for the DP. You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine |
We had a politically ambitious prosecutor here who has narrowly avoided bar discipline for some shenanigans. She once failed to disclose potentially exculpatory information because she claimed that because she, the prosecutor, didn't believe the potential alibi witness was reliable, it was NOT potentially exculpatory. Talk about circular. She is now out of the prosecutor's office and in private practice. I wonder what her evaluation of her old tactics is now? But Jim is right, deliberate misconduct is fairly rare.This message has been edited. Last edited by: jhe888, The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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| I believe in the principle of Due Process |
I said you were right before you said I was right!  Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me. When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson "Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown | |||
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| Banned |
Between these kind of BS convictions, there are a lot of people doing long time, or life, for "arson" that wasn't arson at all. Every so often, some poor bastard gets out of prison after spending years inside for burning his house down, convicted by the testimony of the local PD's arson investigator. A lot of these clowns have no real training, being taught by the amateur who they replaced when they retired. IMHO, all these cases should be reviewed by an impartial expert before they are allowed to go on. There are too many mistakes made. | |||
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| Member |
I had the distinct pleasure to work for one of the better funded Public Defender's Offices in Florida when I was a PD. Plus, our Boss's "marching orders" were to go to trial as often as possible, so, our office had lots of trial attorneys. I did 14 jury trails my first year out of law school (cant even say how many bench trials that year??). But, case counts in the county were low and the indigent got their day in court with a competent attorney. But when I say "better funded" we still did not have the resources that the LEO's/SAO's had. And now my old office are just paper pushers and the case counts in the county are ridiculous. JALLEN is point on, when you have a well funded, strong PD's office, this kind of abuse is a lot less common. | |||
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SIGforum.com Main Page The Lounge Texas Couple Exonerated 25 Years After Being Convicted of Lurid Crimes That Never Happened
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