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Print|Email|Single
Page

Wrongful
Convictions

How many innocent Americans are behind bars?

Radley Balko from the July 2011 issue

When Paul House was finally released from prison in 2008, he was a specter of
the man who had been sentenced to death more than 22 years earlier. When I visit
his home in Crossville, Tennessee, in March, House’s mother Joyce, who has cared
for him since his release, points to a photo of House taken the day he was
finally allowed to come home. In that photo and others from his last days in
prison, House is all of 150 pounds, ashen and drawn, his fragile frame nearly
consumed by his wheelchair. In most of the images he looks days away from death,
although in one he wears the broad smile of a man finally escaping a long
confinement.

When House’s aunt called to congratulate him on his first day back, his
mother handed him her cell phone so he could chat. He inspected the phone, gave
her a frustrated look, and asked her to find him one that worked. That kind of
Rip Van Winkle moment is common among people freed after a long stint in prison.
Dennis Fritz, one of the two wrongly convicted men profiled in John Grisham’s
2006 book The Innocent Man, talks about nearly calling the police upon
seeing someone use an electronic key card the first time he found himself in a
hotel after his release. He thought he’d witnessed a burglar use a credit card
to jimmy open a door.

“Paul’s first meal when he got home was chili verde,” Joyce House says.
“It’s his favorite. And I had been waiting a long time to make it for him.” And
apparently quite a few meals after that. House, now 49, has put on 75 pounds
since his release. More important, he has been getting proper treatment for his
advanced-stage multiple sclerosis, treatment the Tennessee prison system hadn’t
given him.

The years of inadequate care have taken a toll. House can’t walk, and he
needs help with such basic tasks as bathing, feeding himself, and maneuvering
around in his wheelchair. His once distinctively deep voice (which had allegedly
been heard by a witness at the crime scene) is now wispy and high-pitched. He
spends his time playing computer games and watching game shows.

In the hour or so that I visit with House, his mental facilities fade in and
out. Communicating with him can be like trying to listen to a baseball game
broadcast by a distant radio station. He will give a slurred but lucid answer to
one question, then answer the next one with silence, or with the answer to a
previous question, or just with a random assortment of words. He frequently
falls back on the resigned refrain, “Oh, well,” delivered with a shrug. The
gesture and phrasing are identical every time he uses them. It’s what House says
to kill the expectation that he will be able to deliver the words others in the
room are waiting for. It’s his signal to stop waiting for him and move on.

In 1986 House was convicted of murdering Carolyn Muncey in Union County,
Tennessee, a rural part of the state that shoulders Appalachia. He was sentenced
to death. His case is a textbook study in wrongful conviction. It includes
mishandled evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, bad science, cops with tunnel
vision, DNA testing, the near-execution of an innocent man, and an appellate
court reluctant to reopen old cases even in the face of new evidence that
strongly suggests the jury got it wrong.

House also embodies the tribulations and frustrations that the wrongly
convicted encounter once they get out. According to the doctors treating him,
his current condition is the direct result of the inadequate care he received in
prison. If he is ever granted a formal exoneration—a process that can be as much
political as it is judicial—he will be eligible for compensation for his years
behind bars, but even then the money comes with vexing conditions and
limitations.

Since 1989, DNA testing has freed 268 people who were convicted of crimes
they did not commit. There are dozens of other cases, like House’s, where DNA
strongly suggests innocence but does not conclusively prove it. Convicting and
imprisoning an innocent person is arguably the worst thing a government can do
to one of its citizens, short of mistakenly executing him. (There’s increasing
evidence that this has happened too.) Just about everyone agrees that these are
unfathomable tragedies. What is far less clear, and still hotly debated, is what
these cases say about the way we administer justice in America, what we owe the
wrongly convicted, and how the officials who send innocent people to prison
should be held accountable.

How Many Are Innocent?

According to the Innocence Project, an advocacy group that provides legal aid
to the wrongly convicted, the average DNA exoneree served 13 years in prison
before he or she was freed. Seventeen had been sentenced to death. Remarkably,
67 percent of the exonerated were convicted after 2000, the year that marked the
onset of modern DNA testing. Each new exoneration adds more urgency to the
question that has hovered over these cases since the first convict was cleared
by DNA in 1989: How many more innocent people are waiting to be freed?

Given the soundness of DNA testing, we can be nearly certain that the 268
cleared so far didn’t commit the crimes for which they were convicted. There are
hundreds of other cases where no DNA evidence exists to definitively establish
guilt or innocence, but a prisoner has been freed due to lack of evidence,
recantation of eyewitness testimony, or police or prosecutorial misconduct.
Those convictions were overturned because there was insufficient evidence to
overcome reasonable doubt; it does not necessarily mean the defendant didn’t
commit the crime. It’s unclear whether and how those cases should be factored
into any attempt to estimate the number of innocent people in prison.

In a country where there are 15,000 to 20,000 homicides each year, 268
exonerations over two decades may seem like an acceptable margin of error. But
reform advocates point out that DNA testing is conclusive only in a small
percentage of criminal cases. Testing is helpful only in solving crimes where
exchange of DNA is common and significant, mostly rape and murder. (And most
murder exonerations have come about because the murder was preceded by a rape
that produced testable DNA.) Even within this subset of cases, DNA evidence is
not always preserved, nor is it always dispositive to the identity of the
perpetrator.

Death penalty cases add urgency to this debate. In a 2007 study
published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, the Seton
Hall law professor Michael Risinger looked at cases of exoneration for capital
murder-rapes between 1982 and 1989, compared them to the total number of
murder-rape cases over that period for which DNA would be a factor, and
estimated from that data that 3 percent to 5 percent of the people convicted of
capital crimes probably are innocent. If Risinger is right, it’s still unclear
how to extrapolate figures for the larger prison population. Some criminologists
argue that there is more pressure on prosecutors and jurors to convict someone,
anyone, in high-profile murder cases. That would suggest a higher
wrongful conviction rate in death penalty cases. But defendants also tend to
have better representation in capital cases, and media interest can also mean
more scrutiny for police and prosecutors. That could lead to fewer wrongful
convictions.

In a study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
in 2005, a team led by University of Michigan law professor Samuel Gross looked
at 328 exonerations of people who had been convicted of rape, murder, and other
felonies between 1989 and 2003. They found that while those who have been
condemned to die make up just 1 percent of the prison population, they account
for 22 percent of the exonerated. But does that mean capital cases are more
likely to bring a wrongful conviction? Or does it mean the attention and
scrutiny that death penalty cases get after conviction—particularly as an
execution date nears—make it more likely that wrongful convictions in capital
cases will be discovered?

Page: 1 2 3 > Last ›

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See
all 69 comments | Leave
a comment

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be
civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for
comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not
represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to
delete any comment for any reason at any time.

Almanian|6.7.11
@ 12:13PM|#

I thought Radley was at the Daily Kos now? Co-employment? Oh, snap!

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 12:21PM|#

Great article.

reply to this

Sal Paradise|6.7.11 @ 12:39PM|#

Not enough nuts to punch at Huffington? You have to come slumming back to
us?

reply to this

Brian C|6.7.11
@ 2:20PM|#

He's not back. This article is from the July issue which was, as he said, his
last project before leaving.

reply to this

spencer|6.7.11
@ 12:50PM|#

Look,

If you don't want to be wrongly convicted- here are a few rules.

#1- be white- but not white trashy.
#2- Don't you dare ever, ever do
drugs.
#3- Keep your head down.
#4- Don't live near or visit any locations
where a crime is committed.

That's all we ask of you.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 1:11PM|#

#5-Be a police officer.

reply to this

Wind Rider|6.7.11 @
1:32PM|#

#6 - best bet, be a prosecutor.

reply to this

Almanian|6.7.11
@ 1:36PM|#

Immunity For Life, bitchez!!

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 3:14PM|#

race has little, if nothing to do with it. see: OJ

class has a lot to do with it. iow, how good a defense team can you
afford?

given a good enough defense team, not only are you less likely to get
wrongfully convicted, you are also more likely to get acquitted even if you are
guilty as fuck!

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 2:36PM|#

living by these 4 rules almost did not keep the Duke lacrosse players out of
prison

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 3:19PM|#

they spent time in prison? news to me

otoh, the prosecutor who was convicted of lying (criminal contempt) for
making false statements during the criminal proceedings got a whopping ONE DAY
in jail
lol

reply to this

Doubleu|6.7.11 @ 10:06PM|#

“There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is
the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals,
one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes
impossible to live without breaking laws.”
~ Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

reply to this

zoltan|6.7.11 @
11:14PM|#

The whole thing is a racket. Look at the Texas District Attorney's
Association lobbying webpage. It's all about job creation and expanding the net
of "crimes" to ridiculous lengths.

reply to this

rather|6.7.11 @ 12:55PM|#

Just about everyone agrees that these are unfathomable
tragedies.

Who the fuck thinks it's a great idea? Or, are you paid by the word now?

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 1:14PM|#

"Who the fuck thinks it's a great idea?"

Scalia, Kagan, Mississippi, Texas, Arpaio...

reply to this

L4F|6.7.11 @ 1:14PM|#

How about an article on rightful convictions? Jesus Christ, Reason! You sound
like The Practice meets Boston Legal! Instead of asking how many are innocent,
why not ask how many are guilty? After all, I've never been robbed by a man in
prison.

http://libertarians4freedom.blogspot.com/

reply to this

Almanian|6.7.11
@ 1:33PM|#

Gregooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!

You're such a statist asshole.

reply to this

L4F|6.7.11 @ 3:52PM|#

And you are such an anarchist.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 5:47PM|#

"How about an article on rightful convictions?"

How about a justice system that doesn't make innocents suffer for the crimes
of others?

The concept of freedom must be lost on you.

reply to this

L4F|6.8.11 @ 8:49AM|#

And what justice system would that be? In fact, in America you're presumed
innocent before proven guilty, that means the DA has a burden to prove you
guilty while the lawyers can get you off on a technicality or engage in jury
nullification. Our system is great! Is it perfect? No, and if you have a better
idea, I'd like to hear it.

reply to this

SouthernRob|6.8.11 @ 3:19PM|#

The DA doesn't have much of a burden if you can't afford a defense and the
public defender system is broke and overloaded.

Expert witnesses, investigators, good lawyers: these things cost money. Maybe
everyone should have to use the public defender system.

reply to this

L4F|6.8.11 @ 5:36PM|#

SoutherRob, who says life is fair? There are public defenders that are
excellent and expensive lawyers that are terrible and viceversa. Forcing
everyone to use public defenders is like forcing everyone to drive the same car.
It's communism.

reply to this

|6.8.11 @ 11:15PM|#

"And what justice system would that be?"

One where the prosecuting attorneys are held personally liable for any jury
or evidence tampering. One where judges and DA's don't run on a political
platform and don't use a conviction rate as a resume booster. One where cases
against individuals should immediately be dismissed if evidence exists of any
procedural misconduct.

reply to this

L4F|6.9.11 @ 8:19AM|#

Well Sy, jury tampering is a crime and attorneys have been disbarred for
that. Procedural misconduct? It happens and if its proven, there are penalties.
In fact, defendants might use that during the appeals process. As for DA's and
judges don't running for office, what do you want? For liberal governors to
appoint liberals who will destroy the second amendment? Or do you like judges
legislating from the bench? Sy, everybody bitches about the system but the
solutions you propose only create more problems.

reply to this

|6.9.11 @ 12:02PM|#

IT is exceedingly rare for prosecutors to be held accountable for any of the
felonies they routinely commit. If you or a loved one had ever been the one
wrongly prosecuted, you would feel different about it. The criminal justice
system in this country is itself a massive criminal enterprise. It is a beast
that knows it must feed, and it is not that particular upon whom it feeds. there
are hundreds of thousands of very high paying jobs at stake with generous
benefit and pension packages. If the beast didn't have enough people to feed on,
many of those jobs would be in jeopardy.

reply to this

The Derider|6.7.11 @ 1:53PM|#

I thought the taxes that paid for prison cells were robbery?

reply to this

L4F|6.7.11 @ 3:52PM|#

So what should we do with people who steal? Cut their hands? Let them go free
so they can steal some more?

Have you ever been a parent? Parents who don't punish their kids raised
spoiled brats. Here in the south prison is hell, so if we don't shoot our
criminals in flagrante delicto, we make sure they pay in prison.

reply to this

zoltan|6.7.11 @
11:14PM|#

So we should punish innocent people by stealing for them and giving it to the
wrong-doers (food, shelter, clothing, etc.)?

reply to this

L4F|6.8.11 @ 8:50AM|#

Again, WHAT DO WE DO WITH CRIMINALS WHO STEAL? WHERE DO WE KEEP THEM? Really
Zoltan, you're like those judges that give pedophiles probation and then are
shocked when they molest again.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 1:35PM|#

how the officials who send innocent people to prison should be held
accountable.

I favor impalement. Beheading would also be acceptable, but not with one of
them fancy-dancy guillotines; the executioner should use a dull saber.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 2:13PM|#

Crucifixion ? Good. Top of the stairs, line on the left, one cross each.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 3:33PM|#

i'm sorry, this is abuse. intelligent discussion is down the hall.
crucifixion is two rooms over

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 3:21PM|#

innocent people will always (to a greater or lesser extent) occasionally be
sent to prison. there is no perfect knowledge. it is not merely possible, it is
inevitable.

however, when innocent people get sent to prison due to prosecutorial or
police misconduct, THAT is another thing entirely.

or victim misconduct? did crystal mangum even get CHARGED for making the
whole thing up?

nope.

reply to this

Almanian|6.7.11
@ 1:35PM|#

It includes mishandled evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, bad science,
cops with tunnel vision, DNA testing, the near-execution of an innocent man, and
an appellate court reluctant to reopen old cases even in the face of new
evidence that strongly suggests the jury got it wrong.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow....

But the question here is whether wrongful convictions are epidemic or
episodic.

Isolated incident, isolated incident, isolated incident, isolated
incident...

These odd, sometimes absurd predicaments aren’t intentionally cruel. They
just work out that way.

BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow...

PS Some of your best work. Thanks again for what you do, although my nuts
say, "Fuck you, Radley!"

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 3:24PM|#

wrongful convictions (innocents going to jail) are necessarily an
inevitability. even given PERFECT conduct by prosecutors and cops

however, wrongful convictions due to process misfeasance - lying prosecturs,
cops, etc. should be dealt with harshly

there is NO way around innocents occasionally going to prison given "beyond a
reasonable doubt" standards.

that's simply inevitable. process should be improved to lessen the frequency
and actual misconduct should be dealt with harshly. that goes also for "victims"
who make false complaints and witnesses who lie

but even if everybody tells the truth and acts honorably, it is inevitable
that occasionally innocents will get convicted, just like given sufficient "n",
you will eventually inevitably flip 8 heads in a row in coin tossing

unlikely, but ultimately inevitable given sufficient # of trials.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 3:35PM|#

to clarify, the 8 heads in a row doesn't imply a biased coin or process
injustice, just that given sufficient "n" it is possible to get very unfair
results (from a cosmic justice perspective) occasionally, even when everybody
acts perfectly.

iow a perfectly innocent man/woman can and will be convicted even when
everybody tells the truth and everybody acts honorably

just hope you aren't caught in that unlikely, but possible circumstance

reply to this

Michael Ejercito|6.8.11 @
10:29PM|#

however, wrongful convictions due to process misfeasance - lying
prosecturs, cops, etc. should be dealt with harshly

All those even tangentially responsible should be lynched.

reply to this

Baby Anarchist|6.7.11 @ 1:37PM|#

Throw me out with the bathwater!

reply to this

zoltan|6.7.11 @
11:16PM|#

More prisoners than China.

reply to this

Wind Rider|6.7.11 @
1:42PM|#

Balko is on point as always, without being all touchy-feely emo about the
entire topic. It's obvious that the occurance of this is rare enough that the
percentages are miniscule - but this isn't simply a statistical math exercise -
because the consequences of being fucked by the flaws of the system are
irreversible, even IF they are detected. This fact alone makes such flaws
utterly intolerable. At all.

The biggest shift that would go along way towards clearing a LOT of this shit
up is the very attitude Balko highlights - that of 'winning' versus 'losing'. .
.while we may have an adversarial system, this ain't a goddamned kick-ball game.
If the point isn't ultimately the truth, then we're just setting ourselves up,
all of us, to lose.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 3:27PM|#

that goes for both sides. except it doesn't. the job of the defense is
SUPPOSED to be winning (granted, w/in the rules - no subornation of perjury, for
example

the job of the prosecution should not be "to win". it should be to seek
justice w.in the law. too many prosecutors act like defense attorneys, caring
more about winning than justice

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 2:03PM|#

I think Radley wrote this before he left Reason. Still, it is like a nut
punch from the grave.

reply to this

SFC
B|6.7.11 @ 2:16PM|#

These past couple years of reading reason, and Balko in particular, have
really opened my eyes and changed my views on the criminal justice system. Deep
down inside I still want to be a harsh-on-crime-punish-the-guilty type of
person, but I can't, in good conscience, support it because of how deeply flawed
our criminal justice system is.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 3:27PM|#

is there a better one out there?

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 2:38PM|#

For what it’s worth.
I was on a jury on a murder trial once. I followed
the rules; don’t read any newspaper articles about the crime, don’t visit the
scene, don’t talk to anyone about the trial, etc. After the trial I, of course,
did all of the above. My opinion changed from “the suspect was guilty of
something but I am not sure of what so we can’t convict him” to “he obviously
did it, can we hang him here?”. I came away from the trial amazed that ANYONE
ever is convicted of anything, at least in MI.
I find it hard to reconcile my
experience with this article.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 3:32PM|#

that's because just like REASON will not write about positive outcomes from
SWAT missions or articles like the one i linked to where a cop was shot, they
didn't even return fire, etc. on a swat mission or won't write about the cop in
Oneida who was just killed by a DV suspect w/a rifle but likely would have lived
IF thye had used SWAT

REASON will only support its metanarrative.

they won't post stuff, like your real world experience, that shows how the
justice system is sometimes immensely biased for the DEFENSE, but only stuff
that shows misconduct by the prosecution or bias towards same

it's the kind of selection bias that feeds the bigotry of the ignorati who
only WANT to hear stuff that reinforces their prejudices and about how the state
(the MAN) is always fucking over the accused, etc. and how there is never any
nuance or other biases present

intelligent, fair minded people see nuance. like you.

bigots see black and white

reply to this

Johnny Clamboat|6.7.11 @ 3:57PM|#

Right on. Moar SWAT for domestic violence cases. Fecking brilliant.

reply to this

Elbib|6.7.11 @
4:34PM|#

Are you saying Balko is a biggot? I would argue he is a racist in that he is
against the human race.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 5:49PM|#

no, i think balko writes great articles and is generally fair. i think that
bigots feed off such articles and ignore the facts of selection bias, etc.

balko's JOB so to speak is to report one side of the story. he does a good
job of that.

he doesn't report, for example about all the successful SWAT raids, the
countless examples etc. he reports "when shit goes bad" generally speaking

the bigots are those who use such information without informing themselves of
the other sides of the story.

balko is leagues ahead of most of his readers. a perfect example is the BART
shooting,where he correctly used actual legal analysis (vs. frothing at the
mouth hate) to come to the conclusion that the verdict of involuntary
manslaughter was fair/correct.

reply to this

Radley Balko|6.7.11 @
4:38PM|#

Conviction rate of federal prosecutors = 90+%.

Conviction rate of state prosecutors = 80+%

And that doesn't include plea bargains, which innocent people are sometimes
persuaded to take.

Those number hardly seem indicative of a system that's stacked in favor of
the defense.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 5:52PM|#

i wouldn't argue it's stacked in EITHER's favor. aspects of it are stacked
either way.

but of course, you (as usual) fail to acknowledge selection bias.

prosecutors DECLINE cases all the frigging time. those don't count in those
stats.

according to the ethical code, a prosecutor isn't even supposed to take a
case unless he believes he can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

a VERY substantial %age of cases never make the docket because the
prosecutors nolle pros it ... sometimes right off the bat, other times after
some evidentiary hearings.

if a prosecutor thought there was only a 50% chance of conviction, he most
likely wouldn't prosecute the case in the first place. he would either 1) give a
super sweetheart plea bargain to avoid going to trial or 2) just say "fuck it"
and dump the case.

pros' dump the cases all the frigging time.

those never make the docket and thus don't count in your stats.

this is what you are missing

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 6:02PM|#

in other words, one would expect a high conviction rate no matter how the
"odds were stacked" in the respect that prosecutors are supposed to play, to
borrow a poker term - tight aggressive. they will dump weak cases, and only go
to trial on cases they are strongly confident there is enough evidence to
win.

with the exact same system , they could just as easily have a 40% conviction
rate, if they chose cases more loosely. that would, among other things,
completely overload resources, as well as make them "look bad" (god forbid) so
they don't do that.

reply to this

Untermensch|6.7.11 @ 5:28PM|#

If you're dealing with the problems of a system, you don't focus on the
non-problems. By your reasoning, if I want to track down the source of an E.
coli infection, I'd have to investigate all of the healthy farms or I'd just be
reinforcing my meta-narrative.

Balko’s story is one drop in the bucket on the counter-narrative to the
tough-on-crime narrative that is everywhere. It's not as if there is any
shortage of material on the noble prosecutors and cops out there. You have to
hunt to find anything like Balko’s writing.

Given that he was careful to try to give an idea of the scope of the problem
in terms of numbers and was rather nuanced in trying to highlight causes and
fixes, I’m wondering what, short of “you cops and prosecutors have a hell of a
job and we support your every action,” would satisfy you.

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 5:55PM|#

but that ignores that balko doesn't deal with "the problems" in the system.
he deals with the problems AS regard the state side of the equation. he does not
deal with the sides that favor the defense, often unfairly, etc.

i have no problem with that. that's radley's schtick. he's an advocacy
journalist. he concentrates on these things

the error comes when the ignorati uses such necessarily selective reporting
to come to the conclusions about the system w/o considering other sources and a
more holistic viewpoint

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 5:51PM|#

"that's because just like REASON will not write about positive outcomes from
SWAT missions or articles like the one i linked to where a cop was shot, they
didn't even return fire, etc. on a swat mission or won't write about the cop in
Oneida who was just killed by a DV suspect w/a rifle but likely would have lived
IF thye had used SWAT"

Do you expect a cookie every time you don't break the rules?

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 5:56PM|#

way to brilliantly miss the point

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 6:06PM|#

I missed the point? If you want to highlight flawlessly executed SWAT raids
then go start a blog, but the issue at hand is that paid public officials are
constantly fucking up and destroying innocent lives.

Tell me something, how close to one does the fuck-up to properly-handled SWAT
raid ratio have to be before you notice a problem?

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 6:09PM|#

Last I checked, REASON caters to their readers, which do tend to be
libertarians. So, I don't understand why you expect them to be a news outlet
praising the supposed 'successes' of the State.

reply to this

Bizarro Reason|6.7.11 @ 11:21PM|#

Tonight, men and women paid by stealing money from others broke into the
house of a man suspected of drug possession. They didn't kill or injure his dog
or his family. Property damage amounts to almost $200, accounting for a broken
window through which a flash grenade was thrown and a door which was rammed
down. The property owner is expected to pay this fee for the implementation of
justice.

The dangerous criminal was handcuffed and forced to the ground along with the
rest of his family while the brave men and women dutifully shouted, "Don't
resist!" to his crying children. When a few marijuana plants were found, the
dangerous man was hauled off and his children taken by CPS.

HUZZAH FOR THE STATE!

reply to this

|6.8.11 @ 12:18AM|#

Luckily, none of our brave brownshirts were injured during this arduous
siege.

reply to this

Johnny Clamboat|6.7.11 @ 3:53PM|#

What are you trying to reconcile? Generally, anecdotes are irreconcilable
with statistics.

reply to this

|6.8.11 @ 8:18AM|#

Hence, my first sentence; “For what it’s worth”.
I always try to reconcile
my real world experience with what I read on a monitor where possible, don't
you?

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 3:47PM|#

If prosecutors had to defend the integrity of their own actions and not be
protected regardless of what they do, this kind of thing would be trimmed way
back.

Does anybody know if there's any kind of organized group that's pushing for
laws to make prosecutors responsible for their actions?

reply to this

|6.7.11 @ 5:58PM|#

prosecutors are not protected "regardless of what they do" . while they do
have a form of immunity , it does not protect against, for example - lying in
criminal proceedings

that's what Nifong was convicted of.

but the kicker was - he was sentenced to - a grand total of 1 day in jail

which is possibly the most unjust sentence ever laid down in his state

reply to this

zoltan|6.7.11 @
11:22PM|#

You just contradicted yourself. Perjury gets a prosecutor a slap on the
hand.

reply to this

Untermensch|6.7.11 @ 11:47PM|#

Even in cases where prosecutors have been demonstrated to have suborned
perjury, withheld evidence, or lied they are seldom punished in any way. And the
victims of such misconduct are barred from bringing civil action against
prosecutors as individuals. So, yep, prosecutors pretty much are protected
regardless of what they do. Nifong was the exception, and if that was “the most
unjust sentence ever laid down in his state” then the only reason the norm isn't
an even more unjust sentence is because there is no sentence most of the
time.

reply to this

Michael Ejercito|6.8.11 @
10:34PM|#

Even in cases where prosecutors have been demonstrated to have
suborned perjury, withheld evidence, or lied they are seldom punished in any
way.
No revenge killings?

No lynchings?

No OKC-style
bombings?

There has to be at least one example of the
above.

reply to this

|6.8.11 @ 1:36PM|#

Excellent article Radley. Our "criminal justice" system is flawed beyond
compare. The concept and principles are acceptable, it's the sick people who
make the rules and decisions that are dysfunctional.

reply to this

Michael Ejercito|6.8.11 @
10:34PM|#

So let us abolish the whole thing.

reply to this

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