NC Governor Endorses "Innocence Commission"
In the nightly e-mails announcing the topics for ABC News Nightline, they announced the following:
Following the courageous leadership of former Illinois Governor Thompson that put a moratorium on the death penalty because of the number of cases where innocent people were tried and convicted of crimes they did not commit and received a sentence of life in prison or death, the governor of North Carolina is paying attention to the data and information collected by the Duke University Law School's Center on Actual Innocence, and the various "Innocence Projects", and putting legal authority behind the efforts to assure that our system of justice doesn't act in an unjust manner.
In a recent post on the Calumet Chapter of the ACLU-Indiana's blog I raised the issue of fair and competent representation for those that cannot afford the full court press of a "dream team" of lawyers and experts like those employed by OJ Simpson, Robert Blake and Michael Jackson to defend them from prosecution as a constitutional matter under the Gideon precedent. It would seem that a goodly number of Americans are waking up to the fact that a disproportionate number of suspects are being prosecuted and convicted by a zealous set of district attorneys without the benefit of competent and adequate defense, even when a lawyer is appointed to represent them. The number of wrongly convicted persons seems to be on the rise--or perhaps it is just that we are now paying an appropriate amount of attention to the issue to expose the problems that have always existed. The Duke Center cites the following issues as contributing to the problem of wrongful conviction:
Mistaken Eyewitness Identification - Study after study has demonstrated that eyewitness testimony is largely unrelaiable as the basis for conviction without overwhelming corrobative forensic and/or video evidence. Line ups, a traditional and widely used police procedure, have proven ineffective because there are often "tells"--sometimes deliberate and sometimes unconscious--that influences witness identification of alleged perpetrators. Additionally, there are issues as to the validity of search procedures in some cases--a minority of cases to be certain, but significant enough to skew due process and call the use of line ups into question--and the erosion of the principles and protections of the Miranda Warning/Precedent by recent court decisions and police efforts to circumvent these protections by skating on the edge of the legal limits.
Forensic Fraud or Error - Numerous capital crimes have been tried and convictions achieved on false, fraudulent or erroneous forensic evidence that is either tainted by sloppy field work, improper evidence handling, incompetent or fraudulent processing or slanted presentation of the evidence in the courtroom. A lack of financial resources on the part of a defendant certainly plays a role in the effectiveness of effectively challenging the forensic evidence, forensic processing and the credibility of the forensic scientists and criminalists.
False/Coerced Confessions - While the tactics used to obtain many confessions may be legal, many of these efforts skate on the edge--and sometimes cross the line--of legality and definitely cross the line of morality and ethics. Justice is often seen as the number of convictions achieved rather than actually catching and convicting the perpetrators of crime. Even the courts have played a role in this process by denying petitions for review of convictions without evidence of so aggregious an approach to the process that most convictions stand even in the face of new evidence, recanting of testimony by witnesses and confessions by other suspects. A lack of financial resources on the part of a defendant certainly plays a role in the effectiveness of effectively challenging these tactics and questioning the process.
Police/Prosecutorial Misconduct - The most striking case of this type that comes to mind is the case in Boston, where the police were so set on vengeance for the murder of a fellow police officer that they targetted the suspect, planted evidence, committed perjury against him, and were so blinded by the thought of vengeance that they were willing to completely disregard justice. Then we have a long history of police misconduct, with examples provided by the Knapp Commission, various complaints of misconduct in Boston, New York, Chicago (with recent reports of a long and protracted history of torture under a former commissioner), Los Angeles, New Orleans, Detroit and elsewhere.
Inadequacy of Defense Representation - The overtaxed public defender programs, the slashing of funds to public defenders and legal aid programs, the inexperience of many public defenders, and the lack of financial and investigatory resources to challenge evidence, testimony and expertise during trial, and the cost of paying for a competent legal defense if one has even a modicum of financial stability (see my previous posts on the nature of the poverty line) all contribute to the failure of our legal system in terms of protecting the defendant and providing a just and fair process.
Jailhouse Informants - Not only jailhouse informants, but also confidential informants used in the investigatory process that often leads to wrongful identifcation of alleged suspects and have resulted in over 40 deaths of innocent civilians in the performance of raids and no-knock warrant service. Similar to the issues of eyewitness identification, the use of informants has proven to be tainted far too often to be considered reliable. The use of jailhouse informants has become yet another way of law anforcement authorities co-opting non-police personnel into becoming agents of law enforcement.
None of these issues are completely and utterly condemning of law enforcement or our judical system, but present problems that have not been adequately addressed and corrected, leaving our system with the potential for wrongly convicting, wrongly imprisoning and far too often wrongly condemning persons to a death sentence. It raises the question--or should I say that it begs the question--as to the legitimacy of the death penalty in any case because of the risk of killing even one innocent person, never mionds the 20 cases currently listed on the Innocence Project web site, not to mention dozens of others currently being handled by various affilates of the Innocence Project, and hundreds more that have already been disposed of in one manner or another.
When we add it up, it clearly points to the significant flaws in the death penalty approach to justice and the violation of constitutional protections that are inherent in using death as a form of punishment for crimes.
INNOCENT AND IMPRISONED: In North Carolina, the governor has created the nation's first innocence commission -- a legal entity that can review the claims of prisoners who believe they were wrongly convicted. It was prompted by the case of Jennifer Cannino-Thompson, who as a college student 22 years ago was raped by -- she says -- Ronald Cotton. Cotton spent decades in prison before he was cleared by DNA evidence that pointed to the real rapist. Erin Hayes reports on an unlikely alliance between a crime victim and the man she wrongly accused.
Following the courageous leadership of former Illinois Governor Thompson that put a moratorium on the death penalty because of the number of cases where innocent people were tried and convicted of crimes they did not commit and received a sentence of life in prison or death, the governor of North Carolina is paying attention to the data and information collected by the Duke University Law School's Center on Actual Innocence, and the various "Innocence Projects", and putting legal authority behind the efforts to assure that our system of justice doesn't act in an unjust manner.
In a recent post on the Calumet Chapter of the ACLU-Indiana's blog I raised the issue of fair and competent representation for those that cannot afford the full court press of a "dream team" of lawyers and experts like those employed by OJ Simpson, Robert Blake and Michael Jackson to defend them from prosecution as a constitutional matter under the Gideon precedent. It would seem that a goodly number of Americans are waking up to the fact that a disproportionate number of suspects are being prosecuted and convicted by a zealous set of district attorneys without the benefit of competent and adequate defense, even when a lawyer is appointed to represent them. The number of wrongly convicted persons seems to be on the rise--or perhaps it is just that we are now paying an appropriate amount of attention to the issue to expose the problems that have always existed. The Duke Center cites the following issues as contributing to the problem of wrongful conviction:
Mistaken Eyewitness Identification - Study after study has demonstrated that eyewitness testimony is largely unrelaiable as the basis for conviction without overwhelming corrobative forensic and/or video evidence. Line ups, a traditional and widely used police procedure, have proven ineffective because there are often "tells"--sometimes deliberate and sometimes unconscious--that influences witness identification of alleged perpetrators. Additionally, there are issues as to the validity of search procedures in some cases--a minority of cases to be certain, but significant enough to skew due process and call the use of line ups into question--and the erosion of the principles and protections of the Miranda Warning/Precedent by recent court decisions and police efforts to circumvent these protections by skating on the edge of the legal limits.
Forensic Fraud or Error - Numerous capital crimes have been tried and convictions achieved on false, fraudulent or erroneous forensic evidence that is either tainted by sloppy field work, improper evidence handling, incompetent or fraudulent processing or slanted presentation of the evidence in the courtroom. A lack of financial resources on the part of a defendant certainly plays a role in the effectiveness of effectively challenging the forensic evidence, forensic processing and the credibility of the forensic scientists and criminalists.
False/Coerced Confessions - While the tactics used to obtain many confessions may be legal, many of these efforts skate on the edge--and sometimes cross the line--of legality and definitely cross the line of morality and ethics. Justice is often seen as the number of convictions achieved rather than actually catching and convicting the perpetrators of crime. Even the courts have played a role in this process by denying petitions for review of convictions without evidence of so aggregious an approach to the process that most convictions stand even in the face of new evidence, recanting of testimony by witnesses and confessions by other suspects. A lack of financial resources on the part of a defendant certainly plays a role in the effectiveness of effectively challenging these tactics and questioning the process.
Police/Prosecutorial Misconduct - The most striking case of this type that comes to mind is the case in Boston, where the police were so set on vengeance for the murder of a fellow police officer that they targetted the suspect, planted evidence, committed perjury against him, and were so blinded by the thought of vengeance that they were willing to completely disregard justice. Then we have a long history of police misconduct, with examples provided by the Knapp Commission, various complaints of misconduct in Boston, New York, Chicago (with recent reports of a long and protracted history of torture under a former commissioner), Los Angeles, New Orleans, Detroit and elsewhere.
Inadequacy of Defense Representation - The overtaxed public defender programs, the slashing of funds to public defenders and legal aid programs, the inexperience of many public defenders, and the lack of financial and investigatory resources to challenge evidence, testimony and expertise during trial, and the cost of paying for a competent legal defense if one has even a modicum of financial stability (see my previous posts on the nature of the poverty line) all contribute to the failure of our legal system in terms of protecting the defendant and providing a just and fair process.
Jailhouse Informants - Not only jailhouse informants, but also confidential informants used in the investigatory process that often leads to wrongful identifcation of alleged suspects and have resulted in over 40 deaths of innocent civilians in the performance of raids and no-knock warrant service. Similar to the issues of eyewitness identification, the use of informants has proven to be tainted far too often to be considered reliable. The use of jailhouse informants has become yet another way of law anforcement authorities co-opting non-police personnel into becoming agents of law enforcement.
None of these issues are completely and utterly condemning of law enforcement or our judical system, but present problems that have not been adequately addressed and corrected, leaving our system with the potential for wrongly convicting, wrongly imprisoning and far too often wrongly condemning persons to a death sentence. It raises the question--or should I say that it begs the question--as to the legitimacy of the death penalty in any case because of the risk of killing even one innocent person, never mionds the 20 cases currently listed on the Innocence Project web site, not to mention dozens of others currently being handled by various affilates of the Innocence Project, and hundreds more that have already been disposed of in one manner or another.
When we add it up, it clearly points to the significant flaws in the death penalty approach to justice and the violation of constitutional protections that are inherent in using death as a form of punishment for crimes.
posted by Jim Downey at 7:04 PM
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