When Innocence Isn't Enough

The title of this post is also the title of an article in the NY Times today, to which the link is attached below:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/opinion/sunday/when-innocence-isnt-enough.html?pagewanted=1&hp

If you don't want to read the sordid, depressing details, here is the summary:  a 53 year-old black man was released after spending 30 years in prison in South Carolina, most of it on death row, for murder.  Although consistently denying any involvement in the original crime, he accepted a deal offered by the state.  The result was that today he pleaded guilty to the crime, and for that concession he was given his freedom...30 years too late.  Of course it is such a charade. The state made the deal because it is all too clear now that he was never guilty; obviously, if they thought he were guilty, they would just keep him in prison, where they already had him.  In the meanwhile, forcing a guilty plea from him allows them to wash their hands of any search for the real killer, or to admit any miscarriage of justice.

So how did this happen?  Does anyone really need to ask?  It is another clear-cut case of prosecutorial misconduct at the time of the original arrest and trial....evidence withheld and evidence manufactured.


In an earlier post, I quoted a Harvard Law Professor who faults our Bill of Rights for its emphasis on Process instead of Justice.  He pointed out that it is easier for a convict to have his case reviewed or to get a new trial if he can show a failure of the process than if he can show dramatic new evidence that points toward his innocence.  In today's article from the Times, we have the following: “'Due process does not require that every conceivable step be taken, at whatever cost, to eliminate the possibility of convicting an innocent person,' Justice Byron R. White wrote for the majority in a 1977 case, Patterson v. New York."  In other words, Due Process is more important than Innocence.

This particular case is from South Carolina.  The last case I read about recently, which also involved clear-cut prosecutorial fraud, was, I think, from Texas.  In both cases, there is (or was) some talk that maybe the prosecutors of the original cases will now be themselves prosecuted, but I have no confidence this will happen.  It is an example of one of the weaknesses of our Federal system that the question of "to prosecute or not to prosecute" is left in the hands of the state, and possibly even in the hands of people in the original locale, who probably know very well how to go along in order to get along, and how to protect their own.  We absolutely need a strong US Department of Justice to prosecute these cases; there are certainly federal laws against unlawfully depriving people of their liberty.  It is unfortunate that probably at least 50% of our politicians think cutting the Department of Justice's budget is more important than prosecuting these cases.

The only sure way to eliminate prosecutorial misconduct of this kind all around the country is if it is treated as a federal crime and prosecutors in every jurisdiction know there is no statute of limitations.