Crime/Law Enforcement
Wrongly Convicted in Texas—and Everywhere Else
Jan 18, 2007 06:59 Subjects
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According the today's New York Times, the 12th person
has been recently exonerated by DNA evidence in
Dallas County, Texas.
I wonder how many innocent persons were convicted and put to death in Texas with George W. Bush's approval and occasional mockery?
Considering the number of death sentences that have been overturned nationwide by DNA testing--even when the defendant actually confessed to the crime--I wonder how many innocent persons have been wrongly convicted for lesser crimes but whose conviction was reviewed with far less scrutiny than death-sentence cases? When I practiced criminal law, especially post-conviction litigation, I was astounded by convictions that seemed to rest on very flimsy evidence but which the appellate courts affirmed with no qualms. I estimate that at least 20% of the convicts I came in contact with were completely innocent. Many were convicted because their lawyers failed to perform even the most cursory investigation and allowed the prosecution to roll over their client with no resistance. False and tainted eyewitness identification accounted for many wrong convictions.
Besides invoking hyper-technicalities to avoid actually considering the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel, courts have defined ineffective assistance in such a way as to make it almost impossible for defendants to actually prove ineffective assistance, even when their counsel did practically nothing to defend them.
The explanation is not difficult. Having been whipped into a fearful frenzy over crime, mainly by political writers and commentators and by reactionary politicians, we as a society decided about twenty years ago to "get tough" on crime, by requiring extraordinarily harsh sentences and by removing more and more "liberal" constitutional protections for the accused. Consequently and predictably, more and more innocent persons have been convicted and sent to jail.
For those of us who believe that the whole idea of America is founded upon civil liberties and freedoms, it appears that we have collectively decided to trade some freedom for security, and we all know what Benjamin Franklin said about a people that trades freedom for security. It is a lesson that tragically has to be relearned over and over by human societies. We become afraid for our individual skins and ignore the dangers that threaten to engulf us all.
New York Times: A 12th Dallas Convict Is Exonerated by DNA
I wonder how many innocent persons were convicted and put to death in Texas with George W. Bush's approval and occasional mockery?
Considering the number of death sentences that have been overturned nationwide by DNA testing--even when the defendant actually confessed to the crime--I wonder how many innocent persons have been wrongly convicted for lesser crimes but whose conviction was reviewed with far less scrutiny than death-sentence cases? When I practiced criminal law, especially post-conviction litigation, I was astounded by convictions that seemed to rest on very flimsy evidence but which the appellate courts affirmed with no qualms. I estimate that at least 20% of the convicts I came in contact with were completely innocent. Many were convicted because their lawyers failed to perform even the most cursory investigation and allowed the prosecution to roll over their client with no resistance. False and tainted eyewitness identification accounted for many wrong convictions.
Besides invoking hyper-technicalities to avoid actually considering the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel, courts have defined ineffective assistance in such a way as to make it almost impossible for defendants to actually prove ineffective assistance, even when their counsel did practically nothing to defend them.
The explanation is not difficult. Having been whipped into a fearful frenzy over crime, mainly by political writers and commentators and by reactionary politicians, we as a society decided about twenty years ago to "get tough" on crime, by requiring extraordinarily harsh sentences and by removing more and more "liberal" constitutional protections for the accused. Consequently and predictably, more and more innocent persons have been convicted and sent to jail.
For those of us who believe that the whole idea of America is founded upon civil liberties and freedoms, it appears that we have collectively decided to trade some freedom for security, and we all know what Benjamin Franklin said about a people that trades freedom for security. It is a lesson that tragically has to be relearned over and over by human societies. We become afraid for our individual skins and ignore the dangers that threaten to engulf us all.
New York Times: A 12th Dallas Convict Is Exonerated by DNA
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