First thing first...
Why the innocent end up in prison - by John Grisham
"It is too easy to convict an innocent person.
The rate of wrongful convictions in the United States is estimated to be somewhere between 2 percent and 10 percent. That may sound low, but when applied to an estimated prison population of 2.3 million, the numbers become staggering. Can there really be 46,000 to 230,000 innocent people locked away? Those of us who are involved in exoneration work firmly believe so.
Millions of defendants are processed through our courts each year. It's nearly impossible to determine how many of them are actually innocent once they've been convicted. There are few resources for examining the cases and backgrounds of those claiming to be wrongfully convicted.
Once an innocent person is convicted, it is next to impossible to get the individual out of prison. Over the past 25 years, the Innocence Project, where I serve on the board of directors, has secured through DNA testing the release of 349 innocent men and women, 20 of whom had been sent to death row. All told, there have been more than 2,000 exonerations, including 200 from death row, in the U.S. during that same period. But we've only scratched the surface.
The list
Wrongful convictions happen for several reasons. In no particular order, these causes are:
Bad police work. Most cops are honest, hard-working professionals. But some have been known to hide, alter or fabricate evidence; lie on the stand; cut deals in return for bogus testimony; intimidate and threaten witnesses; coerce confessions; or manipulate eyewitness identifications.
Prosecutorial misconduct. Most prosecutors are also honest, hard-working professionals. But some have been known to hide exculpatory evidence; encourage witnesses to commit perjury; lie to jurors, judges and defense lawyers; use the testimony of bogus experts; or ignore relevant evidence beneficial to the accused.
False confessions. Most jurors find it impossible to believe that a suspect would confess to a serious crime he didn't commit. Yet the average citizen, if taken to a basement room and subjected to 10 consecutive hours of abusive interrogation tactics by experienced cops, might be surprised at what they would say. Of the 330 people who were exonerated by DNA evidence between 1989 to 2015, about 25 percent gave bogus confessions after lengthy interrogations. Almost every one recanted soon after.
Faulty eyewitness identification. More often than not, those who witness violent acts have trouble accurately recalling the facts and identifying those involved. Physical and photo lineups may exacerbate the problem because police manipulate them to focus suspicion on favored suspects.
Jailhouse snitches. In every jail there is a career criminal staring at a long sentence. For leniency, he can be persuaded to lie to the jury and describe in great detail the confession overheard from the accused, usually a cellmate. If he performs well enough on the stand, the authorities might allow him to walk free.
Bad lawyering. Those accused of serious crimes rarely have money. Many are represented by good public defenders, but too many get stuck with court-appointed lawyers with little or no experience. Capital cases are complex, and the stakes are enormous. All too often, the defense lawyers are in over their heads.
Sleeping judges. Judges are supposed to be impartial referees intent on ensuring fair trials. They should exclude confessions that are inconsistent with the physical evidence and obtained by questionable means; exclude the testimony of career felons with dubious motives; require prosecutors to produce exculpatory evidence; and question the credentials and testimony of all experts outside the presence of the jury. Unfortunately, judges do not always do what they should. The reasons are many and varied, but the fact that many judges are elected doesn't help. They are conscious of their upcoming re-election campaigns and how the decisions they make might affect the results. Of those judges who are appointed rather than elected, the majority are former prosecutors.
Junk science. Over the past five decades, our courtrooms have been flooded with an avalanche of unreliable, even atrocious “science.” Experts with qualifications that were dubious at best and fraudulent at worst have peddled — for a fee, of course — all manner of damning theories based on their allegedly scientific analysis of hair, fibers, bite marks, arson, boot prints, blood spatters and ballistics. Of the 330 people exonerated by DNA tests between 1989 and 2015, 71 percent were convicted based on forensic testimony, much of which was flawed, unreliable, exaggerated or sometimes outright fabricated.
Flawed testimonies
Brandon L. Garrett, a professor of law at University of Virginia, has studied nearly all of the trial transcripts from wrongful convictions later exposed by DNA-based exonerations.
“There is a national epidemic of overstated forensic testimony, with a steady stream of criminal convictions being overturned as the shoddiness of decades' worth of physical evidence comes to light,” he wrote last year in The Baffler. “The true scope of the problem is only now coming into focus.”
An excellent new book by Radley Balko and Tucker Carrington, “The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist,” chronicles the story of two of the most brazen experts ever allowed in a courtroom. Steven Hayne was a controversial forensic pathologist who once boasted of performing more than 2,000 autopsies in a single year. His sidekick, Michael West, was a small-town dentist who assumed the role of an expert in many other fields. Together they tag-teamed their way through rape and murder trials in Mississippi and Louisiana, accumulating an impressive string of convictions, several of which have been overturned. Some are still being litigated. Many others, however, seem destined to stand.
It's a maddening indictment of America's broken criminal justice system, in which prosecutors allowed — even encouraged — flawed forensic testimony because it was molded to fit their theories of guilt. Over two decades, elected judges permitted these two professional testifiers to convince unsophisticated jurors that science was on the side of the state.
The atrocities that occurred in Mississippi and Louisiana aren't specific to one time and place. The medical examiners, police officers, prosecutors, judges and others who hold sway over our criminal justice system around the country have largely failed to deliver justice. We must do better."
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When I started watching this documentary it's mainly because Kathleen Zellner invited me to.
For the first ten/fifteen minutes I said to myself "Oh crap, no way I want to watch this full thing."
It started like a very bad dream; a young guy sitting in the court and giving testimony. He seems totally confused and making no sense. How could I listen to a guy who seems to be lying through his teeth and he was.
But I hang on there thinking of Kathleen, a smart woman who I highly respect.
Good because after 15 minutes or so I was getting hooked slowly. It was the Dad of the young innocent man (19 @ the time) who was the one rising above it all to fight for his son. That, later on near the end made my cry. It is human justice in its best nature.
It is essential viewing, the full doc, it's only over an hour and half.
And you will understand why Kathleen Zellner took that case pro-bono.
She is more human and bright than a lot of people wearing high status jobs.
For me, the Dad here is the main essence, and the main reason why Kathleen took that case.
It is beautiful the love we are witnessing here plus the influence it had on others who took the stand almost ten years later to say they lied ten years ago. It is heartbreaking and so liberating @ the same time.
Ten years were wasted on that very fine young man, an innocent man all the way.
His family is first class...his biggest friend, his Dad, his Mom and sister.
This will make you think, see things, and understand why I posted that quote above first.
Because near the end of the documentary Kathleen Zellner said that over 20,000 innocent people, and that is a very low figure compared to actual, are in jail in America.
An Englishman writer from the nineteen century said; it's better to have ten guilty people walking free than one innocent person suffering in jail.
Kathleen Zellner understands the true impact of suffering in jail, of the innocent people who were put in it. She knows how disgraceful some people of our justice system are.
You will see all of this in this short documentary. I don't know if like me you will cry, when near the end his parents after 9 1/2 years learned that their son is finally free. It's a personal deep emotion from a man's love to his son and humble and brilliant fight to free him. It's the mind and heart combined together, and Kathleen Zellner she sure saw that. And of course his son was innocent.
She wouldn't work for guilty people, never. She is the righteous attorney lawyer...100% pure breed.
Overall:
98
Very highly recommended; real food for the brain...documentary heaven.
