Law and order politicians always seem to be on the lookout for a high profile case with which to share the spotlight by coming up with a new law showing how tough on criminals they are. So here's one: A law making it a crime for prosecutors to fudge the facts to get a guilty verdict.
We don't really know how many innocent people are serving prison terms for crimes they didn't commit, but enough have been found to be innocent to make us question the whole process. See, for example: After Dallas DA’s death, 19 convictions undone describing the legacy of D.A., Henry Wade's 90% conviction rate.
The most recent Texas case involved Michael Morton. He was convicted of murder 25 years ago and only recently set free after DNA analysis linked the crime to someone else.
But there was more to it than DNA. There was evidence that the prosecutor squelched evidence that could have exonerated Morton. See Michael Morton's lawyers aim to prove misconduct:
Court documents prepared by Morton's legal team focused on four allegations of wrongdoing, including the withholding of a possible eyewitness account of Christine Morton's murder and the apparent failure to fully investigate the cashing of a $20 check, made out to Christine, nine days after her death.
This article about Michael Morton is behind the paywall, but it contains a gem of a quote. Freed Convict Pushes Rare Probe of Prosecutors:
That is as it should be, said Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, adding that prosecutors behave appropriately in the vast majority of cases.
The meaning of "vast majority" isn't readily available, so let's simply assign it a generous value, say 90%. Should we be satisfied that prosecutors behave inappropriately in 10% of their cases? Where are those law-and-order politicians when we need them?
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