Two stories about justice & injustice—and wrongful convictions
AN LAPD LIEUTENANT TALKS ABOUT A FLAWED CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
My friend LAPD Lieutenant Sunil Dutta has written an Op Ed for the Ventura Star that is very much worth reading. Dutta is a scientist and scholar of music and poetry turned police officer and he has a uniquely wise and philosophic view of policing—a profession he loves but, of which, he is also at times thoughtfully critical.
In this particular essay, Sunil used the Willingham arson case as a jumping off point.
Here is a clip or two:
Corrupt officers can destroy people’s faith in policing and cause incalculable harm to those with whom they come in contact. However, a major shortcoming in policing, something far more dangerous, has never been completely addressed seriously by our criminal-justice system. My scientific temperament picked up this issue within a short time after I joined LAPD, and a fear has always persisted in my subconscious that major harm could result from our reliance on two fallible tools: eyewitnesses and shoddy forensic science.
Last month, what I feared was confirmed in the most ghastly way…..
[BIG SNIP]
People, especially in law enforcement, have a hard time comprehending such stories. Don’t we live in a free society where criminals have too many rights and the police’s hands are tied up by too many regulations? Every cop knows at least a few criminals who walk around free — because we can’t charge or convict them.
Yet, we have innocent people railroaded through our “justice” system, all the way to lethal injections and electric chair. Why?
The answer lies both in our human and institutional natures. As humans, we tend to believe whatever fits our self-interest, discarding facts that tend to challenge our hypotheses. The errors of deduction can, therefore, multiply in an investigation when shoddy science is applied or where we rely solely on eyewitnesses. As Willingham’s case demonstrates, the combination can sometimes be fatal.
PROSECUTORS RETALIATE AGAINST INNOCENCE PROJECT STUDENTS
Okay, one couldn’t make this kind of thing up. The NY Times story below has the details.
For more than a decade, classes of students at Northwestern University’s journalism school have been scrutinizing the work of prosecutors and the police. The investigations into old crimes, as part of the Medill Innocence Project, have helped lead to the release of 11 inmates, the project’s director says, and an Illinois governor once cited those wrongful convictions as he announced he was commuting the sentences of everyone on death row.
But as the Medill Innocence Project is raising concerns about another case, that of a man convicted in a murder 31 years ago, a hearing has been scheduled next month in Cook County Circuit Court on an unusual request: Local prosecutors have subpoenaed the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages of the journalism students themselves.
The prosecutors, it seems, wish to scrutinize the methods of the students this time. The university is fighting the subpoenas.
[SNIP]
Among the issues the prosecutors need to understand better, a spokeswoman said, is whether students believed they would receive better grades if witnesses they interviewed provided evidence to exonerate Mr. McKinney.
Read the rest. It’s jaw-dropping.
A former federal judge writing for the Huffington Post thinks so too.
And here is the Medill Innocence Project’s own account.
“Fortunately, the shooter — as gang members usually are — was inept and the bullets missed the intended target’s vitals.”
This is, tangentially, an interesting comment. The one time I witnessed what I assumed was drug gang violence – three guys with semi-automatic pistols on foot chasing and shooting at a car – I was as shocked by how stupid they obviously were as I was by the violent event unfolding before me. I learned to shoot in Boy Scouts and I could have easily hit the car – but these guys had absolutely no idea what they were doing, shooting wildly as they ran. A school, a church and a bus stop were all on various corners of the intersection. Innocent bystanders were clearly in greater danger than the occupants of the car who had pissed these guys off. I assumed their perverted sense of survival was somehow connected to their brandishing guns, but it was clear they were just dummies and likely doomed if this was their best shot.
Wow. About the Innocence Project (didn’t have time yet to read the 1st posting). Still another case where prosecutors are more interested in protecting their record of “wins” than in justice. Even if in this case, it means making themselves look bad by going after students and exposing their agenda as they try to “prove” their assumption of bias by, among other things, micro-analyzing the grading system as to whether it offers incentives to “get them (the prosecutors).” Instead of maybe trying to figure out a way to work with students and the school, to share their own allegedly superior legal knowledge and — inspire?
My apolgies for this detour but going way back to an old post doesn’t make sense.
When I said there was a double standard for the racist language used by minorities as compared to whites, or liberals to conservatives for that manner, a better comparison for Jamie Foxx would be Don Imus.
Imus and Foxx both have radio shows. Imus lost his due to the uproar over his comments about some black female basketball players, though he apologized for his comments. Nothing happened to Foxx with his show regarding his more nasty, vile and racist remarks regarding a white teen female.
Apparently Reg’s idol Obama doesn’t care either about the continual and contemptible remarks by Dem. Representative Alan Grayson, maybe Obama is anti-female like some think. Besides charging last month that Republicans want sick people to “die quickly, the “Jewish” lawmaker also described the health care crisis as a “holocaust (good comparison Mavis?), called Fox News and the GOP enemies of America and portrayed former Vice President Dick Cheney as a vampire.
Now it comes out that last month Grayson called Linda Robertson, an adviser to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, a “K Street whore.” (Washington’s K Street is where many lobbying firms are located, and Robertson used to represent Enron.)
“I did not intend to use a term that is often, and correctly, seen as disrespectful of women,” Grayson explained Tuesday. That’s pretty funny, he reached for a word, “whore” came out but he didn’t intend to use the term.
The Florida Democrat made the remark in a radio interview last month, but the recording didn’t catch fire online until Monday. Now follow me here…
President Obama hailed Grayson as an outstanding member of Congress at a Miami fundraiser Monday night.
So all this comes out Monday and Obama hails him as “an oustanding member of Congress” on Monday night?
More of that double standard or does Obama have the most inept group of people surrounding him since Nixon?
Even funnier was the initial spin regarding the remarks..
Grayson’s office initially defended his comment. Spokesman Todd Jurkowski said Tuesday it wasn’t a personal attack — that the congressman was just criticizing Robertson’s career as a lobbyist. Jurkowski also cited one dictionary definition of a whore as someone who compromises principles for personal gain. Huffington Post’s Howie Klein joined in, arguing Grayson was right about lobbyists.
You guys are too funny.