

Supreme Court shields prosecutors in wrongful convictions (2011) - bsullivan01
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/03/nation/la-na-court-innocence-20110403

======
shadowfiend
Let's be clear here that the majority opinion was far more nuanced than this
article gives credit. The argument made in the original lawsuit against the
DA's office was that the DA's office was failing to train its attorneys on the
requirement to report exculpatory evidence (established by Brady v Maryland).
However, they did not show that there was a pattern of failing to report such
evidence at the DA's office, they just used the one instance and claimed, more
or less, that it was obvious that the training was necessary. The Supreme
Court case in question specifically addressed whether or not that was
true—whether or not it was obvious that the training was necessary, and
therefore whether it was a systemic problem that it was being left out.

Scalia's opinion, which gets flak for citing Arizona v Youngblood, makes quite
a few arguments, of which that is only one. It also brings it up solely to
indicate that you can't train people in something that isn't actually true,
something that was made untrue by that decision. The main thrust of his
argument is that even if you could establish a pattern with a single violation
in this case, there wasn't actually a violation at all, because the
withholding of evidence was willful. Scalia also points out that the failure
to train argument has to be applied carefully, lest it become something that
every prosecuted individual can use to attack the municipality.

These are all important distinctions because the Supreme Court generally
decides the matter at hand. The case was about something very specific, and
the justifications for awarding damages were also specific. The Court's task
was to decide whether those justifications were valid, according to the law,
not whether Thompson was morally wronged. If those things do not square with
each other, then we have ways of revising the law or the Constitution to deal
with it. But keep in mind that the verdict in the original trial was vacated
after the evidence was discovered, and that the evidence was originally
withheld intentionally by an attorney who died before the case was brought,
and that the attorney who knew about it but didn't disclose it after the
original attorney's death was sanctioned by the prosecutor's office. So this
is all about what, if anything, Thompson deserved in compensation for the DA's
office's errors, and there's a line to be tread there between compensation for
mistakes and the acknowledgement that mistakes will be made by all human
beings, and that burdening a municipality with dealing with all of them
(particularly to the tune of several million dollars per case) might be
unrealistic.

~~~
revelation
We put humans into the legal system because of the assumption that some common
sense goes into their decisions. So now every time some legal decision here is
questioned on that level, the recourse is always "according to the law, not
[..] moral". (on a supreme court case, of all things!)

The brilliant thing then is to go back to "mistakes will be made by all human
beings" and deny all legal recourse in the end.

~~~
rayiner
We put humans into the legal system to exercise legal judgment, not to
substitute the law with their personal moral sentiments. The place for moral
sentiments is the legislature.

It should be noted that legislatures _have_ weighed the moral issues, and in
most states have set out the recourse for the wrongfully convicted to be
statutory restitution, not civil suits against prosecutors. Arizona, one of
the two states mentioned in the article, has declined to implement any such
statutory restitution.

------
rayiner
The justice system is a system, in the engineering sense of the word. Like any
system in real life, its design involves balancing. The negative impact of
false convictions is weighed against the cost and practicality of measures to
avoid false convictions. Prosecutors have broad immunity from suit because
otherwise the system would be unworkable. Every aggrieved convict would sue
his prosecutor for anything he could think of.

The context of this case is a suit for money damages against prosecutors for
"concealing" exculpatory evidence. You can't take the word "concealing" at
face value. Prosecutors make judgment calls every day about whether evidence
is important or not. This case took place long before DNA testing was either
effective or common. Prosecutors could have legitimately known about it and
considered it "not potentially exculpatory." Scalia's quote from Youngblood
simply says that prosecutors can't be sued for such judgment calls unless it
can be shown they were not acting in good faith.

One of my big beefs with articles like this one is that they paint everything
in hindsight. But if you create a duty on the part of prosecutors to not be
negligent, you can't just hear the cases that are neatly wrapped in a package
by some wrongful convictions organization. Negligence is a factual
determination, and in criminal cases the defendant is entitled to have such
facts tried in front of a jury. Convicts will sue saying the police should
have swabbed beneath the carpet or whatever, and you have to give them full
process.

As an aside, I came across a case yesterday. It's only salience is that it
it's close to home and quite recent. It involves a couple who goes on
vacation, leaving their three youngest children with a neighbor (husband and
wife). When they return, two of the children, girls, tell them that they were
sexually assaulted by the husband, Joe. The police work with the father,
Michael, and talk Joe into coming over to Michael's house on the premise that
he just wants to talk. Joe makes incriminating statements about the sexual
assault to Michael, in the presence of the Chief of Police. When Michael
decides to press charges, Joe goes ballistic. He stalks the police chief, and
the day before his trial goes to Michael's place of work and shoots him in the
head. See:
[http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1915239094303815...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1915239094303815276&q=stacey+walters&hl=en&as_sdt=4,108,123).

Nobody is going to write an LA Times Article about Joe Stacey and Michael
Walter, about the wife left without a husband, the ten children left without a
father, or the two girls who will carry the scars of sexual assault at the
hands of someone they trusted.

------
socrates1998
Protecting prosecutors is just like protecting police officers that plant
evidence.

The power relationship between the government and the people is horribly
skewed towards the government.

This is just another piece of the puzzle. As soon as the government (police,
prosecutors, homeland security, NSA) have their eye on you, you are screwed.

It doesn't matter if you are right or innocent.

It's sad how far it has come and how much are rights have disappeared.

The government is for the government.

------
TimPC
How about holding lawsuits against private companies and corporations to the
same standard: they should take no legal liability for actions that are not
approved by the corporation undertaken by employees working for them under
contract. They should have a limited burden to train people to avoid those
incidents. For instance, in order to file fraud claims against Enron we should
have to beyond a reasonable doubt identify the specific people responsible and
charge them. Investors damaged civilly should have any cases for damages
against the company itself thrown out unless they are suing the specific
individual or individuals involved. I didn't do it, it was my employees
shouldn't be a special case exemption for the government, and if we want to
make it a standard of law I think it goes badly.

~~~
rayiner
If we're holding everyone to the same standard, then let's require
corporations to run business decisions by a judge first, on the public record,
with counsel arguing the other side. Then let's make each and every decision
of the judge subject to an as-of-right level of appellate review, then make
those decisions subject to a third level of discretionary appellate review.
Then also open up those decisions to collateral review and the ongoing
possibility of revisiting the case, potentially decades later. In the
background of all that, we can require business executives to be members of
associations that can take away their licenses and their livelihoods for
ethical failures.

Do you see how you're comparing apples and oranges?

------
legedemon
I totally get it now. With vast majority of HN users being Americans, there is
just one comment on this post about trampling the innocent and that is a
quote! No wonder the rights and freedoms of the common men of west are being
subjugated more and more day after day.

~~~
clhodapp
Frankly, _what are you talking about_? This was posted an hour ago and, right
now, it is between ~2 and ~5 AM in most of the US.

------
ffrryuu
There is no more justice in America.

------
bsullivan01
Land of free: _" We have decided a case that appears to say just the
opposite," he wrote. "In Arizona v. Youngblood, we held that unless a criminal
defendant can show bad faith on the part of the police," the defendant does
not have a right to obtain all "potentially useful evidence."

There is no duty under the Constitution for prosecutors to turn over test
results "which might have exonerated the defendant," Scalia said, quoting the
Youngblood decision._

