

How Two Newspaper Reporters Helped Free an Innocent Man - danso
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/08/how-two-newspaper-reporters-helped-free-an-innocent-man/279166/

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cobrausn
So, when a prosecutor / detective blatantly ignores contradictory evidence and
end up putting an innocent person in jail, why do we not treat that as a
crime? There are a number of obvious cynical answers to this, but seriously,
does anyone know of prosecutors / detectives that have been charged in cases
like this?

~~~
rayiner
It does happen, but its rare. You have to remember that the whole criminal
justice system operates in the context of large numbers of guilty as fuck
defendants who file endless appeals and petitions to get rock solid cases
overturned. That's the rule, cases like Daniel's are the exception. So
prosecutors and investigators have broad immunities, with high bars for
overcoming them. Otherwise, they'd be constantly subject to litigation.

Remember, this reporter got hundreds of letters from convicts and followed up
on this one. Remember also that in real life, the facts aren't laid out for
you like a newspaper article.

~~~
cobrausn
When a review of a case finds that the prosecution knowingly withheld evidence
that actually proved the client could not have been there, the facts pretty
much speak for themselves. This should have led directly to criminal charges.

~~~
rayiner
You're focusing on one case instead of looking at the whole thing as a system.
What's the standard of proof for establishing that it's knowing and not
inadvertent? Who "finds" that the prosecution knowingly withheld evidence? You
can't have official legal "findings" until you institute a law suit, so what's
the bar for instituting a law suit and how do you set that bar high enough to
keep prosecutors from being inundated with lawsuits by every criminal they put
in jail?

It's a cost-benefit analysis. What's the benefit of reducing the error rate of
the system versus how much does it cost to achieve that reduction?

~~~
bcoates
Exactly, sending a handful of unlucky prosecutors to jail for a few decades
_pour encourager les autres_ would clearly be worth it on the whole to protect
the integrity of the system.

~~~
rayiner
If that was the cost it would be peachy. What we're talking, instead, is about
no prosecutor ever being able to do their job because they'd be constantly
flooded by litigation claiming that this or the other thing amounted to
prosecutorial misconduct.

~~~
6d0debc071
Could you just make it contingent on the person who was imprisoned making a
successful appeal - which I'd imagine would be their initial priority anyway?
You get off for something that you were put away for, then you can sue for
misconduct....

------
jere
I just listened to this last night:
[http://www.thestory.org/stories/2013-06/scott-
hornoff](http://www.thestory.org/stories/2013-06/scott-hornoff)

An innocent cop went to prison for 6 years until the murderer came forward
with a confession. There was basically no evidence to put him away, but he was
having an affair with the victim at the time, which made him suspect number
one. The part that really upset me was that he was basically unemployable
after he came out. He was awarded $600k in backpay when released, but $200k
went to his lawyer and the rest to his ex-wife.

~~~
lifeformed
I don't understand why people have to pay lawyers if they are found not
guilty. At any time, I could be accused of anything at all, and regardless of
being innocent, I lose boatloads of money from defending myself?

~~~
aimhb
Why would your lawyer even try to prove you innocent if it meant not getting a
paycheck?

~~~
lifeformed
I mean, have someone else pay for it. The accuser or the government.

~~~
nthj
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_defender](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_defender)

------
m_myers
Reminds me of the classic James Stewart film _Call Northside 777_ [1], about
two Chicago men falsely imprisoned for a murder during Prohibition. The real-
life case it was based on ([2]) hinged on a witness identification that
occurred a day after the same witness had not recognized the suspect just
after arrest; the police then recorded the suspect has having been arrested
the second day and omitted the failure from the record.

Both men stayed in prison until a newspaper reporter discovered the case, just
as in this article; in fact, one of the men was not released until several
years after the movie was made.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Northside_777](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_Northside_777)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majczek_and_Marcinkiewicz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majczek_and_Marcinkiewicz)

~~~
eCa
And "Hurricane" Carter:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubin_%22Hurricane%22_Carter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubin_%22Hurricane%22_Carter)

------
danso
So the wrongly accused man was _physically in jail_ at the reported time of
the murder, and yet the system moved forward to imprison him for nearly two
decades...because of this:

> _There was a lot at stake for the detectives, who said all eight defendants
> had confessed. Because all of them had implicated Daniel in the murders, if
> Daniel’s confession were to fall apart, the rest of the case would be in
> jeopardy._

I think this is a sobering anecdote to remember when wondering why a
bureaucratic decision has been made despite flying in the face of pure logic
and science.

~~~
md224
Seriously.

> A check showed that, in fact, Daniel had been arrested for fighting in a
> park that night at about 6:45 p.m., and jail records showed he was released
> about 10 p.m. and the murders occurred at 8:43 p.m.

That should've been the end of it. The. End. How did NO ONE involved in the
mechanics of this case (the judge, lawyers, etc.) note this fact and
immediately release him? Were they relying on the fallibility of police
records? Did they say "oh, well, it says he was in jail but maybe the clock
was off"? Is there a counter-fact being withheld here?

I just seriously don't understand how something this clear-cut could've
escaped everyone's attention. It hurts my brain.

------
eksith
A sobering factoid :

    
    
      Cook County itself has had 92 known exonerations since 1989 – far more 
      than any other county in the country — and, as we saw in 2001, it has a 
      special affinity for false confessions. Nearly 40 percent of Cook County 
      exonerations involved false confessions by the exonerated defendants 
      (35 of 92), and an additional 16 percent were based on false 
      confessions by codefendants.
    
    

Can we start prohibiting confessions from admissible evidence now? I don't
care how convincing the story is, unless the confession itself can lead to
actual physical evidence, it should be completely discounted.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor and the detectives involved are not charged with
conspiracy.

