softheart
03-11-2003, 11:37 AM
WRONGFUL CONVICTION -- Proof of flaws should put hold on death penalty
Red flags, not self-interested drawbridges, ought to be going up in Texas
courtrooms, judges' chambers, prosecutors' offices and the state Capitol
today.
New DNA tests have proved that Josiah Sutton could not have committed the
rape for which he has served four and one-half years of a 25-year prison
sentence. Evidence originally processed at the Houston Police Department
crime lab had incorrectly linked him to the crime.
Something in the system is obviously and badly broken, and the
implications for thousands of Harris County cases, particularly death
penalty cases, are disturbing.
The Sutton saga adds to an increasingly strong body of evidence that our
justice system is seriously flawed. The evidence grows more compelling,
and it defies logic why legislation is not passed to put executions on
hold until the flaws in the system can be identified and rectified.
Sutton's case is one of more than 20, including those of 7 men on death
row, in which evidence is being retested because of an audit that
questioned the quality of the work at HPD's crime lab. The case also has
implications for that of 44-year-old Delma Banks Jr., who is about to
become the 300th person executed in Texas since capital punishment was
reinstated.
There is strong evidence that Bowie County prosecutors withheld evidence
that witnesses against Banks lied during his trial for the 1980 murder of
a 16-year-old boy near Texarkana. Banks' attorneys contend prosecutors
knowingly allowed key witnesses to perjure themselves, withheld evidence
from the defense and jury that would have thoroughly discredited the key
witnesses, and then argued to the jury that it should believe the
witnesses, even though the prosecutors knew they were lying. These and
other serious issues are on appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Monday, showing its usual callousness toward the potential miscarriage
of justice, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Banks' appeal for
a stay of execution and application for habeas corpus review.
What connects the Banks and Sutton cases is not science, but evidence
that prosecutorial and/or police misconduct may be involved: the official
suppression of exculpatory evidence.
Sutton was convicted for the October 1988 rape of a woman who was taken
at gunpoint in her car from her Houston apartment complex and raped by 2
men before she was dumped in a Fort Bend County field. Sutton was
convicted on the basis of shoddy lab work, misidentification of the
source of a DNA sample and misleading testimony of a crime lab employee,
according to a comprehensive report on the case by Chronicle reporters
Roma Khanna and Steve McVicker.
In a study of such wrongful convictions conducted by the Innocence
Project, a nonprofit legal clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School
in New York, defective and fraudulent science was found to be the 5th-
leading cause of wrongful convictions. The study also found that
prosecutorial or police misconduct played a role in about half of all the
cases studied.
"What you have [in the Banks and Sutton cases]," said Peter Neufeld, one
of the Innocence Project founders, "really is a tale of two defendants --
one [Sutton] with the scientific hypothesis [DNA] to prove his innocence.
...
Banks simply lacks the DNA gold standard of innocence. But once we see
symptoms of a wrongful conviction evident in a case, we may not be able
to get him out of prison, but we sure as hell should commute that
sentence to life." The point is well-taken. The issue, Neufeld said, is
that the Sutton case provides "a learning moment that people will be
wrongfully convicted."
We now have to be concerned about all the cases in which there is no
biological sample to weigh against evidence of wrongful conviction. Cases
such as Banks'. Otherwise, the justice system as well as the Constitution
are victimized.
"What we've been trying to do," Neufeld said,"is look at each of these
cases and learn what are the causes of wrongful conviction. The bigger
question is what's going on in the criminal justice system that's
allowing them to take place." The people of Texas, in whose name such
flawed justice is being carried out, ought to be clamoring for those
answers.
A further point: If Sutton was wrongfully convicted, then the guilty
parties remain free. We don't want a system that convicts innocent people
and, because of that, fails to bring the guilty to account. On the basis
of these and other questions, the death penalty itself should be stayed
until we've gotten the answers. That's not being soft on crime. That's
being strong on dealing with crime while preserving the integrity of the
Constitution.
(source: Editorial, Houston Chronicle)
softie
Red flags, not self-interested drawbridges, ought to be going up in Texas
courtrooms, judges' chambers, prosecutors' offices and the state Capitol
today.
New DNA tests have proved that Josiah Sutton could not have committed the
rape for which he has served four and one-half years of a 25-year prison
sentence. Evidence originally processed at the Houston Police Department
crime lab had incorrectly linked him to the crime.
Something in the system is obviously and badly broken, and the
implications for thousands of Harris County cases, particularly death
penalty cases, are disturbing.
The Sutton saga adds to an increasingly strong body of evidence that our
justice system is seriously flawed. The evidence grows more compelling,
and it defies logic why legislation is not passed to put executions on
hold until the flaws in the system can be identified and rectified.
Sutton's case is one of more than 20, including those of 7 men on death
row, in which evidence is being retested because of an audit that
questioned the quality of the work at HPD's crime lab. The case also has
implications for that of 44-year-old Delma Banks Jr., who is about to
become the 300th person executed in Texas since capital punishment was
reinstated.
There is strong evidence that Bowie County prosecutors withheld evidence
that witnesses against Banks lied during his trial for the 1980 murder of
a 16-year-old boy near Texarkana. Banks' attorneys contend prosecutors
knowingly allowed key witnesses to perjure themselves, withheld evidence
from the defense and jury that would have thoroughly discredited the key
witnesses, and then argued to the jury that it should believe the
witnesses, even though the prosecutors knew they were lying. These and
other serious issues are on appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court.
On Monday, showing its usual callousness toward the potential miscarriage
of justice, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Banks' appeal for
a stay of execution and application for habeas corpus review.
What connects the Banks and Sutton cases is not science, but evidence
that prosecutorial and/or police misconduct may be involved: the official
suppression of exculpatory evidence.
Sutton was convicted for the October 1988 rape of a woman who was taken
at gunpoint in her car from her Houston apartment complex and raped by 2
men before she was dumped in a Fort Bend County field. Sutton was
convicted on the basis of shoddy lab work, misidentification of the
source of a DNA sample and misleading testimony of a crime lab employee,
according to a comprehensive report on the case by Chronicle reporters
Roma Khanna and Steve McVicker.
In a study of such wrongful convictions conducted by the Innocence
Project, a nonprofit legal clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School
in New York, defective and fraudulent science was found to be the 5th-
leading cause of wrongful convictions. The study also found that
prosecutorial or police misconduct played a role in about half of all the
cases studied.
"What you have [in the Banks and Sutton cases]," said Peter Neufeld, one
of the Innocence Project founders, "really is a tale of two defendants --
one [Sutton] with the scientific hypothesis [DNA] to prove his innocence.
...
Banks simply lacks the DNA gold standard of innocence. But once we see
symptoms of a wrongful conviction evident in a case, we may not be able
to get him out of prison, but we sure as hell should commute that
sentence to life." The point is well-taken. The issue, Neufeld said, is
that the Sutton case provides "a learning moment that people will be
wrongfully convicted."
We now have to be concerned about all the cases in which there is no
biological sample to weigh against evidence of wrongful conviction. Cases
such as Banks'. Otherwise, the justice system as well as the Constitution
are victimized.
"What we've been trying to do," Neufeld said,"is look at each of these
cases and learn what are the causes of wrongful conviction. The bigger
question is what's going on in the criminal justice system that's
allowing them to take place." The people of Texas, in whose name such
flawed justice is being carried out, ought to be clamoring for those
answers.
A further point: If Sutton was wrongfully convicted, then the guilty
parties remain free. We don't want a system that convicts innocent people
and, because of that, fails to bring the guilty to account. On the basis
of these and other questions, the death penalty itself should be stayed
until we've gotten the answers. That's not being soft on crime. That's
being strong on dealing with crime while preserving the integrity of the
Constitution.
(source: Editorial, Houston Chronicle)
softie