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Chris Seward/ The News & Observer (Raleigh), file
Sylvester Smith, center, smiles after he was granted a new trial after two witnesses recanted their testimony in a Brunswick County courtroom in Bolivia, N.C., Nov. 5, 2004. He had wrongfully served 20 years on a sexual assault charge.
In 1984, two North Carolina girls, age 4 and 6, were molested. They told police their abuser was Sylvester Smith, who was dating the mother of one of the girls, and he went to prison for the crime.
Twenty years later, the victims recanted, saying their grandmother told them to blame Smith, and his conviction was overturned.
But the person they say who really molested them -- their cousin, who was nine at the time -- could not be prosecuted because he was under age at the time of the alleged crime. He is, however, serving a life sentence for another crime he committed in the meantime: murder.
Smith's case illustrates the fallout from false convictions: He lost roughly 20 years of his life to prison, while the alleged perpetrator was free to commit other crimes.
Smith's discarded conviction is one of nearly 900 such cases filed in the National Registry of Exonerations, a database of prisoners exonerated in the U.S. of serious crimes since 1989, that was made public on Monday. To qualify as an "exoneree," an individual must have been convicted and later relieved of all the legal consequences.
In compiling the database, researchers became aware of more than 1,100 other cases in which convictions were overturned due to 13 separate police corruption scandals, most of which involved the planting of drugs or guns on innocent defendants. Those exonerations are not included in the registry.
ExonerationRegistry.org is the largest database of its kind ever assembled, according to its creators from the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. Nonetheless, researchers are not able to say what percentage of convictions in the U.S. are false, in part because it can take so long for new evidence to come to light. There are currently about 2.5 million people in prison in the United States.
The earliest cases in the database date back to 1989, when DNA evidence freed its first two prisoners.
"We can figure that as sort of the modern period in exonerations because DNA was a big game-changer," said University of Michigan Law Professor Samuel Gross, one of the registry's creators. "It provided a scientific instrument for reviewing cases and providing a different type of evidence about those cases because the technology didn't exist."
But DNA doesn't actually account for the majority of the exonerations in the database, after an initial wave in the early 1990s, he said.
"DNA is a fairly narrow-gauged tool. It only fits particular type of crimes," Gross said, noting that only 37 percent of the people in the database were cleared with the help of DNA evidence. "In the public mind, exoneration became identified with DNA... Most of these cases -- DNA and non-DNA -- everybody agrees there was a mistake; frequently because the criminal was caught, often because we agree there was no crime at all."
Gross co-authored a report on the database that pulls together statistics on exonerations from January 1989 through February 2012. While the database is constantly updated and new exonerations are being added all the time, the report focuses on the 873 individuals whose cases had been filed before March.
Gross and his report co-author, University of Michigan law school graduate Michael Shaffer, discovered correlations in the types of crimes and reasons for wrongful convictions.
- Fabricated crimes. False convictions in child sex abuse cases were usually due to fabricated crimes; sometimes a divorced parent told a child to make up lies about an ex-spouse abusing them, or police or a therapist convinced a child to say something that wasn't true.
- Eyewitness mistakes. In adult rape cases, for example, false convictions were typically based on eyewitness mistakes, "more often than not, mistakes by white victims falsely identifying black defendants," the report said.
- Misconduct by authorities. For homicides, misconduct by authorities was the second-biggest cause of false convictions, just behind false eyewitness accounts.
Eyewitnesses are crucial to a trial, experts say, and their mistakes, whether intentional or not, can have a huge impact.
"The bulk of the evidence that is presented in trials in human testimony. Almost all of the time, energy, and effort is spent hearing people's statement in what occurred at a different place and a different time," Dan Simon, a professor of law and psychology at USC, said. "The bottom line is, people are often inaccurate."
Asking an eyewitness to identify a suspect from a lineup demonstrates this.
"There's a nice study that shows slight variations in the way the lineup is conducted can result in swings of accuracy from as low as 14 percent to as high as 86 percent," Simon said.
Thanks to DNA evidence, Robert Dewey, 51, walked out of a Colorado courtroom Monday as a free man. He served 17 years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit. KUSA-TV's Will Ripley reports.
Confessing to a crime you didn't commit
Another factor in false convictions is what happens in the interrogation room. The report tracks 135 people who falsely confessed to a crime, and went to prison as a result.
"Why would anyone ever admit doing a terrible crime they didn't do?" Gross said. "The first thing to note is the risk false confessions goes up rapidly when the suspects are either juveniles or mentally handicapped or both."
In other cases in the database, a comment made to authorities was misinterpreted as a confession, or police pressure led to the false confession.
How effective are police lineups? Take our test
"Some people are being interrogated at a time of extreme mental anguish and distress," Gross said. "There was a very depressing case from Lake County, Illinois. He confessed to raping and murdering his young daughter, 8 or 9 years old, and a friend of hers. But consider the circumstances. He was being interrogated by the police, probably for 10 or 20 hours, within a day or two of when his daughter was kidnapped, raped and murdered and then they turned on him."
Exonerees can be found in all parts of the country, but most were concentrated in Illinois, New York, Texas, and California.
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93 percent are men, 7 percent women;
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Nearly 50 percent are black, 38 percent white, 11 percent Hispanic and 2 percent Native American or Asian;
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48 percent had been falsely convicted of homicides, 35 percent of sexual assaults (23 percent adult, 12 percent child), five percent robberies, five percent other violent crimes, and seven percent drug, white-collar and other non-violent crimes.
As a group, they spent more than 10,000 years in prison, an average of more than 11 years each.
Free from bars, but not from stigma
Smith, the man from North Carolina who was accused of molestation, maintained his innocence all along. He was only freed after one of the victims spoke to the other and decided to come forward in 2004.
Chris Seward/ The News & Observer (Raleigh), file
Sylvester Smith's wife Phillis Smith, right, reacts as Judge William Gore announced that Smith would be granted a new trial after two witnesses recanted their testimony in Bolivia, N.C., Nov. 5, 2004.
"They said they were more or less encouraged to accuse Mr. Smith, but it took a number of years and a great passage of time," Smith's lawyer, Roy Trest, said. "Obviously, he was extremely elated after all the years he had spent in prison."
Smith asked for a pardon from the governor, but was denied.
Now 61 and in poor health, he lives with his wife -- who he was married to but separated from before he went to prison -- in Brunswick County, N.C., and has established a friendship with one of the victims who accused him, his lawyer said.
Not all exonerees who leave prison are able to reintegrate back into society like Smith, despite a court proclaiming them innocent.
"Even if people honestly believe that this person was truly innocent, there is a certain stigma that comes with the mere fact that you were in prison," Simon said. "You were with bad people, you were antisocial, you had to live in the jungle-like societies you often find in prisons."
Sometimes, families break up when a defendant goes to prison. Finding a job after release can be hard too.
"Often times, the state is really unhelpful. There is no automatic method to get your criminal record expunged," Simon said. "And they have huge holes in their results, and often times they lack the skills that would help you get a job. Everyone else was studying while you were stuck in a cell."
Simon believes the registry will help reform the justice system because it helps experts analyze the causes of false convictions. The creators are still adding cases to ExonerationRegistry.org. Gross said he hopes exonerees will contact his team if they had their convictions overturned and don't see their story in the database.
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Leave a Comment:
incompetence
Did the grandmother not like him because he was black?
It all about money. If you have the money for a real defense the truth usually prevails. If you are stuck with a Public Defender and the Prosecuter is looking to improve his "kill ratio" so he can be elected Attorney General you usually get screwed. A good defense lawyer can defeat the race issue but they cost money which many minorities just don't have............
The grandmother didn't lke him because he had a stupid screen name or maybe she wanted to protect the little murderer in training...
system failure: incompetence 'of the system'
Competence would have produced justice regardless of what grandma did.
Homosexual men have a much higher rate of AIDS and HIV when compared with straight couples. The reason is because the body has no natural way to lubricate the sphincter, and as a result there is often more tearing and bleeding with gay butt sex as opposed to vaginal. I think the important lesson here is for people to try and not be gay.
How did the system fail anyone here? You basically had two rape victims lie to the police, prosecutor, judge and jury and say that they were molested by this man. How is this the fault of any system and how could this have been prevented?
Those who make or sustain false allegations need to go to jail.
In response to Eric: ABSOLUTELY! Authorities who fabricate or hide evidence need to be sent to prison. Think of what they're doing. In many cases, they're trying to ruin someone's life. Rarely is anything at all done to them. They should face stiff penalties in cases of clear malfeasance.
How did the system fail anyone here?
The system failed because an innocent man went to prison for two decades. Our system is set up to protect the innocent from being railroaded on trumped-up charges and it failed in this case. The systems fails anytime it does not do what it's supposed to do?
It is the job of the court to determine the truth. It is the court's job to test claims and evidence and discover what the truth is, regardless of confounds, errors, lies or deceptions introduced. That is why a course in Logic and Critical Thinking is required for those in the legal profession, at least in some parts of the country. Any error in judgement from the court is a failure of the court. The product of the courts is not only justice, but truth.
C'mon Michael. There is no way to absolutely tell if a witness is lying. And there is absolutely no way to detect a mistaken eyewitness account. Witnesses can be certain that they saw what they think they saw, and still be wrong. Don't fault the system for that.
2000 Convictions overturned does not mean that 2000 Innocent people were released. Their overturned conviction is just as valid as the original conviction, guilty or not.
2000 is just the tip of the iceberg. I was charged with being a pimp, "pandering" spent 20,000 dollars on my legal defense. I hate the legal system.
Then reasonable doubt should prevail, if a defendant is not shown to be quilty without a doubt, then the state hasn't done their job and an innocent person is not convicted.
I'll say this again because people here seem to be missing the point. The justice system did not fail this man; he was simply the victim of a crime which in this case was perjury. The kids, the grandmother and anyone else that was knowingly involved basically stole 20 years of this man's life using the justice system as their weapon. The system isn't to blame for this anymore than a knife manufacturer is to blame when someone gets stabbed. The victim here was awarded a fair trial, and was convicted by a jury of his peers as required by the Constitution. The fact that he was wrongfully convicted and black doesn't mean our system is poor or unfair.
@George Z
The system did fail. It failed because the man was convicted on accusation alone, apparently without additional evidence. By your logic, anyone can accuse anyone else of sexual assault and have them convicted without supporting evidence.
It wasn't accusation alone. The girls in this case were actually molested, albiet by a different person. That was the supporting evidence and along with the girls' testimony it was basically slam-dunk case.
I have news for you; if an actual rape victim decides to point the finger at someone and there isn't any DNA evidence to counter her claim, that person is going to be convicted almost every time.
Prosecutors (PERSECUTORS) with regularity pile on the charges, to batter the defendant into submission to agree to a plea bargain... they don't care about innocence, just convictions at any cost! They are destroying any confidence that Americans have left in our system ....
Most of us have believed in the Justice .. "innocent until proven guilty ..." ... until we experience it first hand, then you realize what a horror story it really is .. "The Truth Will Set You Free.." is just another lie that as Americans we are taught ... it enables the corrupt justice system to perpetuate itself,for without our belief in its integrity ... it would completely worthless.
"Thou Shalt Not Lie" .... is only four words .... because you tell the "Whole Truth" ... don't believe that others that you have trusted in will .....
The American justice system is nothing more than a "Sham" ... to persecute people, for the financial gain and satisfaction of others ....
Unless you have experience it first hand you have no idea how "evil" it really is ...
I think that the salient point is that the system works so well so much of the time. It is not the judicial system's fault if the grandmother manipulated these little girls to lie about the boyfriend. Statistically, the numbers break down to 1.739 incorrect convictions per state per year. Overall it is an exceptional achievement.
In this case, the kids were 4 and 6 and might not have come forward later if they faced punishment themselves. The grandmother, however, is fully culpable.
I do not see this case as a failure of the system, I see this as three people willfully deciding to frame someone for a crime they did not commit. Unfortunately, the grandmother is probably dead, otherwise she should be thrown in prison for at least as long as he was in prison. I do not know about putting the kids in prison. What they did was wrong, but they were coerced into doing what they did by the grandmother who undoubtedly had a lot of control over these two little girls. There should probably be some consequences for them, I am just not sure what those consequences should be. It sounds like the defense attorney may have screwed up as well. I do not know if one was conducted or not (probably not), but there should have been what is called a swear-ability hearing to determine if these girls understood the oath to tell the truth and if they were mature enough to understand and abide by it. A hearing like this should have been conducted and might have uncovered the grandmother's actions.
In all, I would say that our justice system is still one of the best in the world. The number of overturned convictions is not a huge percentage, although any wrongful conviction is regrettable. That said, it is hard to blame the system when most of these wrongful convictions seem to have been due to the deliberate actions of individuals to pervert the system for their own purposes. No matter what system you come up with, so long as people are involved there will be errors. Our system keeps those to a very small number. It should be noted that not all of these overturned convictions means the person was innocent. I am sure that some of them were overturned on technicalities even thought the person was likely still guilty of the crime. Because of all the safeguards in our system to protect the accused, guilty people often get away with their crimes for purely technical reasons, not because they are innocent. You also have 135 out of 873 wrongful convictions that were due to false confessions. We can argue about the reasons for those false confessions, but it is still hard to fault the system. They may be due to overzealous police officers, but certainly are not due to the court system itself.
Rape cases is the one area where I think things do need to change. This is one crime where it has become more of a guilty until proven innocent instead of the other way around. All it takes to get convicted is to be accused, have no DNA to exonerate you, and for you to have no alibi. Far too much faith is placed in the identification by the victim who may be mistaken due to the stress of the situation or may have other motives for wanting to see you convicted. This is one area where a simple eyewitness ID by the victim alone without and supporting physical evidence should result in an automatic acquittal. There are also just too many sick women out their who will cry rape after consensual sex to get even with a guy for treating them badly or because they got caught by their husband committing adultery and are trying to cover for themselves. The courts try to uncover these cases and get to the truth, but it is still often that the guy is presumed guilty until they find evidence otherwise.
One other thing that needs to change is prosecutors need to stop being judged based on their "batting averages." By judging prosecutors by their conviction rates prosecutors have become too much about winning at all costs instead of looking for the truth which should be their job.
If you are ever on a Jury, never convict on statements alone or on a id of a person in a line up, always look for evidence other than those two alone; do Innocent people get convicted , yes, jury's always want to punish a person they believe has done something wrong; innocent until prov-en guilty is a nice slogan, it is not correct, you had better have a good lawyer, and prove yourself not guilty or raise one heck of a doubt.
The guilty going free is just as bad. You have two problems. Proscuters trying to win a case even if justice gets trampled and jurys that are illeterate and can't understand the technical arguments. What's the solution, I don't know! OJ simpson and Casey Anthony are two cased were the guilty went free. What's worse?
Move on people. This has been happening since the beginning of, like, TIME. and now there is interest?? I guess it is good that the press finally has recognized it but......
I do agree with moonbeamracer. I worked in the court system for a few years until I got tired of the banality of false statements by "accusers and witnesses", and prosecutors ties to conviction numbers. The system (from the state point of view) is DESIGNED to get a conviction on something, anything they can, by any means necessary....
While you are pondering all the false, major crimes convictions, just imagine to yourself how many were unwittingly "forced" (while no one is actually forced to take a plea, many have been given little or no choice but to accept one...) to take a conviction on a lesser major charge......... many with little or no base for the prosecution to stand upon.
Is it the best system in the world, possibly.....
Does it absolutely reek of unfairness and injustice, absolutely....
The main purpose of our justice system is to arrive at the truth and decide guilt or innocence. If witnesses lie, if the police coerce a confession, if evidence is withheld and mistakes are made then the system has failed. The argument that the justice system is not at fault when innocent people are convicted by human failure or duplicity is false and totally unacceptable.
It is the duty of everyone in the system, police, lawyers, and judges, to do their best to uncover the truth. When that is not done, whether it is because of laziness, incompetence, greed, or ambition the system has failed.
If, through stupidity and ignorance, we do not see these egregious errors as failure of the system what motive is there to fix it? Our system is not perfect. We see reminders of this fact every day. If our politicians and leaders accept these errors as simply unfortunate unavoidable consequences of human frailty, our system will continue to fail. And it will not only fail by error but will be vulnerable to manipulation by greed and duplicity.
Which clearly it is right now. Our system of justice fails everyday! If we don't admit that, how are we ever going to arrive at one that doesn't fail, or at least not as often.
@Realist-1226632,
There was an idea floating England around the time, just pryor to the U.S. Revolution. Pretty sure this is what our founding fathers were going for.....
George Z. you're a troll . . .
Moonbeamracer:
Absolutely! I didn't have space to include that important reality in my brief quote (page 8) along with 1.) police lying on the stand and 2.) pre-formed opinions by the jury, i.e. the belief the the cops always got the right guy. Such juries are a direct consequence of poor representation by defense lawyers trying to get the case over with, and don't put any effort in the voire dire process. Also, prosecutors almost always aim to get a conviction to get another notch in their bedpost, despite compelling evidence of innocence of the defendant. In one case in which I was a defendant, the a cop got a story straight ahead of time with a witness, which was a flat-out lie (PERJURY!). So no, our police justice is not fair in any way, shape, or form. Anyone who thinks it is fair has not had any direct experience with it. And that's the way it is! Period!
You might be right, but I'm not sure that's the right way of looking at things. The guilty set free to commit more crimes or the guilty not caught because the innocent was convicted. Not an easy call except for the innocent convicted for a crime they didn't do. Possibly there should be some requirements that must be met before becoming a member of a jury. One would hope that the justice system was good enough that a 10 to 1 ratio was unacceptable.
That statement right there is the problem. That's why the article is even being written. From the cop who thinks "this poor victim...I gotta get somebody, anybody to take the fall for this", to the prosecutor who thinks the exact same thing.
It's like the drug dealer saying to himself "F-It, I don't care who I sell to or who I hurt, as long as I get what I need" or the broker who sells knowingly bad stocks to the family of 4 just to pad his bank account.
See the flaw in this line of thinking?? Veeeery narcissistic. Very un-spiritual. Big problem with this one......
I'm Just Sayin'..........
What bothers me is how much satisfaction the grandma got sending an innocent man to prison, knowing the real child rapist was free and loose. Also, I believe child rapist get also more punishment in prison by the other inmates than just the jail time. This travisty could not have been avoided to well. Two poor little nine year olds shouldn't have to relive such a horrible thing this man did to them(sarc), so he was railroaded. This isn't "Law and Order"...it's real life, and a terrible one for this man. I'm assuming grandma is long gone and got away with her crime.
ITS THE LAWYERS AND JUDGES. Who else goes home at the end of the day with a FAT PAYCHECK? As I heard one judge say in criminal proceedings: "Its all about the money". And expediency too. Our entire legal system is totally money oriented and morally bankrupt--justice does not enter into it. "THE LAW" is nothing but what the wealthy rulers want and is created to cater to their whims.
I will say this first, we have about 1000 too many laws.
Based on the stat they gave us "The System" is correct about 99.999999% of the time.
And people hate it.
Our government funded school school only graduates kids at a 70% rate, and people love it.
Weird.
This was just a "tip of the iceberg" article based very narrowly and doesn't even come close to including those who cannot get their cases reopened; can't prove their innocence, even if they are innocent; those that are not innocent but have been convicted for something they didn't do; etc.
Surely you would prefer not to be one of these lost souls even if you are perfect. It is all about the money--the lawyers and judges hefty paychecks
George (#1.1) - If race was involved in the decision about making accusations, msnbc would be all over it.
The "System" worked perfectly. It is designed as a contest, so it does NOT produce justice, only victories for either the defense or the prosecution. Consequently, those with the means to engage a good defense attorney have a much better chance of getting away with a crime. And those without the means have a much better chance of being wrongly convicted. This is how our system operates. One can produce overwhelming evidence that a person has been wrongly convicted, the judge being presented with that evidence will exonerate the wrongly convicted person - and still, still, the District Attorney will insist the person was guilty. It is that insistence that clearly demonstrates that the interest is not justice, its winning.
Gil you are not wrong but I will be little bit more focus on family law and false allegation. The state government like to give money from the Federal Government to the County Judges working with family law supporting a Welfare legal to track specially the families of the minorities low income people by state, because they say the need to stop Domestic Violence. That argument for me is full of demagogy, because you never will stop Domestic Violence without access to Healthcare and Counseling services for every single families low income. In places like Miami, Florida with high per cent of the population Hispanic immigrants from Cuba new refugees, or people from Puerto Rico coming to New York or small cities with small concentration of Hispanic population you will see indices of abuse of power, prejudice and corruption of the people working in the law enforcement in disproportional amount of the number of women dying in the hand of their husband. I meet with a judge the name Rosa Figarola in Dade County, Miami Florida, that she is very active supporting the lesbian community being Judge and very hateful at the same time with the Hispanic husbands, because for each family with division or marital trouble if she report that case as Domestic Violence she get money from the Federal Government. Also, she keep in their staff a lady Hispanic the name Maria Villaverde as case manager, that she is ready to do whatever thing looking for job security and her is look for customers or clients to increase the number of cases and by this way the judge get more money from the Federal Government in their circuit court. So, the job of the case manager, she is the person opening the mind of the women with depression, or when some women are running away of the house looking for be more closer to others relatives living in another state, whatever story with low profile of Domestic Violence and physical abuse, this is the time for the case manager to teach their client how to lie in court and aggravating the charges and the intensity of the situation with false allegation, using also all kind of exaggeration to change the course of the hiring about custody and destroy a husband when mom want to keep the children and use the children as financial exploitation with the income credit every year, priorities for section 8 and housing when she keep the children 7 days at week. That is the big deal in Family law using false allegation. So, for that reason use false allegation without divorce after mom runaway of the house it is very popular in the Hispanic community and others minorities groups.
Now, the government keep their skeleton in the closet to because this issue of false allegation and mom being the right parent to take for 7 days at week the custody of the children in the Hispanic, Afro minorities and white low income first generation from Europe, is supported 100 % by the government, because the government is abusing of the rights of the males when they are low income, to stand up in court with a lawyer and fight back for the custody of the children. The other thing, the government don't like to see a lot of women in legal trouble, but they don't care if males go to jail even for not violence issues with the law as Child support when child support is very easy to prevent as crime if two people get counseling and the government stay away of exploit that family minority with children giving money from the Federal Government to Judges by clients females and children even when mom have evidence of kidnapped of the children and runaway of the house with spurious excuses. In many of this cases, mom and dad in more than 2, 3 , 4 years without relationship they are still marriage and the government intervention it is not helping to sign the divorce and keep 3 day one family member the children and keep 3 days the other family member their children, without isolate one of the parent of the relationship with the children. Now, the social implication and the government abuse of the government it is prejudice by gender because they don't like to give money to a male minority taking care of their children 3 days if he is low income, because if mom is low income to they will lose more tax money with people depending of the government. So, they prefer destroy the ability of dad take care of their children with false allegation to force dad pay for 7 days at week the cash assistance program in case that mom is low income. So, child support is in the back of dad and at the same time he is unqualified to apply for Welfare assistance even being low income when he it is not having the primary custody of their children, because this privileges are only in the hand of the mom, because she is female that keep the children for 7 days at week. This issue is creating a serious problem, because males are unprotected by the law and liberals and fake Republicans are abusing every single day of the fact that they are representing the people about political issues, but only convenient to continue exploiting the Federal Government and support satellite agencies with social programs only to wash the money in the street without real clients and real statistic of women being save of the hand of a husband with real evidence of Domestic Violence. Now my point don't denied the fact when some women had been abused or match the case of real physical abuse with drug and alcohol history in the family treating bad that person. After all the support for that kind of women with real evidences of being physical abused is minimum when you see how much money the Judges are expending every single year in fake cases and prevention of Domestic Violence.
Empirical studies has long proved that justice takes "a back seat" in many courtrooms.
The criminal justice system is replete with bad defense attorneys for the poor, malicious prosecutions, bad witnesses and indifferent judges. How can we have confidence in a system that is ridiculed with so many intentional obstacles to fairness?
The 2000 false convictions is bad.
God only knows how many innocent people we have sent to the execution chamber!
We are not talking here about criminal law. We don't have bunches of cases where innocent people are dying or in jail for abuse of power of the law enforcement. We are talking about false allegation and how the court system play game asking for money to the Federal Government to protect women or children without investigate deep all the evidences. I believe the criminal system it is more fair than the family law process in USA today. What are you talking about?
Every person, prosecutor or witness and particularly police officers, should know with certainty that if they are found to have fabricated or planted evidence, Lied under oath, withheld exonerating evidence or wrongly acted in any way, to convict defendants. They will suffer the most severe penalty that the defendant (s) were given or potentially exposed to.
woe
how can you pay back someone after that mess
you cannot
glad the man is out at least
prayers for his new life
keith i agree he will never be compensated enought, but he should be compensated and some of the fasle accusations made against people should carry prison sentences. Officials guilty of false or misrepresenting the facts in cases, cops or district attorneys should go to jail.
So the libturd answer is let everyone run wild, if we have anarchy there will be no "wrong" convictions. I have worked in corrections and have found that even if you didn't do the crime you are incarcerated for you have done many others just as evil or worse.
Ah then, Republicans think that you should just jail who you want to jail.
By your standards, then just lock yourself up then, I'm sure you've done a crime.
Correct NAMNORI.
The only way to ensure that there are never innocent people convicted would be to abolish all laws and prisons. Perhaps these liberal, drug-addicted hippies would prefer a utopia like that, but for the rest of us who live in the real world this is not a viable option. The unfortunate truth is that a select minority of individuals will often fall through the cracks, but this is the price we must pay for lawful society. The system will never be perfect, but I think it's for the most part fair.
It's fine as long as you aren't the one that falls in the crack and loses 20 years of your life.
NAMNORI I guess your stance only changes if it is someone you know or love. So what you have worked in corrections before. What basis is that to say that those falsely accused did something before this or will afterwards? This guy probably didn't have a past and spent 20 years of his life behind bars. By your statement you worked there so you didn't do 20 years there? Why, you couldn't handle it? You volunteered to work there. Now think about an innocent man screaming and no one hearing him. He was the lowest of the low in any prison. Think of all the things they did to him because of his false conviction and think could you do 20 years of that. When you have that answer re-post something with some sense.
Esprit De Corps.
So the libturd answer is let everyone run wild, if we have anarchy there will be no "wrong" convictions. I have worked in corrections and have found that even if you didn't do the crime you are incarcerated for you have done many others just as evil or worse.
Yet another desperate conservative looking to make nothing into a political issue. No one here was advocating letting criminals run free; the only person I see mentioning it is you. BTW I've worked in corrections too and have also seen people who didn't have so much as a parking ticket get imprisoned for 10-15 years before their innocence was proven, so not all people who are wrongly convicted are guilty of something. By your standards, you too must be guilty of a crime but you just haven't been caught yet.
The system will never be perfect, but I think it's for the most part fair.
George, remind yourself of that when you go to prison for killing Trayvon Martin.
Who said that? Why go immediately to such foolish extremes of illogic?
The only consistency about the right, is its total inconsistency with logic and rational thinking.
NAMNORI and George.Zimmerman
I love reading your ridiculous, conservative, racist, fear-mongering, delusional hypotheses. Your statements are absurdly irrational and illogical. Thank you so much for showing everyone how inane the conservative viewpoint can be. Keep up the good work!
With enough money to get a degree in anything he wants, financial support while he's studying, and help landing his first job. It's not enough, but it's the best society can do for him at this point.
AG99:
The man is 61 years old now! Who the hell wants to go to school or get a job at that age?
I can see it now in the interview: I have a degree in XXX and ZERO work experience except working in the PRISON laundry.
Oh. Good point. (He looks so young!) I guess there isn't much we can do for him then.
George Zimmerman said "The unfortunate truth is that a select minority of individuals will often fall through the cracks, but this is the price we must pay for lawful society".
Sure George, you are fine with innocents going to jail or get executed as long as it is somebody else, especially one of them "select minorities". I wonder how you would feel if you fell through the cracks.
Namnori's a troll. Check out his profile.
Hey, we already gave him room and board for 20 years.
I'm sorry, bad joke. But we could keep him comfortable in his old age/ "retirement".
Eric - "t's fine as long as you aren't the one that falls in the crack and loses 20 years of your life."
But we are told over and over by the left to give up our life for the sake of mother earth, you would think most on the left would love this, I mean this guy had tiny carbon foot print and no ability to create more of those darn humans that are destroying/overpopulating earth. This guy should be a f'n hero to the left.
the system is a joke,and there is no justice in america.they are so corrupted in this country you can't even get a decent lawyer to represent you and if you happen to get a lawyer the system,cops,prosecuters,judges,ect will destroy the guy for standing up for the innocent.we do live in a good ole boy society and its true that your either with them or against them and if you don't agree with them may god have mercy on you because they won't.i'm speaking from first hand knowledge as i've had my life destroyed completely and so far have not been able to get any legal help to represent me.i've paid all kinds of money to crooked lawyers and the lawyers were on there side trying to cover up there crimes to gain standing in the legal community.i could go on all day with the sick and perverted treatment i've recieved at the hands of the so called authoritys in this country.its just a joke to them.they will pay one of these days
NAMNORI banned, rereg of multiple accounter mePhDwee.
epic failure - sometimes caused by darkness of the heart (racism, for example)
epic failure................
systemic failure.
a competent system would have resulted in justice - whatever the victims said and whatever gradma did.
Pigotry - How?
I'm wondering about the "how" as well. Given the victims lied and DNA evidence wasn't available then, what could they do? I imagine many child molestation cases are dependent upon the child's testimony. Can anything be more unreliable than that? And if you discount that testimony, would you ever get a conviction in a molestation case?
This isn't so simple as "the system failed." There's no good way for it to succeed in these sorts of cases.
What about lie detector tests for the kids and the grandma?
@Kirigami.. yes, I agree.. witnesses should have to pass a lie-detector.. yes, it would be an "imposition" but that would be much better than convicting someone innocent of the accused crime.. and Yes, I would not mind .. just keep all of the questions germain to the case.. how about if they are written out and aggreed to by both the prosecution and defense.. like others issues of "facts" and evidence.. just an extension of evedence handling and gathering.. witness testimony is afterall only part of the body of evidence in a case
Lie detector tests are notoriously unreliable. That's one of the reasons why lie detector evidence is not allowed in court. Lie detectors pick up on physiological changes in the body when one feels guilt or fear. For example, the two main emotions in a rape victim are guilt and fear. Giving rape victims lie detector tests to "prove" they are accusing the "right guy" would result in a whole lot of rape victims being prosecuted for giving "false" statements, and a lot of rapists going free.
However, lie detector tests are fairly easily be beaten (although I seriously doubt that small children are savvy enough to do so). The tests look for signs of stress-for example if your heart rate suddenly increases after being asked a particular question. If you either (or both I suppose) can suppress those reactions or exhibit signs of lying during baseline/neutral questions (i.e. you make your heart rate increase when they ask your name or age or something) so that the lies don't stand out, you can beat the test.
Please explain how this was a failure in the system, Eric?
They system says you are innocent until proven guilty (cough, cough George Zimmerman) and a speedy trail in front of your peers. He got all of that, it just so happened that the witness's lied and at the time there was no DNA evidence.
So what fails Eric is your ability to understand.
Kirigami- Lie detectors are so reliable that they aren't admissible in court. One should never take a lie detector test - voluntarily or under coercion.
Not that it helps the 2000, but in 23 years, what percentage is that? does that mean all the others were correct? Unfortunately, the technology of today wasn't available back in 89.
I agree with you completely. It amazes me how people fall for one big number but don't consider the other big number. The system's getting better with new technology. And if someone has no confidence in the justice system, perhaps they'd like to come up with their own?
While I cannot fully appreciate the penance this man suffered innocently, I also cannot fathom how terrible our streets would be without law enforcement doing its utmost every day. They may make failures less than 1% of the time...but honestly, can you expect a utopia?
Don't like the US justice system? Try the "justice system" of Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Namnori,
1) Making absurd comparisons, is well...absurd. With your logic, you should be happy about getting shot in the foot because at least you didn't get shot in the head.
2) I think you're thoroughly confused about the 2 previous posters. Nowhere do they say they don't like the US justice system but are actually saying there is little wrong with it.
Why must it always be absolute black or absolute white with simple-minded right-wingers. "Don't like it? Go live in Saudi Arabia."
I don't want to live in Saudi Arabia. I want to improve the justice system in my country so this kind of thing doesn't happen. Those of us capable of complex thinking (I think you call such people "libtards") know it's possible to fix problems without throwing out the whole system. Putting less weight on eyewitness testimony or the testimony of very young children would be a good start.
Tracy, complex thinking can be 100% wrong. Check the history of Adolf Hitler. If you insist on making statements about how you are displeased with America, you will have those that reasonably suggest that you take up residence in a country that does suit you more.
It's hard to not agree with making our legal system better. Nobody advocates throwing out the whole system. Can you name a country that is getting it right? I have seen examples of better thinking on narrow issues, but as a whole, our system works better than anyone else's. While it may be "Complex" and all, concentrating on the rights of criminals and ignoring the plight of the crime victims and any rights they might have is more easily described as "wrong" than "complex." Yes, a conviction on the say so of unreliable witnesses should also include other evidence as to motive, being in the vicinity of the crime at the time of the crime, previous offenses and other forensic evidence.
Don't assume anyone who disagrees with you is unable to grasp complicated concepts. There are a huge list of geniuses that have been wrong in the extreme. First area of legal system improvement: Victim's rights.
"First area of legal system improvement: Victim's rights."
Steve, so I can conclude that you're all for passing the strengthened Violence Against Woman Act (VAWA), since that's precisely what it does. Right?
Yup, you may count me in. Crimes against women and children are rampant in this country. Restraining orders are 100% useless. Men supposedly removed from the home to jail without a complaint by the battered family get out and return to make things substantially worse. Judges lecture rape victims from the bench on their choice of outfits. I am in favor of people leaving their hands (and pretty much everything else) off others unless they are invited. and yes, there are a small percentage of false charges. Those need to be addressed also, but ALL crime victims need to be the primary consideration from offense report through trial, and the rights of the criminals need to be reduced. Close to 1/4 of women have been abused, raped, verbally assaulted, harassed and bullied. That's an epidemic.
As a man, all I have to do to avoid jail or other negative consequences from my relationships with my wife, sister, daughter, granddaughters, neices, co-workers, etc. is to be a decent person, keep my hands to myself, make my comments decent, legal and encouraging....and respectful.
Abusers should have every legal opportunity to participate in their defense, but if desired by the victim(s) an enforceable legal barrier with rapidly increasing penalties needs to be in place to protect them. An ankle bracelet is not too big a violation of civil rights until guilt or innocence is established.
Selfishly, I would like to see a more forgiving legal atmosphere for dads, uncles, grandfathers, brothers, etc. that protect their abused female relatives by beating the living snot out of abusers. I have 3 of the most wonderful sons-in-law a man can have. They have all been assured that if my daughter and stepdaughters have to enact a order of restraint against them, they would be wise to investigate witness protection. Lets end this BS violence against women and kids. Right Now.
While 2000 wrongfully convicted inmates may seem extreme, it is 0.08% of the total prison population. Unfortunately, there have been people convicted unjustly but to sensationalize it can be just as sensationalized by showing how relatively accurate the judicial system can be - eight-onehundredths of one percent.
One way to reduce the false conviction rate is the put witnesses through a polygraph test while testifying on the stand.
Polygraphs are not legal evidence....and good liars can beat them every time....
You only have rights IF you can afford them.
Just look at what politicians get away with.
KaptainKrunch,
Exactly.
How many felons that deliberately collapsed our economy have seen the inside of a jail cell?
None.
This is due to the fact that most Americans believe that it's better to punish 100 innocent men than to let one guilty man go free . . .
Sad.
Furthermore, under federal sex offender laws, overturn of a conviction does NOT remove one from the requirement of registering.
More sad.
James-You are either mis-informed, uninformed, or a libtard making things up. If your conviction for a sex offensee has been overturned you are considered not guilty before the law and therefore have no obligation to register as a sex offender. That is of course assuming you have no prior arrests for the same and were previously obligated to register.
Wishing it true doesn't make it so.
Namnori: Your previous post should disqualify you from rational discussions, but I'll take a shot anyway. You may not be able to reason but you can presumably read. In the story above, the "perp" (as you uniformed types like to call them) had his conviction overturned, but was refused a pardon by the governor. In this particular case, how is the sex-offender registration expunged?
offence I mean offence
Uh-oh, RTSOB, you've been labeled a "libtard." That simply means that your brain works. It's a devastating label, isn't it?
RTSOB
Therefore the "perp" I realize bleeding heart libturds prefer terms like "alternative victim" or the "lawfully challenged" must have enough of a past as a sex offender that the Gov. feels he is still a threat to society.
Since you are obviously far more enlightened than I am why don't you take him in, let him baby sit your kids or grandchildren, and give him a job?
Libs are awesome they yell and scream and then they try to insult when that fails. I am more than capable of understanding, reading, writing, and performing inferential statistics and get paid (nicely)for doing such.
Tracy-That's odd since all the research shows Republicans, specifically conservative Republicans have higher levels of education, higher income, and greater job satisfaction than Democrats, specifically those identifying themselves as liberals.
It would almost seem your statement about being a libtard is not exactly true-or just bull@!$%#.
NAMNORI
You are such a hypocrite. "Libs are awesome they yell and scream and then they try to insult when that fails."
bleeding heart libturds
a libtard
Interesting that you use the same tactics that you purportedly eschew. Perhaps you should try understanding, reading, and writing.
You mean those poor, ignorant liberals like Warren Buffett and Bill Gates? Fact is, most liberals live on the coasts and in big cities. The red states are in the south east and mid-west. Please provide said research.
Poorest counties in the US:
No. 15: Wilcox County, Ala.
No. 14: Maverick County, Texas
No. 13: Owsley County, Ky.
No. 12: East Carroll Parish, La.
No. 11: Lake County, Tenn.
No. 10: Allendale County, S.C.
No. 9: Corson County, S.D.
No. 8: Holmes County, Miss.
No. 7: Sioux County, N.D.
No. 5 (tie): Washington County, Miss.
No. 5 (tie): Humphreys County, Miss.
No. 4: Issaquena County, Miss.
No. 3: Shannon County, S.D.
No. 2: Todd County, S.D.
No. 1: Ziebach County, S.D.
NAMNORI, Sweetie...it's time to broaden your vocabulary. And your education. And your critical thinking capacity.
Namnori's just trolling. DNFTT.
HEY NEMNORI -
"Libtard this, libtard that, etc. This type of phraseology indicates hatred for those who don't share your right winger opinions. Like most rabid right wingers, you are utterly locked in to your opinions, most of which have no basis in fact.
You are nothing more than a troll with a bad attitude. Few people on this thread (except other right wing trolls) are listening to your venom. Post your hate all you want - you just look more and more foolish with each one.
Smith asked for the pardon from the governor before his conviction was overturned. Having a conviction overturned means the conviction "never happened," and you are innocent under the law. Being innocent of any crime, we would not have to register as a sex offender.
We have way too many incarcerated, not every law broken requires jail or prison time. If it is not violent, than we need to look for alternatives that doesnt require punishment for drug offenses.
LORI-I' m sure you realize that even "non-violent" drug offences are either rooted in or the direct cause of violence. Don't believe me? Ask the 49 headless corpses they just found in Mexico or the old lady in NJ who got the @!$%# beat out of her for Social Security check.
We've had plenty of these cases here in NC, plus the infamous eugenics program...yet the republican party refuses to even acknowledge that there is a problem with racism and railroading of black suspects...must be nice to be able to walk around with their own heads up their you know whats...guess they have glass bellybuttons so they can see...
Rick, where do you come up with the 'generalized comment' that Republican's 'refuse' to acknowledge that racism exist in the country? Your lack of objectivity disqualifies you from any serious consideration of your remarks.
How many total convictions oin that period/ I would like to know what % the 900 represent.
Justice systems are not perfect both ways....sometimes the gulity go free...and sometimes the innocent are wrongly convicted.
While each one of these cases is its own individual tragedy, 2,000 wrong convictions in 23 years in a country with 300 million people (taking into account all the people who have lived since 1989, add some more millions). At most, that's 0.0006% of the population, or practically Six Sigma.
The goal should be zero wrong convictions. People are still going to jump on this populist bandwagon, though, and act like police are just dragging random people out of their homes day and night.
Be willing to lay a big bet that estimate of wrong convictions is only a small estimate of the really wrong convictions more likely only twenty percent of wrong convictions. HOW MANY HAS BEEN EXECUTED BY WRONG CONVICTIONS. Quite a few I'm sure .
We have to stop executing people in America. Too many people are being falsely accused of crimes and too many people are in prison for long periods of time for small offenses. If he molested two little girls should he have been in prison for 20 years, what would murder have been. He did not do the crime and most of his life and all of his youth wasted in jail. You can't pay this man back but you have to try to. Our system owes him his life back. We owe him money for years spent. over zealous prosecuters looking to solve crimes under educated cops looking to pin the blame on someone and that someone has a lawyer straight out of school that probably can't even afford to buy lunch. Our system needs attention and I won't even mention the nut case judges and for your info before you accuse I personally have never been in jail. I can see the unfarirness though.
Best case against death sentence.
No, that's a bad idea. I agree that nobody should be executed on circumstantial evidence. However, in a murder, rapes and similar capitol offenses there are now a stunning number of cases where there is no doubt of guilt. In those cases, the criminals should be executed. Execution is not a deterrent. It does not bring the victim back to life or erase the crime. It does not provide satisfactory revenge or closure to the families of victims.
So why execute the clearly and provably guilty? Because they will NEVER do it again. The only good reason. There are substantially more than 2000 cases where criminals have been let out or escaped to commit further crimes. Where the proof of guilt (DNA, Multiple witnesses, confessions, security cam footage, etc.) is not a question, execution should be mandatory. Conviction under these circumstances should elicit an automatic review by another court within 30 days of conviction, and then execution should take place within 48 hours. No more 15 years on death row. My personal belief is that the convicted should die or be tortured in the identical way they committed the original crime, but there is no way to legislate that. I'd settle for GONE.
I wonder how many innocent people have been executed. I bet that is a huge number. I would settle for some stats on how many maybes or cases that have a cloud that were executed. I think capital punishment should only be used in extremely rare cases. Living your life out in prison has to be a far worse punishment.
Steve,
The problem with your argument is the lack of consistency. The death penalty, as with any penalty, must be based on consistent standards for implementation. You mention if DNA is available, or eye witness testimony. Yes, those are available in some cases, but you cannot assume they are consistently accurate or reliable. Eye witness testimony is often inaccurate, DNA can easily be tainted, even confessions can be false (more often than you think). Therefore, because we cannot be 100% accurate, 100% of the time, we cannot 100% guarantee that the state will not take an innocent life. We are human, we make mistakes. This alone should make us understand that capital punishment should not be an option as there wil always be a chance we are taking an innocent life. In a civilized society, that is unconscionable.
Eye witness testimony is some of the least reliable of evidence and yet, the general opinion is that if a suspect was seen, he/she must be the perpetrator. Back in law school this concept was pounded into us. We performed exercises where we were shown films of crimes and then asked to describe the perpetrators. Out of a group of about 50 "witnesses," the variety in what we each saw was startling, and we were under no emotional stress, as true witnesses are. It is not merely a matter of lying, the witness truly believes what they "saw;" however, each witness has a different perspective, angle of view, bias, emotional state, history, and numerous other varying factors that together affect the visual image that they processed and stored in memory. Eyewitness testimony should not be discarded entirely, yet it should not be given as much weight as many individuals would afford it. Such testimony, together with physical evidence that supports it, has great value as a piece of a greater puzzle.
False confessions? They occur more often than one would imagine. We think we would never admit to a crime we did not commit; however, it can and does happen. Our system of justice is one of the best, yet, it is comprised of human beings, who are not perfect. Errors can and will happen and malice toward a defendant may occur. Only removing humans from the equation would conclude in a perfect result.
Smart! We'll just remove humans from the equation. Wow! That's deep. Okay, let's start with removing the criminals.
Steve,
See my response to your posting above. It's because we can't remove humans from the equation, and humans make mistakes (all the time), that we should not have the death penalty. Even one innocent person put to death is inexcusable. We're one of the few industrialized countries that hasn't caught on to that yet. We are in the company of such stellar governments as Cuba, Libia, Iran, Iraq, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, China, and North Korea.
I was convicted of a minor infraction by three lying eyewitness. The cops decided to charge me before they even talked to me. I was lucky; I didn't go to prison. I wonder if someone else in Green County wasn't as lucky.
You must be the unluckiest person in the world all those lying witnesses
2000 in 23 years, Ill bet that I could give anyone simple math problems equal to the total mumber of cases and you would have more than 2000 errors. Have you ever been on a jury? I have and some of the jury selection is as bad as the procution. some of the juriors don't pay attention and are not capable of making a good decision.
There are times when errors aren't acceptable. When you're dealing with innocent lives, statistical errors isn't a valid justification.
I'll add that we convict too many people in this country. While some push for "less regulation" on businesses, they are more than happy with "more regulation" on individual citizens lives.
As always, there is this consideration:
Every time someone is wrongly convicted, the real 'perp' remains free to, presumably commit further crimes, thereby driving up and compounding the statistical probability that society suffers more. I thought, NAMNORI, as one self-proclaimed as proficient in 'inferential statistics', you would appreciate that fact. What do you infer from this?
Anyone who still thinks that no innocent people have been put to death is just kidding himself. False convictions happen all the time and that is why the death penalty must go.
Why didn't MSNBC give the total number of convictions during that time. The total percentage of errors and/or false convictions is probably less than 0.00001%. The system strives for a fair trail, not a perfect one. People are convicted "beyond a reasonable doubt", not "beyond all doubt".
I think if you were sitting in the seat of the defendant, you would want a perfect one.
Easy for you to say since you have not spent 20 years in a prison for something you did not do, huh?
Of course it's tragic to be in prison when you're innocent. But the point is that there will never be a perfect system. As Ralph said, MSNBC and their "steller" writing, didn't provide us with any figures on total convictions in this period or an error rate figure. If the system produces a 1% error rate, that is still better than most countries where you'll be thrown in jail for the rest of your life and NEVER told why!!
Most conviction overturns now hinge on DNA. Approximately half of the wrongly convicted had previously been convicted of similar crimes which led to suspicion. Witnesses lie, police make errors, attorneys are incompetent...many factors may lead to a wrongful conviction. The percentage of cases (the writer of the story somehow failed to list the total number of convictions in 23 years) that are wrong is tiny. Less than 1 % by far. Not that that excuses it.
The real tragedy are the number of cases where no criminals are identified, arrested, tried and convicted. And here's a sobering fact: ALL of the victims of these crimes were denied Due Process by the criminals. 100%. Anyone who is all puffed up about the 2000 wrongful convictions yet ignores the massive number of victims and their rights is a moron. No, the 2000 should have been safe from prosecution. 2000 out of what? Millions? ALL the victims should have been safe. Is there a commission studying that?
Biggest problem: over the past few decades, the attorney profession has hyped-up the profession to absurd levels, creating this mistique wherein Americans are lead to believe lawyers are "super" "duper" "smart" intellectuals with upstanding morals and ethics, capable of leaping tall buildings with a single bound, and so on and so forth.
Fact is: lawyers are typically narcissistic creeps who simply wanted to impress mommy/daddy and friends/family that they made it through law school. Bright? not really. Upstanding? you have to be kidding me.
The legal profession has done this to themselves at the cost of Americans. We pay too much for their services. We suffer lousy lawyers. Lawyers knowingly set guilty people free and lock up the innocent. But for all of their unique language (legal speak) and rules (ever read a piece of legislation? - it's unnecessarily convoluted for sure), attorneys want you to believe they are a cut above.
I don't like attorneys, because of all the super-human hype. Hype up any profession/professional beyond what they really are and you create a punk, plain and simple. Then, you suffer those punks.
Yoweee! FINALLY someone bought it up! All this talk about the JUSTICE SYSTEM MACHINE. Lawyers run the machine.They assembled it,refine it,complicate it so much the average citizens don't have a clue.It's not about guilt or innocence,right or wrong,it's all about the best legal argument you can afford.A good lawyer is a master of misdirection and smoke and mirrors.If you get in trouble,pray you don't get stuck with young new honest court-appointed atty.You will be shark bait for that shyster in the $1000 suit,and the shyster in the black robe.Wanna fix the system? Start with the law profession.
America leads the world in putting its citizens in cages.
Unfortunately, you're correct. Americans comprises just 5% of the world's general population, and yet 20% of the world's prison population are American citizens.
Michael,
That stems from that "Puritanical Hell-fire and Brimstone" heritage that runs through America's veins. How else do you figure that America came up with it's idiotic drug laws and then pushed them down the throats of the rest of the world? Maybe the muslims cut off hands of thieves, but we can send thousands and thousands to prison and destroy their lives over some kind of self-righteous BS. Wasn't it Kahlil Gibran who wrote something about a nation with many laws will always have many criminals? Something to that.
He's not the only one falsely accused in NC. The most famous is Darryl Hunt who was convicted for the rape and murder of a Winston-Salem woman. The state had to pay him a million dollars because of it too. Maybe if more states had to dish out money for their sloppy work and wrong convictions, the police might do better work.