Here’s his most fully-formed statement on this subject. Taken from a full thread started to clarify his original statement where no less than two prosecutors and about three other defense attorneys weighed in saying that having spent time as a PD and never having had an innocent client was entirely plausible.
Depending on how long he was a PD, the police in his area, and the DA, I have no doubt this could very well be true. What do you suppose the percentage of false arrests are? Subtract the number which are never prosecuted. Subtract the number which have the personal resources to afford their own attorney(as opposed to having a PD appointed).
The Innocence Project has identified 289 cases of wrongful convictions in cases dating back about thirty years. The ratio of convictions versus exonerations is enormous and it’s why exonerations make the news. While any miscarriage of justice is a terrible thing, it’s not hard for me to believe they’re rare enough that a particular PD might not have been exposed to one in his time as a PD, especially if it was short.
One of my best friends is a part-time PD(country lawyer, does a bit of everything) and I just sent him this same question. He said “Maybe 1-2% actually innocent, but maybe 15-20% are not as guilty as the DA tries to say.” A full-time PD may have 500 cases a year, which would be 5-10 with my friend’s estimate. Any department big enough to have that kind of caseload would have more than one PD though, so it’s possible someone else got the innocent ones in the batches for the time Bricker was a PD.
Enjoy,
Steven