I am curious to know about cases in which a prosecutor knowingly prosecuted the wrong person for a crime. I mean cases where the prosecutor quite self-consciously would think to himself “This is not the person who committed the crime, but I am going to prosecute him anyway.”
Anyone know of any such cases?
-FrL-
Mike Nifong from the Duke Lacrosse Case.
I was thinking bout this the other day.
What if the person is convicted and later(after many years in jail,perhaps) found to be innocent?
Is the prosecutor criminally liable?
Is it clear that Nifong believed the accused men to be innocent?
-FrL-
I believe evidence was brought to him about the “victim” changing her story, and he dismissed it.
There was physical evidence of one of the lacrosse players hitting an ATM and a burger joint at the time of the “attack,” and he refused to look it over.
Yeah, I’d say Nifong knew.
Given that he deliberately withheld exculpatory DNA evidence from the defense I’d say he at least had his doubts.
Four people were tried in 1975 for the IRA bombing of a pub in Guildford, England. The “Guildford Four” (Paul Hill, Gerry Conlon, Patrick ‘Paddy’ Armstrong and Carole Richardson) were found guilty of murder and given life sentences, despite a total lack of evidence. Even though the Home Office issued a memorandum in 1987 which admitted that the Guildford Four were probably not guilty of the crime for which they had been convicted, they remained imprisoned for two more years. In 1989 a detective uncovered documents that strongly suggested deliberate misconduct on the part of the investigating team. A review of the case declared that the evidence by which the Guildford Four had been convicted was, in fact, unreliable, and all four were released. Despite these developments and a subsequent investigation – the results of which criticized the trial judge for improper handling of evidence – no one was ever punished for the whole mess. Nor were the real bombers caught.
This case was the basis for the 1993 film In the Name of the Father.
IMO Prosecutors, prosecute. If they think they can get a conviction, they will prosecute. it would be nice to believe they want to prosecute the guilty, but that isn’t the case. If a good case can be made they will prosecute. Conversely, if they are convident of guilt, but know it is a tough case to make, they will not prosecute. Their career depends on a conviction rate, not on being right.
I don’t know that every state has a similar provision, but if they don’t, they should. This is why I’m proud to be a prosecutor, and why I feel that I “wear the white hat.”
I just want to point out that any prosecutor who persists in going after someone knowing that that person absolutely could not have committed the crime is utterly failing at being what a prosecutor should be. Nifong did a lot of very stupid things, apparently believing that he had to push forward with this high-profile case, truth be damned. I’m glad he went down for it.
The Dreyfuss Case.
Not so much the first trial (the prosecutors believed Dreyfuss was guilty*, though they used some flimsy evidence to back their case), but the second trial was seen as an attack on the army and thus, despite knowing that Dreyfuss wasn’t a spy and who the real spy was, they continued to prosecute to avoid scandal. Giving up the prosecution would have looked bad for the army, which was an important force in French society at the time (they were itching for another war with Germany).
*He was prosecuted because of a misreading of the evidence, on the level of saying a criminal is from San Francisco since he says he’s from “Frisco.” But mostly, Dreyfuss was prosecuted because he was an asshole.
Wow, snuck under while I was editing. What timing.
I don’t prosecute for fun, nor do I know any prosecutors who do. I have dismissed and will dismiss winnable cases if it’s in the interest of justice that I do so. I don’t believe in sticking it to people just because I can, and anyone who does that should get out of the business. In general, I like to give people one shot. Show me that you can do better. If you fail, that’s it, no second shot. I feel that’s fair.
Career depends on conviction rate? Since when? We don’t get bonuses for convictions, and we don’t get pay cuts for losing. Being a prosecutor is a government job; it’s not glamorous, and you won’t get rich doing it. Television has skewed the public perspective of what being a prosecutor is like.
The truth is, most cases that go to trial aren’t winnable by the state. Our burden of proof (“beyond a reasonable doubt”, remember) is just too high. And the cases that go to trial are the iffy cases; if the guy’s clearly guilty, he’ll take a plea bargain offer and take a lighter sentence than a jury would give him. Now, there are some individuals, like a DA in a nearby county who only takes cases that he’s sure he’ll win and gives the iffy cases to his assistants, who try to keep a high conviction rate out of vanity, but the truth all prosecutors know is that most trial cases are losers for the state. And I for one (and pretty well every other prosecutor I know) feel that you can’t only try the cases you know you’re going to win, because you owe it to victims and to the public to give it your best shot when you know the sonovabitch is guilty.
But, if it makes you feel better, be like a defense attorney and call us all “persecutors.” They love that, at their criminal defense lawyer seminars. Always gets a laugh.
Wasn’t there a case a few years ago, I don’t remember the details, but the basic outline was that there were two suspects; one of them had to be guilty and the other had to be innocent, but the prosecutor didn’t know which was which. So he prosecuted both of them in separate trials. So in that case he knew he was prosecuting an innocent man, he just didn’t know in which trial he was doing it.
About all I can recall is that the case involved the murder of a boy’s father, and the suspects were the boy himself and some other guy. Also part of the controversy was that the defense weren’t permitted to tell the juries about the fact that there were two trials of two mutually exclusive suspects going on.
The recently overturned Tim Masters conviction in Colorado is a possible fit. The prosecution witheld significant exculpatory evidence during the trial from the defense. I can’t say for certain that they knew Masters was innocent, but they had to know that the evidence they had, if turned over, would have meant they would have lost the case.
Masters was a skinny 15 year old kid when a woman’s dead and mutilated body was found 100 feet from his house. Police had little evidence to go on, but pursued Masters for 10 years before finally charging him and getting a conviction. Masters was released after nearly 10 years in prison a few weeks ago after DNA evidence ruled him out as a possible killer.
The two prosecutors were investigated for misconduct and conflict of interest but to no ones surprise were exonerated. They are both judges now.
Fascinating story.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/special-reports/tim-masters/
That’s not clear. If a prosecutor withholds exculpatory evidence, my first thought is he thinks it’s only apparently exculpatory, and is afraid it would confuse the jury into finding a guilty man innocent.
-FrL-
Well, this is so common in rape cases that prosecutors frequently do dismiss it, and justifiably so.
But some of the other stuff he did is more questionable.
What would have happened if both veridcts were guilty?
There was a Law & Order episode exactly like that, but I don’t know if it was RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES!!!11 or not.
In that episode, each suspect claimed the other one had the gun, so they tried them separately for first degree murder. Since the non-gunholder would be an accomplice anyway, they didn’t lose any sleep over trying them both.
This being GQ and not IMHO I have to say cite?
This is going to bug me now. I think it was about 5 years ago, in the eastern US, maybe Virginia or Georgia.
That would be the only way I could see it happening. But as always I reserve the right to be wrong.