Iamah, you are obviously committed to the idea of Dwyer’s innocence, but if that’s the best you’ve got, it’s pretty unpersuasive.
The fact that it is possible to claim that a person had a motive to lie is hardly conclusive evidence that they did lie. In practically every trial, the defence claims the witnesses have a motive to lie. Doesn’t mean they are. Doesn’t mean they aren’t, either. But people are convicted all the time on the evidence of insiders who roll over for a plea bargain. You have to take that fact into account when assessing their evidence, but it’s hardly definitive.
Your argument about Torquato assumes he was telling the truth. If so, then the Smiths’ account of Ryan’s involvement is not a late invention made up to attract the prosecutors. Moreover, it is a pretty weak plan for the Smiths to peddle a scheme to take money that apparently needs Dwyer to be involved when he is not. It’s not impossible, but it makes the risks very high, and therefore that version of events unlikely.
As to physical evidence, you typically don’t see much beyond formal exhibits in cases like this unless there is an undercover operation, which I gather there wasn’t.
Your claims about the judge sound pretty conspiratorial. An acquittal would surely splash less mud on the governor (who i assume was a Republican, or else why would the judge be trying to protect him at the expense of the fellow Republican Dwyer?) I am unpersuaded by opinion pieces by some journalist.
I am not sure what you mean by “delivering” the contract. if you mean signing off on it, then I agree that fact alone means nothing by itself in the absence of evidence that he manipulated the process to get it. But your concession that this was a favour for powerful men does not sound like a process based on merit to me.
if you mean personally physically delivering the contract to the other party, when he was state Treasurer in charge of billions, then that is pretty incriminating, and your explanation sounds like special pleading. Importantly, how could the Smiths, who were apparently peddling a scheme that needed Dwyer’s involvement but did not have it (on the innocence hypothesis) have been so fortunate as to have Dwyer appear to behave as though he was involved? The fact that it is not illegal per se to deliver the contract is not to the point at all.
And your argument that the jury was not one made up of his peers because it had no political insiders is absurd.
It doesn’t advance your argument to say why Smith was after a payoff. There is little doubt that he was, and greed is a sufficient explanation. The question is not whether Smith was greedy, it is whether Dwyer was greedy too.
Juries always get a much more granular look at the evidence than just sweeping assertions and generalities, and would have heard practically all the arguments you make professionally advanced. They rejected them. And late recantings by witnesses aren’t accepted on face value-they require close examination.
All in all, he might be innocent. So might Manson. Or any other convict. But once a jury has convicted, you’ve got to do better than this to demonstrate factual innocence, for mine.