by hilzoy
And now for a change of pace:
I was sitting on the airplane reading the NYTimes, when I found a story whose first paragraph just took my breath away:
"A 50-year-old Dallas man whose conviction of raping a boy in 1982 cost him nearly half his life in prison and on parole won a court ruling Wednesday declaring him innocent. He said he was not angry, “because the Lord has given me so much.”"
I tried to imagine having that kind of magnanimity, and I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. It would be bad enough to have been imprisoned for over ten years and then on parole for thirteen more, when you hadn't committed any crime at all. But to be convicted not just of any old crime, but of raping a child -- to have even your friends and relations wondering whether you might actually be guilty, going over your life to see whether there were hidden indications of pedophilia, to have people not leaving you alone with their children, warning other people about you, and so on and so forth, and then not to be angry "because the Lord has given me so much": that's absolutely astounding.
I kept going back to the story again and again, because it was so amazing. Here's a picture of James Waller, the hero in question (second from left):
Sitting on either side of him are more heroes: Nina Morrison, Barry Scheck and Jeff Blackburn of the Innocence Project. It would be easy not to do anything about the fact that people you don't even know have been wrongly condemned to prison, and in some cases to death. The fact that some people don't just accept injustice, but try to undo it, made all the difference in the world to James Waller.
And since, as Martin Luther King said (pdf),
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."
it makes all the difference in the world to the rest of us as well.
***
UPDATE: Liberal Japonicus pointed out that I forgot to include a link to the Innocence Project, where you can find out about some of their other cases, and support them if you feel so inclined. Silly me, and thanks to LJ for noting it.
Great, hilzoy. And on the off chance you're back from FL: our loss, everyone else's gain.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 18, 2007 at 05:55 PM
Ummm...I mean, great post.
Good grief.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 18, 2007 at 06:02 PM
"second from left"
Waiting for a world in which that comment wouldn't be superfluous.
Posted by: rilkefan | January 18, 2007 at 06:06 PM
You might want to include a link to the Innocence Project
Posted by: liberal japonicus | January 18, 2007 at 06:08 PM
Outstanding. Thank you for calling this to our attention, a lot.
Posted by: Bruce Baugh | January 18, 2007 at 06:13 PM
If y'all haven't read John Grisham's The Innocent Man yet, do yourself a favor and get it on your list. He writes about another wrongful conviction case and works up a good head of righteous anger at the perpetrators that folks here will appreciate. Barry Scheck and The Innocence Project were involved with that case as well.
Posted by: Phil | January 18, 2007 at 06:17 PM
A question for the commentariat (and regular posters as well), if the death penalty were abolished nationwide, would all the effort (and associated costs)* that goes into trying to keep convicted murderers off death row or get them off once they're there either (i) dissapate or (ii) move to those sentenced to life in prison?**
I tend toward the former but wonder if people think it would be the latter.
*I do not oppose the innocence project (who could?)
**I apologize, but I need to leave after posing this question as I somehow agreed to go to the ballet tonight.
Posted by: Ugh | January 18, 2007 at 06:24 PM
Ugh- I wonder about that too. I think it would be some of each though.
Posted by: Frank | January 18, 2007 at 06:41 PM
My response differs from hilzoy's. I feel anger, not pleasure.
All praise for the Innocence Project, and Mr. Waller, and here's hoping many good things come his way in the future. But what happened here?
The case against Mr. Waller was largely based on the 12-year-old victim’s identification of him, court papers show.
Around 6 a.m. on Nov. 2, 1982, the boy, identified only as Jay S., was alone in his family’s dark apartment with his 7-year-old brother when he was sodomized by an intruder he described as a black man about 5-foot-8 and weighing 150 pounds, his lower face concealed by a red bandana.
By the boy’s account, he heard the voice of his attacker that night at a 7-Eleven near his home, and turned to see Mr. Waller, who was then 25 and lived with his family in the same apartment complex as the victim, the only black family there. Although there were discrepancies in the boy’s account — Mr. Waller is almost 6-foot-4 and was heavy — and although Mr. Waller presented witnesses saying he was home at the time, he was convicted in 46 minutes and sentenced to 30 years. He won parole in 1993 but had to register as a sex offender.
He had begun petitioning for retesting of the state’s rape evidence in 1989, and redoubled his efforts in 2001 after Texas passed a law granting post-conviction access to DNA testing. Results of hair testing appeared to rule out Mr. Waller as the attacker, but the Court of Criminal Appeals found it inconclusive.
So a 12-year-old boy, who couldn't see his attacker's face, but described him as 5'8" then identified Waller, who is 6'4" and heavy, as his attacker by his voice. The DA brings a case on that basis, and the jury takes 46 minutes - 46 minutes!! - to convict. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, not exactly celebrated for its fairmindedness, rejected the hair evidence which, if the story is to be believed, was strong.
Further, this is the 12th DNA exoneration in Dallas County.
Is there any way to interpret this other than as brainless Texas "tough-guy" policies mixed with more than a little racism? And of course there is no way to hold the people resonsible to account.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov | January 18, 2007 at 06:44 PM
would all the effort (and associated costs)* that goes into trying to keep convicted murderers off death row or get them off once they're there either (i) dissapate or (ii) move to those sentenced to life in prison?**
Get rid of the death penalty and I'll take my chances on the latter.
Posted by: Andrew | January 18, 2007 at 06:51 PM
"would all the effort (and associated costs)* that goes into trying to keep convicted murderers off death row or get them off once they're there either (i) dissapate or (ii) move to those sentenced to life in prison?"
The European experience is that it moved to a push against life in prison.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | January 18, 2007 at 06:55 PM
But I tend to feel angry at the prosecutor who convicted him, unless there was a horrible set of coincidences.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | January 18, 2007 at 06:56 PM
I agree w/Andrew.
Posted by: Phil | January 18, 2007 at 06:58 PM
I tend to think/hope it would go to wrongful conviction & indigent defense rather than life in prison. Don't know though.
Posted by: Katherine | January 18, 2007 at 07:12 PM
The European experience is that it moved to a push against life in prison.
When the death penalty was abolished in the UK, it was replaced by a judge's ability to sentence a prisoner to life that would mean life, rather than the usual "life sentence" of ten to twenty years followed by parole. Don't know about other European countries - haven't looked into them with the same depth as I'm sure Sebastian has to make such a sweeping comment about all of them.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | January 18, 2007 at 07:25 PM
I agree with Andrew too. And with Bernard and Sebastian: the conviction made me very angry, or would have done had I not been just amazed at Waller's having failed to have the reaction I was tempted by.
DNA testing is a wonderful thing. A wonderful, wonderful, wonderful thing.
On the other hand, there are a bunch of things I think we badly need to pay more money for in order to really do right. My personal poster program for this is: those foster child programs that seem to be forever "losing" children because they have way too few foster care workers to cover their cases adequately. When I think of some poor kid being abused or neglected for irretrievable years of his or her childhood, all because we aren't willing to pay the odd dime apiece in taxes to do this right, it makes me really, really angry.
Similarly, not giving adequate funding to crime labs makes me angry. We could really do this right, and come a lot closer to actually seeing, as best we can, that justice is done. Or we could underfund these labs. Altogether too many states are doing the latter.
And every time a piece of evidence that could be tested is destroyed, or a case thrown out, because of that, we needlessly run the risk both of imprisoning the innocent and of not imprisoning the guilty, in which case they may well victimize some other poor twelve year old kid. (Referring back to the Waller story.)
We ought to be willing to fund this adequately. Period.
Posted by: hilzoy | January 18, 2007 at 07:26 PM
I've had dealings with some of the Innocence Project folks. They do God's work.
Posted by: Steve | January 18, 2007 at 07:30 PM
We also need to look at comprehensive prosecutorial reform. The Duke rape case is the current poster child, but the damage done there is trivial when compared to the damage experienced by Mr. Waller and others who have lost decades of their lives to prosecutors who needed to get somebody.
I leave it to the lawyers in the studio audience to some specifics on how prosecutors could be made more accountable for this kind of thing. But I think it's pretty clear that we have some pretty big holes in our criminal justice system that are hurting a lot of people. And in this particular case, I happen to agree that when people are hurting, government has a responsibility to move.
Posted by: Andrew | January 18, 2007 at 07:30 PM
Is there some way to limit eye witness testimony? Perhaps require corraborative evidence?
About ten years ago a Washington man was convicted of rape based on the teenaged victim's testimony. He was a white middle class guy with no police record and he was able to afford a lawyer. He spent a few years in jail, but was released when the real rapist was caught. A year or so after his release, he died of a heart attack..He was only ini his thirties.
I wonder how the teenager who testified against him feels. I wonder if she is living with a burden of guilt. I really don't blame her but I do blame a system that encourages people to have more faith inn their memories than they should. There is lots of research thhat shows that people do not remember the faces of strangers accurately.
Posted by: lily | January 18, 2007 at 07:58 PM
Andrew, my general opinion is that anything which politicizes the courtroom is almost per se a Bad Thing. I don't support electing judges, and I'm not sure why electing DA's is a wise thing either. In both instances you are asking the electorate to pass judgment on matters which they cannot possibly hope to evaluate rationally. I have less problem with "retention elections," as if someone does something particularly egregious, there should be a mechanism to remove them (and relying solely on self-policing within the legal establishment is woefully naive.)
Of course, hiring DA's by appointment has it's own set of problems. Our new governor (Palin) named a rural-ish solo (primarily civil) practitioner virtually no one had ever heard of to be AG. I, for one, am skeptical of the ability of someone with this background to handle both the policy and administrative tasks required in overseeing statewide criminal prosecutions.
Posted by: Pooh | January 18, 2007 at 08:24 PM
Of course, hiring DA's by appointment has it's own set of problems
Um, Kansas? Phil Kline?
Posted by: gwangung | January 18, 2007 at 08:46 PM
"would all the effort (and associated costs)* that goes into trying to keep convicted murderers off death row or get them off once they're there either (i) dissapate or (ii) move to those sentenced to life in prison?"
The European experience is that it moved to a push against life in prison.
I . . . get the impression that you misinterpreted the question here. The question was not whether people would oppose life prison sentences, but whether the energy currently devoted to getting innocent people off of death row would carry over to getting innocent people out of life sentences, or whether it would evaporate once the wrongly convicted were not in danger of state execution.* Or am I misinterpreting your answer?
*Leaving aside, of course, the possibility of beatings at the hands of inmates or guards, prison rape, depression, mental instability and all the other attendant dangers of being part of the prison population.
Posted by: Phil | January 18, 2007 at 09:12 PM
As a resident of Texas (and Dallas), I'm not surprised. It makes me mad as hell, though.
Between elected judges, old-boy network corruption, quaint notions of justice, extremely poor state mental health resources, and underlying racism, the Texas criminal system is pretty jacked up. Every so often there is a story in the local weekly about reversals like this one or post-execution revelations.
Posted by: heet | January 18, 2007 at 09:16 PM
Also, one thing we need to do is to ensure that public defender offices are as well-funded and -staffed as AG and state prosecutor offices are. That alone would probably eliminate a nontrivial percentage of wrongful convictions.
Posted by: Phil | January 18, 2007 at 09:16 PM
Old-boy network? When I lived in that area, the Tarrant County sheriff was found, asleep behind the wheel of his car, in a ditch. Dead drunk.
He wasn't charged. By the time the public heard about it, he was sober. Probably a temporary event.
Posted by: Slartibartfast | January 18, 2007 at 09:21 PM
How comparable are the US and European prosecutorial systems?
When I was in college, my professors said that the two systems were very different. Europe followed an "inquisitorial" model, where the emphasis was on finding out what had happened, whereas the US system is "adversarial," where the emphasis is on letting the prosecution and the defense duke it out over which evidence and testimony are to be presented to the jury.
If that's true (or still true), then the rules of evidence would be rather different in the two systems, and the rules of what can appealed and why would also be different. Such differences would cascade through the entire process - e.g., when, whether, and how a verdict or sentence can be challenged; how much effect (if any) citizens or advocacy groups unrelated to the case can have. So how Europe has reacted to the end of the death penalty might not translate to how the US would react if the death penalty was no longer an option.
Also, there's a difference between opposing the death penalty per se, and opposing wrongful conviction, regardless of whether there's also a death sentence involved. People who oppose the death penalty per se usually don't have a problem with life sentences, provided that the person is actually guilty of the crime. I hope that, even if we end capital punishment in the US, there would still be advocates for people wrongfully convicted.
Posted by: CaseyL | January 18, 2007 at 09:29 PM
Pooh,
Yes, Palin appointed someone with little experience. And the head DA in Anchorage has already been replaced. Besides, the AG does a lot more than just prosecute. I'm not sure it's such a bad choice. If you keep picking people who have worked in Government offices, you're going to keep having people who see now problem with government and prosecutorial over-reaching. And while someone with a lot of criminal defense experience would be nice...that just ain't gonna happen. But, yes, it would be nice if DA's had retention elections as well as judges.
Posted by: hattio | January 18, 2007 at 09:29 PM
And the head DA in Anchorage has already been replaced.
Well he was going to retire anyway.
If you keep picking people who have worked in Government offices, you're going to keep having people who see now problem with government and prosecutorial over-reaching. And while someone with a lot of criminal defense experience would be nice
These are good points. I'm just more worried about the "solo practitioner from the boonies" part.
Posted by: Pooh | January 18, 2007 at 09:53 PM
All praise to the Innocence Project.
But Mr Waller should not be angry or bitter about the injustice done to him? If he had been angry or bitter would hilzoy have strongly disapproved, and think less of him? I don't disapprove of Mr Waller's magnanimity and generosity, but it doesn't make him a hero.
And many innocent people just released from jail say things that may not reflect their long term reaction.
I like people, and don't demand they be saints.
There is some old joke about a guy who loses his legs, and says "At least I got my arms" Loses his arms:"Got my eyes, so much luckier than blind folk" Etc.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | January 18, 2007 at 10:04 PM
bob: no, of course I wouldn't have disapproved had he been angry. There's a long, long way between "I might not have been so stunned by his reaction that, having been moved nearly to tears in the airplane, I had to write about it" and "I disapprove".
Posted by: hilzoy | January 18, 2007 at 10:07 PM
the dallas county prosecutor's office in the early '80's is about as vile as you get. i don't know whether you remember thomas jo miller-el, but his batson claim was the subject of several supreme court cases within the last several years.
if you read the facts carefully, you'll see that the dallas county prosecutor's office, until 1986 i believe, actually instructed, via THE INSTRUCTION MANUAL, its line attorneys to strike black venirepersons in capital cases.
Posted by: kovarsky | January 18, 2007 at 10:19 PM
And I have lived here for thirty years, and don't understand Texas. Maybe because I am white and urban and middle-class and have stayed out of trouble, but on a daily basis it doesn't feel like a horrible place.
There are so many immigrants from the North and across the border that you would think it would approach California. But in some ways it is the opposite.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | January 18, 2007 at 10:20 PM
Waller's ability not to be angry (at least, not at the moment he offered that quote to the press) speaks volumes, to me, about how valuable religion can be. Imagine how much it would suck to be him. He has every right to be angry, but his ability to instead be thankful to God keeps him a lot happier than he'd otherwise have been.
Astounding and magnanimous, like hilzoy said. Also, just plain better in terms of survival and sanity.
Posted by: Tom | January 18, 2007 at 10:29 PM
I don't think it is a horrible place, either. There are aspects about Texas that make me a bit embarrassed. The influx of Northerners and immigrants has certainly made the place more heterogeneous. A good thing if you ask me.
Posted by: heet | January 18, 2007 at 10:43 PM
I don't think it is a horrible place, either.
Sure it is. Any place where you can expect it to be 90 degrees in October is, by definition, a horrible, horrible place to which only the most vile (and air-tightly convicted) human beings should be sentenced.
Posted by: J. Michael Neal | January 18, 2007 at 11:58 PM
Try 19 consecutive days of 100+ degree weather last year. That is sure to make anyone mad enough to sign a coerced confession.
Posted by: heet | January 19, 2007 at 12:25 AM
My mother, Texas-born and -raised (until they moved to Hollywood in her teens) used to quote the following dialogue:
A: Texas isn't that bad. All it needs is more water and a better class of people.
B: That's all Hell needs, too.
Posted by: dr ngo | January 19, 2007 at 12:37 AM
meh. as a new yorker now living in southern california, i have personal experience to support the standard NY phrase used when the subway becomes unbearable: It's not the heat; it's the humidity.
Posted by: Francis | January 19, 2007 at 01:13 AM
ive lived in houston most of my life. i will go on record saying that dallas has more bmw's per capita in low income brackets than any place i've ever seen. it's so much worse than in the movies.
Posted by: kovarsky | January 19, 2007 at 03:10 AM
Jes: When the death penalty was abolished in the UK, it was replaced by a judge's ability to sentence a prisoner to life that would mean life, rather than the usual "life sentence" of ten to twenty years followed by parole.
A common mistake, especially among the horrible right wing and their horrible newspapers. All life sentences are and always have been for life. The whole of your life. Parole is not automatic at any time; all the judge can do is give a recommendation for the minimum term before a parole hearing. If the prisoner fails the parole hearing, he stays in until his next one.
Posted by: ajay | January 19, 2007 at 06:11 AM
I've read every post, but I still don't think living in Texas is horrible or that the Innocence Project is doing God's work: "Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent –- the Lord detests them both." Proverbs 17:15. I do not know all of the facts about this specific case, but if the Innocence Project has ever freed a guilty criminal, that's NOT God's work.
Posted by: C.h.a.r.l.e | January 19, 2007 at 08:08 AM
Jesurgislac: The UK and US have a legal system based upon common law, continental Europe's system is based upon civil law. I found this comparison quite informative.
There are comparisons of criminal acts and convictions in various countries, but they mainly show that comparing is difficult.
In the Netherlands we have convictions for life, but they are very rare. We currently have 32, of whom 18 no longer can appeal.
What happends more often is that people are convicted *and* have 'TBS'. TBS is in Brittain 'at her Majesties pleasure' I think, and means that someone is considered to be mentally so unstable that he cannot go back to society till (s)he is cured. Some of the people with TBS have life, in effect (about 200 people in the Netherlands are in so called 'long stay' institutions). The difference is that TBS is aimed at getting people back in to society if possible, whilst life means that you are not supposed to get back ever. We only had two pardons for people with life so far (there is no parole system).
Kids can not be sentenced to life. The US system, where minors can be sentenced to life without parole feels savage to me.
Posted by: dutchmarbel | January 19, 2007 at 08:12 AM
Ajay: A common mistake, especially among the horrible right wing and their horrible newspapers
Well, but practically speaking: most criminals sentenced "to life" will very likely get out of prison before they die. Exceptions are notable enough to be, well, notable - Myra Hindley, for example. And we should ignore what the horrible right-wing and their horrible newspapers say about this, because they're fundamentally and basically wrong, on all levels.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | January 19, 2007 at 08:14 AM
Britain of course, not Brittain. I make the mistake quite often and I hate that...
Posted by: dutchmarbel | January 19, 2007 at 08:15 AM
Britain of course, not Brittain. I make the mistake quite often and I hate that...
It's just an extra t. Britain is famous for extra t. ;-)
Posted by: Jesurgislac | January 19, 2007 at 08:16 AM
Note that I mentioned the Lord detests condemning the innocent as well –- I don't want that happening either -- but are any of you going to claim that every person freed by the Innocence Project never, ever, committed any crime worthy of their original sentence?
Posted by: C.h.a.r.l.e | January 19, 2007 at 08:19 AM
Ugh:
I do not oppose the innocence project (who could?)
How was the ballet last night?
Posted by: C.h.a.r.l.e | January 19, 2007 at 08:26 AM
Jes: but think of the fun of imagining that all the things that are said of 'Britain' with an extra T are said because the person saying them thinks they're true of Vera Brittain. It's always what I think of first, and it's a source of great amusement.
Posted by: hilzoy | January 19, 2007 at 08:37 AM
"If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent Texas and live in Hell" - U.S. General Philip Henry Sheridan in 1866
When I visit Texas (where I was born and grew up) in July, I can definitely see Gen'l Sheridan's point of view.
It's not a horrible place, but there's a weird streak in the populace, to do with a desire for "justice" that sometimes supersedes actual justice. The overuse of the death penalty is the most visible manifestation of this.
Having posted this provocative statement I must now vanish and go to work.
Posted by: javelina | January 19, 2007 at 08:59 AM
Thanks for the responses everyone. I tend to think that a lot of the energy would dissapate as the "death is different" standard would not be likely to migrate to "life in prison is diffent" along with accompanying rather stringent due process standards.
I think I agree with katherine, that what did dissapate would migrate to wrongful conviction and/or indigent defense, but that the intensity wouldn't be nearly the same.
Posted by: Ugh | January 19, 2007 at 09:26 AM
Barry Scheck is popularly known for being a member of OJ's defense team. it's good to see he doesn't always represent scumbags.
i vote for Ugh's 'latter', but at a somewhat reduced intensity; the 'death' part of 'death row' makes things more urgent.
Posted by: cleek | January 19, 2007 at 09:31 AM
i vote for Ugh's 'latter', but at a somewhat reduced intensity
that is, the activism would have reduced intensity, not my vote. my vote remains at full, rigid, intensity.
Posted by: cleek | January 19, 2007 at 09:34 AM
This is, I think, very important. The adversarial system works fine (for low values of 'fine') in civil suits. In criminal prosecutions, though, the cases that go bad seem often to be the result of prosecutors who think of their job as convicting defendants rather than jailing criminals. A conviction on the basis of weak evidence is a triumph of prosecutorial skill, rather than a nagging worry that the wrong person may be in jail.
I don't see any way to avoid this attitude in the adversarial system we have. (Although I have daydreamed about an addition to the ethical code for prosecutors, stating that a prosecutor shall not participate in the prosecution of any defendant who the prosecutor is not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, based on the totality of the prosecutor's knowledge about the case, is guilty of the crime charged.) And we obviously aren't going to totally revamp our criminal justice system any time soon. So I've got no ideas, but it worries me.
Posted by: LizardBreath | January 19, 2007 at 09:57 AM
Should have previewed. That last should have been led off by this quote:
When I was in college, my professors said that the two systems were very different. Europe followed an "inquisitorial" model, where the emphasis was on finding out what had happened, whereas the US system is "adversarial," where the emphasis is on letting the prosecution and the defense duke it out over which evidence and testimony are to be presented to the jury.
But I typoed the tags so it disappeared.
Posted by: LizardBreath | January 19, 2007 at 09:58 AM
I have daydreamed about an addition to the ethical code for prosecutors, stating that a prosecutor shall not participate in the prosecution of any defendant who the prosecutor is not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt, based on the totality of the prosecutor's knowledge about the case, is guilty of the crime charged.
I thought prosecutors did have ethical obligations, sometimes unfortunately ignored, along this line. Not so?
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov | January 19, 2007 at 10:07 AM
Along that line in terms of not knowingly presenting false evidence, giving exculpatory evidence to the defense, and so forth, but nothing as strong as what I said. You see it in cases where the same prosecutor brings cases against two defendants in separate proceedings under incompatible theories of the same events (say, an armed robbery in which both were involved, but there's a sentence enhancement depending on who planned and was the driving force behind the crime).
Posted by: LizardBreath | January 19, 2007 at 10:11 AM
(I may be mistaken here -- I'm not a criminal lawyer, and I'm working off memories of law school.)
Posted by: LizardBreath | January 19, 2007 at 10:13 AM
"I . . . get the impression that you misinterpreted the question here. The question was not whether people would oppose life prison sentences, but whether the energy currently devoted to getting innocent people off of death row would carry over to getting innocent people out of life sentences, or whether it would evaporate once the wrongly convicted were not in danger of state execution."
No, I think that a strong attempt would be made to attack life imprisonment as "cruel and unusual". I've already seen the allegation pursued in California (I can't think of the case right this second). This may too be a function of the adversarial model--the high profile death penalty bar wouldn't just vanish, and their expertise is NOT particularly in an innocence project style.
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | January 19, 2007 at 11:13 AM
I have no idea what would happen if the death penalty were outlawed, but I would have thought that the next step would be not to attack life sentences, but to attack things like supermax facilities.
Posted by: hilzoy | January 19, 2007 at 11:34 AM
Jes: most criminals sentenced "to life" will very likely get out of prison before they die.
Except in states, like Virginia, where there is no parole. Does anyone here know if there are other such states?
Our horrible system was initiated by George Allen; it led, among other poisonous consequences, to a prison-building boom that endeared cement and construction companies to Allen ever since (they've been his biggest, most consistent donors).
Posted by: Nell | January 19, 2007 at 11:41 AM
most criminals sentenced "to life" will very likely get out of prison before they die.
a sentence of "25 to life" in California means you do a bare minimum of 25 years before eligible for parole.
a LWOPP - life without possibility of parole -- means you die in prison unless the Bureau of Prisons grants a compassionate release so you can die in hospice or unless you're granted clemency. LWOPP is still relatively new in CA, so the end-of-life issues are still being grappled with. To be blunt, the state wants to minimize its costs of care, and is trying to figure out best how to deal with sick old dying broke men.
Posted by: Francis | January 19, 2007 at 12:17 PM
I know I'm going to sound like a monomaniac on this issue, but here goes : every time a defendant receives clemency from a governor (permanent clemency which just doesn't happen very often, most of the time clemency is awarded for a specific period and then once that's up the execution is rescheduled), and that person has been convicted on the basis of circumstancial evidence, that means that a possibly innocent person receives an automatic sentence of life without parole. (Lots of states, except Texas, are moving more and more toward life without parole sentences to replace the death penalty.) And once the detainee is no longer in danger, he is consigned to live out the rest of his life within four grey walls, innocent or not. Who can take up his case since many of us have to spend our time trying to get rid of the death penalty ?
Some governors have decided that life in prison without parole is such harsh punishment that it would be kinder to execute the "poor bastards". And more and more inmates are volunteering for executions, rather than spend the rest of their lives in prison.
To me, this says something terrible about our prison system, which has totally sacrificed any ideal of rehabilitation for rank punishment motivated essentially by vengeance.
I will dare to be one of the few people who feel that innocence and guilt are not the primary factors involved in my opposing the death penalty, AND life in prison without parole.
For further info, check out the site deathpenaltyinfo.org. It will give you the info that I can't due to lack of computer experience.
Posted by: Debra Mervant | January 19, 2007 at 12:18 PM
No, I think that a strong attempt would be made to attack life imprisonment as "cruel and unusual". I've already seen the allegation pursued in California (I can't think of the case right this second).
While this might happen, I doubt it would hvae the intensity of the death penalty bar, or receive as much attention from the judiciary (meaning they wouldn't be as likely to find flaws in the trial process). As someone said up thread, the urgency just isn't there. If you're client is sentenced to death and you don't pull out all the stops, he'll be dead -- life in prison, OTOH, he just remains the way he is now, in prison.
Posted by: Ugh | January 19, 2007 at 01:30 PM
I can only speak for Germany on that.
There is more or less a consent that "for life" should be the maximum and that it is justified in certain cases.
Some legal alternatives [i.e. on the books] to a "simple" for life are:
Life without parole in case of "exceptional guilt"
Limited prison time but transfer into "security containment" after finishing that
in cases where the person is considered likely to commit a similar severe crime again (most common: serial rapists that do not kill their victims).
The only significant "anti-for-life" movement I know of over here concentrates on alleged political prisoners (= terrorists convicted for murder and unrepentant about it).
I would agree that justice over here is more of a fact-finding mission than about winning anything. Defendants can also trust in their appointed lawyers to actually do their job (and getting in trouble if they don't).
The prison system also looks less rotten than in parts of the US (there is actually a political debate about that at the moment).
Posted by: Hartmut | January 19, 2007 at 02:11 PM
Nell, Francis: my comment about prisoners sentenced to life nearly always getting out before they die was in reference to the UK system: I lack the knowledge to comment on any other.
Posted by: Jesurgislac | January 19, 2007 at 04:04 PM
c.h.a.r.l. says but are any of you going to claim that every person freed by the Innocence Project never, ever, committed any crime worthy of their original sentence? At the risk of troll-feeding, I'll address this.
Why should we have to "claim" anything? You're the only one who thinks the Innocence Project did help the guilty go free, and you have offered no proof of it. In fact, I'm not even sure you yourself think it, because in your previous post, you said merely that "if" they have done this, then they're not doing G-d's work. Well, so what? "If" Mother Theresa had a secret life as an axe murderer, and "if" St. James raped two virgins a day and it never made it into the Gospels, they were bad people, but I don't really have to argue for their good names on the basis that I can't prove they never did these things. You can make up anything in order to smear the good name of any person, no matter how good they are. But unless you're just talking to admire the way the wind flaps past your mouth, you might want to present some reason to think the bad thing actually, y'know, happened.
And btw, where is it written that good people, or people who do G-d's work, never do anything wrong? I must have missed it. Perhaps it's somewhere towards the end of the Bible, after the parts about Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery, David betraying Uriah, and Peter denying Christ three times before cockcrow.
Posted by: trilobite | January 19, 2007 at 05:04 PM
To address the original post:
I have hero-worshipped Barry Schenck for a looong time now, ever since I read his book about the Innocence Project. The most disturbing thing about that book, however, is still a problem. When DNA testing came in, it revealed with absolute certainty that a large percentage (I think Schenck said it was in the neighborhood of 15%, but I don't remember for sure and he may have been high-balling) of convictions for crimes for which DNA evidence was available were erroneous. I.e., in 15%(?) of those cases, provably, the system had convicted and imprisoned the wrong person.
THERE IS NO REASON TO THINK THE ERROR RATE IS LOWER IN CASES FOR WHICH DNA TESTING IS NOT AVAILABLE.
And yet, there has been no wave of revulsion, no revamping of criminal prosecution and court procedure, no reassessment of the reliability of eyewitness testimony, no shortening of sentences (quite the reverse). We have continued to act as though the system works, although we know it often does not and that the results of error are just about the worst thing that could possibly happen.
Posted by: trilobite | January 19, 2007 at 05:15 PM
trilobite - maybe people think "beyond a reasonable doubt" = with 85% certainty?
Posted by: Ugh | January 19, 2007 at 05:37 PM
I think it is because many might believe, deep down, that people who are wrongly convicted of one bad thing are, even if they are innocent in one case, are probably guilty of another, which I think relates to the notion of law enforcement as social control. We are presented with a notion that there are lots of evil people out there, as well as the fact that the police have their hands tied, so you naturally get that kind of reasoning.
I also think that is why you get these refusals to reverse decisions because it is argued that reversing such decisions would cause irreparable harm to the image of the court. This is what happens in Japan, and a refusal to accept an appeal is pretty common.
Posted by: liberal japonicus | January 19, 2007 at 08:13 PM
First let me say that I have no expertise in this area. All my info is hearsay, the result of having a friend who was for several years a prosecutor in Arizona. His estimate, for the cases in which he was personally involved, was that 25% of the defendants convicted were actually innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. His theory was that most of the defendants were so unsavory that jurors wanted badly to convict them of something. He believed that juries would convict on the theory that even if the defendant didn't commit this particular crime, they were surely guilty of others. One of the incidents he relayed to me, which helped convince him to change sides, occurred when he accompanied his boss into plea bargain negotiations with the attorney representing the defendant in a case he was handling. At some point the defendant's attorney offered the bargaining point that his client wanted to go to trial because he was innocent. To which the DA replied, "Of course he's innocent. Do you think I'd offer this kind of sweetheart deal if I actually thought he was guilty?"
The sad fact is that the pressure to win, with promotions within the prosecutors’ office based on conviction rates, seems to over ride the pursuit of justice.
Posted by: Baskaborr | January 19, 2007 at 09:36 PM
One could ask: What has the purpose of "justice" become?
Is it a tool wielded by those who want to draw advantages from it? Is it oil poured on the waves of society to limit the turmoil that would develop without it? Or does it serve a "higher purpose", an (abstract) idea (fiat justitia et pereat mundus, There be justice even if the world perishes as a result)?
For current Germany I'd say it is mainly the second with a pinch of the third. In the US I get the impression that it is an explosive mixture of the first and the third.
Posted by: Hartmut | January 20, 2007 at 05:46 AM
Jesurgislac: I appreciate that your comments apply to the UK system. Things are different in California (and presumably elsewhere in the states, though California is the only one I've looked at in detail). I wrote about this topic over on Usenet here, here, here (which includes a bunch of statistics from '93-'94), and here, to refute some bad statistics that claimed that convicted murderers only served a few years. Instead, the vast majority of those convicted of murder simply stay in prison indefinitely.
As I said in that third article (from 1997), "it looks like it's only slightly easier to get paroled than it is to get executed for murder in California at present, especially if you restrict attention to those convicted of 1st degree murder." That was even more true under Grey Davis as governor, who allowed only two convicted murderers to be paroled during his entire term of office (both were battered women who had been involved in the death of their abuser). Arnold has been a little more relaxed about this - I think he's allowed over a dozen paroles during his tenure so far, though I haven't looked too closely at the actual numbers for his administration.
Whether this pattern continues or not depends on future political trends that are hard to predict at the moment. Francis is right that the cost of keeping a bunch of sick old men in prison for their entire lives is high enough that perhaps future politicians will want to loosen up further on some form of compassionate release. For now, though, the typical convicted murderer simply stays in prison.
Posted by: DaveW | January 20, 2007 at 06:08 AM
And of course there is no way to hold the people responsible [for the miscarriage of justice] to account.
And as long as that is true these cases will continue to happen. Baskaborr's story is horrifying, but has the ring of truth.
Police and prosecutorial misconduct is a crime, and you're not tough on crime unless you're tough on official crime too.
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My login is Kisakookoo!
Posted by: Kisakookoo | January 25, 2007 at 09:00 PM