Prosecutorial Malfeasance
We all know about the travesty of justice taking place in Durham due to the willful misconduct of a cowardly prosecutor wishing to placate a bloodthirsty mob. But yesterday we learned about a terrible miscarriage of justice involving a (at best) negligent prosecutor and shoddy evidentiary standards.
After serving 15 years for a murder he did not commit, Roy Brown was released from a NY State prison after a DNA test exonerated him. He was a bit unlucky in that the murder victim was a social worker and he had earlier served some prison time for threatening another social worker over a custody dispute involving his daughter, so there was some putative motive.
But in prison, Brown continued to investigate his own case and found evidence of a local volunteer firefighter, who was the brother of the victim's former lover. When Mr. Brown confronted the killer in a letter, the apparently guilt-stricken murderer threw himself in front of a train, so his body had to be exhumed to test his DNA. Along the way an investigator declined to pursue the firefighter because he knew him and thought him incapable of the crime. What convicted Mr. Brown were bite marks found on the victim. A local dentist was recruited to do the matching when a more competent forensic odontologist did not find a match.
So Mr. Brown seemed to fall victim to 4 basic breakdowns in judicial process:
Put them all together, you ruin lives.
After serving 15 years for a murder he did not commit, Roy Brown was released from a NY State prison after a DNA test exonerated him. He was a bit unlucky in that the murder victim was a social worker and he had earlier served some prison time for threatening another social worker over a custody dispute involving his daughter, so there was some putative motive.
But in prison, Brown continued to investigate his own case and found evidence of a local volunteer firefighter, who was the brother of the victim's former lover. When Mr. Brown confronted the killer in a letter, the apparently guilt-stricken murderer threw himself in front of a train, so his body had to be exhumed to test his DNA. Along the way an investigator declined to pursue the firefighter because he knew him and thought him incapable of the crime. What convicted Mr. Brown were bite marks found on the victim. A local dentist was recruited to do the matching when a more competent forensic odontologist did not find a match.
So Mr. Brown seemed to fall victim to 4 basic breakdowns in judicial process:
- Poor detective work (failing to follow leads)
- Prosecutorial misconduct (disregarding exculpatory findings)
- Incompetent defense (failing to investigate on behalf of the defendant)
- Shoddy evidentiary standards (allowing expert testimony from non-experts)
Put them all together, you ruin lives.
posted by ziel | 1/25/2007 08:48:00 AM
4 Comments:
Yup.
When we allow for even a POSSIBILITY of power being corrupted or wielded in an unfair way..............................................why are we suprised when it happens.
Its human nature. It will happen. In my life, I never expected to see the lying that has become commonplace in society. The legalism, the deception, the planned misleading that one encounters everywhere and from unusual sources.
One reads about teachers (a particular blog I read a while back called Black Misogynist) that brow beat feminism into fourth graders. One sees presidents routinely lie about issues they insist on having their way on (like Bush insisting a wall is "militarizing" the border, and allowing in an extra 40 million Meixcans legally in the next 20 years and a de facto legalizing of the illegals here now is "reform". Like Clinton insisting "I did not have sex with that woman" even though he admitted to taking a blow job and shoving a cigar in her pussy and then smoking it. Like these "rapture reverends" regurgitating every lie Bibi Netanyahu tells them about Iran (ever heard of EMT---its bullshit, but the Revs are out there telling the flock that Iran can make all electronics not work here anymore if they fire it off from a satellite, thus putting us back in the nineteenth century for "hundreds of years"). All bullshit of course. These are PREACHERS lying.
The newsmedia----do you remember an article in the New York Times quoting a lawyer who represented Crystal Gayle Magnum on a "joyriding case". Oh, you mean when she stole a car, and tried to run cop over with it (attempted murder). Is that "joyriding". Since they interviewed the lawyer, he no doubt told them about her case with him. They knew it was grand theft auto with an attempted murder on top of it, but chose to claim it was a "joyriding" case. Thats a goddammmed-phuckin' lie.
When the media ignores student athletes around the country (Mark Sanchez, the Utah State player (black), and the other player at another North Carolina school accussed of rape...............................while going overboard to attempt to prosecute Lacrosse players who didn't even have sex with the accuser (all the above examples had sex at least take place), its a sophisticated lie concocted to make boring white male athletes seem dangerous while not paying any attention to the crimes committed by non-whites. Not reporting that 15,000 black on white rapes happened between 2001-2003, while only 900 white on black rapes happened when Duke professors continually excoriated "white male athletic violence" is also a lie by withholding information, when its the media duty to remind us of the facts.
A cop I used to live with told me once "testiLYING is the cornerstone of all good law enforcement". What he meant was that in order to bust drug dealers, they had to lie about "anonymous informants" in order to procure searchese and the like or they would really hardly be ever to bust any smart dealer. The problem with granting law enforcement this latitude is that jerk-offs (and they are prevalent in ever profession) will abuse these evidenciary privledges and screw over people because they simply dont like them, are jealous of them, etc. Its human nature, absolute power corrupts absolutely......
I used to think strong religious moral instruction would couteract that, but the rapture reverends are proving me wrong. They will lie for more dollars only slightly slower than Farrahkahn would.
One more sickening despicable example for you Ziel. I was watching C-span in a hearing on credit card companines and their oft-decietful billing practices. I was suprised to be genuinely thrilled at the way Chris Dodd fairly conducted the hearings. The other senators were very polite, asked good common sense probing questions that elucidated the real-world machinations included in the billing. A wonderful economist from Harvard, Elizabeth Warren (who is also an attractive middle aged "lady") gave terrific testimony that went over part and parcel the details of how the credit card compaines look in someone's past credit history after they have issued the cards to find an excuse to "raise" their rates. How they charge one the same amount of interest on paying off 900 dollars of a thousand owed as if they still owed the thousand. How they attempt to get people to get more cards when they get into debt so they will borrow from one card to pay off another, etc. You ought to have seen the justifications for some of these practices coming from the representatives of the credit card companies. The woman who represented Capital One was really dishonest. It was all a damned charade. My conclusion was that poorer people have no business getting a credit card, they will not be able to "handle" it, which is just what the comanies want. People who pay their card off at the end of every month, and thus dont pay interest, are called "deadbeats" and "freeloaders" in the industry. So the industry has responded by ingeniously creating a ton of fees that are very hard to understand and weird justifications for them. If they find you have paid your cable bill late for instance, they might up your interest or find a way to charge you one way or the other because your "risk" has gotten higher. When in fact, your wife forgot the damned thing ontop of the refrigerator for a week.
Here was a senate hearing, and the lies flowed like wine. It made me sick. One more impression from the hearing however, the senators from Alabama (Shelby) and Utah (forget his name, old guy), struck me as class acts.
Thanks for the comment - I'd like to look up that C-Span hearing. I'm worried about my kids with credit - I'm not exactly Mr. Responsible with credit cards, and since each generation seems to be more financially irresponsible than the last, they could be red meat for these carnivores.
When this first came up, I noted how little support the Lacrosse Players were getting from their own Alumni.
Look...they deserve the trouble they are in. That's the reason you don't get involved with people of questionable morality, like prostitutes and strippers in the first place. Not to mention, why they are having a drinking and stripper party anyway during season.
That kind of thing wouldn't have happened 30 or 40 years ago.
Obviously, you are right---this is all about the cultural left acting out their own view of history as "200 years of white oppression and genocide." But the OTHER story is how far the sexual morality of the cultural left has invaded traditional culture.
The Lacrosse Players shouldn't be victimized because they are white males. But on the other hand, the Lacrosse players have nobody but themselves to blame for holding a party like this in the first place.
Sexual morality has been so degraded that even among white upper class males---the supposed elite---sexuality has become a form of recreational entertainment instead of it's origiinal biological and cultural imperative of reinforcing emotional bonding, and defining human intimacy.
It cannot have effect in actual fact, that is what I think.
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