Victoria and her sister Kerry Lyn August 18th, 2012
What a treat it is to get to spend time with my sister! We talked over CAGES, she's read through it twice now. It was very painful for her to hear the trial again, but even more painful to Kerry Lyn were the scenes revealing the effects of this sentence on her family. Kerry continues to be the bravest person I know. She is an innocent woman living on Death Row. I feel for all the ladies on the Row in CCWF, I pray for them daily, it is a lifestyle few of us can imagine (while we live our pampered, free lives in the wide open).
We also talked about our spiritual lives, as always, and our challenges of late. She pointed out to me that Noah actually released a Raven from the ark before he set loose a dove. Kerry turned to the page in Genesis where the scripture was recorded. This subject came up because of the crow on the cover of CAGES. He is a representative of friends we've had, not an omen of death. Crows and Ravens are in the same family, highly intelligent birds. Maybe it should be a Raven representing peace in so many banners? The first to leave the Ark did not return, it found a place to land and begin life again. Ravens can fly long distances and can adapt easily. They are social beings and family oriented.
Prosecutors should be held accountable just like all other citizens:
Report:
Preventable Error
(p. 84)
Conclusion
“Our criminal justice system depends on the integrity of the
attorneys who present their cases to the jury. When even a single
conviction is obtained through perjurious or deceptive means, the entire
foundation of our system of justice is weakened.”
– Hayes v. Brown, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit
207
Our criminal
justice system aims at a difficult and critical balance. The requirement
that prosecutors only use fair means of conviction means that they sometimes
are unable to convict people they believe are guilty. But that is the
balance we have struck, recognizing that it is better that some guilty go free
than the fairness of trials be compromised and the innocent convicted.
The Misconduct Study demonstrates that the system is failing to achieve
this balance. Those charged with ensuring it—the courts, prosecutors, and
the State Bar—are not fulfilling their obligations to monitor, report and
discipline prosecutorial misconduct. It is difficult to imagine a
stronger wake-up call than the Misconduct Study’s finding that out of 707 cases
of court-identified misconduct, only six prosecutors were disciplined.
The authors have made specific recommendations for dealing with
the problem. But the real remedies lie with the public, which must recognize
the severity and importance of the problem and keep pressure on those
responsible until reform occurs. The terrible consequences of prosecutorial
misconduct for innocent defendants, taxpayers, crime victims and the entire criminal
justice system mandate action.
The time for change and professional accountability is now
Click link below for the full report on prosecutorial misconduct, presented by Santa Clara University School of Law, No. CA Innocence Project. Ridolfi & Possley
(shortened version of articles)
Prosecutorial Misconduct July 13th, 2012
TIM O’BRIEN, correspondent:
Remember the infamous Duke rape case? Where a prosecutor accused three members of the school’s lacrosse team of rape and knowingly withheld evidence that would have cleared them? We like to think of such cases as aberrations, but in recent years, several high profile Justice Department cases have been thrown out because of similar misconduct.
Joseph DiGenova, the former United States Attorney for the District of Columbia says Justice Department prosecutors routinely withhold evidence that could be helpful to the defense and rarely is anything done about it.
A 1963 Supreme Court case called Brady versus Maryland requires prosecutors to turn over to the defense any material evidence that might be helpful.
That case involved John Brady, convicted and sentenced to death for murder even though a co-defendant had actually confessed to the crime. Prosecutors never shared that confession with Brady’s lawyers.
In throwing out Brady’s death sentence, Justice William O. Douglas alluded to the inscription over the door to the Attorney General’s office at the Department of Justice: “The United States wins its point whenever justice is done its citizens in the courts.” The idea: the goal is “justice,” not merely winning convictions.
Cases get reversed when prosecutors don’t follow the law, but very little ever happens to the offending prosecutor. Notwithstanding a finding of “reckless professional misconduct” in the Stevens case, only two prosecutors were punished—one suspended for 45 days, another for 15 days. Sullivan’s law firm issued a written statement calling the sanctions “pathetic” and “laughable” and conclusive proof that “the Department of Justice is not capable of disciplining its prosecutors.”
Recent history might seem to bear that out. An investigative report by USA Today identified more than 200 cases thrown out by judges as a result of misconduct or ethical violations, but only one of those offending prosecutors was removed.
Prosecutors—whether at the Justice Department or down at the county courthouse—are the most powerful actors in the criminal justice system. They decide who gets charged and what they are charged with, life and death decisions in some cases. And when they themselves violate the law, when they withhold evidence or even fabricate a case, they cannot be sued. They have absolute immunity for their official acts.
For Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Tim O’Brien in Washington
full article here:
EDITORIAL
Justice and Prosecutorial Misconduct
Published: December 28, 2011 256 Comments
Michael Morton was exonerated by DNA evidence this month after being wrongfully convicted of murdering his wife and serving nearly 25 years in prison in Texas. In seeking to prove Mr. Morton’s innocence, his lawyers found in recently unsealed court records evidence that the prosecutor in the original trial, Ken Anderson, had withheld critical evidence that may have helped Mr. Morton.
Prosecutors have enormous power in determining who is subjected to criminal punishment because they have broad discretion in deciding criminal charges. The Brady rule, established by the Supreme Court in 1963, is supposed to be an important check on that power. It requires prosecutors to disclose evidence favorable to the defendant. But their failure to comply is rarely discovered, and, even then, prosecutors are almost never punished.
The Supreme Court, in an outrageous decision earlier this year, further weakened the ability of wronged defendants to make prosecutors’ offices liable by giving them nearly absolute immunity against civil suits. Justice Clarence Thomas justified the ruling, noting that an “attorney who violates his or her ethical obligations is subject to professional discipline, including sanctions, suspension, and disbarment.” But bar associations hardly ever punish this behavior; judges seldom discipline prosecutors for such violations; and criminal sanctions are rarely imposed against prosecutors.
This is why the Morton inquiry is crucial. The Innocence Project report found that Mr. Anderson willfully failed to disclose police notes that another man committed the murder, concealed from the trial judge that he did not provide the full police report and advised his successor as prosecutor “to oppose all of Mr. Morton’s postconviction motions for DNA testing.” If a court confirms these findings, it must hold Mr. Anderson accountable — or it will send a message to prosecutors in Texas and elsewhere that the criminal justice system is incapable of deterring or punishing this conduct.
full article here:
Congress Must Act to End Prosecutorial Misconduct
Ginny Sloan President, The Constitution Project
Thanks to a two-and-a-half year independent investigation ordered by the judge in the case, Emmet Sullivan, and finally released several weeks ago, we now know how prosecutors won Stevens' conviction: they cheated. They violated his constitutional rights by intentionally concealing evidence that they knew would have supported Stevens' claim that he intended to pay for all work performed on his house. They hid documents and they allowed a cooperating witness to testify falsely to the jury. The investigators' 514-page report is a chilling reminder that not even the most powerful leaders in the nation are safe when federal prosecutors ignore their duty to seek justice, and instead pursue victory at any cost.
Sadly, the Ted Stevens case was not an isolated incident. Although the failure to disclose evidence is a constitutional violation that by its very nature often goes undiscovered (anything that the government chooses not to disclose to the defense generally remains unknown), we still know it occurs with disturbing frequency. For example, a 2010 USA Today investigation documented 86 cases since 1997 in which judges found that federal prosecutors had failed to turn over evidence that they were legally required to disclose. A number of organizations have reached similar conclusions about the frequency of these violations.
Full article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ginny-sloan/congress-must-act-to-end-_b_1415695.html
