Friday, April 2nd, 2010
A roundup over at Hit & Run.
This entry was posted
on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 8:57 am by Radley Balko
and is filed under Innocence.
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Can someone explain to me why prosecutors almost invariably dispute and fight tooth and nail evidence of innocence, or even refuse to publicly entertain the possibility; won’t even concede that it’s ‘worth investigating’?
“After reviewing the videotaped depositions and court testimony, both of which featured a uniformed police officer threatening the witness’ family and coercing him/her to testify the way he wanted, we find her testimony credible and likely and will vigorously oppose any effort to reverse the conviction or stay the execution.”
Obviously I made that up but the sad part is just how close that is to the truth.
Why? Even if it was a former prosecutor and the current person had nothing to do with the case, they are like this.
We know your office and you in particular are not infallible. We’re even ok with that. What we’re not ok with is you acting like you are at the cost of imprisoning EVERYONE, regardless of actual guild or innocence.
I know lawyers love to say “It’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove in court”, but this is long past getting ridiculous.
Prosecutors are ultimately supposed to serve the people, not enslave them.