Innocents

Innocents

V1 [7] "In many cases, the first and gravest mistake the wrongfully convicted made was trusting too much...They trusted the police to act with integrity. They took investigators at their word. Even after they were charged, they reasoned their predicament would get straightened out in a fair trial. They trusted that the system worked."

[12] "What seems to irk exonerees is that few seem to care about what happened to them, much less how it continues to happen to others. Apologies from states, courts, and officials involved in their conviction are a rarity, and there is no review process, whereby a police department, prosecutor's office, or court would reflect on its errors."

[165] [John Stoll, wrongly convicted of child sexual abuse in California; served 19 years; speaking of his thoughts after being charged, but prior to trial:] "'I still clung to the fact that this was America: You can't get convicted for something you didn't do...No problem, we'll take care of this.'"

Commentary/application to Nickel case:

'In many cases, the first and gravest mistake the wrongfully convicted made was in trusting too much.' This is highly reminiscent of the So Naive to Believe section of this site.

'They trusted the police to act with integrity.' That's certainly what we're led to believe as part of our upbringing. Unfortunately, it's just a fairy tale. The police lie pathologically, even -- or, especially -- on the witness stand. (Also see Investigator Mark DeFrancesco section.)

'There is no review process, whereby the police department, prosecutor's office, or court would reflect on its errors.' Not in New York State , anyway. But there is in -- of all places -- Texas . There, a 'Court of Inquiry' can be called to examine exactly what went wrong.

'I still clung to the fact that this was America.' Nickel does too.

S35 [422] "[W]hat I believe to be a cardinal deficiency of the criminal justice system [is] the low importance that the accuracy of verdicts occupies in the criminal process."

[440] "Given the pressing societal need to punish criminal behavior and the solemn nature of depriving people of their liberty and even life, one would expect that the accuracy of these fateful determinations would be the paramount goal of the criminal justice process...What about the process, one must wonder, could be more important than ensuring that we are dispensing freedom and deprivation to the correct people? Yet, perplexingly, the criminal justice system sidelines the accuracy of its somber endeavor in favor of a slew of other goals, interests, and constraints, which are borne primarily by bureaucratic considerations and system defensiveness.

"The relegation of factual accuracy pervades the entire criminal justice process, as manifested by the manner in which investigations are conducted, forensic evidence is tested, charging decisions are made, admissibility of evidence is determined, cases are adjudicated, and postconviction proceedings are decided. The relegation of accuracy is especially jarring in the decisions rendered by the judiciary, the branch entrusted with the task of protecting citizens from unlawful overreaching intrusions by the state. Nowhere is this attitude more disconcerting and harmful than in the decisions of the United States Supreme Court. The Court's approach is centered decidedly on the preeminence of procedure. Notwithstanding occasional pronouncements touting the importance of finding the truth, that goal is effectively eclipsed by the dictates of the Court's narrow and wooden prescribed procedural regime. To a large [441] extent, the procedures themselves have become the ultimate goal of the process, with fairness serving as its guiding principle. Yet the Court's conception of fairness is devoid or moral content and is only loosely related to factual accuracy."

(Also see Judges -- Appeals Based on Law .)

S25 [97] "McFarlane...identifies the following...predisposing circumstances for wrongful convictions: (1) public pressure to convict serious, [98] high-profile crimes; (2) an unpopular defendant, often an outsider or member of a minority group; (3) a local legal environment that has converted the adversarial process into a 'game' that regards the legal process as a strategy designed to win at all costs, rather than a pursuit of truth; (4) pressure and a need to win at almost any cost; and (5) 'noble cause corruption,' the notion that the end justifies the means -- the suspect is known to have committed a crime, so improper practices are acceptable to ensure a conviction."

[105] "[The wrongful conviction literature identifies] a number of recurring features in wrongful conviction cases. These include:

-- A crime which is horrible and alarming, giving it a high profile in the community and creating public pressure to convict the perpetrator immediately;

-- An absence of direct evidence...

-- The 'demonizing' of a suspect, who may be a 'loaner,' 'outsider,' or member of a minority group;

-- Exaggeration of adversarial roles on the part of the police and prosecutors, leading to 'noble cause corruption.' This involves the justification of improper professional practices in order to achieve the perceived 'correct' result.

"All of these features may contribute to the malaise of 'tunnel vision' which, in turn, may reinforce them, creating a vicious circle.

"Lamer concludes that tunnel vision rarely occurs as a result of vindictiveness towards suspects by police and prosecutors. Instead, it is caused by the culture of the justice system, which permits police and prosecutors to investigate and prosecute cases based on a subconscious bias rather than an examination of all the evidence.

"Moreover, is is mutually reinforcing among police officers and prosecutors and in the interaction between these groups of professionals. It may even affect judges."

Commentary/application to Nickel case:

'Predisposing circumstances for wrongful convictions [include] (1) public pressure to convict serious, high-profile crimes, (2) an unpopular defendant, often an outsider or member of a minority group; (3) a local legal environment that has converted the adversarial process into a "game" that regards the legal process as a strategy designed to win at all costs, rather than a pursuit of truth; (4) pressure and a need to win at almost any cost; and (5) "noble cause corruption," the notion that the end justifies the means -- the suspect is known to have committed a crime, so improper practices are acceptable to ensure a conviction.' All of these were major factors in the Nickel case. Let's take them one by one:

(1) Public pressure to convict serious, high-profile crimes. In a relatively small television market which nevertheless had four local stations, media interest was intense. Losing this case would have been supremely embarrassing to the police, prosecutors, and judges alike.

(2) An unpopular defendant, often an outsider or member of a minority group. Nickel was all of those: a person accused of child sexual abuse, and a 'pedophile.'

(3)/(4)/(5) A local legal environment that has converted the adversarial process into a 'game' that regards the legal process as a strategy designed to win at all costs, rather than a pursuit of truth; "noble cause corruption." Initially prosecutors Paul DerOhannessian and Veronica Dumas and then Peter Torncello , as well as Investigators Mark DeFrancesco and Ronald Bates , plus Judge Paul Czajka , were all clearly 'winning'-oriented, and absolutely incurious about the actual truth. Facts were ignored or manipulated, evidence favorable to the defense buried , and prosecution theories re-directed.

'The wrongful conviction literature identifies a number of recurring features, which include:

-- A crime which is horrible and alarming, an absence of direct evidence, the "demonizing" of a suspect, and the exaggeration of adversarial roles, including the justification of improper professional practices in order to achieve the perceived "correct" result.' The most serious things Nickel was charged with -- oral sex on a 9-year-old, photographing the former, and the insertion of a finger into this same boy's rectum -- were certainly regarded as 'horrible and alarming.' There was 'an absence of direct evidence.' The medical exam of 'Arthur' that the prosecution was finally forced to produce showed "no signs of physical injury." There was no DNA, or any other proof of the most serious acts alleged, save 'Arthur's' own statements, which were provably wrong as to virtually every verifiable detail to which he testified. Nickel was certainly 'demonized,' with the dozens of prosecution references to his sexual orientation. And lastly, hyper-adversarial roles, so much so that evidence was buried , procedural safeguards ignored and then lied about under oath, and all facts indicating innocence simply overlooked.

Also see Injustice System -- Tunnel Vision and Related Issues .

'Tunnel vision...may even affect judges.' May?...

S30 [152] "[C]ases are more likely to go to trial when the expectations of the jury's [or bench trial judge's ] decision are not easily predictable, that is, where the evidence is least clear. Moreover, anecdotal data indicate that some innocent defendants prioritize proving their innocence over the cost-benefit calculations that generally dictate plea bargains. Likewise, laboratory data show that innocent defendants are less likely to strike a plea bargain than guilty ones. Thus, innocent defendants are more inclined to go to trial than guilty ones."

Commentary/application to Nickel case:

'Cases are more likely to go to trial when the expectations of the jury's or bench trial judge's decisions are not easily predictable, that is, where the evidence is least clear.' The evidence regarding the most serious charges against Nickel was certainly 'least clear.' He admitted to none of them, and 'Arthur's' word that they occurred was not only completely uncorroborated, but was refuted by virtually every piece of verifiable evidence (details regarding Nickel's home ).

'Some innocent defendants prioritize proving their innocence over the cost-benefit calculations that generally dictate plea bargains...Innocent defendants are more inclined to go to trial than guilty ones.' Nickel told his defense counsel that he didn't care if even the death penalty could be imposed -- he wasn't going go admit to things he didn't do.

C3 [21] "Innocent defendants can end up being penalized at a number of decision points. In exchange for fully cooperating with the police, a person may make himself more likely to be arrested. For refusing to plead guilty and insisting on a trial, an innocent defendant may risk a stiffer sentence if convicted. By continuing to assert his innocence in prison and trying to set himself apart from criminals, a prisoner may incur the wrath of other inmates. Believing that he has not committed an offense, he may refuse to participate in counseling or other rehabilitation programs that could speed his release. Appearing before the parole board, he may not show remorse, thereby lessening his chances of getting let out of prison."

N5 [230] "[A] black man named Arvin Carsell McGee, Jr....had been convicted of [a 1987 Oklahoma] rape, a crime McGee insisted he did not commit...The victim identified him in court, but her confusing statements led to a mistrial. A second trial ended with a hung jury...In a third trial, however, McGee was convicted on all charges...and was sentenced to a total of 298 years in prison...The results from [DNA] testing...showed that McGee could not have been the donor of the spermatozoa collected in the rape kit...Before leaving prison, McGee said, 'There are a lot of guys like me in this yard. Don't be so quick to judge.'"

Here we have an innocent person himself saying that there are many more innocents in jail. But the fact is, it's not just people on the 'outside' who 'should not be so quick to judge.' Many of one's fellow inmates simply assume guilt. Their reasoning would seem to be as follows: 'I know I'm guilty not only of what I was convicted of, but a hell of a lot more . Therefore, that must also be true of everyone else here.' Those employing such 'logic' are also all too quick to believe whatever the media says, despite the fact that they know damn well the media also portrayed them in the most negative light possible, often getting important facts wrong or simply omitting them altogether.

R11 [441] "[C]ases of wrongful conviction are not typically exposed because of a properly working criminal justice system that has a tendency to correct its own errors. Instead, most cases are the result of some serendipitous circumstance wherein a wrongly convicted individual fortuitously happens to have his or her case investigated by an individual or organization that champions their case and commits the resources necessary to see that justice is done...Likely, many wrongfully convicted individuals who have not been so fortuitous remain incarcerated. As Bedau and Radelet (1987) contend, 'the coincidence involved in exposing so many of the errors and the luck that is so often required suggest that only a fraction of the wrongly convicted are eventually able to clear their names' (pg. 70). Gross et al. (2005) note that 'a large number of false convictions in noncapital cases are never even discovered because nobody ever seriously investigates these cases.' (pg. 10)..."

[466] "In many ways, we are still in the Dark Ages of understanding how to improve our system of justice in regards to separating the innocent from the guilty."

S10 [Tim Durham was convicted of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl, after forcing his way into her home. The only 'evidence' against him was shoddy, junk-science hair analysis as well as inept DNA testing. He was sentenced to a term of 3,220 years, of which he served five before being cleared by proper DNA testing.]

[169] "Once, while in jail, Durham was pulled from a bed and kicked until his [170] ribs were broken, a punishment administered to him by other inmates for molesting a child. As he lay on the ground, cowering, he could hardly begin to explain that he, too, was a victim, of a court system unwilling to scrutinize any evidence coated with the veneer of 'science.' As his face was pounded into the floor of a filthy jail cell, he could not protest that too many crime labs have long served as arms of local police and prosectorial agencies rather than as independent forces. With his nose smashed and bleeding, there was no way he could argue that what passes for science in a courtroom could never pass muster in a clinical laboratory, and that, indeed, patients would be slaughtered by their doctors if courtroom science was practiced in medical settings. Tim Durham could only cover up and hope for the clubbing to end."

[172] "For an innocent person, the two most dangerous words in the language of the law are 'harmless error.' These are the magic words that appellate courts use to absolve police officers and prosecutors of misconduct."

[175] "'Harmless error' is the lie that the criminal justice system tells itself...Lies, cheating, distortions at the lower levels of the system are excused at higher ones. Even when the appellate court is sufficiently perturbed to reverse the guilty verdict, nothing happens to the people who broke their oaths and the law in pursuit of conviction."

S27 "Half a million years have been siphoned from a generation living in New York's prisons, jails and varia of confinement. Nationwide, 1,378 people have been executed since the mid-1970s while 144 on death row have been exonerated, most of whom spent a decade or more in prison awaiting their outcomes.

"And then there is the almost 12,500 years that the wrongfully convicted have lived behind bars over the last quarter century. These are the unaccounted dividends of mass incarceration, the irreducible measure of injustice in search of a remedy.

"There comes a point in the life of every society when conscience can no longer be sacrificed to expedience. The war on crime has elevated the presumption of guilt, deflated the presumption of innocence and promoted retributive punishment to an end in itself. Hence, people have been wrongly incarcerated in numbers too high for a vaunted system of justice. Still, there is brewing a perfect storm of political will, economic necessity and fundamental fairness that might yet re-tune the machinery of guilt and punishment."

"[E]very day spent in prison, whether under a wrongful conviction or an excessive sentence, is an intolerable infringement of liberty and dignity."

"While prison populations vary over time, injustice remains constant. Thus, a prison is overcrowded if there is one innocent person within its walls, one person unfairly tried or one person excessively punished."

Z3 [79] "[In] Huff et al....[a] sample of all state attorneys general, plus Ohio judges, prosecutors, public defenders, sheriffs, and police chiefs were asked to estimate the [80] rate at which persons convicted of felonies were later found to be factually innocent beyond a reasonable doubt...In response, 5.6 percent of respondents denied that wrongful convictions existed, 71.8 percent believed they occurred in less than 1% of all convictions, and 22.6 percent estimated a frequency of 1% or more.

"Poveda (2001) calculated wrongful conviction estimates based on a RAND self-report study of prisoners in three states (Chaikin & Chaikin, 1982). Reliability checks indicated that the prisoners reported a higher number of their own arrests and prior convictions than found in official data, and their statements about the crimes admitted displayed internal reliability...The RAND study reported 'that 197 of the 1,282 prison inmates questioned. . .or 15.4 percent, claimed that they did not commit the crime for which they were convicted and imprisoned'...Denial rates differed by crime: it was highest for sex crimes (37.7 percent of rapes), in the midrange for violent crimes (17.5 percent for murder; 11.5 percent for robbery), and low for drug crimes (5.2 percent for drug possession)..." [Emphasis original to primary source.]

"Prisoners' self-reports cannot be taken at face value but need not be summarily dismissed...The RAND results indicated that most prisoners admit their crimes, belying the commonly stated notion that 'all prisoners claim to be innocent.'"