For the First Time, a Prosecutor Will Go to Jail for Wrongfully Convicting

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-godsey/for-the-first-time-ever-a_b_4221000.html

by fahimulhaq • 11 years ago

468 228 11 years ago

For 10 days. I suppose it's a start, though.

6d0debc071• 11 years ago

Community service, ten days in jail, and losing his law license. For wilfully sending an innocent man to jail for twenty five years - having resigned anyway. That's a fucking joke.

"What's newsworthy and novel about today's plea is that a prosecutor was actually punished in a meaningful way for his transgressions."

I'm sure we'd all like to be so 'meaningfully' punished for serious crimes. It's better than nothing - which seems to be the usual state of affairs - but it's clearly one law for the rich and one law for the poor.

clort• 11 years ago

Community service, ten days in jail, and losing his law license.

500 hours of community service. In the US what does that mean, 3 months of picking litter by the road in an orange jumpsuit? Or does it mean that he can work for the prosecutors office for free for that time (obviously, he has a lot of experience there)

He also lost his law licence. What does that mean, how old was the guy? I don't know how it works in the US but if it effectively means forced retirement then he will be on a reduced pension, and moreover can't go for any cushy positions normally available for a retired prosecutor.

This also showed that judges ought to be asking this question of prosecutors.. I wonder if the defence can ask this question in the court and ask for similar sanctions if it were proved later that the prosecutor knew something they didn't disclose.

I wonder what has he been doing in the two years since this article was written?

raverbashing• 11 years ago

It's a start, but 10 days is a slap in the wrist

currentoor• 11 years ago

Oh come on! He should at least be sent to jail for the same number of years he took away from an innocent man.

georgeportillo2• 11 years ago

I completely fucking agree. This makes me really mad.

colin_jack2• 11 years ago

I'm not an expert on the UK legal system but one thing I enjoyed about the Serial podcast was getting an insight into just how crazy the US system can be.

Anyway 10 days is obviously nothing, especially when he's cost a man 25 years, but at least it's an attempt to hold someone responsible for a despicable act.

smcl• 11 years ago

If you found that interesting, there's an excellent episode of This American Life called "The Arms Trader" which is another example of how messed up the law can be over the pond. The FBI (or another TLA agency) basically played both buyer and seller in a bogus arms deal, and managed to stitch up a bumbling old man for facilitating the transaction. It's almost comical how much handholding they needed to do with this guy to coax him into this situation, until you realise they then came down on him like a ton of bricks.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/292/t...

colin_jack2• 11 years ago

Ta will definitely give it a look, one nice thing about Serial is it put me onto This American Life which I'm enjoying (in parts, some of it puts my teeth on edge).

The depressing bit about the system is even when it's clear there's been a potential miscarriage of justice, and some poor sod has spent years behind bars on very shaky grounds, the system still tries its best to keep them there without retrial.

Chathamization2• 11 years ago

People should also definitely check out "The Convert." The FBI sent some guy into a mosque to act like a Muslim radical and to try to get members of the mosque to plant a terrorist attack. He befriended some guys and hung out with them, and then tried to get them in trouble by telling them they should plan a terrorist attack. The guys from the mosque promptly called the FBI to turn over the FBI plant (not knowing he was an FBI plant). The FBI responded by pressing charges against one of the guys from the mosque because of some youtube videos he shared.

It's insane.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/471/t...

smegel• 11 years ago

American justice is bizarre. It seems so dependent on the prosecutor doing the "right thing" it makes you wonder why they bother with a defense team, judge or jury at all. Just let the prosecutor decide who's guilty!

jackpirate• 11 years ago

Then how would the rich avoid punishment for their crimes?

/s (but only slightly)

tsotha5• 11 years ago

Statistically the rich don't do any better than anyone who can afford a lawyer. The people who get screwed are the ones relying on court-appointed counsel. They do significantly worse.

benihana• 11 years ago

leave this kind of pointless platitude with no facts or sources to reddit please. they love that kind of shit over there.

jamesfe• 11 years ago

In this case, the prosecutor was clearly wrong. But what is the flip side of this? If the client admits to the defense that he's guilty, are they bound to defend him, knowing that they're already in the wrong?

eyci• 11 years ago

Interesting point - although it's not really symmetrical. For example, Blackstone's formulation - "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer".

In addition, prosecutors are presumably held to a higher standard than defense lawyers, since they are state employees and are bound to act in the public interest.

jccc2• 11 years ago

Who is the defense attorney to judge the client guilty or innocent? Maybe the client's insane, maybe the damning evidence the attorney's seen is compelling but incomplete or misleading.

We defer to the process for a reason. And human nature being what it is, that process is built on a presumption of innocence.

AaronM• 11 years ago

Yes, IANAL, but they would look for their client to get off on a technicality rather than being innocent

IndianAstronaut• 11 years ago

I'm curious if there is a startup opportunity here to bring defense law to the masses. There is legal zoom for paperwork type issues, but could better knowledge of the law in the hands of a common man be a way to go?

mike_hearn• 11 years ago

There have been various attempts to apply software to law, none of which were very convincing.

The biggest impact has been on legal discovery. Often the evidence one side or another needs is buried in massive quantities of documents, e.g. corporate memos. It used to involve people manually going through every document. Now computers can build a search engine just for that case, based on the documents either being originally electronic, or scanned. So it's easier to find the evidence you need to either prosecute or exonerate.

There have been attempts at legal 'expert systems'. Expert systems were an offshoot of early AI where people were put through computerised interviews that tried to automate otherwise skilled investigative procedures. I have not heard of legal expert systems being in use anywhere, but I am not in the legal industry so if they were, I wouldn't know about them. I suspect they're easier to apply to things like routine property law than complex criminal cases.

There's also the Hammurabi project. That is very interesting, though again, not relevant here. It tries to encode law in a custom programming language to automatically build expert systems based on it. It's more useful for things like navigating the absurdly complicated US tax code than criminal defence (of course the two may sometimes overlap).

http://mpoulshock.github.io/hammurabi/

pmontra• 11 years ago

10 days deserved vs 25 years undeserved? It's a joke. He should serve at least 25 years too.

weddpros• 11 years ago

and he should be ordered to give back 25 years of his own salary to that poor guy

de_Selby• 11 years ago

Exactly, I can't believe this is being billed as a success of the legal system.

codyb• 11 years ago

It's the first time it's ever happened. While it may not be justice to the man who served 25 years for a crime he didn't commit, it is a step forward and will serve as a ruling for future trials with similar circumstance.

struppi2• 11 years ago

I agree that 10 days is very short for what he did. But the other part of your comment, "He should serve at least 25 years too", does not sound right to me either.

I think that the primary goal of court scentences should not be revenge, but "justice". Whatever that means. The possibility of punishment should be there to deter people from committing crimes. And they should be there so that after a crime, society can say: "See, we are serious about this. We do not want people to do those things".

So, the "revenge" thinking (with the extreme of "Take one life, and we'll kill you") does not seem right to me. Also, AFAIK, it was not designed into our juridical system - Which was designed to get past the "eye for an eye" system that was there before.

I also think that the primary goal of our prisons should be to re-integrate people into society, not punish them, but this is a completely different topic...

Edit: Clarified "The possibility of punishment should be there to deter"

lultimouomo• 11 years ago

And I think many studies have shown that it's the probability of getting caught that dissuades from a crime, much more than the severity of the punishment.

How many prosecutors would hide evidence if they had even a 10% chance of getting caught, going to jail for 10 days and loose their career, like it happened in this case? That's what's important in my opinion.

davem8• 11 years ago

The punishment should be there to deter others from committing crimes

Punishing people for the hypothetical future crimes of others! Is that "Justice".

philh5• 11 years ago

Another aspect that I haven't seen much discussion of, is: punishment is there partly to stop other people from exacting it.

Situation one: A kills B, B's brother kills A, A's brother kills B's brother... and eventually A's family and friends and B's family and friends are just killing other all the time.

Situation two: A kills B, the state kills A. Done. B's family has nobody left to kill, and A's family isn't likely to try to fight the state.

This suggests that the state can't make punishments too lenient, or people will take matters into their own hands again. It's not stable.

rday• 11 years ago

How about holding the prosecutor responsible for the 1988 murder by Mark Norwood[0]. Norwood's DNA was found at the scene. Maybe some more investigation in the Morton case(opposed to sitting on evidence) would have put Norwood in jail before he committed the 1988 crime.

But certainly, if Michael Morton was never wrongfully convicted, that DNA would have been matched to the Morton murder and this would have been solved decades ago.

[0] http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/mark-alan-norwood-found...

a3n5• 11 years ago

I agree that 10 days is very short for what he did. But the other part of your comment, "He should serve at least 25 years too", does not sound right to me either.

That prosecutor murdered 25 years of a man's life.

If murder deserves life in prison, then murdering 25 years of a man's life deserves 25 years of prison.

mcv• 11 years ago

I think it's very worthwhile to let those who corrupt the justice system experience in person just what they're doing to other people. 10 days is meaningless.

I totally agree that the primary goal of prison should be to re-integrate people into society, but one of the prerequisites for that is that the prisoner understands that what they did was wrong and why it's wrong.

kriro2• 11 years ago

Well at least that means he also had to give up his license to practice law.

johnpowell• 11 years ago

Thank god.. Now he can't work for the few years before he would have retired anyway.

Asbostos4• 11 years ago

As I understand, Americans vote for their local prosecutors or at least judges (this guy ended up as a judge). So keep in mind that the blame ultimately lies with the people of that locality who let such things happen even when they're discovered.

RogerL• 11 years ago

How am I, a voter, supposed to know that long ago somebody hid something that wasn't even able to be discovered in the court he was in at the time?

hwstar3• 11 years ago

Prosecutors in general are not elected, but the district attorney (Who oversees the prosecutors) is an elected official.

And you are correct, the American electorate wants blood and says "Lock 'em up and weld the door shut" when it comes to electing a District Attorney.

granos• 11 years ago

He also lost his license to practice law and this case now serves as a sentencing precedent for such crimes committed in the future. Anderson, being in his 60's, probably wouldn't be practicing for too much longer anyway. The next important step is to get judges to issue standing 'ethical rule orders' as mentioned in the article. That way other malicious prosecutors can be help accountable and removed from practicing much earlier.

Also, I'd be shocked if this didn't open Anderson up to civil liability. That's where Morton can seek damages; not in criminal court.

JupiterMoon3• 11 years ago

Also, I'd be shocked if this didn't open Anderson up to civil liability. That's where Morton can seek damages; not in criminal court.

Interesting Anderson took a large part of Morton's life. Maybe justice would be served if Morton took a large part of Anderson's money... Something feels uncomfortable about this but I can't quite place it.

DannyBee2• 11 years ago

"Also, I'd be shocked if this didn't open Anderson up to civil liability."

FWIW: It doesn't. Prosecutors generally have absolute (not qualified) immunity.

See Connick v. Thompson, 563 US 51 (2011) (https://www.oyez.org/cases/2010/09-571)

TheCondor• 11 years ago

And this emotional reaction is the root of the problem. When that original crime happened, the public demanded someone jailed, it didn't matter that it wasn't the criminal. Society is hung up on the retribution, so long as that's the case, prosecutors don't need criminals, just patsies that can't properly defend themselves or exhibit social flaws.

afandian2• 11 years ago

10 days isn't 'a slap on the wrist', or 'a good start' it's tantamount to immunity.

Asbostos4• 11 years ago

He also lost his license and presumably his job which is probably the more serious consequence than the 10 days.

venomsnake• 11 years ago

Unlike the guy that spent 25 years in jail that lost the best years of his life ...

jacquesm2• 11 years ago

Sure, but you can only say that because he didn't get 5 years in jail.

mikekchar• 11 years ago

Although according to the article, it seems he has already retired.

afandian2• 11 years ago

Losing your license and job are (should be) standard for malpractice. I think you can cancel that bit out. I'm talking about the bit where he knowingly sent innocent people to jail and abused his position.

spuz• 11 years ago

This article is from 2013.

nmc• 11 years ago

Updated: 10/16/2015 1:59 pm EDT

However it does not say what the update was.

corvus_sapiens2• 11 years ago

There is no difference. I just ran a diff.

https://web.archive.org/web/20150522105521/http://www.huffin...

vishnugupta2• 11 years ago

I was contemplating about this in the context of many similar posts on HN (Aaron Swartz [1] being a prime one). And I realized the power that lawyers/prosecutors wield over accused is enormous. To win a case they can design outrageous plea bargains - plead guilty and get 5 years, don't plead and face death if convicted. Even if lawyers representing accused try to educate him that the chances of conviction are less than 1% the fear of facing death penalty is so enormous that accused typically end up pleading guilty. And not without a reason. Loss aversion plays a big role when a human arrives at a decision. And just like that the prosecutor who initially had a very little chance of winning the case ends up winning it.

I know that I'm sort of oversimplifying here but the key take away here is that prosecutor has absolutely nothing to lose! Well OK, he could end up losing the case but that's nothing compared to what accused stand to lose. There needs to be a counterbalance to the power wielded by prosecutors, and this is a good start!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7998287

whybroke8• 11 years ago

Just FYI, in the 25 years and hundreds of cases my father saw in criminal court, only one was _not_ convicted: If you end up in front of a criminal judge (at least in California) you are essentially guaranteed of being convinced.

There was one death penalty case he saw in that time and while conviction was, as always a certainty, a separate hearing decides "special circumstances" (execution) or just life in prison. To "help the judge make the right decision" the court room was packed to overflowing with a silent audience who obviously universally wanted the death penalty. So two defendants were sentenced to death for a single murder that day.

jacquesm2• 11 years ago

25 years and hundreds of cases my father saw in criminal court, only one was _not_ convicted

That seems very wrong.

philh5• 11 years ago

If you end up in front of a criminal judge (at least in California) you are essentially guaranteed of being convinced.

That seems untrue. http://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/2015-Court-Statistics-Rep...

I'm looking at page 47 (72 in the pdf). ~13% of felonies that make it to court result in acquittal, dismissal or transfer.

There are a lot of caveats, including but not limited to: this is only felony cases (there are about 4x as many misdemeanours as felonies, but I can't immediately see statistics for them); I don't know what transfer means.

But even with those caveats, my current guess is that your father didn't see a representative sample.

hobbyjogger3• 11 years ago

Caveat: this study is for federal courts (which tend to see more serious crimes) but the data on acquittal rates is nowhere near what you are suggesting.

http://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article...

55% conviction rates when tried in front of a judge, 84% conviction rates when tried in front of a jury.

Acquittal rates will also tend fall as the gravity of the charges/court falls--but a lot of that is explained by the prosecution being far more ready to drop charges (or choose not to charge at all) in close cases when the crime is seen as less serious. A marginal murder case, for example, might be pursued even though a just as marginal shoplifting case would not be.

netcan3• 11 years ago

I think we also need to put this in historical context.

I remember a few years ago an Australia jailed for drugs in Indonesia explaining that she pleaded guilty while maintaining innocence in Australian media because "this is how it works here." IE, the system expects you to admit guilt and apologize, else face a much worse outcome. I thought "That's how it works everywhere."

This is not just across countries, it's across time. Confession has almost always been a part of the legal process. It's been necessary for mercy (plea bargain) and it's been extracted through torture, manipulation and any other means possible. Nearly every witch during the English witch hunts pleaded guilty and grassed on other witches.

I suspect that the same thing was going in the squares of Jericho 400 generations ago.

The concept of a trial where the accused defends, prosecutors accuse and the juries or judges decide is an idealization and/or a back-up plan. Even if we wanted to do this in all cases, we couldn't afford to. Modern judicial processes are too expenses to be used in all but a minority of cases.

I don't think we can fix this wholesale at this point.

nefitty• 11 years ago

grass, noun (PERSON): UK slang a person, usually a criminal, who tells the police about other criminals' activities

graycat7• 11 years ago

I don't think we can fix this wholesale at this point

Fix: Put me on the jury. E.g., the OP mentions that at the start of a trial, the judge can issue an "ethical rule order" which says that the prosecutor and police must provide to the defense all evidence that might help the accused.

No ethical rule order? With me on the jury, tough to get a conviction.

Prosecutor offered the accused a plea bargain but now wants to convict of a much more serious crime? Nope: On the jury, I won't convict of anything more serious than the plea bargain offer.

Prosecutor presents evidence from the police lab? I will have to work really hard not to LOL.

Prosecutor presents DNA evidence? Just shake my head and know that the chances of that evidence being correct are zip, zilch, and zero.

Prosecutor talks about probabilities? Accused goes free. Even if 20 million people have jaywalked, even if from a simple random sample 99 44/100% of people have jaywalked, that still is zip, zilch, and zero evidence that the accused jaywalked.

Police give testimony? Ha! In practice the police are perfectly free to lie under oath without any risk of being accused of perjury. Ignore all testimony of police. E.g., police found drugs in the accused car? Might have been planted by the police. Maybe the situation is just that the accused had some cash and the police just wanted to steal it. Can't trust the police.

Accused is poor? Police love to go after poor people, guilty or not.

pbhjpbhj• 11 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt#Execution_statistic...

Suggests that either most witches didn't confess or that those proven by confession to be witches were not executed. It gives ~5000 in UK and America brought to trial and ~1500-2000 executed. In the case of the trials I can find easy documentation for - Pendle and North Berwick - it seems all who confessed were executed but that some of those executed maintained their innocence. Not all of them implicated others. At least one maintained innocence under torture and apparently to death.

Anecdotal contradiction of your assertion but it does put some doubt about it; could you cite your source then for this?

Lawtonfogle5• 11 years ago

Modern judicial processes are too expenses to be used in all but a minority of cases.

Then don't punish except in the minority of cases. We put too many people in prison as is.

rbanffy3• 11 years ago

If there is 1% chance of losing something of infinite value, 5 years is a bargain.

Chathamization2• 11 years ago

Plea bargaining should be illegal. It creates a situation where the sentence isn't connected to one's guilt or danger to society, but rather to one's ability to judge their chances in court and get a good deal for themselves. If someone is a genuine threat to society, then shouldn't get out of prison while they're still a danger just because they saw a deal as beneficial and decided to take it. If someone's innocent, they shouldn't be given an incentive (threatened) to say they're guilty.

We also wouldn't have the situation where prosecutors let wealthy and influential people off the hook and then later claim, "hey, it was the best plea deal we could get."

cxseven• 11 years ago

Not only do the accused have to face the possible penalty of a conviction, they also have to face the penalty of mounting a defense. Public defenders are so swamped that the cost of a competent defense would almost surely ruin the average family.

In other words, if you don't take the plea deal, you're punished whether you're guilty or innocent.

catshirt• 11 years ago

10 days is completely fucking negligible. i'd put myself in jail for 10 days just for the experience.

disgusting.

t2015_08_25• 11 years ago

i agree. i just wanted to raise the imagery of being a prosecutor in jail. if they're hostile to child molesters, imagine what they do to prosecutors! yowza.

corvus_sapiens2• 11 years ago

I don't get the point of discussing a two-year-old article about an event that also occurred two years ago. Can someone enlighten me? Has something changed?

Edit: You can check for yourself. https://web.archive.org/web/20150522105521/http://www.huffin...

The article wasn't updated. The only addition is that "Prison Tattoos" thing at the bottom.

a3n5• 11 years ago

I guess when you run out of other outlets' articles to recycle, you have to recycle your own.

tsotha5• 11 years ago

It's really past time to get rid of the qualified immunity doctrine. It's yet another "law" made up by the supreme court from whole cloth.

Prosecutors should be fully liable for illegal actions they take even when they're performing official duties. This guy should be serving a sentence years long, not days.

a3n5• 11 years ago

It's really past time to get rid of the qualified immunity doctrine. It's yet another "law" made up by the supreme court from whole cloth.

This is where every system that polices others plus themselves falls down. You can think of qualified immunity as professional courtesy between lawyers.

In Wisconsin the Republican legislature and Republican governor (the recently failed presidential candidate Walker) passed and signed a law limiting political corruption investigations, because they were annoyed at all the investigations and convictions of themselves.

No one watches the watchers.

tsotha5• 11 years ago

That's a terrible example. Those John Doe investigations were a great example of prosecutorial abuse. If I had been Walker I would have had the state AG indict the prosecutors involved for corruption.

Gonzih• 11 years ago

10 days in prison... how fair...

kriro2• 11 years ago

There's a libertarian argument that I've always found interesting. If you convict someone you are liable to receive X% (usually X>=100) of the exact punishment if it somehow turns out the conviction was wrong. I couldn't see this working on a large scale but it's an interesting thought experiment (would there be a death penalty, would there be any convictions at all etc.). It's usually linked to the idea that only victims should be able to sue and that there is no such thing as a victimless crime.

I've always thought that a probabilistic justice system of sorts would be interesting. Something along the lines of "the default punishment for this is 10 years however we are only 60% certain about the conviction thus the verdict is X years (maybe something logarithmic, certainly not 6 years)"

Asbostos4• 11 years ago

Your 2nd idea is a fascinating one. The legal system has a weird binary concept of "proof" that doesn't exist anywhere else except perhaps maths. It might still need some threshold of certainty to stop harassment or gaming the system with a lot of low-probability cases that are easy to fabricate.

Your first idea would have a problem in that people who's job is to convict people will accumulate that risk the longer they work. By chance, they're bound to get it wrong from time to time so it would unfairly punish those with the longest careers.

vishnugupta2• 11 years ago

....people who's job is to convict people ....

This, right here, is the heart of the matter for me. If we have people whose job is to convict people then they'll do whatever it takes, not necessarily serve justice or do the right thing, to convict anyone coming their way.

However, if you change the job goal to "reduce crime rate", or some such metric, then they would at least try to do what's fair.

johncolanduoni• 11 years ago

The legal system has a weird binary concept of "proof" that doesn't exist anywhere else except perhaps maths.

This is not true at all, at least in the US. One of the core differences between criminal and civil cases is the burden of proof; the former requires proof "beyond a reasonable doubt", while for the latter it is "the preponderance of the evidence" or "clear and convincing" depending on the case. The definitions of these terms are not laser precise (I'm not sure how they could be), but there is at least a recognized role that the non-binary degree to which the evidence is convincing plays.

DonaldFisk• 11 years ago

There's a difference between (1) securing a conviction on the basis of evidence which was compelling at the time of the trial but was, perhaps many years later, proven to be faulty, and (2) doing something improper to secure a conviction you know is wrongful.

Prosecutors should not be punished for (1) but should be punished for (2), in proportion to the seriousness of their misdeed and the sentence handed down (or served if they own up before the prisoner is released).

chadzawistowski• 11 years ago

What about that argument is libertarian?

Lawtonfogle5• 11 years ago

60% means not sure beyond a reasonable doubt. Not guilty.

bluesilver07• 11 years ago

Michael Morton's book on the whole ordeal is a fascinating (and sometimes depressing) read - http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Life-Innocent-25-Year-Journey/.... His answers on Quora - https://www.quora.com/profile/Michael-Morton-8

trevmckendrick• 11 years ago

It appears he only served 5 of the 10 days.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/ken-anderson-releas...

(The original post is from 2013)

ohitsdom• 11 years ago

Released early on good behavior! Wow, just wow.

s_dev• 11 years ago

"Let the punishment fit the crime" - works both ways. Putting an innocent man in prison is far far worse than than letting a guilty man basically go free as is the case here. An important precedent but far far from ideal or whats necessary.

simonh2• 11 years ago

Does anyone know if the wrongfully convicted victim has the right to sue the former prosecutor in civil court? I'd have thought so, but there's no mention of this possibility in the article. If so, there would be a difference between the criminal offence of withholding evidence versus the civil offence of selling the victim down the river.

nske2• 11 years ago

In a system where people win trials for milions if the coffee you sell them is too hot, I would be surprised if that victim can't literally crucify the Ken Anderson guy in court for all that he has, in terms of years and money.

If not, then this is a really fucked-up system.

mdpopescu2• 11 years ago

Off-topic: you probably don't know the facts about the coffee case :) http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm

drawk• 11 years ago

The coffee trial is one of my pet peeves. The lady had severe burns on her legs, genitals and torso. She had to go to the icu, and then to a burn clinic, and then later went through at least one round of surgery. The location that served the coffee had been written up for the temperature being way too high, but no one ever acted on it. IIRC that penalty was appealed, and I think they settled on a lesser amount later.

Also, part of having a healthy justice system is having the ability to sue for literally any, or no reason. In an ideal world a flagrant lawsuit would just get thrown out without any harm to either party. Unfortunately we've built a system where a suit can bankrupt either party, so it turns into a war of attrition.

nske2• 11 years ago

@drawk & @mdpopescu: I apologise, indeed I hadn't read all the facts about the coffee case and I don't find it ridicoulous any more.

In any case, I really hope Michael Morton finds some real justice and Ken Anderson doesn't get off the hook that easily.

What happened make me feel very angry. Not that long since I read about this terrible injustice as well:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/11/glenn-ford-black-ma...

jhwhite• 11 years ago

10 days in prison is not enough.

spodek• 11 years ago

See After Innocence (free on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWyaolBlXVc) for a disturbing portrayal of wrongful convictions in the United States.

The men exonerated by the Innocence Project (99% proven wrongfully convicted are men) serve an average of thirteen years before exoneration, sometimes years after the exoneration happens.

The documentary shows prosecutors keeping people in prison, and therefore guilty people free, with impunity.

The Innocence Project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_Project

kelvin0• 11 years ago

Wow, nice slap on the wrist for having someong rot in prison for 25 years. And justice for all ...

balabaster10• 11 years ago

Did I miss a bit in this article - the innocently convicted man did 25 years. The prosecutor, knowing his innocence, withheld the evidence that allowed this conviction to pass but only did 500 hours (approx. 3 months) of community service and 10 days in prison.

An innocent man lost 25 years of his life and the man who caused this eventually, after a reasonably successful career lost what may as well equate to some vacation time...

Am I the only one who is horrified at this? Okay, so he got more than a slap on the wrist, but what the fuck is this?! That's bullshit! Pardon my linguistics, but my horror at this injustice leaves me short for words.

The only restitution that would make this even marginally okay is if the prosecutor/judge had been required to:

- House the convicted man.

- Set him up with training that would allow the convicted to re-integrate meaningfully into today's society.

- Assist the man to find meaningful and gainful employment.

- Set him up with a pension plan that would have been equivalent to see him through retirement.

- Set him up for success in the manner in which he would have been able to provide for himself had he been a free man.

- Feed him, clothe him and pay his utility bills until such a time as his income would allow him to successfully stand on his own two feet.

Even then, he owes this man 25 years of his service to make up for what was taken from him. If that bankrupts his accuser, so be it.

fnordfnordfnord6• 11 years ago

Prepare to be twice as angry! /s Ken Anderson spent only five days in jail. http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/ken-anderson-releas...

Am I the only one who is horrified at this?

No.

balabaster10• 11 years ago

I don't even know what to say about that... I'm speechless.

bsenftner• 11 years ago

I "love" how Huffpost frames this as "meaningful punishment" as if saying so makes that farce acceptable. I'm with the OP of this thread, that judge owes this man 25 years.

Spoom• 11 years ago

Not to mention that the only reason he's actually doing any time at all is because he plead guilty.

balabaster10• 11 years ago

facepalm

Is that because they threatened him with the death penalty if he didn't accept the plea? <irony />

acveilleux• 11 years ago

Worse, the only reason he was held in contempt is because the judge had to pro-actively order the evidence to be turned over.

rayiner7• 11 years ago

There is context here the article doesn't disclose. The prosecutor didn't "know" Morton was innocent. He failed to disclose exculpatory evidence, namely the fact that Morton's three year old son was at the scene and said his father wasn't home at the time of the murder.[1] It was undoubtedly unethical to withhold that. If there were doubts about the reliability of the child's testimony, that was the jury's call to make, not his. But not disclosing that statement is a far cry from prosecuting someone despite "knowing his innocence."

[1] http://www.innocenceproject.org/news-events-exonerations/pre... ("Anderson did not turn over a transcript of the victim’s mother telling an investigator that Morton’s 3-year-old son Eric had told her that Morton was not the attacker and other evidence pointing to a third party assailant.")

Zigurd2• 11 years ago

You are both ignoring the threats he made to extract a plea bargain, and the lack of serious consequences for prosecutorial misconduct. He acted like a thug, and should be sentenced like one. He ought to die in prison and see his family impoverished to compensate his victim.

rbanffy3• 11 years ago

Again, a man - and his son - lost 25 years of their lives because he failed to disclose evidence he had. The personal destruction he caused is unfathomable - imagine yourself, after having your spouse killed, thrown in jail for a crime you know you didn't commit, pleading guilty because you were convinced this would be the best for you and your child you'll most likely never see again. This is way beyond unethical.

10 days for ruining at least two lives?

dbbolton• 11 years ago

He failed to disclose exculpatory evidence

His failure notwithstanding, is there some reason why the defense didn't call the son to testify as a witness in court? Not trying to defend Anderson, but genuinely curious.

Also, I think this thread seems to be overly focused on eye-for-an-eye justice and laying the blame solely on the prosecutor (e.g. comments that he should be personally liable for compensation), but it seems to me that the entire justice system failed Morton, not just this one transgression. Morton received a lump sum for every year served, a lifetime annuity of $80k, job training, and educational aid.

Nothing in the world is going to give him those 25 years back, including bankrupting or imprisoning the prosecutor, but at least he was compensated in some way.

However, I will admit I was fairly disgusted by Anderson's plea bargain, not just because he deserved a harsher punishment but because it's not exactly a strong deterrent to prevent this sort of thing in the future (though perhaps the Michael Morton Act may help in that regard).

sophacles• 11 years ago

According to articles linked from this one - there was also a lot of other evidence withheld:

* a strange van lurking in the neighborhood

* the wife's credit card turning up in a different city after the events

* dna evidence from semen in the bed

* dna evidence from a bloody bandana

(both things with dna point to the same person who wasn't morton)

And from the article you linked:

The investigator also received evidence that the attack was committed by a third party intruder -- a neighbor reported that she observed what appeared to be someone staking out the house and someone attempted to use the victim’s credit card in San Antonio. - See more at: http://www.innocenceproject.org/news-events-exonerations/pre...

That Anderson had all of that is enough to point to a reasonably strong suspicion of knowning, if not stricly knowing of Morton's innocence.

analyst74• 11 years ago

I imagine he'd also lose his job, and any career he had.

Kinnard• 11 years ago

I am also horrified.

georgeportillo2• 11 years ago

I wholeheartedly agree.

kabdib• 11 years ago

A slap on the wrist. The prosecutor should have gone to jail for MUCH longer.

vaadu• 11 years ago

Anderson should get life without parole. A message needs to be sent to government officials that abuse there powers.

Taking 25 years from this innocent man is just the tip of the iceberg. He also took 25 years from his relatives. And this is probably not an isolated incident for him.

known• 11 years ago

"Diverse society will fail" --Putnam;

Let black Police deal with black Culprits;

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/t...

MaxFrax• 11 years ago

cool, this is really interesting

rayiner7• 11 years ago

I think we need to punish prosecutorial misconduct more aggressively. That said, you can better understand the status quo if you think of the criminal justice system in terms of interconnected problems.

First problem: making sure prosecutors are held personally liable for the X% of convictions that are wrongful and arise from prosecutorial misconduct.

Second problem: ensuring that people are freed for the Y% of convictions that are wrongful and don't result from misconduct.

Third problem: ensuring that the system can function to uphold the (100 - Y - X)% of convictions that are not wrongful.

The fact of the matter is that Y is a small number. And X is a much smaller number than that. Yet, the (100 - Y - X)% of convicts who are really guilty have no less incentive to appeal or sue for misconduct than the X% of people who have a valid case. Consequently, the justice system is awash in frivolous appeals and habeas petitions.

If it was just an issue of holding prosecutors liable in X% of cases, then this would be a much easier problem. But you have to do that without giving the (100 - Y - X)% of the justly-convicted a powerful tool to harass and abuse prosecutors who engaged in no wrongdoing. That makes the problem much harder.

Tloewald• 11 years ago

For capital cases the number of faulty convictions is disturbingly high -- 4.1% according to a widely reported study.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/death-penalty-s...

mr_luc3• 11 years ago

The system doesn't have enough capacity to deal with the frivolous appeals and habeas corpus petitions? Gee, that's too bad.

If only there was something the justice system could do to reduce the number of people going into this pipeline!

Well, I'll let you go, Justice System -- I see you found a dude with a few grams of acid paper, which I think we can all agree makes him basically El Chapo.

rayiner7• 11 years ago

The justice system can and does handle all those appeals and habeas petitions. But there is a difference between giving people a chance to prove their innocence, and making it easier for them to try and have prosecutors imprisoned for misconduct.

And reducing the number of cases would not change the calculus. If you had fewer convicts you'd need fewer prosecutors, but the ratios for each prosecutor would not change. The basic problem is that if you make it easier for 1 person to hold the prosecutor accountable for actual misconduct, you make it easier for 20-30 validly convicted people to harass prosecutors who did nothing wrong.

MisterBastahrd• 11 years ago

Anything less than the harshest possible punishment is being lenient.

This isn't a case where a man is desperate for money or undereducated or is in a fit of rage or has a mental condition. This prosecutor has years of professional training which includes ethics courses. He knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted the conviction to appear tough, and damn the consequences.

I'd throw him in solitary for a year and never allow him access to a clock or calendar.

jccc2• 11 years ago

I really, really appreciate this accountability (such as it is), but the moral standard people are seeing here is too high.

The convicted man's guilt or innocence should not matter at all when judging the conduct of the prosecutor.

davidgerard• 11 years ago

2013

maxxxxx• 11 years ago

I don't understand why the punishment is not much tougher. People like prosecutors, cops and judges are entrusted by society with power over people's lives. Illegal behavior in such a role should be viewed much more severely. A government can't work if it doesn't operate to the highest standards.

mdpopescu2• 11 years ago

You need to read Systemantics. The purpose of the government is not to help you.

hawleyal• 11 years ago

5 days for 25 years, seems legit

xacaxulu• 11 years ago

Equal time served should be the punishment here. That would act as a deterrent to such malicious behaviour in the future.

GPGPU• 11 years ago

Didn't Mike Nifong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Nifong go to jail for wrongfully _prosecuting_ those Duke Lacrosse players?

I didn't understand the title because only a Judge and/or Jury can convict people.

joesmo• 11 years ago

10 days in jail? How about start with 25 years and then work your way up from there? That'd be justice, but in the US that won't happen. We can always hope he gets murdered in jail though, but they'll probably put him in solitary. I'm still hoping though ...

maskedinvader• 11 years ago

this was really really depressing to read. Feel bad for the man and I hope the prosecutor suffers the rest of his days

vincentleeuwen• 11 years ago

Wow. 10 days vs 25 years. This seems like real justice...

akshat_h• 11 years ago

Not sure if this has been raised somewhere else in this thread, but if prosecutor didn't disclose evidence, did the defense also not know about the evidence, considering it was the child of the accused. Is the balance of power in favor of prosecution?

Also, now that the the accused in the case has been declared not guilty, will there be an investigation into who actually committed the murder?

aagha• 11 years ago

Whew! Thank goodness he got that community service time and 10 days in jail for ruining a man's life for 25 years!

For the First Time, a Prosecutor Will Go to Jail for Wrongfully Convicting

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