Intentional Mistakes

Today I attended a talk by Richard Moran, professor of sociology and criminology at Mt. Holyoke College. He analyzed the records of the death penalty convictions that were overturned by the work of The Innocence Project.

What did he find in looking at the appellate decisions in 130 cases? (As of today, The Innocence Project has exonerated 234 death row inmates.)

In 2/3 of the cases, Professor Moran found intentional law-breaking by police and/or prosecutors: destruction or suppression of evidence, suborning perjury, illegal searches and seizures, coercing confessions, beating detainees, junk science--the whole range of stuff that somehow we believe was limited to what happened to foreign detainees at Guantanamo Bay Prison or Abu Ghraib.

Professor Moran was alarmed that we speak about these cases as if they were mistakes, mere accidents. However, 2/3 of these exonerations, and remember these are appeals based solely on DNA evidence (who knows how many cases there are where there is no conclusive evidence of malfeasance), were based on intentional law breaking by individuals operating with the power of and in the name of the state.

As a former criminal defense attorney, nothing Professor Moran said today surprised me. Unlike the public and too many judges, I do not assume that the police and prosecutors are operating within the confines of criminal procedure and the Constitution. Once one has seen what happens in the criminal "justice" system, one can never be naive again.

Read "The Presence of Malice," dated August 2, 2007, by Richard Moran from The New York Times.