Posted on 12/29/2001 12:09:19 AM PST by Ada Coddington
Forgive Us Our Injustice System
Paul Craig Roberts
Dec. 26, 2001
http://www.newsmax.com/commentmax/articles/Paul_Craig_Roberts.shtml
This Christmas season, while counting our blessings and enjoying the comforts of family, take a moment to say a prayer for the tens of thousands of innocent Americans who will watch the passing of another year from comfortless prison cells.
Among these many is Christophe Yves Gaynor. In my considered opinion, Gaynor was framed by a corrupt prosecutor and railroaded by a corrupt judge.
Gaynor was a skateboard coach in Virginia who took his team to a New York competition. One of the team members attempted to purchase drugs. To restrain him, Gaynor threatened to tell his parents. The boy struck first by accusing Gaynor of molesting him. The entire team knew the charge to be false, but the improprieties of the trial defeated justice.
Another innocent is Carl Graf. When he declined a woman's sexual advances, the spurned woman accused him of molesting her son.
Because of religious scruples, Anthony Kovaleski refused to testify against his wife, prompting angry police to concoct charges against him.
Conservatives have hardened their hearts against the wrongfully convicted. Mistakes happen, they admit, but they believe most mistakes result from liberal judges letting the guilty go free.
Conservatives are right that the guilty often go free, but the reason is that the innocent are convicted in their place. Justice is no longer a concern of the justice system. Careers depend on conviction rates. It is easier for police and prosecutors to get convictions by piling charges on a convenient suspect until they coerce a plea than to solve a case and find the truth.
Mary Sue Terry, former attorney general of the Commonwealth of Virginia, has this to say: "Our concern has turned from seeking truth to seeking convictions, and our post-conviction efforts are focused on denying any further review."
Judges have written to me in response to the book "The Tyranny of Good Intentions" that I coauthored with Larry Stratton about the breakdown of our justice system. They confirm that injustice is often served by the justice system.
As one of the few columnists who writes about wrongful convictions, I receive numerous pleas for help. It is impossible for me to investigate and write about the many cases. All I can hope to accomplish is to make the public aware that once conviction replaces truth as the goal of the justice system, no one is safe.
Sources of help for the wrongfully convicted can be found at www.truthinjustice.org.
With the advent of DNA evidence, every week we learn of new cases of wrongful conviction. People on death row and people who have spent most of their lives in prison are being released as DNA evidence proves them to be innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted: Albert Wesley Brown, imprisoned 18 years in Oklahoma; Marvin L. Anderson, imprisoned 15 years in Virginia; Jeffrey Todd Pierce, imprisoned 15 years in Oklahoma. The list far exceeds the length of this column.
Forensic evidence, once thought to be conclusive, has turned out to be unreliable and fraudulent. From time to time, we see news reports of forensic experts whose work has fallen under suspicion: Pamela Fish in Illinois, Fred Zain in West Virginia. One, Joyce Gilchrist, a 21-year veteran of the Oklahoma City police forensic lab, is under investigation by
Oklahoma authorities, the FBI and a federal grand jury. Of her cases, 112 have been set aside for scrutiny, with 500 more to be reopened.
In nine of 10 Gilchrist cases being examined by the federal grand jury, the defendants have already been executed.
As a result of new tests, DNA evidence has unsettled many police and prosecutor offices. Recently in Arlington, Va., which in my opinion has one of the least reliable justice systems in the United States, the chief deputy clerk of the county circuit court destroyed the DNA evidence and alleged murder weapon in a death penalty case under appeal.
The defendant's lawyer is astonished that "where a person's life is at stake, the government is of the view it can destroy the evidence with impunity and say, 'Yes, we destroyed the evidence so what?' "
Another festering scandal is prosecutors who pay "snitches" with money or dropped charges to produce testimony that can be used to convict other defendants. Most often, the testimony is false, but the prosecutor has his "evidence."
Yet another scandal is the advent of feminist and lesbian prosecutors who hate men and use their office to act out gender grudges.
Yes, there are some honest police, prosecutors and judges. But the pressures they are under to match the conviction rates of the corrupt and to clear court dockets will eventually leave our justice system entirely in the hands of a heartless breed that never suffers the pangs of a bad conscience.
I learned of this from a friend who is a judge. They do not see the cases until after a great deal of damage has been done. Prosecutors have way too much power in our system.
Thanks for the post. Whenever I see numbers like these, I immediately question chit!
Judged innocent by whom? Not by a jury. Evidence of their innocence? Most would be free.
I'm not naive here. I worked as a C.O. at the 3rd largest maximum security prison in America. I'm sure there are a few innocent people behind bars, but, 'tens of thousands'?
One thing for sure though, I'm glad that Paul Craig Roberts is a 'former' ANY postition of power, otherwise, the prisons would be empty.
Forgot what the imprisonment figure is for the USA other than its the highest in the world now. Believe its several million behind bars. If 5% of them are wrongfully convicted, 10,000 is not an unreasonable figure.
To my knowledge, we have the most equitable justice system in the world (exemping the new 'hate crime' laws which leaves a persons' thought process to presecutors and others). Your post does provoke great concern.
Also, I agree, if the number of ill-conceived convictions of innocent people even approached as much as 1%, it needs to be addressed immediately.
Most juries and grand juries are composed about like the rest of the population: 90% sheeple.
Besides, if all were let loose from prison, it would probably affect your livelyhood more than mine.
Fingerprints at the scene? They can be transferred.
Defendants blood at the scene? List the people who had access to the police lab where the samples were kept, with their labels, until the trial.
Hair samples, fiber evidence, soil and chemical residues can all be manipulated by anyone who has access to the lab.
I continue to think that most manipulation of evidence is done by people who are convinced of the guilt of the defendant but fear that the case isn't strong enough without "help," but this is just as wrong as when it is done to pad conviction rates, shut up a critic, or act out a personal vendetta.
They do seem to be pro-prosecution :-)
Dershowitz, whose expertise is that he knows more than I, says that 90% of criminal defendants are guilty and that a decent prosecutor has a 90% conviction rate. However, he says that there is no relationship between the two figures. Dershowitz' estimate might be high but I think the figure is probably more than 1%.
The problem is more one of attitude, i.e., convictions are for career-furthering, than of mistakes being made. And occasionally we see examples of prosecutorial misconduct which is *never* punished. Until it is, prosecutors will do what they can get away with.
Judges acting as a second prosecutor is more prevalent in federal court than at the state level. Also US judges protect the FBI and other law enforcement agencies which is why it took 10 years or so for the Libyan Pan Am defendants to come to trial. When they got what they wanted, i.e., no US judges, Libya sent them off to the Hague.
If it takes one to know one, then her comment is not suspect :-)
Glendening is the Gov. of Maryland.
The former U.S. Attorney for Maryland was Lynne Battaglia,she was the U.S. Attorney for Maryland during the time Glendening was elected Governor of Maryland.
Former U.S. Attorney for Maryland, Lynne Battaglia, her Chief of White Collar Crime, Dale Kelberman and the head of the Maryland State Police, David B. Mitchell were the focus of a DOJ investigation for alleged corruption in mid-2001
There is a case now evolving in Ocean City/Snow Hill, Maryland (Worcester County) where allegedly the States'Attorney, Joel Todd and the Worcester County Circuit Court judge Theodore Eschenburg allegedly framed an innocent man for rape to allegedly conceal criminal activity involving some "good old boys" in Worcester County.
This is a common occurence in a corrupt state like Maryland.
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