Perhaps realizing that their case was shaky, the police then induced the man's wife to make a false confession by (among other coercive tactics) threatening to take her kids from her unless she give up her husband. When the actual robber was eventually captured months later, the FBI was finally asked to make a detailed comparison between the defendant and the image on the video. An FBI analyst concluded that the defendant wasn't the robber, and the innocent man and his innocent wife (who was arrested despite the cop's assurance to her that she'd remain at liberty if she ratted out her husband) were freed.

Did the system work? Yes, eventually, but only because of the happy circumstance that the guilty guy finally got caught. Until then, the system ground ahead, and the husband and wife stayed behind bars.

Stories like this surface daily, while prosecutors like Marquis blithely assure us that we shouldn't worry about wrongful convictions. He says "Americans should be far more worried about the wrongfully freed than the wrongfully convicted." So much for the belief that it's better to free ten guilty men than to imprison one innocent man.

Marquis should know that there are no "wrongfully freed." Defendants go free because the government can't prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt -- and those people are constitutionally entitled to their freedom -- or (very occasionally) because the government broke the rules. If prosecutors gave more attention to making the system work rather than whining about bad press when it doesn't, wrongful convictions might finally become a less compelling problem.