We have nothing but praise for Suffolk County, Mass. District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, and recommend you read his op-ed in last week's Boston Globe about efforts his office is making to identify and free the wrongfully convicted:

As district attorney, I believe that the act of freeing one innocent person wrongly imprisoned is profoundly more important than all the criminals we arrest, prosecute, and convict. On behalf of the criminal justice system, I have expressed sorrow and regret at what these individuals have lost, but this is not enough. So the Suffolk County prosecutors and I rededicate ourselves to upholding the highest standards of professionalism and integrity to ensure as best we can that the mistakes that happened in the past are not repeated.

....The job of police and prosecutors is not merely to make arrests or seek convictions, nor is it to preserve an indictment or a conviction at all costs. Rather, our job -- at all stages of the process, from investigation to arrest to indictment to trial to appeal and to the review of new information that surfaces after a conviction -- is to seek the truth. When we determine that justice has not been served by an indictment or a conviction, we have an obligation -- legal, moral, and ethical -- to act decisively to correct the injustice. This is a sacred trust that this office has embraced.

Thank you, Mr. Conley.

Bruce Godschalk was released from prison after serving 15 years for two rapes DNA later proved he didn't commit. Details of his case are here.

Mr. Godschalk has received a $1.6 million settlement from the township of Upper Merion, PA--it was the townships detectives that extracted a false confession from him. He has already received $740,000 from Montgomery County.

The Florida Senate Judiciary Committee has passed a bill to mandate videotaping of interrogations:

On Tuesday the Florida Senate's Judiciary Committee endorsed a bill requiring videotaping by a 5-1 vote. But, because of opposition from the Florida Sheriff's Association, the measure faces an uphill climb in order to become law.

Here's why the bill is needed.

Videotaping leads to real improvements in police interrogation practices that protect the rights of suspects. Officers now know that everything they do in the interrogation room could be viewed one day in a courtroom.

Videotaping interrogations and arrests is good for the police too. It protects them against baseless claims of coercing a confession or violating a suspect's constitutional rights. Frivolous claims by suspects will diminish once they know that judges and jurors can see the interview and decide for themselves whether detectives intimidated the suspect.

Police and prosecutors have little to fear from a requirement to videotape all interrogations and traffic stops. It's a win-win situation. Videotaping can protect the innocent, help convict the guilty and uphold the public's faith in our criminal justice system.

The Fort Lauderdale police department implemented videotaping interrogations last year.

''We're looking forward to it and welcome the new procedure,'' said Capt. Bob Lamberti, who heads the Fort Lauderdale Criminal Investigation unit. ``We think it's in everyone's best interest -- attorneys, prosecutors, judges, detectives, the whole criminal justice system.'' "The Fort Lauderdale department studied other police agencies and concluded that ''the advantages of taping far outweighed any perceived disadvantages,'' according to a statement"

by TChris

Three 12-year-old girls falsely accused Eric Nordmark of attacking them in a park. False accusations are always tragic, but they compounded the problems Nordmark already faced. Nordmark was homeless at the time the accusations were made.

Nordmark spent eight months in jail awaiting trial. Had Nordmark been a wealthy man, he could have posted bail. Lacking resources, Nordmark -- despite the presumption of innocence -- sat behind bars until his accusers, during his trial, admitted that they made up the story to explain why they were late returning home from school.

The girls will serve less time than Nordmark did. All were charged in juvenile court with conspiracy, and one was also charged with perjury. Two girls were given 45 days in detention and one was given a month. They each received credit for 25 days already spent in custody. They will each be on probation for nine years, and they must perform community service and pay restitution.

To his credit, Nordmark doesn't blame the girls for his incarceration. He isn't complaining that they won't serve as much time behind bars as he did. "Kids are kids," he says. "Kids do bonehead things."

Nordmark is unhappy with the police for simply accepting a story without conducting a thorough investigation. His concern is legitimate. It is also legitimate to question why a system of justice that presumes people innocent and that promises equal treatment under the law nonetheless favors those who can afford to pay bail while incarcerating the destitute until their cases come to trial.

Morley Safer reports on 60 Minutes this Sunday on how interrogators can convince innocent people to make a false confession. Here's an e-mail we got about it:

The long-awaited 60 Minutes Story on False Confessions, featuring the cases of two individuals who falsely confessed, is set to air this Sunday night (unless Janet Jackson bares her breast, Martha Stewart is convicted, the Oscars are stolen again, or some other story preempts the show....)

The two false confessions featured are those of Abdullah Higazy, an Egyptian student studying abroad, who was coerced by the FBI into making an inculpatory statement (he claimed he owned a pilot's radio which the FBI believed was involved in the WTC bombings), and Jorge Hernandez, an 18 year old Palo Alto high school student who was coerced into confessing to a rape of an elderly woman . Both young men will describe the pressure which was brought to bear on them by interrogators and should explain why they felt they had no choice but to cave into the pressure.

Higazy was cleared when the radio he claimed was his was actually claimed by an American commercial airline pilot (oops!) and Hernandez, whose admission was captured on tape (though the interrogation was not), was cleared when DNA testing excluded him as the source of the semen. Should make for interesting primetime t.v. -- a nice pre-Oscar warmup.

Eric Nordmark planned to kill himself in jail if convicted -- with a razor blade he had smuggled into his cell. He spent 8 months in that cell awaiting trial on a charge that he molested three schoolgirls. The trial began. Two days into it, the girls admitted they made up the accusation to cover themselves and not get in trouble for being late coming home from school.

The girls didn't get off lightly.

The three little girls were arrested and led from their elementary school in handcuffs for making up the story.

Mr. Nordham is now living in Seattle where he obtained a job sorting clothes for Goodwill. What went wrong? How did the girls' story get so far?

Nordham's lawyer, David Swanson, believes the police made serious error by interviewing the girls in a group rather than individually, a circumstance that made it easy for them to tell the same story.

False accusations are a bigger problem than you think. There are a myriad of reasons why they occur. But this story is a powerful reminder that children can do bad things and all allegations of misconduct should be scrupulously scrutinized.

On Feb. 12, 2003, Julius Earl Ruffin walked out of jail a free man after 21 years in prison. DNA tests cleared him of the rape of a Virginia woman. The Virigina Pilot has an extensive two-part report on his case. Part one is here. Part Two, focusing on how persistence paid off for Mr. Ruffin, is here.

When Earl Ruffin entered the state prison system in 1983, he became prisoner 132087. Convicted of rape, burglary and three counts of sodomy, Ruffin was staring at five life terms. At 29, time simply stopped.

....He joined the prison all-star team, which traveled to other prisons to compete. He stayed out of trouble by keeping busy. When he wasn’t on the court, he built chairs, beds and desks in the carpentry center. He thought of the judges who would be sitting in his chairs and the college students sleeping in the beds he built.

He spent the rest of his free time in the prison law library, preparing his appeals. Without any formal legal assistance, Ruffin appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. His briefs were clear and well-written. But he lost at every turn.

And then, thankfully, it turned around. [hat tip to Howard Bashman of How Appealing.]

Albany defense lawyer Terry Kindlon writes in:

Let's hope the first thing John Kerry does after he's elected President is appoint Eliot Spitzer of New York his Attorney General, to restore dignity and intelligence to the office. We've all been so distracted by Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz , Perle and the other Chickenhawks killing thousands of innocent people that John Ashcroft has come close to getting away with murder.

US v Rice, in the District of Virginia, is the latest example: In 2002, Ashcroft had a press conference and personally announced he was going to seek the death penalty against Darrell Rice. In 2004, on the eve of trial, the government has admitted it never had enough reliable evidence to even take Rice to trial, much less give him the needle . The way their press release is worded we're supposed to be impressed that DOJ has acted ethically and appropriately--and their point is well taken--it is impressive that they've acted ethically and appropriately. Case dismissed.

Anyway, DOJ's message seems to be, "Sorry for your trouble, Darrell, now scram." Do you think Ashcroft will be blaming the CIA for his lack of intelligence?

by TChris

Darryl Hunt always knew he did not commit the 1984 rape and murder of Deborah Sykes in North Carolina. Evidence of his innocence has been building for years, but it has taken a confession by the true perpetrator to finally exonerate Hunt. On Friday, Superior Court Judge Anderson Cromer granted the joint request of the prosecution and defense to vacate the judgment of conviction and to dismiss Hunt's case with prejudice. The dismissal "with prejudice" assures that Hunt will never face these charges again.

The victory follows a long struggle for justice.

Police arrested Hunt a month after the murder on the strength of two eyewitness identifications. They never had any physical evidence to tie him to the crime, but several eyewitnesses testified that he was at or near the scene. He was convicted in 1985, and after his first conviction was overturned on a technicality, he was convicted again in 1990.

DNA testing ten years ago revealed that Hunt was not the source of the semen recovered from the victim. Hunt expected to be freed at that time, but the court did not consider the compelling new evidence of Hunt's innocence to be an adequate reason to give Hunt a new trial. An appellate court upheld that unfortunate decision. Hunt turned down a plea bargain that would have freed him at the time, saying he "would not plead guilty to a crime he didn't commit."

Last year, DNA testing linked the semen in the murder victim to Willard Brown, a man who had been a suspect in a different rape in 1985 and who resembled Hunt in some respects. Brown confessed after the police confronted him with the DNA evidence. Brown's detailed description of the crime convinced investigators that Brown was telling the truth, and that he had acted alone. Prosecutors then agreed to join the defense in seeking dismissal of the case against Hunt.

Hunt will now apply to the Governor for a pardon. If he is successful, he may be entitled to collect $20,000 per year for each year of his wrongful incarceration. He deserves it.

Hunt is "the 141st man across the country to be cleared by DNA evidence."

Hank Skinner is on death row in Texas. His supporters say his is a terrible case of wrongful conviction. Now, you can read about his case in English or French and learn how you can help in his quest to overturn his conviction and sentence.

A 20 year old murder conviction was thrown out today by a California judge who cited the unreliable testimony of a jailhouse snitch and thin evidence as a reason for the reversal.

After a 15-minute hearing, the judge, Arthur Jean of Los Angeles County Superior Court, said he was voiding the conviction of Thomas Lee Goldstein, 55, "because of the cancerous nature of the appearance of this case." Judge Jean's ruling followed opinions from two federal court judges and an appeals court panel who ruled that Mr. Goldstein had been wrongly convicted and should be released from prison immediately.

How can the perils of jailhouse snitch testimony be reduced? According to Cardozo Law School's Innocence Project:

Judges should presume, and instruct the jury, that a jailhouse informant's testimony is unreliable. Moreover, the prosecution should be required to overcome that presumption before the jury even hears said testimony.

Any deal or reward offered or accepted with regard to informants or snitches must be in writing. All verbal communication should be videotaped.

Meet Carlos Lavernia. After sixteen years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, he's free. Or is he? How does one reenter society after such a long time spent as a Rip Van Winkle? With great difficulty.

Lavernia moved in with his stepdaughter in Leander and began to rebuild his life. He phoned his mother in Cuba, who had thought he was dead because he was too ashamed to write her from prison, he said. She plans to visit him in May.

He used some of the $435,416.65 he received from the state for wrongful imprisonment to buy upscale cars for himself and his stepdaughter. He started a home-remodeling business. But the money couldn't solve everything. Something was wrong. His stepdaughter's house was isolated and reminded him of a penitentiary, he said.

So he moved to South Austin a few weeks ago. Now, he said, he's been afraid to leave his sparsely furnished apartment except to work. He avoids nightclubs and won't walk along Town Lake near his apartment. "I'm scared of women," he said. Both cases against him relied on the testimony of female witnesses. A woman testified in 1985 that he raped her while she was jogging along a trail by Barton Creek in 1983. DNA tests weren't available at the time, and Lavernia received a 99-year sentence.