by TChris

Thomas Oliphant argues that it's time for the government to dump its lousy case against Ken Conley. He's right.

One thing that has not changed over the decade is the hideousness of the incident, involving as it did not only race but the infamous blue wall of police silence and the withholding of evidence from the accused. Police officers chasing a shooting suspect encounter an undercover cop, of color, and beat him to the point of disability before he can identify himself. None of them is ever convicted, all the penalties are administrative, but the one conviction in the case is of Conley, who actually arrested the suspect and has never wavered in his insistence that while he was apprehending the bad guy he never saw his brother officer being beaten.

Conley's conviction has been attacked repeatedly on direct appeal and in collateral proceedings, most recently resulting in a decision (upheld on appeal) vacating the conviction on the ground that the government withheld critical evidence from Conley: an FBI report of an interview in which a key witness retracted the statement that was used to secure Conley's conviction. Now the government needs to decide whether to take Conley to trial again.