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Withheld Evidence and Poor Investigation Lead to Wrongful Conviction

By TChris, Section Innocence Cases
Posted on Sun Jan 29, 2006 at 07:19:43 PM EST
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by TChris

A homeless man leans against a pickup truck, smoking a Camel. Inside the truck, police find a Camel pack that's full of methamphetamine. The homeless man has $300 in his pocket. The man must be a drug dealer, right?

A jury said yes, but the judge who presided over Paul Magnan's trial isn't so sure.

A judge threw out the conviction -- which had been Magnan's third strike -- earlier this month, finding that Magnan's attorney ignored his innocent explanation for the money: His mother had wired him several hundred dollars a week before his arrest, so he could fly to visit her.

Prosecutors neglected to dislcose "that the woman sitting in the pickup truck, talking with Magnan at the time of his arrest, was someone police suspected in a separate incident of selling methamphetamine." Confronted by the Mercury News, the Santa Clara County district attorney's office said it was dismissing the meth case, while defending its decision to hide evidence from Magnan.

Chief Assistant District Attorney Karyn Sinunu said her office had no legal duty to turn over an unsubstantiated allegation in a police report. "That's nothing,'' she said of the information.

Nonsense. Prosecutors have a duty to turn over exculpatory information, even if they don't believe it. Juries, not prosecutors, decide whether defense-friendly evidence is worthy of belief.

The defense attorney and the prosecutor share responsibility for Magnan's wrongful conviction.

"What happened in the case of Mr. Magnan is appalling,'' said Dallas Sacher, the assistant director of the Sixth District Appellate Program, which handles appeals for indigent defendants. "The prosecutor never revealed what should have been revealed about the logical suspect. And the defense attorney never investigated critical evidence about his client. Those errors helped create a result that made no sense -- that Mr. Magnan was guilty of possessing for sale methamphetamine that was found literally at the feet of the logical suspect.''

Magnan will still stand convicted of possessing a small amount of heroin. His lawyers are awaiting his resentencing.

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    Withheld Evidence and Poor Investigation Lead to Wrongful Conviction | 1 comment (1 topical)
    Re: Withheld Evidence and Poor Investigation Lead (none / 0) (#1)
    by Dadler on Mon Jan 30, 2006 at 01:45:01 PM EST
    If they can pin ANYTHING on a guy like that, most cops will. His kind ain't wanted round these parts. Wherever these parts might be. Better he gets three hots and a cot. Ahem.

    Withheld Evidence and Poor Investigation Lead to Wrongful Conviction | 1 comment (1 topical)