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Wrongful Convictions Have an Impact on Victims

TalkLeft told Timothy Cole's sad story in this post. Cole was convicted of a rape he didn't commit on the strength of a mistaken eyewitness identification. The rapist, Jerry Wayne Johnson, confessed nine years after Cole went to prison. The Texas judges who heard about it ignored the confession. Cole died in prison 13 years into his sentence. He was posthumously exonerated on the basis of DNA evidence.

As that post noted, the district attorney who convicted Cole didn't seem terribly remorseful. That isn't true of Michelle Mallin, the rape victim who was victimized once by Johnson and a second time by the criminal justice system that staked its entire case on her identification while ignoring evidence that a serial rapist was still on the loose. She spent years in counseling after the rape, and she's back in counseling now, having learned that her testimony sent the wrong man to prison.

[more ...]

[L]ast summer, I was forced to relive the entire nightmare — this time with the added tragedy of knowing that Timothy Cole had been innocent and died in prison before he could be exonerated. New DNA testing proved that another man, not Cole, raped me. I was stunned. And I was determined to get answers.

I put my faith in the criminal justice system, and it failed me. ... I have learned a great deal over the last year — about myself, about Cole and about our system of justice. One of the most troubling things I've learned is that juries often hear evidence that is not as solid as it sounds.

Mallin points out that she and Cole were not the only victims of a system that stopped looking for the truth after she identified Cole.

Cole and I weren't the only ones whose lives were forever changed by what happened in 1985. We now know, through DNA testing and his own confession, that Jerry Wayne Johnson raped me. After Cole was convicted, Johnson abducted a couple and raped the woman in a cotton field. When he was out on bond awaiting trial for that rape, he raped a 15-year old girl at knifepoint.

Eventually, Johnson was convicted for those crimes. But they could have been prevented entirely if he had been apprehended after he raped me. It's hard for me to think about that woman and her husband, or that 15-year-old girl. I know what they went through — and, today, we know that they could have been spared the unspeakable horror.

Sometimes crime victims who mistakenly identify a suspect refuse to acknowledge their error, even when evidence of the suspect's innocence becomes indisputable. Mallin is a better person than that. She wants to make sure other crime victims and other wrongly accused suspects don't have to suffer. That's why she wants to see convictions based on hard science.

Earlier this year, the National Academy of Sciences released a major report finding serious problems with much of the forensic science that our criminal justice system uses every day. The report urged Congress to create a National Institute of Forensic Science to oversee research that can determine how accurate these scientific disciplines are, set standards for what kind of science should be used and how it should be presented, and oversee the enforcement of those standards. ...

We need to make sure our criminal justice system uses reliable, solid evidence to accurately identify suspects and convict criminals. Right now, forensic science is badly lacking, but creating a National Institute of Forensic Science can start to change that. The stakes are too high to do anything less.

TalkLeft discussed the National Academy of Sciences' report on forensic science in this post. Kudos to Mallin for her efforts to make something positive out of her tragic experiences.

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    A similar story (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by Peter G on Sat Aug 01, 2009 at 09:59:15 PM EST
    is told in "Picking Cotton," by Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton.  Cotton didn't die in prison, but he did serve 11 years for a rape he didn't commit.  Amazon has the book at a discount, as do other sources. Thompson and Cotton often speak together; they are seen in the documentary, After Innocence, as is my exonerated client, Nick Yarris.  

    In a case I know of (5.00 / 0) (#7)
    by NMvoiceofreason on Sun Aug 02, 2009 at 07:21:06 PM EST
    officers presented a photo array to "identify" the people who were allegedly their attackers to the victims, more than three months after the incident occurred. This was despite the fact they had given sworn statements the night of the event that "Their faces were covered and we never saw them". The victims correctly identified the people that had been arrested, and the judge allowed BOTH the tainted identification and the impeaching statements at trial. Did the accusation have a greater weight with the jury than the contemporaneous statement?

    I Can't Feel Sorry for her (1.00 / 1) (#2)
    by Jade Jordan on Sun Aug 02, 2009 at 10:41:27 AM EST
    Her tearful eye witness account sent an innocent man to prison.  She needs to serve the same amount of time he spent in prison.  Her life wasn't taken from her his was.  I'm sure she worked hard to convict him.  I hope she never has another happy day in her life.

    Prison is both punishment (5.00 / 2) (#6)
    by Peter G on Sun Aug 02, 2009 at 01:48:26 PM EST
    for the offender, and protection for society, Jade.  Your idea that a mistaken eye-witness, who testifies erroneously but without malice, should be imprisoned is way off base -- about 400 years behind all generally accepted thinking in moral philosophy.  She neither deserves punishment nor poses a threat to others.  If your friend was driving his properly-maintained car down the street, and a part of the braking or steering system suddenly failed, resulting in a crash where someone other than your friend died, and he didn't knowingly lie about what happened, I wouldn't want him to be punished for causing that death, would you?  

    Parent
    Sure (5.00 / 2) (#8)
    by Lora on Sun Aug 02, 2009 at 09:36:57 PM EST
    Oh yeah.  Like she really wanted to send an innocent man to prison, and let the individual who terrorized her roam free.

    You don't believe that, do you?

    Parent

    Her "tearful eyewitness account" (5.00 / 0) (#9)
    by MyLeftMind on Mon Aug 03, 2009 at 12:03:01 PM EST
    was due to suffering a horrendous rape and wanting to prevent it from happening to others. Don't belittle what she experienced at that time or later on when she was manipulated by cops and prosecutors who convinced her they had the right guy.

    Parent
    As I understand it witnesses are often *helped* to (4.66 / 3) (#5)
    by jawbone on Sun Aug 02, 2009 at 11:57:46 AM EST
    convince themselves their identification is correct by police and prosecutors who want to close cases.

    Human memory is much more maleable than we have realized. I vaguely recall (ah, bad memory!) that each time we retrieve a memory, it is restored in a slightly altered way. You might see how easy it would be to "shape" a witness's memory.

    I feel for both the convicted innocent person and the incorrect witness. I hold the system responsible, especially when there was evidence which seemed to dispute the witness's recollection!

    Parent

    not just the victims who helped convice an innocen (none / 0) (#3)
    by Jen M on Sun Aug 02, 2009 at 10:47:59 AM EST
    also the victims of whatever crimes the real bad guy commits while the police aren't even looking for him.