Why We Must Look At Wrongful Convictions

On November 3, Yolo Judicial Watch will focus its attention, at its annual Fundraiser and Awards Ceremony Event, on the issue of preventing wrongful convictions.

Maurice Caldwell, who will also speak at the November 3 event, was wrongfully convicted of a 1990 murder and had his verdict overturned last December, after spending over 20 years in prison. He was finally released this year around the first of April.

A judge set aside Mr. Caldwell’s 1991 conviction last December and ordered a new trial, after lawyers for the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP) at Santa Clara University School of Law demonstrated evidence of actual innocence and that Mr. Caldwell’s defense attorney at trial was incompetent.

A San Francisco Superior Court judge then ordered Mr. Caldwell released when San Francisco prosecutors declined to retry him.

In September, the State of Pennsylvania received a report from the Advisory Committee on Wrongful Conviction, and while it focused ostensibly on Pennsylvania, there is much that we can learn from this very thorough and thoughtful report commissioned from the bipartisan joint state government commission.

“Since 1989, 34 states and District of Columbia have been witness to 273 postconviction DNA exonerations. These exonerations represent cases in which the conviction has been indisputably determined to be wrong by continuing advances in the use of DNA science and evidence,” the Commission reports in the executive Summary of a 328 page report that looks at the problems, what other states and jurisdictions have done about these problems, and sets for recommendations going forward.

The Commission notes: “They represent tragedy not only for the person whose life is irreparably damaged by incarceration for a crime he did not commit, but also for the victim since each wrongful conviction also represents the failure to convict the true perpetrator.”

This is a point lost on many, that the damage of a wrongful conviction is not merely to the person who is imprisoned wrongfully, losing a huge percentage of his or her life to incarceration.  The wrongful conviction also casues damage to the victims.

The case of Maurice Caldwell is instructive, because not only was Mr. Caldwell denied his freedom wrongfully for 20 years of his life, but the actual perpetrator killed another innocent person before his arrest in that case – a loss of life that might have been avoided had investigators been more cautious in evaluating the evidence.

They write, “These exonerations challenge long-accepted assumptions in the soundness of certain practices of the criminal justice system both nationwide and in Pennsylvania.

They cast a disturbing doubt on the reliability of eyewitness identifications, confessions, and overly aggressive practices within the adversarial legal system.”

It is of these “overly aggressive practices within the adversarial legal system” that the day to day work of the Judicial Watch project is based on, but the bottom line is the outcome it produces, putting people through potentially unnecessary stress, putting people into the legal system who do not belong there, and potentially incarcerating people for unduly long periods of time at times for crimes that they did not commit.

The report continues, “Victims can often be mistaken in their identifications of perpetrators, especially when influenced, often unintentionally, by subtly suggestive procedures for lineups, photo arrays, and showups. Interrogation techniques applied to suspects are calculated to obtain a confession and recurrently ‘work’ against innocent suspects, especially those who are inexperienced, suggestible, unintelligent, mentally defective or anxious to end the interrogation.”

Many have suggested these are mere rare occurrences, they will cite the low frequency of exonerations compared to the numbers flowing through the judicial system.

However, we also need to understand that safeguards are not nearly as plentiful as we would like to believe.  We know that “defendants have been punished for crimes they did not commit.”  The report argues, however, “Compounding these concerns, biological evidence is available in only a small number of cases involving violent crimes. There is every reason to believe that mistaken identifications, false confessions, inadequate legal representation, and other factors underlying wrongful convictions occur with comparable regularity in criminal cases where DNA is absent.”

And that thought should keep us up all night, because “While it is impossible to say with confidence how many innocent people are now, have been or will be imprisoned, it would be indefensible to say that every conviction or acquittal is factually correct.”

They argue, “To this end, we must pay close attention to the lessons contained in these DNA cases. To the best of our ability, we must respond by creating practical and workable measures that serve to advance conviction integrity by minimizing the risk of error.”

The report goes on to discuss recommendations that have been and are currently being considered in a number of other states.

The report summarizes the best practices and reform efforts in other state, looking in particular at efforts from 14 states, one of which does not include California.

Yolo Judicial Watch, however, believes that one element missing from a lot of these reform efforts is the need for scrutiny and oversight in the judicial system itself.  Most newspapers, as they struggle financially, have cut back on their court beat reporters.

Moreover, even when they did focus more energy on the courts, the beat reporters tended to pick high profile cases.  So the Topete Trial in Yolo County has rightly received numerous daily stories from several regional newspapers and television stations.

But often the worst abuse occurs in cases which no one is watching.  We watched a proceeding, for instance, on Friday where a man was charged with auto theft.  Except he never stole the car. Iinstead, he was late returning it after borrowing it, which the victim claimed was without permission.

The DA was quick to point out that the statute does not require permanent deprivation of the property, it could be temporary.  But the judge overruled the prosecutor, arguing that there was clearly no intention to permanently deprive the individual of their property, and therefore she dropped the case down to a misdemeanor.

The DA took the word of the “victim,” a man with a 28-year history of heroin addiction, whose memory was not completely clear, and there was substantial evidence that the defense had that the defendant had had permission to use the car, and the victim likely forgot.

Where is the scrutiny by the DA?  The individual was willing to plead to the misdemeanor to end the ordeal, but could have continued to fight and win.

While this is not an example of a wrongful conviction, it is an example of the need for the public to scrutinize what is going on at the court level.  Without the existence of exculpatory evidence here, who knows what would have occurred.

It is important to push for changing the way we conduct investigations, question witnesses and scrutinize eyewitness statements, because the cost is tremendous.

People will look toward the man wrongfully executed, but what Maurice Caldwell suffered is perhaps far worse.  First, the wrong person lost 20 years from his life.  But second, the consequence of that mistake was horrific, as another individual was killed as the result of the failure of the authorities to catch the right person.

In many ways, that is every bit as much of the ultimate cost as the wrongful execution.  An innocent person is dead because of this failure.

The Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP) at Santa Clara University School of Law operates as a pro bono legal clinical program, where law students, clinical fellows, attorneys, pro bono counsel and volunteers work to identify and provide legal representation to wrongfully-convicted prisoners.

To learn about Maurice Caldwell, Linda Starr and the efforts of the Innocence Project, attend Yolo Judicial Watch’s event on November 3 at the Woodland Community and Senior Center.  Tickets are available starting at $35.  For additional information about sponsorship opportunities please click here.

—David M. Greenwald reporting

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