Wrongful Convictions

There is only one reason that anyone is wrongfully convicted; corrupt prosecutors and police. As long as we allow corrupt prosecutors and police to live, it will keep happening.


Agree that some are corrupt, but find it really creepy how you say they shouldn't be allowed to live. They should be in jail.

There are corrupt DAs and corrupt cops. There are just corrupt people in every walk of life. Period. I think it's creepy that you say that corrupt prosecutors and cops shouldn't be allowed to live. I think they should go to jail if they knowingly convict an innocent person or tamper with evidence.

Wrongful convictions are not always deliberate. Police and DAs can be convinced by circumstantial evidence that someone is guilty and the juries often agree. There have been cases of mistaken identity where a witness is positive that a person is the one who committed the crime. Despite eye witness testimony not being nearly as reliable as many would think, it's taken as solid proof much of the time.

It's when prosecutors are willing to do anything in order to get a conviction that we see the worst kind of corruption.

San Diego boasts of a very high conviction rate. I think sometimes they put their careers first and getting convictions makes it appear that they are getting criminals off the streets. Helps to instill confidence from the public and get District Attorney's re-elected. Of course, if they have convicted the wrong person, no one is any safer. It's all an illusion, but if their career is their first priority, they don't feel bad about locking up some innocent people. The public is given a false sense of security and the DAs keep their jobs.

I think sometimes it's just sloppy police work, maybe from lack of experience. The Jon Benet Ramsey case would fit that. Police who aren't used to investigating murder cases are going to make a lot of mistakes. If that case hadn't been national news for weeks, it may well have ended with the wrong suspect being arrested to allay public fears. When the entire country is watching, they are less likely to play games.

When a lack of evidence or witnesses produces a suspect, they tend to go by statistics to look for the most likely suspect. Say a woman is murdered in her home. The husband will get looked at first. If he has an alibi or the woman was single, they go to boyfriends, neighbors or any convicted felons living in the area. They look till they find one that seems to fit and then build a case.

Of course, we all know the best way is to find evidence, however small, and see where it leads. This would happen the majority of time if mayors and the public didn't demand that police find the person yesterday. Under intense pressure to catch a criminal, they sometimes choose a likely suspect and then try to fit any evidence into a case against that person. This is where exonerating evidence has been ignored and even evidence tampered with or created, such as planting blood evidence in a person's home. Once they publicly accuse someone of a crime, they don't back down, regardless of evidence or lack of it. I think some are more likely to worry about covering their own tracks than admitting they got it wrong.

DAs generally rely on media to try the case in the news before the trial even begins. Great way to taint the jury pool well ahead of trial. Anything from a person's past is bought up to attack their character. If a couple had a fight witnessed by neighbors or a person ever got into a physical fight with someone, the DA will paint them as violent. Things like life insurance policies are cited as motives. If it's a sizeable amount, they say it was a plot to get rich. If the amount was fairly small, they claim that was on purpose so the insurance company wouldn't balk at writing a check without question.

One woman in California was convicted of poisoning her husband and the DAs case was flimsy at best. Not a shred of evidence, but a campaign in the media that attacked the way the woman grieved managed to get her life without the possibility of parole. If her lawyer hadn't fallen on his sword and admitted that he didn't do a good enough job, she would have rotted in jail. She was granted a new trial but the DA knew a retrial would be a huge embarrassment because the new lawyer would pick apart the flimsy case, so she magically found a second set of tissue samples taken from the autopsy (that she had claimed numerous times no longer existed) and had them retested. The tests showed that the husband was not poisoned. Not only was the woman innocent, there wasn't even a crime and she was released from jail. This was the Cindy Sommer case in San Diego, which you can look up.

It was a great example of how you can ruin a reputation by basically spreading gossip.

You could make Mother Theresa look guilty with the methods used by many DAs.

Thankfully, we have the Innocence Project, which had managed to prove thousands of people are innocent through DNA testing. Of course, most cases don't have DNA evidence and it's tough to get a second trial without overwhelming proof. Judges like to side with the DAs even when the evidence is underwhelming.

I think most of the time, they worry about getting it right. There are always those people, in any occupation, that put their own careers first, but most just want to do their jobs well. It doesn't help that there is so much pressure to catch criminals immediately. Good detective work takes time and it's better to take a few years than to build a bogus case just to make themselves look good.

And who is going to prosecute them?


You've just stated the big problem. There is so little oversight over the actions of DAs. Courts are not often willing to go after them. It is a problem. And those who have tried to sue them and call them up on corruption have faced an uphill battle. It would seem this issue literally will take an act of congress. Not that we should tie up every court by everyone screaming wrongful conviction. They are all innocent, ya know. Thing is, there have been so many cases of wrongful conviction proven and many innocent people continue to rot in jail because there was no DNA evidence to challenge.

A good start would be more lawyers willing to get involved and donate some time to take a second look at cases and going to bat for people who were convicted with no evidence and a very weak case because, in those instances, there is absolutely no guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. Of course, the burden of proof to convict a prosecutor of malicious prosecution is the same. It just seems like the actual standards practiced for the average person are much lower than they should be.

Part of what makes things so easy for them to win bogus cases is public opinion. When there is a murder, people are glad to hear when an arrest is made because they want to think a killer is off the street. No one wonders if the guy did it or not.. They say they caught the person and hope they throw the book at them. Then there is so much media coverage and people are demonized, which taints jury pools. Details are put out there that wouldn't be admissible in court and it's just a sneaky way of doing it. The whole goal is to make the person unlikeable. Prosecutors have a few tricks to present the accused in the most negative light. They like to arrest them on a Friday. Much of the time, the person has a rough weekend and doesn't even get to shower. They show up for court Monday morning looking like hell. Helps if they appear to be some crazed maniac.

Our system is designed the best way possible to give people a fair shake, but the system is only as good as the people in it.

I think it will take the Justice Department exercising the full scope of their rightful powers.
 
There is only one reason that anyone is wrongfully convicted; corrupt prosecutors and police. As long as we allow corrupt prosecutors and police to live, it will keep happening.


Agree that some are corrupt, but find it really creepy how you say they shouldn't be allowed to live. They should be in jail.

There are corrupt DAs and corrupt cops. There are just corrupt people in every walk of life. Period. I think it's creepy that you say that corrupt prosecutors and cops shouldn't be allowed to live. I think they should go to jail if they knowingly convict an innocent person or tamper with evidence.

Wrongful convictions are not always deliberate. Police and DAs can be convinced by circumstantial evidence that someone is guilty and the juries often agree. There have been cases of mistaken identity where a witness is positive that a person is the one who committed the crime. Despite eye witness testimony not being nearly as reliable as many would think, it's taken as solid proof much of the time.

It's when prosecutors are willing to do anything in order to get a conviction that we see the worst kind of corruption.

San Diego boasts of a very high conviction rate. I think sometimes they put their careers first and getting convictions makes it appear that they are getting criminals off the streets. Helps to instill confidence from the public and get District Attorney's re-elected. Of course, if they have convicted the wrong person, no one is any safer. It's all an illusion, but if their career is their first priority, they don't feel bad about locking up some innocent people. The public is given a false sense of security and the DAs keep their jobs.

I think sometimes it's just sloppy police work, maybe from lack of experience. The Jon Benet Ramsey case would fit that. Police who aren't used to investigating murder cases are going to make a lot of mistakes. If that case hadn't been national news for weeks, it may well have ended with the wrong suspect being arrested to allay public fears. When the entire country is watching, they are less likely to play games.

When a lack of evidence or witnesses produces a suspect, they tend to go by statistics to look for the most likely suspect. Say a woman is murdered in her home. The husband will get looked at first. If he has an alibi or the woman was single, they go to boyfriends, neighbors or any convicted felons living in the area. They look till they find one that seems to fit and then build a case.

Of course, we all know the best way is to find evidence, however small, and see where it leads. This would happen the majority of time if mayors and the public didn't demand that police find the person yesterday. Under intense pressure to catch a criminal, they sometimes choose a likely suspect and then try to fit any evidence into a case against that person. This is where exonerating evidence has been ignored and even evidence tampered with or created, such as planting blood evidence in a person's home. Once they publicly accuse someone of a crime, they don't back down, regardless of evidence or lack of it. I think some are more likely to worry about covering their own tracks than admitting they got it wrong.

DAs generally rely on media to try the case in the news before the trial even begins. Great way to taint the jury pool well ahead of trial. Anything from a person's past is bought up to attack their character. If a couple had a fight witnessed by neighbors or a person ever got into a physical fight with someone, the DA will paint them as violent. Things like life insurance policies are cited as motives. If it's a sizeable amount, they say it was a plot to get rich. If the amount was fairly small, they claim that was on purpose so the insurance company wouldn't balk at writing a check without question.

One woman in California was convicted of poisoning her husband and the DAs case was flimsy at best. Not a shred of evidence, but a campaign in the media that attacked the way the woman grieved managed to get her life without the possibility of parole. If her lawyer hadn't fallen on his sword and admitted that he didn't do a good enough job, she would have rotted in jail. She was granted a new trial but the DA knew a retrial would be a huge embarrassment because the new lawyer would pick apart the flimsy case, so she magically found a second set of tissue samples taken from the autopsy (that she had claimed numerous times no longer existed) and had them retested. The tests showed that the husband was not poisoned. Not only was the woman innocent, there wasn't even a crime and she was released from jail. This was the Cindy Sommer case in San Diego, which you can look up.

It was a great example of how you can ruin a reputation by basically spreading gossip.

You could make Mother Theresa look guilty with the methods used by many DAs.

Thankfully, we have the Innocence Project, which had managed to prove thousands of people are innocent through DNA testing. Of course, most cases don't have DNA evidence and it's tough to get a second trial without overwhelming proof. Judges like to side with the DAs even when the evidence is underwhelming.

I think most of the time, they worry about getting it right. There are always those people, in any occupation, that put their own careers first, but most just want to do their jobs well. It doesn't help that there is so much pressure to catch criminals immediately. Good detective work takes time and it's better to take a few years than to build a bogus case just to make themselves look good.

And who is going to prosecute them?


You've just stated the big problem. There is so little oversight over the actions of DAs. Courts are not often willing to go after them. It is a problem. And those who have tried to sue them and call them up on corruption have faced an uphill battle. It would seem this issue literally will take an act of congress. Not that we should tie up every court by everyone screaming wrongful conviction. They are all innocent, ya know. Thing is, there have been so many cases of wrongful conviction proven and many innocent people continue to rot in jail because there was no DNA evidence to challenge.

A good start would be more lawyers willing to get involved and donate some time to take a second look at cases and going to bat for people who were convicted with no evidence and a very weak case because, in those instances, there is absolutely no guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. Of course, the burden of proof to convict a prosecutor of malicious prosecution is the same. It just seems like the actual standards practiced for the average person are much lower than they should be.

Part of what makes things so easy for them to win bogus cases is public opinion. When there is a murder, people are glad to hear when an arrest is made because they want to think a killer is off the street. No one wonders if the guy did it or not.. They say they caught the person and hope they throw the book at them. Then there is so much media coverage and people are demonized, which taints jury pools. Details are put out there that wouldn't be admissible in court and it's just a sneaky way of doing it. The whole goal is to make the person unlikeable. Prosecutors have a few tricks to present the accused in the most negative light. They like to arrest them on a Friday. Much of the time, the person has a rough weekend and doesn't even get to shower. They show up for court Monday morning looking like hell. Helps if they appear to be some crazed maniac.

Our system is designed the best way possible to give people a fair shake, but the system is only as good as the people in it.

I think it will take the Justice Department exercising the full scope of their rightful powers.

They're corrupt as well. And nobody holds them accountable.
 
There is only one reason that anyone is wrongfully convicted; corrupt prosecutors and police. As long as we allow corrupt prosecutors and police to live, it will keep happening.


Agree that some are corrupt, but find it really creepy how you say they shouldn't be allowed to live. They should be in jail.

There are corrupt DAs and corrupt cops. There are just corrupt people in every walk of life. Period. I think it's creepy that you say that corrupt prosecutors and cops shouldn't be allowed to live. I think they should go to jail if they knowingly convict an innocent person or tamper with evidence.

Wrongful convictions are not always deliberate. Police and DAs can be convinced by circumstantial evidence that someone is guilty and the juries often agree. There have been cases of mistaken identity where a witness is positive that a person is the one who committed the crime. Despite eye witness testimony not being nearly as reliable as many would think, it's taken as solid proof much of the time.

It's when prosecutors are willing to do anything in order to get a conviction that we see the worst kind of corruption.

San Diego boasts of a very high conviction rate. I think sometimes they put their careers first and getting convictions makes it appear that they are getting criminals off the streets. Helps to instill confidence from the public and get District Attorney's re-elected. Of course, if they have convicted the wrong person, no one is any safer. It's all an illusion, but if their career is their first priority, they don't feel bad about locking up some innocent people. The public is given a false sense of security and the DAs keep their jobs.

I think sometimes it's just sloppy police work, maybe from lack of experience. The Jon Benet Ramsey case would fit that. Police who aren't used to investigating murder cases are going to make a lot of mistakes. If that case hadn't been national news for weeks, it may well have ended with the wrong suspect being arrested to allay public fears. When the entire country is watching, they are less likely to play games.

When a lack of evidence or witnesses produces a suspect, they tend to go by statistics to look for the most likely suspect. Say a woman is murdered in her home. The husband will get looked at first. If he has an alibi or the woman was single, they go to boyfriends, neighbors or any convicted felons living in the area. They look till they find one that seems to fit and then build a case.

Of course, we all know the best way is to find evidence, however small, and see where it leads. This would happen the majority of time if mayors and the public didn't demand that police find the person yesterday. Under intense pressure to catch a criminal, they sometimes choose a likely suspect and then try to fit any evidence into a case against that person. This is where exonerating evidence has been ignored and even evidence tampered with or created, such as planting blood evidence in a person's home. Once they publicly accuse someone of a crime, they don't back down, regardless of evidence or lack of it. I think some are more likely to worry about covering their own tracks than admitting they got it wrong.

DAs generally rely on media to try the case in the news before the trial even begins. Great way to taint the jury pool well ahead of trial. Anything from a person's past is bought up to attack their character. If a couple had a fight witnessed by neighbors or a person ever got into a physical fight with someone, the DA will paint them as violent. Things like life insurance policies are cited as motives. If it's a sizeable amount, they say it was a plot to get rich. If the amount was fairly small, they claim that was on purpose so the insurance company wouldn't balk at writing a check without question.

One woman in California was convicted of poisoning her husband and the DAs case was flimsy at best. Not a shred of evidence, but a campaign in the media that attacked the way the woman grieved managed to get her life without the possibility of parole. If her lawyer hadn't fallen on his sword and admitted that he didn't do a good enough job, she would have rotted in jail. She was granted a new trial but the DA knew a retrial would be a huge embarrassment because the new lawyer would pick apart the flimsy case, so she magically found a second set of tissue samples taken from the autopsy (that she had claimed numerous times no longer existed) and had them retested. The tests showed that the husband was not poisoned. Not only was the woman innocent, there wasn't even a crime and she was released from jail. This was the Cindy Sommer case in San Diego, which you can look up.

It was a great example of how you can ruin a reputation by basically spreading gossip.

You could make Mother Theresa look guilty with the methods used by many DAs.

Thankfully, we have the Innocence Project, which had managed to prove thousands of people are innocent through DNA testing. Of course, most cases don't have DNA evidence and it's tough to get a second trial without overwhelming proof. Judges like to side with the DAs even when the evidence is underwhelming.

I think most of the time, they worry about getting it right. There are always those people, in any occupation, that put their own careers first, but most just want to do their jobs well. It doesn't help that there is so much pressure to catch criminals immediately. Good detective work takes time and it's better to take a few years than to build a bogus case just to make themselves look good.

And who is going to prosecute them?


You've just stated the big problem. There is so little oversight over the actions of DAs. Courts are not often willing to go after them. It is a problem. And those who have tried to sue them and call them up on corruption have faced an uphill battle. It would seem this issue literally will take an act of congress. Not that we should tie up every court by everyone screaming wrongful conviction. They are all innocent, ya know. Thing is, there have been so many cases of wrongful conviction proven and many innocent people continue to rot in jail because there was no DNA evidence to challenge.

A good start would be more lawyers willing to get involved and donate some time to take a second look at cases and going to bat for people who were convicted with no evidence and a very weak case because, in those instances, there is absolutely no guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. Of course, the burden of proof to convict a prosecutor of malicious prosecution is the same. It just seems like the actual standards practiced for the average person are much lower than they should be.

Part of what makes things so easy for them to win bogus cases is public opinion. When there is a murder, people are glad to hear when an arrest is made because they want to think a killer is off the street. No one wonders if the guy did it or not.. They say they caught the person and hope they throw the book at them. Then there is so much media coverage and people are demonized, which taints jury pools. Details are put out there that wouldn't be admissible in court and it's just a sneaky way of doing it. The whole goal is to make the person unlikeable. Prosecutors have a few tricks to present the accused in the most negative light. They like to arrest them on a Friday. Much of the time, the person has a rough weekend and doesn't even get to shower. They show up for court Monday morning looking like hell. Helps if they appear to be some crazed maniac.

Our system is designed the best way possible to give people a fair shake, but the system is only as good as the people in it.

I think it will take the Justice Department exercising the full scope of their rightful powers.

They're corrupt as well. And nobody holds them accountable.

They certainly have been impotent. But we can hope that it can change. If not, the other alternative will get more play.
 
There is only one reason that anyone is wrongfully convicted; corrupt prosecutors and police. As long as we allow corrupt prosecutors and police to live, it will keep happening.


Agree that some are corrupt, but find it really creepy how you say they shouldn't be allowed to live. They should be in jail.

There are corrupt DAs and corrupt cops. There are just corrupt people in every walk of life. Period. I think it's creepy that you say that corrupt prosecutors and cops shouldn't be allowed to live. I think they should go to jail if they knowingly convict an innocent person or tamper with evidence.

Wrongful convictions are not always deliberate. Police and DAs can be convinced by circumstantial evidence that someone is guilty and the juries often agree. There have been cases of mistaken identity where a witness is positive that a person is the one who committed the crime. Despite eye witness testimony not being nearly as reliable as many would think, it's taken as solid proof much of the time.

It's when prosecutors are willing to do anything in order to get a conviction that we see the worst kind of corruption.

San Diego boasts of a very high conviction rate. I think sometimes they put their careers first and getting convictions makes it appear that they are getting criminals off the streets. Helps to instill confidence from the public and get District Attorney's re-elected. Of course, if they have convicted the wrong person, no one is any safer. It's all an illusion, but if their career is their first priority, they don't feel bad about locking up some innocent people. The public is given a false sense of security and the DAs keep their jobs.

I think sometimes it's just sloppy police work, maybe from lack of experience. The Jon Benet Ramsey case would fit that. Police who aren't used to investigating murder cases are going to make a lot of mistakes. If that case hadn't been national news for weeks, it may well have ended with the wrong suspect being arrested to allay public fears. When the entire country is watching, they are less likely to play games.

When a lack of evidence or witnesses produces a suspect, they tend to go by statistics to look for the most likely suspect. Say a woman is murdered in her home. The husband will get looked at first. If he has an alibi or the woman was single, they go to boyfriends, neighbors or any convicted felons living in the area. They look till they find one that seems to fit and then build a case.

Of course, we all know the best way is to find evidence, however small, and see where it leads. This would happen the majority of time if mayors and the public didn't demand that police find the person yesterday. Under intense pressure to catch a criminal, they sometimes choose a likely suspect and then try to fit any evidence into a case against that person. This is where exonerating evidence has been ignored and even evidence tampered with or created, such as planting blood evidence in a person's home. Once they publicly accuse someone of a crime, they don't back down, regardless of evidence or lack of it. I think some are more likely to worry about covering their own tracks than admitting they got it wrong.

DAs generally rely on media to try the case in the news before the trial even begins. Great way to taint the jury pool well ahead of trial. Anything from a person's past is bought up to attack their character. If a couple had a fight witnessed by neighbors or a person ever got into a physical fight with someone, the DA will paint them as violent. Things like life insurance policies are cited as motives. If it's a sizeable amount, they say it was a plot to get rich. If the amount was fairly small, they claim that was on purpose so the insurance company wouldn't balk at writing a check without question.

One woman in California was convicted of poisoning her husband and the DAs case was flimsy at best. Not a shred of evidence, but a campaign in the media that attacked the way the woman grieved managed to get her life without the possibility of parole. If her lawyer hadn't fallen on his sword and admitted that he didn't do a good enough job, she would have rotted in jail. She was granted a new trial but the DA knew a retrial would be a huge embarrassment because the new lawyer would pick apart the flimsy case, so she magically found a second set of tissue samples taken from the autopsy (that she had claimed numerous times no longer existed) and had them retested. The tests showed that the husband was not poisoned. Not only was the woman innocent, there wasn't even a crime and she was released from jail. This was the Cindy Sommer case in San Diego, which you can look up.

It was a great example of how you can ruin a reputation by basically spreading gossip.

You could make Mother Theresa look guilty with the methods used by many DAs.

Thankfully, we have the Innocence Project, which had managed to prove thousands of people are innocent through DNA testing. Of course, most cases don't have DNA evidence and it's tough to get a second trial without overwhelming proof. Judges like to side with the DAs even when the evidence is underwhelming.

I think most of the time, they worry about getting it right. There are always those people, in any occupation, that put their own careers first, but most just want to do their jobs well. It doesn't help that there is so much pressure to catch criminals immediately. Good detective work takes time and it's better to take a few years than to build a bogus case just to make themselves look good.

And who is going to prosecute them?


You've just stated the big problem. There is so little oversight over the actions of DAs. Courts are not often willing to go after them. It is a problem. And those who have tried to sue them and call them up on corruption have faced an uphill battle. It would seem this issue literally will take an act of congress. Not that we should tie up every court by everyone screaming wrongful conviction. They are all innocent, ya know. Thing is, there have been so many cases of wrongful conviction proven and many innocent people continue to rot in jail because there was no DNA evidence to challenge.

A good start would be more lawyers willing to get involved and donate some time to take a second look at cases and going to bat for people who were convicted with no evidence and a very weak case because, in those instances, there is absolutely no guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. Of course, the burden of proof to convict a prosecutor of malicious prosecution is the same. It just seems like the actual standards practiced for the average person are much lower than they should be.

Part of what makes things so easy for them to win bogus cases is public opinion. When there is a murder, people are glad to hear when an arrest is made because they want to think a killer is off the street. No one wonders if the guy did it or not.. They say they caught the person and hope they throw the book at them. Then there is so much media coverage and people are demonized, which taints jury pools. Details are put out there that wouldn't be admissible in court and it's just a sneaky way of doing it. The whole goal is to make the person unlikeable. Prosecutors have a few tricks to present the accused in the most negative light. They like to arrest them on a Friday. Much of the time, the person has a rough weekend and doesn't even get to shower. They show up for court Monday morning looking like hell. Helps if they appear to be some crazed maniac.

Our system is designed the best way possible to give people a fair shake, but the system is only as good as the people in it.

I think it will take the Justice Department exercising the full scope of their rightful powers.

It's too overwhelming for the DOJ to tackle because there are so many cases. Again, the best start would be lawyers willing to give time to highlighting these cases. And getting the media to do the right thing. They are great at destroying a person, so they could be great at calling out corruption among officials. Once the public becomes concerned over the problem, the pressure starts building. We need judges who can respect DAs, but at the same time, not be afraid to call them out when a bogus case in being tried in their court room. The judges have to see how people are being convicted without a shred of evidence. They sit through everything and know very well when they see this bullshit.
 
Journalist Martha Waggoner wrote for The Associated Press 8 August 2016:
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Johnny Small was just 15 when police came to arrest him in 1988 — so young he assumed he was in trouble for a curfew violation.

Instead, police charged him with first-degree murder of a woman who owned a tropical-fish store — a place Small says he'd never even visited.

He was convicted and sentenced to life behind bars, mainly on the testimony of co-defendant — a friend who once lived with Small's family. That man, David Bollinger, has since recanted. Bollinger says he testified only because prosecutors promised his charges would be dropped in exchange, and threatened the death penalty if he didn't cooperate.
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From The Associated Press 27 August 2016:
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A 12-year-old girl's lie on the witness stand cost Luther Jones 18 years. A judge in California's Lake County ordered Jones released from prison earlier this year after the girl — now 30 — came forward and said her mother told her to falsely testify in 1998 that Jones molested her.

..."We are so plagued with lying in the courtroom that it seems to have become just accepted"
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From The Associated Press 24 September 2016:
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A Tennessee man who spent 31 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit is getting a shot at exoneration and compensation, seven years after he was released. The Tennessean reports (http://tnne.ws/2di1eCE) the Tennessee Board of Parole will hear Lawrence McKinney's case on Tuesday and decide whether to recommend that the governor issue a formal exoneration order.

...State Rep. Mark Pody, a Republican who represents the former prisoner's district in Lebanon, has been frustrated by how long the process of compensating McKinney for all his years in prison is taking. ...Pody said he could see including health insurance and job training as part of McKinney's compensation.
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A falsely accused man has both the right to remain silent and a duty to witness. The two are mutually exclusive. He may do one or the other, not both. If he exercises his right to remain silent, he should keep in mind what we did to a perfect man who was falsely accused and through whom we have that right. We nailed him to a tree. If he chooses to do his duty, he will experience the fiery darts of satan and only a profound faith will allow him to get through it.
 
From the Associated Press 21 October 2016:
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A Florida man arrested last year after police mistook doughnut glaze in his car for meth is suing the city of Orlando and a drug-testing kit company. The Orlando Sentinel (https://goo.gl/KEoz0S ) reports Daniel Rushing filed a lawsuit last week, claiming negligence by the city and the kit's manufacturer.

...A state crime lab test cleared Rushing several weeks later and charges were dropped.
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From The Associated Press 1 December 2016:
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North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory on Thursday pardoned an innocent man who spent nearly 25 years in prison until after the FBI admitted analysts it trained repeatedly gave flawed evidence about tracing hair left at crime scenes. ...which makes Bridges eligible to receive up to $750,000 for the 24 years and seven months he was unjustly imprisoned. ...Bridges is now suing the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department and three forensic specialists. The lawsuit alleges they hid evidence that might have shown Bridges' innocence, including leads on another suspect who had committed rapes and incentives offered to testifying witnesses.
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Fortunately for him, he doesn't live in China...


Journalist Christopher Bodeen wrote for The Associated Press 2 December 2016:
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China's supreme court ruled Friday that a young man executed 21 years ago for rape and murder had been innocent, in a case that has drawn attention to problems in the legal system as well as the frequent application of the death penalty. ...Another man, Wang Shujin, confessed to the crimes in 2005 while in police custody...

...In its ruling, the court cited numerous examples of negligence and procedural errors by police and prosecutors, including the fact that Nie was singled out as a suspect "without a shred of evidence." It also said it couldn't rule out that Nie's testimony was coerced by torture or other means, a frequent accusation against the legal system that relies heavily on confessions to gain convictions.
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Prosecutors are only interested in conviction. Most do not seem to care about justice. Winning the case is everything.
 
Those who have studied the phenomenon have uniformly (no pun intended) come to the conclusion that police will plant or alter evidence on occasion, but ONLY when they are convinced that the accused is actually guilty of the crime, and they feel a need to add to the pile of inculpatory evidence. The times when a cop intentionally plants evidence against someone he knows is innocent are microscopic, in the big picture.

Which is not to say that it doesn't happen, or that justice should not ultimately prevail: the cop should be criminally prosecuted and the convict should be financially compensated.

"Corruption" is probably not the best word for this phenomenon. Corruption implies that the bad cops and prosecutors had something personally to gain, which is almost never the case.
Planting or manufacturing evidence is the very definition of corruption
 
Prosecutors are only interested in conviction. Most do not seem to care about justice. Winning the case is everything.

Journalist Bill Moushey wrote for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 22 November 1998:
Hundreds of times during the past 10 years, federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law. They lied, hid evidence, distorted facts, engaged in cover-ups, paid for perjury and set up innocent people in a relentless effort to win indictments, guilty pleas and convictions, a two-year Post-Gazette investigation found. Rarely were these federal officials punished for their misconduct. Rarely did they admit their conduct was wrong. New laws and court rulings that encourage federal law enforcement officers to press the boundaries of their power while providing few safeguards against abuse fueled their actions. Victims of this misconduct sometimes lost their jobs, assets and even families. Some remain in prison because prosecutors withheld favorable evidence or allowed fabricated testimony. Some criminals walk free as a reward for conspiring with the government in its effort to deny others their rights.

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Cops, prosecutors and judges all get paid from the same pot and all work together to convict. There is no money to be made in justice, but, man, there is tons of dollars to be made on convictions. 'Prison for Profit' - where judges get kickbacks from the corporations that own and run some prisons - are a big influence on rather or not a person goes to prison. It stands to reason, if a judge is being paid to sentence, prosecutors are being paid to convict, even innocent people.

Here's one judge who got caught (Google his name if you want more information on his case):
Judge Sentenced for Selling Kids into For-Profit Prison
 
Journalist Adam Liptak wrote for The New York Times 9 January 2017:
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The Supreme Court on Monday seemed deeply skeptical of a Colorado law that makes it hard for criminal defendants whose convictions are overturned to get refunds of the fines and restitution they had been ordered to pay.

The justices were helped by the forthright presentation of the state’s solicitor general, Frederick R. Yarger, who did not shy away from the more extreme implications of his argument. Money taken from defendants after valid convictions belongs to the state, he said.

...Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked if the state could impose a $10,000 fine on everyone convicted of a crime and refuse to return the money if the convictions were later overturned.

Mr. Yarger said yes.

...the state’s approach amounted to “charging people money for the privilege of trying them unlawfully.”
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