A misleading number

2000 people exonerate seems like a huge number and it is. Everything is perspective though, and 2000 wrongful convictions in twenty three years is not as bad as some people want to make it. Scarier still is the recent news that an innocent man was executed in Texas. People are wanting to argue that our justice system is woefully flawed. Well, it is, and it isn't. let me explain. We have the best justice system in the world bar none. Our system is better and fairer then the world court, or the courts of any nation. It is not perfect, it is far from perfect. Every person who works in the system is human and all humans are flawed.

Some errors can be prevented, the case in Texas is a prime example of that. The executed man knew who did it, gave the cops and every one else the name of the real killer, the real killer even admitted to the crime. The two men bore a striking resemblance though, and that did not help matters. The DA did not do his job either. By the time Carlos DeLuna was executed, Carlos Hernandez, the real killer was in jail, and the weapon was in police evidence.

Righting this wrong is not abolishing the death penalty, its prosecuting the persecutor who fully failed to do his job. Prosecutors like to point to high conviction rates when the run for reelection. The more important number is how many errors of police investigations they catch and correct.

Cops make mistakes, they are human. standing by your mistake when you are shown you are wrong though is foolish pride, and that should be punished.

Another problem is officers who are convinced some one is guilty and will do every thing including lie and fake evidence to obtain a conviction. Those type of cops should be executed by a firing squad of their peers, no less punishment will do.

Some times a cops instinct is right on, and evidence is just not there. Its a shame to let a criminal walk out the door, but cops need to learn to do just that. Sooner or later, the perp will make a mistake, some one will come forward, or missing evidence will surface. The conviction will fly then, but I know its hard to swallow.

The Casey Anthony case is a good example of what I mean, had the cops let her walk, they might have gotten a conviction later. As it is, she is guilty as hell, and free as a bird. I believe that had the cops let her go, but just before releasing her sat her down and told her. " We know you are guilty, the evidence just isn’t there to obtain a conviction. We will continue to search for evidence though, and some day something will turn up. We will look over evidence and discover something we missed, or some one will come forward. It may not happen tomorrow, it may not happen next year, but rest assured, some day it will happen. Keep that in mind when you hear sirens at night, it may be us coming to arrest you for the heinous crime you did to your child."

Rest assured, she would crack under the strain. She would tell some one, and one day she would piss that person off, and they would tell the cops. Or, like the fellow in Iowa, her conscience would topple her and she would confess.

Its hard to be a good cop. You are measured on your arrest and conviction rate, not how many people you comfort, or how much good you do for your community. Criminals get an uneven break in our legal system, and I can assure you, far more then 2000 convicts have skated in the twenty three years the folks at North Western School of Law examined.
Does it balance out in the end? Not if you are one of the wrongly convicted, but especially not if you are a later victim of some one who skated on the system. In the end, the problem is squarely in the face of schools like North Western Law who teach liars err lawyers to push the envelope and destroy the constitution.