Last week Donald Trump once again displayed his ignorance about how the criminal (in)justice system works in this country when he tweeted out that the verdict in the trial over Kate Steinle's murder was disgraceful. Attorney General Jeff Sessions opened his mouth and displayed his ignorance when he proclaimed that the murder was the result of San Francisco's status as a sanctuary city for immigrants.
Jose Ines Garcia Zarate was acquitted of the charge of murder in a month-long trial in San Francisco, though he was convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Now, I don't recall Mr. Trump expressing any outrage at jury verdicts in which police officers were acquitted for killing unarmed an unarmed black man. Quite the opposite, he was quite happy. We can all be angry at a jury for the decision they made but, unless you were in the jury, your view of the case can be quite warped.
Mr. Trump seemed upset that the jury was not told that Mr. Garcia Zarate had crossed the border illegally five times. Well, I've got news for you, Mr. President, such a fact is inadmissible in a murder trial. You see Mr. Garcia Zarate was tried for the specific offenses related to the death of Ms. Steinle and, therefore, the only evidence the jury heard was related to those offenses. You see, Mr. President, in this country (as flawed as our criminal (in)justice system is) we try folks on the evidence related to the crime with which they are charged.
Were the jury to have heard evidence regarding Mr. Garcia Zarate's immigration status they may have made a decision based on something other than the evidence regarding Ms. Steinle's death. They may have been asked to convict a man for murder for no other reason than he wasn't born in this country.
Now that would have been a disgusting verdict.
A jury doesn't hear all the evidence because some of it, sometimes a lot of it, isn't relevant to the case at hand. It is not uncommon for a jury to be excused from the courtroom while the attorneys argue over the admissibility of evidence before the judge. Those reading the newspaper or watching the news (or in attendance) are then made privy to information the jury never heard and will never consider.
The jury that heard the case wasn't trying to make any political statements. Their sole duty was to hear the evidence presented and to make a decision as to whether or not the government had proven their case(s) beyond a reasonable doubt. Just because a jury acquits a person doesn't mean they don't think a crime occurred. It means, instead, that they have more than a reasonable doubt, based on the evidence presented, that the government proved its case.
The jury's job isn't to convict someone - and it isn't to acquit someone. You may think a jury got it wrong, but that is how we decide cases the parties cannot work out on their own. And, in a murder case, sometimes the hardest thing to prove is that the actions of the defendant were intentional. And even though motive is not a required element of a murder case, the absence of a motive can raise reasonable doubt in the mind of a juror.
So, Mr. President, the jury's verdict wasn't disgusting. It was what it was. Using your bully pulpit to try to intimidate future jurors is disgusting.
And as for Mr. Sessions, you took an oath to uphold the Constitution and to seek justice. You're not happy with the verdict. Okay, I get that. However, threatening to file federal charges against Mr. Garcia Zarate is not seeking justice. It is called vindictiveness.
Showing posts with label evidence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evidence. Show all posts
Monday, December 4, 2017
Thursday, September 8, 2016
Stepping in it
Oh what a mess Harris County DA Devon Anderson has found herself in. As has been reported in local media outlets, over the last nine years some 21,000 pieces of evidence were destroyed in Harris County Precinct 4. All of the evidence was supposedly destroyed by one deputy - Christopher Hess - who has since been fired.
But somehow none of it came to light until local defense attorneys Emily DeToto and Paul Morgan found out when one of their clients was being offered a 25 year sentence on a dope case last month.
Strangely enough, Ms. Anderson announced at a press conference that her office had been aware of the destroyed evidence since February but chose not to say a word about it - all the while offering lengthy prison sentences in a cases in which there was no evidence.
Of course Constable Mark Herman claims that the entire problem has been resolved and that everything in Precinct 4 is now hunky-dory (which would be a first). If the story needs any more spicing up, the former constable, Ron Hickman, was appointed Sheriff following the resignation of Adrian Garcia.
But aside from the stinking mess that is (and has been) Precinct 4, why didn't Ms. Anderson's office inform defense attorneys about the problem when she found out about it? The requirements of Brady would seem to scream out that her office should have notified any defense attorney representing a client who was arrested in Precinct 4, that there was a problem with evidence storage. Her underlings damn sure shouldn't have been offering plea deals to defendants when they knew there was no evidence to back up the case.
Apparently we can require prosecutors to attend all the ethics classes we want and it won't change the culture of the office. Ms. Anderson wants us all to believe that all is well with the world and that her office is seeing that justice is done. Really?
There is no justification for Ms. Anderson's actions (or lack thereof). There is no excuse for sitting on this matter for six months. If Ms. DeToto and Mr. Morgan hadn't found out when they did, when would we have found out? And what other nasty little scandals are lurking in the nooks and crannies of the 6th Floor of the Harris County Criminal (In)Justice Center?
If Ms. Anderson can't be trusted to notify the defense bar of the wholesale destruction of evidence, how can we trust her office to investigate the matter? If we really want to find out what happened, who did it and how long it went on, then we need to have an outside agency do the investigating.
Ms. Anderson and her minions have shown they cannot be trusted.
But somehow none of it came to light until local defense attorneys Emily DeToto and Paul Morgan found out when one of their clients was being offered a 25 year sentence on a dope case last month.
Strangely enough, Ms. Anderson announced at a press conference that her office had been aware of the destroyed evidence since February but chose not to say a word about it - all the while offering lengthy prison sentences in a cases in which there was no evidence.
Of course Constable Mark Herman claims that the entire problem has been resolved and that everything in Precinct 4 is now hunky-dory (which would be a first). If the story needs any more spicing up, the former constable, Ron Hickman, was appointed Sheriff following the resignation of Adrian Garcia.
But aside from the stinking mess that is (and has been) Precinct 4, why didn't Ms. Anderson's office inform defense attorneys about the problem when she found out about it? The requirements of Brady would seem to scream out that her office should have notified any defense attorney representing a client who was arrested in Precinct 4, that there was a problem with evidence storage. Her underlings damn sure shouldn't have been offering plea deals to defendants when they knew there was no evidence to back up the case.
Apparently we can require prosecutors to attend all the ethics classes we want and it won't change the culture of the office. Ms. Anderson wants us all to believe that all is well with the world and that her office is seeing that justice is done. Really?
There is no justification for Ms. Anderson's actions (or lack thereof). There is no excuse for sitting on this matter for six months. If Ms. DeToto and Mr. Morgan hadn't found out when they did, when would we have found out? And what other nasty little scandals are lurking in the nooks and crannies of the 6th Floor of the Harris County Criminal (In)Justice Center?
If Ms. Anderson can't be trusted to notify the defense bar of the wholesale destruction of evidence, how can we trust her office to investigate the matter? If we really want to find out what happened, who did it and how long it went on, then we need to have an outside agency do the investigating.
Ms. Anderson and her minions have shown they cannot be trusted.
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose the evidence
From the New York Times we learn that two of the NYPD's evidence bunkers in Brooklyn came through Hurricane Sandy somewhat less than pristine. The rolling metal doors on the bunkers were no match for the wrath that Sandy cast upon the city.
And that presents a dilemma for the criminal (in)justice system in New York. The NYPD has been looking south to New Orleans to find out how a major city police department handled its evidence problems after a massive storm. The answer is, not so well.
Seven years after Katrina damn near wiped out the city (with special thanks to the oil companies' destruction of the wetlands on the coast and the insanity that was the man-made canal to the south of the city), evidentiary problems remain.
On the one hand the state has a major problem on its hands as it can't produce the evidence in some cases because it was destroyed. Sure, there are computer generated lab reports and analysts who can testify as to what they tested in the lab - but there are no goods for the jury to see. Of course, when the court is bound and determined to deliver that conviction for the state, such niceties as the evidence itself aren't always necessary.
I suppose the argument could be made that the evidence was accessible to the defense while the case was pending and that if the defense chose not to retest it for tactical reasons then that's just too damn bad. But, there is something deeply troubling about allowing a witness for the state to testify about evidence that either no longer exists or that can't be located.
It might also give rise to concerns that if the police can't safeguard their own evidence, how can we trust that anything is what they say it is.
In the civil courts we have a concept known as spoliation in which if a party loses or destroys evidence that evidence may be deemed inadmissible depending on the circumstances of the destruction. In the criminal courthouse such evidence is only deemed inadmissible if the state acted in bad faith in destroying the evidence. Is negligence enough?
And what about the thousands of cases that will end in pleas? The state isn't required to produce any of its evidence until trial. When a defendant enters into a plea bargain, the state files a motion to destroy evidence - if the evidence even exists. In such cases there is no way to know whether or not the evidence was lost or destroyed as a result of the storm. What kind of justice is that? A defendant is being asked to plead guilty to a crime without being told whether or not the evidence the state needs to prove him guilty even exists. It's the perfect tool to coerce a plea.
But there is an even more troubling situation - once a defendant has been convicted of a crime, the burden of proof shifts from the state to the defendant. In order to exonerate a person convicted of a crime, that person must present evidence that provides indisputable proof of innocence. And what is one to do when that evidence no longer exists due to the inability of the state to preserve the evidence?
In the case of sexual assault and murder cases, DNA evidence may be the only evidence out there that can exonerate someone. And, if as a result of the NYPD's lack of care in storing evidence, that DNA evidence has been lost or destroyed, exoneration may very well be an impossibility.
And that presents a dilemma for the criminal (in)justice system in New York. The NYPD has been looking south to New Orleans to find out how a major city police department handled its evidence problems after a massive storm. The answer is, not so well.
Seven years after Katrina damn near wiped out the city (with special thanks to the oil companies' destruction of the wetlands on the coast and the insanity that was the man-made canal to the south of the city), evidentiary problems remain.
On the one hand the state has a major problem on its hands as it can't produce the evidence in some cases because it was destroyed. Sure, there are computer generated lab reports and analysts who can testify as to what they tested in the lab - but there are no goods for the jury to see. Of course, when the court is bound and determined to deliver that conviction for the state, such niceties as the evidence itself aren't always necessary.
A defendant in Brooklyn, Manuel Castro, was one of the first people convicted of a crime based, in part, on DNA evidence destroyed during Hurricane Sandy. A jury found him guilty of robbery and attempted assault after a judge allowed testimony on evidence — a jacket and boots — that could not be produced in court because both articles had been at the Greenpoint warehouse, Mr. Banks said.
“We believe the ruling that permitted the evidence to come in was incorrect and we are appealing,” Mr. Banks said, adding that the situation was “a recipe for wrongful convictions.”
I suppose the argument could be made that the evidence was accessible to the defense while the case was pending and that if the defense chose not to retest it for tactical reasons then that's just too damn bad. But, there is something deeply troubling about allowing a witness for the state to testify about evidence that either no longer exists or that can't be located.
It might also give rise to concerns that if the police can't safeguard their own evidence, how can we trust that anything is what they say it is.
In the civil courts we have a concept known as spoliation in which if a party loses or destroys evidence that evidence may be deemed inadmissible depending on the circumstances of the destruction. In the criminal courthouse such evidence is only deemed inadmissible if the state acted in bad faith in destroying the evidence. Is negligence enough?
And what about the thousands of cases that will end in pleas? The state isn't required to produce any of its evidence until trial. When a defendant enters into a plea bargain, the state files a motion to destroy evidence - if the evidence even exists. In such cases there is no way to know whether or not the evidence was lost or destroyed as a result of the storm. What kind of justice is that? A defendant is being asked to plead guilty to a crime without being told whether or not the evidence the state needs to prove him guilty even exists. It's the perfect tool to coerce a plea.
But there is an even more troubling situation - once a defendant has been convicted of a crime, the burden of proof shifts from the state to the defendant. In order to exonerate a person convicted of a crime, that person must present evidence that provides indisputable proof of innocence. And what is one to do when that evidence no longer exists due to the inability of the state to preserve the evidence?
In the case of sexual assault and murder cases, DNA evidence may be the only evidence out there that can exonerate someone. And, if as a result of the NYPD's lack of care in storing evidence, that DNA evidence has been lost or destroyed, exoneration may very well be an impossibility.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Book Review: Popular Crime
Those of y'all who have more than a passing interest in baseball know who Bill James is. Mr. James practically created the algebra we use to analyze hitters and pitchers.
But Bill James has a hobby outside baseball - he's addicted to true crime stories. So addicted, in fact, that he decided to write a book about our fascination with them. The result is Popular Crime. The book takes us on a whirlwind tour of every "crime of the century" over the last 150 or so years.
His theory is you can really learn something about the history of a people by studying the crime stories they wrote. Crime stories are popular when you have beautiful people, tension and a vicious murder. Put in a "damsel in distress" or a child victim and the popularity of the story will go through the roof.
At their heart, true crime stories are an expose of a society's culture, customs and mores. Adultery, jealousy and greed provide the narrative for a sordid little murder.Want to know who the bogeyman is? Just take a look who the villain is in the books. We've gone from black men to Germans to communists to Latin American immigrants.
Not being a lawyer, Mr. James has little use for the rules of evidence and the concept of due process. In fairness, his interest is determining who did it -- not whether the prosecutor can prove who did it beyond all reasonable doubt. In his utopian court system, the only requirement of evidence would be relevance to the matter at hand. To determine relevance, Mr. James created a seven-step process.
The hardest thing for Mr. James to wrap his head around is the notion that a jury should not hear evidence that is unduly prejudicial to the defendant. The concepts of hearsay and confrontation are also both out of his grasp.
An interesting point that Mr. James makes is that after the expansion under the Warren Court of protections for the accused, far more defendants are convicted than before. He offers up an explanation that rings true. According to Mr. James, it's harder to beat the rap due to the professionalism of the police and pretrial discovery.
Juries are much more likely today to believe a police officer on the stand than they were in the 20's and 30's. Officers are perceived as more educated and disciplined today. As Gordon Gekko told Bud Fox, "the perception is reality."
It's the other idea that I'm interested in. Back in the early part of the century there was no pretrial discovery. Every trial was trial by ambush. The defendant didn't know what the prosecutor had up his sleeve and the prosecutor had no idea what tricks the defense attorney had in the works. That made it more attractive for defendants to roll the dice and go to trial.
Nowadays we see the offense reports. We see videos of traffic stops or interrogations. We see photographs. We read witness statements. There is very little the prosecutor has that the defense doesn't know about (but, of course, Brady is one case that is honored more in the breach than in the observance). Over at the civil courthouse there is little or no mystery at trial anymore. Thanks to liberal discovery rules, everyone knows what everyone else knows and what everyone's going to say. There's a reason most civil cases settle long before trial.
Is something similar playing out in the criminal courthouse? Does knowing the strengths of the prosecution's case make defendants more likely to enter into pleas rather than taking a chance at trial? As both sides operate with more information we're seeing prosecutors drop more and more of their weak cases and defendants pleading when confronted with a strong case against them. The cases going to trial tend either to be the coin flips or the cases in which a defendant is hoping to "beat the rec."
Popular Crime is an interesting book that will make you think -- it's just that sometimes that's after you've thrown your book (or your Kindle) halfway across the room.
But Bill James has a hobby outside baseball - he's addicted to true crime stories. So addicted, in fact, that he decided to write a book about our fascination with them. The result is Popular Crime. The book takes us on a whirlwind tour of every "crime of the century" over the last 150 or so years.
His theory is you can really learn something about the history of a people by studying the crime stories they wrote. Crime stories are popular when you have beautiful people, tension and a vicious murder. Put in a "damsel in distress" or a child victim and the popularity of the story will go through the roof.
At their heart, true crime stories are an expose of a society's culture, customs and mores. Adultery, jealousy and greed provide the narrative for a sordid little murder.Want to know who the bogeyman is? Just take a look who the villain is in the books. We've gone from black men to Germans to communists to Latin American immigrants.
Not being a lawyer, Mr. James has little use for the rules of evidence and the concept of due process. In fairness, his interest is determining who did it -- not whether the prosecutor can prove who did it beyond all reasonable doubt. In his utopian court system, the only requirement of evidence would be relevance to the matter at hand. To determine relevance, Mr. James created a seven-step process.
- State the fact itself in a way that is unambiguously true.
- State that which tends to be proven by the fact, as if this was known to be true.
- Put the statement of fact proven by (2) in a "standard evidence" form.
- Establish the value of the statement of evidence with reference to a standard set of values for such evidence.
- Make an estimate of the extent to which the statement is unproven.
- Make an estimate of the extent to which the statement is irrelevant.
- Discount the value of the statement by the extent to which the statement is unproven or irrelevant.
The hardest thing for Mr. James to wrap his head around is the notion that a jury should not hear evidence that is unduly prejudicial to the defendant. The concepts of hearsay and confrontation are also both out of his grasp.
An interesting point that Mr. James makes is that after the expansion under the Warren Court of protections for the accused, far more defendants are convicted than before. He offers up an explanation that rings true. According to Mr. James, it's harder to beat the rap due to the professionalism of the police and pretrial discovery.
Juries are much more likely today to believe a police officer on the stand than they were in the 20's and 30's. Officers are perceived as more educated and disciplined today. As Gordon Gekko told Bud Fox, "the perception is reality."
It's the other idea that I'm interested in. Back in the early part of the century there was no pretrial discovery. Every trial was trial by ambush. The defendant didn't know what the prosecutor had up his sleeve and the prosecutor had no idea what tricks the defense attorney had in the works. That made it more attractive for defendants to roll the dice and go to trial.
Nowadays we see the offense reports. We see videos of traffic stops or interrogations. We see photographs. We read witness statements. There is very little the prosecutor has that the defense doesn't know about (but, of course, Brady is one case that is honored more in the breach than in the observance). Over at the civil courthouse there is little or no mystery at trial anymore. Thanks to liberal discovery rules, everyone knows what everyone else knows and what everyone's going to say. There's a reason most civil cases settle long before trial.
Is something similar playing out in the criminal courthouse? Does knowing the strengths of the prosecution's case make defendants more likely to enter into pleas rather than taking a chance at trial? As both sides operate with more information we're seeing prosecutors drop more and more of their weak cases and defendants pleading when confronted with a strong case against them. The cases going to trial tend either to be the coin flips or the cases in which a defendant is hoping to "beat the rec."
Popular Crime is an interesting book that will make you think -- it's just that sometimes that's after you've thrown your book (or your Kindle) halfway across the room.
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