> Incidentally, you also said that this no longer
> the "United States of Lyncherdom". I presume you
> mean this literally, and are not suggeting that
> most of those accused of criminal acts receive
> reasonably fair trials these day. There does seem
> to be a real problem with false convictions. At
> least 80 people who have been convicted and
> sentenced to death have had their convictions
> overturned. Some of us take this as a hint that
> all is not well in our criminal injustice system.
> If you need information on just how unfair our
> system is, I will be happy to provide it -- but it
> would suprise me for someone who usually tries to
> take postitions based on facts to be ignorant in
> this matter.
Just published is *Mean Justice: A Town's Terror, A Prosecutor's Power, A Betrayal of Innocence* by Edward Humes.
The man unjustly convicted in this case was an affluent white man who fully supported the police and prosecutors--so much so that he virtually slit his own throat, refusing to take his own attorney's advice about keeping quiet.
Of course prosecutorial misconduct, like police misconduct, is far more frequently deployed against the poor and minorities. But when the system is so seriously out of whack, it's inevitable that even the (at least somewhat) privileged will get hurt as well. And their stories get past the defenses of others like them far more easily.
It also has an appendix that provides a selective list of cases of prosecutorial misconduct, which haven't yet had time to more than glance at.
BTW, the prosecutor here (in Bakersfield/Kern County, California) was instrumental in getting rid of California Supreme Court Justice Rose Bird, AND in pursuing the first series of "child-abuse rings" that fueled the nationwide hysteria that's still going on in some parts. Our very own modern-day Salem.
-- Paul Rosenberg Reason and Democracy rad at gte.net
"Let's put the information BACK into the information age!"