What we know about the falsely convicted isn’t much, says Michigan Law professor Samuel R. Gross, who suggests it happens on a regular basis.
Gross examines what we do and don’t know in his paper “Convicting the Innocent,” forthcoming in the Annual Review of Law and Social Sciences. What we know comes mainly from people exonerated by DNA testing in the most violent of crimes. “Over 95% of the individual exonerations that we know about are in murder or rape cases, which together account for about 2% of all felony convictions, and a smaller proportion of all criminal convictions,” Gross writes.
This leads to what Gross calls “absurd” calculations of the efficiency of our legal system that make their way to U.S. Supreme Court. Gross cites Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion in the Kansas v. Michael Marsh case where he concluded criminal convictions “have an “error rate of .027 percent –or, to put it another way, a success rate of 99.973 percent”.”
“Given what we knew by 2006, the charitable explanation for such an assertion is self deception,” Gross writes.
The main reason for false convictions: mistaken eye-witness identification, witnesses lying on the stand and people who confess to crimes they didn’t commit. Gross even finds evidence that some people are convicted of crimes that never even occurred — from falsely reported rapes to police planting drugs.
Read “Convicting the Innocentâ€
I rode the bus to the courthouse today. I like riding the bus on occasion and it saves gas. But until recently, I wondered how people who have to ride the bus got to the courthouse on time.
Docket calls for criminal court hearings, used to start at 9 a.m. But the Wichita bus schedule didn’t have the Riverside line, which passes the courthouse, leaving the downtown station until 9:20 a.m. After 8 o’clock, the bus only runs every hour. To get to the bus station before the 8:20 bus left took some planning.
I often used to wonder how many people earned bench warrants for not appearing in court on time, because of the bus schedules. I’ve seen several people show up after their names were called, citing transportation problems, only to be handcuffed and put back in jail, because a judge had already signed a warrant. Many people who have to make a criminal docket call also are poor, evidence by the majority of the cases being handled by public defenders. These are the same people who may have to take the bus to get to the courthouse.
But when Judge Eric Yost took over as presiding judge of the criminal division he changed the docket call to 9:30. It had nothing to do with bus schedules.
“So many of the sentencing judges have hearings at 9 o’clock, we really couldn’t get started until 9:30 anyway most days,” Yost said of the change. “We didn’t want to have the stress of lawyers and court guards having to make it to our courtroom by 9. All sorts of people have said that it’s made their lives easier.”
Now, that includes those who take the bus. This morning, it hit the bus stop by 9:25. I was through security and to Yost’s seventh-floor courtroom by the time he took the bench.
Medical malpractice lawyers took notice when federal prosecutors released a recorded jailhouse phone call between indicted Haysville doctor Stephen Schneider and advocacy group leader Siobhan Reynolds.
Before Schneider and his wife Linda faced 34 criminal charges, they were fighting nearly a dozen malpractice lawsuits — all for the way they prescribed prescription painkillers. Some patients sued because they became addicted, other families because their loved ones died of drug overdoses.
But in this phone call, Reynolds tells Schneider to stop agreeing to settle the lawsuits.
Reynolds call to Schneider
Reynolds, founder of the non-profit Pain Relief Network, told us in an interview on her cell phone that the suits were “frivolous” filed by “ignorant people” and that her advice to Schneider did not conflict with other actions that purported to support the patients.
Reynolds explains phone call
“Some of these cases looked on their way to being settled, but in recent weeks that has stopped,” said Larry Wall, one of the lawyers who represent patients in several wrongful death suits. “It’s unfortunate that someone who is not a lawyer is giving that kind of advice.”
Wall said he expects to file more malpractice suits against Schneider.
If you’re a contractor who wants to collect on a debt, you’d better include your address on the mechanic’s lien.
Douglas Buchanan of Wichita didn’t include his address on the mechanics lien, and the Kansas Court of Appeals reversed his case in a split decision. Two of the judges found in favor of homeowners Jerry and Carol Overley. The Overleys weren’t satisfied with Buchanan’s work and stopped paying him. Buchanan tried to collect on a debt of $49,285.63. But he didn’t include his address on his lien, as required by Kansas law.
“Kansas law demands strict compliance with the statutory requirements in order to perfect a mechanic’s lien,†judges Patrick McAnany and Michael Buser wrote in the opinion.
Judge Richard Greene didn’t agree. He pointed out Buchanan attached about 21 invoices to his lien, all of which had his address on them.
“I believe they have taken ‘strict compliance’ to a level never before required by our case law and beyond,†Greene said.
Lawyer Val Wachtel gave the defense perspective on premeditation, a week after this post gave a prosecutor’s view.
In his closing statements for his client, Eric Martinez, Wachtel told the jury:
“Prosecutors like to say premeditation is like what deciding what to wear in the morning. But I think premeditated murder requires more work than what tie to put on in the morning.”
Murder is easy to understand. But premeditated murder? Prosecutors say premeditation can be difficult.
It can especially be confusing since Kansas law doesn’t specify exactly how long someone has to think an action over before it becomes premeditation. It can’t be an instant before, but courts say you don’t have to think it over long.
Ann Swegle, deputy district attorney for Sedgwick County gave the best description of premeditation I’ve heard in her closing arguments of the Reginald Johnson murder trial.
“We premeditate all the time in our lives – we just don’t call it that,” Swegle told the jury. “We plan what we’re going to wear to work. We plan what we’re going to eat, at some point, before we eat. This morning, I decided I wanted another cup of coffee. It didn’t take me long. I just walked over to the coffee pot.”
The jury convicted Johnson of first-degree murder – premeditated.
The man with the most convictions for child sexual assaults in Kansas will get a new trial because the prosecutor chose to repeatedly point to the man’s homosexuality at trial.
The Kansas Court of Appeals overturned a 78-count conviction against William James Blomquist (pictured left), citing the Anderson County Attorney Fred Campbell with “gross and flagrant misconduct” in repeatedly bringing up homosexuality, because that had nothing to do with the charges against him.
The court ruled “it was unreasonable for the State to assume that a sexual desire for children is among those desires which define a homosexual orientation.”
In other words, straight men can, and do, molest boys. Calling attention to sexual orientation served no purpose but to inflame emotions and prejudice the jury, the court said in its ruling.
Blomquist, 34, will get a new trial on charges of molesting and sodomizing a 12-year-old, mentally retarded boy.
Prosecutors sometimes have trouble locating witnesses for a murder trial. But Elizabeth Munos not only showed up to testify in the trial of Eric Martinez, she did so just days after giving birth.
Munos had a baby on Saturday and took the stand on Tuesday to say that Martinez fired the shots that killed his uncle David Martinez and wounded his cousin Adrian Martinez last summer.
“We’ll try to make this quick, so you can get back to that baby,” prosecutor Shannon Wilson said as she began her questioning.
Update: Wilson later said that Munos’ labor went so quick, she ended up giving birth in the restroom at Via Christi Medical Center/St. Joseph’s campus. Father Angel Martinez helped deliver the couple’s fourth baby.
