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and Judicial Misconduct "There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the colors of justice ..." - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982) |
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and Judicial Misconduct "There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the colors of justice ..." - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982) |
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Note: We add links to updates with the original news articles reporting police and/or prosecutor misconduct, so be sure to scroll down to check for "new news". Illinois. At last,
former Chicago Police Lt. Jon
Burge has been arrested. Burge or police officers who were under
his command systematically tortured suspects to get confessions.
The torture included suffocation, burns, electric shocks to the
genitals,
heads slammed with phone books and "games" of Russian
roulette. But it's
too late to charge Burge with torturing people. He's charged with lying
about the torture.
Link:Cook County Judge Dennis Dernbach is the last remaining defendant in the multi-million dollar lawsuits that four alleged torture victims brought against the city and county. The lawsuits claim murder confessions were coerced by former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge and his officers. He is being sued by Leroy Orange, a Death Row inmate who was pardoned and freed from prison by Gov. George Ryan in 2003. Orange accuses Dernbach, who was an assistant Cook County state’s attorney at the time, of coaching Orange’s confession. Orange also claims he told Dernbach he was tortured. Last man standing. It doesn't get much more ironic. On the same day Jon Burge was arrested, former Cook County Judge Thomas Maloney died. He was the first—and remains the only—Cook County judge to be convicted of rigging murder cases for cash when he was found guilty in April 1993 of taking thousands of dollars to fix three separate murder trials and a fourth felony case. Not so tough on crime. California. Contending that a top local prosecutor repeatedly sought to subvert justice, the state bar is recommending that Ben Field be suspended from practicing law for three years — a punishment that would represent an unheard of public discipline against a Santa Clara County deputy district attorney. Defense lawyer Jamie Harmon is facing trial in late October, 2008 on a 20-count state bar complaint, accusing her of neglecting the cases of some criminal defendants and misrepresenting what would happen to other clients if they pleaded guilty without going to trial. And the 6th District Court of Appeals has overturned several convictions in recent months after finding errors by Santa Clara County judges in their conduct of cases — including four cases in the past six months that were presided over by Judge Paul Bernal. Held accountable in Northern California. Maryland. In at least nine homicide, sex assault and burglary cases, Baltimore police detectives instructed crime lab technicians not to follow up on convicted criminals' DNA found on evidence at crime scenes because they determined it was not relevant to their investigations. How tunnelvision works. North Carolina. An all-white jury in Concord, NC convicted Ronnie Long of the rape of a prominent white widow -- the wife of a Cannon Mills executive -- in 1976, a crime Ronnie has always denied committing. His conviction was based on the victim's eyewitness identification of Ronnie. Now staff and attorneys with the NC Center on Actual Innocence have uncovered laboratory evidence that clears Ronnie -- evidence the state had all along and hid from Ronnie's defense for 32 years. The state cheated to keep a rapist free. Maryland. Baltimore crime analysts have been contaminating evidence with their own DNA -- a revelation that led to the dismissal of the city Police Department's crime lab director and prompted questions from defense attorneys and forensic experts about the professionalism of the state's biggest and busiest crime lab. Baltimore police are talking out of both sides of their mouths, saying, 'Oh, it's not a problem at all,' and on the other hand they have fired the crime lab director. How did this lab get accreditation? California. In Bakersfield, the crime lab is part of the DA's office. There is no "firewall" between the prosecution side and the science side of the office. This creates a conflict that recently moved prosecutor Nick Lackie to tell a jury, "So what?" This conflict issue has come to a head in a recent case in which a lawyer, Daniel Willsey, stands charged with causing the death of Joe Hudnall, a local deputy by driving under the influence of methamphetamine and causing Hudnall to crash. Defense attorneys have learned that testing of the defendant's blood was conducted by a lab analyst who is a close friend of the dead deputy's family. Cops in lab coats. But wait -- there's more. When Daniel Willsey's defense attorneys went back to court to argue motions related to mishandling evidence by the DA office's crime lab, everyone got a big surprise. The crime lab had "inadvertently" destroyed the sample of Willsey's blood that the lab claimed tested positive for methamphetamines. Gosh, it's not like the DA wanted to make sure Willsey's defense attorneys can't have a private lab test the sample. Ooops -- Butterfingers. Maryland. Raymond Jonassen, of Glen Burnie, Maryland, spent four months in jail based on information that turned out to be false. In charging documents related to a burglary from earlier in 2008, county police Detective Tate, wrote in an application for arrest warrant that Raymond H. Jonassen's fingerprints matched a set discovered at the crime scene. In fact, there was no match, and the county crime lab never indicated a match. It took another two weeks to dismiss the charge against Raymond. Neither the county police nor the chief prosecutor see a problem in what happened. Business as usual. Prince Edward Island, Canada. In 1989, prosecutors wedged Anthony Hanemaayer between a rock and a hard place, convincing that despite his innocence, he needed to plead guilty to a rape he did not commit in order to avoid spending the rest of his life in prison. He took the deal, spent 2 years in prison, and has endured the stigma of a rapist since then. And when notorious rapist/killer Paul Bernardo confessed to police and prosecutors in 2006 that he, not Anthony, had committed the crime, they didn't bother to tell Anthony. Defense counsel in another case stumbled on it. Illinois: In 1995, Alan Beaman of Normal, IL was convicted of murdering his former girlfriend, Jennifer Lockmiller, in 1993. The prosecutor, James Souk, didn't tell the jury about evidence that showed Alan was 140 miles away when Jennifer died, or that forensic evidence linked another man, not Alan, to the murder scene. Thirteen years later, the Illinois Supreme Court has reversed Alan's conviction, calling the evidence against him "tenuous." James Souk was rewarded for his misconduct in the usual way -- he's a judge now. The current county prosecutor, Bill Yoder, says he is "saddened for the family of Jennifer Lockmiller." Apparently Mr. Yoder thinks it is okay to let a killer go free, so long as somebody does the time. Career advancement at its typical Ohio: In 1998, when he was 12 years old, Anthony Harris of New Philadelphia, OH was subjected to a brutal interrogation, then charged and convicted of the murder of Devan Duniver, who lived near Anthony. Two years later, an Ohio appeals court threw out the conviction, ruling that the interrogation was so coercive that Harris "had no choice but … to confess." Prosecutor Amanda Spies got mad and got even; when Anthony tried to enlist in the Marines, she told military officials he was a murderer. But vindictive conduct is not protected conduct. The 6th US Circuit Court has ruled that Anthony can sue the prosecutor. Nevada: Roundly denouncing a Las Vegas federal prosecutor for withholding 650 pages of evidence potentially helpful to two lawyers charged in a stock fraud case, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld dismissal of all 64 charges and refused to allow a retrial. The Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, not surprisingly, cleared Assistant U.S. Attorney J. Greg Damm of any misconduct, and did so without contacting defense attorneys. Conduct in flagrant disregard of the United States Constitution Texas: The Dallas County district attorney who has built a national reputation on freeing the wrongfully convicted says prosecutors who intentionally withhold evidence should themselves face harsh sanctions – possibly even jail time. "Something should be done," said Craig Watkins, whose jurisdiction leads the nation in the number of DNA exonerations. "If the harm is a great harm, yes, it should be criminalized." Punish Unethical Prosecutors Mississippi: The exonerations of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks exposed the corrupt underbelly of rural and sparsely populated Noxubee County. But the corruption isn't limited to small towns with little outside oversight. Take a look at Jackson, where judges take money from prosecutors to guarantee "justice" and consider exonerations bad publicity. The Mississippi system. Ohio: A judge dismissed aggravated murder charges against Arian S. O'Connor after Summit County prosecutors asserted that Youngstown police ''compromised'' ballistic evidence in the 2002 slaying for which O'Connor was charged. When they say "compromised," they mean "planted" evidence. That's fraud. Pennsylvania: It took a Fayette County, PA jury just 25 minutes to figure out Bret Shallenberger was innocent of hiring a former employee to burn down Shallenberger's profitable business. It's the local prosecutor, who promised the actual arsonist immunity in exchange for framing Shallenberger, who should be on trial. Wrong Defendant North Carolina: A day after Glen Edward Chapman was freed from death row, the State Bureau of Investigation agreed to review allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice against Dennis Rhoney. The former Hickory police detective led the 1992 double-murder investigation that resulted in Chapman's convictions. Ex-Cop Who Led Discredited Case Probed California: A federal appeals court removed a controversial judge, U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real of Los Angeles, from another case, accusing him this time of "excessive and biased interventions" that denied two defendants a fair trial. Biased Judge California: The Orange County case against James Ochoa for robbing three restaurant workers was tainted at every level: police misconduct in manipulating the victims' identification of James and misrepresenting the responses of a police tracking dog; efforts by the DA's office to bully crime lab scientists into lying about the DNA exclusion of James as the robber; and the inexcusable conduct of Judge Robert Fitzgerald in extorting a guilty plea from James by threatening him with life in prison. In a rare series of real-time reports about the prosecution of James Ochoa, R. Scott Moxley told readers of the Orange County Weekly exactly which public servants were perverting justice and how they were doing it. As you read these, keep in mind that for the police, prosecutors and judge, business goes on as usual. Moreover, the DA is starting up his own crime lab, so he won't have to put up with scientists who refuse to lie about their findings.
Also see how the California Attorney General played games with James Ochoa's compensation: Making a Chew Toy of Justice Alabama and the U.S.: Don Siegelman, former Democratic Governor of Alabama, has a lot in common with Georgia Thompson. Both were prosecuted for acts that were not crimes, by politically motivated U.S. Attorneys, at the behest of vengeful politicos highly placed in the Bush administration. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals tossed Thompson's conviction at the conclusion of oral argument, ordering her immediate release from prison. It has taken longer, but the foundation of lies and corruption underlying Siegelman's conviction is starting to crumble. Sadly, Bush and his cronies have turned the U.S. Department of Justice into a cadre of political operatives. Justice in Amerika. South Dakota: Start with a 20-year-old cold case, two missing teenagers, and call their disappearance murder. Pick a suspect, a rapist serving a long prison term. Use a state psychologist to "help" the suspect's sister come up with "recovered memories" of seeing the missing teens at her family's farm. Recruit a seasoned snitch to get a confession on tape. Voila! You've got a conviction -- almost. Then someone noticed it wasn't the suspect's voice on the taped confession ... Texas: After he was snared in a net of swirling controversies including an e-mail scandal and the high-profile indictment of a sitting Supreme Court justice followed by an immediate move to dismiss that case, Harris County (Houston), Texas, District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal resigned from office. It was a stunning reversal of fortunes. In a press release, Rosenthal said prescription drugs had impaired his judgment. But it was what happened inside a southeast Houston home six years earlier that led to events in a federal courtroom and to Rosenthal's resignation. Erik and Sean Ibarra -- the power of common men. Mississippi: The Innocence Project has asked the state to fill the long-vacant position of State Medical Examiner, and to stop using state pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne. Dr. Hayne's work lies at the heart of the wrongful convictions of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks. His credentials and the results of his work have been solidly discredited for several years, but he is under no oversight because the State Medical Examiner position has been vacant for more than a decade. How many more wrongful convictions before the state acts responsibly? But Dr. Steven Hayne is only half of the despicable duo. Forensic odontologist Dr. Michael West found "bite marks" no one else could see on the bodies of the little victims in both cases, and in both cases, testified that Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks were each guilty. "If you fabricate evidence in a capital murder case, where you know that if the person's convicted they are going to be executed -- as far as I'm concerned that's the crime of attempted murder,'' says Peter Neufeld. "He's a criminal." Massachusetts: Stephan Cowans spent nearly seven of his 37 years of life behind bars, locked up for a crime he did not commit. Exonerated in January 2004, Cowans sued and ultimately received a $3.2 million settlement from the city of Boston in 2006. This past October (2007), he was shot dead in his Randolph home. Cowans never learned how, or why, he came to be blamed for the non-fatal shooting of Boston police officer Gregory Gallagher in 1997. Now, the Boston Phoenix has uncovered substantial new information about the Cowans case. These revelations are troubling, as they suggest that key members of the Boston Police Department (BPD) knew that Cowans was innocent, even as they forged the case to prosecute him. Incompetent--or Corrupt? New York: New York state investigators are probing how police and prosecutors handled the 1988 bludgeoning and stabbing deaths of Seymour and Arlene Tankleff, whose son, Marty Tankleff, served 17 years in prison for their murders before being released in December, 2007. What Took So Long? New York: A teen shooting suspect's quick decision to record his interrogation with a hidden MP3 device has played out as a perjury case against a veteran detective. Testifying at the trial of Erik Crespo in April, Detective Christopher Perino, 42, emphatically stated that he hadn't questioned the then-17-year-old about a Christmas Day 2005 shooting in The Bronx before the kid's mother and aunt showed up at the 44th Precinct station. But Crespo had secretly pressed record on his MP3 player - a small device used to download music from the Internet - hidden in his pocket and captured the bullying interrogation. "Testilying" vs. Tape.
Hawaii: A hard-won victory for the common man: Pinkerton v. KPD (Link) Arizona: In a breathtaking abuse of the United States Constitution, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, and special prosecutor Dennis Wilenchik, used the grand jury to subpoena "all documents related to articles and other content published by Phoenix New Times newspaper in print and on the Phoenix New Times website, regarding Sheriff Joe Arpaio from January 1, 2004 to the present." More alarming still, Arpaio, Thomas, and Wilenchik subpoenaed detailed information on anyone who has looked at the New Times Web site since 2004. Taking a Sledgehammer to the Constitution Within hours of the Phoenix New Times blowing the whistle on Sheriff Arpaio, County Attorney Thomas and special prosecutor Wilenchik, the two top executives of the newspaper were arrested. By the next day, public outcry was such that the charges were dropped and Wilenchik was fired. Which leads to our question: Why are Sheriff Arpaio and County Attorney Thomas still in office? North Carolina: A Durham, NC judge on October 8, 2007 dismissed murder and robbery charges first filed in 1993 against a mentally retarded defendant, ordering his release from a state hospital after 14 years in custody without a trial. Floyd Brown, a 43-year-old Anson County man with an IQ of 50, was charged in the robbery and beating death of 80-year-old Katherine Lynch in 1993. He was found at the time to be incompetent to stand trial, and has remained in state custody at Dorothea Dix Hospital ever since as prosecutors refused to drop the case against him. (Hey, wasn't Mike Nifong the Durham County DA?) The System Failed Him at Every Level. Canada: The Supreme Court of Canada, in a 6-3 decision, has broken new legal ground by ruling suspects can sue police investigators for negligence in cases of shoddy detective work. In a judgment that said police officers are not immune from civil liability, the court set its eyes squarely on combating wrongful convictions and institutional racism, requiring police to face the same legal consequences as other professionals who fail in their public duties. Ruling Applies Across Canada. Illinois: Not since club-swinging cops in baby-blue helmets chased demonstrators through clouds of pepper gas at the 1968 Democratic National Convention have Chicago police been so awash in trouble. Federal prosecutors have charged special operations officer Jerome Finnigan with planning the murder of another member of the unit to keep him from talking to the government. U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald has announced the federal government was stepping into the torture case, saying it would seek evidence of "perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice by members of the Chicago police department." It's political, it's cultural, it's systemic. Wisconsin: Award-winning journalist Dee Hall of Madison, WI's Wisconsin State Journal has filed a stunning series on the prosecutorial misconduct of Dane County Asst. DA Paul Humphrey, as well as the response -- or lack of response -- of Wisconsin's Office of Lawyer Regulation to Humphrey's conduct in particular and prosecutorial misconduct in general.
A 1999 Classic - and
Nothing has Changed
UPDATE: 9/22/07 - Ingham County DA Stuart Dunnings, III has joined Claude McCollum's lawyer in asking the Michigan Court of Appeals to grant Claude a new trial. According to the joint motion, Lansing Community College Police turned over a videotape which apparently showed that Claude was somewhere else on campus at the time of Carolyn Kronenburg's murder. Dunnings said if he knew in 2005 what he knows now, he would still prosecute Claude. Why wasn't the videotape turned over before trial? UPDATE: 9/24/07 - The Michigan Court of Appeals has granted Claude McCollum a new trial. UPDATE: 10/16/07 - Claude McCollum released on bail. State says he poses no danger to public. Translation: He's innocent. UPDATE: 10/24/07 - Charges against McCollum dismissed Pennsylvania: Sometimes justice happens in spite of the justice system. Sometimes it only happens when the people in the justice system get their noses rubbed in their messes. On 9/11/07, Lancaster County District Attorney Donald R. Totaro did the right thing by freeing Charles T. "Ted" Dubbs from a 12- to 40-year prison term in two sexual attacks he probably did not commit. Dubbs was sentenced in May 2002. Wilbur Cyrus Brown, a serial rapist who confessed to 13 other rapes, including one on the same jogging trail where Dubbs supposedly committed his crimes, confessed to those attacks in November. But Totaro had to spin things to portray his office as a well-oiled machine that immediately turned to fix an honest error when it came to their attention. That’s not what happened. Wisconsin: In a three-year span, Milwaukee Police Department Sgt. Jason Mucha was accused at least 10 times of beating suspects, planting drugs or both - claims so similar that judges took notice. Mucha's record shows how an individual can be the subject of numerous misconduct allegations and continue to advance his career inside a department that lacks a reliable way to track problematic behavior. His story also shows how a single officer was instrumental in changing the way Wisconsin courts consider claims of police misconduct. Forceful Impact Mississippi: Kennedy Brewer of Macon, Mississippi, a mildly retarded, Black defendant, was convicted of raping and killing a 3-year-old girl and sentenced to death in 1992. In 2002, he was cleared by DNA, but he wasn't released. He has spent the past 5 years in the local jail, awaiting retrial. Because you can bet, the local authorities plan to get another conviction and another death sentence. The Sheriff says he can't look for a DNA match because Mississippi doesn't have a DNA database -- which is news to the state's crime lab director. The prosecutor will bring back his star witness, dentist Dr. Michael West, whose bite mark testimony has been disproven by DNA in other cases, and who resigned from professional forensic dentistry groups to avoid expulsion. Prosecutors are so sure they're right about Kennedy's guilt that they're Willing to Bet His Life on It. UPDATE: 2/9/08 - Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, both convicted of killing 3-year-old girls in Noxubee County, Mississippi, and both cleared by DNA, are slated to be released. What did it take to reach this point? Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood had to take the prosecutions of these murders away from the Noxubee County DA, something almost unheard of in the state's history. The Attorney General has charged Albert Johnson with the murders of both children. California: A coalition of national nonprofit groups has asked the Justice Department to investigate and suspend FBI employee Danny Miller, who was found by a jury to have falsified evidence against Herman Atkins, a man who served 12 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence. Miller is in a position to continue doing harm to the innocent. Wisconsin: Wisconsin Dept. of Justice special agent Greg Eggum put away a lot of people during the time he worked as an arson investigator for the state. It was the means he sometimes used that caused the problems -- forensic fraud, hiding and tampering with evidence, committing perjury -- and state agencies that should have investigated his conduct refused to do so. In 2006, Milwaukee investigative consultant Ira Robins asked the state supreme court to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Eggum's conduct. The state high court instead converted Robins' petition to an appeal in John Maloney's criminal case and dismissed it. Robins is back with a federal lawsuit detailing Eggum's misconduct and asking for a federal investigation. Click HERE to read the Complaint (pdf format). Ohio. Lee Lucas has had an extraordinary career as a DEA agent in Miami, in Bolivia, and now in his hometown of Cleveland. He's gotten a lot of convictions, but with "issues" like evidence tampering, beating informants, suborning perjury and lying under oath himself. Lucas dodged all the investigative bullets, until May of 2007. That's when one of his informants, Jerrell Bray, told federal public defenders: "I could fill a room with the innocent people I've helped Lucas put away." Jerrell Bray said he wanted to come clean. But would anyone believe him? Joshawa Webb won't answer the door. Joe Ward won't leave his room. Lowestco Ballard's wife had a miscarriage. And Geneva France is a ghost. Collateral damage when police become criminals. Wisconsin. A judge on July 25, 2007 threw out an Oshkosh man 's 1995 conviction for threatening to kill disgraced former Winnebago County District Attorney Joseph Paulus after authorities agreed that a prosecutor withheld important evidence and solicited false testimony from a key witness. The prosecution of the case by former Outagamie County District Attorney Vince Biskupic "is an example of really egregious conduct " by a prosecutor, said an attorney for the man, Mark Price. Vindication. United States. The power, if not the arrogance, of prosecutors grated on Angela Davis throughout her 12 years at the D.C. Public Defender Service, three as its director. Now a law professor at American University, she has made a mission of exposing that power--on radio and TV and in a new book, Arbitrary Justice--with hopes of reining it in. Her beef is not so much with prosecutors breaking the rules, although plenty do. Davis' greater worry is all the behavior considered within bounds but outside any reasonable notion of fair play. Abuse at the early stages. Massachusetts. In what appears to be the largest sum of money ever awarded to people who were wrongfully convicted, a judge today ordered the federal government to pay $101.8 million to make amends for framing four men for a murder they did not commit. Two of the men died in prison after being falsely convicted in the 1965 gangland murder. Another, Peter Limone, spent 33 years in jail before he was exonerated in 2001. The fourth, Joseph Salvati, spent 29 years in prison. Justice -- Better Late than Never. Colorado. Somewhere between the spot Peggy Hettrick was abducted and the Fort Collins field where her partially clad body was dumped, her killer would have shed pieces of himself, mothlike. As he pulled her through the grass that dark morning on Feb. 11, 1987, his skin cells could have sloughed off onto her black coat. A strand of his hair could have hooked onto her shoes. A sneeze could have dampened her blouse. This is the law of forensic science: When two people come into contact, they leave cells on each other. But in the Hettrick murder case, authorities strayed from this law by losing some of these biological relics and destroying evidence linked to a prominent doctor they never investigated for the crime. In doing so, they may have covered the killer's genetic tracks. This happened in Fort Collins, where a detective clung to his belief that a 15-year-old boy committed the crime, despite no physical evidence. In a county where prosecutors opposed saving DNA, let alone testing it. In a state where the law doesn't create a duty to preserve forensic evidence. The result: An innocent man goes to prison for life, and the real killer moves on. Tim Masters is the innocent man. UPDATE: January 3, 2008: Innocence Bid Gets Boost. Fort Collins, CO authorities violated evidence-discovery rules when they withheld expert opinions that conflicted with their theory that a 15-year-old Tim Masters murdered Peggy Hettrick in 1987, according to special prosecutors. UPDATE: January 22, 2008: Tim Masters released and his conviction vacated. DNA excludes Masters and points to another suspect. UPDATE: September 9, 2008: Prosecutors in Tim Masters case get public censure for their misconduct. Both Terry Gilmore and Jolene Blair are judges now, and this isn't Gilmore's first censure for prosecutor misconduct. Nonetheless, they are expected to be easily re-elected in 2010 -- assuming anyone runs against either of them -- because the public has such a short span of attention, and the voters don't really care. Massachusetts Chief US District Judge Mark L. Wolf, in a rare rebuke to the US Justice Department, has asked the Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers to launch disciplinary proceedings against a veteran federal prosecutor, Jeffrey Auerhahn, who withheld key evidence in a New England Mafia case from the early 1990s. His Victim Wants Auerhahn Disbarred. Manitoba, Canada There has been intense scrutiny of cases handled by George Dangerfield, who until his retirement was considered the most formidable prosecutor toiling for Manitoba Justice. Since his retirement, however, he has been dogged by allegations that some of his most famous cases were miscarriages of justice. He was at the helm of two confirmed wrongful convictions: James Driskell and Thomas Sophonow. In both cases, judicial inquiries determined that Dangerfield committed errors, and failed in his duty to disclose relevant evidence to the defence. The Hon. Roger Salhany, former justice of the Ontario Court, has been retained to review the cases of former top Manitoba prosecutor George Dangerfield. Prosecutorial Misconduct Knows No Borders Michigan After a house burned down on Bay-Arenac County Line Road near Bay City, MI, Pinconning-Fraser Fire officials called Michigan State Police fire investigator Jeffrey Wallace to the scene. They suspected arson, they told him. And when Wallace showed up with his arson dog named Cops and produced evidence that accelerants fueled the blaze, they had all the evidence needed to bring charges - against Wallace. That's because local firefighters intentionally ignited the abandoned structure - without using any accelerant - in a ''sting'' on Wallace executed in conjunction with Michigan State Police and other agencies. Faking Your Way to Glory. Wisconsin: The trend of prosecuting non-criminal conduct has spread from New York, where former U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani initiated it, to the heartland. In Wisconsin, Georgia Thompson was a civil service employee when she was convicted of fraud, after being accused of steering a state travel contract to a firm whose top officials were major campaign contributors to Gov. Doyle. Never mind that she knew nothing about the campaign contributions and was just trying to save the state money. In a stunning and extremely rare move, a 3-judge panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals acquitted Thompson at the conclusion of oral arguments on April 5, 2007, and ordered her immediate release from prison. Not a politically motivated prosecution? Not a thinly veiled attempt by U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic to wound a sitting (Democrat) governor in the heat of an election? If not, then why was Thompson repeatedly offered deals, even after she was convicted, if she would "talk about higher-ups." Of course it was. And an innocent woman was Caught in a Political Squeeze Play. UPDATE: 9/12/07 - The federal case against Georgia Thompson is long dead, and she is back to work in her state job. But questions about the feds' failed prosecution of Thompson just won't go away. And with good reason. Questions on Thompson case won't quit. from Liestoppers Blog "An amazing performance of journalism on the fly."  Click the "ad" for
details.
Wisconsin: Prosecutors retrying a 1980 murder charge against Ralph Armstrong in Madison, WI cannot use the results of a DNA test on a key piece of evidence because the results were obtained in violation of a court order, a judge has ruled. Dane County Circuit Judge Daniel Moeser said the state acted in "bad faith" when it went ahead with the testing without notifying the defense and, in the process, used up the material - in violation of the judge's order. Bad Faith. UPDATE - 4/25/08: Now we know why the state violated a court order to test -- and use up -- key evidence. The state, and specifically, Assistant DA John Norsetter, has known for 13 years that Ralph Armstrong's brother confessed to the crime of which Ralph was convicted. Norsetter, who retired from the office last year, allegedly not only failed to investigate or notify Armstrong’s defense attorneys of this confession, he subsequently ordered a test that destroyed evidence that could have established Steve Armstrong’s guilt. Worse Than Bad Faith North Carolina: Durham County DA Mike Nifong has made himself the national poster boy for prosecutorial misconduct by his handling of rape allegations against Duke University lacrosse players. Nifong made inflammatory comments about the accused to the media, withheld exculpatory evidence, and continued to pursue convictions long after it was obvious the defendants are innocent. Why did he do it? He was running for election, and as Nifong himself said, 'I'm getting a million dollars of free advertisements.' Texas: In deciding Ex Parte James S. Masonheimer, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that Taylor County prosecutors (including now Judge Robert Harper) intentionally withheld exculpatory evidence with the specific intent to avoid an acquittal on three separate occasions. The CCA granted Mr. Masonheimer double jeopardy relief stating this prosecutorial misconduct met the Oregon v. Kennedy standard. Third Trial Barred. New York: Bruce Mason was convicted of arson and other charges in a federal bench trial in Binghamton, New York before the Hon. Thomas J. McAvoy. Although government and insurance fire investigators found no evidence of arson at the fire scene (i.e., no accelerant, no incendiary device), the record shows these experts devised a physically impossible arson scenario, and ignored, destroyed, suppressed, or lied about evidence which disproved it. When this wasn't enough to win the conviction, authorities fabricated a witness. Link: Bruce Mason Texas: The Dallas County, TX district attorney's office has acknowledged that prosecutors illegally withheld evidence that might have saved a man from a 1983 rape conviction and 10 years in prison. Newly discovered evidence amassed by attorneys for James Curtis Giles "strongly suggests" that he was misidentified as one of three men involved in the gang rape, prosecutors said. They said his conviction should be overturned, but stopped short of declaring Mr. Giles innocent. Instead, they asked state District Judge Robert Francis for additional time to investigate Mr. Giles' claim that a man with a nearly identical name was the true rapist. What's in a Name? Similar: Kerry Sanders was whisked from Los Angeles, CA to prison in Stormville, NY when he was mistaken for fugitive Robert Sanders. For 2 years, no one would listen when he insisted, "My Name is Not Robert." New York: Following a "trend" begun by former US Attorney (now a presidential hopeful) Rudy Giuliani, criminalizing non-criminal conduct, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Michael J. Garcia went after David Finnerty and 14 other NY Stock Exchange floor specialists for "interpositioning." Interpositioning means that instead of matching pending buy and sell orders, the specialists repeatedly trade for their company's proprietary account, making a profit from the slight differences in pricing. The government said Finnerty cheated customers out of $4.5 million. Judge Denny Chin overturned a jury's guilty verdict, however, concluding that no one was defrauded of any money and that interpositioning is not a crime. A Page from The Tyranny of Good Intentions Minnesota: Minnesota prosecutors, the people accustomed to dishing out punishment, have found themselves on the receiving end of two recent state Supreme Court decisions that targeted improper closing arguments and other out-of-bounds trial behavior. Prosecutors are bristling over the decisions, but many defense lawyers and legal experts think it's about time that courts stop warning prosecutors about misconduct and start doing something to stop it. Crackdown on Prosecutor Misconduct Nebraska: Matt Livers of Murdoch, Nebraska, the latest false confessor to a murder, was set free after evidence that two other persons committed the crime surfaced. The State's own expert agreed with the findings of the defense expert that Livers was mentally retarded, vulnerable to the tactics used by the police, and the confession was almost certainly false. Still to be explained are findings in the car police said Matt drove the night of the murders. Interestingly, no DNA is found in the car on first inspection. It is only on second inspection, using a wet swab, that the DNA is found, in the only area searched. Meet Matt Livers. Vermont: In Burlington, VT, District Court Judge Michael Kupersmith has had it with police who violate suspects' rights willingly and repeatedly by ignoring the precept of reciting a Miranda warning. "It's unfortunate that in this country there are people who believe that the rules do not apply to the executive branch, and they do; and the courts are here to enforce that," says Judge Kupersmith. "At least," he continued, his voice rising, "these courts are." Sidestepping Miranda. California: A Huntington Beach police officer's exoneration for planting a loaded gun in a suspect's car has led to the revelation that police routinely plant evidence in unsuspecting civilians' vehicles for training exercises. Police admit planting evidence. Illinois: In Chicago in 1997, June Siler mistakenly identified Robert Wilson as the man who slashed her wish a razor blade, after viewing a suggestive photo line up and being told he had confessed. This is a chilling reminder of how easy it is for police and prosecutors to manipulate a witness' testimony. Now, June says, "I have to make this right." Michigan: It took egregious misconduct by both police and prosecutors to hold together a case against teacher James Perry long enough for a jury to convict him of molesting 2 kindergarteners in suburban Detroit's Oakland County. Well, it was either deliberate misconduct or these folks really believe that "Harry Potter" and "The Lion King" are "nonerotic pornography." If you need your hair curled, read the following news reports: Lawyer seeks new trial or dismissal of
charges
North Carolina: The Robeson County District
Attorney has had to dismiss 180 drug cases because
a state and federal investigation has led to corruption charges against
former drug enforcement deputies. Three
of those deputies — Roger Taylor, C.T. Strickland and
Steven Lovin — have been charged in a 10-count federal indictment. The
indictment alleges that they burned two homes and a business, assaulted
people, paid informants with drugs, and stole and laundered public
money. Power
CorruptsConviction in sex case doesn't pass the smell test Judge reviews assault case Judge frees teacher in sex abuse case Perry's jury, too, was railroaded But Wait! Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca is no stranger to prosecutorial misconduct South Carolina: An investigation by The Post and Courier (Charleston) uncovered endemic failures in the state's system for tracking police officers that allow problem cops to keep their badges despite histories of misconduct and even criminal behavior. Systemic Failure New Jersey: Superior Court Judge Wilbur Mathesius thinks two N.J. Supreme Court justices are too prejudiced against him to be objective when they review the 6-month suspension Mathesius caught for, among other things, berating a jury for acquitting a defendant of illegal handgun possession; talking ex parte to jurors in the midst of deliberations in a murder case; making derogatory comments, some in public, about appellate judges; and gratuitous remarks that show bias about cases or defendants. Can't They Take a Joke? Texas: The Bexar County district attorney's investigation into the possibly wrongful execution of Ruben Cantu had barely started early in 2006, but already DA investigators were scoffing at the three witnesses who contend Texas sent an innocent man named Ruben Cantu to his death. The DA denies bias. Ohio: According to appeals court decisions, at least three men could be on death row because Cleveland's former star prosecutor Carmen Marino hid evidence. Three others had murder convictions set aside, one because of what an appeals court called Marino's "highly improper and highly prejudicial" conduct. The others, because he hid key evidence or lied about secret deals with jailed witnesses. Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Gaul said Marino should be criminally prosecuted for the abuses. How Many Other Marinos are out there? Missouri: Sandra Kemper, a suspect in an alleged arson that took the life of her son, denied nine times that she had anything to do with the fire. Then the St. Louis County police detective resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the book -- he told Kemper that she had failed a lie detector test. Later that day, Kemper admitted that she set the fire to get out from under the burden of being the sole provider to her family and to collect insurance proceeds. But the confession did not fit the facts of the crime, the motive evidence was weak, and Sandra had passed the lie detector test with flying colors. The trial judge declared a mistrial on issues related to the polygraph, and Missouri's high court has now ruled that Sandra cannot be retried. Police Lies Backfired. Florida: Florida correctional officials -- already facing a surge of unwelcome scrutiny in the wake of the forced resignation of former commissioner James Crosby, nine firings of high ranking officials by Crosby’s successor, and the release of a videotape showing the fatal beating of a fourteen year old boy -- have been put on notice by former inmate Thomas Craig: I know where the bodies are buried. Payback Time. Wisconsin: Two years after Winnebago County DA Joe Paulus pled guilty to taking bribes to fix cases, his iron-fisted approach is still practiced by local politicos. The Legacy of Joe Paulus Lives On. Get the straight skinny on
corruption in the Wisconsin legal system.
 Illinois: In 1994, Chicago cops used a "reverse lineup" (in which a suspect is asked to identify his victims), along with threats and physical abuse, to coerce 17-year-old Lafonso Rollins into confessing to the rape of an elderly woman. He was convicted and sentenced to 75 years prison, but he was freed in 2004 when DNA proved his innocence. He sued. Discovery in his civil suit disclosed that the police crime lab had excluded him based on blood type before Rollins was ever tried. Oops. The great teamwork cost the city $9 million. Cops & Crime Lab, Working Together Florida: With the help of testimony from convicted murderer Clarence Zacke, Brevard County prosecutors sent Wilton Dedge to prison for 22 years for a crime he did not commit. In December, 2005, Zacke was sentenced to life in prison for raping his adopted daughter 30 years earlier. Now, Dedge's attorneys are calling for an investigation of the state attorney's office after learning during Zacke's rape trial that the child-rape allegations were the subject of a grand jury investigation before Dedge's trial in 1984. Hidden Dirt, Hidden Deals New York: A former FBI agent helped set up the 1992 shotgun murder of a Brooklyn mobster, a federal civil suit filed by the gangster's widow charges. The agent, Lindley DeVecchio, pulled a surveillance team shortly before the rubout of Nicholas Grancio as a favor to Mafia capo Gregory Scarpa Sr. - DeVecchio's secret informant, the suit contends. It's Nothing Personal; It's Just Business Wisconsin: It was one of the most terrifying crimes ever to hit Kaukauna, WI, a community of 13,000. On June 25, 2000, Shanna Van Dyn Hoven, a 19-year-old UW-Madison student, was stabbed to death as she jogged by a quarry near her home about 6 p.m. Prosecutors said Kenneth Hudson stabbed Van Dyn Hoven, a stranger, in a fit of misplaced rage, and that they caught him red-handed, covered in her blood. Newly uncovered evidence, however, appears to support Hudson's contentions -- and raises more questions about the conduct of the police and the prosecutor, Vince Biskupic. Morphing DNA, Disappearing Evidence UPDATE: Ken Hudson's bid for a new trial crashed and burned. No surprise. His new lawyer dropped all the substantive issues, and the judge wouldn't let Hudson fire the attorney. New Trial Denied Click HERE for full coverage of Wisconsin's Vince Biskupic money-for-leniency scandal. Click HERE for more on Vince Biskupic's approach to cooking up a case. New York: A Long Island, N.Y., judge has been arrested and charged by federal prosecutors with participating in a money laundering and fencing scheme with a suspected organized crime associate. According to a 71-page complaint unsealed Tuesday by the Eastern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office, Nassau County District Court Judge David Gross helped an undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation agent posing as a stolen diamond trafficker unload merchandise as well as launder about $130,000 in illicit funds. A Cut in the Action Tennessee: Two more former Campbell County sheriff's officers have been sentenced to prison for the beating and torture of a suspected drug dealer. The officers claimed they went to Lester Siler's home to serve a probation violation warrant, but in fact they tortured him, demanding drugs and money. And Siler's wife tape recorded it. Taped Interrogation Illinois: In October, 2004, Kevin Fox of Wilmington, Illinos was arrested following a 14-hour interrogation in which investigators said he confessed to molesting and murdering his 3-year-old daughter Riley in June of the same year. The prosecutor, just days away from a hotly contested re-election bid that he ended up losing, vowed to seek the death penalty. A sheriff's officer called the FBI Lab at Quantico, Virginia in November and told them to stop working on DNA evidence sent there for analysis. Kevin's attorney convinced the new prosecutor to send the evidence to a private lab for testing, and the DNA test results "absolutely" exclude Kevin. Charges that could have led to his execution have been dropped. Riley's killer remains free. Political Overkill Virginia: Cisco A. Olavarria was almost 1,000 miles away when 14-year-old LaBrian Harris was shot dead in South Richmond in the fall of 2004. Eleven days after the Oct. 16 shooting, Richmond police publicly named Olavarria, then 19, as a suspected accomplice in the killing and distributed his driver's license photo to the news media. Early the next month, a special grand jury began meeting over an intensive investigation by Virginia State Police into the killing of Olavarria's older brother, Santanna, by two Richmond police officers the preceding spring. It's Time to Set the Record Straight UPDATE: Patrolman, ex-partner indicted in Santanna Olavarria's murder. California: Kern County DA Ed Jagels put two dozen innocent people behind bars on charges that they molested their own kids -- while ignoring evidence that his friends were throwing orgies with teenage boys. So why is one of America's most reckless prosecutors still in power? Mean Justice's Dirty Secrets Illinois: A lawsuit was predictable in the case of two teenagers who were wrongly charged in the February slaying of a Machesney Park, Illinois man. The lawsuit was brought by mothers of the two youths who were wrongly charged, and it names Winnebago County Sheriff Dick Meyers, his department, detectives and deputies. It's time for Safeguards to Protect Accused Kids. Wisconsin: Suspicions about a 1998 4th offense drunken-driving case dismissed by former prosecutor Brad Priebe have prompted Winnebago County DA Bill Lennon to refer the matter to the state Department of Justice for review of the case. Lennon said he did so in response to “red flags” that appeared as prosecutors prepared a new drunken driving case against the same man, whose 1998 case was dismissed as a result of a motion by Priebe, then a Winnebago County assistant district attorney. Priebe, appointed judge in Outagamie County Circuit Court and running for election in his own right, said he was ordered to dismiss the charge by then-DA Joe Paulus, now in prison for taking bribes to fix cases, and "had no choice". The Paulus Legacy Shines On Click HERE for full coverage of Wisconsin's Joe Paulus bribery scandal, from initial allegations to sentencing. Ohio: Derrick Jamison has been released from Ohio's Death Row. His 1985 murder conviction was overturned by two federal courts, which ruled he was denied a fair trial by prosecutors who withheld evidence that might have cleared him. 119th Innocent Person Released from Death Row USA: The popularity of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and its increasingly numerous progeny has spawned what some folks are calling the "CSI Effect." That is, most people who might end up on a jury know, or think they know, a great deal about forensic science and the kind of evidence needed to solve crimes. All this has been widely noted. What hasn't been noted is how years of cop shows have already formed our background ideas about the criminal justice system. What this suggests is that we ought to be a good deal more suspicious of prosecutorial infallibility than television shows suggest. Cop Show Effect Wisconsin: A Milwaukee police officer has been charged with a criminal civil rights violation for trying to shake down a parolee for money and guns, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Milwaukee. The officer, Ala W. Awadallah, 26, also threatened to plant drugs on the man and to have him sent back to prison, according to an FBI agent's affidavit filed in support of the complaint. If convicted, Awadallah faces a maximum penalty of two years in prison and $200,000 in fines. The Price of Staying Out on Parole One day before Milwaukee cop Ala Awadallah was busted this week by the FBI on charges of shaking down a parolee, he was in the most unlikely of places: Sitting in the witness stand testifying for federal prosecutors in a drug/illegal immigration case. Can you say "appeal"? Illinois: An Illinois State Police lieutenant says he was stopped from investigating the possible involvement of a Downstate businessman in a double homicide because the man had made significant political donations. The lieutenant does not allege wrongdoing by the politician, former Gov. George Ryan, whose campaign fund received the businessman's donations. But he alleges that state police brass were guided by fear of political reprisals, even in an investigation with the highest possible stakes--a death penalty murder case. Demote the Messenger Make no mistake. Nearly 19 years after the fact, this case is now a bigger mess than it's ever been. State police officials are the subject of very serious allegations of misconduct, and the attorney general's office is representing the state police against the man leveling those allegations. Who will step in to clean it up? Wisconsin: Dale Chu's conviction is proof that, in Wisconsin, you can convict someone of arson even when the cause of a fire cannot be determined. All it takes is a win-at-all-costs prosecutor like Vince Biskupic, perjured testimony from state "arson experts", the lies of a paid-off snitch and a dummied-down jury. Fixing It Up The current DA in Winnebago County is conducting a secret John Doe investigation into the conduct of Vince Biskupic and his friend and mentor, Joe Paulus, when they controlled the prosecutor's offices in Winnebago and Outagamie Counties. He calls their actions in the cases they made against Mark Price "an abuse of the justice system of the worst kind." Click HERE for full coverage of Wisconsin's Joe Paulus bribery scandal, from initial allegations to sentencing. Click HERE for full coverage of Wisconsin's Vince Biskupic money-for-leniency scandal. Massachusetts: Eighteen years ago, three Boston-area men were convicted of fatally shooting a Lynnfield couple in the basement of their Main Street home as their two young children slept upstairs, a brazen crime that sent shock waves through the quiet, prosperous suburb. Richard Costa, Dennis Daye, and Michael DeNictolis are each serving two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for the 1985 slaying of Robert Paglia and his wife, Patricia, in a robbery at the couple's house. But now a retired FBI agent says in an affidavit that a former colleague gave false and misleading forensic testimony -- deemed crucial to the prosecution's case -- at the trial. BS Bullet Matching Florida: The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is joining the investigation of Broward Sheriff's Office detectives suspected of falsifying crime reports. Prosecutors recently filed criminal charges against two deputies who are charged with falsifying documents and making up confessions to clear cases in Weston and Southwest Ranches. Dozens more deputies have been informed that they are under investigation or have been asked to give statements to prosecutors. Exceptional Clearance Florida (but could be anywhere in the US): James Faller claimed innocence in a complicated loan fraud from the time he reported it to Florida regulators more than 10 years ago, when he tried to explain it to an FBI Agent, when he was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced to prison. Along the way he infuriated federal prosecutors by making hundreds of allegations of misconduct at virtually every stage of his prosecution in the $3.6 million fraud because, he claims, they got the wrong guy. They'll Get You if You Tick Them Off UPDATE: Faller's federal lawsuit has made it through the initial (and inevitable) barrage of motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgment. Federal Judge Allows Suit to Stand Illinois: Cook County, Illinois prosecutors have dropped murder charges against Dan Young, Jr. and Harold Hill, who have spent more than 12 years behind bars, after DNA test results undermined their (coerced) confessions and testimony from a dentist who implicated the two through a bite mark and a hickey. A Chicago Tradition Illinois and Missouri: A federal jury has awarded nearly $6.6 million in damages to former Chicago police Officer Steven Manning, finding two veteran FBI agents framed him for a Cook County murder that put him on Death Row. The jury also held that one of the FBI agents also framed Manning in a Missouri kidnapping case. Manning spent 14 years in prison before both convictions |
