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Subscribe to RSSJon Adrian Velazquez, currently serving 25 years to life at Sing Sing prison for the murder of a retired cop, started writing letters to a Dateline producer in 2002. He claimed he was wrongfully convicted and challenged Dateline to find any evidence of his guilt. A 10-year investigation begins. Luke Russert reports.
Updated 12:41 p.m. ET – Dorothy Canady said she would never forget the man who shot a retired New York City police officer, but at trial she identified Juror No. 6 as the assailant. Another witness to the crime said the attacker was a black man with braids, yet he picked an Hispanic man with short hair out of a photo lineup.
Though the jury laughed when Canady fingered one of their own, and despite other discrepancies among the accounts of other witnesses to the fatal shooting in a Harlem numbers (illegal gambling) parlor in 1998, Jon-Adrian Velazquez was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Today, he is fighting to clear his name from a cell in New York’s infamous “Sing Sing.”
“The eyewitness misidentification is the central and critical reason for his wrongful conviction,” said Velazquez’s attorney Robert Gottlieb, formerly an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. “There is no other evidence in this case that could possibly be the basis for a guilty verdict other than the eyewitness identifications that were false. Unfortunately this story is not … so unique.”
Watch Part 1 of ‘Conviction,’ the story of Jon-Adrian Velazquez’s murder case
While hundreds of convicts have been freed from prison after being exonerated by DNA evidence in recent decades, many others who proclaim their innocence from behind bars don’t have that recourse because no such evidence exists. In many instances, their efforts to gain freedom boil down to their words against those of witnesses to the crimes they allegedly committed.
But in part due to the DNA exonerations, there is increasing concern about the reliability of witness identification in criminal cases. That, in turn, is forcing courts, state legislatures, police and district attorneys across the country to review convictions and make changes in the ways they collect what can be make-or-break testimony from witnesses to a crime.
Dateline NBC
Jon-Adrian Velazquez is serving a 25-year to life sentence in Sing Sing for killing a former New York City police officer. He maintains he is innocent and has been fighting to clear his name from his prison cell.
“We have come a long way since the days when people accepted without question an individual who would take the witness stand, point to the defendant and say, ‘I’ll never forget his face, that’s the person I saw,’” said Gottlieb. “It really was not until the advent of DNA analysis that we have been able to show that eyewitness identifications are one of the weakest forms of evidence.”
Conviction: Reporter's 10-year quest for answers in little-known murder case
The Innocence Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to freeing the wrongfully convicted through DNA testing and to criminal justice system reform, has helped win freedom for nearly 300 prisoners in 35 states -- including 17 who spent time on death rows -- in its 20 years of existence.
In 75 percent of those cases, the leading factor in their convictions was witness identification; in 36 percent of those cases, convictions were in part based on an identification made by more than one person, said Karen Newirth, eyewitness identification litigation fellow at the Innocence Project.
“Our DNA exonerations represent really just the tip of the iceberg … because they are the only cases where DNA exists in the first place,” she said.
Those cases include rapes, murders, robberies and other crimes. The Innocence Project said experts estimate that DNA testing was possible in only 5 percent to 10 percent of all criminal cases.
“Many of the kinds of crimes where eyewitness misidentification come up are excluded because they are not the kinds of cases where DNA would ever have existed,” Newirth said. “We can only say for certain how prevalent it is in our cases and then assume that that’s really just the tip of the iceberg.”
Dateline NBC
Velazquez writes in his prison cell in 2011. Three eyewitnesses who identified him have either recanted or said they're no longer sure he fatally shot a retired police officer in Harlem.
Memory is ‘nothing like a videotape’
Researchers have long studied how people create memories, how that works in witness identification and then how that information is used by prosecutors at trial.
“People often think that memory works like a videotape and in fact it’s nothing like a videotape,” said Newirth. “That sort of highlights both the problem of how memories are made, but also how people become convinced of the correctness of their memories.”
A witness’ perception of a crime can be affected by lighting, distance, stress and the race of the alleged perpetrator – especially if it is different than their own, Newirth said. They also can be influenced by the suggestions of law enforcement and other witnesses as they try to fill in the gaps in their memory of that event, she said.
Suggestions from law enforcement – whether consciously or not -- could include something as simple as a nod by an officer or a positive reaction even when a witness says someone in the lineup “looks a lot like the guy,” said Jennifer Dysart, an associate professor of psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Other times, witnesses may make a relative judgment: “So relative to all the others, who is the most likely … to be the police suspect here?” Dysart added.
To protect against guessing or suggestion, some jurisdictions have opted for “blind administration” of a lineup – where the officer conducting it has nothing to do with the case and does not know who the suspect is. The officer also is instructed to tell witnesses that the suspect may not even be in the lineup and record statements on how confident the witness is about their selection.
A black man with braids or a Hispanic man with short hair?
In the Velazquez case, the witnesses said the man who killed retired police officer Albert Ward was a black man with a light complexion and braids, a description that led police sketch artists to create this "wanted" poster:
Courtesy of Robert Gottlieb
A wanted poster featuring a police sketch of the shooter in the 1998 murder of Albert Ward.
Tips poured in. Three people told police they either recognized the man in the sketch as a man named Mustafa or had heard that he was the shooter. Others provided information on who they understood had ordered the hit and a suspected accomplice -- neither of which were Velazquez. But police honed in on Velazquez, now 36, after one witness, Augustus Brown, identified him after sifting through 1,800 mugshots.
“Every eyewitness … said the shooter was a male black with braids, so how in heaven’s name is the shooter ultimately said to be a male Hispanic with short cropped hair?” Gottlieb, Velazquez’s attorney, asked rhetorically. “Something went wrong in the process.”
The police station lineup that resulted in Velazquez’s identification as the suspected killer was equally “absurd,” he said.
“Everyone looks either Hispanic or Caucasian; there isn’t one male black with braids in that lineup, so you start off with a rotten lineup,” Gottlieb said. “And then you have eyewitnesses who identify an Hispanic male and each of those eyewitnesses were vulnerable individuals -- drug dealers, drug users, down and out individuals -- who were very vulnerable to police manipulation, police suggestiveness.”
Velazquez, who said he was at home speaking on the phone with his mother during the shooting, voluntarily went to the police station and was put in the lineup.
Three of the six witnesses who viewed that lineup chose Velazquez and three did not, including the woman who later picked out juror No. 6 at the trial. However, days later she returned to the police station and said she had decided it was the man in position two -- Velazquez.
The police lineup in the 1998 murder of Albert Ward. Three witness picked out Jon-Adrian Velazquez (#2 in the lineup) as the shooter.
The NYPD did not respond to an email seeking comment on their procedures in the Velazquez case.
With many witnesses, ‘rich possibility’ of contamination
Dysart, the psychology professor, said wrongful identification of a criminal suspect can snowball if police don’t prevent witnesses from feeding off one another’s memories, a phenomenon known as “co-witness contamination.”
“When you have a chance to speak with someone who also saw the same crime, it’s possible that you are going to incorporate something that they said into your own memory of the event,” Dysart said. “The more opportunities that witnesses have to discuss things together … the more likely the memory report will become very similar. … Memories are so fragile really and we can be influenced by so many things.”
A more recent case that highlighted the growing controversy over witness identification was that of Troy Davis, who was executed in September 2011 for killing a Savannah, Ga., police officer. He maintained his innocence until his death, and seven of the nine witnesses who said he was the shooter later recanted all or parts of their testimony.
“In Troy Davis’ case, you had a lot of marginalized people who were at the crime scene who allege that they were coerced into offering testimony that they later said was not true, that they did not see happen,” said Laura Moye, death penalty abolition campaign director of the human rights group Amnesty International.
‘The guy on trial I had never seen before’
There were recantations in the Velazquez case, too: Phillip Jones, who was at the numbers parlor with his brother, Robert, when the shooting occurred, said in an affidavit:
“I told the police this was the guy and I was sure, but this was not the truth. I felt pressured because the police were threatening to arrest me and my brother Robert for stealing money that Albert dropped on the floor after being shot. I was arrested some time after Albert Ward was killed and two detectives came to visit me upstate in Groveland Prison. The detectives told me they got the right guy and would help me get parole. I decided to testify at the trial because I felt pressured by the police. When I saw the deft. (defendant) in court, I looked in his eyes and knew I had picked out the wrong guy, and the guy on trial I had never seen before.”
Courtesy of Maria Velazquez
Velazquez with his girlfriend and two sons a month before he was arrested in 1998.
Despite this and other admissions, making the case to free Velazquez – a case in which there is no physical evidence that could prove his innocence -- will not be so easy, Newirth said.
“In cases like this where there’s no DNA, it’s incredibly difficult. I mean, I think that that’s a principle that the Troy Davis case really stands for is … courts necessarily treat recantations with ... great suspicion,” she said.
Moye of Amnesty said the bar for a reversal would be high.
At this stage, “You no longer have innocent until proven guilty, you’re pretty much guilty until proven innocent,” she said. “… How do you prove beyond … a shadow of doubt, you know, what people said they saw or didn’t see? It’s all so subjective.”
‘They didn’t commit the crime’
Due to the problems with wrongful convictions, states, courts, district attorneys and police have worked to implement changes. At least 13 states have enacted some form of legislation implementing many of the Innocent Project lineup reforms.
A key New Jersey Supreme Court decision in August 2011, State v. Henderson, which followed a report the high court commissioned to evaluate scientific and other evidence about witness identifications, concluded “that the current standard for assessing eyewitness identification evidence does not fully meet its goals.”
“Study after study revealed a troubling lack of reliability in eyewitness identifications. From social science research to the review of actual police lineups, from laboratory experiments to DNA exonerations, the record proves that the possibility of mistaken identification is real,” the court said. “Indeed, it is now widely known that eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions across the country.”
The court called for two remedies: Allowing defendants who can show evidence of suggestiveness a pre-trial hearing to explore those concerns; and developing enhanced jury instructions about witness identification – relevant factors and their effect on reliability --- for trial judges to use.
“I think the major kind of theme to take out of the Henderson decision in New Jersey is that courts are really beginning to re-assess … how they assess the reliability and accuracy of eyewitness evidence,” said Rebecca Brown, senior policy advocate for state affairs at the Innocence Project. “And I think that the Henderson decision really signals a shift in direction by the courts and … we’ve begun to see other courts kind of pick up on that.”
Not all courts agree: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in mid-January that the due process clause did not require an inquiry into the reliability of a witness identification when it was not obtained under “unnecessarily suggestive circumstances by law enforcement.”
The lone dissenter in Barion Perry v. New Hampshire, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, wrote: “The Court's holding enshrines a murky distinction between suggestive confrontations intentionally orchestrated by the police and, as here, those inadvertently caused by police actions that will sow confusion. … And it recasts the driving force of our decisions as an interest in police deterrence, rather than reliability.”
“The majority … adopts an artificially narrow conception of the dangers of suggestive identifications at a time when our concerns should have deepened,” she added.
District attorneys in Chicago, Santa Clara county, Calif., Dallas and Houston have also created units to review questionable cases.
Dallas County was the first to do so in 2007, when the newly elected district attorney formed a four-person unit to review 500 cases where defendants claimed their innocence. Until then, authorities had routinely rejected all such claims, said District Attorney Craig Watkins.
“Basically, 90 percent of the first cases that we looked at turned out to be cases where the defendant was telling the truth, they didn’t commit the crime,” he said. “… We started looking at all cases. We started taking requests from defense attorneys. We started actually reading the letters from defendants.”
Witness identification was the No. 1 problem investigators came across in the initial cases, which had DNA evidence that could be tested, Watkins said.
“Everyone that had been exonerated had been wrongfully ID'd,” he said. “There was somewhat of a suggestive nature to pick a certain person and so we advocated first with the police departments to change their procedures and they did.”
Under Watkins’ tenure, 15 people have been exonerated as a result of the unit’s reviews. Another 12 were exonerated before then due to the passage of a 2001 state law that allowed convicted inmates to request post-conviction DNA-testing.
‘Our system’s broken’
Watkins said the reviews met with a public backlash from people who didn’t think that was his job and that he should focus on getting the bad guys.
Law enforcement had a similar reaction.
“But as we went along, I mean, they couldn’t deny it,” he said. “It was ... proven that our system’s broken and it’s broken in more than one way. This is not just from a prosecutorial standpoint, it’s from how we investigated cases, it’s from police officer misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct. It’s just from the culture of law enforcement.”
They’ve now started to work on cases where there is no DNA to test. Five of their 15 exonerations have been in non-DNA cases.
“Those are somewhat more difficult to do because it’s subjective, it’s not scientific,” but they’ve had the real perpetrators step forward or there was "overwhelming evidence of prosecutorial or police misconduct in the cases and so it’s been pretty cut and dry,” he said.
Changes ‘wholly unnecessary’
But Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, said it would not be feasible for many of the country’s nearly 3,000 DA offices to have such units since about 85 percent of them have five or fewer lawyers.
He also argued that the witness identification issue has been “blown out of proportion when you look at the total volume of cases that are prosecuted nationwide -- hundreds of thousands.”
“It’s always easy to come up with … a case here or a case there and spotlight it, and then jump to the premise that eyewitness identification is inherently bad or unreliable, and I think I can speak for DAs in saying that just isn’t true,” he said, “… Eyewitness identification, while it’s always been an aspect of a case that has to be dealt with in a special fashion, it’s still an important tool in prosecuting cases.
“Do eyewitnesses get it wrong some times? Absolutely. And, I think DAs recognize that and in those cases it’s … not only our obligation, it’s our sworn duty to rectify that.”
Burns said his organization has not taken a position on procedural changes, such as those recommended by the Innocence Project.
“Some DAs think they’re great and others think they’re wholly unnecessary and costly and inefficient,” he said.
‘There are times that those people are in fact innocent’
New York County District Attorney’s Cyrus R. Vance Jr. took up his post in 2010 with a pledge to create a Conviction Integrity Program that “re-affirmed the traditions” of the office.
Since the program began, the unit has vacated one conviction in a case that’s now awaiting re-trial, rejected two others after investigations showed that the original convictions were sound, and is reviewing others.
Gottlieb asked the unit in October to review Velazquez’s case, but he said prior to publication that he has not yet received an official decision though the two sides have been meeting. The DA’s office said that the case is under review.
“This unit is a great innovation as long as it is implemented not for show but for real results. … it now really depends on the commitment of people who have the power to undertake this work objectively, no matter where it leads,” Gottlieb said.
“Every day of the week, people are arrested, people are locked up … and it turns out that there are times that those people are in fact innocent,” he added. “For the public that would be fearful that, ‘Jesus, we start opening the jails for people all these years later who say that they’re innocent … that’s a frightening thought,’ except if they realize that that person being locked up meant that the real killer was not … that should be much more frightening for people to accept than what would happen if we released Jon-Adrian Velazquez.”
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In today's society if your poor and can not afford a lawyer, the arresting officer becomes the your day in court and your jury. If you stop to think about it the only chance you have in court is through an lawyer with a vested interest in providing you with a real defense. They cost money, well come to a two tier court system, one for those that have money and those that don't. It has gotten so bad that instead of offering a trail you are asked to plead not guilty or no contest (the same as admitting guilt). I sat in a court room where the defendant asked to plead not guilty and was told that if they plead not guilty, the only thing that would get them was a more serious charge, so take your chances. Not much choice when you really can't trust the legal system unless you can afford a real good lawyer.
of coarse it the rich that made the system and heard of that lots same thing happened to a friend was innocent but they told him plead guilty only get few monthes fight it and will upset judge longer sentance
Too bad when they tell you that they don't add but that guilty plea will dog you all the rest of your life. You won't be bondable so many people won't hire you. Or maybe if you're young and stupid that for pissing in the park when you're drunk you could end up on the sex offenders registry and 10 years from now you won't be able to take your kids to the park if anyone else is there or attend your kids school functions. Somehow they never tell them those things .
I suspect we, the public, are largely to blame for the police feeling the pressure to find someone (anyone) to incarcerate. We demand immediate justice, whether that is realistic or not. We call for the police chief to step down "if he can't get the job done." Of course they are going to push the envelope, and when they do, we turn on them and cry foul. We can't really have it both ways, can we?
But also Betty: Cops get promotions for solving crimes.
no just one way corupt tainted system
The cops job is to arrest but we need to put more emphasis on the court system to get it right.
Betty-3041392,
Whatever other than white-woman guilt would lead you to conclude that we the public are to blame for demanding immediate justice? We the public demand no such thing. Near as I can figure, we the public haven't demanded much of anything since a few clay-smeared men got together last September, 1787 and wrote "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
Heresy! Lunacy by any standard! Why for heaven's sake, a union is either perfect or it isn't. We can't form a more "perfect" union, so those scallywags couldn't have known anything about our FFs (Founding Fathers), so vote for me for heaven's sake, as I alone am the conduit by which the FFs (Founding Fathers) make their ur-wishes known to you, the sadly Darwinized bastard red-headed step children of Thomas Jefferson, who ought not have been boinking that slave, and frankly who ought not to have pretended to own that slave in the first place, but nonetheless
LET ME SAY in a bold and assured font that I understand and honor and carry on the Christian, enlightened, scientific, and New World principles of our FFs (Founding Fathers), so if I buy a slave or two and wipe out a species or two and frankly do away with a man or two, why
THAT IS THE WAY OF OUR FOUNDING FATHERS!
And when I put on their tri-cornered hats and wrap myself in their breeches, well, it's simply bad manners for you to point out that I have a weewee too small to fill them.
Lune
Watch out people. You could be next to go for no reason at all. Do not trust the system.
Arizona Tumbleweed,
I once taught at Alderson Women's Prison and the Federal Correctional Institution, Beckley. In almost all cases, the women and men in these penal institutions openly admitted that they were in prison because they had in fact committed the crimes that they were convicted of. The assertion that "all men (and women) in prison claim that they're innocent" is (as you point out) pure @!$%#.
Significant to me, those two or three out of a hundred inmates who claimed innocence were believed by their fellow inmates to be innocent. Contrary to the popular (and preposterous) assertion that all inmates claim innocence, prison life apparently grinds away the pretense of innocence, so that inmates take seriously the few claims of innocence that endure. To our shame, we continue to fund police and legal systems that don't.
Of course, "just" two or three out of a hundred inmates quickly adds up to thousands of innocent people illegally imprisoned. The US, after all, imprisons more of its people per capita than any other country, the Boogie Bears China and Russia and Iran and North Korea not excluded. The US is in fact the world's most efficient police state at wielding batons and guns against its own people.
Lune
Yes Lune: Those of us that have been there, know the truth. Most of the citizens won't believe us until they are caught up in it.
I worked at a California "drug rehab" prison. That's why I preach so strongly against drugs. But I also know some inmates did not belong there.
To prove your point you should renounce your citizenship and move in protest. That will fix us good
Or carl: You could work to help other people and make this country better. That is, if you can learn to care for others
Arizona Tumbleweed,
My first and only sustained involvement with the US prison state from the non-teaching stance came about for trivial reasons, an unfounded bad-check charge filed by a landlady angry because I and her husband had a discreet affair that she felt threatened by (when we — and she — discovered that we hadn't been quite as discreet as we had intended). Cad that I was, she couldn't have me thrown into prison for boinking her husband, so she filed a bad-check charge against me.
When the county cops showed up on my doorstep, I carefully and thoroughly explained the situation to them. They would have none of it: They had a warrant for my arrest, and by god they would arrest me. I asked to see the alleged bad check. They had no such evidence but they had a warrant for my arrest, and by god they would arrest me. They were mere mindless functionaries, nothing greater than the faucet in my bathroom that can be opened or closed but nothing more. I found myself at last speechless in the presence of their utter uncomprehending doggedness. I mean exactly speechless: I couldn't find a word to express my outrage. I'm fond of words, so that was quite a trial for me.
But in the working out of this situation, speechlessness served me well. From the moment that the cops handcuffed me, I refused to utter a single word. I didn't resist anything, I didn't refuse any request to go here or do that. I just didn't speak. At first, while they booked me into the county jail, the situation was all quite a joke among them (the cops and prison minders and so on). After an hour or so of nothing but silence and a steady stare, they got irritated and then perplexed and then (saints preserve us) worried.
The cute little nubbin of a guard who booked me in originally ordered, "Keltkar, wait here until you want to talk" (so spoken in a holding cell). A couple hours later, after many still stares, he told me as he led me to the jail's medical ward, "Mr. Keltkar, we're all just doing our jobs here. Just give me your address and tell me if you're on drugs or not and let me know if you have suicidal thoughts, and we'll be done with all this. For @!$%#'s sake, Mr. Keltkar, don't look at me like that. I'm just trying to make my house payment. For @!$%#'s sake, stop looking at me like that."
For three days I did nothing but stare at them, and let me tell you, AT, that was quite a stretch for me, prison such that I couldn't endure if it were imposed for a much longer time. During those three days, they kept me in the jail's medical ward because I was a "suicide risk". Imagine that! They thought that I might kill myself only because I wouldn't speak to them. Well for @!$%#'s sake (as that cute little prison worker would express it), if I didn't care enough to speak to them, I certainly wouldn't care enough to kill myself over them. They longer I sat and stared at them, the littler they became in my sight. Saints alive, they even hooked me up to a heart monitor, I suppose because they worried that I might just will myself dead without their knowledge.
The Big Day came on the fourth day of my imprisonment, because they had to hold an arraignment. An arraignment is supposed to happen within 24 hours, as I understand the matter, but an inmate has to participate in his arraignment, and given that all I contributed to the process was a stare, they didn't know what for @!$%#'s sake to do (I grew fond of that expression during the time of my incarceration, BTW).
Here's something quite important that I learned. When in company, it doesn't do to just stare into the middle distance: You must stare *at* someone. And not just any someone: You must stare at the someone who appears least likely to endure it. Oddly but maybe not, women appear to endure untalking stares better than men. Now here's the kernel of wisdom in this little vignette: Stare at the most buff guy in the group. That he spends so much time building up his physical body usually indicates that he has some uneasy relationships with his psychological body. Moreover, as you stare with relentless vigor at him, his compadres and commadres begin to look at him a bit askance, and pretty quickly they get so confused in their askances that you become just a footnote to the whole shenanigans.
Who knew that just keeping your mouth shut could sow such discord?
But about the Big Day. "Mr. Keltkar," the judge in the "Justice" Center snorted. "Are you a danger to yourself?" I just stared without stop at the court clerk, at least I think she was, sitting as she was in the lowered-down desk by the judge's imperial throne. "You've made your point, Mr. Keltkar," the judge snapped. "Just enter a plea of not guilty, and I'll dismiss this case." I moved my stare from the court clerk (who after all was a woman of little interest to me and who caved in to a stare all to quickly) to the associate bailiff (they have three, because of terrorists, I suppose, or maybe untalking inmates who might will themselves dead on the spot) who had pretty well-developed biceps but a portly belly that indicated gym and desserts all in one fell swoop.
"Oh for @!$%#'s sake," the judge snapped. Well, she didn't really snap that. I've just grown so fond of the phrase that I wish she had snapped it, but of course she didn't, but no matter: As I'm an eyewitness to these proceedings, if I want the judge to snap something, well, I'm sure that Yes by god she snapped that! Arrest her! Fry her! Let it be written! So mote it be! And all the other little jingoes that escape me at the moment, those too.
Really, the judge just snapped, "What does the State want?"
The State at that time was two women (and I have the utmost respect for women, as they have shown themselves somewhat impervious to the Stare, unlike men who crimple under it and cry — metaphorically speaking — like girls) pawing through two wheelable hanging-file-folder holders, I suppose trying to find mine. "He's here on an unsecured bad-check charge, Your Honor."
"I know what he's charged with!" Your Honor snapped. "I asked what the State wants."
"The State requests," one of the file-fuddled women said, as I stared with unrelenting eyes at the bailiff, who had started the rub the brow ridge over his right eye, a sure sign that he was right-handed and about to fold under the stare. "The State requests, well, he won't talk, Your Honor. We're not sure how to proceed."
"Bad check, right?"
"Well, yes, Your Honor, but we haven't—"
"Oh for @!$%#'s sake, just let me see it!" (She didn't actually say "oh for @!$%#'s sake". I just threw that in for poetic eyewitness license.)
"Well, that's a bit of our problem, Your Honor. We don't seem to have an actual dishonored check. We just have the statement from—"
"For @!$%#'s sake!" the judge didn't really shout. "This is a bad-check case without a bad check?!"
"Well, yes, Your Honor, but if he would've just discussed the—"
"Dismissed! Why is this even in my courtroom?! Dismissed! Mr. Keltkar, look at me. Look at me, I said! You've been looking at everyone else, you can do me that courtesy. You're free to go, Mr. Keltkar, but before you do, I just want to know, are you deaf or do you have a problem with speech that kept you in jail for three days?"
"No, ma'am," I answered her. "I wasn't in jail because I couldn't hear or speak. I was in jail because someone told lies about me."
"That happens sometimes, Mr. Keltkar," she told me. "You're free to go. I've dismissed your case *with prejudice*," she snapped as she glared at the prosecutors.
I didn't at the time know what she meant by that snarly phrase *with prejudice*.
Lune
LOL.
All experiences are good if you manage to get something good out of them.
I got arrested once in a domestic dispute situation. But unlike a big city it was a small one they called the judge he set the bail over the phone and I had enough in my wallet to pay it so the cops drove me back to my car and made sure there was no trouble while I left. Next day he heard both sides and threw it out of court and I got my money back. This was a city where the cops and the judges knew everyone. Heck they were probably related to both sides of the issue. They don't do throw them in jail and forget about them and we don't get mad at them for tossing us in jail either.
AT,
I certainly managed to get something good out of my experience: Don't boink a guppy guy with a ferocious barracuda for a wife. She'll have the long tail of the law on you before you can get out of the aquarium to answer the door.
Lune
How can America have a just Judaical System when the top person is Eric Holder in charge of "Fast and Furious"
I don't approve of what Holder did. But if it would have worked, as he planned, he would be a hero instead of a villain.
Time and time again, "eye witness " testimony is the worst form of evidence to convict... after reading the book "The Invisible gorilla", I don't think i would ever convict someone without video tape evidence or DNA evidence... otherwise just too uncertain.
I believe there are innocent men in prison. And I would like to see these men released and compensated. But I also know that for every crime, there is a perpetrator. If the man in prison didn't do it, some other man did. And how I wish we did not stop, and call it justice, when an innocent man is freed, for that is only half of the matter. The other half is finding who really is guilty, and getting him into prison.
But the DA will never admit to making a mistake. So they will NOT look for the real killer.
Nobody's really guilty of anything. :rolleyes:
The original jurors were brain dead idiots, incapable of making any rational judgments. We should do away with trial-by-jury and just let MSNBC reporters and defense attorneys declare the guilt or innocence of all criminals.
I hope you get freed for this in justice because that can happen to anyone and to go to jail innocent and then get hurt in jail anally. Just hope he gets freed
Could have just as easily written the article exactly the opposite, "Witness error: How mind tricks can get the guilty off scott free
One thing that many people overlook in prosecutions is how the balance of justice has swayed to nothing more than a guilty versus innocence debate. Many prosecutors nationwide are elected people. The intent is to serve all people. But that is clearly not the case. Instead it is nothing more than a political circus. There are very little searches for the truth from prosecutors. Instead truths are degraded down to plea bargains, which in turn are political wins for the prosecution because there is a lesser guilty plea – but still presumed guilty. I have yet to find a prosecutor in our nation that searches for the truth. It’s become a system of “us versus them” and it does not appear to get any better. The facts are simple that some that are accused are not guilty and many guilty are innocent – not all, but some. This is a primary reason we have so many innocence projects sprouting up nationwide. It’s high time to reexamine our judicial, policing and prosecutorial systems. It’s expensive and will continue to rise in cost until we take the politics out and place balance in the system.
Just stop and think: Once a person is convicted of murder, then then have virtually the rest of their lives to do nothing but try to find some loophole or flaw in the case. We subsidize their full time efforts to do nothing but hone their story to perfection. Then, since nothing on earth is perfect, they eventually find some legal flaw upon which to justify a retrial.
Meanwhile, witnesses have died, memories have faded or become fuzzy, evidence has degraded or become lost, and new technologies emerge that create technological confusion about what the evidence really means.....so in a retrial they are found "not guilty".
It seems to me that the system is stacked totally in favor of the criminals. You don't get convicted of murder lightly. Most jurors are normal people who would be capable of discerning the credibility of witnesses and are well aware of the "innocent until proven guilty" principle.
I think most of these "innocence projects" are just naive do-gooders trying to make themselves feel like heroes.
Eyewitness identifications are one of the biggest causes of wrongful convictions, along with junk science such as bite marks and hair analysis.
Oh my God!! How many people are in jail because someone swears that they saw them do something....and if you didn't have a good alibi....bam you are convicted and doing time!!! Very scary!
when are they going to start holding the people that do the wrong things just to get a conviction accountable for this stuff they do to people make them serve the same amount of time at the same jail
It has been widely known among police officers for many years that stranger eye witnesses, especially under adverse conditions (e.g., very brief look, poor lighting), are unreliable.
The article should be titled:
"How criminals use mind tricks to get naive libtards to turn them into a 'cause celeb'"
As a judge once said " There is no such thing as justice, only law". Lawyers are only interested in cnvictions and aquitals. Until they change and are interested in justice , innocent people will continue to be convicted for crimes they did not commit AND criminals will go free to commit more crimes. Lawyers are, for the most part dispicable in nature because of that. Defending the guilty for a "bribe"(money)
Another problem is police departments are under enormous pressure to close a certain percentage of cases or face additional budget cuts, department reviews and more. Same with DAs and conviction rates. Then there are the legislators and their "tough on crime" stances. Everyone has an incentive to get quick convictions... even if a few innocent people get thrown in jail along the way.
The Innocence Project is a joke. Yes, they are getting some people out that deserve to get out. But, like the ACLU and a raft of shady lawyers, they are also getting a batch of absolutely guilty people out too.
As long as humans are involved in the criminal justice process (not system since system implies an orderly pattern) it will never be infallible
Many people are not aware of our justice system's failings until either they or their loved ones becomes a victim or alleged perp
I worked for a very large D.A.'s Office for 24 years. All of us knew that witnesses could be relied upon if they already knew the perpetrator ( i.e., the criminal was a neighbor or family member ). If however, the alleged perpetrator was a stranger, then all bets were off. We then needed more evidence.
So, Bill-4023884,
I know you as the lover who jilted me or the black-sheep brother I absolutely despise or the man who boinked my mother and left her heart-broken, and now by the grace of god I get to sit on one side of the mirror and say Yes, you're the one.
I don't know of objective studies one way or the other, but if you worked in a DA's office for 24 years and not a one of you caught on to the fact that people most often lie about the people they know, then what a slow-witted bunch you must have been.
Lune
Let's be clear - when a politician talks about getting tough on crime, that means someone will be punished, & punished severely, when a high profile crime occurs, whether that person committed the crime or not. It's a cheap easy way for politicians to look tough.
Now if you want to get tough on criminals, that's fine with me. However, that's a great deal more expensive. You must interview witnesses, collect evidence, & assemble it all into a case which eliminates everyone, but the perpetrator(s). Then you know, & can prove, who the criminals are, but you'll pay more in taxes.
So, which is it to be?
I am a moderate conservative and intolerant of any failure to aggresively prosecute true criminals. But, until the police officers and prosecutors who knowingly push for the conviction of innocent people are themselves prosecuted, this kind of horror will continue.
In many cases, not all, it seems that it's more important to get somebody and charge them, regardless of the evidence than to investigate and find the true perpetrator and it doesn't matter that an innocent person has been convicted. I don't get it.
Anyone who doesn't have a camera with them for any interaction with the police and prosecutors is in for trouble...for them its all about winning rather than justice...