At some point, the Texas State Senate's Web site should contain the audio from yesterday's "Roundtable on the Prevention of Wrongful Convictions," held down in Austin. Till then, here's the Houston Chronicle's account of the get-together, during which nine wrongfully convicted men freed by DNA evidence -- among them Dallas County's James Curtis Giles andBilly Smith and former prisoners from El Paso and Travis Counties -- asked law enforcement officials, attorneys and judges from across Texas to form a so-called "innocence commission," as State Sen. Rodney Ellis has called it.
Among those in Austin, of course, was Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who said, according to the Chronicle, that "efforts by his office to review innocence claims have restored confidence in the criminal justice system locally." Said Watkins, in the Associated Press' account: "It can be argued that Texas ... may have one of the worst criminal justice systems in this country. We have to start where we have the most problems." Scott Henson of Grits for Breakfast, who also attended, was encouraged by what he saw: "There is room for consensus on some of these questions, if participants coming at the topic from different angles can each set aside their parochialism and actually look for solutions instead of ways to block them." --Robert Wilonsky
Then let's start with the counties that have the largest percentage of inmates in the Texas Prison System and find out why. I would recommend that the prosecutors look more closely at cases they are given before they accept them. Spending more time up front may save mone time to begin with.Grand juries will indite a ham sandwich it the prosecutor says they have enough evidence to convict.That needs to change to a more balanced approach.We have th espeedy trial act which is rarely adhered to by prosecutors citng the need for additional time for investigation. If there was an insufficient investigation,then the prosecutor should give the cases ,up front,back to the police and have them do their job correctly to start with.More training of the police in what the District Attorney's Office will accept chould be standard practive in large counties,especially.If cases langer for more than two years in the court system, then someone in the DA's Office needs to examine the casse to see if it is even viable.My concern is that the people arrested and can not afford an attorney are not receiving the best defense.They can noyt afford the resources of a hand writing expert or a forensic accountant or a DNA analysis.This means the "best evidence" is going to be with the prosecutor because they have all of the taxpayer resources they require to convict. Therein lies the problem,money.If you look at plea bargains versus convictions what is that ratio? If plea bargains are a high ratio of convictions ,then to me , that seems like a problem. When you review the income of inmates convicted,especially through plea bargain,how many paid for their own attorney? Almost none would be my guess. This "win at all costs" philosphy of prosecutors has to be changed to "justice for all who seek it".
Posted at: May 9, 2008 9:08 AM