Project Innocence: 200 Exhonorations

Project Innocence has just celebrated (if that's the word to use for an exercise designed to work hard to restore people to where they once had been) the exhonoration of the 200th wrongfully convicted person through the use of DNA evidence. Since they have dealt mainly with those convicted of murder or rape, why is this important for those interested in drug reform?

The answer in two words: Mike Nifong.

Barry Scheck and Peter neufeld, co-directors of Project Innocence, co-authored the book Actual Innocence a few years ago that I think should be required reading for all U.S. citizens.
In that book they looked at the exhonorations they had obtained to that date and tried to determine what had led to the wringful conviction in the first place. The leading cause was eyewitness identification, which study after study has shown to be wrong at least half the time, but as contributing factors in over half the cases were prosecutorial misconduct and police malfeasance.

Prosecutors repeatedly suppressed exculpatory evidence, offered evidence they knew was false and abetted police and informer perjury. Polie coerced (or worse) defendants and witnesses, suppressed or planted evidence, wrote false reports, committed perjury, and conspired among themselves to commit perjury.

Crime labs routinely filed false or misleading reports, almost always in favor of the prosecutor's theory of the case.

One or more of these elements appeared in almost every case.

District Attorneys and police weild the most awesome discretion of any government agencies; and they are the most unchecked.

If it happens in the full publicity glare of murder cases, what do you suppose goes on in the everyday routine of drug cases?

Any kind of true reform must include more open operation of police and prosecutorial functions and more thorough civilian review and control of their operations.

Congratulations to Project Innocence: keep it up!