Reply #91: People are wrongly convicted in the USA every day.

[bobd0]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/177640/page/1

Kenney wrote a confidential memo urging Attorney General Burris to acknowledge error in the case, thus paving the way for Cruz to get yet another trial, but to no avail. She concluded she had no choice but to abandon the career to which she had so long aspired.

"I cannot sit idly by as this office continues to pursue the unjust prosecution of Rolando Cruz," she wrote in an impassioned letter of resignation to Burris, who assigned the case to another lawyer in the office. Nine months later, to Kenney's great consternation, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed Cruz's conviction. But the story still wasn't over. As a result of Kenney's courageous stance, intense attention was now focused on the case, both by the media and by the local community. The deans of six Illinois law schools and a group of prominent former prosecutors filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of a rehearing for Cruz. In 1994, the state Supreme Court bowed to the pressure and reversed the second conviction, awarding Cruz yet another trial, his third.

As the trial approached in 1995, DNA technology had advanced sufficiently to link Dugan and Dugan alone to the crime.

See bolded excerpts. Should every member of the Illinois Supreme Court be blamed? This is how the criminal justice system in the US works, and it doesn't always work well.

As a state attorney general, Burris followed legal procedure. Cruz was tried twice. Cruz was found guilty twice -- by a jury, not by Burris. When science caught up with law he was pardoned.

My advice to everyone, including Mr. Cruz, is; don't tell police you've dreamed of a crime unless you want to become a suspect and you will avoid all the trouble in the first place.

BTW, going back to 1991 to dig this up as an excuse not to seat Burris is ridiculous. I guaranty we could go back into every senator's past and find a reason to unseat them. They are all human beings and none of them are perfect. This is the type of tactic Republicans are famous for.