Bad justice is bad law

[madmusic]

Review of more than 700 appeals finds problems throughout the justice system
By Fredric N. Tulsky

The Santa Clara County criminal justice system failed Miguel Sermeno.

Sermeno was arrested on felony hit-and-run charges after walking the half-block from his house to the scene of an accident. An overzealous deputy district attorney ignored evidence that pointed to a more likely suspect, instead winning a wrongful conviction.

The system failed Bobby Herrera.

Herrera pleaded guilty to assault for a shooting he did not commit, buckling to pressure from an incompetent lawyer who bled his family for thousands of dollars but never investigated the case. Even after the key witness admitted she falsely accused him, indifferent state appellate court justices let his five-year prison sentence stand without explanation.

The system failed Frederick Brown. Brown was sentenced to 26 years to life for possessing stolen property, after he hauled away a truck that had been stripped of parts as it sat idly near his home for a year. The trial judge refused to instruct the jury on a key point of law: Brown was not guilty if he believed the truck was abandoned.

The three cases are among hundreds examined in an unprecedented three-year Mercury News investigation of the Santa Clara County criminal justice system that shows a disturbing truth:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/special_packages/stolenjustice/13674876.htm

Alarming story.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

1. Business as usual in Texas....n/t

[mrcheerful]

2. Nation wide is more like it.

A judge running for office in one michigan county bragged in a election year that he had a 100% conviction rate that year, 1996. The county DA also bragged about the 100% conviction rate. The reality was that 75% of the cases ended in plea bargains. Most of those were do to lawyers not willing to fight for clients and forcing people into taking plea bargains by telling them if they didn't take the plea the judge would throw the book at them and they were looking at doing long sentences. The cases that went to trial ended up with the person getting sentences twice as long then those who took the pleas.

[madmusic]

3. That's in California.

Probably Texas too. And everywhere else.

[High Plains]

4. The criminal justice system is rotten across the country.

Assembly line "justice," cops perjure themselves on the stand so much observers have even created the word "testilying" to describe the phenomenon, prosecutors more interested in victories than justice, prisons overstuffed with non-violent offenders. Ugly, ugly, ugly.