Mean Justice (76 page)

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Prosecutor introduces improper hearsay testimony that impugns defendant, requiring new trial.

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Detective (John Soliz, investigated Pat Dunn) arrests wrong man, neglects to check fingerprint evidence.

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Conviction overturned because prosecution relied upon evidence from illegal search.

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Double-murder conviction reversed because sheriff’s detectives coerced a confession. Retried and convicted again. Died in prison with new appeal planned.

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Robbery-murder conviction overturned because confession obtained by sheriff’s department through threats, coercion, and after ignoring suspect’s demands for attorney.

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Eight-year prison term overturned when sheriff’s department improperly attempts to use defendant to bust his own attorney, then reneges on deal when defendant can’t deliver.

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Four-year prison term overturned because prosecutors introduced evidence obtained through illegal search.

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Life sentence overturned because prosecutor and judge introduced improper evidence suggesting that the defendant’s decision to exercise his right to remain silent at an extradition hearing proved his “consciousness of guilt.”

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In a case investigated by Sheriff’s Detective John Soliz, the principal investigator in the Dunn case, two prison guards, Marie Haven and George Curtis, are charged with the murder of Haven’s ex-husband for insurance money. As in the Dunn case, this prosecution relied upon an informant with severe credibility problems (witness, for example, admitted on the stand that she lied in this and other cases). In another parallel to the Dunn case, Soliz said that he suspected Haven because she began asking about insurance money shortly after the murder, trying to get $10,000. Soliz disregarded the fact that the family needed the money to pay for the funeral. After 100 days in jail, both defendants were released with all charges dropped for lack of evidence, their jobs and homes lost.

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Evidence that would discredit key witness never given to defense; other crucial information never disclosed. Initial appeals lost, new habeas plea pending.

1
. Suspects include individuals who were actively investigated and/or arrested.

2
. Two of these pleaded guilty to a single count in exchange for the dismissal of over a hundred felonies and no jail time.

3
. Referred by sheriff’s department to district attorney for prosecution, but never formally indicted.

4
. Defendants allowed to plead to greatly reduced charges.

5
. Defendants allowed to plead to greatly reduced charges.

6
. Includes ten parents who were accused of molestation in civil proceedings that led to removal of their children, but not criminal prosecution.

7
. Twelve of these defendants were convicted of minor charges resulting in no incarceration after they agreed to plead guilty in exchange for the dismissal of hundreds of counts against them.

8
. Does not include minor charges that led to no jail time and therefore were never appealed.

9
. Granted new trial; retried and convicted.

APPENDIX B

T
HE
T
OLL OF
M
ISCONDUCT

What follows is a sampling of major felony cases arising since 1900 in which prosecutorial and investigative misconduct or negligence led to unjust prosecution, false arrest or wrongful conviction. (Bakersfield and Kern County cases are excluded.) Culled from news articles, appellate opinions and reports of the Justice Department, Congress and the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., they represent only a small fraction of such cases. A comprehensive accounting of wrongful convictions linked to official misconduct is not possible, as there is no agency in the country (or at any state level) that monitors ethical and legal violations by prosecutors and police. News articles detail only the most sensational cases, and appellate opinions do not include the vast majority of cases that are never appealed—such as those that end in pleas or dismissals. The extent of the problem, then, is not known. What is known, however, is that during that nine-year span, thirty-eight men and women who had been sentenced to death were found to have been convicted as a result of some sort of official misconduct. Of those thirty-eight, thirty-five were subsequently exonerated and released—innocents nearly executed for crimes they did not commit. Some came within hours of execution.

1990

Clarence Brandley is released after a decade on Texas’ death row. Official misconduct in his case occurred at every level,
from police officers who threatened witnesses who could attest to Brandley’s innocence, to a trial judge and prosecutor who held secret meetings to rehearse objections and rulings, to prosecutors who destroyed evidence proving Brandley’s innocence, to a state attorney general who lied about results of a critical witness’s lie-detector test. The only reason for Brandley’s arrest: the victim of murder and rape had been a white schoolgirl and the likely perpetrator was one of the five janitors at her school, only one of whom—Brandley—was black. The detective who arrested Brandley told him, “Since you’re the nigger, you’re elected.” He came within days of being executed before a last-ditch appeals ruling saved him. All charges were subsequently dropped. A federal judge who examined the case later wrote: “In the thirty years this court has presided over matters in the judicial system, no case has presented a more shocking scenario of the effects of racial prejudice, perjured testimony, witness intimidation, an investigation the outcome of which was predetermined, and public officials who, for whatever motives, lost sight of what is right and just.”