Wrongful Acquittals?

I just came across this editorial by a prosecutor in Erie County, New York. If I were to give him the benefit of the doubt, I would say he is delusional. Even if he, personally, adheres to the highest ethical standards, which I personally doubt, there is no way he can speak for all the prosecutors in New York, or even his office. On top of that, not once in his description of the review process did he once mention verifying that they have the right suspect, all they are worried about is whether they can get a conviction.

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial-page/viewpoints/article1022094.ece

No concern at all about whether the accused actually committed the crime, just make sure that you have a chance to win before you file the charges.

He then goes on to defend the record of his office by pointing out that not one of the convictions they have obtained has been overturned because the defendant was innocent. That is admirable, but it really doesn’t prove anything other than it is almost impossible to prove you are innocent once you have been convicted. In fact, it is almost impossible to prove you are innocent once you have been charged.

My guess is that every single one of the 33 people he says were probably innocent provided hard evidence of their innocence. By the way, his office did not exonerate any of those people, it simply dropped the charges because they couldn’t prove them. Exoneration only occurs after a conviction, not before.

There is no way on Earth that his office prosecuted thousands of people without once getting it wrong. That would make them perfect, a state that is not possible for a human being to attain. Strangely enough, the prosecutor’s office in Buffalo New York has prosecuted at least two people who were innocent, one of them in the time frame he is asserting that no such thing happened. Habib Wahir Abdal and Anthony Capozzi, both convicted of rape, and exonerated by Innocence Project.

Prosecutors need to remember they are not their to get convictions, they are there to serve justice. Is the system stacked against them? Yes, but it should be. Taking away a man’s life or liberty is the cruelest thing we can do to people, it should be hard. In fact, it should be all but impossible, despite the arguments of prosecutors like Frank Sedita III and their complaints about how difficult it is to get a conviction even when the know a person is guilty.