Of Guilt and Innocence

At the Innocence Project, students reviewed questionnaires submitted from inmates in Louisiana and Mississippi. Ashley, and Briann and I – and Briann’s boyfriend Jason - spent the week assessing the questionnaires to see if there was a chance of wrongful conviction. Odds are higher then you can believe that some of names warehoused in the seven filing cabinets in the office don’t belong in prison. Richard Davis, the liaison with the students, provided chilling details. “If Louisiana was a country, it would have the highest percentage of people incarcerated then anywhere in the world,” Davis said in his clipped British accent. “Louisiana has the highest wrongful conviction rate in the country. It is documented and confirmed. The Louisiana system convicts people wrongfully and frequently.” Finding candidates for the project involves prowling through questionnaires, discovery, trial transcripts and even the occasional hand-written appellate brief – replete with Bluebook citation formats and IRAC! Many of the questionnaires have been sitting for five or more years because there simply is not enough man power to get through all the files, many of which have no real evidence of wrongful conviction. But then you get the files where the problems with the system come in to sharp focus. One man was tried twice in 8 days – the first time ended in a hung jury and the second in a conviction. The difference? Perhaps it was because a prosecution witness was not available to testify at the second trial and the judge allowed the previous trial testimony to be read to the jury. The defense lawyer – who discredited the witness the first time around – didn’t get the same opportunity this time. There was note from the client that by the time the cross examination portion was being read during the second trial, the jurors were nodding off or staring into space. On appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction and denied the inmate’s motion for a new trial based on the violation of his Confrontation Clause rights. “There was ample evidence to convict,” the court wrote. “There was no error in allowing the testimony to be read in and the defendant was provided an opportunity to confront the witness.” Ample evidence? The first jury was hung so it’s not so clear to me there was ample evidence. The man is currently serving a life sentence for murder.