45 ms·

New York inmate's golf drawings lead to exoneration in murder

259 points by gadders 8y ago

jMyles 8y ago
So they release the guy, but smear him as an "up-and-coming drug dealer" when he was a kid, 27 years earlier.
- frou_dh 8y ago
  Here's a quote from Dixon himself in the Golf Digest article: > I started dating a girl whose brothers were drug dealers, and before long I was in it, too. It's no excuse. It was what you did in my neighborhood if you wanted to make money. I became a mid-level cocaine dealer and pulled in enough to drive flashy cars and cover friends, but not much else. I rode with a weapon, same as everybody.
  - jMyles 8y ago
    Yeah, but that's not the point. This person sold a plant derivative to willing buyers; the state locked him in a cage for 27 years. Both are obviously illegal, but wildly different proportionally. And yet the latter, when finally made to acknowledge their mistake, pulls this "up and coming drug dealer" thing out as their excuse?
gizmo 8y ago
Prosecutors hid exculpatory evidence from the defense team. That's a recurring theme in cases like these. The prosecutors will not face any real consequences for ruining an innocent man's life. That's also a recurring theme.
- BeniBoy 8y ago
  For foreigners (like me) this episode of last week tonight[1] is quite useful to understand the role and possible abuses of prosecutors. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET_b78GSBUs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET_b78GSBUs
  - justtopost 8y ago
    Except its not really.
    - BeniBoy 8y ago
      Well it felt that way, and it seems like a show of good reputation. But I would be really happy to learn from more trustful sources! Care to share some or your experience?
      - Hello71 8y ago
        It is mostly correct, but fails to elaborate on the culture of prosecutors leading to these kinds of results, instead painting them as "prosecutors suck". http://reason.com/archives/2016/06/23/confessions-of-an-ex-prosecutor http://reason.com/archives/2016/06/23/confessions-of-an-ex-p... (previously discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17594612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17594612)
        slededit 8y ago
        It’s your 3 minutes of hate. Your not supposed to emphasize with them.
- briandear 8y ago
  If they hid evidence, that, by definition wasn’t neglect, but a willful action (to hide.) That should result in the loss of one’s license to practice at minimum and ideally, a referral to a special prosecutor for possible indictment. Contempt of court with jail time also should be on the table.
gambiting 8y ago
"He acknowledged being at the crime scene, but said he was at a nearby shop buying beer when the gunshots rang out." #1 proof that you should never ever talk to the police or confess to literally anything. Even saying something that is true and innocent can land you in jail with a 38-to-life sentence.
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  Sad thing is, a lot of people see it as an admission of guilt if you ask for a lawyer to be present if you're ever questioned by the police. This is crazy. The average person doesn't have a full understanding of the law. You need a lawyer to make sure you're being asked questions that can be legally asked. Having someone there to interpret the law for you is not a bad thing.
  - kstrauser 8y ago
    A million times this. I’ve drilled into my kids’ heads that they’re never, ever to talk to police until we’ve gotten a lawyer involved.
    - isoskeles 8y ago
      Do you think this is going to work well during a traffic stop?
      - kstrauser 8y ago
        I didn’t say don’t talk to police at all, and there are plenty questions you must answer, especially in a traffic stop context. There no need to ad-lib, though: if you’re pulled over for speeding, you don’t have to give them your whole life story.
      - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
        I've never had any issues respectfully refusing to play along. 'Do you know why I pulled you over?' 'Good morning, officer. I'd rather not answer any questions. Am I being ticketed?' Interestingly even that innocent lead question is a trick one. Yes obviously implies guilty. But no implies a lack of awareness of your own actions, which can just as well end up being used against you.
audunw 8y ago
It's crazy to me how often these kind of stories come out of the US. It just shouldn't happen that often that someone is convicted of murder on weak evidence. The number of prisoners per capita seems to indicate that it's not just anecdotes. I can't help but feel that the US simply doesn't have a proper functioning justice system.
- gambiting 8y ago
  The biggest issue is the whole jury system - I don't understand how being judged by 12 people with no formal law education is considered a working or fair justice system.
  - ritchiea 8y ago
    This makes a lot of sense, what systems are in place in other countries that lead to better outcomes?
  - brobdingnagians 8y ago
    I think the main issue with this case is that the prosecution/court excluded evidence and didn't present the case correctly, even though someone else was _publicly_ admitting guilt in the case and there was plenty of evidence pointing the other way. The jury system could provide relief from this sort of court bias-- _if_ they had the information. So it appears that it is the _system_ that is so frenetic to convict that causes the issue; not the jury [prosecution attorneys tend to think everyone is guilty]. I would agree there is a cultural issue with wanting to convict a lot and firmly believing that everyone convicted by the system must be guilty, but that has very little to do with the jury system. The point of the jury system is to prevent tyranny, especially that experienced in most European countries that had monarchies and oppressive parliaments where angering the government or monarch, being the wrong religion, or having a different ideology would get you convicted very quickly. At least with a jury of your peers you have a chance of getting let off from trumped up charges. Europe _might_ not have the same problems currently, but still nice to have a system that could prevent some egregious things... perhaps including this one.
  - ranko 8y ago
konschubert 8y ago
Wouldn't it be nice if everybody was given the benefit of doubt?
- deaps 8y ago
  You know how often I watch "Live PD" and believe the guy (or girl) that got pulled over, only to find out that once the K9 arrives, they had pounds of individually-packaged drugs and guns in their vehicle.
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    how often do they show car stops that result in no charge on "Live PD"?
  - cuboidGoat 8y ago
    Well, it is propaganda.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
The system seriously failed in this case. The actual killer confessed just days after the crime and repeatedly over the years. It wasn't even a mystery who did it.
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
>> [prosecutors] also said he was an "up-and-coming drug dealer" in Buffalo at the time of his arrest. "He's a bad guy, so he deserved to be in jail anyway".
- matwood 8y ago
  This seems to be a common rationalization from prosecutors and police. What they fail to realize is that falsely imprisoning even a 'bad guy' undermines the whole system. It has led us to the point where no one should ever speak to the police. A cycle that makes it even harder for police do properly do their job.
  - fhood 8y ago
    The real problem is that it also seems to be a common rationalization from the jury.
- madebysquares 8y ago
  This type of statement is highly infuriating. This has no bearing on the fact that the original prosecution withheld evidence and he was not the shooter in this case.
- adventured 8y ago
  He was an accomplice to the murder, having supplied the illegal murder weapon - a TEC-9 semi-automatic pistol - and having arrived at the area of the crime in the same vehicle. So yes he was in fact a bad guy and yes he did deserve to be in jail for aiding the crime - he shouldn't have been convicted as the shooter and his prison sentence should not have been nearly so long as it was.
- mcguire 8y ago
  There may be a bit more to this case: "Scott said he had gotten the gun, a Tec-9 semi-automatic, from Dixon and the two men had driven together to the crowded corner where the fighting broke out." (http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/24736866/valentino-dixon-drew-golf-courses-imprisoned-released-jail http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/24736866/valentino-dixon...)
jhowell 8y ago
We seems fine with a future where AI becomes integrated into our legal system. Here is an excellent opportunity for AI to identify potential innocent people.
- albertgoeswoof 8y ago
  How? What could AI possibly have done here?
  - kylnew 8y ago
    I’d assume it should have less bias on any given case and we’d hope cases like this would be flagged by that system somehow. However, completely unbiased machine learning seems like something as hard to achieve as being completely unbiased ourselves.
    - olavk 8y ago
      The actual killer confessed, I think that is already a "flag".
    - cuboidGoat 8y ago
      AI tends to have both the biases of the programmers plus various unknown biases that it creates itself from the input data. "The evidence photos are all on bright sunny days and contain blue rectangular objects in the top left, probably guilty."
- beager 8y ago
  I have seen no evidence that supervised or unsupervised ML or "AI" has led to any more accurate application of justice. I'm not fine with integrating it into the legal system, not while it's vulnerable to the current biases of law enforcement and the justice system. And it would be worse, because once those biases are codified in the machine, there will be a bias toward trusting the evaluation of the machine over a human.
- onemoresoop 8y ago
  AI could find a pattern and raise a flag so someone can review the case.
somabc 8y ago
It shouldn't take having a special talent in art to get a fair hearing.
eggy 8y ago
What I don't get is this line, "But despite Mr Dixon's exoneration, prosecutors say he did provide the murder weapon, which they described as a machine gun." So he was at the store buying beer, and the other guy used his gun? So at most he is guilty of owning an illegal firearm, or automatic weapon?
- darkerside 8y ago
  Or he concocted a scheme where his friend, with no motive, would perform the murder while he had an alibi.
  - eggy 8y ago
    I am not questioning that what I presented is unbelievable; I am trying to confirm that the gun was indeed his. Who admitted it was his gun? It's obviously illegal, and the other guy confessed to the crime soon after. Did the shooter say it was the other guy's gun?
    - darkerside 8y ago
      > He acknowledged being at the crime scene, but said he was at a nearby shop buying beer when the gunshots rang out. > Mr Dixon said multiple witnesses could have testified he did not fire the gun. Sounds like some weasely words to me. He was clearly involved in the crime even if he didn't pull the trigger.
      - eggy 8y ago
        Whether he was an up and coming drug dealer, or not, or had possession of an illegal firearm, he didn't deserve to be incarcerated for that many years if he didn't pull the trigger. I wonder if he had a relationship to the victim or a vendetta of some sort as well. There was mention it was over a dispute about a girl.
- mcguire 8y ago
  According to http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/24736866/valentino-dixon-drew-golf-courses-imprisoned-released-jail http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/24736866/valentino-dixon... the charge of "criminal possession of a weapon" was not set aside. At most he was convicted of owning an illegal firearm. I have no strong information on the relationships between Dixon, Jackson, and Scott, but Dixon did give Scott the weapon and drove himself and Scott to the location (according to Scott), and Scott worked for Dixon's drug enterprise (according to the prosecutor). Further, first degree murder in New York includes, "(vi) the defendant committed the killing or procured commission of the killing pursuant to an agreement with a person other than the intended victim to commit the same for the receipt, or in expectation of the receipt, of anything of pecuniary value from a party to the agreement or from a person other than the intended victim acting at the direction of a party to such agreement".
darkerside 8y ago
> prosecutors say he did provide the murder weapon I get that it's not fashionable to defend police and prosecutors in this zeitgeist, but this sure seems like it's more complicated than a simple frame job. If you don't technically pull the trigger but your friend does while you go next door to pick up a six pack and an alibi, are you really not guilty?
- albertgoeswoof 8y ago
  You’re not guilty of murder, you’re guilty of supplying a weapon. Perhaps you could be convicted on something related to the murder if you knew in advance that the murder was going to take place with the weapon you provided. But that’s almost impossible to prove if your bar is as high as it should be for a murder conviction.
  - credit_guy 8y ago
    IANAL, but it appears to me that distinction does not exist in the US. Accessory to murder is the same as murder. “The U.S. Code effectively treats as principals those who would traditionally have been considered accessories before the fact at common law: (a) Whoever aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures the commission of an offense, is punishable as a principal. (b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense, is punishable as a principal.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_(legal_term)#United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_(legal_term)#Unite...
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  Prosecutors say a lot of things. For instance, they said he shot the victim. Where is the evidence that he shot the victim? Where is the evidence that he provided the weapon? These are the questions we should remain focused on when trying to ascertain guilt or innocence. Not what the prosecutor said. (Prosecutors have in-built incentives to persuade you to one side.) Nor, indeed, should we even focus too much on what the defendant said. (He could have been tortured, or he could just be lying.) Do you have evidence or not? If not, gtfo. Now in this case, the prosecutor hid evidence. And that's what complicates everything. When the prosecutors are willing to go to those lengths to cover their untruths, then there is little that can be done to check that lack of integrity given the structure of the current system. That's certainly a problem. But the idea is that if we focus on evidence we won't go wrong.
avryhof 8y ago
> Mr Dixon, 48, had maintained his innocence during 27 years behind bars for a shooting in Buffalo, New York. > Mr Dixon had served nearly two decades at a notorious prison in upstate New York when his artistic flair attracted the notice of correctional authorities. Isn't 27 years closer to three decades than two...
- alex_hitchins 8y ago
  I took it to mean only in that one institution. He may have been housed somewhere else for 8 years prior.
- tmm 8y ago
  > sn't 27 years closer to three decades than two... The article is a little oddly worded at that point, but it clarifies later on. After he had been in jail for 19 years the warden noticed his artistic skills and asked him to draw a picture of a hole at Augusta. It was after that that the review of his case started. It took another eight years for that review to result in an overturn of the conviction.
- ndespres 8y ago
  He might have been in a different prison before then. It's another dehumanizing tactic of our prison system to move people around, often away from their families.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tk75x 8y ago
  I interpret that as: nearly two decades in, his artwork was noticed. 27 years is the total time he spent in prison. So about years would have passed while he appealed his case.
- puranjay 8y ago
  I interpreted this as "he's served 27 years in prison, but only about two decades at Attica prison"
fjcp 8y ago
>Prosecutors had omitted to reveal to Mr Dixon's defence attorney that a gunpowder test on his client's clothes had come back negative. >Perhaps even more egregiously, another man, Lamarr Scott, admitted to local media only days after the murder that he shot Torriano Jackson. According to the Buffalo News, prosecutors conceded that Scott had been admitting his guilt in the case for a long time. What kind of person sends an innocent man to prison just to score a win in a case? They should face some kind of repercussion, a good start would be an audit of all their cases looking for similar behavior. Of course that isn't practical, maybe a "strike" system where you would be suspended after x cases of unethical behavior.
- mercurysmessage 8y ago
  It's also why the death penalty is wrong.
  - kstrauser 8y ago
    I’ve gotta agree. I’m morally OK with the death penalty for certain crimes, not so much for punishment or deterrence but for the same reasons you’d put down a rabid dog. But when prosecutorial misbehavior comes out in the news so often, I couldn’t abide sentencing someone today unless there was overwhelming objective proof that it was actually them.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Pretty much where I’m at too. The risk of a dodgy prosecution resulting in an innocent person being executed is way too high.
      - mercurysmessage 8y ago
        Yep, and it has happened in the past, and as long as we have it, it will in the future.
    - ConceptJunkie 8y ago
      Same here. I'm not opposed to the death penalty in principle, but it's impossible to put enough protections in place to prevent executing innocent people. Plus, there really isn't a safety issue when someone could be put into supermax. Of course, there's the issue that supermax borders (at least) on cruel and unusual punishment, but that's another issue that needs to addressed separately.
edoo 8y ago
You can partially thank the media for this. They like to sway opinion on issues for profit. Look at all the cartoons and TV shows and movies from the 80's and 90's demonizing Arabs to make way for the endless middle east wars. The endless stream of crime dramas that make it clear the police never do wrong and if you make it to a trial you are certainly guilty. We have a prison industry in this country that is predatory to everyone but especially the poorer uneducated classes, and crime dramas are their commercials.
- nwatson 8y ago
  >> The endless stream of crime dramas that make it clear the police never do wrong and if you make it to a trial you are certainly guilty. I've been watching "The Good Wife" seasons 1 and 2 recently. The show deals with people in private law firms, government prosecuting agencies, law enforcement, and random folks caught up in the legal process. The seasons are set in Chicago during the post-2008-crash time frame, so there's a lot of financial pressure all around. The show depicts well the financial and political game, the skewed incentives, and deal-making, the disregard for truth, racial and economic biases, how law enforcement often actually "does wrong". I'm sure the show's not very realistic, but it's fun, it paints almost no one in good light, and exposes the double-dealing and back-stabbing up and down the stack.
  - iamatworknow 8y ago
    Yeah, I'm not buying the whole "crime dramas portray cops as infallible" argument. Every cop show I've ever watched shows the police regularly bending the rules or otherwise being shitty at their jobs. If there wasn't controversy in the plot it wouldn't be entertaining. Saying crime dramas cause failures in our legal system is like saying violent video games cause mass shootings.
    - edoo 8y ago
      That is called manufacturing consent. How often do police get in trouble for bending or outright breaking the rules... that behavior is normalized in media, which normalizes it in reality.
tw04 8y ago
I mean, great he got out. But how is everyone involved not being punished? Someone else admitted to the murder 20 years ago!!
menacingly 8y ago
A lot of people assume it's "evil people" that are responsible for this stuff. Evil people can't hold a candle to the damage done by normal people rationalizing bad behavior as good.
fallingfrog 8y ago
The police in this country are absolutely savage. Someone I know was in a major US city this week and saw a police cruiser rev its engine, drive onto the sidewalk and intentionally hit an unarmed man on a bicycle, head on at high speed. The power of that impact and sound of snapping bones was something which will stay in my friend's head forever. There was blood everywhere. My friend was sure the man was dead, although evidently he somehow survived. The cop was white and he's still on active duty. No investigation was made. The man on the bicycle was black. The police department issued a statement stating that it was the bicycle that hit the cruiser. This is America.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- isoskeles 8y ago
  This reads like an urban legend about racist white cops. How do you know this actually happened?
  - astura 8y ago
    Certainly sounds like a BS story. An attempted homicide by a police officer in a major city which was almost certainly caught on dashcam and has at least one eye witness isn't reported on anywhere? The only thing I could find on Google and Google News that was this: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2018/09/19/indianapolis-bicyclist-fleeing-police-struck-head-deputys-car/1357957002/ https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2018/09/19/indiana... https://www.wthr.com/article/impd-investigate-collision-between-deputys-car-fleeing-felon-bike https://www.wthr.com/article/impd-investigate-collision-betw... However, if it was this story, the friend is lying: The crash doesn't appear to take place on the sidewalk and the police cruiser doesn't appear to jump the curb There were no broken bones (only mentions glass in the eye) The crash doesn't appear to be high speed (cop slowed down before the collision) There is an investigation
  - fallingfrog 8y ago
    Because the person called me, shaking and described what they just saw. The car was half on, half off the curb, after the collision. The cop definitely goosed the gas right before the collision. It was the indiana story. Everyone on the scene was sure he was dead. The exact words my friend used: "I just saw someone die". What's really shocking is hearing the police department issue flat out lies about what happened. Edit: after I wrote the original post, due to the fact that somebody caught it on camera it looks like there will be an investigation after all- I'm glad.
onemoresoop 8y ago
Prosecutors don't seek justice, they just want to lock up as many of what they perceive as bad guys, and a black man fits their stereotype. They clearly knew that this guy wasn't guilty of murder since somebody else confessed to the murder yet they let the innocent guy behind bars probably thinking "i got no hard feelings, that guy would have ended up killing someone one day". I sometimes wonder how these people sleep at night.
M_Bakhtiari 8y ago
Seems like an awfully inefficient system. They should replace the trials with talent shows, and convict whoever has the least interesting entry.
jcutrell 8y ago
The title is a bit misleading. Expected the drawings to be more directly responsible for the exoneration. Still a very interesting story.
- isoskeles 8y ago
  Yeah, this is kind of a clickbait title.
southphillyman 8y ago
re: American Justice System. I recently had to explain to a Chinese coworker of mine how in the U.S you can be held in jail for years pending trial because you can't afford to post bail. He was legit blown away and had no idea how that was possible. Apparently in China they have a couple of days to present evidence from the numerous CCTV cameras in the country or they must release you. Mechanisms like cash bail and these numerous wrongful conviction stories really highlight how the "land of the free" is anything but.
- refurb 8y ago
  Did you ask him how he felt about secret trials in China against political opponents or made up evidence that results in execution because they are an "enemy of the people"?
  - southphillyman 8y ago
    I questioned the high conviction rates, but I think that is a sensitive topic for him as he often says U.S news of what's going on in China is misleading.
newswriter99 8y ago
"But despite Mr Dixon's exoneration, prosecutors say he did provide the murder weapon, which they described as a machine gun.They also said he was an 'up-and-coming drug dealer' in Buffalo at the time of his arrest." Welp.
- spraak 8y ago
  > Welp. I don't understand what you're trying to communicate with that.
Dowwie 8y ago
Same inmate, different story: https://www.georgetown.edu/news/georgetown-students-help-free-prisoner-wrongfully-convicted-of-murder https://www.georgetown.edu/news/georgetown-students-help-fre...
caseyscottmckay 8y ago
The various Innocence Projects across the US are full of absolute heroes. The number of innocent people currently serving time in US jails is tragic and scary. Prosecutors and judges should be held more accountable for malpractice. This man lost his life when the facts were in his favor. Someone should be punished for this injustice. Even worse, lots of states won't even compensate the wrongly convicted for taking their lives from them.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  In criminal law, Blackstone's formulation (also known as Blackstone's ratio or the Blackstone ratio) is the principle that: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation This principle isn't just a matter of protecting the innocent. It's about protecting democracy. The power of the judiciary is potent, and millennia of history can show us how corrupt governments can abuse false accusations to oppress the populace. A society that gives up due process and the presumption of innocence is one that is giving the keys over to oppressors.
  - white-flame 8y ago
    Then consider that many convicted felons also lose the right to vote.
- spamizbad 8y ago
  One of the many problematic things about criminal justice in the United States is this: Many prosecutors and police officers feel that, even if you weren't guilty of this crime, you were probably guilty of something, the law just "caught up with you." so if a plausible case can be made against you they'll do it. And it's important to understand this isn't merely a cynical view held by these people: it's a strongly held conviction. Had Mr. Dixon been thoroughly exonerated at his original hearing, I can assure you both the arresting officer and prosecutor involved would be absolutely furious that he "got away with it" Attempts to curtail this behavior are met with endless concern-trolling and belly-aching from DA and police departments, claiming it lets criminals roam free because they use these laws (civil liberties) to "cheat the system". They are gas-lighting you, and don't want you to ask: how are a bunch of impoverished teens, who never completed high school, and likely never left a 6 block radius of where they grew up, somehow out-maneuvering politically powerful DAs with well-educated prosecutors backed up by well-funded militarized police departments? The constitution is powerful, but it's not that powerful.
zethraeus 8y ago
I wonder how he'd have fared if he'd drawn anything other than gold courses.
danso 8y ago
It's fascinating to read the original 2012 Golf Digest article, which has a subhed of "Golf Saved My Life [0]. But he didn't know at the time that the Golf Digest profile would lead to new interest in his case, just that it gave him psychological resolve. This is an excerpt in which he describes being in the same prison as the man who was actually responsible for the murder: > I now see LaMarr regularly. One year after I was convicted, LaMarr shot a teenager in the face after an armed robbery and made him a quadriplegic. I choose not to hold a grudge against LaMarr because psychologically, it would kill my spirit. LaMarr's eligible for parole in 2018; I'm not up until 2030. More than 3/4 of the Golf Digest article is about the details of Dixon's case. According to the new story [1] (which should probably be the URL for this submission, rather than the BBC recap), GD seems to have gotten interested because of Dixon's drawings first, and then became even more interested when they heard about the details of the case. Kudos to them for investigating it. [0] https://www.golfdigest.com/story/golf-saved-my-life-valentino-dixon https://www.golfdigest.com/story/golf-saved-my-life-valentin... [1] https://www.golfdigest.com/story/for-valentino-dixon-a-wrong-righted-murder-charge-vacated-by-court-after-serving-27-years-in-prison https://www.golfdigest.com/story/for-valentino-dixon-a-wrong...
TheMagicHorsey 8y ago
A few observations: 1) This man, by all accounts, is free only because he has an extraordinary talent. It's not that his case for innocence was stronger than any specific other inmate's. It's that his talent attracted the attention of people that could work for his release. How many people without artistic talent are nonetheless languishing unjustly in prison? 2) Bureaucracies where the individual cogs (here the prosecutors) have no skin in the game, will always tend towards inhumane outcomes. They don't even need to hold the power of life and death over citizens for this to be the case. Prosecutors face no consequences for wrongly incarcerating people, so naturally, they tend to be overly aggressive in prosecutions. When designing government agencies in the future, citizens should first figure out how to make sure the bureaucrats have skin in the game before they empower them. Once the bureaucrats are given power, they become petty tyrants. It's just human nature.

259 points by gadders 8y ago

jMyles 8y ago

So they release the guy, but smear him as an "up-and-coming drug dealer" when he was a kid, 27 years earlier.

frou_dh 8y ago
Here's a quote from Dixon himself in the Golf Digest article: > I started dating a girl whose brothers were drug dealers, and before long I was in it, too. It's no excuse. It was what you did in my neighborhood if you wanted to make money. I became a mid-level cocaine dealer and pulled in enough to drive flashy cars and cover friends, but not much else. I rode with a weapon, same as everybody.
- jMyles 8y ago
  Yeah, but that's not the point. This person sold a plant derivative to willing buyers; the state locked him in a cage for 27 years. Both are obviously illegal, but wildly different proportionally. And yet the latter, when finally made to acknowledge their mistake, pulls this "up and coming drug dealer" thing out as their excuse?

gizmo 8y ago

Prosecutors hid exculpatory evidence from the defense team. That's a recurring theme in cases like these. The prosecutors will not face any real consequences for ruining an innocent man's life. That's also a recurring theme.

BeniBoy 8y ago
For foreigners (like me) this episode of last week tonight[1] is quite useful to understand the role and possible abuses of prosecutors. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET_b78GSBUs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET_b78GSBUs
- justtopost 8y ago
  Except its not really.
  - BeniBoy 8y ago
    Well it felt that way, and it seems like a show of good reputation. But I would be really happy to learn from more trustful sources! Care to share some or your experience?
    - Hello71 8y ago
      It is mostly correct, but fails to elaborate on the culture of prosecutors leading to these kinds of results, instead painting them as "prosecutors suck". http://reason.com/archives/2016/06/23/confessions-of-an-ex-prosecutor http://reason.com/archives/2016/06/23/confessions-of-an-ex-p... (previously discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17594612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17594612)
      - slededit 8y ago
        It’s your 3 minutes of hate. Your not supposed to emphasize with them.
briandear 8y ago
If they hid evidence, that, by definition wasn’t neglect, but a willful action (to hide.) That should result in the loss of one’s license to practice at minimum and ideally, a referral to a special prosecutor for possible indictment. Contempt of court with jail time also should be on the table.

gambiting 8y ago

"He acknowledged being at the crime scene, but said he was at a nearby shop buying beer when the gunshots rang out." #1 proof that you should never ever talk to the police or confess to literally anything. Even saying something that is true and innocent can land you in jail with a 38-to-life sentence.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago
Sad thing is, a lot of people see it as an admission of guilt if you ask for a lawyer to be present if you're ever questioned by the police. This is crazy. The average person doesn't have a full understanding of the law. You need a lawyer to make sure you're being asked questions that can be legally asked. Having someone there to interpret the law for you is not a bad thing.
- kstrauser 8y ago
  A million times this. I’ve drilled into my kids’ heads that they’re never, ever to talk to police until we’ve gotten a lawyer involved.
  - isoskeles 8y ago
    Do you think this is going to work well during a traffic stop?
    - kstrauser 8y ago
      I didn’t say don’t talk to police at all, and there are plenty questions you must answer, especially in a traffic stop context. There no need to ad-lib, though: if you’re pulled over for speeding, you don’t have to give them your whole life story.
    - TangoTrotFox 8y ago
      I've never had any issues respectfully refusing to play along. 'Do you know why I pulled you over?' 'Good morning, officer. I'd rather not answer any questions. Am I being ticketed?' Interestingly even that innocent lead question is a trick one. Yes obviously implies guilty. But no implies a lack of awareness of your own actions, which can just as well end up being used against you.

audunw 8y ago

It's crazy to me how often these kind of stories come out of the US. It just shouldn't happen that often that someone is convicted of murder on weak evidence. The number of prisoners per capita seems to indicate that it's not just anecdotes. I can't help but feel that the US simply doesn't have a proper functioning justice system.

gambiting 8y ago
The biggest issue is the whole jury system - I don't understand how being judged by 12 people with no formal law education is considered a working or fair justice system.
- ritchiea 8y ago
  This makes a lot of sense, what systems are in place in other countries that lead to better outcomes?
- brobdingnagians 8y ago
  I think the main issue with this case is that the prosecution/court excluded evidence and didn't present the case correctly, even though someone else was _publicly_ admitting guilt in the case and there was plenty of evidence pointing the other way. The jury system could provide relief from this sort of court bias-- _if_ they had the information. So it appears that it is the _system_ that is so frenetic to convict that causes the issue; not the jury [prosecution attorneys tend to think everyone is guilty]. I would agree there is a cultural issue with wanting to convict a lot and firmly believing that everyone convicted by the system must be guilty, but that has very little to do with the jury system. The point of the jury system is to prevent tyranny, especially that experienced in most European countries that had monarchies and oppressive parliaments where angering the government or monarch, being the wrong religion, or having a different ideology would get you convicted very quickly. At least with a jury of your peers you have a chance of getting let off from trumped up charges. Europe _might_ not have the same problems currently, but still nice to have a system that could prevent some egregious things... perhaps including this one.
- ranko 8y ago

konschubert 8y ago

Wouldn't it be nice if everybody was given the benefit of doubt?

deaps 8y ago
You know how often I watch "Live PD" and believe the guy (or girl) that got pulled over, only to find out that once the K9 arrives, they had pounds of individually-packaged drugs and guns in their vehicle.
- leetcrew 8y ago
  how often do they show car stops that result in no charge on "Live PD"?
- cuboidGoat 8y ago
  Well, it is propaganda.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

The system seriously failed in this case. The actual killer confessed just days after the crime and repeatedly over the years. It wasn't even a mystery who did it.

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

>> [prosecutors] also said he was an "up-and-coming drug dealer" in Buffalo at the time of his arrest. "He's a bad guy, so he deserved to be in jail anyway".

matwood 8y ago
This seems to be a common rationalization from prosecutors and police. What they fail to realize is that falsely imprisoning even a 'bad guy' undermines the whole system. It has led us to the point where no one should ever speak to the police. A cycle that makes it even harder for police do properly do their job.
- fhood 8y ago
  The real problem is that it also seems to be a common rationalization from the jury.
madebysquares 8y ago
This type of statement is highly infuriating. This has no bearing on the fact that the original prosecution withheld evidence and he was not the shooter in this case.
adventured 8y ago
He was an accomplice to the murder, having supplied the illegal murder weapon - a TEC-9 semi-automatic pistol - and having arrived at the area of the crime in the same vehicle. So yes he was in fact a bad guy and yes he did deserve to be in jail for aiding the crime - he shouldn't have been convicted as the shooter and his prison sentence should not have been nearly so long as it was.
mcguire 8y ago
There may be a bit more to this case: "Scott said he had gotten the gun, a Tec-9 semi-automatic, from Dixon and the two men had driven together to the crowded corner where the fighting broke out." (http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/24736866/valentino-dixon-drew-golf-courses-imprisoned-released-jail http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/24736866/valentino-dixon...)

jhowell 8y ago

We seems fine with a future where AI becomes integrated into our legal system. Here is an excellent opportunity for AI to identify potential innocent people.

albertgoeswoof 8y ago
How? What could AI possibly have done here?
- kylnew 8y ago
  I’d assume it should have less bias on any given case and we’d hope cases like this would be flagged by that system somehow. However, completely unbiased machine learning seems like something as hard to achieve as being completely unbiased ourselves.
  - olavk 8y ago
    The actual killer confessed, I think that is already a "flag".
  - cuboidGoat 8y ago
    AI tends to have both the biases of the programmers plus various unknown biases that it creates itself from the input data. "The evidence photos are all on bright sunny days and contain blue rectangular objects in the top left, probably guilty."
beager 8y ago
I have seen no evidence that supervised or unsupervised ML or "AI" has led to any more accurate application of justice. I'm not fine with integrating it into the legal system, not while it's vulnerable to the current biases of law enforcement and the justice system. And it would be worse, because once those biases are codified in the machine, there will be a bias toward trusting the evaluation of the machine over a human.
onemoresoop 8y ago
AI could find a pattern and raise a flag so someone can review the case.

somabc 8y ago

It shouldn't take having a special talent in art to get a fair hearing.

eggy 8y ago

What I don't get is this line, "But despite Mr Dixon's exoneration, prosecutors say he did provide the murder weapon, which they described as a machine gun." So he was at the store buying beer, and the other guy used his gun? So at most he is guilty of owning an illegal firearm, or automatic weapon?

darkerside 8y ago
Or he concocted a scheme where his friend, with no motive, would perform the murder while he had an alibi.
- eggy 8y ago
  I am not questioning that what I presented is unbelievable; I am trying to confirm that the gun was indeed his. Who admitted it was his gun? It's obviously illegal, and the other guy confessed to the crime soon after. Did the shooter say it was the other guy's gun?
  - darkerside 8y ago
    > He acknowledged being at the crime scene, but said he was at a nearby shop buying beer when the gunshots rang out. > Mr Dixon said multiple witnesses could have testified he did not fire the gun. Sounds like some weasely words to me. He was clearly involved in the crime even if he didn't pull the trigger.
    - eggy 8y ago
      Whether he was an up and coming drug dealer, or not, or had possession of an illegal firearm, he didn't deserve to be incarcerated for that many years if he didn't pull the trigger. I wonder if he had a relationship to the victim or a vendetta of some sort as well. There was mention it was over a dispute about a girl.
mcguire 8y ago
According to http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/24736866/valentino-dixon-drew-golf-courses-imprisoned-released-jail http://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/24736866/valentino-dixon... the charge of "criminal possession of a weapon" was not set aside. At most he was convicted of owning an illegal firearm. I have no strong information on the relationships between Dixon, Jackson, and Scott, but Dixon did give Scott the weapon and drove himself and Scott to the location (according to Scott), and Scott worked for Dixon's drug enterprise (according to the prosecutor). Further, first degree murder in New York includes, "(vi) the defendant committed the killing or procured commission of the killing pursuant to an agreement with a person other than the intended victim to commit the same for the receipt, or in expectation of the receipt, of anything of pecuniary value from a party to the agreement or from a person other than the intended victim acting at the direction of a party to such agreement".

darkerside 8y ago

> prosecutors say he did provide the murder weapon I get that it's not fashionable to defend police and prosecutors in this zeitgeist, but this sure seems like it's more complicated than a simple frame job. If you don't technically pull the trigger but your friend does while you go next door to pick up a six pack and an alibi, are you really not guilty?

albertgoeswoof 8y ago
You’re not guilty of murder, you’re guilty of supplying a weapon. Perhaps you could be convicted on something related to the murder if you knew in advance that the murder was going to take place with the weapon you provided. But that’s almost impossible to prove if your bar is as high as it should be for a murder conviction.
- credit_guy 8y ago
  IANAL, but it appears to me that distinction does not exist in the US. Accessory to murder is the same as murder. “The U.S. Code effectively treats as principals those who would traditionally have been considered accessories before the fact at common law: (a) Whoever aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or procures the commission of an offense, is punishable as a principal. (b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense, is punishable as a principal.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_(legal_term)#United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_(legal_term)#Unite...
bilbo0s 8y ago
Prosecutors say a lot of things. For instance, they said he shot the victim. Where is the evidence that he shot the victim? Where is the evidence that he provided the weapon? These are the questions we should remain focused on when trying to ascertain guilt or innocence. Not what the prosecutor said. (Prosecutors have in-built incentives to persuade you to one side.) Nor, indeed, should we even focus too much on what the defendant said. (He could have been tortured, or he could just be lying.) Do you have evidence or not? If not, gtfo. Now in this case, the prosecutor hid evidence. And that's what complicates everything. When the prosecutors are willing to go to those lengths to cover their untruths, then there is little that can be done to check that lack of integrity given the structure of the current system. That's certainly a problem. But the idea is that if we focus on evidence we won't go wrong.

avryhof 8y ago

> Mr Dixon, 48, had maintained his innocence during 27 years behind bars for a shooting in Buffalo, New York. > Mr Dixon had served nearly two decades at a notorious prison in upstate New York when his artistic flair attracted the notice of correctional authorities. Isn't 27 years closer to three decades than two...

alex_hitchins 8y ago
I took it to mean only in that one institution. He may have been housed somewhere else for 8 years prior.
tmm 8y ago
> sn't 27 years closer to three decades than two... The article is a little oddly worded at that point, but it clarifies later on. After he had been in jail for 19 years the warden noticed his artistic skills and asked him to draw a picture of a hole at Augusta. It was after that that the review of his case started. It took another eight years for that review to result in an overturn of the conviction.
ndespres 8y ago
He might have been in a different prison before then. It's another dehumanizing tactic of our prison system to move people around, often away from their families.
deleted 8y ago
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tk75x 8y ago
I interpret that as: nearly two decades in, his artwork was noticed. 27 years is the total time he spent in prison. So about years would have passed while he appealed his case.
puranjay 8y ago
I interpreted this as "he's served 27 years in prison, but only about two decades at Attica prison"

fjcp 8y ago

>Prosecutors had omitted to reveal to Mr Dixon's defence attorney that a gunpowder test on his client's clothes had come back negative. >Perhaps even more egregiously, another man, Lamarr Scott, admitted to local media only days after the murder that he shot Torriano Jackson. According to the Buffalo News, prosecutors conceded that Scott had been admitting his guilt in the case for a long time. What kind of person sends an innocent man to prison just to score a win in a case? They should face some kind of repercussion, a good start would be an audit of all their cases looking for similar behavior. Of course that isn't practical, maybe a "strike" system where you would be suspended after x cases of unethical behavior.

mercurysmessage 8y ago
It's also why the death penalty is wrong.
- kstrauser 8y ago
  I’ve gotta agree. I’m morally OK with the death penalty for certain crimes, not so much for punishment or deterrence but for the same reasons you’d put down a rabid dog. But when prosecutorial misbehavior comes out in the news so often, I couldn’t abide sentencing someone today unless there was overwhelming objective proof that it was actually them.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    Pretty much where I’m at too. The risk of a dodgy prosecution resulting in an innocent person being executed is way too high.
    - mercurysmessage 8y ago
      Yep, and it has happened in the past, and as long as we have it, it will in the future.
  - ConceptJunkie 8y ago
    Same here. I'm not opposed to the death penalty in principle, but it's impossible to put enough protections in place to prevent executing innocent people. Plus, there really isn't a safety issue when someone could be put into supermax. Of course, there's the issue that supermax borders (at least) on cruel and unusual punishment, but that's another issue that needs to addressed separately.

edoo 8y ago

You can partially thank the media for this. They like to sway opinion on issues for profit. Look at all the cartoons and TV shows and movies from the 80's and 90's demonizing Arabs to make way for the endless middle east wars. The endless stream of crime dramas that make it clear the police never do wrong and if you make it to a trial you are certainly guilty. We have a prison industry in this country that is predatory to everyone but especially the poorer uneducated classes, and crime dramas are their commercials.

nwatson 8y ago
>> The endless stream of crime dramas that make it clear the police never do wrong and if you make it to a trial you are certainly guilty. I've been watching "The Good Wife" seasons 1 and 2 recently. The show deals with people in private law firms, government prosecuting agencies, law enforcement, and random folks caught up in the legal process. The seasons are set in Chicago during the post-2008-crash time frame, so there's a lot of financial pressure all around. The show depicts well the financial and political game, the skewed incentives, and deal-making, the disregard for truth, racial and economic biases, how law enforcement often actually "does wrong". I'm sure the show's not very realistic, but it's fun, it paints almost no one in good light, and exposes the double-dealing and back-stabbing up and down the stack.
- iamatworknow 8y ago
  Yeah, I'm not buying the whole "crime dramas portray cops as infallible" argument. Every cop show I've ever watched shows the police regularly bending the rules or otherwise being shitty at their jobs. If there wasn't controversy in the plot it wouldn't be entertaining. Saying crime dramas cause failures in our legal system is like saying violent video games cause mass shootings.
  - edoo 8y ago
    That is called manufacturing consent. How often do police get in trouble for bending or outright breaking the rules... that behavior is normalized in media, which normalizes it in reality.

tw04 8y ago

I mean, great he got out. But how is everyone involved not being punished? Someone else admitted to the murder 20 years ago!!

menacingly 8y ago

A lot of people assume it's "evil people" that are responsible for this stuff. Evil people can't hold a candle to the damage done by normal people rationalizing bad behavior as good.

fallingfrog 8y ago

The police in this country are absolutely savage. Someone I know was in a major US city this week and saw a police cruiser rev its engine, drive onto the sidewalk and intentionally hit an unarmed man on a bicycle, head on at high speed. The power of that impact and sound of snapping bones was something which will stay in my friend's head forever. There was blood everywhere. My friend was sure the man was dead, although evidently he somehow survived. The cop was white and he's still on active duty. No investigation was made. The man on the bicycle was black. The police department issued a statement stating that it was the bicycle that hit the cruiser. This is America.

deleted 8y ago
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isoskeles 8y ago
This reads like an urban legend about racist white cops. How do you know this actually happened?
- astura 8y ago
  Certainly sounds like a BS story. An attempted homicide by a police officer in a major city which was almost certainly caught on dashcam and has at least one eye witness isn't reported on anywhere? The only thing I could find on Google and Google News that was this: https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2018/09/19/indianapolis-bicyclist-fleeing-police-struck-head-deputys-car/1357957002/ https://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2018/09/19/indiana... https://www.wthr.com/article/impd-investigate-collision-between-deputys-car-fleeing-felon-bike https://www.wthr.com/article/impd-investigate-collision-betw... However, if it was this story, the friend is lying: The crash doesn't appear to take place on the sidewalk and the police cruiser doesn't appear to jump the curb There were no broken bones (only mentions glass in the eye) The crash doesn't appear to be high speed (cop slowed down before the collision) There is an investigation
- fallingfrog 8y ago
  Because the person called me, shaking and described what they just saw. The car was half on, half off the curb, after the collision. The cop definitely goosed the gas right before the collision. It was the indiana story. Everyone on the scene was sure he was dead. The exact words my friend used: "I just saw someone die". What's really shocking is hearing the police department issue flat out lies about what happened. Edit: after I wrote the original post, due to the fact that somebody caught it on camera it looks like there will be an investigation after all- I'm glad.

onemoresoop 8y ago

Prosecutors don't seek justice, they just want to lock up as many of what they perceive as bad guys, and a black man fits their stereotype. They clearly knew that this guy wasn't guilty of murder since somebody else confessed to the murder yet they let the innocent guy behind bars probably thinking "i got no hard feelings, that guy would have ended up killing someone one day". I sometimes wonder how these people sleep at night.

M_Bakhtiari 8y ago

Seems like an awfully inefficient system. They should replace the trials with talent shows, and convict whoever has the least interesting entry.

jcutrell 8y ago

The title is a bit misleading. Expected the drawings to be more directly responsible for the exoneration. Still a very interesting story.

isoskeles 8y ago
Yeah, this is kind of a clickbait title.

southphillyman 8y ago

re: American Justice System. I recently had to explain to a Chinese coworker of mine how in the U.S you can be held in jail for years pending trial because you can't afford to post bail. He was legit blown away and had no idea how that was possible. Apparently in China they have a couple of days to present evidence from the numerous CCTV cameras in the country or they must release you. Mechanisms like cash bail and these numerous wrongful conviction stories really highlight how the "land of the free" is anything but.

refurb 8y ago
Did you ask him how he felt about secret trials in China against political opponents or made up evidence that results in execution because they are an "enemy of the people"?
- southphillyman 8y ago
  I questioned the high conviction rates, but I think that is a sensitive topic for him as he often says U.S news of what's going on in China is misleading.

newswriter99 8y ago

"But despite Mr Dixon's exoneration, prosecutors say he did provide the murder weapon, which they described as a machine gun.They also said he was an 'up-and-coming drug dealer' in Buffalo at the time of his arrest." Welp.

spraak 8y ago
> Welp. I don't understand what you're trying to communicate with that.

Dowwie 8y ago

Same inmate, different story: https://www.georgetown.edu/news/georgetown-students-help-free-prisoner-wrongfully-convicted-of-murder https://www.georgetown.edu/news/georgetown-students-help-fre...

caseyscottmckay 8y ago

The various Innocence Projects across the US are full of absolute heroes. The number of innocent people currently serving time in US jails is tragic and scary. Prosecutors and judges should be held more accountable for malpractice. This man lost his life when the facts were in his favor. Someone should be punished for this injustice. Even worse, lots of states won't even compensate the wrongly convicted for taking their lives from them.

stcredzero 8y ago
In criminal law, Blackstone's formulation (also known as Blackstone's ratio or the Blackstone ratio) is the principle that: "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_formulation This principle isn't just a matter of protecting the innocent. It's about protecting democracy. The power of the judiciary is potent, and millennia of history can show us how corrupt governments can abuse false accusations to oppress the populace. A society that gives up due process and the presumption of innocence is one that is giving the keys over to oppressors.
- white-flame 8y ago
  Then consider that many convicted felons also lose the right to vote.
spamizbad 8y ago
One of the many problematic things about criminal justice in the United States is this: Many prosecutors and police officers feel that, even if you weren't guilty of this crime, you were probably guilty of something, the law just "caught up with you." so if a plausible case can be made against you they'll do it. And it's important to understand this isn't merely a cynical view held by these people: it's a strongly held conviction. Had Mr. Dixon been thoroughly exonerated at his original hearing, I can assure you both the arresting officer and prosecutor involved would be absolutely furious that he "got away with it" Attempts to curtail this behavior are met with endless concern-trolling and belly-aching from DA and police departments, claiming it lets criminals roam free because they use these laws (civil liberties) to "cheat the system". They are gas-lighting you, and don't want you to ask: how are a bunch of impoverished teens, who never completed high school, and likely never left a 6 block radius of where they grew up, somehow out-maneuvering politically powerful DAs with well-educated prosecutors backed up by well-funded militarized police departments? The constitution is powerful, but it's not that powerful.

zethraeus 8y ago

I wonder how he'd have fared if he'd drawn anything other than gold courses.

danso 8y ago

It's fascinating to read the original 2012 Golf Digest article, which has a subhed of "Golf Saved My Life [0]. But he didn't know at the time that the Golf Digest profile would lead to new interest in his case, just that it gave him psychological resolve. This is an excerpt in which he describes being in the same prison as the man who was actually responsible for the murder: > I now see LaMarr regularly. One year after I was convicted, LaMarr shot a teenager in the face after an armed robbery and made him a quadriplegic. I choose not to hold a grudge against LaMarr because psychologically, it would kill my spirit. LaMarr's eligible for parole in 2018; I'm not up until 2030. More than 3/4 of the Golf Digest article is about the details of Dixon's case. According to the new story [1] (which should probably be the URL for this submission, rather than the BBC recap), GD seems to have gotten interested because of Dixon's drawings first, and then became even more interested when they heard about the details of the case. Kudos to them for investigating it. [0] https://www.golfdigest.com/story/golf-saved-my-life-valentino-dixon https://www.golfdigest.com/story/golf-saved-my-life-valentin... [1] https://www.golfdigest.com/story/for-valentino-dixon-a-wrong-righted-murder-charge-vacated-by-court-after-serving-27-years-in-prison https://www.golfdigest.com/story/for-valentino-dixon-a-wrong...

TheMagicHorsey 8y ago

A few observations: 1) This man, by all accounts, is free only because he has an extraordinary talent. It's not that his case for innocence was stronger than any specific other inmate's. It's that his talent attracted the attention of people that could work for his release. How many people without artistic talent are nonetheless languishing unjustly in prison? 2) Bureaucracies where the individual cogs (here the prosecutors) have no skin in the game, will always tend towards inhumane outcomes. They don't even need to hold the power of life and death over citizens for this to be the case. Prosecutors face no consequences for wrongly incarcerating people, so naturally, they tend to be overly aggressive in prosecutions. When designing government agencies in the future, citizens should first figure out how to make sure the bureaucrats have skin in the game before they empower them. Once the bureaucrats are given power, they become petty tyrants. It's just human nature.