5 ms·

It feels like I read or see something like this nearly every month. Someone’s where even the prosecutor's office involved have come to a different conclusion, b

It feels like I read or see something like this nearly every month. Someone’s where even the prosecutor's office involved have come to a different conclusion, but still, there are these major roadblocks to justice. Is there any meaningful progress being made to reassess our preference for finality over justice?

magicalhippo 2y ago
Here in Norway they've created an independent commission[1] to handle these cases of grave injustice. Not perfect, they can't handle many cases at once and have perhaps been a bit too cautious (to be charitable), but certainly better than nothing. [1]: https://www.gjenopptakelse.no/en/ https://www.gjenopptakelse.no/en/
gspencley 2y ago
> Is there any meaningful progress being made to reassess our preference for finality over justice? I think the problem is that, despite a prisoner's constitutional right to habeus corpus, once you are convicted you no longer have the presumption of innocence. Add to the fact that the convicted was convicted by a jury of their peers. Therefore, to overturn the conviction, the courts not only have to recognized and acknowledge their own error, they need to overturn the jury's decision. And the system places such a high value on jury decisions that it doesn't treat overturning them lightly. This means that there is a huge uphill battle to climb. The presumption is that you are guilty, because you were convicted beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt. You are no longer in a position of defending against a prosecutor's case where they need to prove you guilty and you have no burden of proof what-so-ever. You are now in a position where you need to prove your innocence. I'm not sure what the process is like when there is exculpatory evidence. I would hope that as long as the evidence has the slightest hint of merit that the case can be reopened. In the case of the article, however, (which I will readily admit that I didn't study in its entirety since it was pretty TL;DR, so I skimmed and skipped parts) it doesn't sound like there is new exculpatory evidence, it sounds like the DA is unconvinced by the evidence and that if the trial were to occur today, that evidence would have been given much stricter scrutiny than it was at the time. It sounds like we need better ways to rexamine cases when standards of evidence change. To offer a made-up hypothetical, imagine that polygraph tests were admissible at one point and then it was deemed they are unreliable and are no longer admissible, could people who were convicted on polygraph evidence demand an appeal on that ground? I'm not a lawyer so I don't know, but I would hope so.
Vecr 2y ago
It's really what pardons are for. It would "only" take a cultural change for DAs to feed up and combine together each year a "master list" of routine pardons that would be "rubber stamped" at both the federal and state levels, depending on the jurisdiction the person was convicted in.
- Buttons840 2y ago
  The President is more likely to pardon himself than this poor dad.
  - hn_acker 2y ago
    Most governors of US states can grant pardons or clemency for violations of state laws [1]. I don't know whether a pardon can provide a pathway to removal of a false charge of guilt. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#State_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#State_law
    - Vecr 2y ago
      Well, it should let you go. The charges are permanent, the US does not have the Internet censorship needed to make them go away even if they wanted to.
      - hn_acker 2y ago
        > The charges are permanent, the US does not have the Internet censorship needed to make them go away even if they wanted to. I should've clarified in my previous comment that I wasn't referring to public opinion and the news cycle when I wrote "a pathway to removal of a false charge of guilt". My worry is that every time an employer or a government official does a background check on someone who was pardoned for a later-determined-to-be-wrongful conviction yet remains formally marked as guilty, the background check will bring up a misleading record that will tangibly affect the pardoned person's employment opportunities or exercise of legal rights. atmavatar gave some examples (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303300).

magicalhippo 2y ago

Here in Norway they've created an independent commission[1] to handle these cases of grave injustice. Not perfect, they can't handle many cases at once and have perhaps been a bit too cautious (to be charitable), but certainly better than nothing. [1]: https://www.gjenopptakelse.no/en/ https://www.gjenopptakelse.no/en/

gspencley 2y ago

> Is there any meaningful progress being made to reassess our preference for finality over justice? I think the problem is that, despite a prisoner's constitutional right to habeus corpus, once you are convicted you no longer have the presumption of innocence. Add to the fact that the convicted was convicted by a jury of their peers. Therefore, to overturn the conviction, the courts not only have to recognized and acknowledge their own error, they need to overturn the jury's decision. And the system places such a high value on jury decisions that it doesn't treat overturning them lightly. This means that there is a huge uphill battle to climb. The presumption is that you are guilty, because you were convicted beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt. You are no longer in a position of defending against a prosecutor's case where they need to prove you guilty and you have no burden of proof what-so-ever. You are now in a position where you need to prove your innocence. I'm not sure what the process is like when there is exculpatory evidence. I would hope that as long as the evidence has the slightest hint of merit that the case can be reopened. In the case of the article, however, (which I will readily admit that I didn't study in its entirety since it was pretty TL;DR, so I skimmed and skipped parts) it doesn't sound like there is new exculpatory evidence, it sounds like the DA is unconvinced by the evidence and that if the trial were to occur today, that evidence would have been given much stricter scrutiny than it was at the time. It sounds like we need better ways to rexamine cases when standards of evidence change. To offer a made-up hypothetical, imagine that polygraph tests were admissible at one point and then it was deemed they are unreliable and are no longer admissible, could people who were convicted on polygraph evidence demand an appeal on that ground? I'm not a lawyer so I don't know, but I would hope so.

Vecr 2y ago

It's really what pardons are for. It would "only" take a cultural change for DAs to feed up and combine together each year a "master list" of routine pardons that would be "rubber stamped" at both the federal and state levels, depending on the jurisdiction the person was convicted in.

Buttons840 2y ago
The President is more likely to pardon himself than this poor dad.
- hn_acker 2y ago
  Most governors of US states can grant pardons or clemency for violations of state laws [1]. I don't know whether a pardon can provide a pathway to removal of a false charge of guilt. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#State_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon#State_law
  - Vecr 2y ago
    Well, it should let you go. The charges are permanent, the US does not have the Internet censorship needed to make them go away even if they wanted to.
    - hn_acker 2y ago
      > The charges are permanent, the US does not have the Internet censorship needed to make them go away even if they wanted to. I should've clarified in my previous comment that I wasn't referring to public opinion and the news cycle when I wrote "a pathway to removal of a false charge of guilt". My worry is that every time an employer or a government official does a background check on someone who was pardoned for a later-determined-to-be-wrongful conviction yet remains formally marked as guilty, the background check will bring up a misleading record that will tangibly affect the pardoned person's employment opportunities or exercise of legal rights. atmavatar gave some examples (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303300 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41303300).