WCB readers, this is a must read. Enjoy!!!
From the BuffaloNews.com:
By Frank A. Sedita III
Every prosecutor in New York agrees that the conviction of an innocent man is a grave injustice and is unquestionably unacceptable. Accordingly, the Office of the Erie County District Attorney employs a rigorously enforced standard before a case, especially a felony case, can be prosecuted: the credible evidence, which is likely admissible in court, must prove the offense charged.
We do not prosecute a felony case because a complainant made an allegation or a police officer arrested someone. Every assistant district attorney assigned to a felony case must independently and critically review it for its prosecutorial viability. The case is again reviewed by the assistant district attorney’s supervisor. Should the grand jury vote to indict the defendant, the proposed indictment and its underlying proof is again reviewed before the defendant is formally accused and arraigned.
Our policy of critically and repeatedly reviewing cases at the pre-indictment stage has resulted in some cases being dismissed because the defendant is innocent. Since January 2011, my office has reviewed 4,764 potential felony cases for presentation to the grand jury or other disposition. Thirty-three of the defendants (0.7 percent) charged by the police were probably innocent. One such defendant was exonerated after indictment but well before trial. The remaining 32 defendants were exonerated before they were indicted by a grand jury.
None of the foregoing exonerations occurred after a wrongful conviction. None of the convictions obtained during my administration has been overturned because the defendant was innocent. My predecessor, District Attorney Frank J. Clark, served for 12 years (1997 to 2008) and none of the thousands of defendants convicted during his three terms has been exonerated as innocent.
In reality, it is the prosecutor who usually exonerates the wrongly accused, often without prodding from a defense attorney, and almost always well before a trial. Indeed, a critical review of every felony case, by professional prosecutors and at the earliest practicable stage of the proceedings (i.e. before indictment), prevents wrongful indictments and thus, prevents wrongful convictions.
Once a defendant is indicted, New York is one of the most difficult states in which to achieve a criminal conviction, precisely because of the rights already afforded to the defendant and because of the procedures already in place to prevent a wrongful conviction. A typical felony case will run a gauntlet ofsix separate judicial reviews before the conviction will be allowed to stand. Convictions are occasionally overturned by appellate courts, but usually because of procedural errors or because the trial court allowed the jury to hear evidence of guilt that “prejudiced” the defendant’s rights. In New York, it is rare for a conviction to be overturned because of insufficient evidence, and rarer still for a conviction to be overturned because the defendant was innocent.
While no one can deny that wrongful convictions have taken place, their rate of occurrence has been obscenely exaggerated. In reality, wrongful acquittals are much more common than wrongful convictions. I can point to at least four trials this year alone in Erie County that resulted in an acquittal despite overwhelming evidence of the defendant’s guilt. Post-indictment dismissals, usually because of technical procedural issues or because the court suppresses key prosecution evidence at the request of the defense, are more common still. Citizens are amazed to learn that under our legal system, the prosecution can rarely appeal a dismissal and can never appeal an acquittal.
Despite the infrequency of wrongful convictions and the procedures in place that prevent them, there are those who believe that more statutory reform is required. A thoughtful reading of the fine print, however, often reveals that the introduction of insurmountable procedural hurdles coupled with punitive sanctions is what is really intended by the so-called reform. The chief proponents of these Trojan horse statutes also neglect to mention that criminals will be the chief beneficiaries of the additional hoops through which the police and prosecutors must jump in order to obtain justice for crime victims.
I agree that the system is flawed, but in a manner that benefits the accused. I can accept that. Our system presumes a man innocent until he is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Ours is the greatest criminal justice system ever devised and I am proud to play a role in it. What I cannot accept is deliberate deception heaped upon an unsuspecting public. In my view, these so-called legislative reforms, offered under the pretense of preventing an injustice, are not intended to protect the innocent from wrongful conviction but are instead designed to shield the guilty from any conviction.
Wrongful Convictions Blog 
What a lie.
This district attorney is trying to convince people that wrongful convictions are INFREQUENT…This type of false material should not even make it out to the public!
I have a problem claiming that he lied .
I did notice a misstatement of fact , probably hyperbole without intent to deceive.
There exists one ♀ NY former assistant prosecutor whom I perceive as evil and deserving of a sanction not authorized by law (☺ no , not beheading , with death her suffering would end ☺).
“Every prosecutor in New York agrees that the conviction of an innocent man is a grave injustice and is unquestionably unacceptable. Accordingly, the Office of the Erie County District Attorney …”
Quoth the Docile , “Kindly , Everemore.”
As always, Nemo Me Impune Lacessit
I am aghast. Too bad WCB doesn’t have a “dislike” button.
I wonder of Mr. Sedita can quote statistics for the occurrence of Brady violations?
I plan to write to Mr. Sedita .
I do not question HIS ethics .
He may live a sheltered life ☺
The Ohio Public Defender website has a list of various Brady violations .
Here is one NY former district attorney who lack ethics .
You’re right: This is a must-read. I wish the things this prosecutor writes were true, but I’ve seen too many rushes to judgment in infant-shaking cases, and too much witholding of exculpatory evidence, to accept that the flaws in our system are to the advantage of the accused.
I read Sedita’s editorial 3 times in an effort to make sense out of his rant. For those outside of Western NY, I can only venture a guess that it is the result of his office losing a lot of high profile cases that they should have won recently if the DA’s office were (1) more competent, (2) less self-assured, (3) more determined, or (4) all of the above. He may also have taken a burn to an editorial of the Buffalo News (see http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial-page/buffalo-news-editorials/article1004427.ece).
Sedita also has an ongoing lawsuit with a former Deputy DA whistleblower who was fired for pointing out that Sedita failed to prosecute a political operative in his own campaign (see http://blogs.artvoice.com/avdaily/2009/09/28/mark-sacha-on-das-failure-to-prosecute-steve-pigeon).
One should be warned to not believe the statistics that Sedita flings out. The productivity measures of the DA’s office since he took over have been abysmal, but like your typical politician, he plays fast and loose with statistics (see http://www.http://artvoice.com/issues/v11n23/week_in_review/considered_but_rejected).
Mr. Sedita continually lashes back at anyone who implies that he has ever done anything wrong. Despite his poor record, he will go unapposed in this year’s election, mainly because of it being a massively Democratic county, and it being a Presidential election year.
I knew that he has a gargantuan ego, but to see that he fails, to this degree, to understand the point of view of the acquitted is very disturbing.
The biggest problem with Sedita’s argument is the idea that cases in which a jury acquits, or in which judges dismiss cases based on violation of legal rules or constitutional standards are “wrongful acquittals.” There is nothing wrongful about a jury finding a defendant not guilty when the proof is not there, despite the DA’s insistence that in four cases, they did so when he thought there was overwhelming evidence. The jurors obviously did not agree. And if he thinks that dismissing a case for an illegal search or seizure or other constitutional violation — which is very rare, by the way — is wrongful, he just needs to go back to law school. He wouldn’t have passed my course.
David Harris, University of Pittsburgh School of Law
http://failedevidence.wordpress.com
Mr. Sedita’s commentary plays on the universal fear of crime and criminals. The tide of public concern has been turning, however, as a result of the undeniable rash of wrongful convictions proven by DNA. We have learned that wrongful conviction, one of the most horrific experiences imaginable, happens more frequently than most ever imagined and that the recurring contributors to miscarriages of justice cannot be properly attributed to “human error.”
Sedita neglects to comment about the many true perpetrators who have continued to commit violent crimes such as rape and murder after escaping justice due to a wrongful conviction.
No denial or defensiveness can obscure the fact that we can do better. Those in the criminal justice system who are committed to truth in justice and the important work of protecting society from criminals deserve policies that reduce wrongful conviction. Only then will public confidence in the criminal justice system be restored to the high levels the system once commonly enjoyed.
I would much rather see 100 guilty men to go free than see an innocent man convicted. Can you imagine the horror of being locked up, tried, and convicted, and never committed the crime? Yes we need reform in our judicial system. No prosecutor is going to admit that. That would mean admitting they might have been wrong at some time. The problem, it seems to me, is prosecutors don’t face enough consequences for stealing a person’s freedom. Locking an innocent person up for years should be a crime. It’s about the same as abducting someone and keeping them held prisoner. It’s certainly just as traumatic. Anyone else that did that would be considered a monster. They get paid and have immunity. We need to stop elevating these people above us and giving them too much authority. I believe they all need to be taken down a notch or two. Because there are mistakes. They’re becoming much too cavalier about what they’re doing. We need reform. And we need it immediately.