Author Archives: Martin Yant

DA-turned bestselling novelist reveals ‘dirty little secret”

Posted on March 5, 2012 | Leave a comment

William Landay’s brilliant new legal thriller, Defending Jacob, has created quite a buzz. It has been compared favorably with Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent, which is pretty heady territory.

Like Turow, Landay is a former prosecutor. And like Turow, Landay issues an indictment of our criminal-justice system on several levels.  Defending Jacob is not about a wrongful conviction. It is as much a family drama as it is a legal one, and it takes many dramatic turns before what one seasoned reviewer called its “astonishing” ending.

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Posted in Book recommendations/discussion, Commissions/Innocence Commissions/Governmental Case Review Agencies, Defense lawyering (good and bad), Eyewitness identification, Inquisitional and adversarial systems of justice

Defense attorneys sometimes are a hindrance to investigations

Posted on March 1, 2012 | 3 comments

In the course of investigating a possible wrongful conviction, it’s not surprising to be stonewalled by police and prosecutors while attempting to gather case documents and evidence. But it is surprising how often  original defense attorneys also stonewall post-conviction investigators.

 It is well established in the United States, at least, that a client’s file is the client’s property. If a former client requests his or her file, the former attorney is obligated to turn it over. But that rule is frequently ignored if the former client is in prison.
 
 In the past year, I have had four defense attorneys fail to turn over their former clients’ case files after submitting information releases signed by the former client. My experience with a West Virginia attorney fit a familiar pattern. My inmate-client and his outside supporter had told me they had made several requests for access to the case file in the dozen years since his conviction but the attorney had never responded.

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Posted in Defense lawyering (good and bad), Exonerations

How to reduce fingerprint errors

Posted on February 24, 2012 | 1 comment

 Before the advent of DNA testing, fingerprint comparison was considered the  best way to identify criminal perpetrators. To hear the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies tell it, there was virtually no chance of misidentifying someone because every fingerprint is supposedly unique and their highly trained examiners never made mistakes.

Although false fingerprint identifications were known to have contributed to wrongful convictions, the errors seemingly occurred because of fabrication and misconduct, not actual error.  The case of Portland, Oregon, attorney Brandon Mayfield helped change that perception.

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Posted in Defense lawyering (good and bad), Exonerations, Forensic controls, Police conduct (good and bad), Reforming/Improving the system, United Kingdom

The polygraph and false confessions

Posted on February 23, 2012 | 13 comments

False confessions are a leading cause of wrongful convictions. According to the Innocence Project, about 25 percent of the documented DNA exoneration cases involved incriminating statements, full confessions or guilty pleas by innocent suspects.

The polygraph is an important tool in the extraction of false confessions. Despite the well-documented inaccuracy of the polygraph, police in North America (less so in Europe and other areas) still rely heavily on the “lie detector” and its even less accurate cousin, the voice stress analyzer, in the investigative process.  If an innocent suspect fails the polygraph exam, police will use the results to persuade him or her that they must be guilty. In some cases, police will tell the suspect that they failed the exam even when they didn’t in an attempt to obtain a confession.

Given the polygraph’s inaccuracy and record of being used to obtain confessions, I am continually amazed to come across cases in which defense attorneys Continue reading →

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Posted in Defense lawyering (good and bad), Editorials/Opinion, Exonerations, False confessions, Inquisitional and adversarial systems of justice, Junk science, Police conduct (good and bad), Uncategorized

Gallery

American Indian Injustice

Posted on February 15, 2012

This gallery contains 4 photos.

American Indian reservations are, to a certain extent, a world unto themselves. Tribal councils, rather than the U.S. government or state governments, generally control what happens on America’s 300-plus reservations on which many native Americans still live. But not when … Continue reading →

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