Category Archives: Prosecutorial conduct (good and bad)

From the Los Angeles Times:

DALLAS — On the way to witness his first execution in the town known as the “Execution Capital of the World,” the Dallas County district attorney stopped at the prison cemetery to find his great-grandfather’s grave.

Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery in Huntsville is the final resting place of inmates whose families could not afford burial anywhere else. Tall pines guard the grassy expanse nicknamed “Peckerwood Hill,” where many gravestones bear prison identification numbers, not names.

Dist. Atty. Craig Watkins scanned row upon row of gray crosses and headstones, making quick progress in his usual cowboy boots until he found the boxy stone belonging toRichard Johnson, dated Aug. 10, 1932.

Watkins knelt beside the grave in his suit.

Engraved next to Johnson’s prisoner number — 101 — was a telltale X. His great-grandfather had been executed.

His dual missions that day in February — paying respects, witnessing the execution — embodied how Watkins, Texas’ first African American district Continue reading →

Ken Cuccinelli

I wrote in this article about how Jim Petro, when he was the AG of Ohio, used his position not only to keep Ohio’s streets safe, but to fight for justice and the wrongfully convicted.  Since Petro left office in 2007, we have seen Craig Watkins, Dallas DA, fill that role in the context of a county prosecutor.  But we haven’t had another state AG step up to fill Petro’s shoes.

We just might be seeing the first contender in Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.  Here are two articles (here and here), that explore his stance on justice, the Michael Hash case, and wrongful convictions generally.  They are worth a read.

One Petro-like thing Cuccinelli is promoting is amending Virginia’s post-conviction laws to make it easier for inmates to prove innocence when there is no DNA in their cases (raise your hand if the AG in you state would propose such a law).  Regarding this amendment, he has said:

To have to prove by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable juror would find beyond a reasonable doubt that someone committed a crime is mind-numbing in the extreme……the process by which it’s handled and the hoops you have to get through, I think, are worthy of reconsideration,” said Cuccinelli, who backed Haynesworth’s bid for exoneration.

Here’s a quote from Cuccinelli about the Michael Hash case:

“I am a big fan of law enforcement … but I also believe we’ve set up systems that achieve justice. You don’t rely on the people in the system. James Madison said, ‘If men were angels we wouldn’t need Continue reading →

Colorado in Spring…

From source:

Reviewing old convictions for cases where DNA might exonerate an inmate never seemed like defense-attorney work to Julie Selsberg.

On the contrary, the senior assistant attorney general said it squares perfectly with a prosecutor’s responsibilities.

“It’s may be unusual, but not when you really think about it,” Selsberg said. “A prosecutor’s mission is to seek the truth in all matters. That’s the kind of prosecutor I’ve always held myself out to be, and I was happy to see that Colorado aligned with my moral compass on that.”

Selsberg, a transplanted prosecutor from Manhattan, last week helped make Colorado history with the first prosecution-led exoneration of a wrongfully convicted man, Robert “Rider” Dewey.

She heads the Attorney General’s Office’s Justice Review Project, a small grant-funded endeavor that’s stretching into its third year. It’s just her and veteran investigator Larry Adkisson.

Together they reviewed nearly 5,000 cases of murder, sex assault and homicide, looking for a case such as Dewey’s, where new DNA technology could shed light on old convictions.

Without her work and the cooperation of Mesa County prosecutors, Dewey could have spent many more years behind bars.

You can’t make this up.  From news source:

In a new twist for a case full of them, lawyers of Kerry Max Cook, the Dallas man sentenced to death for a gruesome rape and murder before being exonerated two decades later, are accusing a prosecutor in his case of taking home the murder weapon as a dark, twisted souvenir.

This accusation, part of a motion filed in Smith County, is part of Cook’s ongoing effort to officially clear his name and record after 35 years of being branded by the state as a murderer. Cook, who now lives in Dallas, pleaded “no contest” to a reduced murder charge in 1999 and reclaimed his freedom. As part of the plea agreement that freed him, he never admitted guilt. But legally, he is not recognized as innocent. His attorneys are now working to get a judge to rule on his innocence, and finally bring an end — one way or another — to his 35-year quest to clear his name.

Lately it’s been a mix of setbacks and small victories. A judge recently granted permission for DNA testing of new evidence, but refused a request that Smith County District Judge Christi Kennedy be recused from the case.

But on Monday they filed a motion to reconsider the judge’s denial based on new evidence — including, they claim, the revelation that the case’s original prosecutor, A.D. Clark, III, took home key evidence. That evidence included “the murder weapon — a blood soaked knife — and a sample of Mr. Cook’s hair,” Continue reading →