Since 1989, there have been 1,463 prisoner exonerations according to The National Registry of Exonerations, a joint project of the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law.
On Tuesday, October 28, “(t)wo men who were convicted of killing a South Dallas pastor more than 15 years ago have now been set free,” Stephanie Lucero reported for CBS 11 News in Dallas, Texas. Citing prosecutorial misconduct, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins recommended that Stanley Mozee, 55, and Dennis Lee Allen, 52, be released from their life sentences “for the robbery and the stabbing” of Rev. Jesse Borns Jr.
In a dramatic courtroom moment, State District Judge Mark Stoltz asked each of the “about fifteen exonerees [who] were in the audience, … to stand and say how long they had been wrongfully incarcerated,” The Dallas Morning News reported.
According to Lucero, “Watkins said that the original prosecutor played dirty tricks. Letters in the files reportedly show that jailhouse witnesses demanded benefits from the prosecutor, and that ‘substantive discussions’ with the witnesses were not disclosed.”
The Judge set a $25,000 bond for Mozee and Allen, and while they were set free, it “was not a formal exoneration,” because “the case will now also be reviewed by a higher court.”
“I have no animosity toward anyone,” Mozee said upon his release. “As a matter of fact, I give the Dallas County judicial system a positive note, if the court of criminal appeals will act and do the just thing in this matter.”
“It feels wonderful,” said Allen. “I mean, it’s kind of hard to explain, but try to imagine the greatest joy you have ever experienced in your life, and that’s what I’m feeling right now.”
It remains to be seen whether Mozee or Allen – if completely exonerated after further judicial proceedings – will receive any financial remuneration for their ordeal.
Exonerated, but rarely compensated
There are a few things the public has come to expect from behind-bars-for-years-before-being-exonerated-and-released stories: The victims are often overwhelmingly magnanimous in their gratitude over their release; and, the police and/or prosecutors are rarely held accountable for their misconduct.
When a person is released from prison after spending decades behind bars for a crime they did not commit, there are few outside supports in place to help with their transitions back to the community. Occasionally, a released prisoner will get some kind of financial settlement. Far too often, however, they will get little or nothing at all.
According to the Innocence Project, an organization instrumental in helping the wrongfully convicted become free: “Despite their proven innocence, the difficulty of reentering society is profound for the wrongfully convicted; the failure to compensate them adds insult to injury.” Currently, “the federal government, the District of Columbia, and 30 states have compensation statutes of some form.” But quite often, the process to receive compensation is so convoluted and difficult to navigate that even in those states that have statutes, it is hard for the wrongfully convicted to receive compensation.
Since 1989, there have been 1,463 prisoner exonerations according to The National Registry of Exonerations, a joint project of the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law (https://www.law.umich.edu/...). Reasons for the exonerations span a broad range of issues including, mistaken witness identification, false confession, perjury or false accusation, false or misleading forensic evidence, official misconduct, and inadequate legal defense.
Supreme Court exonerates police officers and local governments
In late August, Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the School of Law at the University of California, Irvine, wrote an op-ed for The New York Times explaining some of the reasons that police and prosecutors, and the entities that employ them, pay little to no price for their misdeeds.
In “How the Supreme Court Protects Bad Cops” (http://www.nytimes.com/...), Chemerinsky, the author of the forthcoming book “The Case Against the Supreme Court,” wrote: “In recent years, the court has made it very difficult, and often impossible, to hold police officers and the governments that employ them accountable for civil rights violations. This undermines the ability to deter illegal police behavior and leaves victims without compensation. When the police kill or injure innocent people, the victims rarely have recourse.”
“The court has also weakened accountability by ruling that a local government can be held liable only if it is proved that the city’s or county’s own policy violated the Constitution. In almost every other area of law, an employer can be held liable if its employees, in the scope of their duties, injure others, even negligently. This encourages employers to control the conduct of their employees and ensures that those injured will be compensated.”
Chemerinsky pointed to the case of John Thompson, who “was convicted of an armed robbery and a murder and spent 18 years in prison, 14 of them on death row, because of prosecutorial misconduct.”
Just before Thompson’s New Orleans-based trial was to start, “the assistant district attorney received the crime lab’s report, which stated that the perpetrator of the armed robbery had a blood type that did not match Mr. Thompson’s. The defense was not told this crucial information.”
Eventually, through what Chemerinsky describes as “a series of coincidences,” Thompson’s “lawyer discovered the blood evidence soon before the scheduled execution. New testing was done and again the blood of the perpetrator didn’t match Mr. Thompson’s DNA or even his blood type. His conviction was overturned, and he was eventually acquitted of all charges.”
Thompson sued the city of New Orleans and was awarded $14 million, an award that was reversed by a 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court. According to Chemerinsky, “Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said that New Orleans could not be held liable because it could not be proved that its own policies had violated the Constitution. The fact that its prosecutor blatantly violated the Constitution was not enough to make the city liable.”
Chemerinsky pointed out that “Because it is so difficult to sue government entities, most victims’ only recourse is to sue the officers involved.” But the court has made this very difficult, holding “that all government officials sued for monetary damages can raise ‘immunity’ as a defense. Police officers and other law enforcement personnel who commit perjury have absolute immunity and cannot be sued for money, even when it results in the imprisonment of an innocent person. A prosecutor who commits misconduct, as in [the] Thompson case, also has absolute immunity to civil suits.”
When “absolute immunity” isn’t applicable, police officers can rely on something called “qualified immunity.” Chemerinsky: “The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia in 2011, ruled that a government officer can be held liable only if ‘every reasonable official’ would have known that his conduct was unlawful.”
To address the lack of compensational justice afforded the wrongfully convicted, The Innocence Project suggests the following:
* Monetary Compensation -- set a specific amount for each year served;
* Provision of Immediate Services, including, financial, housing, medical/dental, workforce skills development, and legal services; and,
* Official Acknowledgement of a Wrongful Conviction.
According to the Dallas Morning News, Mozee and Allen “will now await a new trial.” It remains unclear whether they will receive monetary compensation, any kind of social services, or official acknowledgment of their wrongful convictions.