The Old Eighteen

Texas Chief justice calls for state commission to study wrongful convictions

In the wake of Dallas County DA Craig Watkins' highly productive campaign with the Innocence Project to reverse wrongful convictions, which has already resulted in 17 men being exonerated in Dallas County, Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson is renewing his call for a state commission to investigate wrongful convictions:

"What better way to spend public dollars than to make sure the innocent doesn't go to jail?" Jefferson, who leads the state's top civil court, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Sharon Keller, who presides over the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, is giving her qualified endorsement to the idea of a state commission, provided that it doesn't duplicate work already being done elsewhere.

So you'd think that this idea would be a slam-dunk, right?  Think again.  Enter Texas Governor Louis XVI Rick Perry, who opposes the idea:

Gov. Rick Perry doesn't think that a commission is needed, said spokeswoman Allison Castle. She said Perry supports a better system for providing attorneys to poor criminal defendants, and favors post-conviction DNA testing.

"He is committed to providing a fair criminal justice system. But the governor's sentiment is that we don't need another layer of bureaucracy," Castle said.

Yeah, sure, we'd all like to see innocent people being released from prison.  But if we spend money on big-gub'mint, tax-and-spend, bleeding-heart socialistic ideas like that, there would be less money available for Greg Abbott to investigate the literally tens of cases statewide of minor technical violations of electoral law.  And what then?  Who will protect us from the pernicious threat of people putting incorrect return addresses on the envelopes that they use to submit absentee ballots on behalf of the elderly and disabled?  Come on, people, these Democratic voters aren't going to suppress themselves!

Watkins wants unethical prosecutors disciplined

As a Dallasite, I'm really proud of the job that Dallas County DA Craig Watkins has done since taking office.  Under his watch, 17 people who were falsely convicted have been set free thanks to DNA evidence exonerating them.  And now, he's setting his sights on one of the sources of the problem:

The Dallas County district attorney who has built a national reputation on freeing the wrongfully convicted says prosecutors who intentionally withhold evidence should themselves face harsh sanctions – possibly even jail time.

"Something should be done," said Craig Watkins, whose jurisdiction leads the nation in the number of DNA exonerations. "If the harm is a great harm, yes, it should be criminalized."

[...] Mr. Watkins said that he was still pondering what kind of punishment unethical prosecutors deserve but that the worst offenders might deserve prison time. He said he also was considering the launch of a campaign to mandate disbarment for any prosecutor found to have intentionally withheld evidence from the defense.

Watkins is on the right track.  Besides costing innocent people years of their lives and the Texas judicial system a great deal of credibility, prosecutorial misconduct has also cost the taxpayers of Texas a lot of money over the last few years: the state has had to pay out over $8.6 million in compensation in 45 wrongful-conviction cases since 2001, and at least 22 of those cases involved prosecutors withholding evidence from the defense.  And I have a feeling that the 17 men exonerated thus far are just the tip of the iceberg, meaning that we'll pay a lot more before this is all over with.  The process of righting what for far too long has been wrong with criminal justice in Dallas County is going to be a long and painful one, but Craig Watkins should nonetheless be commended for forcing us to walk down this road.  Hopefully other jurisdictions in Texas will follow his lead.