When prisoners are looking to clear their names, they often turn to the same place: the Innocence Project. Across the country, branches of the project have helped exonerate 289 prisoners using post-conviction DNA testing. Thirteen of those cases were handled by the Northern California Innocence Project. I spoke with Linda Starr, legal director of the Northern California Innocence Project, in her office at Santa Clara University’s law school.
Maurice Caldwell's conviction was overturned, and after 20 years incarcerated, he walked out of custody the 28th of March 2011. Photo courtesy of: Paige Kaneb
It’s the early 90s. Young people are watching MTV, their parents Twin Peaks. Maurice Caldwell is 22 years old and lives in the Alemany projects in Bernal Heights, on the same streets where he grew up. He works in an industrial warehouse in Hayward and likes to hang out with his friends.
But, he admits today, he was also a troublemaker. “I wasn’t a choir boy,” says Caldwell. “I sold drugs, from time to time.” And, from time to time, he’d come in contact with police.
So when Caldwell was picked up by police and taken to the county jail on 850 Bryant Street in the morning hours one day in September 1990, he thought nothing of it. Until he learned that he was accused of murder.
Brian L Romig
What's happening in the Lone Star State?
Every few weeks, there seems to be news out of Texas: another prison inmate has been exonerated after spending years, even decades behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. There’s Cornelious Dupree, who spent 30 years in a Texas prison, protesting his conviction on rape and armed robbery, until he was exonerated and released earlier this month. And then there are the forty other people who have been cleared of crimes and released from Texas prisons since 2001. Why so many exonerations in Texas? Are police conspiring to send innocent people to prison? Are prosecutors tampering with evidence? What’s going on in this tough-on-crime state that’s landing so many innocent people in jail?
It turns out Texas is unique not for its penchant for imprisoning innocent people, but for its willingness to reopen these cases–and its success in preserving the necessary DNA evidence. Dallas in particular, seems to have encountered an opportune confluence of interest and ability to tackle these old cases. The district attorney there, Craig Watkins, has welcomed the scrutiny and the DNA evidence, previously (virtually) untapped, is there for the perusing.
Toxic Persons New research on the prison-to-poverty cycle. (Slate)
Suicides Anchor Latest Prop 8 Brief Which focuses on the potential damages of writing different systems for different people into law. (legalpad.typepad.com)
Justice Thomas’s Wife Reaches Out to Anita Hill In the sense that she leaves a voicemail at Hill’s office, asking for an apology and “some full explanation of why you did what you did to my husband.” (The New York Times)
California Bar reviewing 130 prosecutors for possible disciplinary action Scott Thorpe, director of CA District Attorneys Association, says Innocence Project study that ignited the controversy exaggerated the problem. (The San Jose Mercury News)
Controversy over “To Catch a Predator”–German edition Great granddaughter of Otto von Bismark catches heat for participation in show that some consider effective and others entrapment. (Guardian Unlimited)
photo by Joe Gratz
As anyone who’s been on a jury or sat in a courtroom or watched Law&Order knows, courtrooms are all about rules. And in a criminal case, the prosecutor particularly is bound by a code of conduct meant to ensure that a person being accused of a crime is getting a fair shake. But a new report by the Northern California Innocence Project raises some questions about how stringently lawyers are held to that code of conduct. The report, “Preventable Error,” says that prosecutorial misconduct goes largely unpunished in California. Specifically, the report says:
Extras Wanted for New PBS Human Rights Trial Program Pilot Starring Ogletree & Cherie Blair If you’re in or near Penn State, please, please tell us how this all goes down. (abajournal.com)
Why innocent people confess to crimes And surprisingly, even give convincing accounts of crimes they didn’t commit. (today.msnbc.msn.com)
Mayoral Candidate Harold Miller Wants to Teach Asians to ‘Look Blacks in the Eye’ And other questionable strategies for combating Asian-Black violence in SF. (blogs.sfweekly.com)
Conservative wants Maldonado to appeal Prop. 8 While Schwarzenegger’s away (in China), Maldonado technically could do whatever he wants. (blogs.sacbee.com)
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