Brooklyn’s district attorney says he plans to spend more than $1 million to review questionable convictions over the next budget year.
District Attorney Kenneth Thompson told a City Council budget hearing Tuesday that his office is dealing with an “epic” number of questionable convictions.
He said his Conviction Review Unit has overturned the convictions of six men.
According to the Wall Street Journal, he said “With every case that’s publicized, additional cases are sent to my office for review.”
Thompson says 10 of his office’s 153 prosecutors have been assigned to the unit, in addition to three investigators and other staff.
He came into office this year promising to make addressing allegations of wrongful convictions a priority.
(AP)
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4 Responses
1. Arguably, their strategy is to charge a “known” criminal without good evidence of a specific crime, on the assumption he is guilty of many more – and then plea bargain such that the defendant doesn’t object to being convicted for something he didn’t do, since he is avoiding prosecution for what he did do. This is efficient, but very unfair to a defendant who isn’t guilty and can’t defend himself, and corrupts the system since the police and prosecutors “round up the usual suspects” rather than properly solving the crime.
2. As we have seen with occasional cases involving frum defendants, this system results in steamrolling defendants regardless of guilt or innocence.
3. While Democrats (well, some of them) seem concerned about Blacks convicted wrongfully and see this as a racial matter, some Republicans (of the more libertarian flavor) see this as an overall issue of the “Big government” disregarding all citizens rights, noting the callous disregard of such rules as “innocent until proven guilty”, the requirement of “mens rea”, right to reasonable bail, right to counsel of one’s choice (by claim forfeiture of defendant’s property before conviction so they can’t hire an attorney), double jeapordy, habeas corpus, etc.
Nice pic but I think kenny would look better in a streimel.
To #1: when your comment exceeds the length of the story its time to get a life.
To #1
When the article is missing some major points, it’s nice to have someone explain it.
Thanks.
To #3,
Thanks for your opinion. I do appreciate #1 comment.