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View Full Version : George Ryan's actions on the death penalty


ripdog
01-11-2003, 04:49 PM
I'm listening to Ryan's speech in the background here. I agree with everything he's saying and I wish that Washington's governor had the courage to make the correct decision in the face of tough opposition. What's bothering me is why he has to wait until he's got one foot out of the door before taking this action. Is it really courageous to stand up for what you believe in when you've got little to lose? I don't think so. Still, I think it's a step in the right direction. I'd be singing Ryan's praises much more loudly if he had taken this action when he really had something to lose. It troubles me that our system is set up so that elected leaders won't do what's right until they're free and clear of any danger. Why should we be proud of such a system?

andyfox
01-12-2003, 02:45 AM
Well, better to do the right thing when you've got nothing to lose than to not to it at all. I'm not so sure it's the system that is at fault rather than the individuals. After all, Ryan could have done this years ago. It wasn't the system that kept him from doing it, it was his own personal decision. And if he felt making this decision earlier would have rendered him ineffective as a governor, and thus not allowing him to do good in other areas, one can certainly understand, if not necessarily approve, of his choice.

HDPM
01-12-2003, 02:49 AM
I didn't hear or read the speech, but Ryan has been working on this before. He imposed a moratorium a while back. So I think he did something, although he may have been a lame duck even at that time, I don't know. But it's not just in the last week he has done something.

Phat Mack
01-12-2003, 06:25 PM
When they find that people have been wrongly convicted, can any action be taken against the people who framed them? I find it hard to believe that prosecutors, who must have had access to all the information, didn't know they were prosecuting innocent people. Can any civil or criminal action be taken?

HDPM
01-12-2003, 09:38 PM
Yes, civil or criminal action could be taken depending on the facts. I will tell you that it is possible for a prosecutor to convict somebody who is innocent without knowing it. The police often misplace reports or don't turn them over to the prosecutor. Sometimes witnesses just lie and its impossible to catch them. But I also know there are people out there who falsify evidence or destroy exculpatory evidence. I hope it is as rare as I think it is. Most errors come from laziness or mistake, not evil intent.
One of the scarier things I have seen in my career was a witness who lied very well. I was prosecuting a guy for a pretty bad crime, but not murder. IIRC ihe was charged with holding a knife to this witness's throat and maybe a sexual assault as well. We went through prelim and the case looked great. The guy was rotting in jail on a high bond for a few months. But a couple of things started to look a little odd, so I had the detective continue investigating. We got to the point that we were able to confront the lying witness who admitted making the whole thing up completely. I think it was because the guy wouldn't give her a ride somewhere. We dismissed the case against the guy of course, and I prosecuted the lying witness. But it shook me up because when this witness testified she was rock solid. The defense lawyer couldn't find any inconsistencies or weaknesses, the witness looked credible, etc... It made me wonder whom to believe, ever. I also saw it was possible to prosecute somebody totally innocent without knowing it. I also had some problems in cases where police reports weren't turned over. They weren't hidden, but just weren't provided. Basic bureaucratic bungling. So I learned to check carefully, but there was still all kinds of room for error. And if somebody has the intent to hide evidence, well, it can be impossible to catch. I don't know what happened in the Illinois cases, but I suspect everything that could have happened, did happen in one case or another.
BTW, seeing how the system works and trying to work in it ethically has made me wonder whether the system can be trusted much. I have heard about some very evil things that have gone on. My views on the death penalty have changed some because of it.

Phat Mack
01-14-2003, 01:46 AM
I'm curious about the "corporate culture" of a DA's office. Are prosecutors evaluated in terms of their conviction average? How big was the Office where you worked as a prosecutor?

HDPM
01-14-2003, 02:23 AM
Depends on the office. The office I worked in was very non-bureaucratic. There was still a certain culture I guess that could go overboard. But the whole idea was to do the job right and achieve just results. A lot of thought went into tough decisions. I think we were atypical though. The office had 9 or 10 attorneys, which is big for my state, small in others. I was the #2 guy, so the elected guy sought my input on most of the decisions. We also met and discussed every felony case before prelim and again if the case was going to trial. I think we weeded out a lot of errors or problems this way. We never worried about the conviction rate or trial victories really. If you do the job right you will lose some trials. And you can't control the results. We had a problem if someone didn't prepare, but the result itself wasn't stressed. We also stressed the ethics end of things. I think this helped steer some people in the right direction. We had some deputies who were shocked that we would not get upset if they lost a trial. Some had worked other places where that would happen. They'd see me and the elected guy going off like lunatics about something stupid that happened in court or in politics and think we'd go nuts if they lost. When it happened they would be surprised when we said, "oh well."
OTOH, many offices are not like this. I don't want to say our office was perfect or heavenly or anything, but there are a lot of places I would not work as a prosecutor. Some offices do put a lot of emphasis on winning % and such, which is a horrible practice IMO. Other offices also take away a lot of discretion with mindless policies and such. We had the luxury of having the ability to manage the caseload without resort to a lot of guidelines and rules. Other times, individual prosecutors are unethical and get away with it. I have been shocked at some practices of various people.
Like in anything else, it all depends on the individual offices and the individuals in each office. And for the system to work, you need good and ethical prosecutors, good defense attorneys, good judges, and good jurors. To get all of those things right in any given case is no guarantee. And the system can be kind of gross when you look closely at it. Sorry for the long post saying it depends.

IrishHand
01-14-2003, 09:13 AM
Yep...life was a lot different in the Orange County DA's office in California. It's a lot harder to maintain that level of hands-on management and ethical commitment when you have a LOT more attorneys and a LOT more media coverage. We had 30 attorneys on my floor, much less the buiding, much less the entire DA's office.

HDPM
01-14-2003, 10:13 AM
One thing about media coverage - small towns pose their own problems because if something gets media coverage, the impact can be huge. If the local paper latches onto something, look out, there is going to be a lot of coverage, and sometimes editorializing.