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Helping Wrongfully Convicted Inmates in FL

By TChris, Section Innocence Cases
Posted on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 01:33:10 PM EST
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by TChris

Some defendants who were falsely accused have benefitted from advances in DNA testing in their efforts to overturn their convictions. Wilton Dedge is one of them. (TalkLeft background is collected here.)

But what of those who are falsely accused of crimes that leave no DNA evidence? St. Petersburg columnist Martin Dyckman laments the Florida legislature's indifference to the wrongly convicted.

Florida politicians are fooling only themselves if they think that the current post-conviction DNA testing law does away with wrongful imprisonment in the Sunshine State. The only circumstance more outrageous than the resistance to compensating Dedge is the Legislature's pervasive indifference to the moral certainty that there are hundreds of equally innocent people still rotting behind Florida bars.

Dyckman points to the inherent uncertainty of eyewitness identification as a primary cause of wrongful convictions, using Dedge's case as an example. Among Dyckman's proposed fixes:

Florida sorely needs what North Carolina has: a blue-ribbon commission to identify the causes of wrongful convictions and recommend ways to avoid them. Darrell Stephens, the former St. Petersburg police chief who is now chief at Charlotte, is one of the members of the North Carolina Actual Innocence Commission. Among its first recommendations: "double blind" lineup procedures so that the police officer showing suspects or pictures to witnesses doesn't know who the suspect is.

Dyckman would also like the Florida legislature to extend a soon-to-expire law that allows inmates to test DNA evidence, to improve the state crime lab, and to fund more adequately the Florida Innocence Initiative.

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    Helping Wrongfully Convicted Inmates in FL | 5 comments (5 topical)
    Re: Helping Wrongfully Convicted Inmates in FL (none / 0) (#1)
    by wishful on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 02:41:44 PM EST
    There's something wrong with innocent citizens rotting in her prisons? It won't happen to anyone important, so what's the problem?

    Re: Helping Wrongfully Convicted Inmates in FL (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 03:27:09 PM EST
    I believe that I've read also that it's important that, in identifying a suspect, that the witness see the line-up (or photos) one at a time, rather than seeing all at once. If the witness sees a group, s/he is likely to pick out the person who most resembles the perpetrator, whereas in seeing one at a time, s/he would realize that, really, none of the persons in lineup or photo spread resembles the perp.

    Re: Helping Wrongfully Convicted Inmates in FL (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Mar 06, 2005 at 09:13:23 PM EST
    How many wrongfully convicted people are in our system? it appears we have way "too-many" lets face facts something is really going bad in the empire, our government if it was a government could stop this outrageous bull but its not a real government just some oligarchies running for the dollars and the power over billions of us little people. our we really a nation of justice or just one more want-to-be a third world nut house? people start to see it for what it is!

    Re: Helping Wrongfully Convicted Inmates in FL (none / 0) (#4)
    by Ray Radlein on Mon Mar 07, 2005 at 01:45:41 AM EST
    The other difficulty about doing double-blind lineups is that police would no longer be able to round out the lineup with people they know. It's definitely a good idea, though, to avoid the "Clever Hans" effect.

    Re: Helping Wrongfully Convicted Inmates in FL (none / 0) (#5)
    by john horse on Mon Mar 07, 2005 at 04:15:11 AM EST
    I think Dykman's idea for a Florida Actual Innocence Commission is a good idea. One of the goals of any system of justice should be trying to insure that no person is ever convicted of a crime they didn't commit. A fair system of justice should also ensure that anyone who is later found to be innocent of a crime he or she didn't commit should be fairly compensated. Regarding this later point, I would recommend reading this editiorial from my local paper, Right the Wrong Against Dedge.

    Helping Wrongfully Convicted Inmates in FL | 5 comments (5 topical)