109. The struggle to free those who have been wrongly convicted
Statistics show that between two and five percent of those incarcerated were wrongly convicted and are actually innocent. Can you imagine?
How do the wrongly convicted win their freedom? It’s a long and arduous process that begins with a committed attorney and, often, those attorneys are assisted by the nationwide organization, the Innocence Project.
One of those committed attorneys is our guest Charlie Weiss, a long time civil law lawyer in St. Louis, who later in his career was drawn to this work. Often the wrongfully convicted have been in prison for 20 years or more, and their families have exhausted all of resources to help with the person’s defense, and they’re all exhausted from the stress and frustration.
It takes great resources to handle these cases, and it helps if you’re part of a large firm that can commit manpower and has the assets needed to hire experts, conduct DNA testing, etc. And it takes years to cross the finish line. Perseverance is the order of the day.
The process is challenging for two reasons. The first is the judicial system’s reluctance to reevaluate a case. It's as if the system is saying, “We've tried this case. We’re done. We must have gotten it right.” Finality matters, and, besides, what trial judge wants to admit that an error was made in his court? Which is to say, it’s often an appellate court that orders a trial court take a second look at a case.
And there’s the matter of politics. Prosecuting attorneys get elected based on the convictions they win. Assisting someone getting released from prison doesn’t result in votes. The Missouri Attorney General's office has a policy that it will oppose every habeas corpus case brought—post trial proceedings to seek to overturn a conviction—regardless of how good the evidence is. “They just automatically oppose it,” Charlie told us.
Listen to our conversation with Charlie.
