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The Innocence Project gets another innocent man freed
Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2010-04-28 23:25
Story here. Excerpt:
'For nearly two decades prosecutors and judges have maintained that Frank Sterling — and not Mark Christie — murdered a 74-year-old woman as she walked along an abandoned railway bed in Hilton.
Today, a judge freed Sterling after prosecutors and defense lawyers revealed that Christie has now admitted to the Nov. 29, 1988, murder of Viola Manville.
“Our justice system’s goal is to assure that only the guilty are convicted,” state Supreme Court Justice Thomas Van Strydonck said this afternoon when agreeing to reverse Sterling’s 1992 conviction for the Manville murder. “This case and others demonstrate that ours remains an imperfect system.”
While not stating definitively in court that Sterling is innocent, District Attorney Michael Green said admissions from Christie coupled with genetic evidence from the homicide convinced him that Sterling should go free. The investigation has now been reopened.
Christie is now imprisoned for the 1994 strangulation of Kali Ann Poulton.
At a news conference after he left court, Sterling, 46, said leaving prison was “heaven.”
...
Innocence Project officials contend that investigators became too fixated on Sterling and ignored other possibilities.
“There’s no question in this case the police officers had tunnel vision,” said Innocence Project co-founder Peter Neufeld.
Green said the police work in the Manville homicide was solid. “I’m very uncomfortable going back and second-guessing what people did 19 years ago,” he said.'
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Comments
Call me bias if you like but...
“There’s no question in this case the police officers had tunnel vision,” said Innocence Project co-founder Peter Neufeld.
...police have no other kind of vision then tunnel vision, and the longer they are on the force the more narrow the tunnel becomes.
The very way the system is structures FORCES everyone in it to become acutely tunnel visioned and narrow minded. Because the system has no foundations in truthfulness, correctness (other then political correctness - judges are POLITICAL appointees or nominees after all) or accuracy, the system it's self creates the problem of tunnel vision and weeds out anyone who thinks to broadly or sees more then the paint on the canvas painted by the arresting officer.
The system is circular and NOT of justice or the people but of political whim. Judges are appointed (Canada) or nominated (to be reviewed and chosen by a group of politicians) and Crown (District) Attorneys aspire to be judges. Police are trained by political groups and are rewarded professionally only for success in creating cases that result in convictions. From start to finish, top to bottom the whole system is not a separate entity from the political but rather it's more like it's loyal canine companion.
What we really need is a whole new system. Separate from the political entirely and not focused on fighting the evil of the world but finding the truth in the matter. One that allows equal powers to both sides of the equation and one in which investigators are also equally accountable to both sides. A system that is not obsessed with getting their man, any man will do really as long as some one goes to jail, but a system that wants to get to the heart of the matter and find the truth.
We've already completely abandoned the principal of "innocent until proven guilty" because NOTHING is ever proven at all in the current system. Never has been. It's all about who can exclude enough of the picture to make the jury believe the sky is purple in the painting by showing them a purple dot and calling it a portrait of the sky. The system is about excluding as many facts as it possibly can, not finding them. Why do you think you get a WARNING when you are arrested the "Anything you say can and will be used AGAINST you in a court of law"? Because if you say "The sky is blue" the prosecuting attorney will say you are were happy that you thought you had gotten away with whatever it is you are accused of and call it "consistent with a guilty mindset". What does that mean? Who the fuck knows but a prosecutor called you guilty and the jury thinks from the outset that you must have done something to get arrested in the first place so they'll go with it. Remember, people think defense lawyers are evil and prosecutors are the defenders of the people. At least in Canada the Crown Attorney's are honest in that they represent the power (The Queen/government) not the people. It's true in the USA as well that the Prosecutor does not represent the will of the people either, they just know that the people fear the power and so will side with their will more often then not. But even in the USA, saying "So and So Vs. The People of Such and Such a State" is a lie.