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To win a murder conviction, police and prosecutors made up evidence and secretly paid a witness

CubsClones1

CubsClones1

Well-Known Member
Nov 12, 2012
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Prairie City
"Not only did detectives write police reports containing invented statements from witnesses, the report found, but the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office also made secret payments to the single eyewitness, who was pressured into making the false identification that would ultimately seal Johnson’s fate, according to the report."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crim...tness-st-louis-da-finds/ar-AAETL4a?li=BBnb7Kz

We shouldn't even be surprised anymore, but my God is this disgusting!!
 
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weR138 said:
My biggest question, as ever, is...why?

The phony police work takes some amount of time, right? Why not use that time and do, you know, actual police work?
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It's one of the biggest problems with our justice system right now. Obviously everyone doesn't go to these extremes, but it is not about justice anymore, it's about getting convictions. The worst thing that could happen to a prosecutor is to find out partway through the trial, that they have the wrong person and that they have to call off the trial, but that is never what happens, the prosecutors usually just double down and suppress the evidence.

The crazy thing is, prosecutors are not required to turn over such evidence, unless requested by the defendant. So if the defense doesn't know the evidence exists and don't request it, the prosecutors aren't obliged to turn it over. Even in a plea deal, they have no obligation to turn over evidence of innocence.
 
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jdoggivjc said:
It’s situations like this when I wish a victim could sue a city for everything it’s worth. Then maybe people would get the message that you don’t **** with people's lives like that. Unfortunately though, the way corruption works, nobody would ever get that message.
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No, because it doesn't come out of their pockets, it comes out of ours. Sure, their reputations may be soured, but there really isn't that much penalty that goes along with it, except to the tax payer that has to pay the bill.
 
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So I used to represent minors charged with delinquencies here in Central Iowa. I can't begin to tell you how many police reports I read that I knew were outright lies. But what accountability is there? At the very worst, it's their word against some delinquent minor's, or some adult criminal's. As long as they pick a good lie and stick to it there's not a ton you can do.

I'll never forget having an officer testify that he was about 200 feet away from my client, who was standing behind a car, but that he could clearly see him drop a bag of marijuana on the ground. It was some absolute super-human ****, but he was not about to come off his story.
 
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Clonefan94 said:
No, because it doesn't come out of their pockets, it comes out of ours. Sure, their reputations may be soured, but there really isn't that much penalty that goes along with it, except to the tax payer that has to pay the bill.
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But you’re okay with taxpayer-funded corruption?
 
jdoggivjc said:
It’s situations like this when I wish a victim could sue a city for everything it’s worth. Then maybe people would get the message that you don’t **** with people's lives like that. Unfortunately though, the way corruption works, nobody would ever get that message.
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I think it was on the last season of Serial where the city they spent a lot of time in had a waiting list of lawsuit payouts that was years long if you were ever going to get a dime. So even that doesn't seem to have much an effect.
 
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Bigman38 said:
I think it was on the last season of Serial where the city they spent a lot of time in had a waiting list of lawsuit payouts that was years long if you were ever going to get a dime. So even that doesn't seem to have much an effect.
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Just give the wrongly convicted guy the city.
 
Clonefan94 said:
It's one of the biggest problems with our justice system right now. Obviously everyone doesn't go to these extremes, but it is not about justice anymore, it's about getting convictions. The worst thing that could happen to a prosecutor is to find out partway through the trial, that they have the wrong person and that they have to call off the trial, but that is never what happens, the prosecutors usually just double down and suppress the evidence.

The crazy thing is, prosecutors are not required to turn over such evidence, unless requested by the defendant. So if the defense doesn't know the evidence exists and don't request it, the prosecutors aren't obliged to turn it over. Even in a plea deal, they have no obligation to turn over evidence of innocence.
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I'm sure you're right and maybe I didn't read the article closely enough but the story is about detectives, so before it even got to the prosecutor?

The article does say that some prosecutors are setting up "conviction integrity something or others" so I think there are some well meaning progressive districts and prosecutors out there.

But I'll just never get the impulse to want to railroad somebody you know is not guilty. You're just left with two headaches; a. The machinations of falsely imprisoning one individual and b. The fact that the guilty individual will just commit another crime you have to work on. Personally I'm pretty Iowan in my work, I try to get stuff done right the first time...less work that way.
 
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Happens all the time in the Just Us system. When you reward convictions and there is no responsibility to those involved then what else would you expect?
 
weR138 said:
I'm sure you're right and maybe I didn't read the article closely enough but the story is about detectives, so before it even got to the prosecutor?

The article does say that some prosecutors are setting up "conviction integrity something or others" so I think there are some well meaning progressive districts and prosecutors out there.

But I'll just never get the impulse to want to railroad somebody you know is not guilty. You're just left with two headaches; a. The machinations of falsely imprisoning one individual and b. The fact that the guilty individual will just commit another crime you have to work on. Personally I'm pretty Iowan in my work, I try to get stuff done right the first time...less work that way.
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I think the vast majority of these cases is people that the police and/or prosecutors believe to absolutely be guilty but they just don't have the smoking gun to prove it. That still is no excuse. I would think the cases where they are just railroading someone they know is innocent to be a small minority.
 
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This is also a very important note to people on a jury. You are very important and the LAST line of defense. You must go with your own thoughts. The evidence was pretty obvious that this guy did not do it but this jury likely listened to the "authority".
 
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VeloClone said:
I think the vast majority of these cases is people that the police and/or prosecutors believe to absolutely be guilty but they just don't have the smoking gun to prove it. That still is no excuse. I would think the cases where they are just railroading someone they know is innocent to be a small minority.
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Sometimes you just have to fold and applaud that the criminal was keen enough to not leave the smocking gun. lol
 
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