Hidden Injustice: County Counsel Works to Keep OC's Snitch Scandal Under Wraps | Hacker News Reader

Hidden Injustice: County Counsel Works to Keep OC's Snitch Scandal Under Wraps

blogs.ocweekly.com

110 pointsus0r14 comments

It seems a lot of this sort of stuff would stop happening if they just incarcerated members of the US justice system for the crimes they got people wrongly convicted for.

E.g., you put a man in jail for ten years over a robbery he didn't commit, by fudging evidence, and you as prosecutor are then forced to serve the ten year sentence.

Ludicrous of course, very eye-for-an-eye, but it might certainly put a dent in the rampant corruption that seems to be happening stateside.

> very eye-for-an-eye

punishment seems to fit the crime in this case. you knew the rules, you swore to follow the rules under oath as a professional duty, and yet you broke the rules. people go to jail for a lot less. for instance not even knowing the rules.

Heck I don't even care if they get the same sentence, I just demand they be held accountable. Which doesn't seem to happen anywhere.

Ken Anderson spent five days in jail for his role (Brady violations) in the Michael Morton case. Morton served almost 25 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. http://www.statesman.com/news/news/ken-anderson-to-serve-10-...

Funny story, his successor has just been sentenced to 10 days in jail for contempt of court for violating a gag order in connection to a capitol murder case. She hasn't served it yet, and probably won't.

Alex Kozinski has recently threatened perjury prosecutions for lying prosecutors. Link includes a video of Kozinski & Co. warning a prosecutor that they are on to their shady conduct. http://observer.com/2015/01/breaking-ninth-circuit-panel-sug...

Fun starts at around 16:00 Kozinski strikes just after 18:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sCUrhgXjH4

What about in cases where the prosecution committed no illegal activities in the duration of the trial? The defendant might be innocent of the crime but say that he has no alibi, there's physical evidence from him at the crime scene, and he has a motive. This could be something as benign as a man gets fired from his job. He job involved working with knives in a kitchen. That night, his boss is stabbed to death at the restaurant during a robbery while he's the only one there. Video evidence is grainy but it appears to be a similar car as the suspect leaving the scene. His DNA and fingerprints are all over the knife but the killer was wearing gloves. None of the stolen goods/money surfaced during the investigation. Our suspect was out dealing massive quantities of illegal drugs or maybe having lots of sex with hookers so his alibi is none, being home alone doesn't work. A jury could easily be convinced to convict this man if he had a poor defense attorney.

A few years later after he's been in prison, a video surfaces from an undercover DEA operation of him dealing drugs or maybe a cellphone video of him with hookers. Either way, he is exonerated shortly after the video's time stamp is verified. What should happen to the prosecution? The evidence pointed strongly at him and he had no way to beat the charges without incriminating himself in other illegal activities. Should the prosecution be sent to jail? Doesn't seem fair as everything looked legitimate. The jury determined guilt on the evidence in the first place. You can't punish the prosecution for getting it wrong unless they committed illegal or unconstitutional activities to win the case.

The article, and my comment, were clearly about prosecutors who break the law in order to secure prosecutions. Not about wrong convictions in general.

Al Jazeera is investigating and they've gotten their hands on tape recordings: http://america.aljazeera.com/watch/shows/america-tonight/art...

I think reading this story some people might think, well, who cares, this guy is guilty. And in this particular case, the actual guy on trial does happen to be very guilty in deed. He did confess, and I think they had a pretty strong case against him without the jail house snitch.

BUT, I would like to point out that this is still a very important case because a) this is illegal, and b) because jail house snitches are extremely unreliable. That's putting it mildly. In reality, ALL jail house snitches are liars and they will literally tell the police anything that the police want's to here. Have you ever wondered why a good lawyer will NEVER give a copy of the clients file to a client, if that client is in jail. If you do that, there is a very high likelihood that someone in jail will sneak a peak in that file, find out what kind of evidence the cops have, and will immediately claim that they have independent knowledge of that evidence, because the client confessed to it.

Cops promoting jailhouse snitching can lead to higher conviction rates, but not better justice. In fact really good investigators, you know, the once who actually want to find out the truth, not just convict people, will slip some false leading questions during their interview to see if they can catch their "star witness" on a lie, or so I have been told by an investigator who used to be detective for many decades before retiring and becoming a PI.

Incidentally, the California courts have erected enormous barriers to transparency, perhaps inadvertently, by using a collection of differing docketing systems from county to county, and then charging outrageous fees for records.

A scathing letter I sent to the California Judicial Technology Council was successful in lowering Los Angeles County's search fees from $4.75 per 20 results to $1.00 per search back in March. They rarely get any comments at all from the public (because no one knows they exist).

See http://www.courts.ca.gov/jctc.htm. And send in comments!

Judge: "I'm a big believer that these are public courts," he said. "The public should know what we are doing here. It protects the integrity of the system."

Right on. Secrecy may have a place at the international level (NSA etc), but at local jurisdictions, if you're keeping secrets from your population, THAT is a problem.

But, convictions would go down! /s

Another related article:

http://www.latimes.com/local/orangecounty/la-me-jailhouse-sn...

I was going to upvote this, but the site displayed a popunder-type ad when I clicked to read page 2. Here's the "print article" link:

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2015/07/orange_county_...

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