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Comment by pmontra | Hacker News Reader

10 days deserved vs 25 years undeserved? It's a joke. He should serve at least 25 years too.

I agree that 10 days is very short for what he did. But the other part of your comment, "He should serve at least 25 years too", does not sound right to me either.

I think that the primary goal of court scentences should not be revenge, but "justice". Whatever that means. The possibility of punishment should be there to deter people from committing crimes. And they should be there so that after a crime, society can say: "See, we are serious about this. We do not want people to do those things".

So, the "revenge" thinking (with the extreme of "Take one life, and we'll kill you") does not seem right to me. Also, AFAIK, it was not designed into our juridical system - Which was designed to get past the "eye for an eye" system that was there before.

I also think that the primary goal of our prisons should be to re-integrate people into society, not punish them, but this is a completely different topic...

Edit: Clarified "The possibility of punishment should be there to deter"

And I think many studies have shown that it's the probability of getting caught that dissuades from a crime, much more than the severity of the punishment.

How many prosecutors would hide evidence if they had even a 10% chance of getting caught, going to jail for 10 days and loose their career, like it happened in this case? That's what's important in my opinion.

> The punishment should be there to deter others from committing crimes

Punishing people for the hypothetical future crimes of others! Is that "Justice".

Thanks, I updated my post to clarify what I meant. Disclaimer: English is not my mother tongue, so I am sometimes not precise enough.

Another aspect that I haven't seen much discussion of, is: punishment is there partly to stop other people from exacting it.

Situation one: A kills B, B's brother kills A, A's brother kills B's brother... and eventually A's family and friends and B's family and friends are just killing other all the time.

Situation two: A kills B, the state kills A. Done. B's family has nobody left to kill, and A's family isn't likely to try to fight the state.

This suggests that the state can't make punishments too lenient, or people will take matters into their own hands again. It's not stable.

Yes, in exchange for giving the state a monopoly on violence, people need reassuring that the state is going to dispense an appropriate amount of it when required.

How about holding the prosecutor responsible for the 1988 murder by Mark Norwood[0]. Norwood's DNA was found at the scene. Maybe some more investigation in the Morton case(opposed to sitting on evidence) would have put Norwood in jail before he committed the 1988 crime.

But certainly, if Michael Morton was never wrongfully convicted, that DNA would have been matched to the Morton murder and this would have been solved decades ago.

[0] http://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/mark-alan-norwood-found...

> I agree that 10 days is very short for what he did. But the other part of your comment, "He should serve at least 25 years too", does not sound right to me either.

That prosecutor murdered 25 years of a man's life.

If murder deserves life in prison, then murdering 25 years of a man's life deserves 25 years of prison.

He should be required to assist the innocent man to get back on his feet, find him a job, house him and set him up for success for what life he has left. If the innocent was close to enough to retirement that he wouldn't be able to retire, he should be required to pay into a pension plan that would have seen the man comfortably through retirement and restore everything that this man would have had the opportunity to provide for himself had he been free. Only then would 10 days and 500 hours of community service seem to be even marginally in the ball park of justice.

If that were the law of the land, then a lot of prosecutors would quit and go into private practice.

That said, I'm not saying that this behaviour should not go unpunished, an attorney should be disbarred for this type of behaviour, and serve jail time for a felony (i.e. 1-5 years in State prison) . I think the State and the taxpayers should be made to pay the tab like a previous poster said because in my opinion, they are just as guilty as the prosecutor for setting up the environment in which this was allowed to happen.

> If that were the law of the land, then a lot of prosecutors would quit and go into private practice.

That's an interesting situation. If a lot of prosecutors quit, then there's less bandwidth to prosecute, resulting in less demand for (I presume) defense lawyers.

>If that were the law of the land, then a lot of prosecutors would quit and go into private practice.

You present that almost like it would be a bad thing.

No, it's just that attorneys won't take such a risk if the penalties are too harsh. Also, the State and the electorate are just as complicit as the prosecutors what it comes to sending innocent people to prison, and they should be punished as well (Having to pay for restoring the person's life in the free world after 10's of years in prison.)

Americans are bloodthirsty: lock 'em up and throw away the key. When the elected district attorneys have pictures of handcuffs and leg irons on their election posters, what does that tell you? (Said election poster seen in Fresno County, California).

> He should be required to assist the innocent man ...

The state should be required. It can optionally pursue compensation from the lawyer/judge.

It should be a matter of formality that they do pursue every item of required compensation from the lawyer/judge. If it became more of a fear to withhold or manipulate the evidence or the charges/plea to prevent prosecutors gaming the system (which is exactly what this is), then prosecutors would be reasonably held to higher moral standards - for fear of not only losing their jobs/licence, but also having done to them what they're unfairly threatening those that are being charged.

I think it's very worthwhile to let those who corrupt the justice system experience in person just what they're doing to other people. 10 days is meaningless.

I totally agree that the primary goal of prison should be to re-integrate people into society, but one of the prerequisites for that is that the prisoner understands that what they did was wrong and why it's wrong.

He also lost his license to practice law and this case now serves as a sentencing precedent for such crimes committed in the future. Anderson, being in his 60's, probably wouldn't be practicing for too much longer anyway. The next important step is to get judges to issue standing 'ethical rule orders' as mentioned in the article. That way other malicious prosecutors can be help accountable and removed from practicing much earlier.

Also, I'd be shocked if this didn't open Anderson up to civil liability. That's where Morton can seek damages; not in criminal court.

> Also, I'd be shocked if this didn't open Anderson up to civil liability. That's where Morton can seek damages; not in criminal court.

Interesting Anderson took a large part of Morton's life. Maybe justice would be served if Morton took a large part of Anderson's money... Something feels uncomfortable about this but I can't quite place it.

Perhaps because it sounds like blood money. Which has the unfortunate affect of being useful for those with wealth to avoid punishment, but useless for those without, who will still end up in prison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_money_(restitution)

That's the word I was looking for.

What about if the penalty was in some way proportional to the wealth/income of the perpetrator?

I don't know the answer to that. Perhaps some more research is in order, I imagine that countries and societies that have this actually codified may already have implemented something like this.

Not the same thing but somewhat related. Some European countries have fines for e.g. traffic offences that are proportional to you income for the year the offence is committed in. I think that this works quite well in terms of meaning that rich and poor have the same disincentive not to speed.

"Also, I'd be shocked if this didn't open Anderson up to civil liability."

FWIW: It doesn't. Prosecutors generally have absolute (not qualified) immunity.

See Connick v. Thompson, 563 US 51 (2011) (https://www.oyez.org/cases/2010/09-571)

According to that ruling, the prosecutor's office is not liable, but it doesn't necessarily mean the prosecutor himself is not liable.

If you want me to cite the other rulings, that's fine.

Here's another for you: In Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409 (1976), the Court held that prosecutors performing core prosecutorial functions are entitled to absolute immunity.

In this case, it was a core advocative function that was performed. It does not matter if they do it in bad faith, illegally, whatever. They will be given absolute immunity.

The only cases you will find otherwise will be around non-core functions, or about the specific act of things like "being bribed around filing criminal charges", and not things part of the core function.

You don't have to take my word for it, of course. Look at the decisions of literally every circuit. Or any of the myriad of law review papers detailing the history, etc.

and he should be ordered to give back 25 years of his own salary to that poor guy

And this emotional reaction is the root of the problem. When that original crime happened, the public demanded someone jailed, it didn't matter that it wasn't the criminal. Society is hung up on the retribution, so long as that's the case, prosecutors don't need criminals, just patsies that can't properly defend themselves or exhibit social flaws.

Exactly, I can't believe this is being billed as a success of the legal system.

It's the first time it's ever happened. While it may not be justice to the man who served 25 years for a crime he didn't commit, it is a step forward and will serve as a ruling for future trials with similar circumstance.

As I understand, Americans vote for their local prosecutors or at least judges (this guy ended up as a judge). So keep in mind that the blame ultimately lies with the people of that locality who let such things happen even when they're discovered.

How am I, a voter, supposed to know that long ago somebody hid something that wasn't even able to be discovered in the court he was in at the time?

Prosecutors in general are not elected, but the district attorney (Who oversees the prosecutors) is an elected official.

And you are correct, the American electorate wants blood and says "Lock 'em up and weld the door shut" when it comes to electing a District Attorney.

Well at least that means he also had to give up his license to practice law.

Thank god.. Now he can't work for the few years before he would have retired anyway.

FYI he had retired. Taking away his license is purely symbolic and entirely consistent with this light tap on the wrist.

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