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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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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...

> 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.