Yes, that happens. This is really not that case. The prosecutors actions lead to someone else getting killed. These are known facts, and not really up for debate.

More to the point, without consequences for their actions, prosecutors have an incentive to do this stuff.

I'm not sure why you felt the need to bring race into this. I'll concede to you that some people in the South are racist. I never said otherwise. Nor have I or anyone else that I've noticed ITT suggested that lynch-mob style justice is what Ken Anderson deserves. What people have said is that Ken Anderson's crimes are serious, and deserving of more than it appears he will get. To use a prosecutor's rhetoric, a deterrent is needed.

I think what they (some people from the South) believe is that police, prosecutors, and judges are well-meaning professionals and that they conduct their duty with the intention to "do what is right" and with some degree of professionalism.

When a random citizen calls for the death penalty for some accused individual, they are always doing so with the caveat that the accused is actually guilty of the crime. They are saying "baby raping murders need to die" not necessarily that "smelly bums need to get framed up" or in the case of Morton "innocent fathers". What person (besides policemen and prosecutors) wants an innocent man convicted?

The problem is not human nature (well, maybe it is, but that's not a problem we can reliably solve). The problem is that prosecutors, judges, and cops are themselves human, and that there is little to safeguard us all from their mistakes, and even worse, they are incentive-ized to make these types of mistakes.

People in power over the rest of us should be held to higher standards. That should be the trade-off. As it stands, it is not the case, and there are few consequences for actions like these. That should change.

Oh, and by gunning for Mr Morton, the actual murderer went free, and killed someone else.

> "you are in fact judging this case emotionally, not reasonably."

That's a pretty bold assumption. And it happens to be wrong in this case.

I'm not focused on the 25 years, but rather on the equivalence between the sentences. If a law were to be proposed, that the sentence for prosecutorial misconduct be comparable to the sentences so wrongfully achieved, it would have my vote regardless of the emotional context.

This is not about revenge for me.

> "Do you really believe 10/15/20/25 years in this case would make a difference?"

And do you think 10 days in prison is going to make a difference?

To answer your question, yes, I believe serious consequences for prosecutorial misconduct will make a difference. Making the sentence for malicious prosecution comparable to the sentence suffered by the victim is simply a guideline that I personally would find reasonable.

EDIT: I should have said "I would find reasonable in this particular case, i.e., that of prosecutorial misconduct". I agree that talionic justice (eye-for-an-eye) leads to gross dysfunctional if put to general use. But I'm not convinced that makes it inappropriate in all cases.

Agreed with you there; I only hope that this continues moving forward. It's fairly unprecedented that a prosecutor would have this happen. It's not really about punishment as it is disincentive... I hope its enough to stop future Mr Moretons from having their lives ruined.

The hope was that in recent history, far fewer people had been executed, particularly as technology, and better knowledge of what types of evidence stand up to scrutiny has improved.

I was more pondering, how many people in the past have been executed wrongly by the united states.

A quick google search suggests that 14,634 were executed in the period 1608-1987. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions.php