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Justice: Prosecute prosecutors?
No one who cares about justice can fail to be outraged by Times-Dispatch reporter Frank Green's special report Sunday about Bennett Barbour and men like him. Railroaded on the basis of eyewitness testimony — among the least reliable forms of evidence — Barbour spent more than four years in prison and many more on parole for a rape he did not commit. In 2010, authorities received DNA evidence proving he was innocent. They got around to telling him a couple of weeks ago.
In 2005 Gov. Mark Warner directed the state's forensic scientists to test DNA samples from hundreds of old cases. That project has the potential to rank among the finest legacies of his administration. But its worth is being undermined by secrecy, foot-dragging, and unconscionable indifference.
Virginia's Department of Forensic Science has refused to release information in 76 cases where DNA seems to have cleared a convict's name — including 13 cases in which the convict is now deceased. There is no good reason for a public agency to keep the public in the dark about cases in which public authorities spending public money have locked up innocent men in public facilities. The forensics department needs to reconsider its truculent refusal, release the relevant documents and enact policies to ensure that similar sandbagging does not occur again. Nothing less will be able to assuage doubts as to whether cover-ups are rare exceptions — or something approaching a general rule.
The taxpayers also should be dismayed by the lazy approach law enforcement has taken to such travesties. In Barbour's case, officials tried to contact him by mail — and then gave up. They certainly would not have quit so soon if Barbour were wanted on charges of, say, stabbing a police officer. The zeal to correct past injustices should be just as ardent as the zeal to go after fresh ones.
The General Assembly may wish to offer some guidance, perhaps by making prosecutors and police chiefs personally liable for the failure to inform innocent men in a timely manner of evidence exonerating them. Disbarment, heavy fines and perhaps even jail time would serve as powerful incentives.
Law-enforcement officials might protest that this is unfair — that in some cases they might do everything right and still get blamed for circumstances beyond their control. What's more, in many instances the cops and prosecutors who put away innocent men have long since retired. It would not be right, present-day officials could argue, for them to be punished so harshly for other people's misdeeds when they themselves did nothing wrong.
To which some wrongly convicted innocents might respond: Welcome to our world.
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Police and Prosecutorial Misconduct News Articles
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