From time to time, you'll hear someone complain about the rights of arrestees and criminal defendants - - there's a persistent myth that these rights interfere with the administration of justice and that "criminals get off scott-free".
The first question we must ask is: Who the hell is Scott and why has he become the foundation of a phrase like that? Why isn't it "carla-free"?????
Seriously, though - - there are reasons and history behind the right to an attorney, the right of a defendant to confront his/her accusers, the right of the defense to see evidence prior to trial, the obligation of the prosecution to share evidence that is potentially exculpatory. And here's a terrific case study:
This was Ron Williamson. He's the subject of John Grisham's latest book, "The Innocent Man", which is a nonfiction story of a horrific crime in Ada, OK, and the many mistakes that led to the conviction of two innocent men for rape and murder.
In 1982, a young woman was raped and killed in her own apartment, following an evening at a local bar. There were numerous witnesses who stated that a man named Gore had been in arguments with the woman, that he kept harrassing her, and that his ride later let him out of the car very near the woman's apartment. The crime scene contained numerous hairs, blood traces, and fingerprints - - most of which did not belong to the crime victim.
From the very beginning, the investigation was a goat rope - - the detectives on site neglected to dust many of the flat, nonporous surfaces where fingerprints might be found. When interviewing the people who had last seen the crime victim, detectives failed to obtain hair and blood samples from Gore. Gore misdirected the police by mentioning that the crime victim had complained to him about being harrassed by a local character named Ron Williamson. His misdirection worked, like the Force on the weak-minded.
With a single-mindedness which isn't exclusive to the Ada PD, the cops honed in on Ron Williamson and found ways to tie him to the crime - - his apartment was relatively nearby, his hair was allegedly similar to the samples obtained at the crime scene. Despite his alibi, Ada PD spent two years trying to create a case out of thin air, primarily relying on jailhouse snitches who had something to gain by implicating Williamson.
At the same time, the cops decided that the crime was committed by more than one person; this led them to seek known associates of Williamson, and they landed on a man named Dennis Fritz. The only provable link between Fritz and the crime was Williamson. Officers working the case badgered and threatened the suspects, extending their interrogations until the men were physically uncomfortable and exhausted, lying to them in an attempt to get them to rat each other out.
Leaning on junk science, jailhouse snitch testimony, proximity, association, and the lack of other suspects, the local District Attorney pursued Williamson and Fritz with blood lust and without regard to the truth. Both Fritz and Williamson were considered indigent and were assigned attorneys working pro bono; Williamson's lawyer was a blind attorney who didn't want to work with the mentally ill client, who received no monetary assistance in combatting hair analysis, who failed to fully explore the evidence from the police investigation (which included a confession from another jail inmate who said he killed and raped the woman - - false confession, but STILL), who never sought a competency hearing for his client. Fritz's attorney allowed the former chief of police from Ada onto the jury, a man who had a clear bias toward the cops and the prosecution.
No surprise - - in 1988, a jury of their peers convicted each man of murder, with Fritz receiving life in prison and Williamson receiving the death penalty. Williamson spent 10 years in Big Mac in McAllister, OK, quickly deteriorating on death row without medication or therapy or adequate nutrition or human contact. He came within five days of being executed, before the idiot administration at Big Mac realized that his appeals were still in process and that they were jumping the gun.
Fritz also spent 10 years in another prison, quickly becoming a jailhouse lawyer and filing appeal after appeal. Eventually, he contacted the Innocence Project in New York, which took his case. Williamson finally wound up with some attorneys on his case who successfully lodged an appeal, resulting in a new trial being ordered.
This was the late 90's - - DNA evidence and analysis were just hitting their stride, and both the defense and the prosecution in the Williamson/Fritz cases agreed that the old evidence should be tested. Analysis of semen and hair from the crime scene excluded Fritz and Williamson - - and it matched Gore, who was at that time serving a 40 year sentence for kidnapping and rape (and who was, oddly, in a work-release program).
Fritz and Williamson were released from prison in 1999 - - twelve years after being arrested and held for a crime neither of them committed. Fritz had a 13 year old daughter at the time he was arrested - - when he left prison, his daughter was 25 and he'd missed twelve years of her life. Williamson had suffered a virtually unchecked decline into mental illness that had been untreated or mistreated for most of his prison stay. How do you compensate someone for that?
The State of Oklahoma, Ada PD and the Pontotoc County D.A. felt no need to issue an apology or offer restoration. In fact, the cops and the D.A. continued to hint that Fritz and Williamson were still suspects and the community of Ada shunned them. Lovely, lovely people.
Fritz and Williamson, with guidance from their legal advisors, entered into a massive lawsuit against the Pontotoc Co. District Attorney as an individual, against the Ada PD, against various prison and Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation officials - - and when it was settled confidentially and out of court, the rumor was that the plaintiffs had received $5,000,000.00. Add to that 12 years of incarceration and prosecution, and the mishandled Fritz/Williamson case cost the TAXPAYERS of Oklahoma more than $6,000,000.00.
This book points out numerous criminal justice system issues, including the lack of resources available to indigent defendants, the need for controls on cops and prosecutors, a need for redirection from the adversarial system to a process that works toward TRUTH and real justice, the separation of issues of mental illness and crime, the obligation of the judge to stop proceedings when unfairness is evident, and a need for objective community assessment of the gawd-awful media coverage of dramatic crimes.
Ideally, the case of Fritz/Williamson makes the typical community member think - - it could happen to YOU. If you were wrongly accused of any kind of crime, let alone a heinous rape and murder, wouldn't you want your rights to be assured? If you're money-poor, wouldn't you want the same access to justice that rich folk enjoy? If you were wrongly convicted of that crime, wouldn't you want to be treated humanely in the prison where you were placed pending your appeals?
The rights of criminal defendants are protections for all of us. If you can't extend mercy and consideration to perpetrators of crime, then think of the many innocent men and women who are accused of crimes every day - - some day it may be you or someone you love.
