17 men wrongfully convicted in Dallas County, Texas, then cleared by DNA evidence.

[spanone]

SEVENTEEN in one county alone? i'd say it's time for an over-zealous prosecutor to go to jail......

this is why i can NEVER support the death penalty.


DALLAS, Texas (CNN) -- Wiley Fountain is homeless just five years after he walked out of prison an innocent man. He is one of the 17 men wrongfully convicted in Dallas County, Texas, then cleared by DNA evidence.

He was one of the lucky few to receive financial compensation from the state, but the $190,000 or so that made it into his pocket is long gone.

For awhile, Fountain wandered the streets of Dallas, looking for aluminum cans to trade in for cash. He earned the occasional meal by cleaning the parking lot of a restaurant. At night he had nowhere to go.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/19/dna.cleared/index.html

[Brewman_Jax]

1. Kick

Agreed. The results of an imperfect and biased system. The DA should be investigated and indicted for misconduct.

[Richard Steele]

2. Didn't it used to be ILLEGAL to frame people for crimes they didn't commit? K&R

[Tesha]

8. A lot of things *USED* to be illegal. :-( (NT)

[flashl]

3. Change?

Ruling could put prosecutor on trial

"It's rare for prosecutors to be tried for civil rights violations," said Bennett Gershman, a law professor at Pace University and a former New York state prosecutor who wrote a legal textbook on prosecutorial misconduct. "I don't know that anybody keeps track of the frequency of prosecutors going to trial. But it's my sense that it is extremely infrequent."

It is a ruling that, according to some legal experts, should send a message to prosecutors, who historically have been granted immunity from damages so they may prosecute cases without fear of legal retaliation by defendants. The message: They cannot automatically assume that a confession is the truth.

[raccoon]

4. Off to Greatest with you! nt

[End Of The Road]

5. We're sooo good at this in Texas!

If Dallas Co. has 17, I bet Williamson Co. has 35. Logic and ethics need not apply in my state.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

6. These are ones that have been cleared. How about those who have been executed and never

had a chance of exonerating themselves?

[spanone]

7. 376 prisoners have been executed since 1982.

[sfaprog]

9. I was once pro-death penalty.

Not even just in my youth, in my twenties, too. The similar situation in Illinois really helped open my eyes and change my mind, and hopefully this story will do the same to other people. Part of me still feels that no other justice will do for some of the worst animals we have, but just knowing that one innocent man could be executed is enough to give permanent pause.

It's going to be a tough debate to have in this country, and we will have it - because of what Obama did in Illinois, the Rethugs are going to portray him as "soft on crime". We need nothing but reminders like these of innocent men wrongfully punished and killed as our own ammunition in this debate.

[pleah]

10. K&R

I still can't believe there are people out there that think this kind of thing doesn't happen.

[crimsonblue]

11. I wonder how much it would cost

to test DNA samples of every inmate in the US. Naturally, this would only apply to cases in which blood or other fluid samples were preserved. In a nation that espouses freedom, I would think that ensuring that we have as few innocent people in jail as possible would be on the list of priorities. The Innocence Project (and others like it), can only do so much, and many times faces extreme difficulties in obtaining the right to test evidence. What kind of country do we live in where we refuse inmates the right to utilize advances in technology, even as we use that technology to imprison more and more people. simply inexcusable