Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Chicago Criminal Attorney Comments on Why We Can't Afford Wrongful Convictions

This Chicago Criminal Attorney has posted here and here about wrongful arrests, errors, and the exonerated.  Did it occur to you, that there's a high cost to you, the taxpayer for a wrongful arrest and/or conviction?

From the nytimes.com:

On a cool September evening in 1981, a 44-year-old woman was getting into her car on the roof level of a Rush Street parking garage when a man pushed her into the front seat, then beat and raped her as she struggled in vain to get a good look at him.


The man stuffed the bleeding woman into the trunk and tried to drive away, but he was stopped by an alert cashier who recognized the car but not the driver. When she heard the woman screaming and pounding from the trunk, the man jumped out of the car and ran.


A few days later, the cashier picked Jerry Miller out of a police lineup. Mr. Miller, who had never been arrested before, had been stopped by an officer in the area several days earlier while seeking a job at a doughnut shop. The officer thought he resembled the composite sketch of the rapist.

Mr. Miller was convicted of rape, robbery and aggravated kidnapping and spent 25 years in prison. Robert Weeks, the man later linked to the rape by DNA evidence, went on to rape or assault four more women, injure police officers in three other attacks and commit other robberies and beatings over 23 years.


Mr. Miller was convicted of rape, robbery and aggravated kidnapping and spent 25 years in prison. Robert Weeks, the man later linked to the rape by DNA evidence, went on to rape or assault four more women, injure police officers in three other attacks and commit other robberies and beatings over 23 years.


Mr. Weeks was eventually convicted of two of the rapes and sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Miller received $6.3 million in the settlement of a lawsuit against the city.

Mr. Miller’s case is one of 85 analyzed in a sweeping report being released Monday by the Better Government Association and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law.

The association, a nonprofit watchdog and advocacy group, said the study was the first to document the economic and social costs of the 85 convictions in the state that were overturned between 1989 — the advent of modern DNA testing — and 2010. In all, the study said, those wrongful convictions have cost Illinois taxpayers $214 million, and the amount will probably increase to $300 million once 16 pending lawsuits are settled.


“The public pays in multiple ways” for errors or willful misconduct by law enforcement officials, said John Conroy, a veteran reporter, association senior investigator and co-writer of the report. “The whole community pays when the real criminal is left on the street and goes out and commits other felonies.”

The perpetrators of crimes for which others were convicted went on to commit at least 94 more felonies, including 14 murders and 11 sexual assaults, according to the study. It said 83 men and 2 women spent a total of 926 years behind bars for crimes they did not commit.

These numbers are alarming.  Let's hope this study slows down the rush to convict others going forward.

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