Let's Arrest Wrongful Convictions

Editorial, Editorial Page Editor Cynthia Tucker, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 14, 2005

Georgia's criminal justice system ruined Robert Clark's life, imprisoning him for 24 years for a crime he did not commit. We cannot give him back the quarter-century that the state — acting on behalf of all of us, the citizens — stole from him. But we ought to acknowledge our wretched error with substantial compensation. He is a victim as surely as the woman he was accused of raping.

And we ought to do all we can to limit the chances that wrongful conviction will steal someone else's life.

Clark was released last week after DNA evidence proved him innocent of the rape of a 29-year-old woman in 1982. He was represented by the New York-based Innocence Project, a nonprofit legal center formed in 1992 to secure the release of wrongfully convicted inmates through DNA testing. He is the fifth Georgian cleared of a sexual assault conviction in the past six years.

Few of us can grasp the true enormity of wrongful convictions. In truth, it's something we'd rather not think about. We greet those surprisingly frequent mistakes by building a wall of psychological defenses — couldn't happen to us, couldn't happen to our loved ones, he must have done something to deserve it.

In Clark's case, he did make stupid mistakes that worked against him, including lying to the police. Caught in the victim's car, he told police that a female friend had given him the automobile. Only later, after months in jail, did he tell the police the truth: He was given the car by his buddy, Tony Arnold, now suspected of being the actual rapist. Clark says he was trying to protect Arnold, but his loyalty was misguided.

Still, we don't send people to prison for having misguided loyalty.

Besides, the error not only cost Clark, but it also cost the rest of us: While Clark was in prison, the actual rapist was free, probably committing other crimes. Though the Innocence Project says that Arnold's DNA profile has been matched to two unsolved rapes in DeKalb and Fulton counties, he has not been charged with those crimes. Arnold is currently serving five years in prison for cruelty to children.

Other innocent men and women undoubtedly wait and hope for evidence that may not be readily available. Mike Mears, director of the Georgia Indigent Defense Standards Counsel, notes that DNA evidence isn't a factor in many cases of wrongful conviction. (Despite the popularity of CBS' CSI franchise, it is easy to imagine homicide cases, for example, in which investigators recover no DNA pointing to a suspect.) Mears argues for three changes to ensure that fewer innocent persons are sent to prison:

• A fully funded system of indigent defense. The state has designated about $40 million for funding, but an adequate system would cost about $100 million a year, Mears said. The difference should be made up by county governments, he noted.

• Judicial acceptance of expert testimony about the unreliability of eyewitnesses. Despite countless studies showing the fallibility of eyewitness testimony, Georgia judges have been reluctant to allow defense lawyers to call experts to testify about those studies, Mears said.

• Videotaped confessions. Hard as it is to understand, people sometimes admit to crimes they did not commit, particularly under coercion. "Every little police department has a video camera. There should be a law that requires that every confession is videotaped. We should say we're not going to allow a confession that is a statement written by detectives and signed by some guy with a 75 IQ," Mears said.

Even if all those badly needed reforms were passed, there would still be cases where mistakes were made. The criminal justice system is a human institution, fraught with human frailties. So the Legislature ought to pass a law designating a scale of compensation for the wrongfully convicted. It's the least we can do. Several states have already passed such laws; Alabama offers a minimum of $50,000 per every year of incarceration.

State Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benefield (D-Atlanta) has proposed not just financial compensation but also mental health counseling and vocational training. It's a good idea, and it ought to become law.

The Bill of Rights was written with the understanding that it is better for a guilty man to go free than for an innocent man to be imprisoned, but those values are not practiced in the day-to-day realities of our criminal justice system. There's still hope that they soon will be.