Seven faces of freedom and justice

Editorial by Rick Diguette , The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (free subscription required), December 13, 2007

On Monday night, John White was released from prison after a DNA test showed conclusively that he had not committed the rape for which he had served more than 10 years. Thanks to the work of the Georgia Innocence Project and other groups, seven black men have been exonerated in Georgia.

There are any number of reasons people can be convicted of crimes they did not commit. In many cases, however, unreliable eyewitness identification is one very common denominator. But race seems to be the deciding factor. If it isn't, then maybe someone can explain why all seven men thus far exonerated in Georgia have been black.

With each new exoneration I find myself wondering how many more wrongly convicted black men are in Georgia's prison system. No one seems to have any idea and, unfortunately, not enough people seem sufficiently interested in finding out. How can this be? How can anyone not want to know? I don't have the answer to that question, but I will offer five educated guesses that might explain this complacency.

• Most of the inmates in our prisons deserve to be there. Our criminal justice system is not indiscriminately locking up the innocent. This fact may have something to do with the complacency that many people exhibit when they learn that yet another wrongly convicted black man has been exonerated.

• Most people prefer certainty to doubt. They are much more comfortable believing that justice has been served than they are worrying that it might not have been. And all that the law requires to convict is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In other words, doubt is reasonable. Right?

• Haven't plenty of guilty people gone free because some court decided a legal technicality was more important than the interests of justice? In truth, not really, although these cases are widely reported when they occur. As a result, it is not difficult to understand how a reasonable doubt might appear to be nothing more than indecisiveness when the interests of justice are at stake.

• For many people an accusation that a person has committed a crime is proof enough of their guilt. In other words, where there's smoke there's fire. How large a segment of the population thinks this way is impossible to establish. But you might ask yourself if you have ever "convicted" someone based on a mere accusation.

• Most people don't care about prisoners. Once someone goes behind bars, he ceases to be a normal person. And once he ceases to be a normal person, it is unlikely he will ever be considered normal again. Just ask a former prison inmate.

Seven black men have now been exonerated in Georgia. All seven were convicted of rape. Together they served more than 100 years in prison for crimes DNA testing has shown they did not commit.

It's safe to say more like them are still in prison, and for that reason the commendable work being done by the Georgia Innocence Project must continue. For some of the wrongly convicted, however, there is no potentially exonerating DNA evidence to test. All we can do for them is examine our conscience.

Rick Diguette is a former spokesman for the Georgia Supreme Court.