What does 142 death row exonerations to date, since 1973, reveal about the criminal justice system?
As Federal district judge Jed Rakoff, serving the southern district of New York, argued in 2002: "We now know, in a way almost unthinkable even a decade ago, that our system of criminal justice, for all its protections, is sufficiently fallible that innocent people are convicted of capital crimes with some frequency" (United States v. Quinones, 196 F. Supp. 2d 416, 420).
Most of these exonerations were the result of DNA testing which ultimately proved that far too many of those convicted and awaiting execution were actually, provably innocent.
"However...the vast majority of capital cases do not involve biological evidence that can be DNA tested. The exonerees' cases suggest others on death row might also be innocent" (Convicting the Innocent, by Brandon L. Garrett, 2011; p. 257).
It does much more than that...
Cases In Point
If such important cases as capital murder trials can be contaminated with false confessions, lying informants, confused, inaccurate and totally wrong eyewitness identifications, and withheld evidence of actual innocence -- among other major causes -- what about convictions for lesser crimes?
The seamy underbelly of American style flaw (false law) enforcement is just beginning to emerge as the rock of juris-imprudence is turned over, revealing its dark, vermin-infested too-long hidden recesses.
Take it from someone who was innocent, yet convicted for a non-crime (involving entrapment due to the lawless acts of a "public servant"), without evidence supporting the charge, without legal counsel in a felony trial, while denied even the right to testimony of witnesses for the defense.
The brief one-year I served in Texas state jail gulag-style prisons was very nearly a death sentence, more than once, which included torture, solitary confinement without cause, denial of needed medical assistance despite life-threatening near starvation (more than once), and heat prostration, denial of basic mandated rights to outside exercise most of the year, to access legal materials, and even to federally mandated stamps, envelopes, pens and paper, thereby denying the right to timely appeal or seek effective redress for grievances.
Another fellow I met, who kept mostly to himself biding his time while serving a two-year sentence, was convicted for writing a bad check on an account shared with his wife who -- after deciding to divorce him -- without notice had withdrawn all the funds from the account, without his knowledge.
Is Justice Just A Game?
Sure, there were plenty of other real criminals who certainly belong in prison, but the idea that anyone is being actively rehabilitated in such environments is a fraud and total fiction.
Just the opposite, in fact.
Of those who are finally released, most emerge entirely devoid of any marketable skills, experience, or adequate assistance and resources to help reintegrate them into society, leading to high recidivism (being convicted and imprisoned once again, for subsequent crimes).
Reforms by the injudicious judiciary of their legal house of cards has been painfully slow, inadequate and, in most cases and states, entirely non-existent.
Prosecutors routinely commit crimes against innocent defendants by withholding exculpatory evidence of actual innocence, stacking the deck against defendants with bribed testimony of jailhouse snitches, knowingly use inadequate, even forged and falsified evidence, tainted "eyewitness" testimony, and coerced false "confessions" to convict.
How many prosecutors are prosecuted, much less punished, for their crimes against innocent defendants?
Care to hazard a guess?
How about zero to none!
It's all part of the courtroom game of pretend "justice" routinely being played out in courts and trials all across America.