Reaction Paper on "Innocence Project on October 21, 2011"

Reaction Paper 4 pages (1395 words) Sources: 1

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Innocence Project

On October 21, 2011, Henry James was released from Angola prison after serving nearly 30 years for a rape that DNA evidence was finally able to prove that he had not committed. His release was the result of the work of the Innocence Project, and the Innocence Project New Orleans, who worked with James' attorneys at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. James had consistently proclaimed his innocence since the time of his conviction, and was able to secure the assistance of the Innocence Project. However, his first attempts to get released were unsuccessful because they could not find evidence from his case.

What is remarkable is that Innocence Project attorneys do not seem critical of the criminal justice system or state representatives, despite the fact that the state pursued the convictions and has significant control over exculpatory evidence for indigent defendants. In fact, in James' case, they have openly acknowledged the critical role that the state played in getting James' released. They credited Milton Dureau at the Jefferson Parish Crime Laboratory with the discovery of the evidence and also gave credit to the Sheriff's Office for responding quickly to the case. This is particularly interesting in James' case, because, though DNA technology had not been invented at the time of his conviction, they did have the technology to determine whether a rape was committed by a secretor of a non-secretor. The victim's attacker was a non-secretor, and James was a secretor. The rape kit exam evidence demonstrated that James was excluded as a suspect, but the jury did not hear that evidence. Therefore, James was not only wrongfully convicted, but the prosecutor who attained his conviction was aware that he could not have been the perpetrator at the time of the conviction. Scenarios like that would make it difficult to be However, the Innocence Project attorneys could not do their work without cooperation from state agencies, and their attitude seems to reflect the idea that they are rarely working with the same investigators or prosecutors who worked to attain the first wrongful conviction.

However, while the Innocence Project attorneys may be respectful of the helpful individuals they encounter, they are still very critical of embedded practices that help contribute to erroneous convictions. Eyewitness identification is notoriously unreliable, even when the eyewitness is the victim. However, juries find eye witness testimony to be very compelling; because people think that they would certainly be able to identify the perpetrator of a crime, and then if an eyewitness appears credible, they believe their testimony. To the credit of many eyewitnesses, they are not trying to provide false testimony; they may truly believe that they have identified the correct perpetrator of the crime. However, the system is difficult. Once a witness has identified someone as a perpetrator of the crime, that notion is reinforced in each additional proceeding, so that even witnesses who may question themselves may be too invested in the process to change their minds. One of the problems with eyewitness identification goes to the initial identification procedures, which can lead to misidentification, starting the process of erroneous identification. Louisiana has continued to refuse to enact the best practices which should help prevent or reduce misidentification, and an Innocence Project New Orleans' attorney took the opportunity to chastise the state for that failure.

One of the lingering problems with eyewitness identification, which was a problem in this case, is cross-racial identification. People make uncomfortable jokes about all people of a certain race looking alike, and the ugly truth in those statements gets hidden. Instead, the person making those observations is made to feel like a bigot for making the statements. However, the human skills of observation are not necessarily effective in a traumatic situation. People are looking for major identifiers that will either help them escape from a bad situation or avoid it in the future. In those circumstances, a woman who is being raped by someone from a different ethnic group might honestly be focused only on certain features of her rapist, which stand out to her more because they are different. She may only process his dark skin, dark eyes, wiry hair, and… READ MORE

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