As an appointee to the Joint State Government Commission’s Advisory Committee on Wrongful Convictions, I was dismayed by James Martins’s idea that the composition of the Committee dooms it to failure. The Committee has not even met yet, but Mr. Martin’s self-professed devotion to objectivity allows him to opine that it has too few people like him – prosecutors – to move forward in a “meaningful and honorable way.”
The Advisory Committee was established by Senate Resolution 381 after scores of people nationwide, including eight in Pennsylvania, were exonerated after conviction. The Resolution recognizes that it is important to understand how these wrong convictions occurred and how others can be avoided. These are the issues which the Committee will review. I do not –– and I doubt if any others do –– propose to “tear away at the criminal justice system” as Mr. Martin fears. We will study the causes of wrongful convictions and try to prevent future wrongful convictions of innocent people. This is not work which is honorable and reasonable “on the surface” as Mr. Martin suggests; it goes to the heart of justice.
During thirty years as an attorney, I have represented citizens accused of crimes, as well as crime victims and others. Based on that long experience, I assure Mr. Martin that many voices in our community are worth listening to. Many people “do the right thing for the right reason” and they are not all prosecutors. Some are teachers, judges, lawyers, police officers, spiritual leaders and even “activists” and practitioners of justice and mercy. All are well represented on this Committee and all deserve thanks for their commitment, not derisive name calling or scorn.
Mr. Martin properly advocates punishing the guilty and advancing victims rights, but these causes have little to do with wrongful convictions. Innocent people deserve no punishment and they have no victims. They are victims themselves, but the injustice reaches further. Whenever the wrong person is convicted of a crime, the victims of that crime are cruelly defrauded that justice was served. The public takes unsound comfort that the crime was solved, while the false conviction protects the real criminal. Wrong convictions victimize the whole community. If we can find a way to prevent them, we should do it.
Mr. Martin does not state explicitly why he feels that the Committee will fail, but he implies that some members have an ax to grind. He decries the “bully pulpit” and direly predicts a lack of objectivity. But what reasoned impartiality should there be on this subject? No one should, and probably no one does, favor wrongful convictions. Here, the community should be unanimous: united against such injustice and working to stop it. Haggling over the moral high ground is a waste of time. If Mr. Martin or his members have contributions to make I encourage them to be heard. But I also encourage them to a renewed commitment to use their power wisely. After all, each of Pennsylvania’s wrongful convictions was once a mistaken prosecution.
Read James Martin's prognostication of doom.
For recent journal publications and "About The Reasonable Doubter" scroll down past the postings.
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RECENT PUBLICATIONS BY THE REASONABLE DOUBTER
"The Embarrassment of Innocence"
Innocence should be the only serious question for the criminal courts. We operate, after all, in a system which enforces a presumption in its favor and which allows any reasonable belief in its existence to preserve it. Innocence is the default state of blamelessness.
Because fine and often exquisite distinctions between innocence and guilt carry with them disproportionate consequences — imprisonment, ruin, and death — the stakes are high for drawing these distinctions with accuracy. Public respect for criminal justice as a whole rests largely on the community’s belief that its guilt finding system has two characteristics: first, that it usually correctly divides guilt from innocence; and second, that when that usual result does not prevail, it fixes its own mistakes. The system is not only reliable but it is self-correcting. If it were not, the conventional wisdom holds, its claim to moral legitimacy would be far more tenuous.
[click here to read the complete article]
"This Should Have Been a Simple Case: Dretke v. Haley and the Illusion of Actual Innocence"
Criminal defense is an always difficult and often thankless job. Pursuing justice by vindicating our clients’ rights appears to many citizens — lawyers and non-lawyers alike — as mere hairsplitting to help criminals avoid the just desserts of their crimes. When we are asked how we can do it, we can talk about the lopsided power of the state, the Founding Fathers’ fear of tyranny or the need to champion individual liberty. But sometimes it is easier just to say that some defendants are actually innocent and therefore it is wrong for them to be punished. This, I have learned over the decades, is the one thing everyone agrees with. If you didn’t do “it,” whatever “it” is you should not be punished. Innocence may not be a presumption that many juries accept, but when some rare case presents an “unusually pristine” example of a defendant being unfairly punished no one should object to his exoneration. Courts and lawyers may contend over guilt and reasonable doubt, but innocence should be the one unbeatable trump to punishment.
[click here to read the complete article]
Spero T. Lappas, J.D., Ph.D.
Spero T. Lappas, J.D., Ph.D., is an author, scholar, and lawyer headquartered Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He has earned a PhD in American Studies from The Pennsylvania State University where he researched the relationship between the American law and culture and where he has taught courses in American Studies and Public Policy. He graduated with honors from Allegheny College (BA ‘74), where he was twice named an Alden Scholar, received Departmental Honors at graduation and the Muhlfinger Prize for his independent research and from the Dickinson School of Law (JD ‘77), where he was on the Editorial Board of the Dickinson Law Review, a member and faculty adviser of the National Trial Moot Court Team, and winner of two American Jurisprudence Awards. He was later named to Dickinson's Woolsack Society.
He is licensed to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States, all Pennsylvania state courts, and several federal courts. He has served as lead counsel in hundreds of major civil, criminal, and civil rights cases, including some of Central Pennsylvania's most important criminal and civil trials. In the criminal courts he has defended several death penalty murder cases, federal drug felonies and conspiracies, federal sports bribery, state and federal crimes of violence, major fraud allegations, and most other varieties of cases in which citizens have been charged with serious state and federal crimes. In the civil rights arena he has represented plaintiffs in cases involving police misconduct, excessive force, wrongful arrest and prosecution, sex discrimination, disparate impact, disparate treatment, prisoners rights, students rights, age and race discrimination, wrongful death, freedom of speech and association, search and seizure, and whistle blowers rights.
He served as an inaugural member of the Pennsylvania Senate Advisory Committee to Study the Causes of Wrongful Convictions and the Pennsylvania Legislative Advisory Committee to study the Death Penalty.
His career achievements have been recognized in many leading volumes and publications about legal professionals. He was among the nation's youngest attorneys to be named in the first edition of The Best Lawyers in America. He has been listed in Who's Who in American Law, Who’s Who in the World, Who's Who in Finance and Industry, Who's Who in America, Who’s Who Among Emerging Leaders in America, America's Leading Lawyers and The Bar Register of Pre-Eminent Lawyers. He has an A rating -- the highest possible recognition -- from the Lexis/Nexus Peer Reviewed rating system.
He has been an adjunct professor at Widener University School of Law and Harrisburg Area Community College, a University Graduate Fellow at Penn State, and a member of the ACLU (where is on the board of directors for the local chapter), American Mensa, and the U.S.Fencing Association. His publications have appeared in the Dickinson Law Review, The Champion (the journal of the National Association of criminal Defense Lawyers), the Harrisburg Patriot-News, The Burg newspaper and the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography.
He is a prize-winning photographer whose work has appeared in several galleries, one-artist shows, and personal and corporate collections, a tournament Scrabble champion, and a competitive three weapon fencer.
He frequently speaks to civic and community organizations about matters of public importance. To arrange an appearance, please contact Dr. Lappas at sperolappas.jd.phd@gmail.com.
He is licensed to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States, all Pennsylvania state courts, and several federal courts. He has served as lead counsel in hundreds of major civil, criminal, and civil rights cases, including some of Central Pennsylvania's most important criminal and civil trials. In the criminal courts he has defended several death penalty murder cases, federal drug felonies and conspiracies, federal sports bribery, state and federal crimes of violence, major fraud allegations, and most other varieties of cases in which citizens have been charged with serious state and federal crimes. In the civil rights arena he has represented plaintiffs in cases involving police misconduct, excessive force, wrongful arrest and prosecution, sex discrimination, disparate impact, disparate treatment, prisoners rights, students rights, age and race discrimination, wrongful death, freedom of speech and association, search and seizure, and whistle blowers rights.
He served as an inaugural member of the Pennsylvania Senate Advisory Committee to Study the Causes of Wrongful Convictions and the Pennsylvania Legislative Advisory Committee to study the Death Penalty.
His career achievements have been recognized in many leading volumes and publications about legal professionals. He was among the nation's youngest attorneys to be named in the first edition of The Best Lawyers in America. He has been listed in Who's Who in American Law, Who’s Who in the World, Who's Who in Finance and Industry, Who's Who in America, Who’s Who Among Emerging Leaders in America, America's Leading Lawyers and The Bar Register of Pre-Eminent Lawyers. He has an A rating -- the highest possible recognition -- from the Lexis/Nexus Peer Reviewed rating system.
He has been an adjunct professor at Widener University School of Law and Harrisburg Area Community College, a University Graduate Fellow at Penn State, and a member of the ACLU (where is on the board of directors for the local chapter), American Mensa, and the U.S.Fencing Association. His publications have appeared in the Dickinson Law Review, The Champion (the journal of the National Association of criminal Defense Lawyers), the Harrisburg Patriot-News, The Burg newspaper and the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography.
He is a prize-winning photographer whose work has appeared in several galleries, one-artist shows, and personal and corporate collections, a tournament Scrabble champion, and a competitive three weapon fencer.
He frequently speaks to civic and community organizations about matters of public importance. To arrange an appearance, please contact Dr. Lappas at sperolappas.jd.phd@gmail.com.
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