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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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 Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 5:00 pm Post subject: Innocent Men Incarcerated In North Carolina |
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Article Here.
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ELIZABETHTOWN, N.C. � Terrell McCullum did not commit a federal crime by carrying a shotgun and a rifle out of his ex-girlfriend's house.
But he is serving a federal prison sentence for it. And the fact that everyone � including the U.S.Justice Department� agrees that he is legally innocent might not be enough to set him free.
A USA TODAY investigation, based on court records and interviews with government officials and attorneys, found more than 60 men who went to prison for violating federal gun possession laws, even though courts have since determined that it was not a federal crime for them to have a gun.
Many of them don't even know they're innocent.
The legal issues underlying their situation are complicated, and are unique to North Carolina. But the bottom line is that each of them went to prison for breaking a law that makes it a federal crime for convicted felons to possess a gun. The problem is that none of them had criminal records serious enough to make them felons under federal law.
Still, the Justice Department has not attempted to identify the men, has made no effort to notify them, and, in a few cases in which the men have come forward on their own, has argued in court that they should not be released.
Justice Department officials said it is not their job to notify prisoners that they might be incarcerated for something that they now concede is not a crime. And although they have agreed in court filings that the men are innocent, they said they must still comply with federal laws that put strict limits on when and how people can challenge their convictions in court.
"We can't be outcome driven," said Anne Tompkins, the U.S. attorney in Charlotte. "We've got to make sure we follow the law, and people should want us to do that." She said her office is "looking diligently for ways, within the confines of the law, to recommend relief for defendants who are legally innocent."
These cases are largely unknown outside the courthouses here, but they have raised difficult questions about what, if anything, the government owes to innocent people locked in prisons.
"It's been tough," said Ripley Rand, the U.S. attorney in Greensboro, N.C. "We've spent a lot of time talking about issues of fundamental fairness, and what is justice."
It's also unusual. Wrongful conviction cases are seldom open-and-shut � usually they depend on DNA or other new evidence that undermines the government's case, but does not always prove someone is innocent. Yet in the North Carolina gun cases, it turns out, there simply were no federal crimes.
Using state and federal court records, USA TODAY identified 23 other men who had been sent to federal prison for having a firearm despite criminal records too minor to make that a federal crime. Nine of them remain in prison, serving sentences of up to 10 years; others are still serving federal probation. The newspaper's review was limited to only a small fraction of cases from one of the three federal court districts in North Carolina.
Federal public defenders have so far identified at least 39 others in additional court districts, and are certain to find more. And prosecutors have already agreed to drop dozens of cases in which prisoners' convictions were not yet final.
Some of the prisoners USA TODAY contacted � and their lawyers � were stunned to find out that they were imprisoned for something that turned out not to be a federal crime. And their lawyers said they were troubled by the idea that innocence alone might not get them out.
"If someone is innocent, I would think that would change the government's reaction, and it's sad that it hasn't," said Debra Graves, an assistant federal public defender in Raleigh. "I have trouble figuring out how you rationalize this. These are innocent people. That has to matter at some point."
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The article goes on to talk about the specifics of the situation. I find myself feeling contempt for Ms. Thompkin's claim that, "We can't be outcome driven;" her insistence that innocent people ought to and must suffer for the sake of the system. When the system harms innocents, it is the system that ought to yield, and the fact that legal workers such as herself -- or even on the highest court, exemplified by Justice Scalia and his contemputous indifference to the American legal system's execution of innocent men -- feel this way is a problem.
In any justice system, there are going to be mistakes. It's unavoidable, and all that can be done after such mistakes are discovered is to rectify the situation insofar as is possible. When the system refuses to do that, however -- when finality is prized over justice -- the system becomes part of the problem rather than a rectification-inducing solution. Keeping the rules, even when they cause bad (arguably even evil) results is ludicrous; contrary to what Ms. Thompson says, both the law itself and its application must be outcome driven in order to serve the national interest, and while Mr. Rand claims to have spent a lot of time talking about what constitutes fairness and justice, it's hard to take that notion seriously when he hasn't even managed to discover the intrinsic injustice and lack of fairness inherent in incarcerating innocent men and then leaving them in prison on principle. Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but it's hard not to be when speaking of individuals who seem to actively support innocent men remaining in prison for the sake of abiding by arbitrary technicalities.
The sad thing is that this, unlike a certain other legal situation we hear so much about, is a genuine national-level concern -- many people systematically incarcerated under a misinterpretation of federal law, with the Justice Department actively arguing against their release -- but since it has no real "Reality TV" element to it, we likely won't hear anywhere near as much about it. |
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Captain Corea
Joined: 28 Feb 2005
Location: Seoul
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| Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 5:08 pm Post subject: |
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| When the system harms innocents, it is the system that ought to yield |
Yup, sounds about right to me. There needs to be more sense put into it all. |
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Leon
Joined: 31 May 2010
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| Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 5:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Sounds like a technicality to me. It seems that when they were locked up in NC it was considered legal for them to be locked up, but if they were caught now it wouldn't be. I'm not sure how the justice system works, but it seems like it would be hard to get them out based on that. Hopefully some group like the ACLU will pick this up and put pressure on the state, my home state, to fix this. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Leon wrote: |
| Sounds like a technicality to me. It seems that when they were locked up in NC it was considered legal for them to be locked up, but if they were caught now it wouldn't be. I'm not sure how the justice system works, but it seems like it would be hard to get them out based on that. Hopefully some group like the ACLU will pick this up and put pressure on the state, my home state, to fix this. |
It sounds like they were convicted for Federal gun possession offenses, but were felons only under North Carolina's laws, and not felons under the Federal law's higher standard for felony.
It doesn't sound like a technicality at all. It sounds like a disgrace. Getting the facts wrong is one thing, but misapplying the law?
| Quote: |
| "We can't be outcome driven," said Anne Tompkins, the U.S. attorney in Charlotte. "We've got to make sure we follow the law, and people should want us to do that." She said her office is "looking diligently for ways, within the confines of the law, to recommend relief for defendants who are legally innocent." |
Ugh.
Fox, I hope you support greater funding for public defenders offices. I'm pretty sure they've dropped the ball here (although it likely has a lot to do with their ridiculous caseloads). |
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Dave Chance
Joined: 30 May 2011
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| Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:47 pm Post subject: |
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| Would be interesting to know if there are privitized prisons involved. |
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Fox
Joined: 04 Mar 2009
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| Posted: Thu Jun 14, 2012 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Fox, I hope you support greater funding for public defenders offices. I'm pretty sure they've dropped the ball here (although it likely has a lot to do with their ridiculous caseloads). |
I would certainly be content seeing more tax money utilized to such end, so long as it provided results. |
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