You are here

Home

Does Clarence Thomas Care About Prosecutors Behaving Badly?

Thu, 01/12/2012 - 13:12 — Dave Culver
Section(s): 
Law & Justice

  • The more prosecutors feel like they can get away with railroading defendants, the more they're likely to do it, and the more likely an innocent person is to be punished. The possibility isn't an abstract one.
  • The prosecutors' behavior in the Smith case was so egregious that even Thomas' conservative colleagues were unwilling to join him this time around in upholding the original verdict.
  • Clarence Thomas is not above the law


Adam Serwer, Mother Jones

The Supreme Court. Flickr/afagen

Lopsided Supreme Court rulings can often give insight into the character and philosophy of the justices. The court's Tuesday decision in Smith v. Cain, which overturned the murder conviction of a Louisiana man named Juan Smith, offers one such example.

The story is fairly simple: Smith was convicted of killing five people on the testimony of a single eyewitness. At trial, the prosecutors conveniently forgot to provide the defense with a detectives' notes, which indicated that the eyewitness had initially told the detective that he "could not ID anyone because [he] couldn't see faces" and "would not know them if [he] saw them." That meant that since there was no physical evidence linking Smith to the crime, the prosecution's entire case hinged on the testimony of a single eyewitness (a notoriously unreliable yet persuasive form of evidence) who initially said he could not identify the killer.

More...

Related:

Clarence Thomas is not above the law, Credo Action

  • Add your name to Rep. Slaughter's letter demanding action on Clarence Thomas.
  • Make DOJ Investigate Clarence Thomas' Ethics Allergy
     

Fair Use Notice

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.