The San Diego County district attorney has launched a team to review possible wrongful convictions, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis is formalizing her office’s efforts to review troublesome convictions by creating a team of two full-time prosecutors to investigate claims of innocence, said reporter Kristina Davis.
The team will investigate claims of innocence where credible evidence exists or where there is new technology or evidence to run DNA tests, Davis reported.
“We recognize that despite our goal of pursuing justice and truth, in a few instances new evidence is discovered and in some cases, mistakes are found,” Dumanis said. “As prosecutors, our legal, moral and ethical obligation is to ensure the right person is convicted for the crime charged.”
Uriah Courtney, convicted of a rape he didn’t commit, walked out of prison an innocent man after eight years behind bars, Davis writes.
Twenty-one years after a jury found Kenneth Marsh guilty of beating to death his 2-year-old son, he was told the case against him was dismissed, Davis reports.
The men are two of the most notable examples in recent history of wrongful convictions in San Diego County, and Dumanis believes there could be more.
The team is looking at about 10 cases. The work will be done with the public defender’s office and the California Innocence Project at California Western School of Law, Davis reports.
“As good as our system is, …people do slip through the cracks,” said Public Defender Henry Coker. “Things look like what they’re not, and lives are lost in that process.”
The district attorney’s office has been at the forefront of a nationwide sea change recognizing it is possible to put innocent people in prison, said Justin Brooks, director and co-founder of the California Innocence Project.
“It’s all of our job together to right these wrongs,” Brooks said. “It should be done in a way that’s not about pointing fingers but getting the right result.”
Claims must meet a threshold for review:
The conviction must have occurred in the San Diego County Superior Court;
The convict must still be serving the sentence;
The crime must have been a serious or violent felony;
There must be credible and verifiable evidence of innocence; and
The convict must be willing to cooperate with the process, reports Davis
Since 1989 DNA has led to the exonerations of 337 people in the U.S., according to the Innocence Project. Twenty of them were on death row.
DNA set Courtney free in 2013. He was accused in 2004 of raping a 16-year-old girl in Lemon Grove, near San Diego. The victim and a witness helped create a sketch of the man. The victim identified Courtney and a jury convicted him. DNA testing was not conclusive, according to Davis.
Courtney’s family pushed to have the victim’s shirt retested for DNA. The results pointed to a different man who bears a striking resemblance to Courtney, Davis said.
Marsh’s case was different. After his son died of head trauma, Marsh said the boy fell from the sofa. Medical experts believed the injury was too severe to have come from a fall. Marsh was convicted largely on medical testimony, Davis reported.
In 2002, Marsh’s attorney’s filed a writ of wrongful conviction, and Dumanis, upon review, decided the case was no longer provable beyond a reasonable doubt and asked a judge to dismiss it, the report says.
Dumanis said that dozens of more cases have been dismissed before conviction, as new evidence surfaces pointing to innocence.
Applications may be submitted to have a case reviewed via the district attorney’s website, www.sdcda.org. Applications will be accepted only in writing, Davis reports.
