3 things will tell us if wrongful-conviction unit works
A new unit to review claims of wrongful conviction has been announced in Maricopa County; core principles need to be followed for it to be effective.
The Maricopa County Prosecution Integrity Program will review claims of wrongful conviction or allegations of prosecutorial and police misconduct.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, since 1989, there have been more than 2,650 exonerations nationwide, 21in Arizona and eight in Maricopa County.
In 2019 alone, 143 defendants nationwide were exonerated for crimes they did not commit. Those 143 people exonerated lost a total of 1,908 years of freedom, a record number of years lost by exonerees in a single year.
Until recently, those exonerations were pursued primarily by organizations such as the Arizona Justice Project. Established in 1998, the project was the fifth organization in the United States created to help inmates seeking to overturn wrongful convictions.
In the 22 years since, the project has helped free 28 Arizonans — a mix of those Arizonans were innocent of the crime for which they were convicted or victims of manifest injustice. The causes of those wrongful convictions ranged from perjury/false accusation to official misconduct.
A disproportionately large number of exonerations involved people of color. Socioeconomic status also played a large factor, as a majority did not have money to pay for independent experts, forensic testing, or lawyers who could dedicate their time to a single case.
To date, we have processed more than 6,000 requests for assistance, and currently have 35 cases under review and nine in active litigation. Often, the project is a last resort for those who have been failed by our justice system.
Over the past 10 years, prosecutors have increasingly created units devoted to reviewing claims of wrongful conviction and taking action to correct injustices. Conviction Integrity Units were involved in 90 of the 143 exonerations in 2019.
The Prosecution Integrity Program presents a new avenue for prisoners to obtain a review of their case, and we commend County Attorney Allister Adel for creating it. It is a public commitment to ensuring the accuracy, legitimacy and integrity of all criminal convictions the office secures. It is a commitment to promoting justice.
Three core principles are the effectiveness of the unit:
● Ensure the unit is free-standing and fully independent. Well-functioning units complete their work wholly independent of every other unit in the office. Independent units can review a case with fresh eyes and without the influence of prosecutors who worked on the trial or appeal. The best model is one where the unit reports directly to the elected prosecutor, and the elected prosecutor makes the ultimate decision.
● Be transparent about the unit’s review process and publish annual reports. Transparency can be cultivated early on in a unit’s development by publishing the unit’s review process and application. The willingness to hear from and collaborate with defense counsel is key, expediting the unit’s investigation and reducing the number of years between a wrongful conviction and the convicted person’s release.
The 2019 exonerees had to serve an average of 13.3 years before their convic
critical to tions were overturned. Finally, informing the community about the unit’s work by publishing an annual report helps constituents understand the long road to exoneration.
● Propose systemic changes to office policy and culture to prevent future miscarriages of justice. Our criminal justice system is not perfect. No exoneration is the result of a single factor, much less a single bad actor — it is always the failure of multiple parts of our system. We must learn from past errors and correct the root causes of those errors.
With the right support, the Prosecution Integrity Program will have the power to make a meaningful difference in the criminal justice system and the community.
Hope DeLap, the Quattrone Strategic Litigation Counsel at the Arizona Justice Project, works to improve the accuracy of the justice system with both strategic litigation and policy efforts. Marissa Bluestine is an assistant director of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a national expert on Conviction Integrity Units. Reach them at hope.delap@ azjusticeproject.org and mblu@law. upenn.edu.