During my years as a practicing lawyer, I came in contact with several impressive Black lawyers with degrees from prestigious schools. Almost all of them were–like me–practitioners of civil or corporate law, usually with one of the larger law firms. The Blacks I knew who did practice criminal law were all defense lawyers. And it goes without saying (so I’ll say it), during those years, they all encountered considerable discrimination.
So what made Kamala Harris decide to be a prosecutor? I think that early decision sheds considerable light on her judgement, her capacity to analyze the legal landscape and determine how best to seek justice.
The politics of criminal justice have inured most of us to a lopsided view of a prosecutor’s role. In communities large and small, lawyers have for years run for the office on promises to bring “law and order,” to be “tough on crime” and to “put the bad guys away.” We do want to put bad guys away, but we also want to be sure that the guys we’re putting away are really the bad guys. And even a cursory attention to the news confirms that–in too many places–innocent people have been imprisoned or worse. (Also in too many places, those errors have been the result of prosecutorial misconduct.)
It’s important that a prosecutor be concerned with justice–not simply with a win/loss ratio.
What triggered this observation was a recent article in the Indianapolis Star about the exoneration of a man who’d spent 15 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. The case against Anthony Bedolla had unraveled amid allegations of potential police misconduct and constitutional violations.
A re-examination of Bedolla’s murder conviction raised serious concerns about whether detectives arrested the wrong man, then failed to disclose evidence that someone else may have been the killer. Instead, they relied largely on the testimony of a compromised and unreliable eyewitness, according to Bedolla’s petition for post-conviction relief.
Last week, a Marion County judge granted the petition and dismissed the charges against Bedolla, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for the killing.
The lawyers who obtained Bedolla’s release worked for the Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic and the Conviction Integrity Unit of the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office. I have been aware of the existence of that Unit, which was created by Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears. to “identify, remedy and prevent wrongful convictions” because my youngest granddaughter has interned with the Unit since her senior year in high school. (She’s now entering her junior year in college.) She will also be participating in the opening and operation of the Indiana affiliate of the national Innocence Project.
As Mirror Indy has reported, the establishment of that affiliate is something of a homecoming for its director, Fran Watson, and “will build on her decades-long career as the director of IU McKinney law school’s Wrongful Conviction Clinic, which was a founding member of the Innocence Network.” As she explained to the Mirror, while innocence work exposes the reality of wrongful convictions, and the various reasons for them, it was really the science of DNA that made exonerations possible.
Without DNA, no one would ever believe public defender people like me who said they’re innocent. Then DNA comes along, and the math is the math, and the numbers are the numbers, and they don’t lie, you have the wrong man in prison, and you lied to put them there.
My granddaughter was present when Anthony Bedolla was released. She’s passionate about justice, and–at least at this point–intending to go to law school. (And yes, I am one proud grandma.) But the reason I mention her participation is that without it, I would not have had the opportunity to interact with Ryan Mears, who–like Kamala Harris–became a prosecutor for the right reasons.
It was Mears who established the “Integrity Unit” in the Marion County Prosecutors office. Mears is one of an emerging generation of prosecutors who understand that the justice system has two equally important tasks: to put away the people who pose a danger to public safety, and to ensure that the people being incarcerated are, indeed, the people who deserve that punishment– that the real “bad guy” isn’t still free to harm others.
Public respect for the criminal justice system requires attention to both tasks.
Marion County is fortunate to have someone in that office who understands the importance of both of those obligations. And if Kamala Harris becomes President, we will be incredibly fortunate to have a Chief Executive who understood the importance of systemic justice at a time when far fewer of us did.
Comments