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How Innocent People Get Railroaded

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The prosecutor responsible for the grotesque miscarriage of justice Paul mentioned last week is exactly what you’d expect:

“Well, let’s say, if I was a bully, he is a pussy. How about that?” the elder Mr. Britt said. “I think Johnson Britt has been hanging around too much with the wine and cheese crowd.”
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Of last week’s ruling, which was spurred by a North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission investigation and supported by the younger Mr. Britt, he added: “I thought the D.A. just threw up his hands and capitulated, and the judge didn’t have any choice but to do what he did. No question about it, absolutely they are guilty.”

But at least he kept the community safe, right? What about the VICTIM’s civil rights?

Nonetheless, the McCollum and Brown case seems destined to become the signature one of Joe Freeman Britt’s tenure. And to critics, especially the current district attorney, it was remarkable what was overlooked: any pursuit of Roscoe Artis as a suspect.

Mr. Artis, who had already served prison time and committed violent sexual assaults, lived next to the soybean field in tiny Red Springs, where the victim was discovered. Investigators found a cigarette there which, at trial in 1984, Joe Freeman Britt implied belonged to one of the killers.

Mr. Artis confessed to and was found guilty of raping and killing another teenage girl in similar circumstances four weeks after — and a short distance from — the murder Mr. McCollum and Mr. Brown were charged with. He remains in prison. There is no sign that investigators or prosecutors pursued the theory that he might have killed both girls.

“What are the chances of this similar, if not same, crime occurring in this small town, and there not being a connection?” said Johnson Britt. “How could they not make this connection? The same prosecutor handled both trials, 90 days apart. I’m still dismayed.”

Oh. Why, I’m beginning to think the public safety value of framing innocent people has been overrated.

Over to you, Arthur:

“We have learned the lesson of history, ancient and modern, that a system of criminal law enforcement which comes to depend on the “confession” will, in the long run, be less reliable and more subject to abuses than a system which depends on extrinsic evidence independently secured through skillful investigation.”

— Goldberg, J., Escobedo v. Illinois.

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