Case is among string of bogus convictions (another DNA exoneration)

[madmusic]

By FRED GRIMM

The kid they tried to execute was just 15. An IQ of 67.

The Broward prosecutor demanded the death penalty. But the jury, queasy about killing a mentally deficient teenager with no more evidence than a questionable confession, voted to spare Anthony Caravella's life.

Circuit Judge Arthur J. Franza seemed disappointed. ``I'll tell you this, Anthony: If the jury had recommended death, I would have had you electrocuted.''

Broward was that close to executing an innocent teenager.

Twenty-six years after Caravella was sent off for life, Edward Blake, a leading forensic scientist and a pioneer in DNA analysis, obtained a genetic profile from sperm left by the man who raped and murdered Ada Jankowski behind Miramar Elementary School in 1982. Blake concluded: ``Anthony Caravella is eliminated as the source of the spermatozoa.''

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/fred-grimm/story/1220123.html

[Gregorian]

1. Prosecutors.

I'm not even sure what to say. It's as though they need trophy's. I know they need prosecutions. It gives them prestige. It elevates their status. Wins elections.

This is sick practice going on. It goes beyond normal justice, if you ask me. I don't know the particulars of this case, but I'm speaking about what may have been the case in many situations. Overly active and aggressive prosecutors looking for a closed case. I keep thinking of Sidney Poitier in that movie In The Heat of The Night.

[madmusic]

2. Did you catch the outrageous reaction of the state?

Blake said Friday he received a ``harassing'' e-mail this week from the Broward state attorney's office indicating that, contrary to public statements about undoing a terrible injustice, the office would try to undermine his lab's credibility. If so, it would be a stunning tactic, given his national reputation. (With a list of high profile DNA cases that runs 51 pages, including the lab work that cleared Allen Crotzer and Luis Diaz, the wrongly accused Bird Road Rapist.)

``It appears they've gone into full scale cover-up mode,'' Blake said Friday. In Broward, we've been there before.

[FreakinDJ]

3. Innocents Project has found over 30% Rape cases are Wrongful Convections

Not 1 or 2% as prosecutors would like the public believe but OVER 30%

[Zywiec]

6. Better watch it with the facts or you'll be labeled a misogynist n/t

[imdjh]

7. I can't find where the Innocence Project makes that claim. nt

[Gregorian]

4. Unbelievable.

I wish this thread had more replies. I'm kicking it for that.

[Ikonoklast]

5. K&R.

They love science when it gets them a conviction, but hate it when it shows innocent people are being executed and jailed in this country based on faulty testimony, and evidence.