NC Bill Would Strip Those Who Plead Guilty to Right to Innocence Inquiry

This article was brought to our attention by a commenter on the Mountain Xpress website; thanks Barry Summers!

From News and Observer

The very creation of the N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission in 2006 in effect acknowledged that there are times when the justice system fails, when innocent people go to prison. Evidence might have been withheld or skewed by overeager prosecutors or police. Defense attorneys might encourage clients to make a plea deal because they think the odds are against them, and in capital cases, the client’s life might be at risk of the death penalty.

Prosecutors have never warmed to the idea of an innocence commission, and now they’re pushing in the General Assembly for a preposterous law to deny any inmate who has pleaded guilty to a crime the right to take that case to the innocence group.

In other words, plead guilty and you’re stuck. Too bad. Even if your lawyer missed some evidence or the prosecution didn’t play by the rules or you were coerced to take a plea because you thought your life might be on the line.

Getting it right

Those district attorneys who favor the limit say that without it, the commission would be bombarded by everyone in prison who saw a chance to get out. They point to the overburdened justice system, and the importance of having it work efficiently, with plea bargains being crucial to that. Debunking that first notion is the fact that the commission has gotten more than 800 requests to pursue cases, but just four have made it to a final formal review.

And justice is more important than efficiency. Prosecutors come to cases armed with considerable resources behind them, from police to the State Bureau of Investigation crime lab, which still is reeling from cases going back years in which lab evidence was manipulated to help prosecutors.

What harm does it do for those who may have been wrongly convicted to seek a review of their cases?

Certainly the review process worked last year, when a three-judge panel acting on the commission’s recommendation examined the case of Gregory Taylor of Cary, who served 17 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, a murder. He was freed. Now the commission is considering the cases of two men, Kenneth Kagonyera and Robert Wilcoxson, who were charged in a murder connected to a home invasion in Buncombe County in 2000.

A case’s flaws

The commission has reviewed the history of the case, which seems to include tips on other suspects that were not followed up, tests that were never done, lab work that was not seen by Kagonyera’s lawyer, and a candid acknowledgment on the part of that lawyer that he encouraged a plea because he feared for his client’s life and he now believes, “I let an innocent kid plead guilty to murder.” The district attorney who prosecuted the case says he can’t explain why the defense never received a copy of a key lab report.

There is a statistic that is not irrelevant to this case, and to others the commission may consider: In the United States, 25 percent of defendants who were later cleared by DNA evidence pleaded guilty, confessed or made what seemed to be incriminating statements to police at the time of their crimes. What prosecutors want to do in barring access to the commission seems to ignore that.

The commission’s reviews are thorough, time-consuming and for those prisoners making a case for the commission to look at their circumstances and hoping for exoneration, not easy. The eight members of the commission include a cross-section of citizens, from a prosecutor to a defense attorney, an advocate for victims and a sheriff. The odds, when a case does make it to the point of being considered, are not stacked in favor of or against the prisoner. This is a good process, a worthy safety net. It does not need further limits or alteration.

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