Systems failure

This suggestion for a "Systems Approach to Error Reduction in Criminal Justice" to which Grits' new co-blogger Jennifer Laurin linked in her inaugural post reminds me of how the NYPD seeks to prevent terrorist attacks, using failures (thankfully, mainly in table top exercises) as a roadmap for crafting preventive measures. Terrorist attacks on US soil, happily, are even more rare than false convictions, by far. But taking a systems approach toward preventing unlikely but terrible outcomes makes loads of sense and is supported by the cases Texas' Exoneration Commission will review.

When dozens of drug defendants are exonerated for the same reason - they pled guilty rather than wait for months in jail for tests to come back from the crime lab - that's a systems problem, not just a problem in one individual's case.

IMO we should consider a false conviction to be as serious as a plane crash and confronting failures with a systems review, as they famously do with downed aircraft, conveys the gravity of the problem. Yes, the plane crash affects more people, at least on the surface. But for every false conviction identified and for which successful redress has been obtained, there are dozens if not hundreds of other innocent people convicted who can never be identified because there's no exculpatory DNA, Brady violation found, or other smoking gun to definitively prove their innocence.

Jennifer described that larger category thusly to me in a private email: "the real concern is that 90% of cases really aren't 'about' the evidence per se. (As the guilty pleas in the complete absence of corroborative evidence demonstrate.) They're about resources, leverage, negotiation, and enough evidence to get over the probable cause hurdle. And so that's where, as you say, bail reform meets innocence work, sentencing reform meets innocence work, etc."

That's exactly right, and it sums up the challenge faced by those who would extend innocence-related critiques and reforms beyond what Laurin called the "canonical," traditional issue areas like eyewitness ID and access to DNA testing.

Whether Texas' Exoneration Commission adopts such an approach remains to be seen, but it's arguably the best way to get to the root of these questions.