Innocent man in jail for 26 years

[IDrinkaRum]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080412/...6_year_silence

Alton Logan has been in prison for 26 years. He was completely innocent. Lawyers knew he was innocent, but (supposedly) couldn't say anything because of lawyer/client privilege. 26 years and even the guy who was on trial with him knew he was innocent. This is disgusting. This is wrong.

[ebonyknight]

No supposedly. They couldn't. They had a legal obligation to protect their client (scum or not), and if they had revealed the truth (without their client's permission), they could and should have been disbarred.

Now the question is, should they have endured disbarment so that this man could have gone free?

That is a situation I hope I never find myself in. They did nothing wrong legally, but to be morally right, they would have had to destroy their own careers.

What makes this situation so completely ironic is that they got their client's permission to release that information, in the event he died. They could be commended for thinking ahead like that and the client could be commended for not taking his secret to the grave.....

Damn, there are just no winners or losers here, except for Alton...and he paid the heaviest price. But who do you blame? The lawyers did their jobs, the prosecutors did their jobs, the criminal did what criminals do and saved his own ass. Who do you go after?

[AFPheonix]

It's interesting to read this thread in the context of the death penalty thread.

[Seshat]

Even if they'd brought it to a judge or introduced it in an appeal, the judge couldn't accept it as evidence. It was privileged information, and cannot be used in a trial. So it's not a 'do they risk their jobs' issue.

According to the article, they'd spoken to lots of people about it; and even told people that they knew one of their clients had committed a crime another person was serving a life sentence for.

From the article:

Knowing the affidavit had to be secret, Wilson's lawyers looked for ways to help Logan without hurting their client. They consulted with legal scholars, ethics commissions, the bar association.

Kunz says he mentioned the case dozens of times over the years to lawyers, never divulging names but explaining that he knew a guy serving a life sentence for a crime committed by one of his clients.

[DesignFox]

Wow. Our system is a bit broken, isn't it?

[ebonyknight]

Wow. Our system is a bit broken, isn't it?

It's not the system that's broken. It's the people in it. Prosecutors don't care about justice, they care about increasing the marks in their win column.

The system is the best out there (but not perfect).

[Seshat]

This sort of situation is a consequence of another decision - and one which is mostly a good one.

If conversations between a lawyer and client were not privileged, what client would dare tell their lawyer anything which might come back to harm them another time?

What abused child who is still terrified of their parent would dare tell their lawyer something that the lawyer could be required to say in open court?

Without legal privilege, the guy who committed this crime probably wouldn't have told his lawyer in the first place. So the lawyers who knew the secret wouldn't have been inspired to go seeking out the other evidence that they now have, which will support the appeal. And, of course, they wouldn't have the affidavit either.

Legal privilege can be abused, and is, and can create awful situations like this one. But the only alternatives we've come up with so far are worse.

If anyone can think up something better, please do so - and please tell the law school at your local university. They'd LOVE to have a better solution, and any better solution will get spread as quickly as it can be tested and proven sound.

[Boozy]

Without legal privilege, the guy who committed this crime probably wouldn't have told his lawyer in the first place.

That is a very, very good point.

The blame for this lies on the shoulders of the gutless asshole who allowed someone else to do the time for his crime.

[DesignFox]

Yes, it's a sad situation all around. And as broken as some things are, it's true, the alternatives would be worse...and I can't come up with something that isn't.

[CancelMyService]

It's interesting to read this thread in the context of the death penalty thread.

This is absolutely the reason I'm against the death penalty. For all the obviously guilty murderers that are in jail, how many guys like Alton Logan are you willing to sacrifice for state sanctioned revenge?

Any system where someone is stuck in jail for 26 years due to an abuse of a legally correct procedure really shouldn't be given the power to end lives.