Lawmakers should clean up flaws that lead to wrongful convictions
Feb 27, 2013 American Statesman
By Editorial Board
By Editorial Board
Who will ever give a man back
the 25 years he lost of his precious life when he was in prison?
In this article “Lawmakers should clean up flaws that lead to wrongful convictions” written by American Statesman, Michael, Morton spent 25 years in prison for a crime he did not commit because of the wrongful conviction.When I read the article, I had to ask myself the above question more than a thousand times. Even though he received compensation from the government, how could he ever get back the years he lost?
In this article “Lawmakers should clean up flaws that lead to wrongful convictions” written by American Statesman, Michael, Morton spent 25 years in prison for a crime he did not commit because of the wrongful conviction.When I read the article, I had to ask myself the above question more than a thousand times. Even though he received compensation from the government, how could he ever get back the years he lost?
This article intends
to give information to the general public like me about how flawed Texas’s
legal system is. Because of the Michael, Morton case, Whitmire,
who chairs the Senate Committee on
Criminal Justice, filed the bill in
order to make the system more accountable when it fails to address prosecutor misconduct,
such as suppressing evidence.
This
article emphasizes that the Legislature should correct the flaws in the system
that stole innocent people’s freedom. More
than anything else, wrongful convictions leave communities vulnerable to
criminals who remain free because innocent people are serving time for the real
criminals’ deeds. The article also mentions
wrongful convictions are very morally wrong and costly, totaling about $ 65
million in compensation since 1992 to people who were freed after spending time
in prison.
Morton
has accused the former attorney who is now a state judge in Georgetown, Ken
Anderson, of hiding favorable evidence, but he has denied the accusation. If unethical or unlawful conduct is found to
be true, the law definitely should punish him, and the Texas justice system
should prevent misfortune in people’s precious lives.
I
agree with the author’s opinion. However, I wish the article would be more
concerned about people’s precious lives which have been lost because of the
wrongful convictions, and less focused on the cost of money government has to
spend. Even more important than the monetary or moral costs are the lives of the
people affected by false imprisonment. Also, if the article had provided
some statistics about how many wrongful convictions happened each year, readers
would realize it’s a serious problem.
