State issues justice report
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HARRISBURG -- The day before the nation watched to see if the state of Georgia would execute a man whose murder case had reignited questions about witness testimony, Pennsylvania was reviewing its own criminal justice system.
A state panel convened more than four years earlier issued its report recommending, among other suggestions, changes to how investigators administer interrogations, present photo lineups for identification and store forensic evidence.
It's unclear what impact the 300-page document will have on state policy debates over how to improve police work and prosecutions. While legislative hearings will be an initial next step, even the commission that drafted the report was divided on whether to adopt many of its suggestions.
The final document highlights what it says are 11 Pennsylvania cases of full or partial exoneration based on DNA results. Other sources, it states, peg the commonwealth's number of wrongful convictions at a higher figure, though those additional cases rely on evidence beyond DNA.
The figure of 11 exonerations, which include three from Allegheny County, is where some panel members first note disagreement. They contest the innocence in many of the episodes, arguing that charges were dismissed in certain cases for various reasons, such as a victim not wanting to go through a retrial.
"We're hoping that the public doesn't fall under this false assumption that there are a slew of wrongfully convicted individuals," said Francis Schultz, president of the state district attorneys association and one of a dozen co-signers of a minority report published with the main document.
But the panel's chairman, Duquesne University law professor John Rago, in outlining the report for lawmakers at a public hearing last week, said they did find points of concern in the current system.
"Mistakes happen -- the question becomes how do we respond to our mistakes," Mr. Rago said. "It's easy to not react to these things, to say they are consequences. ... We should accept the challenge to reduce the likelihood of errors."
Some of the key suggestions focused on witness identifications, which the report cited as playing a role in nine of the state's 11 exonerations.
First Published September 26, 2011 12:04 am
