How prosecutors came to dominate the criminal-justice system

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New Jersey Man Faces Jail Time for Transporting an Antique Pistol

February 18, 2015
He did break the law, but the law is absurd.

‘I did break the law — to my shock,” Gordon Van Gilder tells me over the phone. He sighs. “Legally, they’re right.”

The “they” in this equation is the state of New Jersey. The “I” is Van Gilder, a 72-year-old retired schoolteacher from the town of Millville. And that “law-breaking”? Well, that could be extremely costly indeed. For transporting a 300-year-old flintlock pistol without a concealed-carry license, Van Gilder has been charged with a second-degree felony — specifically, with “unlawful possession of a handgun” — and he is facing a maximum of ten years in state prison. This, he suggests, is “unbelievable.”

Van Gilder’s ordeal began last November, when the car he was traveling in was pulled over by police. At the time, he and a friend were on their way back from a meeting with an antique dealer. “I’m very interested in the 18th century, both here and in Britain,” he tells me over the phone. “I’ve collected a lot of 18th-century items. I have some things from the Continental Army, including some personal documents — letters and so on. But I’m more interested in the things they made. My house is full of 18th-century furniture. I have little spoons, glassware. It’s an obsession of mine. I’m not a gun collector per se, but I think they’re interesting.”

The gun in question, Van Gilder says, “was probably made about 1765 in Belgium — for the British market.” A dealer found it in Pennsylvania, and held it for him. “I paid $800 for it. It’s a boxlock pistol, so there’s no hammer. It’s beautiful.”

Having picked the gun up, Van Gilder and his friend first went to lunch, and then they headed home. “My friend was driving because my arm is shot,” Van Gilder recalls. On the way home, the pair were pulled over by a local sheriff. According to Van Gilder, the detaining officer told him that he wanted to search the car, and threatened him with dogs if he refused. “I didn’t mind,” he tells me, but he wanted to make sure that the officer knew that there was a flintlock pistol in the glove compartment, and that he had just purchased it. “Oh, man,” Gilder says. “Immediately, he wanted to arrest me. But when he called the undersheriff, he was told, ‘No, it’s a 250-year-old pistol; let him go.’”

The officer did as he was told, and gave the pistol back. The next morning, however, he came back — “with three cars and three or four sheriffs.” Van Gilders says, “He told me, ‘I should have arrested you last night.’” So he did. “They led me away in handcuffs” and, at the station, “chained me by my hands and feet to a cold stainless-steel bench.”

— the prosecuting authorities had absolute discretion. Then, as now, they did not use it. In this latest case, it seems clear that there was no need to arrest Van Gilder in the first instance, and neither was there any obvious justification for charging him. Indeed, in a reasonable state, the existence of judgment-limiting mandatory minimums would make prosecutors more likely, not less, to drop the fringe cases at the outset. But New Jersey is not a reasonable state, and its authorities are neither kind nor judicious. Rather, they are stubborn and they are zealous. There is something unutterably rotten about the Garden State these days. Gordon Van Gilder is merely the latest victim.

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...transporting-antique-pistol-charles-c-w-cooke

 

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video Exonerates Man Set Up By Louisiana Cops And Prosecutors



If not for cell phone video, 47-year-old disabled veteran Douglas Dendinger could be going to prison — because of an apparent coordinated effort by Washington Parish, La. cops and prosecutors who falsely accused him of battery and witness intimidation.

http://news.yahoo.com/video-exonerates-man-set-louisiana-cops-prosecutors-video-202632601.html

 

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D.C. to pay $9.2 million in wrongful conviction: At 18, a young father was wrongfully convicted of raping & robbing a woman. He was raped repeatedly in prison and contracted HIV. He remained incarcerated for 20 years even after they found and convicted the actual criminal. (washingtonpost.com)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...4edaa6-beea-11e4-8668-4e7ba8439ca6_story.html

 

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New Doubts Raised Over Key Witness in Willingham Case
The Marshall Project
March 10, 2015

CORSICANA — More than a decade after Cameron Todd Willingham was executed for the arson murder of his three young daughters, new evidence has emerged that indicates that a key prosecution witness testified in return for a secret promise to have his own criminal sentence reduced.

In a previously undisclosed letter that the witness, Johnny E. Webb, wrote from prison in 1996, he urged the lead prosecutor in Willingham's case to make good on what Webb described as an earlier promise to downgrade his conviction. Webb also hinted that he might make his complaint public.

Within days, the prosecutor, John H. Jackson, sought out the Navarro County judge who had handled Willingham's case and came away with a court order that altered the record of Webb's robbery conviction to make him immediately eligible for parole. Webb would later recant his testimony that Willingham confessed to setting his house on fire with the toddlers inside.

Jackson's handling of the case is now under investigation by the State Bar of Texas, following a formal complaint of prosecutorial misconduct last summer. That grievance asked that Jackson be sanctioned or even prosecuted for falsifying official records, withholding evidence and obstructing justice.

On Monday, an attorney for Jackson said he expected the Texas bar to notify his client soon that it will pursue formal charges of misconduct. The attorney, Joseph E. Byrne, said Jackson would seek to have any such charges heard by a jury, as the bar rules allow.

Regardless of when Jackson would have learned of a possible deal, he would have been legally bound to disclose any such favorable treatment of a witness to the defense. For Willingham — who maintained his innocence until he was executed in 2004 — the revelation might have been sufficient grounds for a new trial.

To death penalty opponents, Willingham's case is among those that have come closest to proving for the first time in the modern era of capital punishment that an innocent person has been put to death in the United States.

In an e-mail, Byrne said he could not comment on any of the specific allegations against Jackson, because they involved pending litigation. But he added, "We are confident that a Texas jury who hears all of the evidence in this case will find that Mr. Jackson has done nothing inappropriate."

Jackson did not personally comment in response to e-mails or telephone calls requesting he address the matter.

Jackson has long denied that the state cut any sort of deal with Webb for his testimony. But Jackson recently amended his account, telling the Texas bar that he had intervened on Webb's behalf after Webb's attorney told Jackson in 1996 that she believed her client's conviction should have been for the lesser charge. Webb's attorney said she based this belief on her negotiations with Jackson's boss, the district attorney, Jackson said.

At the time of the fire that erupted in the small frame house Willingham shared with his wife and three daughters, he was 23 years old, an out-of-work car mechanic with a volatile marriage and a local reputation as something of a troublemaker. He said he awoke from a nap to find the home so filled with smoke and flames that he could not locate his sleeping children and was barely able to stumble out of the house alive.

Webb later said that while they both were being held in the Navarro County jail, Willingham spontaneously confessed to him that he had set the fire to cover up his wife's abuse of one of the girls. Autopsies of the girls showed no signs of abuse — but it was the strongest evidence the prosecution had other than the finding of arson by fire investigators. That finding has been discredited by a series of forensic experts.

In two days of interviews recently with the Marshall Project, Webb gave the most detailed account to date of how he came to testify against Willingham. He said that Jackson threatened him with a life sentence in the robbery case — a possibility under Texas law because Webb had several prior convictions — unless he testified.

"I did not want to see Willingham go to death row and die for something I damn well knew was a lie and something I didn't initiate," Webb said.

"I lied on the man because I was being forced by John Jackson to do so," Webb said. "I succumbed to pressure when I shouldn't have. In the end, I was told, 'You're either going to get a life sentence or you're going to testify.' He coerced me to do it."

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/03/10/more-questions-raised-cameron-todd-willingham-case/

 

[Dave70968]

What we really need is a law that sentences misbehaving prosecutors to the same punishment their victims get. Jackson committed murder, using the State as his weapon. He deserves the same fate.

 

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What we really need is a law that sentences misbehaving prosecutors to the same punishment their victims get. Jackson committed murder, using the State as his weapon. He deserves the same fate.

Jackson's handling of the case is now under investigation by the State Bar of Texas, following a formal complaint of prosecutorial misconduct last summer. That grievance asked that Jackson be sanctioned or even prosecuted for falsifying official records, withholding evidence and obstructing justice.

On Monday, an attorney for Jackson said he expected the Texas bar to notify his client soon that it will pursue formal charges of misconduct. The attorney, Joseph E. Byrne, said Jackson would seek to have any such charges heard by a jury, as the bar rules allow.

Regardless of when Jackson would have learned of a possible deal, he would have been legally bound to disclose any such favorable treatment of a witness to the defense. For Willingham — who maintained his innocence until he was executed in 2004 — the revelation might have been sufficient grounds for a new trial.

To death penalty opponents, Willingham's case is among those that have come closest to proving for the first time in the modern era of capital punishment that an innocent person has been put to death in the United States.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/03/10/more-questions-raised-cameron-todd-willingham-case/

 

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here's another one .. allegedly prosecutor knew about new information and accused rapist was innocent but decided to prosecute anyways ... http://newshustle.com/videogallery/...cause-woman-lied-about-rape-now-finally-free/

SAN DIEGO – Scott Espinosa was looking at 35 years in prison. He was convicted of six felonies, including rape by force, pimping and pandering. His victim initially told the police she was 14 years old, but she was not. In fact, police would later learn the woman was a 23-year-old at the time who had three children.

 

[Dave70968]

Jackson's handling of the case is now under investigation by the State Bar of Texas, following a formal complaint of prosecutorial misconduct last summer. That grievance asked that Jackson be sanctioned or even prosecuted for falsifying official records, withholding evidence and obstructing justice.

On Monday, an attorney for Jackson said he expected the Texas bar to notify his client soon that it will pursue formal charges of misconduct. The attorney, Joseph E. Byrne, said Jackson would seek to have any such charges heard by a jury, as the bar rules allow.

Regardless of when Jackson would have learned of a possible deal, he would have been legally bound to disclose any such favorable treatment of a witness to the defense. For Willingham - who maintained his innocence until he was executed in 2004 - the revelation might have been sufficient grounds for a new trial.

To death penalty opponents, Willingham's case is among those that have come closest to proving for the first time in the modern era of capital punishment that an innocent person has been put to death in the United States.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/03/10/more-questions-raised-cameron-todd-willingham-case/

I know he's being investigated, but he'll never be given a fitting punishment.

I stand by what I said: by withholding evidence, he used the state as an instrument of murder. He should be prosecuted for first-degree murder and sentenced accordingly.

 

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Texas Bar Charges Willingham Prosecutor with Misconduct
March 18, 2015

There’s been yet another blow to the case against Cameron Todd Willingham, the Texas man who was executed in 2004 for setting a fire that killed his three young daughters at their home.

This month, the State Bar of Texas formally accused the lead prosecutor of misconduct after an investigation requested by the Innocence Project. The filing, first reported by The Marshall Project, said that John H. Jackson knew about evidence that bolstered the case for Willingham’s innocence and kept it from his attorney.

“Before, during and after the 1992 trial, [Jackson] knew of the existence of evidence that tended to negate the guilt of Willingham and failed to disclose that evidence to defense counsel,” the bar said.

Specifically, the bar said that Jackson kept quiet about a deal he struck with his star witness: a prisoner named Johnny Webb, who testified that Willingham told him he had started the fire. Up until his death, Willingham had always maintained his innocence.

Webb recanted his statements about Willingham in 2000 and again last year, saying that Jackson encouraged him to lie on the stand in exchange for a shorter sentence and a prison transfer. Webb, who was facing a long sentence for robbery, said the prosecutor had convinced him that Willingham was guilty. He took the deal. As The Washington Post and The Marshall Project reported:

“‘Your story doesn’t have to match exactly’,” Webb said Jackson told him. “He says, ‘I want you to just say he put fires in the corners. I need you to be able to say that so we can convict him, otherwise we’re going to have a murderer running our streets.’”

In fact, Webb said, Willingham “never told me nothing.”

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/front...harges-willingham-prosecutor-with-misconduct/

 

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List of Offenders No Longer on Death Row in Texas .. amazing how many convictions were overturned considering these are death row inmates

http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/death_row/dr_offenders_no_longer_on_dr.html