That's the title of an editorial in today's Dallas Morning News, a follow-up on Diane Jennings revisiting of the Chris Ochoa & Richard Danziger exonerations. LINK
The Christopher Ochoa case should be required reading for state lawmakers – and for anyone who thinks the criminal justice system is ever good enough.
It wasn't good enough for Mr. Ochoa. It wasn't good enough to avert the cruel irony that he went to prison based on his own false confession.
The portrait of the senseless Ochoa case, as depicted in an article by Dallas Morning News reporter Diane Jennings, illustrates how illusory justice can be.
As if plucked out of thin air, a 22-year-old Mr. Ochoa ended up in an Austin police interrogation room in connection with a brutal rape and murder in 1988.
The hammer used by police, in hours of questioning over two days, was the threat of a death sentence. That produced a convenient plea deal for detectives under pressure to solve the crime.
Pliable and confused, Mr. Ochoa gave a statement incorporating details fed by detectives. In return for a life sentence, he even implicated an acquaintance and helped put him in prison, as well.
Mr. Ochoa's 12 years behind bars is dwarfed as an injustice by the fate of his co-defendant, who left prison brain damaged as a result of an attack by another inmate.
And:
It's outrageous that Texas House members have blocked legislation that would form a commission to analyze such shameful wrongful convictions and recommend improvements, even state standards.
The jury system has no equal in the search for justice and truth. But there's no excuse for not trying to make it better yet.
The post linking Jennings two articles, as well as earlier coverage, is here.
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