"Ending the pursuit of an innocent man," is the editorial in today's Virginian-Pilot.
In 2001, aggressive Prince William County prosecutors concealed critical evidence that would have helped Justin Michael Wolfe's defense against a murder charge. They withheld eight pieces of material evidence, persuaded the real killer to implicate Wolfe to get a lighter sentence, then argued successfully to put 19-year-old Wolfe on death row.
On Thursday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals documented the behavior by prosecutors and police. The court upheld a federal judge's decision to vacate Wolfe's convictions and death sentence.
Rather than seek a rehearing in federal court or a retrial in Prince William County, the state should stop its years-long persecution of Wolfe and set him free.
And:
A police report, hidden from Wolfe's attorneys until a judge forced disclosure years later, shows that a detective planted the idea that Barber could finger Wolfe as the one who ordered the killing. In exchange for his testimony, the detective said, Barber - who actually pulled the trigger - might avoid the death penalty.
It's unconscionable that the public safety officials who are supposed to seek justice on behalf of Virginians have done so much to prevent attorneys, judges, a jury - and the man whose life was on the line - from seeing all the evidence.
Wolfe, now 31, came within two weeks of being executed in 2005.
The editorial also calls for Virginia to abolish capital punishment:
The 11-year hell that Wolfe and his family - and the family of Petrole, who was 21 when he was gunned down - have endured is one more example of why Virginia should stop sentencing people to die. The chance of making an error, of killing an innocent, is too great.
Earlier coverage of Justin Wolfe's case begins at the link. Related posts are in the prosecutorial misconduct category index.
The responsibility of the state to provide exculpatory evidence to the defense was articulated in the 1963 Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland; more via Oyez.
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