DNA exonerations are best when they happen before the conviction
I focus quite a bit on the negative, the unethical things that some prosecutors do to win their cases, but I need to give credit where credit is due. In a recent case in Florence, S.C., in 2000, two brothers were accused of shooting a corrections officer in a convenience store during a robbery. In 2005, they went to trial on charges of assault and battery with intent to kill, conspiracy, and possession of a weapon during a violent crime; they were found guilty of the conspiracy and weapon charge but the jury could not reach a verdict on the ABWIK charge. The only evidence was the testimony of two jailhouse snitches who were looking for deals from the prosecutor. The brothers were sentenced to five years.
The solicitor waited until they were to be released from prison, and then decided to retry the brothers on the ABWIK charge; and at this point my firm became involved. While investigating the case, I discovered that there was clothing that had been discarded by the robbers/shooters at the crime scene, including a hat that hairs had been recovered from, that the hairs had been tested by a DNA lab, and that the results conclusively excluded the two brothers. This evidence had never been provided to the original defense attorneys, and the first jury had never seen it.
There are two sides to this story - the original prosecutor either deliberately withheld this evidence or handled the case in such an incompetent manner that he honestly did not know that it existed; and the decision to retry the case after the defendants were to be released from prison I believe was underhanded and distasteful.
The other side to this story is that the new prosecutor who was assigned to the case for the re-trial, when he discovered what had happened in the case, immediately understood that an injustice had occurred and that the remaining charges needed to be dismissed. Although it took a few more days for the powers-that-be in that solicitor's office to get on board, my hat is off to the prosecutor who signed the paperwork dismissing the remaining charge and releasing the defendants from custody. Although they can never give them back the years that they served in prison following the first trial, many prosecutors would have continued to hide the evidence and would have refused to admit that their office had made a mistake; those defendants could have gone to trial and could have been sentenced to an additional 20 years for a crime that they did not commit.
