Murder charge dismissed – A case of Mistaken Identification
The Shreveport Times is reporting today about the dismissal of murder charges against our client, Michael Madden. You can read the article at The Times or download the pdf here. For a year Michael Madden sat in the Bossier Parish Detention Center accused of a crime he did not commit. Michael is at home now with his family and we are honored to have been able to represent him. Every year over 750,000 people are arrested based on their identification in a police line-up, photo array or show-up. Although we have known about the problems with eyewitness identification for decades, there has been little change in the legal system or in police practices to prevent mistaken identification and the miscarriages of justice that flow from them. As a result mistaken eyewitness testimony remains the leading cause of wrongful convictions. According to the Innocence Project—Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in nearly 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing. In 1998, then Attorney General Janet Reno sought to deal with the inherent problems of Eyewitness Evidence and appointed a number of prosecutors, police officers, defense lawyers, and psychologists to work under the auspices of the United States Department of Justice and the National Institute of Justice to address the problem. This Technical Working Group authored Eyewitness Evidence: A Guide for Law Enforcement, National Inst. of Justice, U.S. Dept. of Justice (Oct. 1999) and Eyewitness Evidence: A Trainer’s Manual for Law Enforcement. These publications set out guidelines and best practices for the conduct of lineups and photo-arrays. Nationwide, many police departments have adopted these as standard practices. Sadly however, many police officers and agencies in our community and throughout Louisiana remain totally unfamiliar with these documents and the guidelines and best practices they...
read moreYour DNA is not as Private as you think. Supreme Court decides Police can take DNA from anyone they arrest.
Share The United States Supreme Court was divided sharply, but nonetheless decided that the police may now take a sample of your DNA should you be arrested for anything. It is a decision that many are characterizing as a monumental and dangerous loss of privacy and liberty. In an article from the BBC, two legal experts debate the Supreme Court’s decision that police may routinely collect DNA samples during arrests to help solve old cases. You can read the entire case on the Supreme Court’s website here. Tell us what you think. Should the government be able to collect your DNA just because you have been arrested even though you have not been convicted and even when it is not necessary to collect as evidence of the crime for which you have been arrested? ...
read more50 Years after Gideon v Wainwright the HBO Documentary Gideon’s Army outlines America’s Broken Criminal Justice System
Gideon’s Army is the HBO documentary outlining the struggles of everyday hardworking Public Defenders in the Deep South. The movie is being featured at numerous film festivals across the country. The official website devoted to the film provides the following synopsis . . . GIDEON’S ARMY follows the personal stories of Travis Williams, Brandy Alexander and June Hardwick, three young public defenders who are part of a small group of idealistic lawyers in the Deep South challenging the assumptions that drive a criminal justice system strained to the breaking point. Backed by mentor Jonathan “Rap” Rapping, a charismatic leader who heads the Southern Public Defender Training Center (now known as Gideon’s Promise), they struggle against long hours, low pay and staggering caseloads so common that even the most committed often give up in their first year. Nearly 50 years since the landmark Supreme Court ruling Gideon vs. Wainwright that established the right to counsel, can these courageous lawyers revolutionize the way America thinks about indigent defense and make “justice for all” a reality? Sometimes those of us in Louisiana forget that we too live in the “Deep South.” I know it is fashionable to focus on injustice in the broken criminal justice systems in places like Atlanta and New Orleans. But the truth is our system is just as flawed and our Public Defenders are under the same pressures as those depicted here....
read moreA Talk about Injustice
I have been speaking on this very same subject and making these very same points for many years, but no where near so eloquently as Bryan Stevenson in this amazing TED talk....
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