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Originally Posted by OpieCunningham
smooth - that's very interesting, thanks.
Question - what if we throw death row into the mix? how are the numbers you presented changed? is dna evidence easier to present or bring to appeal?
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I believe approx 3500 inmates currently sit on deathrow.
As far as I know, their appeals are held to the same standards as regular appeals--but I think many states have various other types of review processes to review petitions in order to reduce the load on the courts.
What we have in the "appellate court" system is a very stringent processes whereby clerks and such scan the documents before they hit the desks. In the states I have looked at (the west), cases are usually AWOP'ed (affirmed without opinion). That seems to be like a rubber stamp. No matter anyway, the court can not review a question of fact--the fact finder is either the judge (a bench trial) or a jury (trial by peers).
Once a piece of evidence is reviewed by the fact finder, it can never be reviewed again as a question of fact. In my current view, this is one of the most fallable pieces of our system--but I may not know enough to appreciate why this is best. It could be as simple as cost and time.
Most appeals are frivolous. That's not to say that they don't have an issue to any regular joe. But when we hear about these types of appeals we think the petitioner is just bogging down the system. That occurs. But even an issue that we might consider viable would not be if it wasn't objected to during trial and preserved for the record.
For example, if an officer searches a house, that search is subject to scrutiny as to whether it was legal. If the defense never raises the question, that search can never be questioned in any other appeal court. If the judge won't hear an objection to the search, an attorney can preserve the error on record ("I object"). The appeal court will then look at the record in the "light most favorable to the prosection" (remember, the case has been 'proven' so the appelant is on the lower end of the stick now) and decides whether: a) the judge erred in judgement as to whether the search objection should have been heard and b) whether the error materially adversely affected the case (although, nothing in the record, since the objection wasn't heard, would allow an appeal judge to make such a distinction). There is no other way to put this than to say this is an intentionally fucking incredible bar to overcome.
The appeal of the appeal then goes to the State Supremes. They look to see whether the lower court erred in it's judgement (not the trial court, that's been decided --> they review whether the appeal process was adhered to proceduraly). After they seal the case, and only after the appelant has "exhausted all state remedies" can the convicted appeal to the Feds--and only if a federal rule has been broken. Usually effectiveness of council or illegal incarceration. We are now in the process about 2-3 years at this point.
The feds started new timelines to ease the pressure on the court load. At the time I was most interested in seeing an appeal go through
, the timeline was 2 years of inactivity. As long as an action was pending, the clock stops. In between filings, it runs. Not very many people make the cut, and their appeal stops at the state supreme. The vast majority just get the hell out of prison by then, actually, and their case is rendered moot by the court.
For the few that make the cut, the entire process is repeated at the fed level--except for one big difference. Their is no Supreme Court for federal cases except if one is granted certiori. Appeal is not automatic--the Judges decide on a case-by-case basis which one they will review. We might be around the 10 year mark by now, btw. Most convicted are at or near release.
One procedure puts an interesting twist in this whole mix. It's called post-conviction relief. It was initially designed to ease the pressure off the courts (realize the trend here?). It's a lateral court procedure that is equavalent to a trial court. It's in here that new evidence
can be introduced. It's also a twister in that the entire process of appeals start over--a very difficult deal if one wants to get their case out of the local boys and into the federal lap.
So here's the processs again:
Trial --> Appeal (no evidentiary reivew--strictly whether the court procedures were adhered to) --> Supreme Court Appeal (no evidentiary review--strictly whether the appellate procedures were adhered to) --> Post-conviction relief (evidentiary hearing; but no jury, claimant is currently in custody and no right to dress in plains clothes or gather evidence) --> Appeal the post-conviction (no evidentiary review) --> Supreme Court review of the appellate review of the post-conviction process (no evidentiary review) -->
If still in custody, and if someone still has some of that 2 year clock left to tick --> Habeas Corpus --> Federal Appeal --> Petition for certiori
Now, how this differs in capital punishment is that their appeals are pumped through quicker because their life is literally on the line. I think some courts have set up special appeal channels to deal with the crush, but I don't really know. I'd have to ask some buddies who specifically study death row convictions.
I can say this though: in no instance is DNA evidence easy to bring into the mix. After the initial trial, the petitioner loses all claim to innocence. He or she has been declard guilty and no amount of legal wrangling will undo that. Any and all considerations or analysis is done at the pure mercy of the court. AFAIK, there is no right to appeal except as laid down by states--and I'm not sure of any states that explicitly set down a right to appeal without looking it up.
As a society, we don't care about the welfare of our prisoners, largely based on the myth that they are coddled and have more 'rights' than the victims. We care even less about convicted murderers.
A judge who deals with such people day in and day out is going to care even less. In the face of public outcry to reduce expenses of the criminal justice system, their job is to get the body out of the court ASAP without a lenghty, expensive procedure--no matter at what point in that process I outlined. They also aren't likely to think the person could be there on accident. They, like the public, look at that long line of bureaucracy as a method that legitimizes the process. After all, wouldn't someone have caught a mistake in all of that?
All of these factors come into play when we ask ourselves why a lower judge wouldn't let new evidence into consideration when a convicted murderer is requesting a review.
I guess the larger question is: who cares?
I mean, who really cares about those 3500 people? How do we find the few innocent people in there without unraveling our judicial processes and opening a flood of appeals based on requests to hear new evidence? We can't even adequately handle the flow of appeals now--let alone if people could raise new issues every few years.
Oh shit, I forgot to mention a possibly critical stat: just over 90% of cases never go to trial--they are settled by plea. There is no appeal to plea. I mean, people appeal it because that's what they do. But no action is ever given to people who plea out. And if they did somehow win, they'd have to face the original charges that were dropped during the plea process.
I can't stress this enough:
Our courts are working at over capacity and they don't even have trials for less than 10% of the cases that come before them.
I realize that didn't really answer your question directly. But hopefully you can dig some insight into the context of how these issues are played out from that mess I wrote.