Entries tagged with “Rolando Cruz”
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Jan 19, 2018
“Innocence Deniers” and Coercive Plea Agreements Impede Death-Row Exonerations Across the U.S.
A prosecutor’s duty, the U.S. Supreme Court wrote in 1935, “is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done.” Yet prosecutors across the U.S. have refused to acknowledge the innocence of defendants who have been wrongfully convicted, obstructing release by retrying death-sentenced defendants despite exonerating evidence, or conditioning their release upon “Alford pleas,” which force defendants to choose between clearing their names or obtaining their freedom. In an article for…