Any Updates on this can be found
at Patricks Link below.
at Patricks Link below.
Subj: [PRISONACT] PRESS RELEASE - The real cost of convicting the innocent
Date: 08/13/2003 7:48:16 AM Pacific Daylight Time
News Release
Contact: P.A.T.R.I.C.K. Crusade
For Immediate Release
August 8, 2003
Petition on Actual Innocence to be filed
August 8, 2003 -Mrs. Sherry Swiney, wife of Patrick Swiney, and Mr. Wilson Myers, Attorney at Law announced today that they will file a petition on actual innocence for Mr. Patrick Swiney who has been in prison for 14 years for a crime he did not commit.
Patrick Swiney's petition for freedom will be filed at the Columbiana Court House in Columbiana, Alabama at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, August 13, 2003.
Afterward there will be a press conference. Attorney Wilson Myers and members of the P.A.T.R.I.C.K. Crusade will be available for questions.
Because of Patrick's health condition, the family and friends of Patrick Swiney will be asking the honorable court in Columbiana to decide on this case as soon as possible.
THE REAL COST OF CONVICTING THE INNOCENT
Politicians around the country, and Alabama is no exception, focus a lot of public attention on procuring convictions in order to protect the public and lower the crime rate. Activist organizations shout about innocent people in prison and how it is "morally wrong" to sentence an innocent person to prison or death. What is the real cost to society when an innocent person is convicted?
There's an important point that is never voiced; that point should be a major concern to every citizen: when an innocent person is convicted of a crime a guilty person goes free. Prosecutors pat themselves on the back for procurement of a conviction; as well they should, as long as they have fulfilled a duty in enforcing the law and keeping the public safe. But if the hunger for a high conviction rate supercedes the public safety duty then taxpayers are being sold a bill of goods and paid employees of the State are not fulfilling the duty they are paid to fulfill.
Recently, the Innocence Project has, through DNA testing and subsequent litigation for death row inmates, proved that over 100 people were incarcerated under sentences of death and those people are actually innocent of any crime. More frequently than most would want to admit, innocent people are convicted of crimes. If the person convicted is not actually guilty then someone else is. The guilty person is beyond the clutches of law enforcement while police and prosecutors work to build a viable case against an innocent person. In the cases overturned by the Innocence Project, we know that over 100 guilty people remain free to continue to commit crimes and victimize others.
Police, prosecutors, and the courts receive compensation in the form of tax dollars to do one thing: enforce the law. But the current political aim to procure convictions doesn't make the public safer when the "conviction hunger" outweighs the care that should be taken to convict only the guilty. Law enforcement and the courts have a great deal of power; the taxpayers gave that power to them. With that power comes a duty to do the job of apprehending and convicting those persons who are guilty. We do not pay our tax dollars to procure convictions so that District Attorneys, police, and judges have secure jobs. We pay "protection" and our concern is for our own safety.
Police are human, prosecutors are human, judges are human, juries are human; they all make mistakes; that is an irrefutable fact. But that doesn't excuse the mistakes. The duty inherent in these positions of power means that human error must be mitigated in order to protect and serve the public. Its time the citizens of Alabama demanded that duty be fulfilled.
