The “Definition of Moral Turpitude Act” passed both houses of the Alabama state legislature this week, and now goes to the governor for signature. The bill re-defines the term “moral turpitude” as it is used in the state constitution, which prohibits any person convicted of a felony of moral turpitude  from voting. Currently the term is loosely interpreted as referring to every felony but a list of five that includes driving under the influence and aiding and abetting. Under the new definition, the term would refer to less than 50 specific felonies that would disqualify a person from exercising his or her right to vote.

By redefining “moral turpitude,” the bill would effectively restore “thousands” of felons’ right to vote.

The new draft Model Penal Code of the American Law Institute calls for the the systematic collection and understanding about the collateral consequences of criminal convictions, so that counsel, courts, defendants, and the public can easily access information regarding the full consequences of conviction.

The proposal would require a sentencing commission to collect and maintain information on all collateral consequences as defined, whether mandatory or discretionary, and to make that information accessible to the public. It would also require the commission to regularly maintain and publish a summary, making it a reliable and easily accessible resource for individuals and their lawyers at every stage of a criminal prosecution, from charging through sentencing:

§ 6x.02. Sentencing Guidelines and Collateral Consequences.

(1) As part of the sentencing guidelines, the sentencing commission [or other designated agency] shall compile, maintain, and publish a compendium of all collateral consequences contained in [the jurisdiction’s] statutes and administrative regulations.

(a) For each crime contained in the criminal code, the compendium shall set forth all collateral consequences authorized by [the jurisdiction’s] statutes and regulations, and by federal law.

(b) The commission [or designated agency] shall ensure the compendium is kept current.

(2) The sentencing commission shall provide guidance for courts considering petitions for orders of relief from mandatory collateral consequences under §§ 6x.04 and 6x.05.  The commission’s guidance shall take into account the extent to which a mandatory consequence is substantially related to the elements and facts of an offense and likely to impose a substantial and unjustified burden on a defendant’s reintegration.

It’s hard to get accountability for prosecutorial misconduct.

Previous posts on this blog have discussed the case of Cameron Willingham, a Texas man who was executed on Feb. 17, 2004 for setting a fire that killed his daughters on Dec. 23, 1991 in their Corsicana, Texas home. The prosecution’s case against him was two-pronged—testimony by fire investigators that their analysis of the fire debris showed the blaze was deliberately set and Webb’s assertion that Willingham had confessed.

Weeks before the execution, an independent fire expert concluded there was no evidence the fire was deliberately set.Over the next decade numerous experts also reached the same conclusion.

As to the confession, the prosecutor, John Jackson, had not disclosed to Willingham’s defense lawyers that jailhouse snitch Johnny Webb had been promised favorable treatment on an aggravated robbery conviction in return for testimony at Willingham’s trial. Webb later recanted his testimony.

The Texas State Bar charged the prosecutor with making false statements, concealing evidence favorable to Willingham’s defense and obstructing justice. After a trial of more than two weeks, a Texas jury on Wednesday found that former state prosecutor John Jackson had not committed misconduct.

Withholding evidence that is favorable to a defendant, whether it is evidence of innocence or evidence that undercuts a prosecution witness such as Webb, is one of the most common acts of prosecutorial misconduct. The National Registry of Exonerations reports that official misconduct, which includes misconduct by prosecutors, police and other government officials, has been a contributing factor in about half of the wrongful convictions in the Registry.

The United States Commission on Civil Rights is holding a hearing on May 19th in Washington, D.C. entitled Collateral Consequences: The Crossroads of Punishment, Redemption, and the Effects on Communities. The hearing be live-streamed here. Testimony of speakers will also be posted on the Commission’s website.

The official agenda includes:

• Research and data to provide evidence of collateral consequences and the extent to which these barriers affect reentry to society;

• The extent to which racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by these consequences;

• The extent to which states and the federal government have addressed these issues.

The Commission on Civil Rights’ mission is “to inform the development of national civil rights policy and enhance enforcement of federal civil rights laws.”

A “colossal screw-up” is the description in this NPR story about Reddy Annappareddy, the owner of a pharmacy delivery business who was convicted in 2014 of fraud, billing government health insurance programs for expensive prescription pills to treat HIV and cancer that customers never received. The only problem: he didn’t do it. Amongst other misconduct, the prosecution presented false evidence, claiming millions of dollars in losses, when in fact there was a a surplus (government experts had double counted and made other basic mistakes); subpoenaing records from the wrong telecommunications provider; and destroying evidence in the form of delivery signature logs that showed that patients had in fact received prescriptions where one of the main prosecution claims in the case was that they were not.

On appeal, Judge George Russell found the government team had violated Annappareddy’s right to due process. He said the conduct by federal prosecutors and agents “does shock the conscience of this court.” And he dismissed the prosecution with prejudice, meaning the Justice Department could not bring the case again.

The Justice Department has an Office of Professional Responsibility that investigates misconduct. According to the Department, between 2014 and 2016, the OPR closed 71 cases. Fifty of them resulted in findings of intentional misconduct or bad judgment.

A Chicago man sentenced to life in prison for a double-murder conviction will be freed this Wednesday. The conviction, 24 years ago, was based on faulty expert testimony and a “confession” that the defendant, Adam Grey – then a juvenile – argued was coerced.

Here is how Adam described the confession:

“…after six hours of interviews, Detective Crescenzo came in and spoke to him alone. “He said, ‘Look, man, I believe you, I believe that you didn’t have anything to do with it. The only way you’re going to get out of it is if you basically say that you did it,’” Gray said. “So I said, ‘OK, I did it.’”

As for the arson evidence, the Appellate Court of Illinois granted a joint motion to drop the indictment against Gray on the basis that:

“Following a thorough, independent investigation, the Cook County State’s Attorney has concluded that Mr. Gray’s 1996 convictions were based on flawed trial testimony from purported experts in the field of fire investigation and are no longer valid,”

“Scientific advances since the time of trial have proven that the fire investigators’ testimonies — while based on beliefs that were widely held in 1996 — were erroneous under current scientific knowledge,”

In a case where an innocent man was convicted – and executed – in a case based on junk science and incentivized snitch testimony, the prosecutor himself is now facing charges brought by the State Bar of Texas. The prosecutor, John Jackson – later a judge – is charged with violating basic legal ethics in connection with his conduct in the death penalty trial of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was convicted and ultimately executed for what the state insists was the December 1991 arson-murder of his three young children in the home they shared just over a mile away.

The junk science was the “expert” testimony about the fire: there is now little question that the fire that killed Willingham’s children was not arson. The state in the original case claimed the fire was caused by Willingham spreading lighter fluid around his house and setting it ablaze. Leading fire scientists have weighed in to say that the evidence the Corsicana Fire Department and Texas fire marshal investigator relied upon in fingering Willingham as the cause of the deadly blaze was based on outdated, discredited fire-science folklore.

The snitch testimony: prosecutor Jackson called a man named Johnny Webb to testify at Willingham’s 1992 trial to say that while he was locked up in the county jail on an aggravated robbery charge, his fellow inmate, Willingham, randomly, and in detail, confessed to Webb his alleged crime. Under questioning by Jackson, Webb asserted that he did not expect any benefit in exchange for his incriminating testimony.

In the years since Willingham’s 2004 execution, significant evidence has come to light indicating that was untrue. Records amassed by the bar association and the Innocence Project — including lengthy correspondence between Jackson and Webb spanning roughly a decade — strongly suggest not only that it was at least implied to Webb that he would receive a reduced sentence for his testimony, but also that Jackson went to great lengths to make that happen. Moreover, Webb now insists that his trial testimony was false and compelled by Jackson.