aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Report: Most Georgia police have no eyewitness guidelines
Not exactly surprising, the findings will be presented at a legislative hearing tomorrow at the state Capitol in Atlanta:
Hundreds of law enforcement agencies in Georgia have no specific guidelines governing the collection of eyewitness evidence, according to a preliminary report from the Georgia Innocence Project.
Eighty-three percent of the 296 police agencies surveyed by the group reported no written rules on the handling of eyewitness identification, the group found. [...]
The Georgia Innocence Project, which was involved in the cases of three of the men cleared in Georgia, has been pushing for uniformity and higher standards for the ID process. The group argues that witnesses are not intentionally fabricating information but that human memory is fallible.
The group compiled its report after sending open records requests to 500 law enforcement agencies throughout Georgia. Of those, 130 failed to respond. The group has analyzed 296 of the responses received so far. [...]
Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, an Atlanta Democrat, fought to pass an eyewitness ID bill last year. But opposition by prosecutors brought the measure to a standstill.
Prosecutors have also been key to the funding cuts for pubic defenders. Last year pay was cut for lawyers who represent indigents facing capital charges and then in May 41 full-time jobs - 12 percent of the work force - were eliminated.
Last week several human rights organizations demanded the state increase spending for public defenders. Maggie reminds us “the prosecution spends money, too. For every defense expert, there’s probably another prosecution expert. It goes both ways.”
She also points to this letter from the director and the state strategy coordinator of the A.C.L.U.’s Capital Punishment Project published in the NYTimes Friday:
Georgia’s refusal to adequately fund the defense of capital cases is not an isolated incident. In fact, numerous studies have reported the same failure in the vast majority of death penalty states.
The problem is particularly acute in “the death belt,” which includes Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Missouri, and now (once again) Georgia, among others.
Inadequate funding means inadequate legal representation and unfair trials. The climbing number of exonerations of innocent people makes it painfully clear that substandard representation is unacceptable.
LATER: GPB takes note and Maggie has details.
