Voices
Anderson pled to criminal contempt, and will have to give up his
law license, perform 500 hours of
community service, and spend 10
days in jail. Anderson had already
resigned in September from his
position on the Texas bench.
What makes this plea newsworthy is not that Anderson engaged in misconduct that sent an
innocent man to prison. Indeed,
while most prosecutors and police
officers are ethical and take their
constitutional obligations seriously, government misconduct
— including disclosure breaches
known as Brady violations — occurs so frequently that it has become one of the chief causes of
wrongful conviction.
What’s newsworthy and novel
about this plea is that a prosecutor
was actually punished in a meaningful way for his transgressions.
I give speeches about the Innocence Movement, and tell stories from real cases, all around
the world. No matter where I am,
when I finish speaking the first
question usually is, “What happened to the police/prosecutors
who did this to the poor guy?”
The answer is almost always,
“Nothing,” or worse, “The police
officer was promoted and now is
MARK
GODSEY
HUFFINGTON
11.24-12.01.13
the chief of his department.” The
adage that the powerful go unpunished is no truer or more visible
than with police officers and prosecutors in America — even when
they send innocent people to prison from their misconduct.
My client Roger Dean Gillispie
of Dayton, Ohio, for example,
spent 20 years in prison as a result of police misconduct. In
2007, we presented overwhelm-
The adage that the
powerful go unpunished
is no truer or more visible
than with police officers
and prosecutors in America.”
ing evidence that the police officers, like Anderson in the Morton
case, failed to turn over evidence
to the defense before trial that
would have cleared Gillispie. We
also supplied the court with evidence that the police officer in
charge had harassed and intimidated witnesses helpful to the
defense, and had manipulated the
evidence. Before going to court to
clear Gillispie, we met with the local prosecutors, hopeful that they
wouldn’t tolerate such misconduct