In his Dec. 17 letter to the editor, State’s Atty. Richard Devine seems to be looking for pats on the back for admitting to past “errors” in getting people convicted who years later were fully exonerated. He refers specifically to two cases (the wrongful conviction of four young men in the 1986 rape and murder of Lori Roscetti, and DNA evidence that eventually exonerated Corethian Bell in the murder of his mother).
And we know there are many other examples.
To refer to these events as “errors” is a lot like calling Osama bin Laden a terrorist. While true, it certainly does not describe the full picture.
Devine further asks us to credit his assistants for figuring out that they should be careful when dealing with a suspect with a low IQ who has little evidence of violence in his record and when there is a lack of corroboration for the confession. These should all have been obvious signals. It should not have required the discovery that many innocent people have spent years in prison before the state’s attorney’s office leapt into action to take corrective measures.
His office’s failure to read these and many other signals at the outset is the result of incompetence and indifference to true justice, not merely the result of errors. Devine and his predecessors must own up to a lot more than a few mistakes.
