Is there really truth and justice for all?

How often is an innocent person found guilty of a crime they did not commit?

If you had asked me this question in 2005, I would have said, not many, only because I was uneducated.

Now after specializing as a Criminal Defense Investigator for the past decade my response is a complete 360. Not because the accused are my clients, but because I am now more educated and have firsthand knowledge and experience with freeing the innocent after being wrongly accused.

The National Registry of Exonerations reported; “There were fewer exonerations in 2017 than in 2016, 139 compared to 171. The decline is due entirely to a decrease in cases from one county: a backlog of drug possession cases from Harris County, Texas, that has been largely cleared after three years—which makes the long-term upward trend in exonerations clearer.”

Prior to 2017, three years in a row the number of exonerations in the United States were at record highs. The National Registry of Exonerations reported “Eighty-four exonerations in 2017 involved official misconduct—a record number.”

The number of wrongly accused / convicted is even greater than what the National Registry produces when you include all of the different ways that criminal charges are dropped or reversed. The actual number of innocent people that are treated as guilty after being charged with a crime and incarcerated while awaiting trial or after already being convicted is so high, I could only wish that these true statistics were available for us to use to educate the general public. It is difficult to track these statistics as you would need to include, exonerations, not guilty verdicts after a conviction through an appeal or post-conviction relief act, nolle prossed, dismissed, judgment of acquittal and those that end up making a deal (proffer) while being held during trial or already convicted and decide to provide new information to law enforcement.

I am not new to solving murders as I first assisted the New York Police Department in identifying and convicting a murderer in 1994 while working a Loss Prevention Manager for a major retail company.

On an average month I am involved with over 5 – 10 cases where I am requested to provide criminal defense investigations. I understand that not all of them are innocent. In fact, many are not, but through good ole’ detective work, I uncover every stone searching for the facts! What the facts identify is what they identify. My goal is to provide my clients with their 6th amendment right.

Compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor – 6th Amendment. This is lacking in the United States and treats the accused as guilty while they sit in prison waiting for their trial, sometimes this process takes years.

To put some of this in perspective, in the past 17 months, from November 2016 to the present (April 2018) I have had the opportunity as an investigator to help prove that 3 different defendants did not commit the murder they were accused of, 2 defendants who were wrongly accused of rape and 1 for distributing drugs. There are many more that I am currently investigating and look forward to uncovering the truth, not always what the prosecution wants to hear or believe.

Homicide Case # 1:

A high-profile case in a large city in Pennsylvania, was accused of fatally stabbing the deceased. My client spent almost 18 months in jail awaiting his trial. During my investigation and after meetings with the ADA, all murder charges were dropped, and he was free to go, after his trial. Just prior to the trial, the ADA, asked me “Can I get a copy of all of your notes as I know you talked to more people than we did?” Really, between the homicide detectives and the district attorney detectives, they didn’t have the time or resources to conduct a thorough investigation?

Homicide Case # 2:

In March of 2016 another client had a trial who was also accused of murder and spent 17 months in jail awaiting his trial. I took several statements from the actual witnesses who had personally told me that my client was not the shooter and who was. There was such overwhelming evidence that at the time of the trial, the charges were withdrawn.

Homicide Case # 3:

What later turned out to be a co-defendant of case # 2, went to trial in 2018 after being on house arrest after making bail. At his trail, using the same evidence from case # 2, the Defense Attorney made a motion for a judgment of acquittal, which was granted by the judge.

There are several more active cases that I am working on and look forward to sharing their outcomes in the future. Especially a death row case that I have been working on for over 5 years. I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is innocent based on facts uncovered. I interviewed multiple witnesses that provide an alibi, even the states own witness, described someone else not my client who has been in prison for over a decade. During the course of my investigation, I have identified the true killer. We uncovered detectives who perjured themselves on the stand, local police using federal subpoenas, the list goes on. Once this is proven in court, I will look forward to discussing this in more detail. The shame of this is there is no sense of urgency with the PCRA unit or the judge. My question / concern with this, is do they really want to know the truth? If so, why do they not read what the defense sends them? Why do they continue to delay and push back hearing after hearing? Who polices the 6th amendment for the innocent? What if they don’t have the funds or the innocent project does not select their case? How does America fix this epidemic?

Drug Case:

My client was in jail for over 5 years after being charged with numerous charges of intent to distribute, illegal firearm, etc. etc. He did not trust lawyers he had previously retained to defend him and had to deal with dishonest police. I was one of the few who believed in his innocence and was able to prove that he was not at the crime scene the day that the detectives alleged they witnessed him selling drugs to their informant as well as an invalid search warrant. The morning of his trial, I had the opportunity to meet with the ADA and the judge in his chambers to discuss the evidence I had identified. At that time the judge’s recommendation was to nolle the case (drop all charges). He would have walked free that moment, if he wasn’t being held for a rape charge, that was signed against him a year after his incarceration.

Rape Case # 1:

My client was Pro Se and served over 5 years in prison during the long process of proving his innocence in both his rape and drug case (See above drug case).

Again, my client insisted upon his innocence and did not trust the legal system or defense attorneys as he had a bad experience previously. We spent 2 or 3 years working on both of his cases. His Rape trial lasted almost 3 weeks and after the jury took a day in a half to deliberate he was found not guilty of all charges associated with his rape case.

Rape Case # 2:

My investigative services were requested by a Missouri State Public Defense Investigator who was working on the defense team for a man accused of rape in Missouri. The alleged victim was a previous resident of Pennsylvania. I provided what was needed from Pennsylvania by interviewing various fact witnesses.

In March of 2018, he was found not guilty of all charges.

During the past 17 months, at trial, 5 people who wrongfully served time in prison, time they will never get back, were exonerated in their own way.

Why, why does this occur?

Does our legal system, really care? Is it fair? There are issues that need to be fixed. How many other major cities like Philadelphia distribute a list amongst their district attorneys of police officers and detectives that should not be called to testify? The list exists. “On March 5, 2017, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office (“DOA”) released a “Do not call list” to the Defender Association of Philadelphia” The list that was turned over to the Defender Association was the updated list as of January 3, 2018.” The “do not call” list is a list of 30 Philadelphia Police Officers that the DOA refuses without explicit permission form the Deputy District Attorney to call to the witness stand to testify because of allegations of misconduct.”[i] These are the unfortunate small minority of men and women in blue who dishonor their brothers and sisters in uniform. Not all are bad. However, there are too many that are and that contributes to the wrongful convictions. If there are only 30 bad apples out of 6,300 officers is that OK? If each of the 30 bad apples were responsible for 1 wrongful arrest each year for 10 years, that would equate to 300 wrongful charges / convictions, that is just one city.

Once charged or convicted it is so hard to right the wrong. I have witnessed first hand assistant district attorneys tell my client to lie, to make up a story. I watch the district attorneys in the PCRA unit not care, not read what was sent to them by the opposing counsel, standing around the courtroom wasting tax payer’s money. Where are the judges during this time? Court is supposed to start at 9 AM. 10:00 AM in the morning and the complete court staff is still standing around, maybe rescheduling the cases, only prolonging possible reversals of guilt. I once counted 5 PCRA ADA’s in one courtroom for over an hour lollygagging in conversation, a staff of 4 court employees, one court reporter and the sheriff’s officers just standing around waiting for direction, on, if and when to bring a defendant into the courtroom. My guess this was about $200,000 - $300,000 in payroll for one hour on one day of the week doing nothing. Do the math on that. Can the system be more productive, if this was a business owner, how would he fix this? Terminations, micro manage, more supervision / accountability? During this same hour the defendant is paying his attorney, his investigator and any experts their hourly rates with money that they pulled together from various family members. Does this seem fair to you? It is not fair, Not only to the defendant, but all of us as tax payers.

I have personally observed lackadaisical detective work, corruption, falsely accused defendants and a judicial system that does not care nor provide oversight to their staff or budget. The case loads are overwhelming high for both the homicide detectives and the District Attorney’s office that contribute to corners being cut at the expense of the innocent and the tax payer.

I will be the first to say that the guilty should be punished, if you can’t do the time, then don’t do the crime! A well said phrase from a TV theme song of a detective show from years ago.

A current casefile that I am working on, the defendant was convicted years ago and still claims to be innocent. I interviewed the victim who was shot a few times. He informed me via an affidavit, that the defendant did not do it. He was coerced to say that he did. When it was in the trial stage, he walked out of the courtroom with plans not to testify against the defendant as he was not the shooter. The ADA, sent the police after him and said if you do not return to court and testify we are going to arrest you. So, he did out of duress and fear. Fast forward and he still claims that my client was not the shooter, but he refuses to go to court to testify because of fear they will not believe him and charge him with perjury and send him back to jail. He offered to provide a verbal statement via video where he addressed the judge directly in the video stating all the facts and that my client was not the person who shot him. He described how he was treated and how he was forced to testify during the trial. This video was shared with the PCRA ADA and the judge. We requested that he be guaranteed immunity, so he would not be fearful of coming in to now tell the truth. They refused, as a layperson, why do they make it so difficult to right the wrong? Don’t they want the truth to be heard?

He has no reason to lie. He feels guilty that the wrong person is behind bars. He saw the actual shooter a year and a half ago on the streets, so the true criminal is still at large while the innocent is locked up in cage and no one will allow the truth to prevail. Isn’t that what we all want to happen? Do we want to incarcerate the innocent and let the guilty walk free? Let us see this playing field evened out. This should not be about who won in the 9th inning or the Hail Mary that was thrown with 5 seconds left in the 4th quarter. Both sides should want the victory and in the judicial system it should be that the “TRUTH” is the victory!

I have another case, where the victim was shot 13 times. He was in the hospital for months and will never be the same. I spoke to a witness who was never questioned by the police. She knew who the true shooters were, and my client was not even at the scene. I re-interviewed the victim. During the interview I showed him a few pictures. One of them was my client who he had testified previously that he was the person who shot him. While looking at the picture he pondered and then asked me who it was. I told him the person you testified that shot you. It was clear he was confused who was who and he had the wrong names of the players involved in the home invasion / shooting.

Where else is there room for improvement: Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA).

Pennsylvania state law and federal laws both give a convicted defendant the right to file appeals based on a variety of reasons. One method of appeal is to file a petition under the Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA). This type of appeal generally occurs after an initial appeal with the Pennsylvania courts is not successful or more specifically, often, when there is proof of ineffective counsel or new evidence that was not available at the time of the trial. However, the PCRA petition is completely separate from a direct appeal with its own rules, deadlines, and regulations.

In layman’s terms, here lies the problem, this process is very difficult to get approved. If a Judge approves a PCRA to progress, they are saying that the judge and or original defense attorney may have done something wrong. Consequently, they look the other way?

One of the biggest objections I have to the PCRA process is regarding new evidence that was not available at the time of the trial. Once this new information is identified it needs to be reported and filed within 60 days or it cannot be used going forward. Let us explore; therefore, if the inmate does not have the funds, knowledge or resources available when he receives this new information, what is he to do? Ask his cellmate, jailhouse lawyer, family member? Does he try to file this pro se? Or does he try to round up family members to discuss this and then work on raising the funds to retain an attorney? Can all of this be completed within 60 days? Maybe, maybe not. Does he have all of the resources or education to do this from his prison cell? If not, then that valuable information becomes useless. Why is there a 60 day deadline on what could be a life changing event and if this deadline is not known or not acted upon properly and within the time, it is 100 % uselss. Does the prosecution have any deadlines that are only 60 days? The convicted usually do not have law degrees, so they don’t have the education to understand this. Is this another way of turning our heads to the truth, so the wrong is not right?

How do we fix this? I don’t believe there is a single law or single actionable item that can fix this.

Several things need to occur.

• Updated laws, especially with PCRA’s and the 60 day rule for new evidence that was not available at the time of the trial.
• Zero tolerance with crooked cops.
• Better background checks on police recruits.
• Conviction Integrity Units.
• More rights for those that want to right the wrong and speak the truth.
  • Several times a year, police departments have gun buyback programs,
• From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“A gun buyback program is one instituted to purchase privately owned firearms. The goal, when purchasing is done by the police, is to reduce the number of firearms owned by civilians, and provide a process whereby civilians can sell their privately owned firearms to the government without risk of prosecution. In most cases, the agents purchasing the guns are local police when purchasing firearms for the government.”

Hence, we are saying you can have an illegal firearm and the cops will give you not only amnesty, but money too. However, when we have a witness or victim that want to now tell the truth, the prosecution does everything they can to threaten, intimidate and prevent them from coming forward. Let that sit in, does this really make sense? But you have a stolen gun that was used in a crime and we will give you money for it. Explain that to your children and see if they can make sense of that.

Conviction Integrity Unit:

Like the TV show, Conviction, that lasted only one season in 2016, there really is a need for Conviction Integrity Units. (Criminal Defense Investigators) this is where government hired investigators, private investigators, forensic experts, and other expert witnesses work together to examine criminal cases where there’s credible suspicion that the wrong person may have been convicted of a crime based on several different factors.

In 2017 there were 33 Conviction Integrity Units throughout the united states. That is more than double from what there was in 2013 according to the Exoneration registry. CIU’s were responsible for 42 exonerations in 2017

I look forward to seeing every county and every major city in the United States have a Conviction Integrity Unit by the year 2020.

Jeff Stein, LPI, BAI, CCDI, V.S.M.

[i] Commonwealth of Pennsylvania VS. Michael Arnold; CP-51-CR-0005792-2017