injusticewatch | The request by a Kansas prosecutor to create a unit that would review
cases involving evidence of wrongful convictions has exposed a schism
among law enforcement officials who contend that the business of
reviewing wrongful convictions should not be left to the local
prosecutor.
The dispute was touched off after Wyandotte County
District Attorney Mark Dupree asked the County Board in July for
$300,000 to create the new conviction integrity unit. The Kansas City,
Kansas police chief, sheriff and two Fraternal Order of Police union
presidents then sent a July 30 letter
to Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt questioning the proposal, and
asking Schmidt’s office to oversee any decisions by the local prosecutor
to reopen past cases.
On Wednesday, Cook County State’s Attorney
Kim Foxx, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and Eric
Gonzalez, the Brooklyn, New York prosecutor, were among 54 current and
former law enforcement officials who signed a letter
supporting the creation of the unit within Dupree’s office. Pursuing
justice is not “at odds with community safety or victim support,” their
letter states. “In fact, victims are safer – and we prevent further
victimization – when communities trust that their law enforcement
officials seek the truth rather than ‘win.’”
The issue has erupted
months after Dupree cut short a hearing into Lamonte McIntyre’s claim
that he had been wrongly convicted and spent 23 years in prison for a
1994 double murder, saying he was acting to correct a “manifest
injustice.”
Questions of McIntyre’s conviction involved allegations
of a corrupt police detective, a corrupt state prosecutor, misconduct
by the trial judge and ineffective representation by his court appointed
attorney. The July 30 letter by law enforcement officials challenging
Dupree stated the prosecutor had “failed to fulfill its role as an
advocate for the homicide victims(s) and the State” in that case.
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