{"id":177709,"date":"2019-07-05T18:41:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T23:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/07\/05\/elections-have-consequences\/"},"modified":"2019-07-05T18:41:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T23:41:00","slug":"elections-have-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2019\/07\/05\/elections-have-consequences\/","title":{"rendered":"Elections Have Consequences"},"content":{"rendered":"
When Wesley Bell defeated the ferociously corrupt Bob McCulloch in the election for St. Louis Counting Prosecuting Attorney, basically the county DA, he promised greater accountability for law enforcement.<\/div>\n

Well, now he has created a unit dedicated to investigating wrongful convictions and police misconduct<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I hope that this includes a review of McCulloch and his lieutenants before the statute of limitations expires as well.<\/p>\n

I guarantee that you will find prosecutors have knowing submitted false testimony, because that’s what McCulloch did in the Michael Brown case:<\/p>\n

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell<\/a>, who was elected last year on a radical reform platform, has taken a huge new step in that direction, establishing a unit to tackle wrongful conditions and abuse by the police. <\/p>\n

The Conviction and Incident Review Unit<\/a>, whose staff will report directly to Bell, will review past convictions where defendants claimed innocence as well as investigate police shootings and allegations of police misconduct.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

For Bell \u2014 a former public defender, municipal judge, court prosecutor, and son of a cop \u2014 the inspiration came from those efforts as well as his personal experiences. \u201cI\u2019ve been practicing for 18 years,\u201d he said in an interview with The Intercept, \u201cand so I knew that there\u2019s things that needed to be done differently.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bell campaigned on using data-driven research to reform the criminal justice system, including establishing an independent unit to review past convictions, a process that his predecessor Bob McCulloch did not have a system for. McCulloch had a reputation for being uncomfortably close with law enforcement, and the community\u2019s distrust of him was only exacerbated following Officer Darren Wilson\u2019s fatal August 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Against the wishes<\/a> of the community, protesters, and activists \u2014 including the NAACP \u2014 McCulloch declined to appoint a special prosecutor in the case of Brown\u2019s murder. The community channeled<\/a> anger with the handling of Brown\u2019s case into organizing power that propelled Bell<\/a> to victory. <\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

The unit\u2019s independence is crucial, said Nina Morrison, senior litigation counsel at the Innocence Project; she has represented numerous clients who have become exonerated, thanks in part to the work of conviction integrity units. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s not enough to exonerate those who are innocent, you also need to prosecute people who break the law to close cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Wesley Bell defeated the ferociously corrupt Bob McCulloch in the election for St. Louis Counting Prosecuting Attorney, basically the county DA, he promised greater accountability for law enforcement. Well, now he has created a unit dedicated to investigating wrongful convictions and police misconduct. I hope that this includes a review of McCulloch and his …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[506,368,407,526,604,374,398],"class_list":["post-177709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-bigotry","tag-corruption","tag-justice","tag-law-enforcement-misconduct","tag-policing","tag-politics","tag-racism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177709"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177709"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177709\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}