county court clerk fired for help convict prove his innocence

[dawp]

She had 34 years of service and was let go after she provided a copy of a motion in a different case that he used as a guide when he filed it for the third time.

I think it was bs but at least she didn't lose her pension.

http://www.kansascity.com/2013/07/28/4373583/jackson-county-circuit-judge-fires.html

 

[Jimzz]

Well she was not really fired just told to retire early.

 

[brandonb]

While I applaud her efforts, she did it in the wrong way. There is a proper and improper way to conduct court business, and doing it the wrong way would be contempt of court.

Five days after Nelson was released, Court Administrator Jeffrey Eisenbeis took Snyder into Byrn’s office near closing time and told her the prosecutor and defense attorney “had a problem” with her involvement in the case. She was suspended without pay, ordered to stay out of the courthouse unless she had permission to be there and scheduled to meet with a human resources investigator June 20.

Byrn fired her June 27, telling her she had violated several court rules by providing assistance to Nelson and talking about aspects of the case, even while under seal, to attorneys not involved in the matter.

She is lucky she didn't end up in jail.

 

[BoberFett]

So in a nutshell, the court used technicalities to keep an innocent man in prison and then punish someone who knew a way around the red tape.

Ain't this country grand?

 

[RampantAndroid]

So the same judge who turned it down a bunch of times allowed it through when basically forced to. Seems like the judge is the one in the wrong here?

 

[unokitty]

I am consistently surprised by the naivete that I see displayed here concerning the legal system.

Anyone that has any personal experience with it knows that we have a legal not a justice system.

The legal system is only concerned with winning and losing. It is not concerned with justice. Anyone ever see a district attorney campaign on the basis that they were more just? Only campaigns I seen were based on 'I won all of my cases.' (Never mind that the vast majority of cases are plea bargained. Case where there is clearly a bad guy but the evidence isn't a slam dunk -- We'll just drop the charges. No sense in messing up the DA's record.)

While I admire the court clerk in the original article. I am not surprised that she got fired.

What surprises me is that anyone with a sense of ethics and enough integrity to do the right thing could last 34 years in the legal system before getting fired.

Uno

 

[Geosurface]

There's no doubt that there are a lot of cases (though perhaps still a small % in the grand scheme of things) of innocent people being railroaded by the police and prosecutors into incredibly long sentences for things they simply didn't do.

I like to watch 48 Hours Mysteries here: http://www.cbsnews.com/2076-503443_162-0-32.html

and if any of you care to look through there, you'll find a lot of examples. Yesterday I watched the one about Bruce Lisker, who was serving 40 years (and served like 25 of those) for murdering his mother, which he didn't do.

The lead detective actually straight up invented evidence, lied, hid evidence, etc...

Lots of horrible stuff goes on.

 

[justoh]

I am consistently surprised by the naivete that I see displayed here concerning the legal system.

Anyone that has any personal experience with it knows that we have a legal not a justice system.

The legal system is only concerned with winning and losing. It is not concerned with justice. Anyone ever see a district attorney campaign on the basis that they were more just? Only campaigns I seen were based on 'I won all of my cases.' (Never mind that the vast majority of cases are plea bargained. Case where there is clearly a bad guy but the evidence isn't a slam dunk -- We'll just drop the charges. No sense in messing up the DA's record.)

While I admire the court clerk in the original article. I am not surprised that she got fired.

What surprises me is that anyone with a sense of ethics and enough integrity to do the right thing could last 34 years in the legal system before getting fired.

Uno

Some or a lot of cynicism might be expected, but maybe this is too much?

 

[Jimzz]

Some or a lot of cynicism might be expected, but maybe this is too much?

Not really.
The thing that jumped out in this case is not the guilty/innocent part but he was poor. He could not afford a real lawyer that knew how to write up the request. All the clerk did was give a copy of someone else’s and said here use this as an example. If he had money any decent lawyer could have written it up correctly or researched what others did to get their DNA looked at and been set free.

You think if OJ was poor and had to use a public defender he would have got off killing his ex-wife?
As unokitty was pointing out DA’s look for win/lose records. Its easy to get a win over someone with little money and hard to fight someone with deep pockets. How many rich people from wall street/banks are in jail now for the billions lost in fraud.
A funny way to look at it was Dave Chappell making a joke that when a poor black person is arrested they shot their dog, break down their door, etc… while the white banker is asked to come in and then let go so they can look into it more etc…