Week 7, Entry 3: The Appeals Process and bureaucracy-cutting through the red tape...

Jeffrey Deskovic spent 16 years in prison for a cime he didn't commit.  He was sent to prison at age 16 for rape and murder. Eventually, DNA testing vindicated him and proved that another man committed the crime. As much of an injustice as Mr. Deskovic’s imprisonment was, what makes this case especially unjust is that this man could have been exonerated and released 6 years earlier than he was-but his lawyer filed paperwork four days late.





Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor was one of the judges on the appeals court who made this indefensible decision. Of course, the justification of this decision was that the law specifies a limit of time to file motions and barring extraordinary circumstances, there are no exceptions. Unfortunately, common sense is often lacking in legal proceedings. Justice is denied based upon technicalities by people who aren’t as interested in serving justice as they are in technical compliance with a law.

Appeals courts rarely hear new evidence, even when long prison sentences or even the death penalty is involved. While limits on appeals make sense for civil actions and perhaps even for minor criminal convictions, appeals for criminal convictions involving lengthy prison sentences or the death penalty should have different standards. Because so much is at stake, new evidence should be considered and appeals and motions should be entertained at ANY TIME when the accused is still incarcerated. Often those in the courts see these as cases-mere numbers-instead of people, who are possibly being denied their right to life and liberty because of a miscarriage of justice.

While the backlog in appeals courts is very significant, the answer should not be to potentially deny justice to some in the name of efficiency. More resources should be dedicated towards the appeals process, as with indigent defense. The ability of politicians to manipulate the system for political and personal gain needs to be eliminated. If we could do these things, chances are we could reduce the massive size of our prison population-which most likely would mitigate, if not eliminate the increased costs of adequately funding criminal defense and appeals. What’s even more important is that we would be living up to our nation’s ideals of liberty and justice for all.