The California Supreme Court has thrown out a death penalty verdict for a man was on death row.
The highest court in California made clear that they had no choice but to void the death penalty jury verdict because the prosecutors in the case committed willful misconduct that lead to a man unfairly being put on death row.
The court found that the prosecutor (who now sits as a Superior Court judge) failed to provide the defense lawyers with critical witness interviews that could have lead to a different jury result. An independent investigation that had been done in the case by a retired judge concluded that a District Attorney’s investigator had lied during her testimony at the trial and had encouraged another witness to also lie.
The DA will not have to decide whether to retry the accused as to the death penalty issue.
When you read about stories like this you have to be very concerned about how many prosecutors are willing to break the rules and commit other acts of misconduct in order to an obtain a conviction. DA’s are taught that their main job is to do “justice”.
This means they are required to always follow the rules and to never withhold evidence from the accused.
If you do not have an experienced criminal defense law firm on your side and you are being prosecuted by a DA that is willing to do “anything” to convict you (even unlawful things) you are in very deep trouble. Call us at 888-280-6839 to discuss your legal matters.
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