[bb88]

I think you should actually read the unanimous opinion by the Maryland Court of Appeals before sleazifying the work of the innocence project so vilely:

https://law.justia.com/cases/maryland/court-of-appeals/2020/...

    In its analysis of the palmprint evidence, the circuit
    court lost sight of the forest for the trees. The 
    points of overriding importance are: 

        (1) Ty Brooks burglarized Ms. Wilford’s house in 
            break-in that was never reported by Ms. Wilford;

        (2) Thomas’s confession that he committed the
            burglary and murder is corroborated 
            by his statement putting Ty Brooks in the 
            house and identifying the murder weapon as
            a butcher knife long before those facts were 
            publicly known; and (3) ...

To break it down for you, they already had a confession in evidence!

[credit_guy]

Thanks for the link.

Just to make a grand summary for everyone:

* writ of innocence does not mean the court of appeals deems someone innocent. It means it finds that in light of the new evidence a retrial is warranted, and the accused enjoys the benefit of doubt once again (therefore he's "innocent until proven guilty"). It is certainly not an exoneration

* both David Faulkner and Jonathan Smith were granted the writ of innocence

* the prosecutors decided to not pursue David Faulkner anymore (either they think he's innocent, or they think he served enough time, or they think they don't have enough evidence to prove him guilty beyond any reasonable doubt)

* the prosecutors decided to try Jonathan Smith in July [1]. A judge decided to deny him bond until that time and to be under house arrest. The judge was obviously aware of the writ of innocence, and found the weight of evidence sufficient to not grant him bail.

* Finally, Jonathan Smith entered an Alford Plea [2], which is a type of no-contest plea. With this plea, the state let him go free. This type of plea does not imply the defendant is guilty, but does not imply that he's innocent either.

*crucially, the Alford plea does not imply prosecutorial misconduct.

Now, if I was "sleazyfing" the work of the Innocence Project, what did they do in regards to the work of the prosecutors? Is there any way to read their article without inferring massive prosecutorial misconduct?

[1] https://www.stardem.com/emergency_notice/jonathan-smith-deni...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alford_plea

[bb88]

I don't know why you insist on summarizing this case (again) when it's clear you can't be trusted to honestly reflect both sides.

Folks, ignore him, and just read the appeals court decision. They lay it out pretty clear and isn't hard to understand.

[credit_guy]

> I don't know why you insist on ...

Because what's at stake here is the legitimacy of the government.

The message of this article is : "Innocent man stays behind bars for 20 years. Prosecutors are monsters".

And people buy this wholesale. Just read the other comments in this thread.

When people hear this time and again, and then they enter their echo bubble, the conclusion is that the US government is not any better than Putin's gang of thugs.

Folks: whenever you read about an "innocent" man wrongfully serving 20 years in prison, spend 15 min on Google to see if there's more to the story. We do not live in Putin's Russia.

[bb88]

> Just read the other comments in this thread.

Right, because you chose to mislead the people in this thread by cherry-picking one heavily disputed fact from many to hinge your argument to make it look like he's still guilty.

When you're no longer an "honest broker" of the facts you no longer deserve anyone's time or effort to debate you on the facts.