Orange County Criminal Lawyer Blog

Many are familiar with the quotation "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." Those words were written by English jurist William Blackstone in the late 18th century and are inarguably a founding principle of the American system of justice. However, as with all principles, there are always situations in which they are tested, and if it is a true principle, it is upheld and endures. Perhaps most indicative of the importance of a principle is whether it is fundamental enough to survive even the most extreme cases when it feels difficult, even abhorrent, to apply.

Thus, cases involving children as victims, the most sympathetic victims possible, are a true test of this principle. One such case was the Casey Anthony trial in Florida. The prosecution had a theory that Casey was the murderer, maybe even a theory that was more-likely-than-not to have occurred, yet everyone who was watching closely knew that if we started from the presumption of innocence, and we reviewed every piece of evidence assuming that Casey was not guilty, then there was no way for the prosecution to eliminate all reasonable doubt of Casey's guilt. No matter how much her attitude and behavior made us wish they could.

Another genre of cases that test our system's Blackstonian principle at its extremes are those involving the post-partum psychosis defense. It is likely that this defense will be used in an upcoming case in Orange County, the one involving the Sonia Hermosillo, who is alleged to have intentionally dropped her seven-month-old son off the 4th floor of a hospital parking garage.

Part of the reason why cases such as this are a test to our system and its foundation upon the presumption of innocence is because of the inflammatory nature of the details of the allegations. Everyone who hears the allegations naturally feels anger toward a mother who is even capable of doing this to her child. And it is hard to conceive of more ammunition for the prosecution in a trial situation, as they can talk about the innocence of the child, who probably asked the question, "why is mommy letting me fall?" right before his death. Or turn to the blow-by-blow actions of the defendant, as she unbuckles the baby from the car seat, holds him by his arms, and walks briskly to the far wall of the parking garage, hoists his 20 lb body on top of the concrete, then, feeling the anger well up inside her, violently pushes her son over the side.

When a prosecutor can be cinematic about the depravity of the defendant's crimes, it sears an image into the minds of the jurors, who listen to the rest of the trial, but not without that image in their heads. Then they retire to impartially deliberate, but not without that image in their heads. Are they able to overcome that image, and reach the truth of what happened by weighing the evidence impartially?

If they are not, then our system has failed. Because no matter how depraved the actions of a defendant might seem, a larger truth may always be at play. For example, with mental health defenses such as the postpartum psychosis defense, the truth is that mental health problems are real, scientifically provable, and actually alter the reality of those suffering from them to the point they might unknowingly commit horrible acts.

When facing a mental health defense, prosecutors inevitably list all the tasks surrounding the incident that the defendant performed correctly as evidence that they "knew what they were doing." This case is no exception, as in a statement to the press, the Deputy District Attorney handling the case pointed out that Hermosillo validated her parking ticket before leaving the parking garage that day as evidence that "she did know what she was doing."

But whether a defendant was capable of performing the surrounding tasks is not the issue in such cases. What matters legally is whether she knew right from wrong at the time, which has nothing to do with whether she could think rationally about such minutiae like parking tickets. Clinical Psychiatrist Rita Suri was quoted in a recent L.A. Times article explaining that while 80% of new mothers experience postpartum depression in some form, 1 in 1,000 will experience it in a severe form, wherein they lose touch with reality and can have psychotic hallucinations, often religious ones. It is therefore very possible that a mother suffering from such severe psychosis could believe she is doing the "right" thing in killing her child, and simultaneously remain able to take care of her parking fees afterwards.

Whether a mother who actually suffered from such psychosis is then convicted in court of murdering her child is a daunting test for whether our justice system will actually allow an innocent person to go free despite the most inflammatory of circumstances.

Sometimes the only clear perspective is one from afar. British newspaper Guardian UK covered Georgia's killing of Troy Davis extensively in the weeks leading up to the execution date. Among the many articles run by the Guardian, one describing the excruciating four hours the execution event took, combined with the fact that the murder victim's family sat in the front row, staring intently as Mr. Davis died, as "the U.S. justice system at its most grotesque."

In fact, the Guardian reported, as the chemicals seeped into Davis's veins to paralyze his muscles so he would stay quiet and expressionless while he suffocated, some members of the victim's family smiled.

The family smiled at the death of a person who, with the benefit of time and the weaknesses of the evidence against him now clear, was almost surely innocent. They smiled at the death of a defendant who had been convicted on eyewitness identification and ballistics evidence, but seven of the nine eyewitnesses later recanted, one had stated on the evening of the shooting that he wouldn't be able to identify the shooter if he saw him again, and the other was himself another suspect in the shooting. The science behind the ballistics was also later discredited. And, inexplicably, Georgia state officials denied Davis the opportunity to take a polygraph examination to help bring the truth to light. But the execution served its purpose, and the feeling of revenge was enjoyed by all who, with the ignorant obstinacy of a Holocaust denier, still firmly believed Davis was guilty.

According to the Guardian, the rest of the world is sickened by our justice system. Not only for allowing what one of Davis's lawyers described as a government-sanctioned lynching of a black man for killing a white police officer in 1989, but because it is clear from the reexamination of other cases that the U.S. justice system is neither sophisticated nor functional enough to produce reliable results. This has been irrefutably proven by hundreds of cases in which prisoners have been freed after DNA evidence has been retested with modern technology not available at the time of their trials. This fact indicates that there are likely thousands more innocently imprisoned individuals in the U.S. who can never be freed because their case did not involve retestable DNA evidence (Troy Davis was one of these unlucky people). That a system with such glaring flaws is cited as justification for the government execution of citizens is shocking and appalling to the civilized world.

In fact, the Danish corporation Lundbeck, the manufacturer of one of the three lethal injection drugs used in the U.S., has implemented a new policy to take special precautions to keep its products out of the hands of U.S. jails. The company is now controlling the sale of its drugs by making its distributors promise that they will not sell to any U.S. state government entity related to the jail and prison system.

The approach they are taking - that their consciences demand they take - is to treat the administrators of our justice system like children who aren't responsible enough to handle scissors for fear they might hurt someone. This is the civilized world's view of our justice system. Or, more specifically, their view of our stubborn insistence on equating revenge with justice.