In a perfect world, the prosecution would never make mistakes. The right suspect would always be charged, and law enforcement and prosecutors would alwaysconduct their investigation and prosecution within the scope of the law. No "bad guys" would go free on a technicality, and no innocent people wouldbe wrongly prosecuted or convicted.
But this is not a perfect world, which makes defense attorneys vitally important.
Recently, the federal government dismissed a drug case against an Oklahoma City man after evidence obtained through a search of the man's apartment wasruled inadmissible. The reason that evidence could not be used to prosecute the defendant is that an Oklahoma City police sergeant made false statementsin order to secure the search warrant.
And this week, a Virginia man who served 10 years in a New York prison for a murder he did not commit was finally exonerated.
In 1963, a man entered the Brooklyn home of Lawrence Rothbort demanding money. When Rothbort refused to pay, the man shot and killed Rothbort in frontof his 9-months-pregnant wife. The woman provided a description of the shooter, but police were unable to find the suspect.
They got a break in the case when another man--a witness in other cases who was known to have committed perjury--said that he saw 29-year-old Paul Gatlingin the area.
In addition to the lack of credibility of the witness who identified Gatling as being in the area, there were a number of other problems with the case.Rothbort's wife testified that Gatling was the shooter, despite not being able to pick him as the killer out of a lineup. Defense attorneys were notgiven pertinent investigative reports, including the original description of the shooter, which stated that the suspect was several years younger thanthe nearly 30-year-old Gatling.
But Gatling's attorney and his family were afraid that he would be sentenced to death if convicted of the murder, and they urged him to plead guilty tosecond degree murder to avoid the death penalty. Under the pressure, Gatling agreed, and he was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison.
After 10 years, then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller commuted Gatling's sentence at the request of the legal aid society, and Gatling was released.
However, for the subsequent 41 years, Gatling has continued to maintain his innocence and to fight the conviction on his record. He asked the prosecutors'Conviction Review Unit to look into his case, and now, at 81 years of age, Gatling has finally received the declaration of innocence he deserves.
