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After 21 Years in Prison — including 16 on Death Row —
Curtis McCarty is Exonerated Based on DNA Evidence

Curtis “Eddie” McCarty was released this morning after a judge dismissed charges against him that would have led to a third trial for an Oklahoma City murder he didn’t commit. McCarty was convicted twice of the 1982 murder and sentenced to death three separate times for the crime, maintaining his innocence throughout. He is the 201st person in the U.S. to be exonerated by DNA testing, and the 15th who served time on death row.

Serious government misconduct led to McCarty’s two convictions, and Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck today said that this was “by far one of the worst cases of law enforcement misconduct in the history of the American criminal justice system.”

Robert H. Macy, who was the Oklahoma County District Attorney for 21 years, prosecuted McCarty in both of his trials. Macy sent 73 people to death row – more than any other prosecutor in the nation – and 20 of them have been executed. Macy has said publicly that he believes executing an innocent person is a sacrifice worth making in order to keep the death penalty in the United States

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And I might add... what a prosecutor:

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Robert H. Macy, who was the Oklahoma County District Attorney for 21 years, prosecuted McCarty in both of his trials. Macy sent 73 people to death row – more than any other prosecutor in the nation – and 20 of them have been executed. Macy has said publicly that he believes executing an innocent person is a sacrifice worth making in order to keep the death penalty in the United States. Macy committed misconduct in the manner that he prosecuted McCarty and presented the case to the jury. His misconduct was compounded when he relied on Joyce Gilchrist, a police lab analyst who falsified test results and hid or destroyed evidence in order to help secure McCarty’s convictions. Gilchrist was the lead forensic analyst in 23 cases that ended in death sentences (11 of the defendants in those cases have been executed).

“This is by far one of the worst cases of law enforcement misconduct in the history of the American criminal justice system,” said Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. “Bob Macy has said that executing an innocent person is a risk worth taking – and he came very close to doing just that with Curtis McCarty.”

Macy’s conduct in prosecuting McCarty was singled out in the Court of Criminal Appeals ruling that overturned McCarty’s first conviction; that ruling noted that the case was “replete with error” and referred to Macy’s conduct as “improper” and “unprofessional.” In each of its rulings overturning McCarty’s convictions, the appeals court noted that Gilchrist initially said hairs from the crime scene definitely did not match McCarty, then changed her records and testimony to say they definitely matched him (years later, Gilchrist either hid or destroyed those hairs when they were sought for DNA testing). The prosecution also claimed that semen on the victim’s body came from McCarty, while DNA testing now shows that it did not. The prosecution maintained that McCarty acted alone in the crime, until evidence began to emerge that he was not the perpetrator; at that point, the prosecution began to say McCarty had an accomplice (though no evidence of multiple perpetrators was ever found or introduced).

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Macy has said publicly that he believes executing an innocent person is a sacrifice worth making in order to keep the death penalty in the United States.

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This guy should never have been practicing law. That is just SICKENING.

I wonder what the demographics of his electors are.

[ 18 May 2007: Message edited by: -=+=- ]