Daniel Medwed Has Thoughts About Why It’s Nearly Impossible To Overturn Wrongful Convictions
In his new book Barred: Why the Innocent Can't Get Out of Prison, New Marlborough, Massachusetts resident Daniel Medwed puts a human touch on one of the most inhumane aspects of our legal system – the injustice of the appeals process. A law professor at Northeastern University, and the legal analyst for WGBH, Boston's local NPR and PBS affiliate, Medwed has spent his career trying to free innocent people from prison but, as he illuminates in Barred, the process is designed more to protect the legitimacy of the court process rather than free the innocent.
Medwed will be presenting his book during an author visit at the New Marlborough Library October 8, at 1p.m. to discuss the book and important issues it investigates. The book, published by Hachette, has been named one of the Best Fall Books by Bloomberg News.
In Barred, Medwed reveals how convoluted legal procedures and technicalities make exonerations of innocent people nearly impossible. The rules surrounding litigation after someone has been convicted are tortuous. There is only a small window of time for a convict to submit a notice of appeal and they must know exactly how to present new evidence or provide proof that errors were made in the court trial.
“Here’s this phenomenon I’ve been working with for years and years. How do I convey it in a way that is accessible to people?” Medwed asked himself. “I’m a glass half full person. Lets figure it out. How do we improve it? If I can expose this problem and not point fingers we have a better chance of fixing things.”
Medwed makes the topic accessible by introducing the reader to real people he’s worked with who have been trapped behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit. These personal narratives bring the pages of Barred to life in harrowing clarity. In the course of his 20-plus year career in criminal justice Medwed has served as a public defender, cofounder of a law school clinic that investigated post-conviction innocence claims, and now as a professor continuing to advocate for reform.
“Our system is more interested in the appetence of justice,” says Medwed. “There’s a huge debate in my circle about changing the system through revolution or evolution. I’m in the evolution camp. People say instrumentalism sucks the air out of the room but you can build big change off of little change.”
Medwed maintains innocent convictions are often rationalized away as collateral damage. People within the system become complacent to the reality that maintaining the sanctity of the process is more important than individual lives, especially those of people who already have criminal backgrounds.
“It’s a sentiment people don’t say out loud: the ends justify the means,” he says. “But that’s a dangerous mentality because you’re playing judge and jury.”
Medwed says this mentality chips away at the justice system’s moral authority. Luckily he points out incremental changes he believes can make a difference, many of them actually in pre-trial procedures, safeguarding against incarcerating the innocent in the first place.
There is also the very real problem that if a robust appeals process were created, it would overwhelm the actual mechanics of an already desperately backlogged legal system. True justice, it seems, would break the justice system. It’s hard to feel there’s anything a regular person can do about a tangible problem so intractable it’s become almost existential. Medwed gives us hope there are practical solutions.
“The big takeaway is, one, I want people to be skeptical of the argument that people get out on technicalities or that innocent people get out,” Medwed says. “Do not assume that our system corrects for errors.
“Two,” he continues. “In the book I draw on narratives. I use names. I wanted to personalize this phenomenon because we think of people behind bars as other. These folks are you and me. They are people. Technicalities keep people in jail. They deserve our empathy. They deserve to be heard.”
With such an impacted issue it’s hard to think of a way a person outside of the system can make any difference. Medwed says the best things to do are read and learn and support your local innocence group. We think the best place to start is with Medwed, in person October 8, at the New Marlborough Library.
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