Law-and-Order Prosecutor Now Champions Innocent Inmates

Former Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro and I have a history, and it isn't a particularly pleasant one.

In 2001, Michael Green was exonerated and released from an Ohio prison after serving 13 years for a rape he did not commit. In 2002, I wrote a series chronicling Green's ordeal, titled "Burden of Innocence."

By statute, the state owed Green nearly $524,000 for his wrongful imprisonment, in addition to lost wages, which had to be negotiated. But a year and a half after his release, Ohio had not paid a single cent to Green, who was struggling to stay out of poverty by working a minimum-wage job at a McDonald's.

Attorney General Petro, in my view, was standing in the way of final justice for Michael Green.

"There's no doubt Michael is entitled to the $524,000," Petro told me at the time. "But to give it to him now means we would lose leverage on the lost wages argument. ... What if he said, 'I was going to become a classical concert musician'?"

I wrote a column in The Plain Dealer that included that quote from Petro and urged readers to weigh in. They did so by the hundreds. Days later, Petro changed his mind, crediting readers in Cleveland for bringing Green's case to his attention.

At the time, I lauded Petro's decision to do the right thing, in one case. What I didn't know was that Michael Green's story was the beginning of a personal evolution for Jim Petro.

"The series (about Green) ... was my introduction to the travesty of wrongful criminal conviction," Petro writes in his new book, "False Justice," co-authored with his wife, writer Nancy Petro. "I didn't know it then, but for me, Michael Green had broken the seal on a Pandora's box."

The Petros began to examine other cases of wrongful conviction. The book's subtitle makes clear where the self-described law-and-order prosecutor has landed on the issue: "Eight Myths that Convict the Innocent."

In a brave and graceful narrative, the Petros describe how their basic assumptions about guilt and innocence were shattered. They also expertly rebut the following myths:

—Everyone in prison claims innocence.

—Our system almost never convicts an innocent person.

—Only guilty people confess.

—Wrongful convictions result from innocent human error.

—An eyewitness is the best evidence.

—Conviction errors get corrected on appeal.

—It dishonors the victim to question a conviction.

—If the justice system has problems, the pros will fix them.

In a phone interview, the Petros described the process that led to the book, which was Nancy's idea.

"I woke up in the middle of the night and thought, 'We need to spread the gospel,'" she said.

Few prosecutors are willing to admit that flaws in the system — including their profession's general mindset of win at all costs — lead to innocent people going to prison. Petro stands alone as a former prosecutor championing this issue so publicly.

He says he hasn't heard from any prosecutors yet, but it's easy to imagine the reaction. When Cuyahoga County Judge Tim McGinty, the prosecutor in Green's case, apologized to him years later, some prosecutors privately berated him.

"A prosecutor never apologizes," one of them told him.

Jim describes the pressure readers brought to bear on behalf of Michael Green in 2003 as "citizenship at its best." Real change comes only when the public demands it, he says.

"It is up to us, everyday Americans," the Petros write, "to call upon our prosecutors, judges and public safety officials to always be mindful of their awesome responsibility: to lead this noble democracy in ever-improved methods of pursuing truths; and to be our true, fair ministers of justice for all."

The schools educating our future lawyers have a great responsibility here, too. As Jim Petro points out, few law schools in the country require even a cursory examination of wrongful convictions.

The list price for "False Justice" is $24.99.

Publicist Tim Brazier of Kaplan Publishing assured me that bulk discounts for law schools would apply.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and an essayist for Parade magazine. To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM