Obscenity: Court Worker Fired For Helping Man Seek DNA Test That Freed Him
Bill Draper writes for the AP that a 70-year-old Kansas City Courthouse employee, Sharon Snyder, nine months away from her retirement, was fired for helping an inmate get information he needed to get the DNA test that would free him:
Robert Nelson, 49, was convicted in 1984 of a Kansas City rape that he insisted he didn't commit and sentenced to 50 years for forcible rape, five years for forcible sodomy and 15 years for first-degree robbery. The judge ordered the sentence to start after he finished serving time for robbery convictions in two unrelated cases prior to the rape conviction.Those sentences ended in 2006.
In August 2009, Nelson filed a motion seeking DNA testing that had not been available at his trial 25 years earlier, but Jackson County Circuit Judge David Byrn denied the request. Two years later Nelson asked the judge to reconsider, but again Byrn rejected the motion because it fell short of what was required under the statute Nelson had cited.
After the second motion failed in late October 2011, Snyder gave Nelson's sister, Sea Dunnell, a copy of a motion filed in a different case in which the judge sustained a DNA request.
Nelson used that motion - a public document Dunnell could have gotten if she had known its significance and where to find it - as a guide for a motion he filed Feb. 22, 2012, again seeking DNA testing. That August, Byrn sustained the motion, found Nelson to be indigent and appointed Laura O'Sullivan, legal director of the Midwest Innocence Project, to represent him.
The Kansas City Police Department's crime lab concluded last month that DNA tests excluded Nelson as the source of evidence recovered from the 1983 rape scene and he was freed June 12.
Five days later, they went after Snyder. Her pension is intact, she says, and best of all, she says she'd do it again.
A pity she, a person who prioritizes justice and getting an innocent man out of prison, isn't doing the judging about who gets what in the KC courts.
via @instapundit
It sounds like a forced early retirement if her pension is still intact. I might suggest a civil suit, but if her pension has started, I don't see that she could show loss.
It's rather distressing that we'd rather keep innocent people in prison rather than go the extra quarter-mile to explore evidence that might exonerate them.
Patrick at July 31, 2013 2:04 AM
Justice is expensive and time consuming, Patrick. It's cheaper and easier to just keep them jailed. They've got benefits and luncheons to attend, you know. Oh, and you can't have those in charge admitting they made mistakes now can we?
Sabrina at July 31, 2013 5:32 AM
I could see the "forced" retirement if she broke the rules and hurt an on-going case or gave out conifdential information.
BUT, it seems that the only thing she really did was point someone in the right direction to help navigate the legal maze we call justice. How is this a bad thing?
It sounds like the judge has a superiority complex or something. ("How dare the little poeple mess with my court!")
The guy's lawyer should have been able to do this; but, since he (they?) didn't what harm was done by this court employee? Ah, I know, she "ruined" the judge's conviction rate! How dare she!
Charles at July 31, 2013 8:32 AM
How is this a bad thing?
Because it takes power from the machine. Why do you think they fired the IT tech who informed the Zimmerman defense team of the evidence the prosecution illegally hid?
lujlp at July 31, 2013 7:08 PM
What I find upsetting is this apparent attitude that the guy was already in jail for something else. So, they probably figured, well, he's a criminal anyway. What's another 50 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit?
It's probably the same attitude they have toward executions. Most people who are executed wrongfully are not "innocent." They are simply not guilty of the crimes that landed them on death row.
Easier to just go ahead and fry 'em. Can't have people taking a serious look at our justice system and its flaws.
Patrick at August 1, 2013 3:35 AM
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