Craig Watkins Update
July 3rd, 2007 at 3:55 pm
It’s been several months since we checked in with Dallas Co. DA Craig Watkins, who has taken advantage of his position to join with the Innocence Project and reform the justice system in Dallas. Watkins has continued to make headlines since he took office, which prompted us to wonder if there were any similar reform efforts around the state. A cursory scan seems to indicate no.
We contacted several people and agencies heavily involved with criminal justice issues, but the only one that responded was Scott Henson, author of the blog Grits for Breakfast. As far as Henson can tell, Watkins is the only big-city DA enacting innocence reforms. Many DA’s are flatly opposed to them. Some, such as Travis Co.’s Ronnie Earle, are working on other reforms, like diversion programs and similar “restorative justice” options, but Watkins really does seem to lead the way on the innocence front. Anything similar that y’all know about, perhaps in smaller jurisdictions, feel free to let us know in comments or via email.
As for Watkins and what he’s been up to, just in the last month he:
– He launched a public campaign to promote witness cooperation by emphasizing the importance of protection, as part of a larger attempt to build community trust. “If we prove to this new generation that we are here to support them[,] to help them[,] we’re on their side[,] hopefully we can change that mentality and get them on board with law enforcement,” Watkins told Dallas TV station WFAA.
– At a Juneteenth event, Watkins declared he hopes to create a statewide legacy. He again stressed his desire to get to the root causes of crimes rather than relying simply on incarceration.
– He promoted a case in which DNA testing affirmed the guilt of a prisoner. “The recent DNA results in the [Henry] Culberson case further emphasize that post-conviction DNA testing not only frees the wrongfully convicted periodically, but equally important, it reaffirms guilt of violent crimes in many cases,” he said in a statement.
– He introduced double-blind line-ups as standard procedure, in which photos of suspects are shown one by one to witnesses for ID, and the officer doing the presentation does not know who the suspect is. Faulty eyewitness ID procedures are at the heart of many wrongful convictions, Henson notes, calling the reform “another milestone.”
– And he won a funding battle with county commissioners to get an Innocence Project lawyer hired as DNA evidence manager for the county.
It hasn’t been entirely good news, though. For instance, one blogger questions procedures in Watkins office relating to DWI’s, and the Dallas Morning-News editorial board wants some statistics with their damn lies to “prove” that what Watkins is doing is working. While we’re not opposed to making sure public policy works, it’s a little bit soon to call for statistics to prove anything — for starters, the DMN wants Watkins to arbitrarily choose “concrete targets for reducing recidivism.” Perhaps a more prudent strategy, since we gave the lock-em-up technique about 20 years of free reign, is patience with Watkins’s reforms. With time, we can evaluate what the data reveal and adjust, instead of trying to make the numbers conform to preset benchmarks. I guess board members don’t watch The Wire.
In the end, though, if those little hang-ups are all we can find right now, then things are still looking good for Mr. Watkins.
UPDATE: To clear up some confusion from a reader who e-mailed, the line “damn lies” refers to the quote about “lies, damned lies, and statistics,” popularized by Twain. We didn’t mean to imply the DMN was currently lying, just that they ran the risk of asking to be lied to by over-reliance on statistics.
July 4th, 2007 at 8:11 am
The Dallas News ed board needs to pull their head out of their collective behind - numbers driven policing that maximizes arrests but ignores the causes of crime is what turned Dallas into the most dangerous large city in America and their jail into an overcrowded nightmare. The only metric that matters is the long-term reduction in crime rate, and that can’t be tracked meaningfully month to month. You nailed it - they’ve tried an open ended commitment to bad policies. They should give Watkins’ plans a chance to play out, and worry about evaluating results when his next election rolls around.
July 16th, 2007 at 8:50 am
You have written an excellent article about a largely hidden problem which poisons the American criminal justice system, and about one brave prosecutor who is willing to tackle the problem head on.
You might be interested in my just published novel, “A Good Conviction,” which features a wrongful conviction in a high profile Central Park murder, brought about by a prosecutor who knew the defendant was actually innocent and hid the exculpatory evidence that would have led to a not guilty verdict.
Several prosecutors and appeals attorneys helped me with the legal aspects of a Brady appeal in New York State, and all of them agreed that what I portrayed was both realistic and all too possible.
Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder, former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney and first sex crimes prosecutor in the U.S., wrote …
“A Good Conviction is a well written, well paced, and fascinating tale of prosecutorial abuse in the Manhattan DA’s office. Makes one wonder how many other times something like this has occurred and just how high the abuse is actually sanctioned.”
Dan Slepian, who produced several critically important TV shows about the Palladium case, has written …
“Having spent countless hours working with detectives, courts, attorneys, and wrongly convicted inmates I was most impressed with how well researched and accurate your narrative was. You really nailed it. In addition, it was a great read.”
I also refer in “A Good Conviction” to the brilliant series done some time ago by the Chicago Tribune, Trial and Error, How Prosecutors Sacrifice Justice to Win, and Maurice Possley, one of the authors, is reading my book and has promised a comment.
You can find A Good Conviction at …
http://www.amazon.com/Good-Conviction-Lewis-M-Weinstein/dp/1595941622/ref=sr_1_1/103-7341421-1865416?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180587686&sr=8-1
I’d like to hear from you about whether you think “A Good Conviction” has value in further publicizing the problem of bad prosecutors and the damage they too often do to innocent defendants.
LEW WEINSTEIN