Raise the Bar for Prosecutors Who Send Innocent People to Prison
Innocence & Justice Louisiana is launching a campaign urging the Louisiana Office of Disciplinary Counsel (ODC) to hold accountable prosecutors who violate the constitution and send innocent people to prison. ODC is the office responsible for seeking discipline when lawyers violate their professional rules. Lawyers can be suspended or disbarred for breaking these rules.
On January 17, we filed a complaint with ODC against former assistant district attorney Jim Williams. The complaint calls on him to be sanctioned for hiding evidence leading to the wrongful conviction of two of our innocent clients – Jerry Davis, who served 40 years in prison, and Raymond Flanks, who served 38 years. In overturning their convictions, a judge has already declared that that the prosecution hid evidence causing Mr. Davis and Mr. Flanks to be convicted of crimes they didn’t commit.
Mr. Williams was the prosecutor in at least 11 trials where a court found that evidence had been hidden, including 8 trials where that person faced the death penalty. Mr. Williams has never been disciplined.
In fact, prosecutors are rarely disciplined at all. Prosecutorial misconduct contributes to wrongful convictions in Louisiana at more than twice the rate that it does nationally. Even though 52 of 86 exonerations in Louisiana involved prosecutorial misconduct, only ONE PROSECUTOR has ever been disciplined, 20 years ago.
We are urging ODC to act on our complaint against Mr. Williams and calling on them to recognize that complaints against prosecutors who have withheld material evidence of innocence deserve special scrutiny and assertive action.
We have the right to expect and demand that prosecutors entrusted with public power to protect our communities will work towards the highest good to implement the demands of justice. Here, where that power has been used recklessly and abusively, we call on you to use YOUR POWER to help correct everything that stands against what is right:
Tell ODC that you want them to ACT on complaints against prosecutors who violate the law and send innocent people to prison.
