Plain Old Justice

Making the criminal justice system work properly entails more than pitching the bad apples.  We also need to find the good apples and put them in charge.

The news media tend to focus on one type of bad apple, the bully.  Video of a bully in action makes dramatic television.

Other types of bad apples, such as cops who take bribes, sometimes make headlines.  But good apples don't get the attention.

They do their jobs conscientiously, without fanfare.  They stick to their principles even when inconvenient and stick their necks out, when necessary, to prevent injustice.  Without the good apples, the system rots.

Consider the case of Paul Shane Garrett.  Bad apples sent this innocent man to prison.  Almost 2 decades later, good apples cleared his name.

In June 2000, someone strangled Velma Tharpe, a sex worker, and left her body in an alley in Nashville, Tennessee.  Police took bodily fluid samples for DNA testing.

Nashville police detective Roy Dunaway focused on Garrett, a truck driver who admitted that in the past he had hired sex workers, but repeatedly denied killing Tharpe.  Garrett voluntarily submitted a DNA sample.

Garrett's DNA did not match that found at the crime scene.  But despite the negative result, Detective Dunaway persisted.

Dunaway lied under oath, falsely claiming that Garrett had made incriminating statements.  In truth, even under coercive interrogation, Garrett denied killing Tharpe.  In one recorded interview, Garrett denied it 30 times.

But the grand jury believed the detective and indicted Garrett for murder.  Garrett stayed in jail 2 years.

To Garrett, it must have seemed like a nightmare, not America.  Despite all his denials, despite the negative DNA tests, despite the absence of other evidence, he was behind bars awaiting trial for murder.  All because of the perjury of a rotten apple cop.

Finally, in 2003, fearing that he would be convicted and sentenced to life in prison, Garrett entered into a plea deal.  Pleading guilty to a lesser charge, Garrett was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and could not be released on parole until he served at least 4-1/2 years behind bars.

In 2004, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation learned that the DNA found on the victim matched that of a person listed in a federal database.  That person was not Garrett.

A TBI agent sent letters both to Dunaway and to the District Attorney's office, requesting that they obtain a DNA sample from this new suspect.  What happened then?  Nothing.

What Dunaway did with the letter he received we don't know.  That letter was not in the police case file.

A later investigator did find the TBI agent's letter to the District Attorney.  It was in the DA's case file, and on it was a sticky note stating "someone should look into this."

The sticky note sounds like a pass-the-buck bureaucratic move, a way to "get this off my desk and let someone else worry about it."  But no one did.  

And, apparently, no one told Garrett that the crime scene DNA matched another person's.  Garrett stayed in prison, unaware of this development.

Now, let's do what Garrett could not:  Press "fast forward" and skip to 2011.  Detective Mike Roland, of the Nashville Police Department's cold case unit, becomes involved.  He is a good apple.

Roland reviews the case and reports to his supervisor, Sgt. Pat Postiglione.  The two detectives interview Garrett in prison.  With a look of relief, Garrett asks, "What took you guys so long?"  

The detectives become convinced of Garrett's innocence and Postiglione sends an email to the district attorney.  In the email, Postiglione states that there "is absolutely nothing to suggest that Garrett was involved in this murder."

A high-level meeting results.   The two cold case detectives report their findings to the Nashville police chief and the district attorney.  Some others from the police department and the DA's office also attend the meeting and one of them, an assistant district attorney, is assigned to investigate further.  She concludes, "I do not believe we can permit Garrett's conviction to stand."

However, her boss, the district attorney, won't try to have Garrett's conviction set aside.  The most he will do is write a letter to the parole board, expressing doubt about Garrett's guilt and suggesting Garrett be paroled.

Garrett was released from prison in 2011.  But he still had the manslaughter conviction on his record.

The next year, Garrett did seek, through his attorney, to clear his record.  However, the district attorney objected.  Garrett remained a convicted felon.

In 2014, the district attorney decided not to seek reelection.  An "outsider," Glenn Funk, ran and won, defeating the candidate the previous DA had endorsed.

Funk established a conviction review unit.  Across the country, prosecutors have begun setting up such units only in the last 2 decades, after DNA evidence revealed that a surprising number of innocent people had been convicted.

Roland contacted the DA and asked that the conviction review unit look at Garrett's case.  At this point, Garrett already was out of prison and I believe a lot of police officers would not have gone to the trouble, but Roland did.

The conviction review unit director, Sunny Eaton decided that  Detective Dunaway had mischaracterized or fabricated evidence. The DA supported an effort by the Tennessee Innocence Project to have Garrett's manslaughter conviction set aside.

Earlier this month, a court vacated Garrett's conviction.

In my view, DA Funk is one of the good apples.  So is CRU Director Eaton.  Detective Roland is more than a good apple.  He's golden.

He also arrested the man he believes is the real killer, as indicated by the DNA match.

But what about Detective Dunaway, whose lies resulted in an innocent man going to prison?  Dunaway received no punishment for the perjury.  However, his actions in another case resulted in a demotion, and he retired in 2007 "in bad standing."  That is, he isn't eligible for rehire.

After leaving the Nashville force, Dunaway found work as an officer with a public university in a neighboring state.  For a while he served as interim chief.

Something seems amiss about our system of justice when a person guilty of no crime goes to prison and the person who committed perjury goes to Kentucky.

Kentucky map from Wikimedia Commons.