Editorial: Integrity a needed asset

Lucas County’s creation of a Conviction Integrity Unit inside Prosecutor Julia Bates’ office is a step toward an important cultural change. (“County unveils Conviction Integrity Unit,” Wednesday.)

A review board consisting of Ms. Bates and the chiefs of the appellate, civil, criminal, and special unit divisions will screen submissions from inside the legal system of police, prosecutors, and defense attorneys for cases that have a credible claim of wrongful conviction.

Read more Blade editorials

The precision of forensic science is much improved from decades past and has exonerated defendants convicted and sentenced. That’s understandable, and the county’s commitment to using improved technology to confirm past conclusions is commendable.

But the biggest problem in Ohio courts revolves around integrity. When police or prosecutors fail to meet their legal duty to share evidence with the defense, the state Supreme Court routinely fails to act.

A massive National Public Radio record review of Ohio court cases, conducted with Columbia Journalism Investigations, found 104 findings of prosecutorial misconduct by the state court with 21 cases so corrupt the verdict was overturned.

Thirteen Ohio prosecutors have been found on the wrong side of legal ethics more than once but none of the prosecutors found to have acted improperly faced any sanction for their misconduct.

The most egregious example NPR could find was the five findings of prosecutorial misconduct levied against attorney Thomas Matuszak for cases in Lucas, Wood, and Ottawa counties.

Ms. Bates told NPR, “You get caught up in that philosophy that if I’m doing right and doing God’s work ... any means justifies my end.” If convictions are the only goal, truth and justice be damned, prosecutorial misconduct is highly effective.

While it’s praiseworthy that Lucas County has followed Cuyahoga, Franklin, and Summit counties with the creation of a Conviction Integrity Unit, as long as procedural misconduct goes unpunished, justice is not fully protected in Ohio.

The 1993 murder convictions of Eric Misch, Louie Costilla, Joseph Rickard, Larry Vasquez, and Mel Vasquez are all now in doubt because the Toledo Police Department failed to provide defense lawyers with evidence of other suspects. Lucas County Common Pleas Court Judge Gary Cook granted Misch a new trial because of that constitutional law violation in June.

Commissioner Pete Gerken says the county CIU was created because “we don’t always get it right, and when we don’t get it right, people’s lives hang in the balance.”

There is a big difference between honest error and unconstitutional legal cheating. The first priority of the Conviction Integrity Unit must be to find and disclose any instance of police or prosecutorial misconduct. Termination is the expectation for any violation of constitutional protections.

The Commissioners and Lucas County’s state legislators should push the Ohio Supreme Court to enforce sanctions that would sideline habitual offenders who put convictions ahead of justice.

The first step toward solving a problem is admitting it exists. Lucas County is ahead of most of Ohio on that important step.