Too Fine a Point

I wish he hadn’t said that. The Dallas Morning News quotes Collin County Assistant DA John Rolater saying “(Michael Blair) is the one who needs to prove that someone else did it.” This after DNA testing proved false all the principal evidence used to convict Blair of the 1993 murder of little Ashley Estell. With what’s left no responsible prosecutor would charge Blair with the crime, no reasonable jury would convict him, and no conscientious police force would stop looking for the killer. Rolater is saying the state’s only responsibility now is to see that Blair’s death sentence is carried out as expeditiously as possible, to resist vigorously all efforts to chip away at the case that convicted him, and to insist the few remaining shreds of evidence are enough to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. He sounds like the drunk with the punch line “that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

I suppose he is right legally. In our system once an accused has been convicted the burden of proof shifts. He is now guilty until proven innocent. But to most of us there is more to it than that. We still expect the state to see justice done. When it becomes apparent or even questionable that the wrong person has been convicted of a crime the state has two moral obligations. One is to see that any wrong to the accused is put right. The other is to see that the genuinely guilty are ultimately brought to justice. The state may get a pass on both of those under the law, but not from the people. It’s representatives will have some answering to do when they are forced finally to acknowledge they were not only wrong, that rather than do their duty they willfully perpetuated the wrong for many years while a criminal went free. They may think their duty is to the law. It isn’t. It is to justice and the public trust. Law is not always the same thing as justice. Lawyers may not always understand that but the rest of us usually do. We can and will hold our officials accountable.

This case is now more than thirteen years old. In a rush to justice it took us only a few months to bring it to trial, a few weeks to present the case, and a few minutes to return a verdict. We all share some of the responsibility for that. Public pressure on police and prosecutors was enormous. It still is. Ashley was a beautiful innocent child. Blair was a convicted sex offender and an obvious suspect. In the mug shot that appeared in local papers he looked like the sort of monster that would commit such a horrible crime. He insisted on testifying at his trial and only confirmed that image in the minds of jurors. We were all wrong. Blair probably didn’t do it.

It’s been almost seven years now since DNA testing all but exonerated Blair. The same court that took months to convict and sentence him has found no urgency in reviewing the discredited evidence. If the police have conducted any further investigation they are keeping quiet about it. The original judge retired at the end of December. His replacement asked a visiting judge to take up the case. The new officiator has until April to make recommendations to a higher court that could order a new trial. Blair sits on death row. A killer probably remains free. I wish John Rolater hadn’t said what he did. It doesn’t make me feel very safe.