HERE'S WHAT'S scary about the case against Bernard Webster, the Baltimore man who spent 20 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit: There was no prosecutorial misconduct. Police didn't beat a confession out of him. He had a good lawyer at trial. And three eyewitnesses said they saw him near the crime scene.
If not for DNA evidence collected after he had sat in a cell for nearly half his life, and a lawyer hellbent on determining the indisputable truth, nothing about this case would have suggested he wasn't guilty. It was a routine legal proceeding, a seemingly open-and-shut case with no obvious foul-ups -- and yet it resulted in a verdict that was absolutely wrong.
No comfort can be taken in a criminal justice system that so profoundly laid waste to one man's life and, in turn, permitted a brutal crime to go unpunished. This case highlights a flurry of issues with justice in Maryland, and it cries out for important changes.
First on the list is expansion of the use of DNA evidence in applicable criminal proceedings. The state's 2001 DNA statute allows judges to order DNA testing in rape or murder cases where a convict's innocence could be proved -- and it permitted the Maryland public defender's office to represent defendants in those cases.
But no money was added to the public defender's budget to fund these inquiries. The office created its own "Innocence Project" and assigned attorneys on its staff to begin looking into old cases, but that effort represents a sacrifice of resources under the current setup.
Mr. Webster's exoneration proves these inquiries are not fruitless or unimportant. They're about correcting horrible injustices -- and the state must further that cause with appropriate funding.
The Webster case also carries implications for the ongoing debate over Maryland's death penalty.
Many capital cases turn on the same kind of eyewitness testimony that turned out to be completely unreliable in Mr. Webster's case. And many of those cases seem otherwise airtight, just like Mr. Webster's.
But imagine how much more outrageous this sad story would be if the person who actually committed the rape had also killed the victim. Mr. Webster almost certainly would have faced a death sentence and, 20 years down the road, could be dead.
Should Maryland be meting out irreversible punishment, given the distinct possibility -- made manifest by Mr. Webster's case -- that mistakes result in conviction of the innocent?
Last, this case points to the need for a review of the state's laws regarding compensation for the wrongly imprisoned. Mr. Webster can get money from the state for the years he lost if the governor issues him a pardon. But that law puts the burden on Mr. Webster to again prove his innocence to get the money. Given the near irrefutability of DNA evidence, compensation should be made automatic for those exonerated under the 2001 DNA law.
It is clearly time to recognize the power of DNA evidence in order to help avoid future wrongful convictions and correct those of the past. Maryland must be more vigilant in both efforts if justice is to be worthy of its name in this state.