Some people repose great faith in the jury verdict as a reflection of the will of the people.  Not me, but it’s not important what I think.  The system says a jury decides the facts, and gets to decide guilt or not, and that’s the way the game is played.  The jurors try their best and, for the most part, take their job seriously.  Beyond that, it’s a shot in the dark.

The McLennan County, Texas, District Attorney, however, has found a far deeper respect for the jury.  Via Grits for Breakfast, Abel Reyna argues that a court should refuse to allow post-conviction DNA testing “such testing because it overrides what a jury decided.”

Waco attorney Walter M. Reaves filed a motion asking for the testing Wednesday. It is part of an effort to exonerate Anthony Melendez, the only living defendant in the 1982 slayings of three teenagers.

Why now?

In the motion, Reaves argues the testing is warranted because DNA analysis was not available when Melendez was convicted. He pleaded guilty but has since recanted, claiming he falsely confessed because his lawyers told him he would almost certainly get the death penalty if he went to trial.

There’s the rub.  While Reyna wants to insulate the sanctity of the jury verdict from challenge, there was no jury verdict here. It was a plea, and likely good advice at the time since there was no affirmative evidence that would contradict the prosecution’s case.  A plea of convenience to keep Melendez from frying, hardly a novel idea and one that kept the defendant alive long enough for science to catch up to law.

But Reyna’s argument is disingenuous on two levels.  First, the putative duty of a prosecutor is to do justice, not to protect convictions at all costs. Sure, we can get a chuckle out of that, but when he puts his position in writing, he still has to pay lip service (pen service?) to his mandate.

Second, the inability to test DNA at the time makes this new evidence, and there’s no disrespect to the jury (even if there had been one) or the system’s interest in finality when new evidence comes to light. 

What makes  Walter Reaves’ job particularly hard is that the defendant pleaded guilty.  He stood there, faced the judge, and swore that he did it.  He later recanted, but plenty of people later recant.  No harm there.  

Melendez explains why he pleaded guilty, and pleas of convenience happen all the time, suggesting that the system is inherently goofy when it comes to testing guilt in the first place, as pleas are more a reflection of risk tolerance and an assessment of the chances of winning against the trial tax, the extra punishment imposed for fighting and losing.  In Melendez’s case, that punishment involved his death.  That’s some tax.

But it’s easy to claim, after the deal is cut, that one is innocent and copped to avoid death. We’ve learned as a result of DNA testing that it’s sometimes true.  We’ve also learned it isn’t always true, and there is no reason in the world why a guy, post conviction, wouldn’t want to give DNA testing a shot for whatever it’s worth.  Maybe, just maybe, something will go awry and the guilty guy walks out.  Maybe.

This argument has a point, as revisiting convictions can be an expense and burden on the system.  But so what?  It should be a burden to put, or keep, a person in prison (or off the executioner’s gurney) if he’s possibly innocent.

The argument is readily answered by the philosophical choice of preferring to let  “n” guilty men go free rather than convict an innocent.  Sure, it’s one of those platitudes that people respect more when carved in granite than played out in a courtroom, but it provides an answer to the question before the judge in Reaves’ motion.

On the other hand, Reyna’s argument, that post-conviction DNA testing “overrides” a jury verdict is just ridiculous.  Respect for the verdict of a jury, another platitude appreciated better when the verdict happens to go your way, has nothing to do with the existence of evidence now that was unavailable before. 

What this argument fails to show is respect for the intelligence of the judge and voters in McLennan County, Texas.  Respect the verdict, even though there was no verdict here, but respect reason more.