There’s a great op/ed piece in the St. Pete Times today (the print edition, anyway), written by an undergraduate at Florida State, discussing the need for an Innocence Commission in Florida. There is $200,000 appropriated in the pending budget for such a commission, which would be charged with sorting out why so many people are wrongly convicted and also proposing methods for ensuring that innocent people do not serve prison sentences for crimes they didn’t commit.
This is actually a big problem in Florida. The writer, Chelsea Enright, cites a frightening number, stating that at least 21 cases that have resulted in exonerations, most in the last 10 years. As public lawyers are overworked and underpaid everywhere in America, I’m personally quite sure it’s an issue nationwide, but Florida has created severe sentencing laws that compound the problem. When someone who has been in trouble before is convicted of a new, serious felony, the likelihood of that person serving a very lengthy prison sentence is high. HFO, VCC, PRR, etc. There are a lot of scary acronyms to learn when practicing criminal law in Florida.
Florida’s lawyers have already signed on to the Innocence Commission, with the Florida Bar’s Board of Governors publicly supporting creation of such an entity. Now, the matter is in the hands of Governor Crist.
