Episode 58: The Cruel Roadblocks to Getting Innocent People Out of Prison

The Appeal

Last month, 106 legal scholars signed a brief supporting St. Louis prosecutor Kim Gardner's efforts to get a new trial for Lamar Johnson, a man convicted of murder in 1995 for a crime many––including the prosecutor's office that convicted him––say he couldn't have possibly committed. The initial trial, which involved paid witnesses who later recanted and jail house snitches, is now seen as a stain on the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office, but pro-carceral forces in Missouri and a system rigged in opposition to obtaining new trials are preventing this from happening. How could something so obviously wrong be permitted by our justice system? Today we are joined by Daniel Harawa, assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Law to explain how our system often makes achieving justice virtually impossible––even when DA's themselves support it.