Wyse Law Firm

Who your prosecutor is matters more than you can imagine. I have personally experienced the harm that prosecutors can inflict: For years, I fought to free my n...ow husband Jonathan Irons from prison, where he sat for more two decades over a crime he did not commit. A Missouri prosecutor put him there after withholding fingerprint evidence demonstrating his innocence and relying on an uncertain and unreliable eyewitness identification at trial. Even after Jonathan uncovered that critical evidence years later, the Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt fought to keep him in prison. Both Schmitt and the trial prosecutor cared more about winning than about a man’s life. Jonathan is one of the fortunate onesif you can consider someone fortunate when he lost 20 years of his life without reasonbecause now he is home, while AG Schmitt continues fighting to keep at least one other innocent man behind bars. Jonathan is sadly not alone in his experience. Defense lawyers and advocates have secured more than 2,600 exonerations since 1989. Those wrongful convictions largely occurred because prosecutors lied, cheated, and cared more about winning than obtaining justice. Prosecutors have long abused their power in ways that have wrought destruction on communities without having any positive impact on their safety. These prosecutors cared about holding people presumed innocent in jail before trial, no matter how minor the charge; they cared about doling out lengthy sentences that ensured people would die in prison, even when they had grown and changed and no longer posed a risk to the public. They pushed the war on drugs, which devastated Black and brown communities and made us no safer. These prosecutors had enormous, unbridled power, and they used it in the most harmful ways possible. At present, nearly 2.3 million people are behind bars. It is time for that to change.

We need to fundamentally reform policing in America, and that must begin with real accountability for law enforcement officers who violate constitutional rights.... Qualified immunity has shielded police officers who have engaged in unconstitutional and appalling conduct from being held accountable in court. To hold law enforcement accountable, we must end this doctrine. It’s time to end qualified immunity to hold police officers accountable. Add your name if you agree.

While most prosecutors respect their ethical and legal obligations, far too many innocent people have been wrongly convicted as a result of prosecutorial misconduct.

Bias was discovered shot to death in her Detroit home in June 1994 and Hamilton became a suspect partly due to the false testimony of a "jailhouse snitch" who testified that Hamilton had admitted the slaying, according to Hamilton's lawyers. That man had allegedly made claims against "numerous others" to get leniency for his own criminal conduct, said Hamilton's lawyers

Spanish Language interpreter now available at the Wyse Law Firm by Paula Herrera-Gudino

Texas sheriff and former county attorney indicted on evidence tampering charges in Javier Ambler's death, a Black man who died during arrest

"Actions by police officers, including witness tampering, violent interrogations and falsifying evidence, account for the majority of the misconduct that lead to wrongful convictions, according to a study released Tuesday by the National Registry of Exonerations that focused on the role police and prosecutors play in false convictions in the U.S."

This video was posted by one of our group members and was created by Judges for Justice. Not only does former judge Michael Heavey do an excellent job of explo...ring the problem of wrongful convictions, he dissects the problem down to many of the root causes. It's definitely worth watching and an organization worth supporting. See more