Ethics

Shocking Police Misconduct in Nebraska

By Ed Brayton

This is an astonishing story that someone emailed me. Six people in Nebraska were recently exonerated by DNA evidence in a murder case where 5 of the 6 had confessed to the crime and 4 of those 5 had given detailed statements of how and why they did it:

In the Beatrice 6 case, five of the defendants acknowledged their guilt, and at least four gave detailed statements about who was involved and why they would brutally attack, sexually assault and murder Helen Wilson.

On Nov. 7, authorities announced that DNA from the case matched that of a now-deceased Oklahoma City man, Bruce Smith. The state is seeking pardons for five of the defendants and has declined to seek a new trial for the sixth, whose conviction was overturned after the new DNA findings.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on December 04, 2008 (boomark / email).