There is an interesting case out of Kansas that first aired late July. Kansas Judge David Byrn (left) was the presiding judge in the case of Robert Nelson, 49, who was sentenced to 70 years for a rape that he insisted that he did not commit. Byrn refused repeated requests from Nelson to prove his innocence through DNA testing. Nelson would have stayed in jail for the 70 year sentence if it was not for the fact that Sharon Snyder, 70, directed a family member to an earlier motion where such testing was ordered. Using that information, Nelson won the right to the testing and proved his innocence. When Bryn found out it was the clerk who informed him of the earlier successful motion in another case, he fired her just months before her retirement (though she later found that she could still receive her pension). She had been a clerk for 34 years.
Byrn turned down a motion in 2009 for DNA testing, which was not available 25 years earlier in 1983. By using the cited case, a third motion was successful and a lawyer from the Innocence Project was appointed to represent Nelson.
After Nelson was proven to be innocent all along, the judge went after the clerk. He wrote her that “The document you chose was, in effect, your recommendation for a Motion for DNA testing that would likely be successful in this Division . . . But it was clearly improper and a violation of Canon Seven … which warns against the risk of offering an opinion or suggested course of action.”
Notably, the earlier motion was public information. However Bryn said that the clerk was recorded in calls discussing non-public information with Nelson’s sister. Synder’s actions certainly could be viewed as suggesting a course of action and the discussion of any sealed information would be a serious breach. However, I am surprised with the level discipline against her. Notably, there has been no effort to review the actions of the police or prosecution in the wrongful conviction. There is no effort to review Bryn own repeated refusal to allow such simple testing of the evidence. It is the clerk who is fired.
I am also surprised that Judge Bryn would take this action himself since he was directly involved in the prior case and the testing has proven an embarrassment to him. I would have though that a recusal might have been ordered for another judge to look at the matter.
Bryn’s bio states:
David M. Byrn was appointed by Governor Matt Blunt in September 2008 as Judge of Division 3 of the Jackson County Circuit Court. Prior to his appointment to the bench, Judge Byrn practiced law for 27 years with the law firm of Jeter Rains & Byrn, LC. . .
Judge Byrn received his Juris Doctor Degree from the University of Missouri – Kansas City in 1981. He received a Bachelor of Arts Degree, Summa Cum Laude, from Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa in 1978 . . .Judge Byrn has long been an active member of his community, donating time to serve on multiple city boards and commissions. He has also served his local school district in many ways including serving on financial advisory committees, judging debate tournaments, and speaking at career days. Judge Byrn has been a long time supporter of many different charities including Habitat for Humanity, Truman Neurological Center, Optimist Club, and the Boy Scouts. Judge Byrn is an ordained minister in the Community of Christ and has served in multiple administrative positions and on many different boards and commissions of his church.
Snyder was fired just five days after Nelson was released.
I agree concerning the problem of not routinely providing the opportunity to have relevant evidence tested for DNA when such testing was not available. However, the costs involved are prohibitive, and create the potential for significant additional costs and a lack of finality as the value of the test result is litigated. Certainly DNA which does not match inside a rape victim who has not otherwise engaged in sexual activity should probably result in a conviction being tossed–but what if DNA on her outer clothes doesn’t match? How much weight would that have? In addition, the assumption that a prisoner who was guilty would not request testing is incorrect. One study estimates that the testing results provide further support for the conviction in 50-60 percent of cases where post-conviction testing has been done.
Most states have statutory schemes reflecting how the legislative body has determined the various interests involved should be balanced, and a judge hearing a petition is required to follow those statutes. This situation does point up one of the major problems in our legal system in that it can be extremely difficult to navigate without competent legal assistance, and many individuals have very limited access to such assistance.
An upstanding degenerate, spiteful, and morally bankrupt.
Mike Spindell: “While the criminal justice system is not specifically set up to assure fairness and exactitude, who benefits by convicting innocent people of crimes…”
****
Prosecutors looking to make a name for themselves, cops that want a high clearance rate, Judges that don’t want to be perceived as soft on crime. Convictions benefit the players as much as the victims and society. LOL, you need another cup of coffee: you know that.
Police departments around the country would do well to process the DNA samples they already have, most rape kits aren’t processed and years-long backlogs exist.
“Rape evidence in U.S. languishes untested in police storage”
http://www.trust.org/item/20130423081731-1ifja/
Mike Spindell:
my thoughts as well. Call me crazy but shouldnt you give an individual all avenues to prove he is innocent? Even if he is convicted and a test 20 years later could exonerate him, isnt it the duty of the state to do the test?
I can understand a person being unjustly convicted if it was done based on the best evidence at the time but shouldnt testing be allowed if new technologies come to market? Especially those which might set a person free.
This man, the judge, is sick. If I was a judge my ego would not be worth 70 years of a man’s life. Not even 1 year.
If he did this to protect his ego, maybe he should finish the man’s sentence?
If the DNA lab was objective and certified what does it matter if it is tested? Either the evidence confirms or it denies. Let it happen.
A case hanging on a single piece of evidence is a not very solid to begin with.
I hope this clerk files a wrongful termination action with her civil service process. But, like is often the case, the judge and other employees might likely start the retroactive smear campaign against her claiming she did everything short of kidnapping the Lindberg baby and that her action with the DNA request was “the final straw” in a newly announced long list of violations.
The county would rather spend a million dollars fighting her in court and dragging it on for years then settle for $50,000 and let her move on. It will be all about punishment for her, blaming her for this man’s exoneration, and covering their own backsides, and using this as a way to threaten other employees as to what will happen if anyone speaks against those in power in the future.
And guess what. Nothing will happen to this judge.
It would be nice to have further context in this case, especially how other clerks had been treated for similar actions. There sure seems to be the appearance that this judge, who presided over the original trial and denied two prior motions for DNA testing, didn’t like being made to look bad and was reacting out of spite. Firing the clerk certainly seems like a harsh penalty when she was certainly only trying to do good.
The takeaway from this story for me is the need for indigent legal services. This wrongfully convicted man should have had access to a criminal lawyer. Instead, he had to get his free legal advice from a court clerk to figure out the magic words to say before the judge granted his request for DNA testing.
Perhaps I am naive, but the logic of barring a DNA test that might prove someone innocent of a crime perplexes me. What is the legal or philosophical justification? While the criminal justice system is not specifically set up to assure fairness and exactitude, who benefits by convicting innocent people of crimes
[ I hope this is not a duplicate? Sometimes this system seems to drop a post, only to have it show up again later??]
Would one of the lawyers on this blog Please explain how this is possible. Why is this sort of thing allowed to stand, or even happen at all?
I know the country is going to hell and etc. We’ve established all that in prior stories. But that cant be the answer for this case. This is simple basic injustice that has been going on for “ever”.
Is our judicial system truly that capricious?
I understand that human error things happen. This seems bigger than that. Meaning, when the judicial system is confronted with its error it should correct it. It doesn’t seem to.
In the article it is said the judge should have recused himself. Why is it up to him?
Why is it not standard procedure for a case involving any sort of potential conflict of interest – or (what is the right phrase for the case when it is a conflict with ones prior decisions…??)
Why is a judge allowed to keep the case before him over this amount of time? It seems a built in procedure that will naturally result in these sorts of injustices. It certainly is not blind injustice!! As this case is reported it seems pretty obvious that this judge was making decisions not based on the case, and certainly not in the interests of justice, but out of his own ego protection.
Why are the procedures not organized to take care of this obvious conflict?
It seems the basic constitutional principle of our nation is to distribute power so as to minimize these sorts of errors and problems.
How is it that that principle is not baked into our judicial system at its basic operational level?
— It is apparent that this sort of issue is one of immense frustration for me as a layman. I am a student of law at some level, but am not a lawyer. As a citizen I simply cannot understand, and worse , I cannot get a straight, or rather meaningful answer from the legal profession how it is that this level of injustice is systemically allowed to happen.
What seems even worse is that when something like this happens there seems to be no recourse in the system to correct itself as a system. If it corrects at all it seems to be episodic.
— I believe that the unraveling of any society starts with the injustice of its legal system. I think this proposition can be profoundly exampled in history as well as examples like this in our country.
Are we seriously that corrupt as a nation that we have to simply shrug our public shoulders and say “Shit happens”… ?
It seems to me that various issues are being considered as a group which really constitute separate ones. First, wrongful convictions occur even when everyone behaves properly and ethically. Therefore, the fact of a wrongful conviction alone does not establish misconduct, though it does remind us that the system is inherently flawed in that it relies on the evidence and information available to the parties at the time of trial. Second, I don’t know Kansas law regarding post-conviction DNA testing but many states have specific requirements which must be met before such a petition is granted. Again, the fact tha a subsequent petition, is successful does not establish that the court erred in denying an earlier one.
I find the lack of specific information concerning the firing to be a great hindrance in evaluating the judge’s action. I don’t believe providing a copy of a successful motion constitutes recommending a particular course of action. However, I do believe that a court clerk publicly disclosing confidential matter could be a firing offense–depending on what was disclosed. I haven’t found any news stories that provide any information on that point.
Would one of the lawyers on this blog Please explain how this is possible. Why is this sort of thing allowed to stand, or even happen at all?
I know the country is going to hell and etc. We’ve established all that in prior stories. But that cant be the answer for this case. This is simple basic injustice that has been going on for “ever”.
Is our judicial system truly that capricious?
I understand that human error things happen. This seems bigger than that. Meaning, when the judicial system is confronted with its error it should correct it. It doesn’t seem to.
In the article it is said the judge should have recused himself. Why is it up to him?
Why is it not standard procedure for a case involving any sort of potential conflict of interest – or (what is the right phrase for the case when it is a conflict with ones prior decisions…??)
Why is a judge allowed to keep the case before him over this amount of time? It seems a built in procedure that will naturally result in these sorts of injustices. It certainly is not blind injustice!! As this case is reported it seems pretty obvious that this judge was making decisions not based on the case, and certainly not in the interests of justice, but out of his own ego protection.
Why are the procedures not organized to take care of this obvious conflict?
It seems the basic constitutional principle of our nation is to distribute power so as to minimize these sorts of errors and problems.
How is it that that principle is not baked into our judicial system at its basic operational level?
— It is apparent that this sort of issue is one of immense frustration for me as a layman. I am a student of law at some level, but am not a lawyer. As a citizen I simply cannot understand, and worse , I cannot get a straight, or rather meaningful answer from the legal profession how it is that this level of injustice is systemically allowed to happen.
What seems even worse is that when something like this happens there seems to be no recourse in the system to correct itself as a system. If it corrects at all it seems to be episodic.
— I believe that the unraveling of any society starts with the injustice of its legal system. I think this proposition can be profoundly exampled in history as well as examples like this in our country.
Are we seriously that corrupt as a nation that we have to simply shrug our public shoulders and say “Shit happens”… ?
Gives new meaning to being Byrned.
Speaking the truth is now a very dangerous thing in this country. The Judge should be thrown off the bench. Kudos to the clerk. I am glad that she did get her pension.
randyjet, Most counties in Missouri elect their judges. Jackson County and St. Louis County still do not, along w/ maybe a couple others.
This is a Missouri judge. Jackson County is in Missouri. They should make him move to Kansas as punishment.
There was a death penalty case in Montgomery County Texas where a school janitor was convicted of killing and raping a HS school girl. The cops did the normal thing and arrested the black man for the crime, despite the fact he had been a long time employee of the school. During the “trial” he was found guilty and sentenced to death. Years later as he was about to be murdered, the court clerk confessed to the lawyers that the judge and the prosecutor in the case met every morning of the trial to work out strategy to get the guy convicted. She was fired for having told the truth. They judge was not discimplined at all, nor was the prosecutor. At the very least they both should have been disbarred.
In the subsequent trial that was moved to Galveston, Brantley was found not guilty, and the defense attorneys turned up a person who probably DID commit the crime. It was a young guy who had worked at the school as a janitor, had quit, and not turned in his keys. His ex wife testified he showed up at her place in Conroe, drunk, and demanding sex on that same day as the murder. The DA did not follow up on this at all.
Reblogged this on Reality Check and commented:
Remove this judge from his office. Disbar him immediately!
If someone does a crime, they should do their time. If they didn’t do the crime they shouldn’t have been railroaded into jail in the first place.
The judge should be disbarred and removed from the bench for imitating an human…..
Why would an inmate request a DNA test if it would prove he did the crime? Innocent people want DNA tests. Why would you have to make a DNA request through the Judge who presided at your trial? It’s already a conflict of interest since the Judge would have to admit a mistake was made. DNA requests by inmates, who never had the opportunity to get DNA evidence tested at their original trial, should go through an Appeals Board. And maybe the DNA will help find the real rapist!
Judge Byrn is a bully and doesn’t belong on any bench. The Court Clerk is a hero for helping to free an innocent man.
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”
It is time to fire the judge. If they elect judges in KC, I hope he gets a good opponent since he needs to be gone and off the bench.
Compare the firing of a clerk to the mild reprimands given to federal prosecutors for far more serious infractions.
Once again, a two tier legal system.