On Dec. 22, Clarence Moses-EL was released from custody after serving 28 years for a crime he says he didn’t commit. Newly discovered evidence in the case would likely lead to an acquittal, said a Denver district judge on Dec. 14. It is unclear whether prosecutors will pursue a new trial.
Moses-EL was convicted on the flimsiest of evidence: the victim identified him based on a dream she’d had. Attempts at a retrial failed due to Denver police having destroyed DNA evidence that had been placed in a box marked “do not destroy.”
His case is a stark reminder that justice, despite its lofty aims, is not perfect — an apt lesson, considering the heated discussion of the death penalty that has recently taken place in Colorado.
Opposition to the death penalty comes from different places. Some find it immoral, no matter the circumstances, for a court to take someone’s life. Many oppose it on pragmatic grounds. There have been enough cases where evidence produced at a later date exonerated an individual on death row or, even worse, a prisoner no longer on death row, no longer on this earth.
Such argumentation poses a difficult quandary to rebut: How can we have a sentence of execution on the books if it’s possible, and provable, that evidentiary mistakes are made?
Moses-EL’s case was not about a murder trial, nor death row. Yet, his release this week and the statement by a judge that a new trial in the brutal sexual assault case would probably lead to an acquittal reinforce why the death penalty is fundamentally flawed: An imperfect justice system cannot mete out permanent solutions.
The potential price to be paid — an innocent human life — is unjustifiable.
Copyright © 2015 by the Intermountain Jewish News
