The conviction under her prosecution was overturned. Another DA convicted again and that stuck.

Now we have: "A yearlong Associated Press investigation published last month uncovered major flaws in the 2002 case, raising questions as to whether the 16-year-old blamed in the little girl’s death may have been wrongfully convicted."

I wouldn't want to be a prosecutor (or a defender for that matter). It's extremely difficult to be certain of anything - almost all evidence is questionable, people lie, people mis-remember, juries and witnesses are full of biases, and both sides are in a constant battle to out game each other. If you screw up and lead a case where the jury convicts an innocent person you ruin a life, and if you don't convict a guilty person you serve an injustice and have a guilty person running around who may possibly commit more crimes.

The best you can hope for is to do the job the best you can and seek to correct mistakes as soon as you can. But when you read the AP article it is difficult to imagine how you could feel good moving forward with a conviction based on what they had:

[apnews.com]

and here's a summary:

— The case hinged on a single eyewitness — a teen rival of Burrell’s who gave conflicting accounts of what he saw.

— No gun, fingerprints or hard evidence linked Burrell to the crime.

— Police video showed the lead homicide detective offering informants cash for information — even if it was hearsay.

— Burrell’s co-defendants said he was not even at the scene.

— The getaway driver gave a physical description and the first name of a suspect, but police did not follow up.

— Alibis mentioned by Burrell in his interrogation were not questioned by police.

— Officers did not pull a convenience store surveillance tape that Burrell said would have cleared him.

That really blows my mind that a jury could convict beyond reasonable doubt based on all that.

One particular thing that prosecutors do is talk people into plea bargains for crimes they never committed because many people cannot afford a good defense attorney. When the quality of justice you receive is measured by the fatness of your pocket book you know something is badly wrong. You want to improve our legal system real fast - eliminate all private legal defense. Yeah I know it's a crazy idea and would never happen, but if everyone had the same amount of representation suddenly many people would be very interested in us having the very best public defenders - just like all the civilized countries where they have public health care systems.

Back to the article - one things I don't get - why does it say "Throughout her political career, Klobuchar has used Burrell’s conviction to trumpet her commitment to racial justice"? You convicted a black man of killing a black child - doesn't exactly strike me as the conviction you'd want to trumpet. For sure I'm some people were probably happy when a person was found to blame for the little girl's death - a crime that probably normally wouldn't have received much investigation - but the risks are way high for using this case for bragging rights especially when Myon had only a public defender: [caselaw.findlaw.com] and the evidence so scant.

Maybe if you really want to brag about a case for racial justice you convict dirty cop for killing a minority? Or even better you dedicate yourself to doing stuff that decreases the likelihood of minorities ending up in.life of crime, or wrongfully convicted of crimes, or you help with rehabilitation programs to keep those previous convicted out of jail.

Ultimately if you're a prosecutor running for public office I can't imagine how you'll avoid having baggage like this in your past - I'm sure Harris has some too - it's too bad they wait until the last minute to try and clean up their past because the optics look really bad.

@SeaGreenEyez I guess we accept their ability to do that as a counter to defense tactics, tricks, and lies which can easily sway the jury. It is regrettable that the standard for beyond reasonable doubt and level of intelligence for a jury of your peers is so low. Never mind that we also have jury nullification which means even if the facts are irrefutable they can decide not to convict and you can't appeal a not guilty verdict, while you can appeal a guilty one.

I'm total behind fact based things though. The government should be run that way. But I'm not sure how you would run a legal system like that - would you have to throw out juries completely since they are not rational actors? Just have some AI algorithm consider the evidence?

@SeaGreenEyez I want really intending to defend it, more explain it. Is there a reason we couldn't have similar laws to the Commonwealth ones you mentioned? Will attorneys cry "free speech!" if regulators try to shoot down their use of theory, supposition, and opinion with new laws?