Making a Farce of Criminal Justice

Print out this article, keep it in your wallet, and read it aloud to anyone who so much as implies that if you're arrested for something, you're probably guilty.

During the past two years, a Louisville Metro police detective has accused at least a dozen defendants — many of them juveniles — of crimes they did not commit.

Detective Crystal Marlowe has pursued charges against some defendants for crimes they could not have committed because they were already in jail. And in other cases, she charged people based on identifications that the victims later said they never made.

Some of those Marlowe accused spent days or even months in jail before they were exonerated, The Courier-Journal found in a review of cases handled by Marlowe.

In addition, dozens of Marlowe’s cases fell apart once they got to court. The newspaper’s review of the roughly 130 felony cases in which Marlowe made arrests during 2008 and 2009 found that 40 percent ultimately were dismissed, often at prosecutors’ request.

Read the whole thing.

Oh, and C-J? This is the kind of journalism that makes people line up to buy your paper. Kudos for it, but shame on you that I have to explain that it's far too rare in your still-a-rag excuse for a newspaper.