{"id":764,"date":"2012-12-24T14:33:29","date_gmt":"2012-12-24T14:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=764"},"modified":"2019-08-01T09:01:06","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T09:01:06","slug":"attached-to-their-convictions-and-them-some","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/?p=764","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Attached to their convictions&#8217; \u2013 and then some"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"style187\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-512\" src=\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/120523Beaver.jpg\" alt=\"120523Beaver\" width=\"120\" height=\"180\" \/>Dec. 24, 2012<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cWhy prosecutors sometimes fight post-conviction evidence so adamantly depends on each case. Some legitimately believe the new evidence is not exonerating.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cBut legal scholars looking at the issue suggest that prosecutors\u2019 concerns about their political future and a culture that values winning over justice also come into play. \u2018They are attached to their convictions,\u2019 (says Brandon Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia), \u2018and they don\u2019t want to see their work called into question.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"style173\" style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>\u2013 From \u201c<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/11\/27\/magazine\/dna-evidence-lake-county.html?ref=magazine\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>The Prosecution\u2019s Case Against DNA<\/em><\/a><em>\u201d in the\u00a0New York Times Sunday Magazine (Nov. 25, 2011)<\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cAttached to their convictions,\u201d indeed. Nancy Lamb was so attached that in 1996, after Bob Kelly\u2019s 99-count conviction was overturned, she rummaged around the office and turned up yet another molestation claim \u2013 this one from two years before the Little Rascals arrests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">Gerald Beaver, Kelly&#8217;s attorney, pointed out that the law requires any report of sexual abuse to be investigated immediately and called police investigator Brenda Toppin, who testified that she had told Lamb about the claim in 1992. Lamb denied any recollection of Toppin\u2019s comment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">\u201cAll of this \u2018We care about the children\u2019 kind of went down the drain after the conviction,\u201d Beaver said. \u201cIt was only when (Kelly) successfully appealed and was no longer pulling 12 consecutive life sentences that the state felt compelled to go out and find this witness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"style184\">As usual, however, time proved no object for prosecutors dedicated to making life miserable for Little Rascals defendants. It would be 1999 before they dropped the final charge against Bob Kelly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dec. 24, 2012 \u201cWhy prosecutors sometimes fight post-conviction evidence so adamantly depends on each case. Some legitimately believe the new evidence is not exonerating. \u201cBut legal scholars looking at the issue suggest that prosecutors\u2019 concerns about their political future and a culture that values winning over justice also come into play. \u2018They are attached to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=764"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3271,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/764\/revisions\/3271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}