Putting the innocent behind bars.

• Author: Martinez, Anne

IF YOU DON'T want to spend time in jail, don't commit a crime. This statement sounds simple enough and widely is accepted as the truth, but in reality it is far from accurate; innocence doesn't protect someone automatically from incarceration, or even from execution.

That is a lesson Marjorie Blaha learned firsthand. When she was charged with a crime she didn't commit, Blaha took comfort in the belief that innocence is the ultimate defense. A veteran of the U.S. Navy, she had great trust in her country and, by extension, its system of justice. Blaha mistakenly assumed she would be treated as innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. Instead, she spent 116 days in jail, where she was strip-searched, assaulted by another inmate, and confined to a tiny cell. Her life was threatened and her health suffered. Eventually, Blaha received her day in court, and the jury quickly found her innocent. That did not restore her reputation, health, life savings, or the thousands of dollars borrowed from relatives to help pay for her defense.

Others have fared much worse. George De Los Santos, Rene Santana, Charles Dabbs, Nathaniel Walker, V. James Landano, Joyce Ann Brown, Damaso Vega, Clarence Chance, Benny Powell, Clarence Brandley, Matthew Connor, Rubin Carter, Gilbert Alejandro, and Jack W. Davis all faced the death penalty or up to life in prison and spent years behind bars before being exonerated completely.

On May 20, 1992, Roger Coleman was strapped into the electric chair and executed by the state of Virginia, despite a last-minute cover story in Time magazine presenting serious questions about his guilt. Once Coleman was convicted, the courts fell deaf to his pleas of innocence, claims of incompetent defense counsel, and lists of evidence never presented. The Time article quotes Justice Byron White as writing: "It is hardly good use of scarce judicial resources to duplicate fact finding in federal court merely because a petitioner has negligently failed to take advantage of opportunities in state court proceedings." In other words, sorry, Roger, you missed your chance. We don't

The Bureau of Criminal Statistics does not keep count of the number of people initially convicted and later proved innocent of all charges. Thus, it is impossible to pinpoint the number wrongfully convicted who never are exonerated and set free.

David Rudovsky, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, has practiced in a public interest/civil rights firm and spent time as First Assistant Defender with the Defender Association of Philadelphia. in 1986, he received a MacArthur Foundation Award for his criminal justice and civil liberties work. "I've been in the system for about 25 years and seen a lot of cases," Rudovsky notes. "I would say those convicted who are in fact innocent . . . I'd guess between five and 10%."

James McCloskey is the founder of Centurion Ministries, an organization...