The Importance of a Conviction Integrity Unit.

• Author: Dougherty, Michael
• Position: Editorial

IN THE TWENTY YEARS I have been a prosecutor, my guiding principle has been to seek justice in every case, without fear or favor. Now, as the District Attorney of Boulder County, I will maintain this mission for the District Attorney's Office. In practical terms, it means that every case is reviewed impartially, with the goal of reaching the just result for the victim, the accused, and the community. If a case warrants prosecution on behalf of a crime victim and our community, it will be undertaken using the highest standards of ethics and prosecutorial excellence.

I strongly believe a prosecutor's commitment to do justice must include a process to ensure that no one has been wrongfully convicted. This goal should be in mind throughout the entire prosecution process, including after a criminal conviction is secured through a trial or an offender's guilty plea.

For this reason, I am proud to introduce a Conviction Integrity Unit within the Boulder District Attorney's Office. This program will provide a sound, transparent and collaborative review mechanism for claims of wrongful conviction. I am excited to work with the Boulder Public Defender's Office, the private defense bar, and University of Colorado Boulder's Korey Wise Innocence Project in establishing the protocols and reviewing claims of innocence. A conviction integrity process should be built on partnerships between prosecutors and defense attorneys.

My family and I first moved to Boulder for me to start and oversee a wrongful conviction project. It was an honor to apply the skills I had learned from years as a prosecutor as the head of the Colorado DNA Justice Review Project (JRP). The JRP provided a non-adversarial, neutral review process for finding possible wrongful convictions in serious cases, such as rape and murder. I worked with members of the defense bar, district attorneys, laboratory analysts, law enforcement, and victim advocates to lead the review.

My first task with the JRP was to meet with all of the elected district attorneys across the state to request their cooperation, and allow the JRP to review their case files. Although our job was to reexamine the past work of their offices in the most serious cases, every single...