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Innocence in New Orleans
新奧爾良的“洗冤錄”
A shocking tale from the Big Easy
自由城里一個駭人聽聞的故事
Free after 34 years
監(jiān)禁34年后被釋放
“IT'S all good,” Reginald Adams said as he walked free on May 12th, having spent the past 34 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. A less forgiving man might have put it differently. New Orleans police and prosecutors should have known they had the wrong guy back in 1979. They recovered the gun used in the murder, and linked it to another pair of criminals who had nothing to do with Mr Adams.
5月12日，被誤判為殺人犯的雷金納德·亞當斯邁出了監(jiān)禁了他34年的監(jiān)獄，并表示：“一切都很好”。許多不像他一樣寬容的人或許會覺得不可思議。事實上，新奧爾良的警方和檢察官早在1979年就知道他們判錯了刑。他們找到了謀殺案里使用的槍，并證實了該案件與另外兩個人有關，而和亞當斯毫無關系。
All the police had against Mr Adams was his confession: one he gave after a marathon interview, during which police allegedly plied him with alcohol and drugs. Mr Adams got almost every detail of the crime wrong, from the calibre of weapon used to the number of shots fired to the sex and hair colour of the victim.
當初，警察一致認為亞當斯先生就是殺人兇手，因為他曾做過一個懺悔—在他接受了一個漫長的采訪，并被警方不斷指認涉嫌濫用酒精和毒品后。亞當斯先生幾乎被指證了每一個犯罪細節(jié)，從武器的口徑和開槍的次數(shù)到受害者的性別和發(fā)色。
when they first tried him. And they did not hand over to his defence team the police report tracing the gun's provenance. Mr Adams's new lawyers say—and the city's current district attorney, Leon Cannizzaro, agrees—that detectives knowingly gave false testimony.
在亞當斯先生第一次受審時，警方并沒有給他的辯護團提供有關追蹤槍支來源的報告。亞當斯先生的新律師稱，該市目前的檢察官列昂坎尼扎羅，通過了偵探故意提供的虛假證詞。
As Mr Adams languished in prison, some of his tormentors were caught wandering off the straight and narrow. One prosecutor became a crooked judge and was jailed for it. One of the detectives served five years for vehicular homicide. And Ronald Ulfers, the cop whose wife was murdered, is now serving life in prison for murdering his second wife.
然而，當亞當斯先生在監(jiān)獄中備受煎熬時，那些迫害他的人也陸續(xù)遭受苦果。一名檢察官被證實判案不公正并因此入獄；一名偵探因車禍殺人而服役五年；而受害人的丈夫羅納德，則因殺害他的第二任妻子而鋃鐺入獄。
Mr Cannizzaro took only ten days to join the motion by Mr Adams's lawyers to set aside the guilty verdict. The DA said the misconduct was the worst he has seen. That is saying something. The DA's office in New Orleans has become notorious for such cases, largely from the three-decade tenure of former DA Harry Connick senior, the father of a well-known singer. Most of the defective cases involve"Brady violations”: failures to give defendants all material that might be exculpatory.
當時，坎尼扎羅先生僅用了10天的時間就否定了亞當斯的律師團要求預留有罪判決的要求。地方檢察官表示這樣的瀆職行為是他見過的最為嚴重的一次。這同樣也證明了一個問題。在這樣的情況下，地方檢察院在新奧爾良變得臭名昭著。這樣的情況主要產生于前任地方檢察院的高官哈利·康在位的三年內。哈利·康是一位著名歌手的父親。在他的任期內，許多誤判的案件都存在“布雷迪行為”：不能給被告充分的機會來證明他們無罪。
In one case Mr Connick's men sent John Thompson to death row for a murder he didn't commit, hiding evidence that would have helped him. Mr Thompson narrowly missed being executed. After his exoneration, he won a 14m judgment against the DA's office.
在一個案例中，哈利·康等人以謀殺罪判決約翰湯普森死刑。而事實上，約翰?湯普森并沒有殺人，哈利·康等人卻隱瞞了可以證明他無罪的證據(jù)。湯普森先生差一點被執(zhí)行死刑。他被釋放后，上告哈利·康等人并獲得了140萬美元的補償。
Mr Cannizzaro appealed the award, saying it would bankrupt his office. In 2011 the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in his favour, saying the office should not be held liable for the acts of a “rogue prosecutor”. Dissenting, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote that Mr Connick's office had been “deliberately indifferent” to the Brady rule. The Innocence Project of New Orleans, which represented Mr Adams, counts 31 cases from the Connick era where Brady violations have been proven. Mr Connick has said that his office handled so many cases that a few mistakes were bound to occur.
坎尼扎羅先生對此判決提出上訴，聲稱如果這樣，地方檢察院將面臨破產。2011年，最高法院以5：4的比例通過了他的上訴，并表示地方檢察院不應該為“流氓的檢察官”買單。同時，這也存在異議。魯思·金斯伯格法官寫道：哈利·康的政權已經“故意冷淡”布雷迪規(guī)則了。新奧爾良的無罪行動，釋放了像亞當斯這樣的在哈利·康當權期間被誤判的31人，這就是一個很好的證明。康尼克先生則說他們地方檢察院要處理許多案件，出一些錯誤是不可避免的。
Not long ago, every pillar of New Orleans's criminal-justice system was broken. Now the police and the jail are under federal decrees requiring judicial oversight and reforms, and Mr Cannizzaro has done much to improve the DA's office. But that may be scant comfort for Mr Adams.
不久前，新奧爾良刑事司法體系的每一個支柱都被打破了。現(xiàn)在警方和監(jiān)獄正在聯(lián)邦法規(guī)的要求下進行司法監(jiān)督和改革，坎尼扎羅先生已經對當?shù)貦z察院做了許多改革。這也許是對亞當斯先生的一點微不足道的安慰。
