Why is San Francisco still defending the cops behind two horrific wrongful convictions?

Two cops, two lives stolen, and a 'liberal' city's long fight against the evidence

Hey y’all,

I wanted to share my latest story, which is my last for the San Francisco Chronicle for a while. This one took 18-months of reporting (while doing other stories). I’m on leave until next year while I’m at the University of Michigan for the Knight-Wallace fellowship. In the Michigan Innocence Clinic, I’m helping student attorneys investigate potential wrongful convictions. Many insights are to come from the depths of some of the worst cases I’ve ever seen.

Back to this story. It’s about two San Francisco homicide investigations gone off the rails in the same year with the same detectives. Witnesses who said they saw things they couldn’t have seen got benefits like: a “get out jail free cards,” redeemable for many offenses; cash rewards; and, once, a free trip to Disneyland for the family. Powerful alibis were disregarded. Two men lost half their lives.

The cases were led by two veteran detectives with storied careers. In “Slouching Towards Bethlehem,” Joan Didion wrote about one of the officers’…colorful reputation back in the Summer of Love when had hippies descended upon the straight-laced cop’s home neighborhood, Haight-Ashbury.

I hope you read it and spread the word. Be on the lookout for a post telling a striking story that didn’t make it into the piece. It’s about a witness who got a secret $10,000 reward, and is revealing of the system that still lumbers today, snatching an unknown number of innocent lives.

Feel free to let me know what you think or if you have questions.

Take care,

Josh

https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/sf-detectives-wrongful-convictions-17769496.php?utm_source=marketing&utm_medium=copy-url-link&utm_campaign=article-share&hash=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2ZjaHJvbmljbGUuY29tL2NyaW1lL2FydGljbGUvc2YtZGV0ZWN0aXZlcy13cm9uZ2Z1bC1jb252aWN0aW9ucy0xNzc2OTQ5Ni5waHA=&time=MTY5NTI1NTM2MTUwNg==&rid=Y2IxN2JjODUtMDQ0YS00ZWJhLThlNjEtZGY5OWVhZDk0YTRh&sharecount=Mg==