Capers was "exonerated" by a Conviction Integrity Unit.
I decided to go with a more mainstream, more left-leaning source on this because most of these types of sources are using the word "exonerated."
One can argue that it's the right word in a broad sense. Capers definitely had the remainder of his sentence for murdering a fourteen-year-old girl commuted. The process by which the conviction was overturned was bullshit.
Again, much of my time in DC was working on criminal justice reform issues. Many of our coalitions were built with people on the left. Still, this is why it's important to strive to be right on crime, rather than tough or soft.
Yes, there have been horrifying cases wherein I'm pretty sure we've executed innocent people, and I'm not talking about lynchings during Jim Crow. The thing is, there are people in prison right now who I genuinely believe are there because they're unpopular, not because they're guilty, and most of those people were dragged through the mud by the left.
Capers was "exonerated" by a Conviction Integrity Unit.
If you're like me in the sense that you find the fact that the burden of proof is effectively flipped through the appellate process to be a less than ideal way to handle things -- especially given how flawed juries can be -- these units might seem like a good idea before you think for a couple of seconds.
These units are under the control of the DA's office. That's a problem.
The justice system should be adversarial. It's already been a regular statement that's been made about woke prosecutors is that it doesn't help to have defense attorneys on both sides. If a person actually did harm or kill another person, you need a prosecutor who is going to seek the truth and remove that person from civil society.
With these units, there's no adversarial process. When CNN first reported on this specific case, before Capers got out and killed again, they reported that this unit had "won" over a hundred cases. It's easy to win the game when you lock the other team out of the stadium.
I have to believe that it's possible to strike a balance between DA's offices that'll lie and push the limits of what's allowable in court in order to secure a conviction at all costs and DA's offices that can't seem to work hard enough to find ways to let violent criminals back on the streets in the most expeditious manner possible.
I don't know how we strike that balance; but, we have to.