Tags: Victim's Rights, Reconciliation, Kazinski , Wright, Humankind, NPR

Today’s New York Post contained a troubling story involving an a demonstrably false allegation of rape. Biurny Peguero Gonzalez repeatedly told police, prosecutors, the grand jury, and the petite jury that she had been raped by William McCaffrey. The jury believed Ms. Gonzalez and convicted the defendant. Mr.McCaffrey served more than four years in prison before exonerated by DNA test. At that point, Ms. Gonzalez coached on by her priest recanted her testimony and admitted she was never raped. What is sickening about the case is her underlying reason for the false allegation of sexual abuse. Ms. Gonzales was out with friends and temporarily left with the Mr. McCaffrey. Her friends were upset with her for leaving. In order to garner her sympathy, she invented the story that she was raped. At the original trial, she testified that she was 110% sure that the police have the right defendant and that he had raped her. Like many allegations of sexual abuse, the state had relied on her contemporaneous and distressed outburst over it to demonstrate that it was not a fabrication. While I recognize the danger of anecdotal evidence, the Gonzalez case demonstrates just how difficult it is to tell a genuine allegation of sexual abuse from a false one. It also paints a troubling picture about how easily some people won't make up such a damning lie. Click here to read the New York Post story.

The U.S. Supreme Court made clear in a Nov. 9 per curiam opinion that the American Bar Association's Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases may not be treated as setting the standard of prevailing professional norms when a court is assessing a Sixth Amendment claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The court reversed a grant of habeas corpus relief to an Ohio death-row inmate that was predicated on the circuit court's determination that counsel for the petitioner at his trial more than two decades ago failed to satisfy the 2003 ABA standards for uncovering and presenting mitigating evidence. Bobby v. Van Hook, U.S., No. 09-144, 11/9/09. The Legal Times Blog has a nice discussion on this ruling.

I just got back from the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys seminar in Santa Fe New Mexico and what perfect timing. We didn’t know it at the time that the conference was planned, but New Mexico abolished the death penalty just before we came and we got to join in the celebrations. The repeal is not perfect. It is not retroactive and is statutory (rather than constitutional), but Yipee!. For more on the abrogation, check out this New York Times article.