Dror's Case : A Reflection of Systemic Problems in the Harris County Criminal Justice System
§ Prosecution from the bench
§ Judge bowing to public and political pressure
Texas is one of very few states that employs a non-Public Defender System. Harris County now hosts primarily Republican judges, elected to the bench by a party and public hungry for “toughness” instead of justice. Judges are using the bench to assist the prosecution and further party politics by acting tough on crime.
Every day Harris County criminal judges are setting outrageous bond terms, meting out punishments beyond the severity of the crime, and clearing cases from their dockets with deference to speed rather than fairness. Examples of judicial bias are evident in the records and can be viewed in the courtroom as judges use blatant facial expressions and body language to demonstrate their preferences.
In Dror’s case, Judge Joan Campbell revoked Dror’s bond weeks before the trial began in an unjustified and illegal hearing procedure. The matter is on appeal. Judge Joan Campbell excluded exculpatory evidence including Dror’s statement to the police. She excluded mention of DNA evidence and 911 recordings, which were lost or destroyed by the prosecution and police. She admitted irrelevant, but inflammatory evidence as well as overt hearsay.
The Judge consistently made over-the-top faces indicating her bias against the defense. When asked to address the jury on the matter, she explained that sometimes her face and posture may not indicate a bias but rather reflect her thoughts about unrelated topics such as what time to break for lunch.
Misconduct by Police and Prosecutors
Harris County is a land in which police and prosecutors all too often “lose” evidence crucial to defendants. In the book Actual Innocence , Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld and Jim Dwyer, emphasize police and prosecutor misconduct as serious problems within the American criminal justice system. Often characterized by courts as “harmless error,” such misconduct can be devastating for a defendant.In Dror’s case, the police and prosecution effectively eliminated the opportunity for Dror to prove his innocence through DNA testing. The clothes of the woman who survived the brutal attack were never made available for testing. As the assailant had held this woman in a bear hug while stabbing her 14 times, DNA evidence of the assailant would most certainly have been present on the clothes. The prosecution lost the fingernail clippings taken from the murder victim and they were only found after the trial ended. The police only took six samples of blood from an extremely bloody scene. Had they taken more, the blood of the assailant would likely have been collected.
To learn more about Dror Goldberg’s case, please email The Taskforce for Justice in the Name of Dror Goldberg.
Major Findings from the Study:
the Texas Criminal Justice System
The Texas Office of Court Administration and the State Bar of Texas began a comprehensive study of trust and confidence within the Texas courts in 1998. The following is a summary of the results of the final phase of the project taken from surveys of judges, attorneys, and court personnel within the Texas court system.
23% of attorneys had a “somewhat” or “very” negative impression of the Texas Court System.
Only 36% of attorneys agreed that courts follow the law in performing their duties.
Just 31% of attorneys agreed that judges write opinions of good quality.
4% of judges and 85% of court personnel agreed that the courts did a poor job of informing the public about court procedures and services.
81% of attorneys agreed that a person’s socioeconomic status affects the treatment they receive in court.
48% of judges, 69% of court personnel, and 79% of attorneys agreed that campaign contributions have a “fairly” or “very” significant influence on judicial decisions.
Attorneys ranked partisan election of judges as the system’s most significant weakness.
More than half (64%) of judges felt attorneys are unprepared in court.
Attorneys, judges, and court personnel all rank lack of professionalism and training of judges, attorneys, and court personnel as the number one reason for the court’s negative image.
To obtain copies of the full report, please contact the Texas Office of Court Administration at 512-463-1625.
