[Note: Friends of Justice is a personal blog. I speak only for myself.]
“Looking back at the case would serve a bigger purpose than score-settling. Wrongful convictions like that of Baran endanger trust in the whole judicial system. The Supreme Judicial Court, in its role as the general safeguard of the integrity of the courts, should launch a special inquiry into how justice failed during the hysteria of the 1980s. It must also look at why the Berkshire County district attorney was able to conceal the tapes for so long after the trial, even claiming the tapes were lost. (The tapes only surfaced after Downing died.) That’s also a question that the next state attorney general may want to ask, while also moving to finally expunge Baran’s criminal record.”
