from: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0504pimentel04.html

Pay Ray Krone his $100 million

O. Ricardo Pimentel
Republic columnist
May. 4, 2003 12:00 AM

Ray Krone wants $100 million from the folks who wrongfully put him in prison for about 10 years - nearly three of them on death row.

That would be us. Let's pay.

No muss. No fuss. No trial. Let's pay it and feel lucky that all the former postman wants is roughly $10 million for every year of torture he endured before DNA evidence proved that he didn't kill Phoenix bartender Kim Ancona.

Torture? Too steep a price?

Well, try really hard to imagine what it's like to be imprisoned for a crime you didn't commit. Try really hard to fathom what those years on death row might have been like.

For double the pleasure, imagine sitting through two trials to hear police officers and prosecutors spin a tale based on flimsy evidence that nonetheless causes two jury foremen to utter those words, "Guilty, your honor."

Now take any horror and revulsion you might be imagining and realize it probably doesn't even come close to matching the gut-wrenching pain and despair Krone felt. It probably doesn't even come close to what his mother, Carolyn Leming, who joins him in the suit, felt.

We should pay the $100 million not because his conviction, the lawsuit alleges, was based on prosecutorial and police misconduct, altered evidence, evidence not tested, exculpatory evidence not disclosed to the defense or a prosecution that shopped for and got an expert who said what it wanted.

We should pay because we should collectively be held accountable for the mistakes made in our name, particularly when they cause such great harm.

No mistakes made? Exhibit No. 1: We convicted and sent to death row the wrong guy.

Fourteen states and the District of Columbia provide some form of compensation for those wrongly convicted and imprisoned.

This is as it should be. In Arizona, we shouldn't force Krone to prove that those who arrested, investigated, prosecuted and convicted him were malicious, negligent or any of the other things that might generally be required of a meritorious civil suit against the government.

It should suffice to say only that he was wrongly convicted.

Just a guess, but I'm betting that the thresholds are higher in cases in which citizens sue their government. But we're not talking here about an unfilled pothole or a civil servant making a mistake that inconveniences. We're talking about 10 years of a person's life, some of it spent expecting the state to strap you to a gurney and kill you.

We should pay because - and there's no good way of saying this - the police, the prosecution and two juries of his peers screwed up big time. And they did it on our behalf.

But look, let's say you don't believe a word the lawsuit says about ineptitude and misconduct. That maybe it's just all legal posturing in pursuit of a payday.

Let's say you don't care a whit that those really weren't Krone's teeth marks on the victim's breast, though a prosecution "expert" matched them.

Let's say you are unmoved by the suit's contention that the prosecution hid the fact that another expert said they probably weren't a match.

Let's say you just don't care that, according to the suit, there was evidence available that pointed more conclusively to Kenneth Phillips, already in custody for a sex crime committed three weeks after Ancona's sexual assault and murder.

Let's say that this lawsuit doesn't really draw a frightening road map for a legal railroading and that everything can be explained away as honest errors, differences of opinion on what constitutes evidence, exculpatory evidence, expert qualification, proper conduct or the truth.

No one should believe for a moment that anyone in the Police Department would arrest nor anyone in the County Attorney's Office prosecute a guy they knew to be innocent.

But the fact is, they - we - arrested the wrong guy and put him in prison and on death row.

Even if it can all be explained as just one big series of unavoidable mistakes, it still amounts to persecution, not prosecution.

A hundred million is the least we can do. We should pay not because we fear Krone will win his suit anyway but because there's a credible chance that he won't.

After all, if Krone's conviction proved anything it is that the legal system is indeed flawed, including a propensity to stack the cards for the government.

Just as with his dual convictions and placement on death row, we could correctly call a judgment against Krone in this suit "lawful." And it would still be wrong.

Reach Pimentel at ricardo.pimentel@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8210. His column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.

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