Who pays when someone is falsely accused?

Eric Allen Warren shouldn't have to pay to have his 'factual innocence' declared

Eric Allen Warren spent 53 days in the Sacramento jail for crimes he insists he did not commit. Now prosecutors who initially charged Warren say they have "substantial doubts" about his guilt as well. All charges have been dropped, but his life may never be the same. Warren's story raises two questions about the criminal justice system. How reliable are eyewitness identifications? What remedies are available for those falsely accused?

Warren's lawyer says police picked up his client because of a telephone tip. Five witnesses identified him as the perpetrator in a string of violent Natomas area burglaries and sexual assaults. Police say they would have been derelict not to arrest him. Warren, a 20-year-old college student who had never been in trouble with the law, was charged with nine crimes, including assault with a gun, attempted robbery and sexual battery.

Weeks after he was jailed, the case against him began to fall apart. A crime similar to the one in the series for which Warren was charged occurred while he was locked up, an indication that the real criminal was still at large. And the five eyewitness identifications turned out to be less solid than they originally seemed.

That's all too common in criminal cases. After surveying studies from across the country, the California Commission for the Fair Administration of Justice has concluded that misidentification by eyewitnesses is the leading cause of wrongful convictions. When a case involves an accused person and witness of different races, instances of mistaken identification increase exponentially. Eric Warren is African American. The witnesses who identified him in both photo and live lineups were Asian and white.

The commission has made several recommendations to improve the accuracy and reliability of witness identifications. Among them, photo spreads and lineups should be presented to only one witness at a time and the witnesses ought to be separated to avoid influencing each other. All witnesses should be told that a suspect may or may not be in a photo spread or lineup and should be told that an identification or failure to make an identification won't end the investigation. The procedures recommended don't just protect innocent suspects, they protect the public, too. Prosecutors now believe that the Natomas burglar continued his crime spree while Warren was in jail.

If a mistake was made, what is the remedy for Warren? His family is out thousands of dollars in legal bills. Warren is out of jail, but he's not free from the effects of what appears to have been a false accusation. For example, if asked on a job application, "Have you ever been arrested?" must he answer "yes" -- a devastating admission for any job-seeker and particularly so for a young African American man? A declaration of "factual innocence" would officially expunge Warren's arrest record. But such a declaration requires Warren to petition the court himself, incurring yet more legal costs. That's unfair.

If a mistake, no matter how innocent, was made by witnesses, by police or by prosecutors, the system owes Warren an apology. A declaration of "factual innocence" is the one meaningful apology available to him. He should not have to pay for it.

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