Doe V United States
This was a recent case decided by the New York District Court. This was a case concerning ancillary jurisdiction. In the American jurisprudence, Ancillary jurisdiction refers to the power that a court of law has to hear and adjudicate upon matters that are not formally before it but fall under its jurisdiction. This principle is similar to the federal supplemental jurisdiction but this only applies to the districts courts. Ancillary jurisdiction has mostly been used in criminal proceeding but as time went by the courts have started to slowly but cautiously embrace it in criminal proceedings as will be discussed in the real case below. In Doe V the United States (2015), the Eastern District court of New York allowed an application to expunge the petitioner’s conviction. The courts validated its decision by relying only on the principle of equitable consideration. He stated that the losses that the petitioner had suffered were adverse enough to warrant for an expungement of her conviction. The brief facts of the case are as follows;
Jane Doe immigrated to the United States in 1983 together with her four children in search of the ‘American dream’ and has lived there since then. She worked as an aide health worker at a local community hospital. She was involved in health insurance fraud and was arrested and charged for that crime in a federal court. She was found guilty by a jury of her peers and sentenced to six years in prison with a possibility of parole. She got out on parole and was under the strict supervision of her parole officer. As a result of this crime, she lost six jobs as an aide worker and approached a district court which expunged her conviction citing she had suffered enough. The prosecution appealed citing that the court was a district court while Doe’s case was a federal one hence only a federal court could exercise ancillary jurisdiction. The appeal was allowed on this ground. The court stated that jurisdiction is everything and if a court does not have jurisdiction it has no choice but to down its tools (Kolar, 2015).
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In Leyba V United States (2013), a judge in a district court in Santa Fe accepted a plea bargain by the prosecution. The accused person Mr. Marino Leyba, 27, pleaded guilty of two counts of murder in the first degree for the demise of his 17 year old girlfriend, Sarah Lovato and her father Mr. Bennie Ray Lovato. The accused person was faced with a maximum sentence of 32 years in prison. The judge held off the sentencing until December 2013. On the aforementioned date of sentencing, the accused person was sentenced to 63 years imprisonment. However, this decision has been overturned by a higher court citing that the trial court admitted evidence against the accused person that was hearsay and therefore inadmissible.
That not- withstanding, the family of the victim were split over the plea agreement as to whether they would accept it or not. But all the eight members of the victim’s family did not accept the plea agreement set by the prosecution for the accused person. They argued through their counsel that the murders had split their family apart and caused them emotional discomfort and stress and that they wanted the accused to be given maximum sentence. Was justice served in this case? In my own view, plea bargaining can be a very tricky issue to address in a criminal proceeding. No matter how one decides it there is always a side that is aggrieved. However, is plea bargaining fair? I do not think plea bargaining is fair. Even though it serves to save the state the cost of a suit, the prosecution ought to undergo a full trial in order to get justice for both the accused and the family of the victim. Plea bargaining should be done away with altogether.
In the case of Rafael V The State of Michigan (2013), Rafael Suarez was arrested and charged with the offence of vicious felony assault a crime which another man had already pleaded guilty. The defense attorney interviewed the woman who had made the 911 call and an eye witness who witnessed the event said that Suarez was in fact not the assailant but was intervening and tried to stop the assault. A third witness said that she had heard the victim say that she would lie in court to get Mr. Suarez convicted. However, none of these witnesses were called in to testify. The accused person was found guilty by the jury and sentenced to five years in prison. After this facts came to light in 2014, Suarez was exonerated by the court and he sued his lawyer who was later disbarred due to this case. He got a judgement of one million dollars but since the lawyer did not have any assets, he filed for bankruptcy and it was unfortunate that Suarez would never see a dime of the judgement money (Blanchard, 2016)
However, this is not the most painful part of Suarez life. As a result of the wrongful conviction, Suarez had lost his job and his dream of ever becoming a paralegal had been flashed down the drain. His wife had divorced him and filed for the sole custody of his children one of whom was born while he was in jail. He also had lost parental rights to his children and could not be seen as their father anymore. Suarez had served 3 years of the term before he was acquitted by the court. In conclusion, Wrongful convictions can have dire consequences to the life of the person and some even result in suicide since the grief and stress becomes too much to bear.
References
Kolar, J. (2014). Deadly Force; Understanding Your Right To Self Defense, Harvard Law Review.
Blanchard, L. (2016). Absence of Evidence; an examination of the Mitchel Young murder Case, Stanford Law Books.
