BOSTON (AP) — During the 22 years he spent in prison after being convicted of killing a Boston police detective, Sean Ellis believed there was something suspicious about the officers who led the murder investigation. He just couldn't prove it.
It would take years of digging and scores of public information requests from his attorneys to uncover evidence that several officers investigating the 1993 murder case were involved in criminal activity — information that wasn't shared with the defense.
A Superior Court judge in 2015 ordered a new trial for Ellis and his murder charges were later dismissed.
Defense attorneys have long run up against a brick wall when trying to discover whether an officer has credibility issues that could set their client free.
But the case of Ellis and more recently, Philadelphia rapper Meek Mill , born Robert Williams, is fueling calls among civil liberty groups and reform-minded district attorneys to make the system more transparent. It is part of a larger call to address criminal justice reform at a time of growing anger over police shootings and wrongful convictions often involving African-Americans.
Five years after protests that erupted in Ferguson, Missouri, over the fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, activists have been pushing prosecutors to create lists of problem police officers, limit the use of the officers on them and review cases these officers worked to determine whether cases should be dropped or if defendants should be exonerated.
"In addition to charges, this is the other thing that prosecutors can be doing — making it very hard for officers to engage in the kind of conduct that should lead to them being fired," said Scott Roberts, the senior director of criminal justice campaigns for Color of Change, an online racial justice organization, which is calling for prosecutors nationwide to create lists.
The Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors have a constitutional responsibility to share information favorable to the defense, including law enforcement officers with credibility issues. It is often called the Brady rule.
Wrongdoings that can land an officer on a so-called Brady list or database include lying on a police report, excessive force, bigoted comments or crimes such as drunken driving or domestic violence. Some lists also include officers under investigation, though they could be removed if the allegation is dismissed. Others have expanded the list to include lab technicians and others who might testify on the government's behalf.
With no clear guidance from the courts on how that information should be shared, critics have chided prosecutors for failing to keep track of problem officers and going out of their way to keep information from the defense — either by failing to disclose the details about the officer, choosing not to put the officer on the stand or dropping a case altogether. Criminal justice advocates said the Brady rule violations have long been a problem and continue to pose a risk to innocent defendants.
"It's a serious issue," said Samuel Gross, the founder and senior editor of National Registry of Exonerations which has tracked 2,472 exonerations, mostly due to Brady violations. "We know from repeated scandals that there are a substantial number of officers who have engaged in concerted patterns of abuse and done dreadful things."
In July, a Pennsylvania appeals court overturned Mill's decade-old conviction on a drug and gun case over questions about the arresting officer's credibility. Mill pleaded guilty this week to a misdemeanor gun charge in a deal that ends the legal limbo surrounding the 2007 arrest.