15-05-2014, 03:36 PM
Drew Phipps Wrote:I've met Henry Wade, too, and heard him speak. My impression of him doesn't include "power-drunk vigilante." He certainly seemed to take his job very seriously. "Zealous advocacy" is a hazard of the profession in the system of adversary justice (on both sides). His job was to present the State's case in its best possible light. He held that job for more than 30 years
As a prosecutor, he also had the ethical obligation to seek "justice" and not just convictions. Every prosecutor has to strike some balance between ethics and advocacy. I've met hundreds of prosecutors, and just like any other group of people, there are better and worse. Henry Wade didn't seem to me as a prosecutor that had crossed the line, at least in his attitude towards his work. I've met a very few that did.
You should probably also acknowledge that Henry Wade's office policy of preserving evidence even after it was no longer "necessary" to do so, has been of significant assistance to Craig Watkins, and the Innocence Project. It is also inconsistent with the idea that he deliberately pursued people he knew to be innocent.
In view of Mr. McBride's interview with Henry Wade, I'd also have to say that we now have to consider that Henry Wade's professional doubts, concerning Oswald getting a fair trial, might also have been a factor (for any pre-assassination conspirators) in making the decision to kill Oswald at the first opportunity.
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As I write in INTO THE NIGHTMARE, the appellate
attorney for Randall Adams, Melvyn Carson Bruder, says in THE THIN BLUE LINE, "Prosectors in
Dallas have said for years, 'Any prosecutor can convict a guilty man. It takes a great prosecutor
to convict an innocent man.'" This seems particularly relevant to the way Oswald
was railroaded for the murders of Kennedy and Tippit, which he did not commit.
Much has been written about the corruption of Wade's office. Yes, it's ironic that
he preserved much of the evidence that has helped the current DA, Craig
Watkins, free thirty-three innocent people sent up by Wade, and one hopes there will be more such exonerations to come. I discuss that in the interview. Wade
also let Errol Morris dig into the evidence that helped free Adams. Wade may
have been conflicted on such matters. But he certainly crossed ethical lines.
And, yes, Wade was smart and had doubts about the Oswald case. As did Captain
Fritz and Detective Leavelle, as I also note.