A Few Questions About the Carmona Case

It’s been almost two weeks since the Orange County district attorney’s office dropped its fight to keep 18-year-old Arthur Carmona in prison.

Since then, Carmona’s standard refrain has been that he’s too happy to feel bitterness toward anyone who played a part in his incarceration for 2 1/2 years of what was a 12-year sentence.

That’s laudable, but I hope the case lingers in the public memory--not as an ongoing source of recrimination, but as a reminder of what can go wrong in our criminal justice system.

To hear Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas tell it, nothing went wrong except that my “unethical” columns convinced witnesses to recant testimony.

I don’t know if he really believes that, but it leads in a roundabout way to a legitimate question about the Carmona case--namely, what went wrong?

Must Carmona’s arrest and conviction for two armed robberies, now reversed, be chalked up to one of those occasional mistakes that are bound to happen in a system operated by human beings?

That would be the safe answer. Human beings aren’t perfect. But the events that converged to convict Carmona are preventable.

Depending on whom you listen to, Carmona was done in by questionable conduct or decisions by police, his trial attorney, the prosecutor, the witnesses and two jurors who later conceded they had reasonable doubts even while voting to convict.

I’ve recounted a number of those actions in the last year or so in arguing for a new trial for Carmona.

Today, however, let’s look at a crucial moment at which this whole sorry episode could have been prevented.

That’s the point in 1998 when the D.A.’s office--then under the direction of Mike Capizzi--decided to file charges against Carmona in the first place.

We forget that some prosecutors fill their days reviewing police reports and deciding if cases should go to trial. Those people don’t make headlines, but they do make big decisions.

Among the key things they consider are whether the evidence supports guilt and whether the prosecution has a reasonable chance of winning a conviction.

Just Wondering . . .

In the Carmona case, prosecutors might ask, even now: “What do you want from us? We had several witnesses at two different locations--people with no ax to grind--who identified Carmona as the robber. We had another witness who said she saw him suspiciously scaling a freeway wall in her backyard. Should we just tell those witnesses they were wrong and that we won’t charge him?”

The prosecution got its conviction. By that standard alone, the D.A.’s office might justify its decision to prosecute Carmona.

I’m asking, though, whether prosecutors can’t set a higher standard. It’s not a rebuke of the system, but a reminder that so many things can go wrong and result in an innocent person going to jail.

Specifically, why couldn’t decision-makers in the Carmona case have asked more questions, been more skeptical? Before even dealing with the eyewitness issue, they could have asked:

* What’s the link between Carmona, who is 16, and the getaway driver, who is 32? If they’ve pulled at least two armed robberies, they’ve tied their fates to each other. Why haven’t police been able to show that they even know one another?

* Why couldn’t experienced investigators trying every good-cop-bad-cop trick in the book, including a false reference to having Carmona caught on videotape entering the getaway truck, get him to confess?

* Isn’t it unusual that a kid with no criminal history made his debut as an armed robber? Sure, it’s possible, but usually there’s a stepping-stone pattern leading to such a serious crime.

* Why isn’t any of the physical evidence--most notably fingerprints on the gun or getaway truck, tied to Carmona? And why did neither Carmona nor the getaway driver, both in custody within an hour of the robbery, have any of the robbery money on them? In fact, where did the money go? Isn’t it possible, or even probable, that someone else--the actual robber who did the holdup--had the money?

* In the narrow time frame and geographical area where Carmona allegedly robbed the store, then was allegedly first seen, what happened to the jacket worn by the robber? It wasn’t with the getaway driver, who had a bunch of other items linked to the robbery. It wasn’t found along the presumed getaway route, nor was Carmona wearing it when allegedly seen 15 minutes after the crime.

Even answers to these questions don’t prove his innocence. But they should have given prosecutors pause.

Instead, they put their eggs in the eyewitness basket. That point was driven home by Deputy Dist. Atty. Jana Hoffman. She told jurors the case boiled down to whether they believed the witnesses.

And it’s true that, at first blush, the witness list looked strong. But as was revealed in appellate petitions seeking Carmona’s release, virtually none of those eyewitness accounts held up.

No district attorney should automatically dismiss eyewitness accounts. That would be ridiculous. But prosecutors know the same thing that the rest of us know--such accounts are rife with the potential for error.

When a person’s freedom is at stake, why not demand a higher standard of guilt than identifications from people who either have quick looks at someone, or who see them under traumatic circumstances or who, as we learned in the Carmona case, later say they were influenced by police or prosecutors in making their identifications?

Obviously, if Carmona had been wearing a Laker hat and carrying $300 in his pocket when stopped, had the getaway driver’s name in his address book or had his fingerprints on the truck or gun, nothing else would matter.

I’m simply arguing that in cases where no other strong evidence of guilt exists, prosecutors should ask for more.

The D.A.’s office should have taken note that Irvine police got 100% identifications of Carmona only after putting a hat identical to one worn by the robber on his head. Upon learning that, prosecutors should have winced and told the cops, “I don’t trust those IDs. That’s not the way we should do things. Come back with some more evidence.”

I could cite other warning flags, such as the age-range estimate of the robber that went as high as 25. And three of the five robbery victims say the gunman was right-handed; Carmona is left-handed).

The system doesn’t claim to be perfect. It never can be.

But would it have been asking too much for prosecutors to demand more evidence before sending a 16-year-old boy into the maw of the criminal justice system?

Mistakes were made here, but only one person paid for them: Arthur Carmona, who spent 2 1/2 years behind bars.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by e-mail at dana.parsons@latimes.com.