Here's something about the Cosby case that bugs me and it has nothing to do with Bill Cosby. It's that a lot of sources are noting the man in charge of prosecuting him — Montgomery County District Attorney-Elect Kevin Steele — has a conviction rate of 98%. In other words, he's a great prosecutor.
Or is he? Wouldn't that depend on how many of the people he prosecutes were actually guilty? I mean, not everyone who goes on trial is guilty. Sometimes, acquittal is the right result.
If 98% of the ones Steele has prosecuted are guilty then he's doing a great job. If 85% of them are guilty, then he's sending a lot of innocent people to prison. That could mean a lot of things but it certainly doesn't mean he's serving the cause of truth and justice. Remember that when you convict an innocent person, it usually means that a guilty one gets away with the crime…and of course, you destroy the life of someone who did nothing wrong. You may well destroy the lives of those around the wrongfully-convicted as well.
In the last decade or so, we've seen a lot of prisoners freed after it was proven they were innocent. Often, they were convicted because of prosecutorial misconduct. But I'll bet those prosecutors felt like they'd done their jobs well by getting those innocent people tossed in the slammer.
Also, I would imagine a lot of cases are pretty easy to win. A lawyer I know once told me he was asked to defend a man who'd robbed a bank. They had ten eyewitnesses (three of them, nuns) and they had surveillance camera footage of the guy pointing a gun at the teller and they had the testimony of the guy's wife saying, "He took his gun and he left the house, telling me he was going to go rob a bank!" I kinda think I could get a conviction on that one without breaking much of a sweat.
Hey, what's Mr. Steele's track record on getting convictions of aging once-beloved entertainers who have $400 million dollars? That might impress me.