Alan Crotzer to Testify Before Congressional Subcommittee on Indigent Defense

Alan Crotzer to Testify Before Congressional Subcommittee on Indigent Defense
Florida Man Spent 24 Years in Prison for Someone Else’s Crime

On Thursday, June 4, Alan Crotzer will join two other members of the National Committee on the Right to Counsel when he testifies before the Congressional House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security about the crisis facing indigent defense in America. Mr. Crotzer was wrongfully convicted and served 24 and a half years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit due to a lackluster effort by his court-appointed defense counsel.

Mr. Crotzer was arrested in 1981 in St. Petersburg and charged with several crimes stemming from a double-kidnapping and rape that took place in Tampa. An eyewitness ID from a suggestive photo lineup was the trigger that set in motion a chain of events, from arrest to conviction to incarceration, that Mr. Crotzer said “profoundly affected [his] life in unimaginable ways.” In a prepared statement, he thanked two lawyers from New York, David Menschel and Sam Roberts, who “put their lives on hold” and spent thousands of dollars to prove his innocence with DNA testing. Their performance, he said, stands in stark contrast to that of his appointed counsel.

In his statement, Mr. Crotzer listed the failings of his defense attorney – including ignoring his innocence claim and encouraging him to accept a plea to 25 years, meeting with Mr. Crotzer on only a few occasions before trial, failing to subpoena and interview alibi witnesses, and failing to sever his case from a co-defendant, whose disastrous self-representation at trial likely served to incriminate Mr. Crotzer by association. Mr. Crotzer says this confluence of feckless actions made his wrongful conviction “not only possible, but probable.”

Public defenders’ offices around the country have seen their funding slashed in recent years and faced dire straits even before the current national recession. According to a recent report by the Constitution Project titled Justice Denied, the State of Florida, where Mr. Crotzer was convicted, has seen its county budgets for defense counsel cut by millions of dollars. Some counties have resorted to charging convicts – many of them indigent – special fees to cover the costs of their trials. Several public defenders’ offices in Florida have chosen to outright refuse to take new cases, citing their inability to fulfill their constitutional obligation to provide an adequate defense.

Mr. Crotzer now works with at-risk youth as an Intervention Specialist at the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and with the Innocence Project of Florida (IPF), where he raises awareness of criminal justice issues. He hopes his testimony will be the beginning of a real interest by Congress in reforming America’s system of indigent defense so that stories like his “will become infrequent, rather than a constant refrain.”

The Innocence Project of Florida is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to finding and freeing innocent people from Florida prisons. Alan Crotzer is a member of IPF’s Board of Directors.

The National Committee on the Right to Counsel is a bipartisan committee of independent experts representing all segments of America’s justice system created by the Constitution Project and the National Legal Aid & Defender Association. The Committee examines whether poor defendants are being provided with competent, experienced lawyers who have the necessary resources to defend them, and to create consensus recommendations for any necessary reforms. Their report Justice Denied can be found online at www.tcpjusticedenied.org. Alan Crotzer is a member of the National Committee on the Right to Counsel.

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Information about the Hearing:
Indigent Representation: A Growing National Crisis
House Committee on the Judiciary
Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security
Thursday, June 4, 2009 9:30 AM
2141 Rayburn House Office Building

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Download a PDF of this press release here.

Innocence Project in the St. Pete Times: A lifeline for imprisoned innocent

[Mark Wallheiser, Special to the St. Petersburg Times] Innocence Project of Florida executive director Seth Miller and lawyer Bobbi Madonna meet with associates on potential cases. In the background is the whiteboard used in weekly lectures given to law school interns.

The Innocence Project of Florida received some press today in the St. Petersburg Times, Florida's largest newspaper, that explores the arduous process we go through to select our cases.

The process is a lot like sifting for gold. Of the 3,000 inmates who have asked for help since the office opened six years ago, 90 percent have received rejection letters. Rarely do the lawyers find someone like Wilton Dedge or Alan Crotzer, both wrongly convicted of rape.

Ironic turn of phrase – since we certainly don't want to compare innocent people in prison to gold, being a good thing in any way, but sifting and deciphering and contemplating are all appropriate ways of imagining the process.

The entire article is worth a read, and it is somewhat brief.

Update: Our story is on A1 in the St. Pete Times today! Here is a PDF of the front page.

Waiting for the State to do the Right Thing

Associated Press, Published January 21, 2008, TALLAHASSEE - Alan Crotzer is working at a landscaping company, hoping one day to be compensated for the 24 years he spent in prison for a rape he didn't commit.

Florida lawmakers have for a couple of years failed to pass a bill to pay him - and he's again asking the Legislature for $1.25-million for the two decades of freedom he gave up.

It's too bad for Crotzer that he doesn't live somewhere else. Several states have automatic compensation for people who have been wrongfully imprisoned and then released - something that's happening more and more because of increasing use of DNA to prove innocence.

But Florida remains one of 28 states that don't guarantee compensation for those who spent precious years behind bars for something they didn't do. Nine men have been freed by DNA in Florida in recent years, but only one has received money.

Crotzer, 47, is seeking money for himself - but he'd rather the state make money available for anyone in his situation. He said most men released after years behind bars - especially those who were, like him, young when imprisoned - have a hard time starting over without help. They're usually broke, and most have no job prospects. All they really know is prison life.

Continue reading.

IPF Profiled on Fla. Bar News Cover Story

Picture: Chad Heins, leaving Duval County Jail, December 4, 2007.

This is a great story on what's going on at IPF, including updates on three of our exonerees (Chad Heins, Larry Bostic, and Alan Crotzer), and much, much more. Here is the lede:

Clutching his worldly possessions in one small packet, Chad Heins walked out of the Duval County Jail on December 4 a free man, after spending nearly 14 years locked up for the stabbing death of his sister-in-law he’d insisted from the beginning he did not commit.

With a broad grin, Heins, now 33 — only 19 when he was sentenced to life in prison — gratefully hugged his lawyers one by one.

Among them were Jennifer Greenberg and Seth Miller of the Innocence Project of Florida, buoyed by yet another flesh-and-blood reminder of the merit of their nonprofit legal clinic’s work: the ninth DNA exoneration in the state and the 210th nationwide.

Also, the Bar News included a cut away on our creation of the Exoneree Emergency Fund, which is designed to provide modest, but immediate assistance to our exonerees when they get released from prison until they are compensated by the legislature. The fund will obviously not meet all of their needs but can be used for general transition needs, such as clothing, food, housing assistance, medicine, etc. If you would like to contribute to this vital fund, go to our contribution page to donate online or, for information on where to send contributions through the mail, go here. Whether contributing online or by mail, please indicate that you would like your donation earmarked for the Exoneree Emergency Fund.

Thanks to Jan Pudlow of the Florida Bar News for spending multiple days at our office with us and for putting together such a nice piece which will be viewed by every licensed lawyer in Florida.