Fulton County Conviction Integrity Unit Mission Statement and Statement From The DA
"The Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) will conduct collaborative, good-faith case reviews designed to ensure the integrity of a conviction and remedy wrongful convictions, as well as establish policies and procedures to learn from the errors identified so the criminal justice system is strengthened.
Mr. Paul Howard, Fulton County District Attorney, believes prosecutors can and should be leading the charge to ensure the public has confidence in the criminal justice system. In recent years, DNA exonerations have shown flaws in our system. Mr. Howard is committed to finding any flaws in convictions his office has obtained, correcting those flaws, and preventing them in the future."
11th Circuit Court Of Appeals Statement On The Prosecution (a member of the district attorneys office)
"We regret that we cannot provide Mr. Al-Amin relief in the face of the prosecutorial misconduct that occurred at his trial. A prosecutor’s duty in a criminal proceeding is not to secure a conviction by any means, but to ensure that justice will prevail. See Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 88 (1935). The prosecutor at Al-Amin’s trial failed to live up to that duty."
Standard of Review
"Al- Amin is nevertheless not entitled to habeas relief unless the error had a substantial and injurious effect on the jury’s verdict. Because Al-Amin has not shown that the Griffin error prejudiced him, the error was not harmful under Brecht v. Abrahamson."
Statement By Juror That We Offer In Response To The Standard Of Review
"The District Court also failed to consider the most direct evidence of a "substantial and injurious effect or influence" on the verdict: a juror's affidavit, admitted in the state habeas proceeding, attesting that Mr. Al-Amin's failure to testify - the entire point of the prosecution's mock cross-examination - constituted the "main thing" leading the jury to convict him."