“Broward State Attorney Michael J. Satz recognizes that prosecutors have a continuing post-conviction ethical obligation to seek justice. No one benefits when an innocent person is convicted and the real offender is not held accountable.”
After 44 years in office, and a record pockmarked by some of the nation’s most infamous miscarriages of justice, Satz has invoked those noble words to introduce his new Conviction Review Unit.
In establishing a CRU that works to ensure the integrity of its convictions, Satz’s office is late to the game. The first such unit was established in Dallas in 2007 and the first in Florida were set up last year in Jacksonville, Tampa and Orlando. Forty-four others, often called Conviction Integrity Units, have sprung up across the country, most in large prosecutors’ offices. Through 2018, those units have been involved in 325 exonerations, according to information provided by the National Registry of Exonerations at the University of California Irvine in coordination with two other universities.
