Judges for Justice

Judge Mike Heavey

When we were researching, investigating and writing up the cases in Law & Disorder, it was quite an eye-opener to realize how many criminal convictions are flawed by bad evidence, bad science, bad publicity, bad lawyering and bad judging. We know, of course, that no system of justice is perfect, but the number of cases we came across – while still small in terms of percentages – was nonetheless alarming – far more than we could possibly write about.

In Seattle, retired Judge Mike Heavey feels the same way.

We became acquainted with Judge Heavey in our investigation of the Meredith Kercher murder case in Perugia, Italy, as we concluded that Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito had no part in the crime and had been convicted in an egregious miscarriage of justice. Heavey has recently stepped down as a Superior Court Justice for King County, Washington, which includes Seattle and is one of the most populous counties in the nation.

Mike’s daughter Shana had gone to high school with Amanda, so he started looking into the case as well. His conclusions were the same as ours. Together with Tom Wright, a writer and former Hollywood producer who was also the father of one of Amanda’s schoolmates, and another writer named Jim Lovering, he took up the cause of her and Raffaele’s innocence.

It was Mike Heavey who headed up the team that presented our briefing on Capitol Hill last week that also included the precise analysis of former FBI Special Agent Steve Moore.

But once he’d been through the process with Amanda and Raffaele, Mike didn’t stop there. He has now formed Judges for Justice, the next step in his illustrious career that includes decorated army service in Vietnam, a prominent legal career and terms in the Washington State House of Representatives and Senate, before 12 years on the bench. Jim Lovering has joined him in the effort.

Judges for Justice’s mission statement explains:

A wrongful con­vic­tion is a fail­ure of the jus­tice sys­tem in the most fun­da­men­tal sense. Our mis­sion is to pro­vide inde­pen­dent, impar­tial and expe­ri­enced judi­cial analy­sis of cases of alleged inno­cence. We use our expe­ri­ence in an effort to make a neu­tral and inde­pen­dent analy­sis of the case. An inde­pen­dent judi­cial eval­u­a­tion may be instru­men­tal to gov­er­nors, parole boards, the press, and other inter­ested par­ties in their assess­ment of inno­cence. In appro­pri­ate cases, it may expe­dite the release of the innocent.

A nonprofit organization made up of former judges whose stock in trade is to be both impartial and incisive can be a powerful force for both justice and truth. They will be skeptical of all claims, but understand the dynamics of investigation and trial so as to get to the facts of what really happened.

We wish Judges for Justice all the best and look forward to joining them in their efforts.

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