As part of Wright’s lawsuit, the detectives had to give videotaped depositions. At one point, his lawyers ask Santiago which is worse: to put an innocent man in prison or let a guilty man go free. The retired sleuth said each would be a “terrible thing,” but settled on the latter.
“When the guilty man walks away, only those responsible for his walking away … have to live with it. So yeah, it’s worse,” Santiago said.
Tauber, who served as the city’s top public defender, said the statement shows “the values that our system is founded on have been turned on their head.”
“And not only turned on their head, but adopted and internalized by the people largely responsible for investigating and administering justice.”