To err is all too human. A recent “60 Minutes” story concerned Michael Morton, wrongfully convicted 25 years ago for murder after the prosecutor withheld vital evidence from the defense.

Tragically, the real killer killed again. The prosecutor apologized for the error without accepting blame. Luckily for him, the Supreme Court has granted prosecutors immunity for their mistakes and misconduct.

Even rocket scientists make mistakes, yet the criminal justice establishment claims near-saintly infallibility for itself, and thus the process of appealing a conviction is heavily weighted in favor of the state.

Judges can, and do, deny the admission of evidence of innocence on procedural grounds, which is why the findings of two world-renowned forensic pathologists that Dennis Dechaine could not have killed Sarah Cherry have been excluded from the upcoming hearing on Dechaine’s motion for a retrial.

Closure, to the criminal justice system, means the ending of all litigation, not that justice was done.

Yet, when circumstances require, errors by officials can be alleged from within. Deputy Attorney General Bill Stokes claims that unidentified male DNA found under a thumbnail of the strangled girl was contamination from poor hygiene at the crime lab. Yet Stokes defends the secret incineration of fingernails, pants, the rape kit and unidentified hair after an appeal was filed as just routine house-keeping.

And while putting two detectives on the stand whose testimony contradicted documents withheld from the defense helped to win a conviction, it surely was an ethical lapse, should anyone care.

NASA did not get a re-do on Challenger, but the criminal justice system has the means to correct its errors. What it lacks is the will to do so. The inability to admit to error is also all too human.

William Bunting

Whitefield

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