Court dramas on TV and in the movies typically feature a last-minute, surprise witness whose testimony vindicates the falsely accused.

But that didn’t happen for Victor Vickers Jr., who claims he was wrongly convicted of murder and imprisoned for life because a trial judge banned last-minute testimony.

The Rutherford Institute, in a friend-of-the-court brief, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Vickers’ case against the state of Missouri.

The brief argues he was being defended by a public defender, whose offices often are “overburdened, underfunded and – consequently, at times—incompetent.”

Consequently, Vickers’ lawyer didn’t find out until late in the process about a witness who could place him somewhere else at the time of the crime. The prosecution objected and, despite an offer from the public defender to delay the case, the judge ruled the witness was produced past the court’s deadline.

“Justice in America is not all it’s cracked up to be. The system is broken, almost beyond repair,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute.

“In courtroom thrillers like ’12 Angry Men’ and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ justice is served in the end because someone – whether it’s Juror #8 or Atticus Finch – chooses to stand on principle and challenge wrongdoing, and truth wins. Unfortunately, in the real world, justice is harder to come by, fairness is almost unheard of, and truth rarely wins.”

He continued, “Chronic injustice – fueled by corrupt prosecutors, overburdened public defenders, apathetic judges and a system that punishes those too poor to buy their way to justice – has turned the American dream into a nightmare.”

He explained the case started in August 2011 when Vickers was charged with murder after three men forced their way into a home and shot a resident.

At the 2016 trial, prosecution relied solely upon the testimony of another resident of the home, who initially could name only one of the men who entered the home. Thereafter, the witness stated she recognized a man she saw outside the home before the shooting as “V.V.” and later identified the person she saw as Vickers, the institute said.

There was no physical evidence, such as fingerprints or DNA samples, tying Vickers to the scene.

“On the morning Vickers’ trial was to begin, his public defender learned of an alibi witness who could testify that Vickers was elsewhere at the time of the shooting. Vickers’ public defender sought to add the alibi witness to the witness list for the trial, but the prosecution objected, invoking a court rule requiring defendants to disclose witnesses they intend to call. Even though the public defender offered to delay the trial to allow the prosecution to investigate the witness, the trial court ruled the witness should be excluded because the court rule was not complied with and the state would be prejudiced by the alibi testimony.”

Vickers then was convicted.

The institute is asking the Supreme Court to hear the case and accept that sometimes witnesses are found late in the process.

The brief cites the Sixth Amendment, which states, “In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right … to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.”

It argues that includes the right to have those witnesses in court and question them.

The Supreme Court, in fact, has ruled, “Few rights are more fundamental than that of an accused to present witnesses in his own defense.”

And, it has said, “The ends of criminal justice would be defeated if judgments were to be founded on a partial or speculatie presentation of the facts.”

The institute argued that the state’s case against Vickers “was a close case.”

“The alibi witness, if allowed to testify, could have made the difference between a guilty verdict and an acquittal.”

Further, the institute explains: “The reason for the late notice was because petitioners’ public defense counsel was overworked and unable to interview the alibi witness until the morning of the first day of trial. There is no suggestion that the late notice was a deliberate, willful, or tactical ploy.”

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