There's plenty to be outraged about in the superb and ongoing News & Observer series, "Agents Secrets," about the State Bureau of Investigation including the apparent misconduct and mismanagement of the bureau that has distorted trials and resulted in wrongful convictions, robbing innocent men of years of their lives.

And the series brings up something even more important than an investigative agency rife with problems. It's a sobering reminder that much of the law enforcement and prosecutorial culture still refuses to admit mistakes long after it's obvious they were made, regardless of the impact of that refusal.

No system is perfect. Things go wrong and people make mistakes. But justice is delayed or denied when prosecutors or law enforcement agencies vigorously protest any allegation that they were at fault, no matter how obvious their fault is.

The N&O series reports that previous SBI Director Robin Pendergraft told the paper that she had no concrete facts that an agent had falsified a murder confession by a man with mental retardation who could not have possibly made it. Doctors and defense lawyers had pointed out the impossibility that the confession was authentic for years.

Gregory Taylor was exonerated in February after spending 17 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit. His exoneration came after an investigation by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission revealed that an SBI expert had testified that Taylor's blood was at the scene of the crime when his own testing had shown it was not.

Even then, District Attorney Colon Willoughby argued before a three-judge panel that Taylor should not be released, saying his case wasn't credible or believable. The judges disagreed and Taylor was freed. Willoughby told Taylor he was sorry, but didn't explain why he had argued to keep Taylor behind bars when his innocence seemed so certain.

His apology would have meant more if it had been issued before the judges made their inevitable ruling, if Willoughby had joined with defense lawyers and asked that Taylor be released. But it's simply not part of the prosecutorial culture to admit mistakes even when they are obvious and even when they result in horrible miscarriages of justice.

The capital punishment system provides numerous examples of prosecutors refusing to admit mistakes or misconduct that led to unfair trials and wrongful convictions.

The Attorney General's office argued to execute Alan Gell for murder even after it was revealed that prosecutors had withheld evidence that pointed to Gell's innocence in the crime. A superior court judge in Bertie County threw out Gell's murder conviction because of the evidence but Attorney General Roy Cooper decided to try him again for the crime and he was acquitted.

Maybe the most egregious example was the case of Charles Munsey, sentenced to death in Wilkes County based on the testimony of a witness who said Munsey confessed to the crime when both men were at Central Prison.

Evidence discovered after the trial included a memo from a staff member of the Attorney General's office to the prosecutor saying that prison records showed the witness was never in Central Prison. Astonishingly, the memo also directed the prosecutor to continue his pursuit of a death sentence for Munsey.

A judge threw out Munsey's death sentence over the objections of the Attorney General's office. The staff member who wrote the memo was promoted not disciplined. And no one has ever explained why the Attorney General's office didn't also ask that Munsey's conviction be overturned when their whole case was based on testimony they knew was false.

The N&O series is yet another compelling reminder that sometimes the Attorney General and the investigators that work for him forget that they don't work for the Department of Conviction or the Department of Execution, they work for the Department of Justice.

Their job is to seek the truth and see that justice is served. That means admitting mistakes when they realize they have made them so innocent people are not punished for crimes they did not commit.