-
-
-
-
Desire to be a vessel of honor unto the Lord Jesus Christ?
Join Hidden in Him and For His Glory for discussions on how
https://christianforums.net/threads/become-a-vessel-of-honor-part-2.112306/
The Death Penalty
- Thread starter Lewis
- Start date
jasoncran
Member
- May 17, 2009
- 38,271
- 185
well take that up with jesus who called jews this
"ye are of your father the DEVIL..."
to me that he called them a devil cause well they acted like whom is our father when we are lost. does the image of God kill? rape, commit acts of the holocaust? NO that is of the devil and thus below what god meant for his image(a reflection) we only have that fully when we come to him.im a vet. I have seen mass graves, children(babies burnt alive and lived) mutilated.women and boys and girls treated as chattle.
that said. in texas the aclu is suing texas for not providing ac for the inmates. and in all 50 hard labor is a no-no. so let me guess this right. I work in the heat. it rains I don't go in my truck but work in the rain till finished. I also have to deal with bees, snakes and other wildlife and work hard. yet if I was a correctional officer and did the above with the inmates. my carreer is ended. they cant even get mre's as meals in my state. that is going to discourage crime how? as I soldier I have worked and been pushed hard and yet we seem to think that a prisoner whom I fit for society cant be worked like that.
Last edited by a moderator:
Lewis
Member
- Aug 5, 2005
- 15,483
- 621
- Thread starter
- #44
The First Woman Ever Executed in the USA was Pregnant
In 1778, Bathsheba Spooner earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first woman executed in the newly independent country called the United States of America.
Born in 1746, Bathsheba was reportedly the favorite daughter of one of Massachusetts’s most prominent citizens, the wealthy Brigadier General Timothy Ruggles, an attorney who had served as Worcester, Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas Chief Justice from 1762 to 1764.
In 1766, Ruggles arranged Bathsheba’s marriage to Joshua Spooner. It’s unclear what the age gap was between the couple: Ann Jones in Women Who Kill describes him as a “retired merchant†while other sources state that he was born in 1741, only five years before his wife.
Bathsheba had her first child in April 1767 and gave birth three more times between 1770 and 1775. The second child died only weeks after being born.
According to David Petts in Great American Trials, “In these years before the Revolution they were living in what was considered an elegant two-story house in Brookfield, Massachusetts, and were considered wealthy by their neighbors.â€
However, the marriage was unhappy although the precise reasons are not known with certainty. Some sources indicate that the energetic and outgoing Bathsheba may have been contemptuous of the weak-willed Joshua while others have indicated that she feared him because he was often drunk and sometimes abusive. One article states that he may have had sexual relations with household servants. Infidelity might have easily triggered a multitude of negative emotions in his wife.
When the American Revolution broke, Timothy Ruggles was outspoken in his Loyalist sympathies. Patriots of the fledgling nation forced the Tory to flee with his sons to Nova Scotia. Bereft of close family members, Bathsheba may have felt increasingly trapped by her marriage to a man for whom she would later admit she had “an utter aversion.â€
In March 1777, Ezra Ross, 16, had served for a year under General George Washington. Disease was rampant among the troops and Ezra fell ill as he was making his way through Brookfield on his way to his hometown. The Spooners took the young soldier into their household and Bathsheba nursed him back to health.
He visited the Spooners a second time in July 1777 on his way to meet up with his regiment. Ezra participated in the four month long campaign that ended with the surrender of British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga.
Then Ezra returned to the Spooner house. Joshua Spooner appeared impressed with the young man who soon accompanied Joshua on brief business trips.
He also became close to Bathsheba and may have become sexually intimate with her. She asked him to poison her husband. Just before Ezra and Joshua were to leave on a trip to Princeton, Bathsheba gave Ezra a bottle of nitric acid and urged him to murder Joshua with it. Although Ezra took the bottle, he did not poison Joshua. Ezra also did not return to the Spooner household but made his way from Princeton to his hometown.
In the period immediately following the war’s end, many former British soldiers wandered Massachusetts. While Joshua and Ezra were in Princeton in February 1778, Bathsheba invited two displaced British soldiers, James Buchanan and William Brooks, into her house. As Ann Jones writes in Women Who Kill, the two men “ate and drank well at Joshua’s expense.†She also shared with them how very unhappy she was in her marriage – and how much she wanted to become a widow.
Due to Ezra’s reluctance to poison him, Joshua returned in good health to Brookfield. However, he took a dim view of his wife’s house guests. The man named Spooner accused them of stealing a spoon and ordered them out of his house.
However, Buchanan and Brooks were back at that house two weeks later on March 1, 1778. Joshua was out drinking with buddies. On what appears to have been a bizarre coincidence, Ezra Ross had also come to the house that day.
When Joshua came home, Brooks began beating and strangling him. Ezra pulled a watch off Joshua and handed it to Buchanan. After Joshua was dead, the trio carried his corpse to the Spooner well. Buchanan pulled off Joshua’s shoes. Then they threw the body down the well.
When the three returned to the home of the very recently widowed Bathsheba, she gave them money and clothing. Then they left.
A marker indicating the former location of the Spooner well, where Joshua's body was stuffed after his murder. Source: brookfieldma.us
Perhaps horrified by the memory of the previous evening’s activities, all three began drinking early the next morning. In the evening, Buchanan and Brooks showed up at a tavern where their expensive clothes, especially the silver-buckled shoes on Brooks with the telltale initials J.S., immediately aroused suspicion.
In the meantime, Bathsheba had reported to authorities that her husband was “missing.†Searchers found his corpse in the well.
Interviews with neighbors soon led to the arrests of Bathsheba, Buchanan, Brooks, and Ezra.
Spectators packed the courtroom on April 24, 1777. It was held before a panel of five judges: Chief Justice William Cushing, Jedediah Foster, Nathaniel Peaslee Sargeant, David Sewall, and James Sullivan.
Attorney Levi Lincoln, who would later serve as United States Attorney General under President Thomas Jefferson, was appointed to defend all four accused. He argued that Ezra was very young, that he had not participated in the killing itself, and that his even being there at the time of the crime was an unfortunate accident. He also argued that the poor planning of the crime was “the best evidence of a disordered mind†for Bathsheba.
The main part of the trial began at 8:00 a.m. and ended at midnight. The next day the jury came back with its verdict. All four were guilty of murder and sentenced to be executed.
Their execution was scheduled for June 4, 1777. Bathsheba “pleaded her belly,†in the phrase of the time period. She said she was pregnant and that she was “quick with child†meaning that the fetus was moving inside her. The rule at the time was that a pregnant woman could be executed in the very early stages of pregnancy but if it was advanced enough that the unborn was moving, or “quick,†her execution had to be delayed until she gave birth. Since condemned women often falsely claimed to be “quick with child†in order to save themselves, this claim always first resulted in an examination to see if it was likely she was telling the truth.
Bathsheba’s first petition in May for such an examination led to her own and her co-defendants’ executions being initially postponed. On June 11, a panel examined Bathsheba. All signed a document stating she was not “quick with child.â€
Bathsheba then wrote the following letter requesting a second examination.
On June 27, a second panel examined her. Some of the examiners stated that she was indeed “quick with child.†Others insisted she was not.
Despite the mixed opinion, Bathsheba received no further reprieve. Author Deborah Navas, who wrote a book on the case entitled Murdered by His Wife, believes that bias may have been behind the haste to execute Bathsheba because the Council of Massachusetts Deputy Secretary who signed the final warrant for the executions was Joshua Spooner’s stepbrother. That Deputy Secretary was also thought to harbor a strong antipathy toward Bathsheba’s Tory father.
The parents of Ezra Ross turned in a lengthy petition for clemency for their son but it was also rejected.
The hanging of all four was scheduled for July 2, 1777.
A crowd of approximately five thousand gathered to watch the malefactors put to death. They stood watching even though a thunderstorm broke out.
Bathsheba appeared calm but very weak. She could not walk and was carried to the place of execution in a chaise. She crawled up the steps to the gallows on her hands and knees. Her last words were, “I justly die. I hope to see my Christian friends that I am leaving behind in Heaven but hope that none of them go there in the ignominious manner that I do.â€
In keeping with her last request, an autopsy was performed. A five-month male fetus was found in her womb. Much of the public was suddenly sympathetic to the murderer who had told the truth about her pregnancy. Commenting on the case in 1844, Peleg W. Chandler wrote that such sympathy appeared to lead some to forget “how deeply her hands were stained with blood.â€
Gregory J. Roden commented in 2011 in the Human Life Review, a journal dedicated largely to the cause of outlawing abortion, that Bathsheba’s plea for a second reprieve constitutes “a moving and persuasive discourse on the sanctity of life in the womb.†He also notes the “irony†that what he regards as an “insightful moral lesson†was written by a brutal murderer.
Well over two hundred years after her death, the story of the murderer who begged to be spared long enough to deliver a baby remains oddly haunting.
In 1778, Bathsheba Spooner earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first woman executed in the newly independent country called the United States of America.
Born in 1746, Bathsheba was reportedly the favorite daughter of one of Massachusetts’s most prominent citizens, the wealthy Brigadier General Timothy Ruggles, an attorney who had served as Worcester, Massachusetts Court of Common Pleas Chief Justice from 1762 to 1764.
In 1766, Ruggles arranged Bathsheba’s marriage to Joshua Spooner. It’s unclear what the age gap was between the couple: Ann Jones in Women Who Kill describes him as a “retired merchant†while other sources state that he was born in 1741, only five years before his wife.
Bathsheba had her first child in April 1767 and gave birth three more times between 1770 and 1775. The second child died only weeks after being born.
According to David Petts in Great American Trials, “In these years before the Revolution they were living in what was considered an elegant two-story house in Brookfield, Massachusetts, and were considered wealthy by their neighbors.â€
However, the marriage was unhappy although the precise reasons are not known with certainty. Some sources indicate that the energetic and outgoing Bathsheba may have been contemptuous of the weak-willed Joshua while others have indicated that she feared him because he was often drunk and sometimes abusive. One article states that he may have had sexual relations with household servants. Infidelity might have easily triggered a multitude of negative emotions in his wife.
When the American Revolution broke, Timothy Ruggles was outspoken in his Loyalist sympathies. Patriots of the fledgling nation forced the Tory to flee with his sons to Nova Scotia. Bereft of close family members, Bathsheba may have felt increasingly trapped by her marriage to a man for whom she would later admit she had “an utter aversion.â€
In March 1777, Ezra Ross, 16, had served for a year under General George Washington. Disease was rampant among the troops and Ezra fell ill as he was making his way through Brookfield on his way to his hometown. The Spooners took the young soldier into their household and Bathsheba nursed him back to health.
He visited the Spooners a second time in July 1777 on his way to meet up with his regiment. Ezra participated in the four month long campaign that ended with the surrender of British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga.
Then Ezra returned to the Spooner house. Joshua Spooner appeared impressed with the young man who soon accompanied Joshua on brief business trips.
He also became close to Bathsheba and may have become sexually intimate with her. She asked him to poison her husband. Just before Ezra and Joshua were to leave on a trip to Princeton, Bathsheba gave Ezra a bottle of nitric acid and urged him to murder Joshua with it. Although Ezra took the bottle, he did not poison Joshua. Ezra also did not return to the Spooner household but made his way from Princeton to his hometown.
In the period immediately following the war’s end, many former British soldiers wandered Massachusetts. While Joshua and Ezra were in Princeton in February 1778, Bathsheba invited two displaced British soldiers, James Buchanan and William Brooks, into her house. As Ann Jones writes in Women Who Kill, the two men “ate and drank well at Joshua’s expense.†She also shared with them how very unhappy she was in her marriage – and how much she wanted to become a widow.
Due to Ezra’s reluctance to poison him, Joshua returned in good health to Brookfield. However, he took a dim view of his wife’s house guests. The man named Spooner accused them of stealing a spoon and ordered them out of his house.
However, Buchanan and Brooks were back at that house two weeks later on March 1, 1778. Joshua was out drinking with buddies. On what appears to have been a bizarre coincidence, Ezra Ross had also come to the house that day.
When Joshua came home, Brooks began beating and strangling him. Ezra pulled a watch off Joshua and handed it to Buchanan. After Joshua was dead, the trio carried his corpse to the Spooner well. Buchanan pulled off Joshua’s shoes. Then they threw the body down the well.
When the three returned to the home of the very recently widowed Bathsheba, she gave them money and clothing. Then they left.
Perhaps horrified by the memory of the previous evening’s activities, all three began drinking early the next morning. In the evening, Buchanan and Brooks showed up at a tavern where their expensive clothes, especially the silver-buckled shoes on Brooks with the telltale initials J.S., immediately aroused suspicion.
In the meantime, Bathsheba had reported to authorities that her husband was “missing.†Searchers found his corpse in the well.
Interviews with neighbors soon led to the arrests of Bathsheba, Buchanan, Brooks, and Ezra.
Spectators packed the courtroom on April 24, 1777. It was held before a panel of five judges: Chief Justice William Cushing, Jedediah Foster, Nathaniel Peaslee Sargeant, David Sewall, and James Sullivan.
Attorney Levi Lincoln, who would later serve as United States Attorney General under President Thomas Jefferson, was appointed to defend all four accused. He argued that Ezra was very young, that he had not participated in the killing itself, and that his even being there at the time of the crime was an unfortunate accident. He also argued that the poor planning of the crime was “the best evidence of a disordered mind†for Bathsheba.
The main part of the trial began at 8:00 a.m. and ended at midnight. The next day the jury came back with its verdict. All four were guilty of murder and sentenced to be executed.
Their execution was scheduled for June 4, 1777. Bathsheba “pleaded her belly,†in the phrase of the time period. She said she was pregnant and that she was “quick with child†meaning that the fetus was moving inside her. The rule at the time was that a pregnant woman could be executed in the very early stages of pregnancy but if it was advanced enough that the unborn was moving, or “quick,†her execution had to be delayed until she gave birth. Since condemned women often falsely claimed to be “quick with child†in order to save themselves, this claim always first resulted in an examination to see if it was likely she was telling the truth.
Bathsheba’s first petition in May for such an examination led to her own and her co-defendants’ executions being initially postponed. On June 11, a panel examined Bathsheba. All signed a document stating she was not “quick with child.â€
Bathsheba then wrote the following letter requesting a second examination.
May it please Your Honors
With unfeigned gratitude I acknowledge the favor you lately granted me of a reprieve. I must beg leave, once more, humbly to lie at your feet, and to represent to you that, though the jury of matrons that were appointed to examine into my case have not brought in my favor, yet that I am absolutely certain of being in a pregnant state, and above four months advanced in it, and the infant I bear was lawfully begotten. I am earnestly desirous of being spared till I shall be delivered of it. I must Humbly desire your honors, not withstanding my great unworthiness, to take my deplorable case into your compassionate consideration. What I bear, and clearly perceive to be animated, is innocent of the faults of her who bears it, and has, I beg leave to say, a right to the existence which God has begun to give it.
Your honors’ humane Christian principles, I am very certain, must lead you to desire to preserve life, even in this miniature state, rather than destroy it. Suffer me, therefore, with all Earnestness, to beseech your honors to grant me such a further length of time, at least, as that there may be the fairest and fullest opportunity to have the matter fully ascertained; and as in duty bound, shall, during my Short Continuance, pray.
She signed the letter and dated it June 16, 1778With unfeigned gratitude I acknowledge the favor you lately granted me of a reprieve. I must beg leave, once more, humbly to lie at your feet, and to represent to you that, though the jury of matrons that were appointed to examine into my case have not brought in my favor, yet that I am absolutely certain of being in a pregnant state, and above four months advanced in it, and the infant I bear was lawfully begotten. I am earnestly desirous of being spared till I shall be delivered of it. I must Humbly desire your honors, not withstanding my great unworthiness, to take my deplorable case into your compassionate consideration. What I bear, and clearly perceive to be animated, is innocent of the faults of her who bears it, and has, I beg leave to say, a right to the existence which God has begun to give it.
Your honors’ humane Christian principles, I am very certain, must lead you to desire to preserve life, even in this miniature state, rather than destroy it. Suffer me, therefore, with all Earnestness, to beseech your honors to grant me such a further length of time, at least, as that there may be the fairest and fullest opportunity to have the matter fully ascertained; and as in duty bound, shall, during my Short Continuance, pray.
On June 27, a second panel examined her. Some of the examiners stated that she was indeed “quick with child.†Others insisted she was not.
Despite the mixed opinion, Bathsheba received no further reprieve. Author Deborah Navas, who wrote a book on the case entitled Murdered by His Wife, believes that bias may have been behind the haste to execute Bathsheba because the Council of Massachusetts Deputy Secretary who signed the final warrant for the executions was Joshua Spooner’s stepbrother. That Deputy Secretary was also thought to harbor a strong antipathy toward Bathsheba’s Tory father.
The parents of Ezra Ross turned in a lengthy petition for clemency for their son but it was also rejected.
The hanging of all four was scheduled for July 2, 1777.
A crowd of approximately five thousand gathered to watch the malefactors put to death. They stood watching even though a thunderstorm broke out.
Bathsheba appeared calm but very weak. She could not walk and was carried to the place of execution in a chaise. She crawled up the steps to the gallows on her hands and knees. Her last words were, “I justly die. I hope to see my Christian friends that I am leaving behind in Heaven but hope that none of them go there in the ignominious manner that I do.â€
In keeping with her last request, an autopsy was performed. A five-month male fetus was found in her womb. Much of the public was suddenly sympathetic to the murderer who had told the truth about her pregnancy. Commenting on the case in 1844, Peleg W. Chandler wrote that such sympathy appeared to lead some to forget “how deeply her hands were stained with blood.â€
Gregory J. Roden commented in 2011 in the Human Life Review, a journal dedicated largely to the cause of outlawing abortion, that Bathsheba’s plea for a second reprieve constitutes “a moving and persuasive discourse on the sanctity of life in the womb.†He also notes the “irony†that what he regards as an “insightful moral lesson†was written by a brutal murderer.
Well over two hundred years after her death, the story of the murderer who begged to be spared long enough to deliver a baby remains oddly haunting.
Lewis
Member
- Aug 5, 2005
- 15,483
- 621
- Thread starter
- #45
Tons of information here
The Death Penalty Information Center
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/women-and-death-penalty
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/home
The Death Penalty Information Center
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/women-and-death-penalty
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/home
Last edited by a moderator:
Mountain Man
Member
- Mar 17, 2013
- 469
- 0
Another one of those threads where its easy to see why there is so much crime and evil in society today
- May 22, 2012
- 13,226
- 4,420
I have no problem, ideologically, with the death penalty, and would support it. Except, these statistics says it doesn't really work to deter crime: http://janda.org/c10/statisticsnews/NoDeathPenalty.htm
Also, it's very expensive: http://www.news10.net/news/article/152289/2/Group-wants-to-take-death-penalty-ban-to-voters
If they killed them right away I suppose it would cost less. But, at the same time, don't they take the amount of time they do so to be sure that they don't accidentally sentence someone who's actually innocent?
I'm sure it worked when it was instituted in Biblical times, but for whatever reason, it doesn't appear to be work today.
Also, it's very expensive: http://www.news10.net/news/article/152289/2/Group-wants-to-take-death-penalty-ban-to-voters
If they killed them right away I suppose it would cost less. But, at the same time, don't they take the amount of time they do so to be sure that they don't accidentally sentence someone who's actually innocent?
I'm sure it worked when it was instituted in Biblical times, but for whatever reason, it doesn't appear to be work today.
Nick
Member
- Feb 27, 2009
- 14,527
- 464
That's the main problem for me with it. Overall I'm indifferent on it - it's supported Biblically but it's not mandatory. I think in severe cases, it's ok, but we need to make sure that the accused is guilty first.
If one is sentenced for life in prison, then at least they can be released if it's found they have been wrongly sentenced. With the death penalty, there's no going back. I believe a few hundred people in the past century in the US have been wrongly sentenced to death.
turnorburn
Member
- Nov 21, 2007
- 8,713
- 462
Why wouldn't a person support a penalty that's there as a deterent. From the time we are born we're constantly reminded not to do this or that or else suffer the consequences. Gods Word is full of ways to deal with the offender/ders. Killing and murder are well defined, no i see the only reason not to support it is again, rejecting God and His way of doing things..:yes
tob
tob
CORE
Member
- Nov 19, 2012
- 230
- 10
The answer to this death penalty thing is very simple...
You execute the chained man guilty of raping and brutally beating your mother to death.
After your death, you now have to answer to God. Now, if He doesn't condemn you, do you really think he'll reward you for it? Have you not already be given your reward?
What would the reward be for restraining your vengeful carnality and actually living what you profess to believe - that is, being saved by grace yourself and loving your enemy - if that's what you actually believe in the first place.
after all, "if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?"
Now, after saying all that...could I kill my offender? Possibly. Would I? I don't know, and I pray never to be a situation to find out.
You execute the chained man guilty of raping and brutally beating your mother to death.
After your death, you now have to answer to God. Now, if He doesn't condemn you, do you really think he'll reward you for it? Have you not already be given your reward?
What would the reward be for restraining your vengeful carnality and actually living what you profess to believe - that is, being saved by grace yourself and loving your enemy - if that's what you actually believe in the first place.
after all, "if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?"
Now, after saying all that...could I kill my offender? Possibly. Would I? I don't know, and I pray never to be a situation to find out.
Lewis
Member
- Aug 5, 2005
- 15,483
- 621
- Thread starter
- #51
<table class="text" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td>Stories of Wrongful Conviction from California
</td></tr> <tr><td>
</td></tr><tr><td class="text">
More than 200 men and women have been wrongfully convicted of serious crimes in California, six of whom were sentenced to death. Here are some of their stories.
Herman Atkins
County: Riverside
Convicted of: Forcible Rape, Forcible Oral Copulation, and Robbery
Year of Conviction: 1988
Sentence: 45 years
Year Released: 2000
Years Served: 11.5 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Mistaken eyewitness identification
Herman Atkins, a tall and poised man, is a blissful newlywed and pursuing a masters and doctoral degree in Psychology from California State University, Fresno. The son of a California Highway Patrol Officer, Herman has traveled the country and starred in an acclaimed documentary. By looking at him, you would never know that twelve years of Herman's life was stolen by the State of California. His adolescence cheated by the error of the criminal justice system, and only to be resolved over a decade later.
In 1986, Herman was a recent high school graduate, preparing to follow his admired father's footstep and join the military. A twisted set of events, however, prevented him from even experiencing his twenties.
Herman, now 40, was accused of raping a woman during a 1986 robbery in a Lake Elsinore shoe store. In 1988, the jury convicted him to forty-five years in prison. DNA testing was not available during his trial; however, in 1993, the Innocence project requested that the evidence be tested. The results were not surprising - the source of semen on the victim's sweater eliminated Herman as the source. The FBI lab confirmed these results.
Herman, the 70th person in North America freed from prison as a result of DNA testing, was release on February 18th, 2000, after serving almost 12 years for a crime he did not commit. The rapist was never caught.
"Only God and I knew my innocence," Herman tearfully stated on the day of his release. "Today, God, I, the Riverside District Attorney and the people of California and the United States know that I am an innocent man."
Herman currently lives in Fresno with his wife Machara. They have set up a small foundation, LIFE, to assist other recent exonerees with the basic necessities once they are released from prison. In addition to time, Herman laments on the opportunities robbed from him during those twelve years, "It robbed me of a relationship with my father, a relationship with my grandmother. It robbed me of any opportunity in life."
Kevin Baruxes
County: San Diego
Convicted of: Rape
Year of Conviction: 1996
Sentence: 15 years to life
Year Released: 2003
Years Served: 7.5 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: False testimony by witness
Cortni Mahaffy came to the police and said three men, one of whom had a skinhead tattoo, had raped her. She said that it had happened in the trash enclosure outside her apartment building, that a knife had been pulled and that the attacker had a chain wallet.
Everything that she said pointed to 18 year-old Kevin Baruxes, a local skinhead who lived at home and had frequent run-ins with the police. He had the tattoo she had described and when he was picked up, he had a knife and a chain wallet in his pockets. He had spoken to her a few times while visiting friends who lived in the building. Mahaffy testified that Kevin had shared his views about race. "He told me that he liked me as a person, but when the race war came, he would have to kill me" because, as a Sicilian, she was not "pure white."
It took police only a week to pick up Baruxes. Mahaffy identified him and his brother as her attackers (she later dropped the identification of his brother). Despite the fact that his family swore he had been at home and there was no physical evidence of the crime, Baruxes was convicted based on her convincing testimony and eyewitness identification. Further, because of the racist element of the crime, he was given an aggravated sentence for committing a hate crime. "You gotta be kidding," Kevin said. "This is like the kind of stuff I see on TV where someone gets blamed for a crime that they haven't even done."
Years later, an email sent by Mahaffy's ex-fiancee, Mike Chaney, started the momentum that led to Baruxes release. He wrote that he believed she had falsely accused Baruxes. Several more witnesses came forward testifying that she was a compulsive liar and in the end, she recanted her testimony against him. Baruxes was released in 2003 after spending more than seven years in prison for a crime that he not only did not commit, but one that seems highly plausible to never have even occurred.
Kevin Baruxes is now readjusting to life on the outside. He carries the judge's order of his exoneration in his back pocket. He is 26 years old and he bears two scars from a prison knife attack that almost killed him. Recently, Baruxes was awarded $265,000 ($100/day) for wrongful imprisonment.
Arvind Balu
County: Lake
Convicted of: Gang Rape
Year of Conviction: 1997
Sentence: 20 years
Year Released: 2005
Years Served: 8 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: False Testimony, Inadequate Representation, Prosecutorial Misconduct
On May 16, 1997, a twenty one year old college student named Arvind Balu was arrested and charged with five serious felonies after a teenager reported that he had tied her up, raped her at knife point, cut her with the knife, and then licked her blood. This assault was supposed to have occurred approximately nine months earlier at the Konocti Harbor Resort.
Given what is known now, it seems remarkable that criminal charges were ever brought as a result of these allegations. What has come to light are a remarkable number of circumstances that plainly establish that these charges were false including the implausible and inconsistent accounts given by the alleged victim to police and others; her unexplained failure to say a word about them to anyone for more than nine months; her immediate destruction of the pages in her diary relating to her trip once her rape accusation was reported to the authorities, and much other information found post-trial casts doubt upon her credibility; she claimed she had done this out of rage because her school counselor had found the diary and questioned her, initiating the case; however the two school counselors testified that she initiated the complaint and they never saw a diary, eliminating her excuse for destroying the evidence. Also, a classmate later declared that she admitted to making the whole story up; that she met cute guys on her trip, wanted to have sex, but was refused. This witness and another close female classmate also declared that the accuser had no cuts on her legs after her trip. In addition, there was absolutely no physical evidence implicating Balu.
Arvind’s trial attorney was grossly incompetent and failed to fully investigate the case. The fact that Arvind had been in trouble with the law as a juvenile for minor infractions, and that he was bi-polar, may have been used against him during the police investigation.
Arvind recalls, “I went into shock when they told me I was facing 60 years in prison.”
Once convicted, Arvind spent eight brutal years behind bars. He painfully remembers, “I was held in solitary for three years, much without sunlight. I was beaten and tortured, even electrocuted (by guards); I slashed my own wrists. One day, under my
bunk in a pile of unread newspapers, I found an article about myself and my co-defendant. It said the Court was going to reverse some convictions. It was a four month lockdown at Salinas; and had I not seen this article I would have taken my life. My head hurt from not walking for so long. It felt like it would explode. Because of the type of case, they (prison) condone your death. This happened in California while the lawyers were sipping wine and the dot.com generation was out dancing. No one did a thing, unless paid; this despite all the news publicity. I wrote every petition myself. California owes me as a whole for this atrocity.”
Arvind’s co-defendant Brendan Loftus, who was white, was also wrongfully convicted. However, he received a considerably lesser sentence of 5 years. He was completely cleared by the First District Court of Appeal within two years of his conviction.
After being released, Arvind continues to struggle, “I returned to Cal-Berkeley for a couple of years, only to face discrimination. I have begun my own activist project; my goal is to create electronic tools to free people from oppression and expand the Innocence Project.”
Arthur Carmona
County: Orange
Convicted of: Armed Robbery (2 counts)
Year of Conviction: 1998
Sentence: 12 years
Year Released: 2000
Years Served: 2 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Mistaken eyewitness identification; police misconduct
Read our statement about Arthur's tragic murder on February 17, 2008
In 1998, Arthur Carmona, a 16 year old student at Costa Mesa High School, believed in the criminal justice system. Arthur was living in southern California, enjoying school and being with his friends. The events that occurred on February 12th of that year, however, dissolved Arthur's youth, snatching with it the hope of this young man.
"There are pictures of graduation," says Arthur, of his high school class, "but it means nothing to me."
On February 12th, 1998, two robberies occurred: at a Juice Bar in Irvine and at a Costa Mesa Denny's restaurant. A gunman clad in dark clothing and a Los Angeles Lakers cap robbed the two locations and then fled in a truck driven by Shawn Kaiwi. Kaiwi, apprehended that night, told police that a guy got into his car with a gun and told him to drop him off down the freeway. Police arrested Kaiwi and during their search found clothing and the Lakers cap inside the truck.
Two hours after the Irvine robbery, Arthur was walking to a friend's house when he noticed a helicopter circling directly above him. Seconds later, he was stopped at gunpoint by police. Arthur was not wearing dark clothing or a cap, according to the complaint. Witnesses to both robberies were brought to the scene of Arthur's arrest. They could not identify him at first, but when police asked Arthur to put on the cap and a jacket, witnesses made the identification.
Carmona, tried as an adult, was convicted and sentenced to 12 years based largely on the witness statements.
From the beginning, Arthur maintained his innocence. Family members and supporters started a campaign for his release, and began raising money. A Weekly and Los Angeles Times columnist, Dana Parsons began poking holes in the case and eyewitnesses recanted their testimony, including Kaiwi, who eventually admitted he did not know Arthur.
On August 22nd, 2000, an Orange County Superior Court considered the overwhelming evidence that Carmona had been wrongfully convicted of both crimes and ordered his release with the agreement of the DA, but only after a stipulation that he would not sue them or the police.
Arthur was murdered in 2008 while leaving a party with friends.
Clarence Chance and Benny Powell
County: Los Angeles
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder and Robbery
Year of Conviction: 1975
Sentence: Life without parole
Year Released: 1992
Years Served: 17 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Police misconduct; perjured testimony; false informant testimony
On a December night in 1973, Clarence Chance was being held in a county jail. Yet, he was ultimately convicted of robbing a gas station and murdering an off-duty sheriff's deputy in the men's room that same night. Chance and his codefendant, Benny Powell, served 17 years for a crime that they did not and could not have committed.
While in prison, Chance and Powell refused to give up hope and eventually, someone responded to their pleas for help. Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries tracked down three witnesses who said that the LAPD had pressured and coerced them into giving their false testimonies. On this discovery, county prosecutors joined the investigation and discovered that police had not revealed the fact that the jailhouse informant who gave key testimony had failed two polygraph tests. After four years of investigation, Los Angeles County District Attorney's office joined defense lawyers in asking that Chance and Powell be freed.
When finally releasing Chance and Powell, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper gave a judicial apology for the "gross injustice" of the time they spent in prison. "Nothing can be done to return to you the years irretrievably lost," she said. Since their release, each of them has been awarded $3.5 million dollars for their wrongful imprisonment.
</td></tr></tbody></table>
</td></tr> <tr><td>
</td></tr><tr><td class="text">
More than 200 men and women have been wrongfully convicted of serious crimes in California, six of whom were sentenced to death. Here are some of their stories.
Herman Atkins
County: Riverside
Convicted of: Forcible Rape, Forcible Oral Copulation, and Robbery
Year of Conviction: 1988
Sentence: 45 years
Year Released: 2000
Years Served: 11.5 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Mistaken eyewitness identification
Herman Atkins, a tall and poised man, is a blissful newlywed and pursuing a masters and doctoral degree in Psychology from California State University, Fresno. The son of a California Highway Patrol Officer, Herman has traveled the country and starred in an acclaimed documentary. By looking at him, you would never know that twelve years of Herman's life was stolen by the State of California. His adolescence cheated by the error of the criminal justice system, and only to be resolved over a decade later.
In 1986, Herman was a recent high school graduate, preparing to follow his admired father's footstep and join the military. A twisted set of events, however, prevented him from even experiencing his twenties.
Herman, now 40, was accused of raping a woman during a 1986 robbery in a Lake Elsinore shoe store. In 1988, the jury convicted him to forty-five years in prison. DNA testing was not available during his trial; however, in 1993, the Innocence project requested that the evidence be tested. The results were not surprising - the source of semen on the victim's sweater eliminated Herman as the source. The FBI lab confirmed these results.
Herman, the 70th person in North America freed from prison as a result of DNA testing, was release on February 18th, 2000, after serving almost 12 years for a crime he did not commit. The rapist was never caught.
"Only God and I knew my innocence," Herman tearfully stated on the day of his release. "Today, God, I, the Riverside District Attorney and the people of California and the United States know that I am an innocent man."
Herman currently lives in Fresno with his wife Machara. They have set up a small foundation, LIFE, to assist other recent exonerees with the basic necessities once they are released from prison. In addition to time, Herman laments on the opportunities robbed from him during those twelve years, "It robbed me of a relationship with my father, a relationship with my grandmother. It robbed me of any opportunity in life."
Kevin Baruxes
County: San Diego
Convicted of: Rape
Year of Conviction: 1996
Sentence: 15 years to life
Year Released: 2003
Years Served: 7.5 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: False testimony by witness
Cortni Mahaffy came to the police and said three men, one of whom had a skinhead tattoo, had raped her. She said that it had happened in the trash enclosure outside her apartment building, that a knife had been pulled and that the attacker had a chain wallet.
Everything that she said pointed to 18 year-old Kevin Baruxes, a local skinhead who lived at home and had frequent run-ins with the police. He had the tattoo she had described and when he was picked up, he had a knife and a chain wallet in his pockets. He had spoken to her a few times while visiting friends who lived in the building. Mahaffy testified that Kevin had shared his views about race. "He told me that he liked me as a person, but when the race war came, he would have to kill me" because, as a Sicilian, she was not "pure white."
It took police only a week to pick up Baruxes. Mahaffy identified him and his brother as her attackers (she later dropped the identification of his brother). Despite the fact that his family swore he had been at home and there was no physical evidence of the crime, Baruxes was convicted based on her convincing testimony and eyewitness identification. Further, because of the racist element of the crime, he was given an aggravated sentence for committing a hate crime. "You gotta be kidding," Kevin said. "This is like the kind of stuff I see on TV where someone gets blamed for a crime that they haven't even done."
Years later, an email sent by Mahaffy's ex-fiancee, Mike Chaney, started the momentum that led to Baruxes release. He wrote that he believed she had falsely accused Baruxes. Several more witnesses came forward testifying that she was a compulsive liar and in the end, she recanted her testimony against him. Baruxes was released in 2003 after spending more than seven years in prison for a crime that he not only did not commit, but one that seems highly plausible to never have even occurred.
Kevin Baruxes is now readjusting to life on the outside. He carries the judge's order of his exoneration in his back pocket. He is 26 years old and he bears two scars from a prison knife attack that almost killed him. Recently, Baruxes was awarded $265,000 ($100/day) for wrongful imprisonment.
Arvind Balu
County: Lake
Convicted of: Gang Rape
Year of Conviction: 1997
Sentence: 20 years
Year Released: 2005
Years Served: 8 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: False Testimony, Inadequate Representation, Prosecutorial Misconduct
On May 16, 1997, a twenty one year old college student named Arvind Balu was arrested and charged with five serious felonies after a teenager reported that he had tied her up, raped her at knife point, cut her with the knife, and then licked her blood. This assault was supposed to have occurred approximately nine months earlier at the Konocti Harbor Resort.
Given what is known now, it seems remarkable that criminal charges were ever brought as a result of these allegations. What has come to light are a remarkable number of circumstances that plainly establish that these charges were false including the implausible and inconsistent accounts given by the alleged victim to police and others; her unexplained failure to say a word about them to anyone for more than nine months; her immediate destruction of the pages in her diary relating to her trip once her rape accusation was reported to the authorities, and much other information found post-trial casts doubt upon her credibility; she claimed she had done this out of rage because her school counselor had found the diary and questioned her, initiating the case; however the two school counselors testified that she initiated the complaint and they never saw a diary, eliminating her excuse for destroying the evidence. Also, a classmate later declared that she admitted to making the whole story up; that she met cute guys on her trip, wanted to have sex, but was refused. This witness and another close female classmate also declared that the accuser had no cuts on her legs after her trip. In addition, there was absolutely no physical evidence implicating Balu.
Arvind’s trial attorney was grossly incompetent and failed to fully investigate the case. The fact that Arvind had been in trouble with the law as a juvenile for minor infractions, and that he was bi-polar, may have been used against him during the police investigation.
Arvind recalls, “I went into shock when they told me I was facing 60 years in prison.”
Once convicted, Arvind spent eight brutal years behind bars. He painfully remembers, “I was held in solitary for three years, much without sunlight. I was beaten and tortured, even electrocuted (by guards); I slashed my own wrists. One day, under my
bunk in a pile of unread newspapers, I found an article about myself and my co-defendant. It said the Court was going to reverse some convictions. It was a four month lockdown at Salinas; and had I not seen this article I would have taken my life. My head hurt from not walking for so long. It felt like it would explode. Because of the type of case, they (prison) condone your death. This happened in California while the lawyers were sipping wine and the dot.com generation was out dancing. No one did a thing, unless paid; this despite all the news publicity. I wrote every petition myself. California owes me as a whole for this atrocity.”
Arvind’s co-defendant Brendan Loftus, who was white, was also wrongfully convicted. However, he received a considerably lesser sentence of 5 years. He was completely cleared by the First District Court of Appeal within two years of his conviction.
After being released, Arvind continues to struggle, “I returned to Cal-Berkeley for a couple of years, only to face discrimination. I have begun my own activist project; my goal is to create electronic tools to free people from oppression and expand the Innocence Project.”
Arthur Carmona
County: Orange
Convicted of: Armed Robbery (2 counts)
Year of Conviction: 1998
Sentence: 12 years
Year Released: 2000
Years Served: 2 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Mistaken eyewitness identification; police misconduct
Read our statement about Arthur's tragic murder on February 17, 2008
In 1998, Arthur Carmona, a 16 year old student at Costa Mesa High School, believed in the criminal justice system. Arthur was living in southern California, enjoying school and being with his friends. The events that occurred on February 12th of that year, however, dissolved Arthur's youth, snatching with it the hope of this young man.
"There are pictures of graduation," says Arthur, of his high school class, "but it means nothing to me."
On February 12th, 1998, two robberies occurred: at a Juice Bar in Irvine and at a Costa Mesa Denny's restaurant. A gunman clad in dark clothing and a Los Angeles Lakers cap robbed the two locations and then fled in a truck driven by Shawn Kaiwi. Kaiwi, apprehended that night, told police that a guy got into his car with a gun and told him to drop him off down the freeway. Police arrested Kaiwi and during their search found clothing and the Lakers cap inside the truck.
Two hours after the Irvine robbery, Arthur was walking to a friend's house when he noticed a helicopter circling directly above him. Seconds later, he was stopped at gunpoint by police. Arthur was not wearing dark clothing or a cap, according to the complaint. Witnesses to both robberies were brought to the scene of Arthur's arrest. They could not identify him at first, but when police asked Arthur to put on the cap and a jacket, witnesses made the identification.
Carmona, tried as an adult, was convicted and sentenced to 12 years based largely on the witness statements.
From the beginning, Arthur maintained his innocence. Family members and supporters started a campaign for his release, and began raising money. A Weekly and Los Angeles Times columnist, Dana Parsons began poking holes in the case and eyewitnesses recanted their testimony, including Kaiwi, who eventually admitted he did not know Arthur.
On August 22nd, 2000, an Orange County Superior Court considered the overwhelming evidence that Carmona had been wrongfully convicted of both crimes and ordered his release with the agreement of the DA, but only after a stipulation that he would not sue them or the police.
Arthur was murdered in 2008 while leaving a party with friends.
Clarence Chance and Benny Powell
County: Los Angeles
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder and Robbery
Year of Conviction: 1975
Sentence: Life without parole
Year Released: 1992
Years Served: 17 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Police misconduct; perjured testimony; false informant testimony
On a December night in 1973, Clarence Chance was being held in a county jail. Yet, he was ultimately convicted of robbing a gas station and murdering an off-duty sheriff's deputy in the men's room that same night. Chance and his codefendant, Benny Powell, served 17 years for a crime that they did not and could not have committed.
While in prison, Chance and Powell refused to give up hope and eventually, someone responded to their pleas for help. Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries tracked down three witnesses who said that the LAPD had pressured and coerced them into giving their false testimonies. On this discovery, county prosecutors joined the investigation and discovered that police had not revealed the fact that the jailhouse informant who gave key testimony had failed two polygraph tests. After four years of investigation, Los Angeles County District Attorney's office joined defense lawyers in asking that Chance and Powell be freed.
When finally releasing Chance and Powell, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper gave a judicial apology for the "gross injustice" of the time they spent in prison. "Nothing can be done to return to you the years irretrievably lost," she said. Since their release, each of them has been awarded $3.5 million dollars for their wrongful imprisonment.
</td></tr></tbody></table>
Lewis
Member
- Aug 5, 2005
- 15,483
- 621
- Thread starter
- #52
Gloria Killian
County: Sacramento
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1986
Sentence: 32 years to life
Year Released: 2002
Years Served: 18 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: False testimony of informant; misconduct by prosecutor
Gloria Killian is an aspiring attorney, a member of the steering committee of the San Francisco-based non-profit, Free Battered Women, and the founder and executive director of a non-profit, Action Committee for Women in Prison in Los Angeles, which helps women in prison who are serving life or housed on death row. Gloria's interest in the issue of women in prison stems from her own experience as a woman once incarcerated, wrongfully so, in California.
Gloria, while on break from her classes at McGeorge Law School, was convicted of robbery-murder. In this horrific twist of her life course, Gloria was sentenced to 32 years to Life in prison, only narrowly escaping the hands of a death sentence, as a Supreme Court decision made her ineligible for the death penalty - that decision has since been overturned.
"They destroyed my entire life," said Gloria. "They took everything I had and they smashed it into a million pieces just because they could."
The crucial piece of evidence against Gloria was the testimony of Gary Masse, already serving a life sentence for a 1981 robbery-murder. Masse contacted the Sacramento Sheriff's office in 1986 "to see if any deals could be struck" and in exchange for a reduced sentence, he testified that Gloria had planned and helped execute the robbery and murder - lying under oath that he did not have a leniency deal with the prosecution.
Several years later, an attorney for one of Masse's co-defendants discovered Masses' letters to the prosecutor that explained his lies, which led to Gloria's conviction. Gloria, however, had no money to hire a lawyer and no court-appointed attorney; without either, her knowledge of the letter was hopeless.
Her saving grace was Joyce Ride, mother of Sally Ride, who took an interest in Gloria's case and personally financed a new investigation. This investigation led to a hearing in 2000 in which Masse revealed his perjury and arrangement with the prosecution. The groundwork was now laid for Gloria's successful appeal to the 9th Circuit, which resulted in her being set free in 2002 after 18 years behind bars.
"When you hear about cases like ours, demand some accountability," said Gloria. "Because if can happen to us, it's happening to other people, and it can happen to you, too."
Jason Kindle
County: Los Angeles
Convicted of: Armed Robbery
Year of Conviction: 2000
Sentence: 70 years to life
Year Released: 2003
Years Served: 2 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Junk science; ineffective assistance of counsel
On one early morning in 1999, a man approached the front doors of a Los Angeles Office Depot as it was opening. The man produced a gun, rounded up the employees, and demanded cash. Jason Kindle, who at the time worked at the Office Depot, was accused of the armed robbery and convicted mainly because of a laundry list of store cleaning instructions found in his home. Police and the district attorney believed it was a robbery "to-do" list, when in fact the list contained notes Kindle took during a training course with Cover-All Cleaning, his employer. Kindle's supervisor testified that the list did indeed result from the training course. Kindle's conviction was also based on inaccurate voice recognition testimony. He was sentenced under the "three strikes" law to 70 years to life.
Kindle's conviction was reversed due to the failure of the defense to call an expert on identifications. The California Innocence Project, along with a local Los Angeles attorney, presented evidence to the trial court of a videotape of the robbery that definitively proved that the actual perpetrator was 6 feet 6 inches tall. Kindle is only 6 feet tall, six inches shorter than the person seen on the videotape. The charges against Kindle were dismissed and Kindle was released.
Kenneth Marsh
County: San Diego
Convicted of: 2nd Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1983
Sentence: 15 years to life
Year Released: 2004
Years Served: 21 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Junk science
Ken Marsh and Brenda Buell were enjoying the happiest moments of their life in 1983 in San Diego County. Ken, a man of slim stature and a warm smile, was a 28 year old man, busy splitting his time working as a supervisor at the local Coca-Cola plant and running his house-painting business. Brenda worked in as an assistant manager at a local wholesale florist. Living together, the best friends were raising Brenda's two very young children, Jessica and Phillip Buell.
Twenty-three years later, Ken and Brenda are now married but the stories that fill the last two decades of each of their lives are very different. Ken, now 51, is a man with separation anxiety and heartbreaking eyes, who finds behind him twenty-one years of his dignity, shredded and stolen by the California's criminal justice system.
In 1983, Ken was babysitting Brenda's two children, when Phillip, 33-months old, fell from the couch and hit his head on a brick hearth. Ken called the paramedics, who transported Phillip to Children's Hospital. Phillip died that evening. The doctors had noted the incident as child abuse, though the injury was treated as an accidental fall by the San Diego Police Department. Ken was taken into custody, and later charged and convicted of the second degree murder of Phillip Buell.
Brenda never lost hope in Ken and struggled for the next 21 years to free the innocent man she loved. They were not allowed to see each other during the two decades Ken spent in prison but maintained their relationship through covert letters.
"What happened to us in 1983," says a tearful Marsh, "They ripped us apart."
After eighteen years of imprisonment, the pieces of Ken's wrongful conviction began to come together. Brenda found a dispatcher who had recorded the discussion in the ambulance transport to Children's Hospital. The transport was initially labeled as uneventful; however, the treatment Philip, a baby with a blood disorder, was given actually acerbated his brain swelling, causing cardiac arrest. He had died before he even arrived at Children's. The California Innocence Project, along with a local San Diego attorney, sought a new trial after uncovering additional forensic evidence that proved Ken's innocence. In 2004, the district attorney's office dismissed the charges and Ken was a free man.
Dewayne McKinney
County: Orange
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder and Robbery
Year of Conviction: 1981
Sentence: Life
Year Released: 2000
Years Served: 19 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Mistaken eyewitness identification; police misconduct
On December 11, 1980, a man robbed an Orange County Burger King, stealing over $2,500 and killing the manager of the store. The man disappeared into a car and fled the scene. Four witnesses at the scene identified Dewayne McKinney as the killer. The police had falsely led these witnesses to believe that McKinney had confessed to the crime. In addition, the identifications were made under severe stress, and all of the identifications were cross-racial.
There was no physical evidence linking McKinney to the scene, and multiple witnesses testified that he was at home, some 30 miles from the scene. These same witnesses testified that McKinney was also injured at the time and required the aid of crutches to walk. The prosecution, however, used thinly veiled racist comments to undermine the credibility of each of these witnesses, who were all low-income African Americans.
McKinney had all but given up hope: "I haven't done anything and i'm stuck in a box," he said. Then, in 1997, the Orange County Public Defender received a letter from a prison inmate who claimed to know the identity of the real killer. The Orange County District Attorney's office received a copy of this letter two years later, when defense attorneys filed a brief and affidavits in court. In response, the D.A.'s office ordered an investigation. Through the course of the investigation, they tracked down the getaway driver who admitted his role and stated that McKinney was not involved. Additionally, several of the original witnesses recanted their statements that McKinney was the killer. In 2000, the District Attorney's Office filed a request with the Superior Court asking for McKinney's release, stating that there was not enough evidence to support his conviction. McKinney was given $2 million and prison issued street clothes upon his release.
After spending nineteen years of his life serving time for a crime he did not commit, Dewayne McKinney became a free man. Dewayne was tragically killed in motorcycle accident in 2008.
Melvin Mikes
County: Los Angeles
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1985
Sentence: 25 to life
Year Released: 1991
Years served: 7 years
Wrongful Conviction Factor: Poor defense lawyering
Mikes was convicted of beating to death a fix-it shop owner during a robbery. His counsel failed to present alibi witness. The conviction was vacated due to insufficient evidence. Mikes' release was delayed four months waiting for the District Attorney's unsuccessful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mikes served seven years of his 25 years to life sentence for a crime he did not commit.
Glen "Buddy" Nickerson
County: Santa Clara
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder (2 counts)
Year of Conviction: 1984
Sentence: Life without parole
Year Released: 2003
Years Served: 19 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Police misconduct; eye witness error
The story of Glen William "Buddy" Nickerson begins on St. Patrick's Day of 1955, when he was born the oldest son of Glen Sr. and his wife, Doris Jean. Buddy had an older sister, Glenna, and two younger brothers, Richard and Harry, whom everyone called Nicky. Unlike his thin, lanky siblings, Buddy was always chubby.
In the fall of 1984, Buddy, a twenty-something father of two, was looking forward to spending time with his newborn son and beautiful three year old daughter. He never imagined that he would be arrested, charged and convicted to life imprisonment for a crime he did not commit.
On the evening of September 15th, 1984, Buddy was serving as the bartender for a party held at a friend's house. After too many drinks, Buddy kicked off his boots and slept in his truck, bare feet hanging out the passenger window.
That same night, four masked robbers broke into the house of John Evans, a local dealer and acquaintance of Buddy. Soon, Evans and his half brother, Mickie King, were dead and Michael Orosio, a friend, lay in critical condition. The masked men scattered and ran from the scene.
The police brought in three suspects, including the actual shooter Murray Lodge, who owned drug money to Evans. The only surviving victim, Orosio, after a few conversations with investigators from his hospital bed under heavy sedation, identified Buddy as the fourth suspect. He was arrested a few days later.
Several years later, abhorrent police misconduct was revealed: Police had encouraged a witness to alter their eyewitness description; the friends Buddy was with the evening of the murder were threatened by investigators, removing his alibi; and, police hid evidence and committed perjury when they denied, under oath, the existence of a taped confession by another suspect.
"Everybody out here believed, 'Oh, there's no way innocent people would be in prison. It just doesn't happen, this is America,'" said Nickerson. "It happens everyday. Everyday. And one day, it could be you."
Buddy was release in 2003, after the confession of the fourth suspect, William Carl Jahn which led the District Court Judge to find no confidence in Buddy's conviction.
Buddy, now at 45 years old, has spent more than a third of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit. But Buddy says he doesn't want people to feel sorry for him; instead, "they should feel sorry for the justice system."
County: Sacramento
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1986
Sentence: 32 years to life
Year Released: 2002
Years Served: 18 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: False testimony of informant; misconduct by prosecutor
Gloria Killian is an aspiring attorney, a member of the steering committee of the San Francisco-based non-profit, Free Battered Women, and the founder and executive director of a non-profit, Action Committee for Women in Prison in Los Angeles, which helps women in prison who are serving life or housed on death row. Gloria's interest in the issue of women in prison stems from her own experience as a woman once incarcerated, wrongfully so, in California.
Gloria, while on break from her classes at McGeorge Law School, was convicted of robbery-murder. In this horrific twist of her life course, Gloria was sentenced to 32 years to Life in prison, only narrowly escaping the hands of a death sentence, as a Supreme Court decision made her ineligible for the death penalty - that decision has since been overturned.
"They destroyed my entire life," said Gloria. "They took everything I had and they smashed it into a million pieces just because they could."
The crucial piece of evidence against Gloria was the testimony of Gary Masse, already serving a life sentence for a 1981 robbery-murder. Masse contacted the Sacramento Sheriff's office in 1986 "to see if any deals could be struck" and in exchange for a reduced sentence, he testified that Gloria had planned and helped execute the robbery and murder - lying under oath that he did not have a leniency deal with the prosecution.
Several years later, an attorney for one of Masse's co-defendants discovered Masses' letters to the prosecutor that explained his lies, which led to Gloria's conviction. Gloria, however, had no money to hire a lawyer and no court-appointed attorney; without either, her knowledge of the letter was hopeless.
Her saving grace was Joyce Ride, mother of Sally Ride, who took an interest in Gloria's case and personally financed a new investigation. This investigation led to a hearing in 2000 in which Masse revealed his perjury and arrangement with the prosecution. The groundwork was now laid for Gloria's successful appeal to the 9th Circuit, which resulted in her being set free in 2002 after 18 years behind bars.
"When you hear about cases like ours, demand some accountability," said Gloria. "Because if can happen to us, it's happening to other people, and it can happen to you, too."
Jason Kindle
County: Los Angeles
Convicted of: Armed Robbery
Year of Conviction: 2000
Sentence: 70 years to life
Year Released: 2003
Years Served: 2 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Junk science; ineffective assistance of counsel
On one early morning in 1999, a man approached the front doors of a Los Angeles Office Depot as it was opening. The man produced a gun, rounded up the employees, and demanded cash. Jason Kindle, who at the time worked at the Office Depot, was accused of the armed robbery and convicted mainly because of a laundry list of store cleaning instructions found in his home. Police and the district attorney believed it was a robbery "to-do" list, when in fact the list contained notes Kindle took during a training course with Cover-All Cleaning, his employer. Kindle's supervisor testified that the list did indeed result from the training course. Kindle's conviction was also based on inaccurate voice recognition testimony. He was sentenced under the "three strikes" law to 70 years to life.
Kindle's conviction was reversed due to the failure of the defense to call an expert on identifications. The California Innocence Project, along with a local Los Angeles attorney, presented evidence to the trial court of a videotape of the robbery that definitively proved that the actual perpetrator was 6 feet 6 inches tall. Kindle is only 6 feet tall, six inches shorter than the person seen on the videotape. The charges against Kindle were dismissed and Kindle was released.
Kenneth Marsh
County: San Diego
Convicted of: 2nd Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1983
Sentence: 15 years to life
Year Released: 2004
Years Served: 21 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Junk science
Ken Marsh and Brenda Buell were enjoying the happiest moments of their life in 1983 in San Diego County. Ken, a man of slim stature and a warm smile, was a 28 year old man, busy splitting his time working as a supervisor at the local Coca-Cola plant and running his house-painting business. Brenda worked in as an assistant manager at a local wholesale florist. Living together, the best friends were raising Brenda's two very young children, Jessica and Phillip Buell.
Twenty-three years later, Ken and Brenda are now married but the stories that fill the last two decades of each of their lives are very different. Ken, now 51, is a man with separation anxiety and heartbreaking eyes, who finds behind him twenty-one years of his dignity, shredded and stolen by the California's criminal justice system.
In 1983, Ken was babysitting Brenda's two children, when Phillip, 33-months old, fell from the couch and hit his head on a brick hearth. Ken called the paramedics, who transported Phillip to Children's Hospital. Phillip died that evening. The doctors had noted the incident as child abuse, though the injury was treated as an accidental fall by the San Diego Police Department. Ken was taken into custody, and later charged and convicted of the second degree murder of Phillip Buell.
Brenda never lost hope in Ken and struggled for the next 21 years to free the innocent man she loved. They were not allowed to see each other during the two decades Ken spent in prison but maintained their relationship through covert letters.
"What happened to us in 1983," says a tearful Marsh, "They ripped us apart."
After eighteen years of imprisonment, the pieces of Ken's wrongful conviction began to come together. Brenda found a dispatcher who had recorded the discussion in the ambulance transport to Children's Hospital. The transport was initially labeled as uneventful; however, the treatment Philip, a baby with a blood disorder, was given actually acerbated his brain swelling, causing cardiac arrest. He had died before he even arrived at Children's. The California Innocence Project, along with a local San Diego attorney, sought a new trial after uncovering additional forensic evidence that proved Ken's innocence. In 2004, the district attorney's office dismissed the charges and Ken was a free man.
Dewayne McKinney
County: Orange
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder and Robbery
Year of Conviction: 1981
Sentence: Life
Year Released: 2000
Years Served: 19 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Mistaken eyewitness identification; police misconduct
On December 11, 1980, a man robbed an Orange County Burger King, stealing over $2,500 and killing the manager of the store. The man disappeared into a car and fled the scene. Four witnesses at the scene identified Dewayne McKinney as the killer. The police had falsely led these witnesses to believe that McKinney had confessed to the crime. In addition, the identifications were made under severe stress, and all of the identifications were cross-racial.
There was no physical evidence linking McKinney to the scene, and multiple witnesses testified that he was at home, some 30 miles from the scene. These same witnesses testified that McKinney was also injured at the time and required the aid of crutches to walk. The prosecution, however, used thinly veiled racist comments to undermine the credibility of each of these witnesses, who were all low-income African Americans.
McKinney had all but given up hope: "I haven't done anything and i'm stuck in a box," he said. Then, in 1997, the Orange County Public Defender received a letter from a prison inmate who claimed to know the identity of the real killer. The Orange County District Attorney's office received a copy of this letter two years later, when defense attorneys filed a brief and affidavits in court. In response, the D.A.'s office ordered an investigation. Through the course of the investigation, they tracked down the getaway driver who admitted his role and stated that McKinney was not involved. Additionally, several of the original witnesses recanted their statements that McKinney was the killer. In 2000, the District Attorney's Office filed a request with the Superior Court asking for McKinney's release, stating that there was not enough evidence to support his conviction. McKinney was given $2 million and prison issued street clothes upon his release.
After spending nineteen years of his life serving time for a crime he did not commit, Dewayne McKinney became a free man. Dewayne was tragically killed in motorcycle accident in 2008.
Melvin Mikes
County: Los Angeles
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1985
Sentence: 25 to life
Year Released: 1991
Years served: 7 years
Wrongful Conviction Factor: Poor defense lawyering
Mikes was convicted of beating to death a fix-it shop owner during a robbery. His counsel failed to present alibi witness. The conviction was vacated due to insufficient evidence. Mikes' release was delayed four months waiting for the District Attorney's unsuccessful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Mikes served seven years of his 25 years to life sentence for a crime he did not commit.
Glen "Buddy" Nickerson
County: Santa Clara
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder (2 counts)
Year of Conviction: 1984
Sentence: Life without parole
Year Released: 2003
Years Served: 19 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Police misconduct; eye witness error
The story of Glen William "Buddy" Nickerson begins on St. Patrick's Day of 1955, when he was born the oldest son of Glen Sr. and his wife, Doris Jean. Buddy had an older sister, Glenna, and two younger brothers, Richard and Harry, whom everyone called Nicky. Unlike his thin, lanky siblings, Buddy was always chubby.
In the fall of 1984, Buddy, a twenty-something father of two, was looking forward to spending time with his newborn son and beautiful three year old daughter. He never imagined that he would be arrested, charged and convicted to life imprisonment for a crime he did not commit.
On the evening of September 15th, 1984, Buddy was serving as the bartender for a party held at a friend's house. After too many drinks, Buddy kicked off his boots and slept in his truck, bare feet hanging out the passenger window.
That same night, four masked robbers broke into the house of John Evans, a local dealer and acquaintance of Buddy. Soon, Evans and his half brother, Mickie King, were dead and Michael Orosio, a friend, lay in critical condition. The masked men scattered and ran from the scene.
The police brought in three suspects, including the actual shooter Murray Lodge, who owned drug money to Evans. The only surviving victim, Orosio, after a few conversations with investigators from his hospital bed under heavy sedation, identified Buddy as the fourth suspect. He was arrested a few days later.
Several years later, abhorrent police misconduct was revealed: Police had encouraged a witness to alter their eyewitness description; the friends Buddy was with the evening of the murder were threatened by investigators, removing his alibi; and, police hid evidence and committed perjury when they denied, under oath, the existence of a taped confession by another suspect.
"Everybody out here believed, 'Oh, there's no way innocent people would be in prison. It just doesn't happen, this is America,'" said Nickerson. "It happens everyday. Everyday. And one day, it could be you."
Buddy was release in 2003, after the confession of the fourth suspect, William Carl Jahn which led the District Court Judge to find no confidence in Buddy's conviction.
Buddy, now at 45 years old, has spent more than a third of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit. But Buddy says he doesn't want people to feel sorry for him; instead, "they should feel sorry for the justice system."
Lewis
Member
- Aug 5, 2005
- 15,483
- 621
- Thread starter
- #53
Glen "Buddy" Nickerson
County: Santa Clara
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder (2 counts)
Year of Conviction: 1984
Sentence: Life without parole
Year Released: 2003
Years Served: 19 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Police misconduct; eye witness error
The story of Glen William "Buddy" Nickerson begins on St. Patrick's Day of 1955, when he was born the oldest son of Glen Sr. and his wife, Doris Jean. Buddy had an older sister, Glenna, and two younger brothers, Richard and Harry, whom everyone called Nicky. Unlike his thin, lanky siblings, Buddy was always chubby.
In the fall of 1984, Buddy, a twenty-something father of two, was looking forward to spending time with his newborn son and beautiful three year old daughter. He never imagined that he would be arrested, charged and convicted to life imprisonment for a crime he did not commit.
On the evening of September 15th, 1984, Buddy was serving as the bartender for a party held at a friend's house. After too many drinks, Buddy kicked off his boots and slept in his truck, bare feet hanging out the passenger window.
That same night, four masked robbers broke into the house of John Evans, a local dealer and acquaintance of Buddy. Soon, Evans and his half brother, Mickie King, were dead and Michael Orosio, a friend, lay in critical condition. The masked men scattered and ran from the scene.
The police brought in three suspects, including the actual shooter Murray Lodge, who owned drug money to Evans. The only surviving victim, Orosio, after a few conversations with investigators from his hospital bed under heavy sedation, identified Buddy as the fourth suspect. He was arrested a few days later.
Several years later, abhorrent police misconduct was revealed: Police had encouraged a witness to alter their eyewitness description; the friends Buddy was with the evening of the murder were threatened by investigators, removing his alibi; and, police hid evidence and committed perjury when they denied, under oath, the existence of a taped confession by another suspect.
"Everybody out here believed, 'Oh, there's no way innocent people would be in prison. It just doesn't happen, this is America,'" said Nickerson. "It happens everyday. Everyday. And one day, it could be you."
Buddy was release in 2003, after the confession of the fourth suspect, William Carl Jahn which led the District Court Judge to find no confidence in Buddy's conviction.
Buddy, now at 45 years old, has spent more than a third of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit. But Buddy says he doesn't want people to feel sorry for him; instead, "they should feel sorry for the justice system."
Aaron Owens
County: Alameda
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder (2 counts)
Year of Conviction: 1973
Sentence: Life
Year Released: 1982
Years Served: Almost 10 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Mistaken eyewitness identification
One of Aaron Owens' best friends is John Taylor, the man who sent him to prison for two life sentences for a double murder he did not commit.
"Twelve people thought that I was the man who committed the crime and they were wrong." Owens said. John Taylor was the prosecutor who convinced the jury that Owens was guilty. And Taylor is also the man who is responsible for Aaron now being free. "If John were not the kind of man he is, I never would have gotten out of prison. Nobody was going to listen to me. Nobody did. It took a man with a conscience like John to do what he did: see a mistake and rectify it."
Though Aaron's conviction was for a capital offense, it came at a time when California had a moratorium on the death penalty as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Furman v. Georgia. That stroke of luck meant he was sentenced to life instead. "If not for the moratorium, I would have been dead in '76 because that's when they affirmed my conviction," Owens said.
Aaron's conviction was simply a case of mistaken eyewitness identification. Owens said that the pivotal testimony came from a victim who survived and testified "I would never forget the eyes of the man who threatened to kill my little boy." The jury asked to hear that testimony again, and convicted Owens a short time later. But the witness simply made a mistake. Indeed, when Aaron later saw a picture of the true killer, he said "I thought it was a picture of me."
Thanks to John Taylor, Aaron received a full pardon and was released in 1982 after 10 years in prison. But that's all he got. He never received any compensation at all. The conviction still appears on his record, which has made life after prison even more difficult.
Aaron now works for John, doing investigation and legal work. Both fan's of the Oakland A's, you will often find them sitting at the ballpark together, friends with a unique bond.
David Quindt
County: Sacramento
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1999
Sentence: Life without parole
Year Released: 2000
Years Served: 14 months
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Mistaken eyewitness identification
When the police called asking about a double murder, David Quindt did what most innocent people do. "I said sure, I'll talk to you, I have nothing to hide, I didn't do this." He met with police, answering all of their questions and even taking a lie detector test. But then he was convicted based on the identification of one eyewitness. "I was dumbfounded," David said, "I couldn't believe what was going on at all."
The shock took its toll on the 24 year old man. "I had a nervous breakdown when I was there [in jail]," he said. David attempted suicide twice, first jumping out of a fourth story window, then cutting his stomach open.
But then he began to focus, realizing he had to help himself or he would never go home. "I always said I will go home." He began researching his case and the law. He drew strength from an unlikely source, a guard. "He always told me don't give up, keep going," David said. "If it wasn't for that one cop, I don't think I would have made it."
Then, out of no where, the Deputy District Attorney who had him convicted, Mark Curry, came to visit in prison. He said, "David, I'm sorry. You get to go home on Monday." New evidence, revealed after David's trial, led the district attorney to the true killer. David burst into tears.
He spent another difficult weekend in jail and then had to suffer the indignity of being released from the back gate, rather than the front door. But when he walked to the front of the jail, David saw his grandmother waiting for him and again started to cry.
Two years in custody for a crime he did not commit changed David's whole life. "People don't know how precious life is," he said. "When I got out, I was like a reborn child." But when he got out, he had nothing and found himself and his wife homeless for a time. "We're still struggling," David said, "but I'll make it. I made it through this and nothing could be worse."
Ron Reno
County: Fresno
Convicted of: Felon in possession of a firearm
Year of Conviction: 1997
Sentence: 25 years to life
Year Released: 2002
Years Served: 5.5 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Poor defense
On April 16, 1996, Ron Reno's friend Preston Marsh was in trouble with the law. Suspected of using someone else's credit card to buy merchandise, Marsh took off, leaving behind a gun in a boot box in Reno's truck. Police found the gun and charged Reno with being a felon in possession of a gun, as well as the crimes theft that they suspected Marsh of.
Because Reno had prior convictions, he was charged as a three-strikes defendant and faced a life sentence. His trial attorney did no investigation to find Marsh or to follow up with other witnesses. Rather he untruthfully told Reno that the witnesses would not help him and that if he did not take a deal, he would spend the rest of his life in prison. Reno accepted the deal and pled guilty. On subsequent appeals, the courts found that trial counsel had been ineffective.
Several years into his sentence, Reno encountered Marsh in prison. Reno told Marsh that he had been convicted of possession of a firearm because they had found the gun in the boot box. Marsh was surprised, said he had no idea and acknowledged that he owned the gun and had hidden it in the boot box in the truck. He provided a declaration and met with the District Attorney, reiterating his responsibility for the gun.
With Marsh's declaration, as well as the declarations of all the other witnesses, the Innocence Project filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus arguing that this new evidence demonstrates that Reno is actually innocent of the crime to which he pled guilty and for which he received a life sentence. The prosecution opposed the writ. Then, the day before the hearing was to begin, the DA offered Reno a deal and he was released with time served.
County: Santa Clara
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder (2 counts)
Year of Conviction: 1984
Sentence: Life without parole
Year Released: 2003
Years Served: 19 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Police misconduct; eye witness error
The story of Glen William "Buddy" Nickerson begins on St. Patrick's Day of 1955, when he was born the oldest son of Glen Sr. and his wife, Doris Jean. Buddy had an older sister, Glenna, and two younger brothers, Richard and Harry, whom everyone called Nicky. Unlike his thin, lanky siblings, Buddy was always chubby.
In the fall of 1984, Buddy, a twenty-something father of two, was looking forward to spending time with his newborn son and beautiful three year old daughter. He never imagined that he would be arrested, charged and convicted to life imprisonment for a crime he did not commit.
On the evening of September 15th, 1984, Buddy was serving as the bartender for a party held at a friend's house. After too many drinks, Buddy kicked off his boots and slept in his truck, bare feet hanging out the passenger window.
That same night, four masked robbers broke into the house of John Evans, a local dealer and acquaintance of Buddy. Soon, Evans and his half brother, Mickie King, were dead and Michael Orosio, a friend, lay in critical condition. The masked men scattered and ran from the scene.
The police brought in three suspects, including the actual shooter Murray Lodge, who owned drug money to Evans. The only surviving victim, Orosio, after a few conversations with investigators from his hospital bed under heavy sedation, identified Buddy as the fourth suspect. He was arrested a few days later.
Several years later, abhorrent police misconduct was revealed: Police had encouraged a witness to alter their eyewitness description; the friends Buddy was with the evening of the murder were threatened by investigators, removing his alibi; and, police hid evidence and committed perjury when they denied, under oath, the existence of a taped confession by another suspect.
"Everybody out here believed, 'Oh, there's no way innocent people would be in prison. It just doesn't happen, this is America,'" said Nickerson. "It happens everyday. Everyday. And one day, it could be you."
Buddy was release in 2003, after the confession of the fourth suspect, William Carl Jahn which led the District Court Judge to find no confidence in Buddy's conviction.
Buddy, now at 45 years old, has spent more than a third of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit. But Buddy says he doesn't want people to feel sorry for him; instead, "they should feel sorry for the justice system."
Aaron Owens
County: Alameda
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder (2 counts)
Year of Conviction: 1973
Sentence: Life
Year Released: 1982
Years Served: Almost 10 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Mistaken eyewitness identification
One of Aaron Owens' best friends is John Taylor, the man who sent him to prison for two life sentences for a double murder he did not commit.
"Twelve people thought that I was the man who committed the crime and they were wrong." Owens said. John Taylor was the prosecutor who convinced the jury that Owens was guilty. And Taylor is also the man who is responsible for Aaron now being free. "If John were not the kind of man he is, I never would have gotten out of prison. Nobody was going to listen to me. Nobody did. It took a man with a conscience like John to do what he did: see a mistake and rectify it."
Though Aaron's conviction was for a capital offense, it came at a time when California had a moratorium on the death penalty as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Furman v. Georgia. That stroke of luck meant he was sentenced to life instead. "If not for the moratorium, I would have been dead in '76 because that's when they affirmed my conviction," Owens said.
Aaron's conviction was simply a case of mistaken eyewitness identification. Owens said that the pivotal testimony came from a victim who survived and testified "I would never forget the eyes of the man who threatened to kill my little boy." The jury asked to hear that testimony again, and convicted Owens a short time later. But the witness simply made a mistake. Indeed, when Aaron later saw a picture of the true killer, he said "I thought it was a picture of me."
Thanks to John Taylor, Aaron received a full pardon and was released in 1982 after 10 years in prison. But that's all he got. He never received any compensation at all. The conviction still appears on his record, which has made life after prison even more difficult.
Aaron now works for John, doing investigation and legal work. Both fan's of the Oakland A's, you will often find them sitting at the ballpark together, friends with a unique bond.
David Quindt
County: Sacramento
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1999
Sentence: Life without parole
Year Released: 2000
Years Served: 14 months
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Mistaken eyewitness identification
When the police called asking about a double murder, David Quindt did what most innocent people do. "I said sure, I'll talk to you, I have nothing to hide, I didn't do this." He met with police, answering all of their questions and even taking a lie detector test. But then he was convicted based on the identification of one eyewitness. "I was dumbfounded," David said, "I couldn't believe what was going on at all."
The shock took its toll on the 24 year old man. "I had a nervous breakdown when I was there [in jail]," he said. David attempted suicide twice, first jumping out of a fourth story window, then cutting his stomach open.
But then he began to focus, realizing he had to help himself or he would never go home. "I always said I will go home." He began researching his case and the law. He drew strength from an unlikely source, a guard. "He always told me don't give up, keep going," David said. "If it wasn't for that one cop, I don't think I would have made it."
Then, out of no where, the Deputy District Attorney who had him convicted, Mark Curry, came to visit in prison. He said, "David, I'm sorry. You get to go home on Monday." New evidence, revealed after David's trial, led the district attorney to the true killer. David burst into tears.
He spent another difficult weekend in jail and then had to suffer the indignity of being released from the back gate, rather than the front door. But when he walked to the front of the jail, David saw his grandmother waiting for him and again started to cry.
Two years in custody for a crime he did not commit changed David's whole life. "People don't know how precious life is," he said. "When I got out, I was like a reborn child." But when he got out, he had nothing and found himself and his wife homeless for a time. "We're still struggling," David said, "but I'll make it. I made it through this and nothing could be worse."
Ron Reno
County: Fresno
Convicted of: Felon in possession of a firearm
Year of Conviction: 1997
Sentence: 25 years to life
Year Released: 2002
Years Served: 5.5 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Poor defense
On April 16, 1996, Ron Reno's friend Preston Marsh was in trouble with the law. Suspected of using someone else's credit card to buy merchandise, Marsh took off, leaving behind a gun in a boot box in Reno's truck. Police found the gun and charged Reno with being a felon in possession of a gun, as well as the crimes theft that they suspected Marsh of.
Because Reno had prior convictions, he was charged as a three-strikes defendant and faced a life sentence. His trial attorney did no investigation to find Marsh or to follow up with other witnesses. Rather he untruthfully told Reno that the witnesses would not help him and that if he did not take a deal, he would spend the rest of his life in prison. Reno accepted the deal and pled guilty. On subsequent appeals, the courts found that trial counsel had been ineffective.
Several years into his sentence, Reno encountered Marsh in prison. Reno told Marsh that he had been convicted of possession of a firearm because they had found the gun in the boot box. Marsh was surprised, said he had no idea and acknowledged that he owned the gun and had hidden it in the boot box in the truck. He provided a declaration and met with the District Attorney, reiterating his responsibility for the gun.
With Marsh's declaration, as well as the declarations of all the other witnesses, the Innocence Project filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus arguing that this new evidence demonstrates that Reno is actually innocent of the crime to which he pled guilty and for which he received a life sentence. The prosecution opposed the writ. Then, the day before the hearing was to begin, the DA offered Reno a deal and he was released with time served.
Lewis
Member
- Aug 5, 2005
- 15,483
- 621
- Thread starter
- #54
Peter J. Rose
County: San Joaquin
Convicted of: Kidnap (child under 14), Forcible Rape, and Forcible Oral Copulation
Year of Conviction: 1995
Sentence: 27 years
Year Released: 2004
Years Served: 9 years, 10 months
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Police misconduct; mistaken eyewitness; junk science
On the morning of November 29, 1994, in Lodi, California, a 13-year old girl en route to school was grabbed and dragged into an alley by a man who punched her in the face, assaulted and raped her.
The victim told police she did not know the identity of her attacker. Peter Rose was acquainted with the victim and her family. The girl's aunt repeatedly suggested Rose's name to the victim and to the police. However, the girl did not select his photo from a spread and continued to maintain she did not know the attacker. Three weeks after the rape, following a coercive three hour interrogation, the girl raised Rose's name tentatively. At trial, she identified Rose with certainty. A state criminalist testified that Rose was within 30% of the population who could have deposited the semen found on the victim's underwear. The prosecutor relied on this evidence in closing argument to corroborate the eyewitness testimony. The jury convicted Rose, and the court sentenced him to 27 years in prison.
The Northern California Innocence Project at Golden Gate University in San Francisco began work on Rose's case in 2003. Initially, county officials maintained that all the evidence in the case had been destroyed. Students found one piece of evidence still in existence: a cutting from the victim's underwear. DNA testing excluded Rose as the perpetrator and resulted in his release from prison in 2004. In 2005, the Court declared him factually innocent. The Lodi police investigated themselves and found no wrongdoing. The real perpetrator has not been identified.
Chol Soo Lee
County: San Francisco
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1973
Sentence: Life (then sentenced to death)
Year Released: 1983
Years Served: 10 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Misconduct by police and prosecutors, mistaken eyewitness identification
Chol Soo Lee, came to the United States from Korea in 1964, settling in San Francisco's Chinatown. In the early '70s, a gang war was ragging in Chinatown and the police were under intense pressure to make arrests. "They needed a scapegoat and the scapegoat turned out to be me," Chol said. In 1974, at the age of 20, he was wrongfully convicted of murder and sent to prison in Tracy.
Chol describes Tracy as "one of the most violent prisons in California." Racial gang wars ragged. With very few other Asian prisoners, Chol found himself in prison yard with African-Americans on one side, whites on the other "and me standing alone in the middle." Warned by a guard that he was the target of a hit, Chol stabbed a man in self-defense, killing him.
A small article ran in the paper about, catching the eye of a Korean reporter, Kyung Wong Lee ("K.W." Lee). Lee's nephew has the same name as Chol. K. W. Lee visited Chol and began investigating the original conviction, leading to a series of articles, leading to the creation of the Chol Sol Lee Defense Committee. "There was a flood of support coming to me," Chol said, "and that was support of the purest form of humanity, unselfish, giving to a man going on trial for his life."
Because even while K.W. Lee was uncovering the falsity of Chol's original conviction, the state was seeking the death penalty in the prison yard incident, based on the prior murder conviction. Indeed, in 1979, Chol was sent to death row, even though the courts had already vacated the prior conviction based on the work of K.W. Lee, the defense community, and dedicated lawyers.
The community movement went from local, to national, to international, as people from across the U.S. to Korea rallied in support of Chol. After eight years on death row, he was finally freed in 1983 after his conviction was overturned due to false testimony by prison informants.
"The most important thing that I learned from my struggle to get out of prison," Chol said, "is that it was not just a struggle for freedom but for humanity, a struggle that prevailed against all odds."
John Stoll
County: Kern
Convicted of: Child Molestation
Year of Conviction: 1985
Sentence: 40 years
Year Released: 2004
Years Served: 20 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Police/prosecutorial misconduct; false testimony
In the 1980s, Kern County and other places around the world got caught up in a wave of child molestation hysteria that led to the convictions of many innocent men and women. Authorities suspected that as many as 248 Kern County residents were committing group acts of Satanism, incest, infanticide, and mass molestation of children. Law enforcement personnel, social services workers, and prosecutors used improper interviewing techniques to push children into making false reports of sexual abuse. After a broad investigation, the California Attorney General issued a lengthy report criticizing Kern County's improper methods in investigating cases of suspected child sexual abuse during this period. Since then, federal and state courts have reversed the convictions of 34 defendants in Kern County molest cases on evidence that the convictions were the result of unreliable evidence.
John Stoll was one of the victims of this hysteria. He had been involved in an ugly custody dispute and divorce when police and social workers turned a report by his son of child sex play into a full-blown child molestation ring, with Stoll as the leader. At one point Stoll faced thirty-one counts of child molestation, later reduced to eighteen, involving six children, including his own son, and three co-defendants. No physical evidence corroborated the inconsistent stories of the children. Though authorities alleged Stoll and his co-defendants routinely sodomized the children, no one took the children to a doctor for examination or treatment. Nonetheless, Stoll was convicted of 17 counts of molestation.
In 2001 the Northern California Innocence Project learned of Stoll's case and began the fight to free him. In 2004, after a habeas corpus evidentiary hearing at which four former child witnesses testified to being forced to testify falsely against Stoll and his co-defendants and one recalled no molestation, a judge overturned Stoll's convictions and he was finally freed.
Rick Walker
County: Santa Clara
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1991
Sentence: 25 to life
Year Released: 2003
Years Served: 12 years
Wrongful Conviction Factor: False testimony; poor defense
As a young man, Quedellis Ricardo "Rick" Walker was working as a car mechanic and struggling with a drug addiction. He and his family dreamed of putting townhouses on their land and, in Rick's words, "living happily ever after." Those dreams were destroyed in 1991 when Rick was falsely convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Rick's former-girlfriend, Lisa Hopewell, had been murder. "That was all they needed," Rick said, "I was a Black man from East Palo Alto, at the time when East Palo Alto was the murder capital of the world, and they did not need much else to convince the jurors that I was a monster."
"In the beginning, prison was my own personal hell," said Rick. "I had gotten bitter, angry. . . . I felt that the system had completely let me down and my family."
Eventually, Rick realized that "anger will tear you apart . . . and leave you hollow spiritually." Rick looked at himself and said, "You're a survivor and you need to get up and fight. So I got up and fought, and began to change."
Rick cleaned up his life, giving up coffee, cigarettes, drugs, and profanity. He joined the Christian population and taught Bible study on Saturday nights where he "began to help other guys with the healing process."
Then one day they told him to call his attorney but he couldn't get through. "When all else fails," Rick said, "Call momma. So I called my mother and she said 'you're coming home.' It was so emotional. It's like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders and its suddenly lifted."
Alison Tucher, a lawyer and family friend, had volunteered to take on Rick's case. Her dogged investigation resulted in DNA and other new evidence proving Rick was innocent and identifying the real killers. In 2003, after more than 12 years in prison, Rick was released. "They just turned my loose back into society with nothing," said Rick.
Rick once again works as a mechanic and spends his time with his family, the two young nieces he is raising and his mother and adult son, who stood by him through everything.
County: San Joaquin
Convicted of: Kidnap (child under 14), Forcible Rape, and Forcible Oral Copulation
Year of Conviction: 1995
Sentence: 27 years
Year Released: 2004
Years Served: 9 years, 10 months
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Police misconduct; mistaken eyewitness; junk science
On the morning of November 29, 1994, in Lodi, California, a 13-year old girl en route to school was grabbed and dragged into an alley by a man who punched her in the face, assaulted and raped her.
The victim told police she did not know the identity of her attacker. Peter Rose was acquainted with the victim and her family. The girl's aunt repeatedly suggested Rose's name to the victim and to the police. However, the girl did not select his photo from a spread and continued to maintain she did not know the attacker. Three weeks after the rape, following a coercive three hour interrogation, the girl raised Rose's name tentatively. At trial, she identified Rose with certainty. A state criminalist testified that Rose was within 30% of the population who could have deposited the semen found on the victim's underwear. The prosecutor relied on this evidence in closing argument to corroborate the eyewitness testimony. The jury convicted Rose, and the court sentenced him to 27 years in prison.
The Northern California Innocence Project at Golden Gate University in San Francisco began work on Rose's case in 2003. Initially, county officials maintained that all the evidence in the case had been destroyed. Students found one piece of evidence still in existence: a cutting from the victim's underwear. DNA testing excluded Rose as the perpetrator and resulted in his release from prison in 2004. In 2005, the Court declared him factually innocent. The Lodi police investigated themselves and found no wrongdoing. The real perpetrator has not been identified.
Chol Soo Lee
County: San Francisco
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1973
Sentence: Life (then sentenced to death)
Year Released: 1983
Years Served: 10 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Misconduct by police and prosecutors, mistaken eyewitness identification
Chol Soo Lee, came to the United States from Korea in 1964, settling in San Francisco's Chinatown. In the early '70s, a gang war was ragging in Chinatown and the police were under intense pressure to make arrests. "They needed a scapegoat and the scapegoat turned out to be me," Chol said. In 1974, at the age of 20, he was wrongfully convicted of murder and sent to prison in Tracy.
Chol describes Tracy as "one of the most violent prisons in California." Racial gang wars ragged. With very few other Asian prisoners, Chol found himself in prison yard with African-Americans on one side, whites on the other "and me standing alone in the middle." Warned by a guard that he was the target of a hit, Chol stabbed a man in self-defense, killing him.
A small article ran in the paper about, catching the eye of a Korean reporter, Kyung Wong Lee ("K.W." Lee). Lee's nephew has the same name as Chol. K. W. Lee visited Chol and began investigating the original conviction, leading to a series of articles, leading to the creation of the Chol Sol Lee Defense Committee. "There was a flood of support coming to me," Chol said, "and that was support of the purest form of humanity, unselfish, giving to a man going on trial for his life."
Because even while K.W. Lee was uncovering the falsity of Chol's original conviction, the state was seeking the death penalty in the prison yard incident, based on the prior murder conviction. Indeed, in 1979, Chol was sent to death row, even though the courts had already vacated the prior conviction based on the work of K.W. Lee, the defense community, and dedicated lawyers.
The community movement went from local, to national, to international, as people from across the U.S. to Korea rallied in support of Chol. After eight years on death row, he was finally freed in 1983 after his conviction was overturned due to false testimony by prison informants.
"The most important thing that I learned from my struggle to get out of prison," Chol said, "is that it was not just a struggle for freedom but for humanity, a struggle that prevailed against all odds."
John Stoll
County: Kern
Convicted of: Child Molestation
Year of Conviction: 1985
Sentence: 40 years
Year Released: 2004
Years Served: 20 years
Wrongful Conviction Factors: Police/prosecutorial misconduct; false testimony
In the 1980s, Kern County and other places around the world got caught up in a wave of child molestation hysteria that led to the convictions of many innocent men and women. Authorities suspected that as many as 248 Kern County residents were committing group acts of Satanism, incest, infanticide, and mass molestation of children. Law enforcement personnel, social services workers, and prosecutors used improper interviewing techniques to push children into making false reports of sexual abuse. After a broad investigation, the California Attorney General issued a lengthy report criticizing Kern County's improper methods in investigating cases of suspected child sexual abuse during this period. Since then, federal and state courts have reversed the convictions of 34 defendants in Kern County molest cases on evidence that the convictions were the result of unreliable evidence.
John Stoll was one of the victims of this hysteria. He had been involved in an ugly custody dispute and divorce when police and social workers turned a report by his son of child sex play into a full-blown child molestation ring, with Stoll as the leader. At one point Stoll faced thirty-one counts of child molestation, later reduced to eighteen, involving six children, including his own son, and three co-defendants. No physical evidence corroborated the inconsistent stories of the children. Though authorities alleged Stoll and his co-defendants routinely sodomized the children, no one took the children to a doctor for examination or treatment. Nonetheless, Stoll was convicted of 17 counts of molestation.
In 2001 the Northern California Innocence Project learned of Stoll's case and began the fight to free him. In 2004, after a habeas corpus evidentiary hearing at which four former child witnesses testified to being forced to testify falsely against Stoll and his co-defendants and one recalled no molestation, a judge overturned Stoll's convictions and he was finally freed.
Rick Walker
County: Santa Clara
Convicted of: 1st Degree Murder
Year of Conviction: 1991
Sentence: 25 to life
Year Released: 2003
Years Served: 12 years
Wrongful Conviction Factor: False testimony; poor defense
As a young man, Quedellis Ricardo "Rick" Walker was working as a car mechanic and struggling with a drug addiction. He and his family dreamed of putting townhouses on their land and, in Rick's words, "living happily ever after." Those dreams were destroyed in 1991 when Rick was falsely convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Rick's former-girlfriend, Lisa Hopewell, had been murder. "That was all they needed," Rick said, "I was a Black man from East Palo Alto, at the time when East Palo Alto was the murder capital of the world, and they did not need much else to convince the jurors that I was a monster."
"In the beginning, prison was my own personal hell," said Rick. "I had gotten bitter, angry. . . . I felt that the system had completely let me down and my family."
Eventually, Rick realized that "anger will tear you apart . . . and leave you hollow spiritually." Rick looked at himself and said, "You're a survivor and you need to get up and fight. So I got up and fought, and began to change."
Rick cleaned up his life, giving up coffee, cigarettes, drugs, and profanity. He joined the Christian population and taught Bible study on Saturday nights where he "began to help other guys with the healing process."
Then one day they told him to call his attorney but he couldn't get through. "When all else fails," Rick said, "Call momma. So I called my mother and she said 'you're coming home.' It was so emotional. It's like you're carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders and its suddenly lifted."
Alison Tucher, a lawyer and family friend, had volunteered to take on Rick's case. Her dogged investigation resulted in DNA and other new evidence proving Rick was innocent and identifying the real killers. In 2003, after more than 12 years in prison, Rick was released. "They just turned my loose back into society with nothing," said Rick.
Rick once again works as a mechanic and spends his time with his family, the two young nieces he is raising and his mother and adult son, who stood by him through everything.
W
Webers_Home
Guest
.
†. Gen 9:6 . .Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed
†. Ex 21:12-14 . . He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. If a man acts with premeditation against his neighbor, to kill him by treachery, you shall take him from My altar, that he may die.
†. Lev 24:17 . . If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death.
†. Lev 24:21 . .Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death.
†. Num 35:31 . . Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death.
People find all sorts of excuses for refusing to comply with God's wishes; and one of them is the argument that we should abolish capital punishment in order to avoid inadvertently executing the innocent. What's the answer to that? Well; a better question is: Whose side are you on? The Devil's side or God's side? Opposing capital punishment for any reason is not only satanic, but also quite curse-worthy.
†. Deut 27:26 . . Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.
In any war, commanders have to expect a percentage of casualties by friendly fire and collateral damage. Those kinds of casualties are usually factored in as acceptable losses because people make mistakes. But it isn't wise to turn a war off just because somebody might get hurt by friendly fire or collateral damage. Accidents happen; even under ideal conditions.
It's the same with the war on crime. Just because a percentage of innocent people get executed for something they didn't do, is no excuse to get in bed with the Devil and oppose God's wishes. America's justice system, although far from perfect, has a pretty good batting average. The overwhelming majority of people dead from executions fully deserved what they got. Only a tiny percentage are victims of miscarriages of justice; and those percentages should always be considered acceptable losses in any legitimate endeavor to protect domestic tranquility.
According to Num 35:31-34, murder contaminates a country; and the country stays that way until the murderer is executed. Americans pride themselves as a God-fearing nation; and on their money is stamped "In God We Trust" yet they are grossly neglecting to comply with Almighty God's wishes in regards to executing murderers.
There's a pretty good number of people-- inlcluding the governor of the State of Oregon where I currently reside --opposing capital punishment who are actually practicing what amounts to paganism and don't know it.
†. 1Sam 15:23 . . For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry.
Buen Camino
/<O:p</O:p
Capital punishment for murder is actually quite mandatory: no exceptions. Note the language and grammar of the commandments listed below; viz: it's imperative rather than optional.
†. Gen 9:6 . .Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed
†. Ex 21:12-14 . . He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. If a man acts with premeditation against his neighbor, to kill him by treachery, you shall take him from My altar, that he may die.
†. Lev 24:17 . . If anyone takes the life of a human being, he must be put to death.
†. Lev 24:21 . .Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a man must be put to death.
†. Num 35:31 . . Do not accept a ransom for the life of a murderer, who deserves to die. He must surely be put to death.
People find all sorts of excuses for refusing to comply with God's wishes; and one of them is the argument that we should abolish capital punishment in order to avoid inadvertently executing the innocent. What's the answer to that? Well; a better question is: Whose side are you on? The Devil's side or God's side? Opposing capital punishment for any reason is not only satanic, but also quite curse-worthy.
†. Deut 27:26 . . Cursed is the man who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out.
In any war, commanders have to expect a percentage of casualties by friendly fire and collateral damage. Those kinds of casualties are usually factored in as acceptable losses because people make mistakes. But it isn't wise to turn a war off just because somebody might get hurt by friendly fire or collateral damage. Accidents happen; even under ideal conditions.
It's the same with the war on crime. Just because a percentage of innocent people get executed for something they didn't do, is no excuse to get in bed with the Devil and oppose God's wishes. America's justice system, although far from perfect, has a pretty good batting average. The overwhelming majority of people dead from executions fully deserved what they got. Only a tiny percentage are victims of miscarriages of justice; and those percentages should always be considered acceptable losses in any legitimate endeavor to protect domestic tranquility.
According to Num 35:31-34, murder contaminates a country; and the country stays that way until the murderer is executed. Americans pride themselves as a God-fearing nation; and on their money is stamped "In God We Trust" yet they are grossly neglecting to comply with Almighty God's wishes in regards to executing murderers.
There's a pretty good number of people-- inlcluding the governor of the State of Oregon where I currently reside --opposing capital punishment who are actually practicing what amounts to paganism and don't know it.
†. 1Sam 15:23 . . For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry.
Buen Camino
/<O:p</O:p
<table width="95%" align="left" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"><tbody><tr><td align="left" valign="top">Repeat Offenders
<!-- InstanceEndEditable --></td></tr><tr><td align="left" valign="top"><!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="body" --> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="2"><tbody><tr><td height="4067" align="left" valign="top">The convicted murderer in the United States serves, on average, just six years in prison.
-- (Atlantic Monthly; Sept. '97, "A Grief Like No Other")
Ask yourself....are they rehabilitated?
Repeat Offender
My husband was killed by a repeat violent felon. He assaulted him and was charged with assault 3. He received a one year sentence. Got out in May or June of 1999. In August, this man was in a bar, beating up people, caused a brawl. One man finally stopped him. He shot him and his friend, killing Frank Flammia, and wounding his accomplice. Finally, we have closure. The sad part is the man who defended himself was just sentenced to 8 and 1/2 years! Check out www.newsday.com, the title of the article is "How Judge Weighed Sentence in Killing". This man unfortunately used an illegal weapon, but knowing Frank Flammia's history, I know this man was acting in self-defense. Yes, it was vigilantism, but that violent felon is gone.
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
Timothy Carl Dawson eluded not only a 10 year prison term in a plea deal that broke state law, he missed being sent to jail when he stood before a judge two months before police say he went on a killing spree that left five people dead last month.
The attack on his girlfriend notwithstanding, little in Dawson's past could have hinted at the astonishing outburst of violence that, police say, started with a home invasion slaying October 5, 1998 in DeKalb County and included the October 15 killing of a young man at a College Park Days Inn and the October 18 execution style murders of three men in the Atlanta Hilton and Towers.
Even so, Dawson, 37, should have been in a state prison for the attack on his girlfriend, and he could have been locked up in the Fulton County Jail at an August hearing. Probation officials warned that Dawson remained a threat to the woman and to society.
Dawson's run-ins with the law began in 1989. He was convicted of theft by receiving in Baldwin County and sentenced to five years in prison and five years probation. He spent a few months in a low-security work camp and was freed in a statewide early-release program.
He was still on probation in 1995 when he was charged with raping his girlfriend. Shortly after the arrest, he was shot three times by an Atlanta police officer who was holding Dawson after the same woman complained that he was stalking her and trying to keep her from testifying.
While in jail, Dawson had to undergo sex crime counseling. A therapist determined "simply that he accepted no responsibility for his crime" and was still dangerous.
Dawson was released in July 1997 and later stopped reporting for visits with parole officers.
Probation officers sent the court their third arrest warrant for Dawson October 15 after he again failed to appear for a meeting. But, again, they couldn't find him. By then, Dawson's victims already were falling, police say.
First was Raycell Mason, 44, who was shot several times in the head at his home. Then October 15, the same day the third warrant request was sent, LaDarris Hawkin's body was found at a Days Inn on Old National Highway.
Three days after Hawkins' death, three men were found similarly executed in the Atlanta Hilton and Towers hotel in downtown Atlanta. Phillip Dover, 31, and Ronald Gutkowski, 51, and Gerrold Shropshire, 50, were executed.
"The system is far too lenient with respect to people who violate probation conditions. I don't think the average defendant in Fulton County feels he has to be accountable."
"The bottom line is, he slipped through. He was incorrigible. But only history tells us that."
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
Millington, Tennessee - On April 11, 1989, Terry Joe Windham, #204460, who was out on probation for burglary and vandalism, decided to commit murder to see what it felt like to kill. He chose as his victim 16-year-old Jeremy Peter Flachbart, a learning disabled student with the emotional and physical make-up of a 12-year-old. Windham ambushed Jeremy on his way home from school. He struck Jeremy once in the head from behind with a two-foot 4X4 fence post. Jeremy collapsed. Windham hit him 10 more times. After the 10th blow, Jeremy groaned. Windham hit him 5 more times for a total of 16 blows.
After hiding Jeremy's body in a drainage ditch by the railroad tracks, he then went to a local game room to brag of his vicious act of murder to his brother and friends. He then took them to view Jeremy's body. While the police were investigating the scene, he was on the side lines watching, bragging, threatening to kill others if they told. He was arrested on the scene, and later confessed and was charged with first degree murder. He made threatening phone calls to other students while in jail awaiting trial. He was plea-bargained out and agreed to a sentence of 20 years for second degree murder. He will receive his FIFTH parole hearing in July, 2000.
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
On September 17, 1993, my wonderful 19 year old son Tim was murdered by a repeat offender. He was a convicted felon, out on probation, not following his probation. There was an arrest warrant issued 13 days before he took my son's life. The felony was for carrying a loaded, illegal hand gun. No policemen searched for him. He was free to carry an illegal, loaded handgun once again. My son had received threatening phone calls for a month before he was shot, because he had broken up a fight between a girl and a gang member. My son's murderer belonged to the same gang. When the police came for the reported shooting that night, they assumed Tim was on drugs and in a gang. At the coroner's inquest, the detective's mouth dropped open when the coroner said Tim had no drugs in his system. By then it was too late! No investigation, the murderer turned himself in to police a week after he took Tim. There was no search warrant issued for the murderer or the handgun. The gun is still missing! The day after Tim's funeral, the state's attorney promised us murder one. Five months later he took me to the back of the courtroom and told me he was going to plea bargain down to involuntary manslaughter because the police did not do their job. Unbeknownst to us, the state's attorney was already making plans to run for judge the next year. He said, "I refuse to publicly indite the police department." It would have been politically incorrect. Needless to say, the shooter received the maximum sentence for manslaughter - 10 years in prison. He was released after 2 and 1/2 years. His prison length was shortened for "good behavior".
Within a month or two he was shot at 2 in the morning outside of a bar. Unfortunately, he survived and probably is carrying that same illegal handgun on the streets of our city. Where is the justice? My terrific son Tim was a non-violent, loving kid who told our family almost every day, "I love you guys." I can still hear his voice. I will always have him in my heart. My family and I feel that our "lack of justice" system needs a complete overhaul and so do our police!
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
In 1983, Dean Hernandez murdered my twin sister Kathy Durman in Port Arthur Texas, with use of a hand gun. He is serving a life sentence. This was not his first offense. In 1976, he was sentenced to 10 years in the Texas State Prison for the attempted murder of another former girlfriend. This offense took place in Groves, Texas. For the last 16 years, my family, Kathy's friends, and myself have fought very parole hearing against the parole of Dean Hernandez, and will continue to do so! For everyone whose has to go through this I say to you...... "Never give up!"
peace be with you - Kim Harrington and Family
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
February 3, 1995, 3 young men, 13, 18 and 20, decided to break into my parents' (Les and Carol Dotts) home in Knoxville, Tennessee. The 20 year old had 2 previous convictions of aggravated assault as a juvenile. All 3 admitted on the witness stand as to using and selling drugs, breaking into and stealing cars. The 20 year old also less than a week before murdering my parents, shot and left a man for dead in his home during a botched burglary.
The 18 and 20 year olds may be eligible for parole in 25 years. The one who was 13 will be out for good in March of 2000. Even though he went AWOL during a Christmas furlough from December, 1998 to March, 1999, no additional time was placed on his sentence. No charges were placed against his family for helping him, hiding him, or buying him a car that he used during this time. Our juvenile system is out of control. More and more juveniles are committing heinous, violent crimes, and when they turn 18, 19 or 20, they are let loose. This is wrong!
---Jeanne, Knoxville, Tennessee
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
Nineteen year old Sonya Santiago was murdered March 7, 1999 by an early release prisoner in the state of Florida. He was sentenced to 6 years but was "grandfathered" and allowed out after 3 years. He was wearing an ankle monitor and under the watch of the probation department. His employer repeatedly wrote him excuse notes so that he was able to roam the area at will and not go directly home from work. The restaurant was within sight of Sonya's apartment. He not only raped her, he slashed her throat. He is now in prison awaiting trial for Sonya's murder. DNA put him at the scene. Three months after murdering Sonya, he broke into a house a few blocks from her apartment and raped a mother and her 9 year old daughter. DNA also tied him to this.
Where was the probation department when this man was released on sexual assault with a deadly weapon? If he was not rehabilitated enough to be released without an ankle monitor - why release him?
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
In September, 1978, 19 year old Lisa Hullinger was beaten to death by her former boyfriend, William Coday, Jr. After just 16 months in jail, Coday was released.
In 1997, William Coday, Jr. was arrested and charged with the July 13, 1997 murder of another former girlfriend, Gloria Gomez.
Coday awaits trial in Miami, Florida.
Lisa Hullinger's parents are the founders of The National Organization of Parents Of Murdered Children, Inc.
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
In 1966, Charles Yukl was convicted of murdering Suzanne Reynolds. In 1968, he was sentenced to 7-15 years for manslaughter. After plea bargaining, he was released from prison in 1973 after only serving 5 years.
In August, 1974, Charles Yukl murdered Karin Schlegel from New York City.
Charles Yukl was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1982.
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
In April of 1983, Gary Merton's 16-year-old daughter, Shari Ann Merton, was murdered. In that same year, Shari Ann's killer accepted a plea bargain from murder to manslaughter, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. In the wisdom of our Connecticut Justice System (good time for "good behavior", etc.), 18 years equaled just 9 years and 8 months. So, in December, 1992, Shari Ann's killer, Corey R. Barton was released from prison.
So much for "wisdom"! Shari Ann's killer was arrested in November, 1998 and charged with the murder of 27-year-old Sally Harris of North Carolina. Although too late for the Harris family, let's hope that North Carolina justice will be a little wiser!
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
Our son, Karl Harford was murdered March 7, 2004 by a known criminal, Damien Sanders, who in my opinion should have been in jail. Damien Sanders was 22 years old at the time of the incident. He had an extensive juvenile and adult record, especially for is age. At least seven adult arrests with 4-5 charges with each arrest. Usually he pled to a lesser offence and was given probation or a time served sentence. He was found guilty of felony auto theft, felony burglary, and felony resisting arrest in 2001, and served one year in state penitentiary. Later, in July of 2003, he was caught driving a stolen car, caused an accident where the driver he hit was injured, he fled the seen of the accident, had no drivers license, was carrying a hand gun, and resisted arrest. And those are just the charges they filed. I thought any convicted felon that was released to society lost their right to carry a hand gun for the rest of their life. However, two days later he was released from jail on bond (I believe $2,000.00). He never showed up for court in November or again in December, and a bench warrant was issued. Unfortunately issuing a bench warrant doesn't really mean anyone will be looking for him.
On March 6, 2004 Damien and two of his friends, Brandon Patterson(18) and a 14 year old, crashed a party at Ball State University where Karl was going to school. After the party was over Karl apparently offered the three a ride home from the party. They directed him to an abandoned home and robbed him of two dollars and murdered him. On March 4, 2005 Damien Sanders pled guilty to murder and armed robbery and was sentenced to 85. On May 10,2005 Brandon Patterson pled guilty to armed robbery and is serving a 50 year sentence. The 14 year old was held in a Juvenile Center in Muncie on theft charges while the prosecutor’s office was awaiting more evidence to come out in the other trials. Since the other two suspects pled guilty the 14 year old was released after 15 months in juvenile and is now a free man. In January of 2006, Damien Sanders pled guilty to the charges from July 2003 and 10 years was added on to his sentence.
</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>
<!-- InstanceEndEditable --></td></tr><tr><td align="left" valign="top"><!-- InstanceBeginEditable name="body" --> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="2"><tbody><tr><td height="4067" align="left" valign="top">The convicted murderer in the United States serves, on average, just six years in prison.
-- (Atlantic Monthly; Sept. '97, "A Grief Like No Other")
Ask yourself....are they rehabilitated?
Repeat Offender
My husband was killed by a repeat violent felon. He assaulted him and was charged with assault 3. He received a one year sentence. Got out in May or June of 1999. In August, this man was in a bar, beating up people, caused a brawl. One man finally stopped him. He shot him and his friend, killing Frank Flammia, and wounding his accomplice. Finally, we have closure. The sad part is the man who defended himself was just sentenced to 8 and 1/2 years! Check out www.newsday.com, the title of the article is "How Judge Weighed Sentence in Killing". This man unfortunately used an illegal weapon, but knowing Frank Flammia's history, I know this man was acting in self-defense. Yes, it was vigilantism, but that violent felon is gone.
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
Timothy Carl Dawson eluded not only a 10 year prison term in a plea deal that broke state law, he missed being sent to jail when he stood before a judge two months before police say he went on a killing spree that left five people dead last month.
The attack on his girlfriend notwithstanding, little in Dawson's past could have hinted at the astonishing outburst of violence that, police say, started with a home invasion slaying October 5, 1998 in DeKalb County and included the October 15 killing of a young man at a College Park Days Inn and the October 18 execution style murders of three men in the Atlanta Hilton and Towers.
Even so, Dawson, 37, should have been in a state prison for the attack on his girlfriend, and he could have been locked up in the Fulton County Jail at an August hearing. Probation officials warned that Dawson remained a threat to the woman and to society.
Dawson's run-ins with the law began in 1989. He was convicted of theft by receiving in Baldwin County and sentenced to five years in prison and five years probation. He spent a few months in a low-security work camp and was freed in a statewide early-release program.
He was still on probation in 1995 when he was charged with raping his girlfriend. Shortly after the arrest, he was shot three times by an Atlanta police officer who was holding Dawson after the same woman complained that he was stalking her and trying to keep her from testifying.
While in jail, Dawson had to undergo sex crime counseling. A therapist determined "simply that he accepted no responsibility for his crime" and was still dangerous.
Dawson was released in July 1997 and later stopped reporting for visits with parole officers.
Probation officers sent the court their third arrest warrant for Dawson October 15 after he again failed to appear for a meeting. But, again, they couldn't find him. By then, Dawson's victims already were falling, police say.
First was Raycell Mason, 44, who was shot several times in the head at his home. Then October 15, the same day the third warrant request was sent, LaDarris Hawkin's body was found at a Days Inn on Old National Highway.
Three days after Hawkins' death, three men were found similarly executed in the Atlanta Hilton and Towers hotel in downtown Atlanta. Phillip Dover, 31, and Ronald Gutkowski, 51, and Gerrold Shropshire, 50, were executed.
"The system is far too lenient with respect to people who violate probation conditions. I don't think the average defendant in Fulton County feels he has to be accountable."
"The bottom line is, he slipped through. He was incorrigible. But only history tells us that."
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
Millington, Tennessee - On April 11, 1989, Terry Joe Windham, #204460, who was out on probation for burglary and vandalism, decided to commit murder to see what it felt like to kill. He chose as his victim 16-year-old Jeremy Peter Flachbart, a learning disabled student with the emotional and physical make-up of a 12-year-old. Windham ambushed Jeremy on his way home from school. He struck Jeremy once in the head from behind with a two-foot 4X4 fence post. Jeremy collapsed. Windham hit him 10 more times. After the 10th blow, Jeremy groaned. Windham hit him 5 more times for a total of 16 blows.
After hiding Jeremy's body in a drainage ditch by the railroad tracks, he then went to a local game room to brag of his vicious act of murder to his brother and friends. He then took them to view Jeremy's body. While the police were investigating the scene, he was on the side lines watching, bragging, threatening to kill others if they told. He was arrested on the scene, and later confessed and was charged with first degree murder. He made threatening phone calls to other students while in jail awaiting trial. He was plea-bargained out and agreed to a sentence of 20 years for second degree murder. He will receive his FIFTH parole hearing in July, 2000.
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
On September 17, 1993, my wonderful 19 year old son Tim was murdered by a repeat offender. He was a convicted felon, out on probation, not following his probation. There was an arrest warrant issued 13 days before he took my son's life. The felony was for carrying a loaded, illegal hand gun. No policemen searched for him. He was free to carry an illegal, loaded handgun once again. My son had received threatening phone calls for a month before he was shot, because he had broken up a fight between a girl and a gang member. My son's murderer belonged to the same gang. When the police came for the reported shooting that night, they assumed Tim was on drugs and in a gang. At the coroner's inquest, the detective's mouth dropped open when the coroner said Tim had no drugs in his system. By then it was too late! No investigation, the murderer turned himself in to police a week after he took Tim. There was no search warrant issued for the murderer or the handgun. The gun is still missing! The day after Tim's funeral, the state's attorney promised us murder one. Five months later he took me to the back of the courtroom and told me he was going to plea bargain down to involuntary manslaughter because the police did not do their job. Unbeknownst to us, the state's attorney was already making plans to run for judge the next year. He said, "I refuse to publicly indite the police department." It would have been politically incorrect. Needless to say, the shooter received the maximum sentence for manslaughter - 10 years in prison. He was released after 2 and 1/2 years. His prison length was shortened for "good behavior".
Within a month or two he was shot at 2 in the morning outside of a bar. Unfortunately, he survived and probably is carrying that same illegal handgun on the streets of our city. Where is the justice? My terrific son Tim was a non-violent, loving kid who told our family almost every day, "I love you guys." I can still hear his voice. I will always have him in my heart. My family and I feel that our "lack of justice" system needs a complete overhaul and so do our police!
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
In 1983, Dean Hernandez murdered my twin sister Kathy Durman in Port Arthur Texas, with use of a hand gun. He is serving a life sentence. This was not his first offense. In 1976, he was sentenced to 10 years in the Texas State Prison for the attempted murder of another former girlfriend. This offense took place in Groves, Texas. For the last 16 years, my family, Kathy's friends, and myself have fought very parole hearing against the parole of Dean Hernandez, and will continue to do so! For everyone whose has to go through this I say to you...... "Never give up!"
peace be with you - Kim Harrington and Family
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
February 3, 1995, 3 young men, 13, 18 and 20, decided to break into my parents' (Les and Carol Dotts) home in Knoxville, Tennessee. The 20 year old had 2 previous convictions of aggravated assault as a juvenile. All 3 admitted on the witness stand as to using and selling drugs, breaking into and stealing cars. The 20 year old also less than a week before murdering my parents, shot and left a man for dead in his home during a botched burglary.
The 18 and 20 year olds may be eligible for parole in 25 years. The one who was 13 will be out for good in March of 2000. Even though he went AWOL during a Christmas furlough from December, 1998 to March, 1999, no additional time was placed on his sentence. No charges were placed against his family for helping him, hiding him, or buying him a car that he used during this time. Our juvenile system is out of control. More and more juveniles are committing heinous, violent crimes, and when they turn 18, 19 or 20, they are let loose. This is wrong!
---Jeanne, Knoxville, Tennessee
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
Nineteen year old Sonya Santiago was murdered March 7, 1999 by an early release prisoner in the state of Florida. He was sentenced to 6 years but was "grandfathered" and allowed out after 3 years. He was wearing an ankle monitor and under the watch of the probation department. His employer repeatedly wrote him excuse notes so that he was able to roam the area at will and not go directly home from work. The restaurant was within sight of Sonya's apartment. He not only raped her, he slashed her throat. He is now in prison awaiting trial for Sonya's murder. DNA put him at the scene. Three months after murdering Sonya, he broke into a house a few blocks from her apartment and raped a mother and her 9 year old daughter. DNA also tied him to this.
Where was the probation department when this man was released on sexual assault with a deadly weapon? If he was not rehabilitated enough to be released without an ankle monitor - why release him?
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
In September, 1978, 19 year old Lisa Hullinger was beaten to death by her former boyfriend, William Coday, Jr. After just 16 months in jail, Coday was released.
In 1997, William Coday, Jr. was arrested and charged with the July 13, 1997 murder of another former girlfriend, Gloria Gomez.
Coday awaits trial in Miami, Florida.
Lisa Hullinger's parents are the founders of The National Organization of Parents Of Murdered Children, Inc.
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
In 1966, Charles Yukl was convicted of murdering Suzanne Reynolds. In 1968, he was sentenced to 7-15 years for manslaughter. After plea bargaining, he was released from prison in 1973 after only serving 5 years.
In August, 1974, Charles Yukl murdered Karin Schlegel from New York City.
Charles Yukl was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1982.
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
In April of 1983, Gary Merton's 16-year-old daughter, Shari Ann Merton, was murdered. In that same year, Shari Ann's killer accepted a plea bargain from murder to manslaughter, and was sentenced to 18 years in prison. In the wisdom of our Connecticut Justice System (good time for "good behavior", etc.), 18 years equaled just 9 years and 8 months. So, in December, 1992, Shari Ann's killer, Corey R. Barton was released from prison.
So much for "wisdom"! Shari Ann's killer was arrested in November, 1998 and charged with the murder of 27-year-old Sally Harris of North Carolina. Although too late for the Harris family, let's hope that North Carolina justice will be a little wiser!
<hr width="80%" size="1" color="#cccccc">Repeat Offender
Our son, Karl Harford was murdered March 7, 2004 by a known criminal, Damien Sanders, who in my opinion should have been in jail. Damien Sanders was 22 years old at the time of the incident. He had an extensive juvenile and adult record, especially for is age. At least seven adult arrests with 4-5 charges with each arrest. Usually he pled to a lesser offence and was given probation or a time served sentence. He was found guilty of felony auto theft, felony burglary, and felony resisting arrest in 2001, and served one year in state penitentiary. Later, in July of 2003, he was caught driving a stolen car, caused an accident where the driver he hit was injured, he fled the seen of the accident, had no drivers license, was carrying a hand gun, and resisted arrest. And those are just the charges they filed. I thought any convicted felon that was released to society lost their right to carry a hand gun for the rest of their life. However, two days later he was released from jail on bond (I believe $2,000.00). He never showed up for court in November or again in December, and a bench warrant was issued. Unfortunately issuing a bench warrant doesn't really mean anyone will be looking for him.
On March 6, 2004 Damien and two of his friends, Brandon Patterson(18) and a 14 year old, crashed a party at Ball State University where Karl was going to school. After the party was over Karl apparently offered the three a ride home from the party. They directed him to an abandoned home and robbed him of two dollars and murdered him. On March 4, 2005 Damien Sanders pled guilty to murder and armed robbery and was sentenced to 85. On May 10,2005 Brandon Patterson pled guilty to armed robbery and is serving a 50 year sentence. The 14 year old was held in a Juvenile Center in Muncie on theft charges while the prosecutor’s office was awaiting more evidence to come out in the other trials. Since the other two suspects pled guilty the 14 year old was released after 15 months in juvenile and is now a free man. In January of 2006, Damien Sanders pled guilty to the charges from July 2003 and 10 years was added on to his sentence.
</td></tr></tbody></table></td></tr></tbody></table>
K
King James
Guest
America's criminal system is too light on criminals. 80% of convicts are repeat offenders. Go to jail, don't have to work, three meals a day, clothes, a place to shower and sleep, a gym, library, high speed internet, Cable TV, get tougher, become a smarter criminal with more connections and get released. Some criminals call jail a vacation. Some people commit petty crimes so they can go back to jail. Is it any wonder that the United States houses 25% of the world's prison population? My wife and I in California make less money combined a year in take home pay than it costs just to house one prisoner. Work camps are the only way to go. At the first the hardest work possible. With good behavior advance to better more technical jobs that can be used after you serve your time with valid certifications and recommendations from the jail/prison. With that, the discrimination laws will have to be changed. Criminals don't want to work so this will stop many criminals. As far as the death penalty, and other harsh punishments, without these, people are more likely to commit crimes. If they still commit crimes, they knew what the punishment was going to be. It's fair isn't it? God did this. One law. Don't eat from this tree...and now all of this is happening. Currently, they can get as little as 7 years and jail for murder and get released. In a country where drug dealers get the death penalty, you feel bad? They know what the law is before they did it? Was it not an acceptable risk for them? Is there a lot of thefts in countries where they chop your hands off? I realize innocent people go to jail, people can get framed, some criminals are in bed with the law enforcement and don't go to jail. It's not perfect and never will be.
Edit: Just to clarify, America's legal/criminal system creates 100 times more criminals many of them violent that can be avoided with my work camp system and more harsh punishments for specific crimes. So we are creating evil people seemingly on purpose.
Edit: Just to clarify, America's legal/criminal system creates 100 times more criminals many of them violent that can be avoided with my work camp system and more harsh punishments for specific crimes. So we are creating evil people seemingly on purpose.
Last edited by a moderator:
Deborah13
Member
- Nov 30, 2012
- 14,684
- 1,936
That is how I feel, too. There's been a few release because DNA prove they weren't guilty of the serious crime they were accused of. I don't think they were all murder. But they had been in prison already for many, many years, 17 , 20.
Deborah13
Member
- Nov 30, 2012
- 14,684
- 1,936
OK THEN, do it God's way. One could not be convicted of a capital crime without two witnesses that were eyewitnesses. That's how sure God wanted it to be before taking a life.
Similar threads
