Friends of Justice

[Note: Friends of Justice is a personal blog. I speak only for myself.]

Dear Friend of Justice,

I had been expecting to read a news story like this for the past month, ever since Judge Burge ordered the acquittals of Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen:   http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2009/07/24/the-fight-continues-for-head-start-pair-smith-and-allen/

I once heard a prosecutor say on television that convicting an innocent person was his worst nightmare. That is true for good prosecutors. But for far too many prosecutors, their worst nightmare is convicting an innocent person and not getting away with it.

Bernard Baran was released from prison in June of 2006. But his legal battle continued for three more years. He fought the battle outside the walls — far better than fighting from inside. And onerous restrictions had been placed on Baran, restrictions that do not apply to Smith and Allen.

During the past three years, more and more people found out about the Baran case and realized that it was a monstrous miscarriage of justice. When they did, people realized that DA David Capeless was either completely immoral or a total fool. Eventually, continuing the fight became politically untenable for him.

My hope is that there will be increased media attention paid to Nancy Smith and Joseph Allen, both locally and nationally. Some prosecutors may not be bothered by sending innocent people to prison. But, fortunately, a great many American citizens still are.

-Bob

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 8:09 am and is filed under Innocents, Smith/Allen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.