What happened to Justice in America? I have spent the past 25 years in prison for a crime that never even occurred. Almost everyone who takes the time to look at the evidence in my case say they believe me to be innocent. Yet, the courts routinely deny my appeals for some of the littlest excuses they can find. Has everyone who works in the judicial system become so cynical that they just dismiss a claim of actual innocence out of hand? Are they really so afraid to release people from prison?
Shortly after getting sentenced, I did as most innocent people do, and I began to pour through any legal journal I could find. In the legal precedence on actual innocence, I kept coming across the phrase, “In the interest of justice”. I kept thinking,” surely a system that uses this verbiage would at least consider my claims.” I mean, our justice system should be concerned about the potential of incarcerating innocent people. “Right?”
What I learned is, the court system is more concerned about keeping their procedures intact than having innocent people spend decades in prison. My appeals and the court responses are loaded on my website. You can look to see what their rulings are for yourself. Here is a synopsis of some of the decisions they made. We filed stating the prosecution withheld evidence from the defense, the court ruled that had my attorney been more diligent he could have located the statements before trial. We said that there has never been any physical evidence, the court said that does not matter as long as they have people saying it happened. We claimed the prosecutions expert witnesses should never have been qualified to testify as experts based upon their expertise and the opinions they gave, the court said nurse practitioners are experienced enough and giving an opinion not based in the physical findings was sufficient. We actually had something like 14 points of error that we filed, and the court knocked them all down using the smallest reason they could find. Of course, all in the interest of justice.
This is what justice looks like in America today. I should also tell you I have learned one other really important detail. The innocent people who eventually get released from prison only do so when they get support from enough people who all band together. It does not appear that truth, evidence, nor any other noble notion has anything to do with it. It simply comes down to having enough people demanding justice for the individual. Enough voices screaming to be heard. Only then will a court consider there may be something to the prisoners claims of actual innocence. I am not sure if it has something to do with the court thinking, “how can so many people be wrong?”, or if they are thinking about the next election? You will have to decide that for yourselves. What I can tell you is, if you believe in someone’s innocence, let your voice be heard. Do not sit back and think to yourself that it will all work itself out. It will not. Your voice could be the one that gets an innocent person set free.
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