Could It Happen To Me?
69Wrongful Convictions Ruin Lives
Could It Happen to Me?
Imagine one day as you are going about your business being suddenly arrested and charged with a crime. You can't provide an alibi, the authorities are convincing when they tell you they have evidence, witnesses and other proof of your guilt. You protest your innocence, but it does no good.
You are taken to trial, convicted and sentenced to a long term in prison. Once there you are abused, raped, stabbed, nearly killed, and all the time you weep and sob that you were wrongly convicted - you are innocent.
Does it sound like some far-away dictatorship? Guess again, this sort of thing happens all too often right here in the United States.
I know you might rather not think about it, after all, you are a law-abiding citizen, and certainly no one would ever mistake you for a criminal. Well, think again. There are other law-abiding citizens who were caught up in the nightmare of guilty until proven innocent, guilty because someone in power said so, and guilty simply because you were in the wrong place at the right time.
Perhaps you are a person with enough wealth to fight the charge and possibly win. But what is you are poor, or simply down on your luck? What if someone lies and puts you at the crime scene? There are many reasons why innocent people are convicted. And sometimes they suffer the ultimate penalty. Mind you, innocent people have been put to death. They died, suffering horribly, for someone else's crime.
The Innocence Project is one organization that tries to help and free people wrongly convicted. Using DNA and other methods, they insist that convictions be reopened, motives scrutinized, and innocent people set free. It is a noble enterprise, one you would welcome if you were the victim of wrongful prosecution.
According to The Innocence Project, 216 innocent people have been exonerated by DNA testing. Sixteen of those were on Death Row, awaiting execution. 12 years is the typical wait to be set free, and 70% of wrongfully convicted people are minorities. In 35 % of the cases DNA evidence found the real criminal. It is a shameful record for any District Attorney that even one innocent person is convicted, and the reasons for the wrongful convictions may also have nefarious reasons: withholding of evidence, forced confessions, over-zealous officials, or simply racial hatred.
However, even when an innocent person is set free, they suffer needlessly. There are the psychological scars, some of which are insurmountable. There are the records that somehow fail to get expunged. There is the stigma, the shame, of having been in prison, most likely having been sexually violated, and the old friends and family that may abandon you. You feel and are often truly alone, without the skills or ability to cope in a world that ruined your life.
Again, according to The Innocence Project, most of the exonerated have never been compensated for the time spent in prison. The few who have discover they do not have the skills to manage their money. Many of the people wrongfully convicted are under-educated, have few marketable skills, and simply do not know how to survive the trauma and shame of their wrongful conviction. Post traumatic stress syndrome is a mild name for having your life ruined, your future destroyed, and your hopes for anything approaching a normal life taken forever from you.
The cases make headlines, the exonerated look happy to at last be free, but the life they live afterwards often fades into obscurity, homelessness, and early death.
Now imagine yourself in the position of someone who has suffered needlessly, simply because of some circumstances far beyond your control. Yes, it could happen to you, even if you are not a minority, even if you are well-to-do, and even if you obey the law every day of your life. There is no protection for any of us as long as there is no protection for lowliest one of us.
If you are interested in learning more about this horrible travesty, please go to the links below.
- The Innocence Project
The Innocence Project is dedicated to exonerating through DNA testing innocent people who were wrongfully convicted and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future wrongful convictions. - Truth in Justice
Truth in Justice is an educational non-profit organized to educate the public regarding the vulnerabilities in the U. S. criminal justice system that make the criminal conviction of wholly innocent persons possible.
"12 Years Taken From Me": Help End Wrongful Convictions
Craig Watkins on Preventing Wrongful Convictions
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I'm law-abiding to the point of being boring, but still this is a fear. Good to know The Innocence Project is there, just in case.
Actually I hadn't heard of them before today, but I spent several hours looking up info on this and I was surprised at the number of people exonerated thus far. I know that at times mistakes are made, and that is why I do not support the Death Penalty in most cases. I'd rather suffer a guilty person to suffer the rest of a life in prison than to execute one innocent person.
I wonder just how many people are truly guilty - I imagine most are. Furthermore, I know I would rather have the guilty imprisoned, but I know that it is often difficult to get a rightful convicition. I believe, for example, that O. J. Simpson was guilty, yet he got off free. It shows that there may be some truth in the old anecdote that if you have enough money...no law can affect you.
And then there are the cases of people like Paris Hilton and others - famous stars who seemed to be as guilty as could be, yet they got off easy. As I said, justice is either fair for all, or it's fair for no one.
ConstantWalker, when I lived in Spain I was almost convicted of a traffic accident that clearly wasn't my fault. In some places you are indeed guilty until proven innocent. France, as I remember regards the accused as guilty until proven otherwise. Does anyone know the "true or false" of this observation of mine?
Unfortunately, justice is not blind, nor is fair for all. The rich and powerful -and famous- have always been able to afford a "better" justice system than others. That's just how this country's system works... always has.
I only know what I seen here. Francetales would probably be happy to answer that one, though.
However, justice is supposed to be blind, even if John Ashcroft covered the Justice statue as his backdrop when he was the Attorney General of the United States. If it is not fair for all, then it truely is fair for no one, and that is the problem.
And I agree that it has always worked that way, I am saying it should not be an excuse for our accepting it. I don't know what we can do about it, but I am open to suggestions. Anyone have any ideas?
It is kinda scary. Thank you for the information.
Donnaleemason, you are welcome.
ConstantWalker, I too think we could have and should have done better than G.W., and I hope we will do better this time.
If justice were totally fair,V.P. Richard "Dick" Cheney would be behind bars as we speak. G.W. would be in school - 3rd grade - learning the lessons he clearly didn't learn the first time.
Thanks for the great hub!
As they say, I'd rather let ten (or whatever the number is) go free to save the one truly innocent. Of course, that's easy for me to say until I'm a victim, and the guilty party goes free.
It's tough. With aggressive prosecutors who will stop at nothing to get a conviction, sometimes you're fighting a losing battle.
Can we put G.W. in a convict road crew in, maybe, Arizona? Then he can go to 3rd grade night-school... taught by a liberal convict... who's brother was killed in Iraq.
Almost sounded like you were writing a chapter in my life brother man. I've been accused of some of the worst crimes you can think of. I've even been released when the evidence didn't support the feds weak accusations and they had no leg to stand on or hold me by. I have then been taken in almost on a daily basis, harrassed and beaten by dirty crooked scumbag cops that would re-arrest me shortly after releasing me for associating with "known undesireables". Tell me THAT's not a crock of horses**t!!
Anyway the point I'd like to comment on here is we're all guilty to one degree or another. I've changed my life and moved away from the east coast and found a new life here in california. The guilty walk everyday because of the ridiculous nature of our legal system and the red tape involved now with criminal proceedings. While innocent mugs get the shaft with no one to fight in their corner. This is the land of the free brudda Welcome to America!
Our criminal justice system is about as functional as our health care, election and educational.
Excellent HUB Chef.
I agree that this is probably something that will continue to happen, and it makes me angry because we should be better than this. I also agree it is hard to get the real "bad guys", but that doesn't mean that we should just throw someone - anyone - in jail to make an end to the story.
I can only hope that people will begin to remember that people are considered innocent until proven guilty, but even in successful convictions there needs to be follow thorugh to make sure all the aspects of the law and of justice (which are not always the same thing!) have been properly followed.
I agree that innocent people who are convicted are scarred for life. It's hard for them to go through life as if nothing happened.
My son's friend was suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome (PTSD) and was recently killed in a car accident. He had been a good kid, but in high school went with a bad crowd. He was branded for the rest of his days.
He had joined the Army, straightened out his life, found a good job, and was planning on getting married this summer to a beautiful young woman. After he died the same old potty-mouthed people that had condemed him for the past eight years spread rumors of his being drunk at the time of the accident. He wasn't. It was just an awful twist of fate.
But rumors, once started, are hard to kill. Imagine how much more so for those once convicted falsely of a horrendous crime.
I want the truly guilty convicted, but not the innocent. I have no pity for those who actually DO commit horrific crimes, but I do have pity for those who are convicted wrongfully.
Thanks for your comment BeatsMe and others, and thanks for your concern over this issue.
The Innocent Project sounds very encouraging - previously (if you forgive me saying), I was very skeptical of US justice in certain states. Hopefully it will set a benchmark...
Very interesting hub.
My eyes have been opened to yet anouther travisty in the American justice system. I have been arrested only once and it doesn't realy count because it was the MPs who picked me up after a bar fight. Thanks Chef Jeff now I got this to worry about, like I'm not narotic and paranoid enough already. Well at least I'll know what is happening to me when it all goes down instead of thinking it will all be okay because I didn't do anything.
Excellent hub. The Innocence Project is doing good work. I hadn't heard of them before. Thanks for enlightening me.
And thanks for the offer of help with Spain. The Spain tour is my bosses project, he's been going there for 20 years so he has set the itinerary. I'm the India tour leader. But if I go to Spain myself I'll drop you an email!
I don't know if there is a "perfect" judicial system, but I do know that when the emphasis is on "law" rather than "justice" things go awry.
Not that it was a perfect system, or even a workable system, but of historic note is that before the Normans conquered England, the advanced society of Anglo-Saxon kings such as Alfred the Great had in place a system of wergild, which is when a person commits a crime, he pays a huge fine, proportional to his wealth, to assuage the crime. So murder ended up either with a huge payment, or a feud, and thievery ended up with a smaller fine, still substantial, but smaller than that for murder, and so on.
I think most people wouldn't accept such a system today, and I doubt it would work very well, but sometimes when you hit a criminal in the pocketbook, they wince more than they do inside a jail cell.
Of course, if a man couldn't pay the fines he was subject to spending his short future days or weeks in the bottom of a deep hole, but that's another story.
Of course when the Normans took over, they just hacked off pieces of people or dumped them into deeper holes and forgot to feed them. It was a system based solely upon the law, ignoring justice, and it didn't stop crime.
HEY, RFox - thanks for the kind mention in your featured story! Hope to return the favor if I ever get featured!
Hi Chef Jeff, it's a terrible thing to be accused wrongly. We have a neighbor here in the village whose son is in jail and accused of murder of two girls. The case is long and he might have been accused wrongly. I am glad to know there are people out there willing to help in cases like this.
An excellent description of a very big justice problem, Chef Jeff. I've written several hubs on this subject, including a few that might interest you in connection with the O.J. Simpson trials in the 1990's. I'm delighted that you have put the spotlight on the Innocence Project. It's a shame, however, that the government, with all its resources, can't do that job itself.
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NateRider 4 years ago
It's true that innocents are convicted for crimes that they didn't commit for many reasons, whether purely out of mistake, or out of lying people who just need a scapegoat. It's truly horrible how this can happen and the Innocence Project is a great idea. I'd never heard of them before and it makes me a little more glad that someone out there is fighting for the innocents who were convicted.
Nice hub Chef Jeff!