Sometimes, I wonder if I'll be alive to see ANY desperately needed criminal justice reform.
Watching case after case, such as this, slowly unfold, definitely causes me pause.
45 years. An entire lifetime, knowing your own self, you did nothing wrong. It's painful. And no doubt there's law enforcement and protectors who knew all along he was innocent.
(It took the jury less than 90 minutes to aquit him.)
I would be frightened to discover how many innocent people have been convicted of violent crimes due to either bad eyewitness identification or else false alibis provided for other, actually guilty, suspects, such as when friends or domestic partners or spouses lie for their guilty partners.
The wonderful US "justice" system. It needs to be torn down and rebuilt. Here in Louisiana, we have about 1500 people serving life without parole, having been convicted by a non unanimous jury under a law put in place during reconstruction to lessen the impact of black jurors on convictions. I don't know how you justify saying one is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt when at least one juror has doubt. SCOTUS has since ruled it unconstitutional, but failed to make that ruling retroactive in a follow up case. All of those convictions should be set aside, but the state is fighting doing that. And, if course, most of them are black. Black folks make up 33% the total population of Louisiana, but 76% of the prison population.
I hope he makes them bleed money for all his suffering.
In some states of the US exonerated people who are pardoned by the governor are eligible to receive $50,000 for each year they spent in prison. But total compensations cannot exceed $750,000.
However 15 states provide no compensation or services for innocent men and women, leaving them with nothing to help rebuild their lives upon release, seeing it as a failure on the victims part to prove their own innocence, not the fault of the state legal system which is presumed to be perfect and just.
And still, in some places, people convicted of crimes aren't allowed to have their cases overturned, like this one, even if and when new and exculpatory evidence is found.
This is the best reason for ridding ourselves of the death penalty, all it takes is a little empathy and the humility to admit you can be wrong even if fully convinced. Unfortunately the law and order Conservatives have NO empathy or humility, so I don't make this argument, it's like talking about your barbecue recipes with a vegan, they'll have little interest, so I argue price because it's also cheaper to keep a person in jail for life than to execute them. Conservatives are all about the money most of the time, but they're hard to convince because they're also there for the cruelty, they really love the cruelty.