{"id":31,"date":"2011-06-07T11:28:51","date_gmt":"2011-06-07T11:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/?p=31"},"modified":"2011-06-07T11:28:51","modified_gmt":"2011-06-07T11:28:51","slug":"a-national-day-of-confession-for-district-attorneys-sure-why-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/?p=31","title":{"rendered":"A National Day of Confession for District Attorneys: Sure, Why Not?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>June 7, 2011<\/p>\n<p>Blog Entry: A National Day of Confession for District Attorneys: Sure, Why Not?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Free Rodney Stanberry\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cEVURKsGoMI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>First of all, what Rep. Weiner did in sending out the photos and in lying about it was absolutely wrong.\u00a0 The Democratic Party, his constituents, and his advisors will decide whether he will keep his seat.\u00a0 As I was reading about his admission that he did send out the photos, my initial response was \u201cwhy not just be honest in the first place.\u201d People believed him based on his word that his twitter account was hacked.\u00a0 Sen. Charles Schumer defended him based on his word. His word was bond.\u00a0 As I was watching all of this unfold, I thought about Rodney K. Stanberry and the people involved in his case that deny that any prosecutorial conduct took place (please go to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freerodneystanberry.com\/\">www.freerodneystanberry.com<\/a>) for information about his case. \u00a0I will not get into details about his case here, but between evidence that Rodney was at work when the crimes occurred, a confession by another individual, and Assistant District Attorney Buzz Jordan\u2019s visiting Riker\u2019s Island prison to see if the person he claimed was going to be brought back for trial actually existed, the shenanigans that went on in the Mobile County District Attorney\u2019s Office, should be scrutinized.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Rodney was arrested in 1992, tried and convicted in 1995, and began serving his prison sentence in 1997 (click Rodney, year 14 on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.freerodneystanberry.com\/\">www.freerodneystanberry.com<\/a>).\u00a0 He was a solidly middle class, hard working, law abiding citizen who owned his own car, parents owned home, sister was in college, and never missed a day of work since he began his employment at BFI in 1989. He worked at that same job until he had to begin his sentence. That is a testament to his character.\u00a0 Rodney has exhausted his appeals, including a Rule 32 Post Conviction hearing where the Mobile DA\u2019s office again made sure that the person who confessed would not do so on the stand. It was one of the many inconvenient truths of this case.\u00a0 So, as I was watching this Weiner incident unfold, I was thinking that we should have a national get it off your chest\/confession day. Specifically, I had district attorney\u2019s around the country in mind. I was thinking about the DA\u2019s similar to those in the Thompson v. Connick case where evidence withheld led to John Thompson spending 18 years of his life in prison and Gregory Taylor of North Carolina who spent 17 years of his life in prison from crimes he didn\u2019t commit, or the many of those exonerated who spent a collective decades upon decades incarcerated for crimes they did not commit.\u00a0 Since District Attorneys, including Mobile District Attorney Ashley Rich, refuse to establish a convictions integrity unit to help those already convicted and to put measures in place to reduce the chance that someone would be wrongfully convicted, a national day of confession without impunity would a good thing to do.\u00a0 There are DA\u2019s and former DA\u2019s out there who know that they likely convicted the wrong person, but unlike Weiner, whose confession to sending out the photos and other back confessions, came within a week, these individuals seem to be content with never saying anything. Further, I am convinced that even if the Prichard Police Detectives, the former ADA, or others with intimate knowledge of Rodney\u2019s case, including attorneys, were to go to DA Ashley Rich\u2019s office today, that her reaction would be that that is in the past, I\u2019m focusing on the future.\u00a0 The fact that an innocent person is in his 15<sup>th<\/sup> year of incarceration due to the actions of the Mobile DA\u2019s office would not factor into the equation. Afterall, Rodney\u2019s conviction was part of former Mobile District Attorney John Tyson, Jr.\u2019s \u201cMurder Team, and one of the Assistant District Attorney\u2019s from the \u201cMurder Team\u201d remains employed with the District Attorney\u2019s office (this isn\u2019t a bad thing, there needs to be good ADA\u2019s who have a lot of integrity in DA Offices. I am CERTAINLY NOT anti-prosecutor, I am anti prosecutorial misconduct).\u00a0 The media do not hold District Attorney\u2019s s accountable. They don\u2019t hound them about cases where there is evidence of innocence. They don\u2019t ask them about what procedures are in place to ensure that wrongful convictions are minimal and what procedures they have in place to address past wrongful convictions.\u00a0 This is why, with the exception of Dallas County \u00a0District Attorney Craig Watkins whose willingness to address wrongful convictions have led to the exoneration of 13-17\u00a0 individuals since he became DA, District Attorneys can say well, we don\u2019t have wrongful convictions or claim to have looked at cases themselves.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>DA Ashley Rich knows that Rodney has exhausted his appeals and she knows that the media will not spend multiple news cycles, if necessary, asking her about wrongful conviction cases, so there is no pressure to do what is right.\u00a0 During her campaign, I asked her and her opponents (Erwin and Foster) if they\u2019d agree to establish a conviction integrity unit and if they\u2019d work with innocence projects.\u00a0 Rich\u2019s response was that the DA\u2019s office reviews cases where there are questions of wrongful convictions and John Tyson, Jr. has sent me a couple of letters saying that Rodney\u2019s case has been reviewed.\u00a0 When there is a mentality in the DA\u2019s office to uphold a conviction at all costs, having them to review cases will simply lead to a rubberstamp of previous misconduct (again, refer to Rodney\u2019s Rule 32 hearing, portions of the transcript are on the webpage).\u00a0 Rodney\u2019s case should be reopened.\u00a0 In addition, confessions should be made, the truth shall set you free.\u00a0 If you stick to a story, you may not see it as a regrettable mistake (to paraphrase Weiner) but the impact on the criminal justice system is regrettable.\u00a0 Ashley Rich is the first female District Attorney to be elected in Mobile County, Alabama.\u00a0 I do wish her the best as she carries out her duties.\u00a0 I hope she doesn\u2019t resist the call for her to reopen Rodney\u2019s case for fear of not looking tough on crime.\u00a0It should not be\u00a0a political liability to admit that mistakes\u00a0were made, it should be a politically liability to resist calls to serious address\u00a0a wrongful conviction. \u00a0You can call her office today\u00a0and ask that Rodney\u2019s case be reopened, not simply reviewed. \u00a0\u00a0She can be reached at (251) 574-5000 or (251) 574-8400.\u00a0 To reach her investigator Mike Morgan, please call (251) 574-8412 to reach his secretary.<\/p>\n<p>Peace and Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>Artemesia Stanberry<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cEVURKsGoMI\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cEVURKsGoMI<\/a>\u00a0 (YouTube video of WKRG Report featuring Buzz Jordan, the prosecuting attorney in Rodney&#8217;s case)<\/p>\n<div class=\"al2fb_like_button\"><div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n(function(d, s, id) {\n  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];\n  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;\n  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;\n  js.src = \"\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1&appId=Free Rodney K. 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Stanberry\";\n  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);\n}(document, \"script\", \"facebook-jssdk\"));\n<\/script>\n<fb:send ref=\"AL2FB\" font=\"arial\" colorscheme=\"light\" href=\"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/?p=31\"><\/fb:send><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>June 7, 2011 Blog Entry: A National Day of Confession for District Attorneys: Sure, Why Not? First of all, what Rep. Weiner did in sending out the photos and in lying about it was absolutely wrong.\u00a0 The Democratic Party, his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/?p=31\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32,"href":"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31\/revisions\/32"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}