October 9, 2015<\/p>\n
To Be Free and<\/u> Exonerated- In a Fair and Just World<\/p>\n
Recently, the New York Magazine<\/em> published a powerful piece entitled \u201cThat\u2019s When I Knew I Was Free: Eight Exonerated Prisoners on Their First Week Outside<\/a>.\u201d As the title entails, it highlights the first week of \u201cfreedom\u201d by 8 individuals who were exonerated, many after spending lengthy years in prison. The time each of the 8 individuals highlighted served ranged from the 16 years Jeffrey Deskovic spent in prison to the 29 years that David McCallum spent in prison, for crimes they did not commit! McCallum is now 46 years old and he was just released last year. He has spent more than half of his life trying to understand how could, in the United States of America, an innocent person spend so much time in prison.\u00a0 I am assuming that that is what he spent a lot of time thinking about.\u00a0 He was 16 years old when he was accused of carjacking and murder- he and his co-defendant could not even drive! Like McCallum, Deskovic was also arrested at the age of 16, accused of rape and murder. Sixteen, their sweet sixteen was the introduction to a criminal justice system that accused them both of serious crimes. Can you imagine being 16 years old and facing a judge, a jury, and then the realities of prison life?<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always said that to get exonerated is like winning the lottery. It is not something that happens easily or quickly.\u00a0 The odds are not in favor of the accused. As many who are exonerated will tell you, there are so many others<\/a> serving time in prison for crimes they did not commit that the public knows little or nothing about. \u00a0\u00a0And, as we saw in the Tim Cole case<\/a>, among others, death can come before one is exonerated.\u00a0 McCallum was arrested along with Willie Stuckey.\u00a0 Stuckey did not live to see his exoneration.\u00a0 Here is a paragraph from the article:<\/p>\n \u201cI was walking out without Willie Stuckey walking beside me. He was my childhood friend and my co-defendant. He passed away while he was in prison. He was 32. I saw Stuckey\u2019s mom when we were in the elevator together going up to the courtroom. She said to me, \u201cIt\u2019s supposed to be two of you.\u201d And she broke down. I was still shackled, so I couldn\u2019t really hold her even if I wanted to. The district attorney and the judge let his mom sit in for him, so we were sitting next to each other while the proceedings were taking place. She said something very profound to me. She said, \u201cYou\u2019re my son now.\u201d\u201d http:\/\/nymag.com\/daily\/intelligencer\/2015\/09\/8-exonerated-prisoners-first-week-outside.html#<\/a><\/p>\n This is a tragedy and a travesty all the way around. To be a parent of someone in prison is a daily heart ache.\u00a0 Speaking as someone who has a cousin, Rodney K. Stanberry<\/a>, who remains in prison- 18 years and counting<\/a>– for crimes he did not commit, I can tell you that there is not a day that goes by when your heart isn\u2019t aching, when you don\u2019t feel a tremendous sense of pain over the injustice and the reality that a person has lost his\/her freedom because they system failed them. To be a parent, that is just devastating.\u00a0 One often hears that a parent\u2019s worst fear is outliving their children. Add to this fear the reality that one\u2019s son is innocent and incarcerated. It is a sense of helplessness that is difficult to get over.\u00a0 Willie Stuckey\u2019s mother outlived her son, but she lived to see him exonerated.\u00a0 It is a bittersweet moment, but she will likely forever think about what her son at 32 could have done with his life as a free man.\u00a0 She will likely think about the grandchildren by him that she never will have.\u00a0 And every birthday that comes around, she will remember where he spent his 16th<\/sup>, 18th<\/sup>, 21st<\/sup>, 25, and 30th<\/sup> birthday- in prison. She will forever be reminded that the state took her son at 16 and gave him back to her at the age of 32 to be buried. The system swallowed him up and left him to digest on the juices of injustice.<\/p>\n More Reflections of the Exonerated<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The reflections of the men (all men were highlighted in the New York Magazine piece) were powerful.\u00a0 It was told from the vantage point of those who received some sort of delayed justice.\u00a0 But after years, decades even, incarcerated, there must be something akin to a post-traumatic stress syndrome at play. On some level, even the exonerated may wonder if they will ever truly be free.<\/p>\n Imagine the emotional roller coaster of being wrongfully convicted and then finally finding someone or a group that believes in your case and is willing to fight on your behalf.\u00a0 That sense of hope that one may have suppressed becomes stronger. But this hope is fleeting as one set back after another takes place. It is mental torture in some aspects.\u00a0 Let\u2019s return to the McCallum case, for example.<\/p>\n McCallum\u2019s appeals had been exhausted, his attorney asked then Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes to submit it to the Conviction Integrity Unit for review.\u00a0 Hynes claimed that after investigation, there was no evidence to support claims of innocence. When Hynes was defeated in his reelection bid and replaced by DA Kenneth Thompson, McCallum\u2019s attorney asked again for the DA\u2019s office to review the case, and Rubin Hurricane Carter\u2019s dying wish was for McCallum\u2019s case to be reviewed.<\/p>\n \u201cIn August 2013, Hynes\u2019s office informed Michelen that the office had concluded there was no evidence to support McCallum\u2019s claim of innocence.<\/p>\n In the fall of 2013, after Hynes was defeated in his bid for re-election, Michelen wrote to Kenneth Thompson, the newly elected District Attorney, imploring him to take a fresh look at the McCallum case.<\/p>\n In April 2014, Rubin \u201cHurricane\u201d Carter, a well-known middle-weight prize fighter who was cleared of a wrongful conviction for murder in 1985, died of prostate cancer. Before he died, Carter sent a letter asking Thompson\u2014as a dying wish\u2014to review McCallum\u2019s case anew.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n On October 15, 2014, Thompson moved the Kings County, New York, Supreme Court to vacate the convictions of both McCallum and Stuckey. The motion was granted and the charges against both men were dismissed. McCallum was released immediately.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thompson said the confessions clearly were false. He also was harshly critical of his predecessor, Hynes, for failing to seriously address claims of innocence. Thompson declared, \u201cI inherited a legacy of disgrace with respect to wrongful convictions.\u201d<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.law.umich.edu\/special\/exoneration\/Pages\/casedetail.aspx?caseid=4523<\/a><\/p>\n What a difference a district attorney makes.\u00a0 Far too many district attorneys are content with getting a conviction on questionable evidence and maintaining the conviction simply for the sake of maintaining the conviction.\u00a0 More district attorneys such as Ken Thompson and former Dallas County, Texas District attorney Craig Watkins are desperately needed as they recognize that justice is far more important than simply maintaining a conviction. There are far too many district attorney offices where there is, to quote DA Thompson again, \u201ca legacy of disgrace with respect to wrongful convictions.\u201d<\/p>\n What About Those Who Haven\u2019t Been Exonerated?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The second annual Wrongful Conviction Day \u00a0was October 2nd<\/sup>. According to the Innocent Project\u2019s website, \u201cThe purpose of Wrongful Conviction Day is to set aside a day to focus on and discuss the causes and remedies concerning wrongful convictions, an issue that affects and devastates individuals, families and societies worldwide. In recognition of the day, innocence groups from around the world will hold events and host a range of activities to raise awareness about the many cases of people who have been convicted of crimes they did not commit.” http:\/\/www.innocenceproject.org\/news-events-exonerations\/october-2-is-wrongful-conviction-day<\/a><\/p>\n It is very important to recognize Wrongful Conviction Day because the public needs to be aware of how easy it is to convict and innocent person in this country.\u00a0 And that once an innocent person is convicted, it may take years, if not decades, for that person to be exonerated. That is a sad and painful reality.\u00a0 Recently, the Equal justice Initiative (EJI) announced that their client, Beniah Dandridge<\/a>, was exonerated after spending 20 years in prison on a murder charge.\u00a0 Apparent poor forensics by the Alabama Bureau of Investigations and the use of a jail house informant helped to convict an innocent man. For 20 years Dandridge languished in prison wondering if he would be a free AND exonerated man. \u00a0I would like to see prosecutors in this case and so many others to respond to questions about what is it like to see someone that they either sent to prison or worked extremely hard to keep that person in prison to be exonerated.\u00a0 Do they care? Does it matter how justice seems perverted when prosecutors engage in tactics that lead to wrongful convictions? Will they try hard to prevent these types of convictions? Would they establish a Conviction Integrity Unit? And so on. There are so few prosecutors that would acknowledge what DA Kenneth Thompson acknowledged: \u201cI inherited a legacy of disgrace with respect to wrongful convictions.\u201d\u00a0 Justice should not depend on which district attorney is prosecuting one\u2019s case or with judicial district one is in, it should depend on prosecutors going beyond the extra step to ensure that the actual culprits are convicted and working for, not against, efforts to free innocent people.<\/p>\n I would also like to see articles featuring voters who are also asked how they feel when they watch the news and learn that an innocent person had been exonerated after 5, 10, 15, 20, 36 and more years in prison.\u00a0 And in these articles there should be an understanding of how district attorneys handle these cases and whether district attorneys are elected or appointed. In most jurisdictions, district attorneys are elected and, therefore, these voters should be asked if it is a responsibility of theirs to hold district attorneys accountable for their actions.\u00a0 It costs a lot of money to incarcerate an inmate, imagine the amount of money a state has to spend keeping an innocent person incarcerated.\u00a0 Taxpayers have a vested interest in seeing that prosecutors pursue justice, not theories and false information.\u00a0 No one wins when there is a wrongful conviction, except for prosecutors who build their careers on the quantity, not the quality, of convictions<\/em>.\u00a0 Wrongful convictions are not pro-victim, they are pro-prosecutor and we need to be aware of this reality.<\/p>\n Conclusion<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I am interested in this subject matter because I have a cousin who is in his 18th<\/sup> year in prison for crimes he did not commit.\u00a0 He was prosecuted by Joe Carl \u201cBuzz Jordan<\/a>\u00a0who worked for the Mobile District Attorney\u2019s office. Subsequent Mobile District Attorneys John Tyson, Jr. and Ashley Rich (the current DA) refuse to acknowledge that Rodney did not commit the crimes for which he is accused.\u00a0 I will not get into Rodney\u2019s case here, but please read this blog about whether Rodney could be two places at once<\/a>, this investigative report by Beth Schwartzapfel<\/a> \u00a0that was published in the Boston Review\u00a0<\/em>and go to this website www.freerodneystanberry.com<\/a>.\u00a0 When DA Ashley Rich was campaigning to replace retiring DA John Tyson, Jr., this is what she said in response to a question:<\/p>\n \u201cIntegrity is something that is so important because when you are a prosecutor, you not only have the duty to prosecute people and to put\u00a0people in jail, but you also have a duty to uphold the law. You have the duty to do that with integrity and with the ethical standards in place\u2026\u00a0You must disclose exculpatory evidence because if you don\u2019t, nothing good comes from it and\u00a0essentially you have prosecuted someone who may\u00a0not have committed the\u00a0crimes because you didn\u2019t disclose exculpatory evidence. Candidate Ashley Rich (September 16, 2010 ) Ashley Rich is now the Mobile County District Attorney after winning the election to replace former DA John Tyson, Jr.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>http:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/u7am0916AshleyRich1.mp3<\/a><\/p>\n In spite of the concern DA Ashley Rich expressed about lessons that the Duke LaCrosse case provided, Rich has been silent when she was presented \u00a0two cases (Toby Priest<\/a> and William Ziegler<\/a>) where judges called her office out on prosecutorial misconduct by prosecutors in her office. \u00a0Ziegler was finally released after spending 15 years in prison, most of it on death row. \u00a0Here is an interview immediately following his release<\/a>. The William Ziegler case was particularly disturbing, but Chief assistant district attorney Deborah Tillman, nor DA Ashley Rich, expressed any regret or fault in the way his case was prosecuted (http:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/23\/who-will-hold-prosecutors-accountable-for-their-actions-the-case-of-william-j-ziegler\/<\/a>). Withholding exculpatory evidence was suddenly not a matter of integrity for DA Ashley Rich. District Attorney Ashley Rich is campaigning for reelection.\u00a0 Her primary is in March.\u00a0 District Attorney is a very law and order, tough on crime district attorney. One can be a very law and order, tough on crime district attorney AND pursue true justice for the victim (s) of crimes, even if it means not getting a conviction and even if it means working to release innocent people.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t have to be one or the other. I wish DA Ashley Rich the best, I know she wants to make the community safer, but she can do this while also doing what is right, fair, and just when it comes to wrongful convictions.\u00a0 She doesn\u2019t entertain the idea of establishing a Conviction Integrity Unit<\/a> because she believes her prosecutors use safeguards to prevent such actions.\u00a0 If the safeguards were in place for the Priest and Ziegler case, they failed miserably.\u00a0 In my cousin\u2019s (Rodney K. Stanberry) case, there was a confession made in front of prosecutor Buzz Jordan by the person actually involved in the crimes, but he dismissed and suppressed the confession. Jordan traveled to Rikers Island Prison from Mobile, Alabama to interview someone he said was the shooter, but claimed he did not take notes because he was on vacation!!! My cousin had evidence that he was at work when the crimes took place,<\/a> but there was then a manipulation of the time frame of the crimes to pursue Jordan\u2019s theory, there was lost evidence, and so on and so forth.\u00a0 But DA Rich isn\u2019t concerned with the actions in Rodney\u2019s case either, so I am not sure what was the lesson she learned about the Duke Lacrosse case, other than, unlike Mike Nifong (Duke Lacrosse prosecutor),it is rare that a prosecutor will be sanctioned for engaging in prosecutorial misconduct (http:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/21\/prosecutorial-accountability-and-state-bar-responsibility-when-will-it-become-the-norm\/0<\/a> That lesson does not bode well for the integrity of the system.<\/p>\n Rodney K. Stanberry is on the the extremely long list of people who are innocent, but who may never be exonerated.\u00a0 If we were to look at the estimates of those who are innocent and incarcerated (http:\/\/www.innocenceproject.org\/faqs\/how-many-innocent-people-are-there-in-prison<\/a>), then we will see a long list of people trying to maintain hope and hoping that this country that has in its pledge of allegiance \u201cwith liberty and justice for all\u201d will find more prosecutors pursuing actual justice and the integrity of the system. Prosecutors should understand that upholding the integrity of the system should not be paused when they are pursuing and maintaining questionable cases.<\/p>\n Sincerely,<\/p>\n Artemesia Stanberry<\/p>\n www.freerodneystanberry.com<\/p>\n www.freerodneystanberry.com\/blog<\/p>\n http:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/20\/gun-control-what-happened-when-a-gun-enthusiast-tried-to-stop-the-sale-of-weapons-the-case-of-rodney-k-stanberry\/<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.bostonreview.net\/us\/who-shot-valerie-finley<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/freerodneystanberry.com\/blog\/?s=can+one+person+be+two+places+at+once<\/a><\/p>\n