Innocent and in prison? Yep!

“When someone says he’s innocent, and he keeps on saying it for the whole time that he’s in prison, you’d better listen to him!”

Famed welterweight prize fighter Rubin Hurricane Carter was sitting in the front seat of my car, as we drove from a visit with the late Maurice Carter (no relation).  The Hurricane had come to Benton Harbor twice at my request to assist in raising public awareness about the injustice of the Maurice Carter case.  His words carried weight (no pun intended).  Rubin had been wrongly convicted for a crime he did not commit.  Not once, but twice! 

I’m thinking of that today as Matt and I discuss the assistance we are trying to provide to hundreds of prisoners in the Michigan prison system.  I was reporting to him about a meeting I had with a prominent criminal defense attorney last week.  This high profile lawyer is one of more than 50 professionals who freely and generously give of their time to help us with a multitude of problems and issues.  The lawyer gave me two hours of his valuable time, to discuss the cases of five different prisoners.  Four of the five involve wrongful convictions!  And the terribly frustrating truth of the matter:  I’m just not sure how much, if anything, anyone can and/or will do about it!  See if those comforting thoughts help you get to sleep at night.

I hasten to point out two things.  Number one, that Matt and I are not legal experts, and HFP is not an Innocence Project.  And Number two, contrary what you may think and what many law enforcement people like to joke about, all prisoners do not claim they are innocent!

I know that I hammer away at the subject of wrongful convictions rather frequently, but this stuff bothers me a lot, and it should bother you, too.

I just ran through our case list.  We have about 800 files right now.  I came up with the names of 20 men and women behind bars who, I am convinced, are wrongly convicted!  Just add up the number of years that each has spent in prison…one of them has been in over 40!  Then think of the injustice of it all: years from their lives that cannot be replaced.  Then think about the unnecessary cost of it all:  $35-40,000 per prisoner per year, provided they are in good health.  Then think about the flip-side of this coin:  For every wrongly convicted person behind bars, there’s probably a criminal still out there on the street!

I can hear the hard liners calling me a “do-gooder,” trying to put criminals back on the street.  Just the opposite:  I want the right people in jail, and the wrong people out!

Doesn’t it bother you to know that there are Innocence Projects in almost every state, and because of the heavy caseloads they are years behind?  These aren’t just frivolous claims.  They are legitimate pleas for help that deserve careful scrutiny. What a shameful indictment of our system!  Here in Michigan the University of Michigan’s Innocence Clinic takes only non-DNA cases, and Western Michigan University’s Cooley Innocence Project takes only DNA cases.  I’ll wager money that if you call their main offices today, each one of them is at least two years behind.

Awareness is only the start.

Then must come action.


God help us!

Comments

Unknown said…
Thank you and your staff for all you do to help,it is truly sad how quickly someone can be wrongly convicted and years to prove their innocence,we are fighting one ourselves and without money its proving to be very hard long process.
June 10, 2016 at 3:13 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Half-a-race!

The HFP Drag-Racing Fund-Raiser had the potential of being extremely successful, and could have raised several thousand dollars. Let's just say it was partly successful. For background purposes I'll explain that I was racing a 1963 supercharged Studebaker Lark that has a reputation of being one of the fastest stock Studebakers in drag racing today. The engine was built by one of the finest Studebaker engine mechanics in the country, and the car many times has achieved quarter-mile runs in less than 14 seconds! We promised to make at least ten passes in the Pure Stock Muscle Car Drags at Mid-Michigan Motorplex in Stanton, Michigan, this past weekend, and we asked for pledges ONLY ON THOSE RUNS REACHED IN LESS THAN 14 SECONDS. On Friday, here's how we fared: Run #1 13.936 @ 101.24 mph Run #2 14.027 @ 101.30 mph Run #3 14.091 @ 100.88 mph Run #4 13.805 @ 102.84 mph Run #5 14.058 @ 101.26 mph By the 5th run we discovered that ...
Read more

Gregory John McCormick: 1964-2008

Itchy is dead. The lifeless body of this talented rock musician, whose band Shock Therapy was a popular group especially in Europe, was found in a field in Detroit last Wednesday, November 5. The Wayne County Coroner's office informed father Glenn McCormick that the body of his son Gregory, better known to all of us as Itchy, bore no signs of trauma. Glenn said that Itchy, who had been living at his father's dental lab in Detroit, had been drinking to excess for some time. While the toxicology report has not been released yet, the general consensus seems to be that he drank himself to death. Our agency, while still named INNOCENT, first got involved with Itchy in 2005. The Detroit native, who called Germany his home, got involved in some unfortunate activity that placed him in the Michigan State prison system on a charge of arson of a dwelling. It was really just a bonfire in an alley, but an alleged parole violation placed him in prison for 1-20 years. I personally sat w...
Read more

Three lives, connected by a divine thread

My kids say it should be a book! The Doug, Pat and Mark story is a doozie!   About 25 years ago, while fighting to free Maurice Carter from prison, I read a newspaper column written by Pat Shellenbarger of the Grand Rapids Press on the topic of eyewitness identification. I contacted Pat re that story. That led to a friendship between Doug and Pat that continues to this day.   In subsequent months, Pat would go on to assist me in an investigation into the Maurice Carter case that eventually led to solving the crime.  That particular episode became a chapter in my book about the Carter case, SWEET FREEDOM, published in 2006.   Fast forward to 2009, A New York businessman claims wrongful conviction, and while serving time in a Michigan prison is handed a copy of my book. Mark Hartman, who was also convicted in Berrien County, was amazed at the similarity of these two stories and tried to reach out to me. His letters bounced.   Persisting in his efforts to c...
Read more