DNA Frees Innocent Man after 19 Years

[1Parker1]

maybe the citizens should sue for thier tax dollars back.
they paid $$ for 19 years to keep a perfectly harmless man off the streets.
. I'd want my money back.

Good Point. Sadly, it happens a lot more than we think.

[1Parker1]

The Death Penalty Information Center keeps an "Innocence List" which names incarcerated people who have been exonerated since 1973. There are 119 to date. The criteria for inclusion on the list are:

"In order to be included on the list, defendants must have been convicted and sentenced to death, and subsequently either:

a) their conviction was overturned and they were acquitted at a re-trial, or all charges were dismissed; or

b) they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence."

http://www.associatedcontent.com/con...t_type_id=3051

[David Bowie]

With the new technology and especially DNA testing, this type of thing has been happening a lot. Also, a lot of crimes that have been unsolved have been solved. And criminals who ouldn't be tied to their crimes due to lack of evidence have been convicted. DNA testing makes it much more difficult to get away with crime. Unless youre a male celebrity in Hollywood.

[ShoogarBear]

In these cases I wonder why the guy can't file a civil lawsuit against the prosecutors. It seems to me that what they did to him was a crime.

It's one thing that an innocent man was imprisoned. That's not necessarily the fault of the prosecutors (unless they were withholding evidence, which I now wouldn't put past them given what's going on).

But when they actively opposed him getting a test which could without a doubt prove innocence, that's not just unethical, it's criminal.

[ShoogarBear]

Actually, I just heard on the news, now they are going to try the poor man for a deportation trial, since apparantly he's an illegal immigrant

Cripes, that's it.

I never do this, but if there's a fund for him, I'm sending money in.