Posted on 02/09/2006 5:31:44 AM PST by freepatriot32
William J. Hetherington has been incarcerated in Michigan prisons for more than 20 years for having sex with his wife Linda. In 1986, he became the first man in Genesee County convicted of the new Michigan crime called spousal rape. Linda was not a battered wife; she testified at the trial that he had never beaten her in their 16 years of marriage. Hetherington was honorably discharged from the U.S. Air Force, received a National Defense Service Medal, and had no police record of any sort.
The sentencing guideline for this new offense was 12 months to 10 years but, without showing cause, the judge sentenced him to 15 to 30 years (twice the time served by the average convicted rapist in Michigan). Twenty years later, despite an exemplary prison record, the parole board routinely refuses to parole him, giving as its sole reason "prisoner denies the offense."
Hetherington has, indeed, always maintained his innocence. It was a he-said-she-said case during a custody battle; he said it was consensual sex, she said it was rape. The judge used Michigan's new Rape Shield Law to prohibit cross-examination of Linda.
No physical evidence of rape was produced at the trial. A pelvic examination of Linda at the hospital three hours after the alleged offense showed no evidence of injury or forced penetration. Apparently what persuaded the jury to convict was the testimony of two police officers that they had observed tape marks on Linda's face.
The court-designated psychologist who examined Hetherington, Dr. Harold S. Sommerschield, Ph.D., concluded: "This is not a man who would force himself sexually or hostilely on another individual, as this would be foreign to his personality dynamics. ... his histrionic personality ... would substantiate his explanation of what has occurred in regards to the relationship with his ex-wife."
The rape charge was prosecuted simultaneously with the custody case, and the divorce court had frozen all Hetherington's assets so he had no money to hire a lawyer or make bond. Nevertheless, the criminal court ruled that he was not indigent and refused to provide him with a lawyer.
For 12 years, the court refused to provide Hetherington with a transcript of the trial. Without funds, he was unable to buy one, so he was effectively denied his right of appeal, and no appeal has ever been heard on the substance of this case.
At the sentencing, prosecutor Robert Weiss called Hetherington's alleged offense equivalent to "first degree murder" and falsely accused him of beating Linda. Weiss was running for a judgeship, and observers sized up his prejudicial statements as grandstanding for support from the feminists.
Linda walked away with custody of their three daughters, the marital home, and all marital assets.
Ten years after Hetherington's conviction, a volunteer attorney, Jeff Feldman, using the Freedom of Information Act, obtained copies of five photographs taken of Linda by police at the alleged crime scene immediately after the alleged offense. The photographs were in a locker in a police garage, and the prosecution had never disclosed them to the defense.
The photographs were then examined by a forensic photographer in Miami, John Valor, using all modern techniques. Valor's four-page notarized report detailed his impressive expertise, including service as the lead forensic photographer in the trial of serial-killer Ted Bundy.
Valor's sworn statement dated January 8, 1998 stated that the pictures of Linda showed absolutely no scratches, tape marks or abnormalities of any kind, and that marks would have been clearly visible if there had been any. If a government witness gives false testimony, a convicted prisoner should be entitled to a new trial, but Hetherington didn't get it.
Years later, a completely unsolicited letter was sent to the parole board by Melissa Anne Suchy, who had been employed by Linda as a babysitter. Suchy's letter is hearsay, but it has the ring of authenticity.
Suchy wrote that Linda told her she made up the story about rape because she was then pregnant with the baby of her boyfriend, and he pushed her to press rape charges, saying that she would have to "get rid of Hetherington or he wouldn't take care of the baby."
Over the years, several pro bono lawyers and concerned citizens have tried to secure a pardon or a parole for Hetherington, but Michigan appears determined to make him serve 30 years because he won't admit guilt and because the bureaucracy won't admit it made a mistake.
Almost everyone who reads the record of what happened to William Hetherington concludes that he was unjustly accused, unjustly convicted, unjustly sentenced, unjustly denied his due process and appeal rights, unjustly denied a new trial based on physical evidence of inaccurate testimony by government witnesses, and unjustly denied parole.
A good man's life has been sacrificed, and three children have been denied their father, by the malicious feminists who have lobbied for laws that punish spousal rape just like stranger rape and deny a man the right to cross-examine his accuser. They have created a judicial system where the woman must always be believed even though she has no evidence, and the man is always guilty
RE: brainwashed child; certainly a posiblity.
Is the 'other' daughter in agreement, or are they at odds?
IMHO, if his life was ruined by her, HER
Synopsis: Other daughter was complaining specifically about a letter from someone that was posted on the site and a photograph of her with her father that was posted on the site. Although she did say she understands why people support her father.
Both daughters also appear to be in contact with their father.
In my experience, whenever I've seen websites that are on a minor crusade to exonerate a convicted felon, they wildly misstate the facts. In prison ministry, surely you have heard the old joke that everyone in prison is "innocent." There's some truth to that.
This story is just too incredible - and it just sounds like the kind of stories that guilty people tell. Now, this could be the wanna-be prosecutor's bias, but I just do not believe this story one bit.
With these allegations, the fact that no attorney has taken the case, even if only to fill out his pro bono requirements, should tell you something - no lawyer believes his story. If the allegations were credible, surely some lawyer somewhere would jump at the chance to defend one of the real innocent men in prison.
Which is why I wrote: "I THINK...."
Brilliant deduction.
the USSC case Crawford v. Washington would be applicable in this case
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=02-9410
Do you think there are not dishonest doctors and dentists simply because they take a different oath??????
Do you think all plumbers and masons are honest???
LOL...
I can't believe you're belaboring this point. OK, so there are a few honest ones out there. My experiences, and I realize I'm far from alone, are that lawyers aren't exactly the pillars of integrity, honesty, and decency in our society. Call me nuts. LOL
Doctors, dentists, plumbers, and masons don't screw the world up for the rest of us. Most of them, if they're bad or dishonest, won't be in business for long. Can the same be said about lawyers? Yeah right!
Nice try! Pardon me if I don't reply to you in the future. Go spend some time cleaning up your profession. I'm sure you're great, but most aren't. I'd be happy to provide you with a list of names. Most are senators or congressmen.
I know not all like the caricutaure you would like to think is the "truth" as you say, but it's even more foolish and disingenuous to try to insist that most are unlike what I've painted with a broadbrush.
I didn't say all lawyers belong in hell. You shouldn't take it so personally if you are not guilty of abusing your profession. I feel sympathy for those who are victims of the "justice" system and believe that lawyers and judges should face an equally horrid punishment for their ego driven pronouncements and amoral maneuvers when it results in the imprisonment of an innocent man. Why is it we afford judges and lawyers protections from recourse that no other profession receives when a life is destoryed?
I will be honest in that I don't think highly of lawyers or judges and the phony perches they create for themselves to look down on all the common folk maintaining a legal system where a person can not reasonably represent themselves in a credible way because of the increasingly complex puzzle of laws that manage to be enforced in a way that is more like divination than the application of justice.
Hahahahaha. I'm glad someone feels that way. I really don't mean to knock all the good conservative lawyers out there but if they are honest they have to know much of the legal system is a crock setup more to inflate the position of lawyers in society than to serve the justice of man. I think we would benefit from a much simpler and basic system because the law is like an elephant is to ant crawling on its ass. There is no way the ant is ever going to be able to fully do justice to the description of an elephant no more than any man can do justice to the tangle of knots we call the law.
It's a good ole boy network at its finest. Even judges now rule based on their own unqualified "feelings" essentially as we've all seen in many cases, the Cashman case included.
Yeah reinforcements! lol My perspective on hell has never been the same since I read "The ScrewTape Letters" and though my house is made of glass I think Lewis's description of it as a bureaucratic structure hit its mark better than any I've run onto since. I personally can not understand what can possess someone to defend the imprisonment of an innocent man for the sake of a corrupt judge with a big ego or a DA with a mission to convict no matter what. I remember watching a show where a "judge" made excuses about not giving a man a chance for a new trial because even if the "physical evidence" which he was convicted with turned out to not match his DNA that he could've used a condom so it wouldn't matter anyway. That attitude is a problem by any evaluation and though I'm sure most judges and lawyers try to do the best job they can when I hear such a defense coming out of a person's mouth who is supposed to be well educated and honorable it really makes me wonder if this is just an exception or a symptom of a real malaise in our justice system.
I don't see how this is different from any other convict claiming innocence beyond the fact that we all assume the system is biased against him as a male.
Even if it is, the man was still convicted. Nobody seemed all that eager to help him on appeal, for all his claims of not having a history of abuse and even with the failure to provide relevant discovery.
I think there is probably more to this story than the article indicates. And I have a bias against those already convicted. Everyone in prison is innocent, and there is a sucker born every minute willing to buy it.
Reading the denial of his habeas petition (http://www.geocities.com/tiluser/habeasrep.pdf), you see that the facts are not those that the convict puts forth but that he actually DID have at trial the photographs that were 'recently discovered,' and did make numerous appeals through the system in Michigan which were denied--though the article above says he did not. This seems a case of crying wolf, freepatriot32. I don't love John Engler, but if he denied clemency, I've got one more reason to be suspicious of the above description of the facts.
He-said-she-said sucks, but if you're convicted on that basis, you're STILL convicted.
"Per his appeals petition, there WAS evidence (his petition argues that he did not get adequate access to the evidence, including photographs and "toy items".) The most damning appears to be tape marks on the victims face."
But per the judge's ruling on that same petition, all that is bunk. He had access to those photographs at the time of trial and did not use them, and had access to appellate relief and did not use that properly, either. Should we let all the convicts out who had shitty lawyers? That'd be about, um, let me think, ALL of them! Just ask them!
Oops, missed this later post clarifying what you meant in the prior post. Please disregard MY previous post. 8)
Strange that nowhere a picture to be found.
"You ought to write for Lifetime."
ROFLMAO! C'mon, that's only one of the formulas they use.
1) Evil Guy subjugates wife/girlfriend/daughter, wife/girlfriend/daughter strikes back!
2) Woman becomes famous/rich/self-actualized and dumps imperfect nearly-Evil Guy for Perfect Guy!
3) Woman overcomes awful disease which strikes her/her child/her family/Bill Clinton and dumps imperfect nearly-Evil Guy for Perfect Guy!
HG: You can be convicted of most crimes upon the the testimony of one person, even if you deny it. Juries weigh the credibility of testimony and decide who's being truthful. Happens every day.
For example, would a police officer's testimony outweigh a ten-time crook's, that is, that if you were on a jury would you tend to believe the cop over the crook? I would, and I think I'm more biased against cops than the general population. Cops are just as willing to perjure themselves as crooks. But cops rarely lie about the actual crime being committed, and usually apprehend the right guy. And no matter what the claim here is, 99% of the time, if a case goes to court, the defendant did commit the crime and is just gambling.
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