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Texas Frees Rape Convict Exonerated By DNA After 26-Year Term
Fox News ^ | Thursday, January 03, 2008 | AP

Posted on 01/03/2008 1:15:07 PM PST by cougar_mccxxi

DALLAS — A man convicted of raping a woman in 1981 and sentenced to life in prison has been cleared by DNA evidence and will be released, according to attorneys who have helped free 14 other wrongfully convicted inmates in Dallas County.

Charles Chatman, 47, is expected to be released Thursday after spending more than 26 years behind bars, said Natalie Roetzel of the Innocence Project of Texas.

"I never lost hope," Chatman told The Associated Press. "I always believed I would get out. I didn't know when or how, but I kept believing."

(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: convict; frees; rape; texas
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To: boop
The system makes it very easy to convict and very difficult to get out of a conviction. Even if all you have is a crying witness saying “He Did it!” that is usually enough. It doesn’t matter if you have an alibi or were a thousand miles away. The jury figures the cops and DA are honest and wouldn’t put an innocent man on trial. I have seen it many many times. The cops and DA’s think they are doing us a favor.

I think the sin is on us when our elected officials make such mistakes. Poor guy. 26 years is a long time. I hope his burglary sentence was a long one so that he didn’t have a LOT of extra years to suffer.

41 posted on 01/03/2008 2:24:15 PM PST by JAKraig (Joseph Kraig)
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To: cougar_mccxxi
Jurys are 99.9% people that were too stupid to get out of Jury duty and want to get out as fast as possible.

When they start paying jurors the salary that they make at their normal jobs, maybe more decent people would do it.

I just don’t see how someone with a job could sit for a long case for what they pay. Wouldn’t you go broke?

42 posted on 01/03/2008 2:24:35 PM PST by varyouga ("Rove is some mysterious God of politics & mind control" - DU 10-24-06)
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To: Emmett McCarthy
DNA testing has been around for many years now. It wasn’t available when the crime was committed, but why wasn’t his DNA tested 10 or more years ago? The fact that an innocent man spent so long in prison when the DNA test was available is also criminal.
43 posted on 01/03/2008 2:27:02 PM PST by passionfruit (When illegals become legal, even they won't do work American's won't do)
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To: Gator101
I am guessing from this statement that a DNA sample can only be compared against another sample and be judged a match or a mismatch?

That used to be true, but the technology has advanced to where they can make a numerical representation to be put in a data base.

It is accurate enough to be sicentifically repeatable and valid.

44 posted on 01/03/2008 2:28:32 PM PST by Dan(9698)
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To: cougar_mccxxi
I could tolerate there being an "innocence" industry...

Let someone (or a company) put up a bond amount for anyone they want to claim is innocent. The bond should cover DA time and lab testing for the DNA. If they are right, they keep their bond and receive, say, 30% of any settlement with the wrongly convicted defendant (I could live with a standard settlement amount per year served - $50,000 - $100,000). If they lose, they forfeit the bond. Government is out NO money for retrying guilty people. Advocates can take on ANY case they think was unfair.

45 posted on 01/03/2008 2:28:36 PM PST by Onelifetogive (* Sarcasm tag ALWAYS required. For some FReepers, sarcasm can NEVER be obvious enough.)
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To: JAKraig
Well, a DA can’t have too many ‘not guilties’ on his record or the sheeple won’t re-elect him/her...
46 posted on 01/03/2008 2:29:01 PM PST by varyouga ("Rove is some mysterious God of politics & mind control" - DU 10-24-06)
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To: in hoc signo vinces

In exchange for 26 years of lost life?

I wish him well in what time he has left, but let’s be for real here.

Not even a cool million, tax free, is adequate compensation for something like this.


47 posted on 01/03/2008 2:30:39 PM PST by Ronin (Bushed out!!! Another tragic victim of BDS.)
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To: cougar_mccxxi

You cannot put a price on 26 years. However, what I found is that most of those unfairly convicted were usually not living right in the first place. Regardless, I do believe in due process. It is too easy for a girl to make up a rape accusation and then it is just like the Duke lacrosse team.


48 posted on 01/03/2008 2:30:57 PM PST by nckerr ("A freeper since 2000 and Active Duty Soldier since 1995!")
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To: cougar_mccxxi
Juries do not hear enough of the following phrase; REASONABLE DOUBT.

Not everyone should be able to sit on a Jury. read my old post

49 posted on 01/03/2008 2:33:15 PM PST by varyouga ("Rove is some mysterious God of politics & mind control" - DU 10-24-06)
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To: -YYZ-

You said — “You just don’t understand - putting the occasional (or maybe not so occasionally) innocent person in jail is just the price we pay to have law and order. And just because new evidence, or evidence of proecutorial/police misconduct comes to light, that doesn’t mean they should get a new trial - why, the whole system would grind to a halt.”

Of course, you were mimicking someone else’s statements... I think we all know (or should know) that the “see-saw” of how these things work would be — (1) you make sure you get all the guilty; fallout is some innocent get caught in that web, (2) you protect all the innocent; fallout is some guilty get let go.

Now, it’s a “see-saw” from #1 to #2. As you see-saw more one way, you get more of that fallout that way. If you got back the other way, you get more of that fallout to the other direction.

But, what all should really know is that our legal system is supposed to be designed to *primarily* prevent the innocent from getting swept up in the hunt, conviction and jailing of the guilty — and not the other way around (i.e., “getting all the crooks”).

So, anyone who seeks to *absolutely insure* that we “get all the crooks” is — inevitably — going to be working against the protections of the innocent, and therefore *subverting* our system...

Regards,
Star Traveler


50 posted on 01/03/2008 2:50:04 PM PST by Star Traveler
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To: PAR35; All

If it had been your ass sitting in jail 26 years for a crime you didn’t commit, you would be singing a different tune, or would you have us believe that you would be begging the State of Texas to keep you in a cell because you were ‘properly’ convicted on the best evidence available at the time?


51 posted on 01/03/2008 2:55:48 PM PST by mkjessup (Hunter-Bolton '08 !! Patriots who will settle for nothing less than *Victory* in the War on Terror!)
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To: mnehrling

IIRC, it’s about $15,000/year based on settlements in other states.


52 posted on 01/03/2008 2:58:17 PM PST by Rb ver. 2.0 (Global warming is the new Marxism.)
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To: boop

Very rarely, but it happens.

Some people may remember a Virginia man, featured on the cover of Time Magazine, who was executed despite protestations of innocence?

From the New York Times, Jan. 13, 2006:

DNA Ties Man Executed in ‘92 to the Murder He Denied

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 - Thirteen years after Roger K. Coleman went to the electric chair declaring, “An innocent man is being murdered tonight,” a new DNA test has found that he was almost certainly the source of genetic material found in the body of his murdered sister-in-law, Virginia officials announced on Thursday.

The finding was a stunning blow to a lay minister who for nearly 18 years argued for Mr. Coleman’s innocence, and it vindicated the prosecutors who won Mr. Coleman’s conviction in 1982 and the governor, L. Douglas Wilder, who allowed his execution to proceed 10 years later.

“The confirmation that Roger Coleman’s DNA was present reaffirms the verdict and the sanction,” said Gov. Mark Warner, who ordered the test last week. It was the first time that a governor had ordered a DNA test involving an executed person.

The testing was closely watched across the nation because of the belief that it would provide powerful momentum to death penalty abolitionists if it were to prove that an innocent man had been put to death.

Yet even after Thursday’s announcement, critics of capital punishment said Mr. Warner’s decision set an important precedent that might encourage other governors, judges and prosecutors to allow postexecution DNA analysis in disputed capital punishment cases...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/13/national/13dna.html


53 posted on 01/03/2008 2:59:41 PM PST by newbeenew
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To: varyouga
paying jurors the salary that they make at their normal jobs

Which is why so many jurors are low-ranking civil servants and postal workers ... they are paid during their jury duty!

54 posted on 01/03/2008 3:03:29 PM PST by Kenny Bunk (Round up the Dark Horses, boys. This herd of contenders ain't makin' it.)
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To: varyouga
paying jurors the salary that they make at their normal jobs

Which is why so many jurors are low-ranking civil servants and postal workers ... they are paid during their jury duty!

55 posted on 01/03/2008 3:03:35 PM PST by Kenny Bunk (Round up the Dark Horses, boys. This herd of contenders ain't makin' it.)
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To: varyouga
Honest, I punched it in one time (1) only! Sorry.

BTW, we'll probably never get the full story on something like this. Being innocent of a particular charge doesn't guarantee that the accused was a splendid citizen. It's entirely possible that he was innocent of the rape, but guilty of something else that mitigated against his being successfully defended ... B&E, or assault on his record, perhaps.

Also, to give the guy a fair shake, he may well have been poorly represented ... or the cops and DA hid some exculpatory evidence. Ya just never know.

56 posted on 01/03/2008 3:13:01 PM PST by Kenny Bunk (Round up the Dark Horses, boys. This herd of contenders ain't makin' it.)
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To: boop
I mean EVERYONE in jail claims to be innocent.

I swear to you, I am innocent, you must believe me!!!

Ah, yes, Dantès, I know...

You mock me monsieur?

No, Dantès, were you truly guilty, there are a hundred prisons they could have sent you to, The Château d'If is for the ones they are truly ashamed of..

57 posted on 01/03/2008 3:13:54 PM PST by logic (Support Duncan Hunter for the 2008 GOP presidential nominee. He is THE conservative candidate!!)
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To: -YYZ-
Well, those are the arguments you’ll hear from various ambitious political types, anyway, not to mention various “law and order” types on this forum.

And we will shout them down as well!!!!

58 posted on 01/03/2008 3:18:24 PM PST by logic (Support Duncan Hunter for the 2008 GOP presidential nominee. He is THE conservative candidate!!)
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To: in hoc signo vinces
There’s already precedent out there for him to get a check...the question is...how much?

Great!! So when the SCOTUS rules the 2nd an individual right I can get my city of Denver conviction for illegal possession of a firearm reversed and then get payment for the 5 days I spent in jail and reimbursement for my firearm they supposedly destroyed?

59 posted on 01/03/2008 3:23:36 PM PST by logic (Support Duncan Hunter for the 2008 GOP presidential nominee. He is THE conservative candidate!!)
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To: SkyDancer
the inmate was charged room and board for the time he spent in prison ....

That sounds more like the justice system I know...

60 posted on 01/03/2008 3:24:24 PM PST by logic (Support Duncan Hunter for the 2008 GOP presidential nominee. He is THE conservative candidate!!)
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