Posted on 05/19/2008 11:12:11 AM PDT by old-and-old
snip-- Blackburn said these wrongly convicted men get "a double-whammy screw job." He said there's little help from the government to transition back into society and they're still viewed as criminals once they're out of prison.
"They don't have any services available to them, not even $100 and a cheap suit," Blackburn said.
What happens to these men in the months and years after their release is an often overlooked story. These men find themselves starting life at middle age. CNN recently interviewed 15 of the 17 men who have been exonerated by DNA evidence in Dallas County since 2001.
Their stories are vastly different, but they do share common themes. There is little talk of bitterness and anger. But there is great mistrust of the world around them and immense frustration.
snip-- Entre Nax Karage, a 37-year-old Cambodian immigrant, was wrongfully convicted of murdering his girlfriend and spent seven years in prison. Karage is married now and has a 3-year-old daughter and the family is expecting a second child next month.
He finds occasional work as a security guard.
"I go and apply for a job and it keeps popping up on my record," said Karage. "It's pretty frustrating. I didn't even do it."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
we're talking about people who got jailed for something they didn't do, thanks to a Nifong out there.
bttt
I’d tell them to keep multiple copies of the news articles reporting their exoneration and attach them to the job app. Honesty is still the best policy, despite the inconvenience.
Yep. Welcome to the wonderful world of government. Screwed, whether free or jailed.
I saw the news about these guys. Felt terribly sorry for them. Now I would mind if the government gave them reparations.
Your advice is good advice. Certainly these are sad cases, but:
1. The lead of the story guy did get $190,000 to help him which he went through and became homeless.
2. The story does not distinguish between adjustment of people wrongly convicted who had no prior record and those who did. To me it is less a product of ones wrongful conviction if a former homeless petty thief returns to that life. [It does not make the wrongful conviction less wrong, but it make that lifestyle less of a product of the wrongful conviction.]
I think states should have a uniform rather than ad hoc policy on compensation.
Nifong deliberately pretended that a crime had been committed and deliberately charged three men whom he personally knew to be completely innocent of all charges against them.
In Entre Nax Karage's case, he was a 30 year old with a 14 year old girlfriend, a girlfriend who was found brutally murdered.
He had no alibi witness as to where he was at the time the crime was committed. Witnesses testified that she had other boyfriends besides karage, but that he was the last person she had been seen with alive.
Her blood was also found in his car.
Unlike Nifong there was actually a crime: a girl was murdered.
Unlike Nifong, you had someone who was the last person the victim was seen with, who was stautorily raping the victim by his own admission, who had no alibi.
Comparing Karage's prosecutors - who made an understandable mistake - with a man who deliberately engineered a fake prosecution against people he knew were innocent (because he knew there was no crime at all in the first place!) is not just pathetically low, it's also highly ironic.
I don't think compensation should be a point of "Policy" at all. Policies are bureaucratic decrees.
I think it should be a matter of civil statutes, and a decision for a judge and jury evaluating each case. One size does not fit all.
my comment was general, however, there have been quite a few “mistakes” over there.
And you either guilty or not. Not, OK, you’re out but you’re still a criminal because maybe you did it. The fact that was a girl was murdered means nothing; you either find the guilty person or leave it unsolved.
Or, alternately, never brought to trial.
Not, OK, you’re out but you’re still a criminal because maybe you did it.
A person may still be judged by his behavior and his actions.
The hard evidence against Scott Peterson, who was convicted of his wife's murder, was very slight. The jury basically found him guilty because he is a despicable person - there was no physical evidence whatever to tie him to his wife's murder.
Had one member of the jury opined that there was reasonable doubt, he would have walked away.
But most people would never want to hire him or have anything to do with him.
The fact that was a girl was murdered means nothing;
It's possible that her family might disagree with you: I certainly do.
Most women who are murdered are murdered by someone who knows them well - typically a boyfriend or a husband - so when a girl is found murdered, suspicion will naturally fall on the man who is statutorily raping her.
you either find the guilty person or leave it unsolved.
The prosecutors believed they had found the guilty person.
He had motive, he had opportunity, and he had no alibi.
People with no prior criminal record are not the ones who are wrongfully convicted of other crimes they did not do. That is the only way overzealous, misled D.A.’s target guys with previous records. They don’t target clean record individuals who would have the $$$ to hire a decent defense attorney to get them off.
I don’t know what your point is.
Would, or wouldn't?
We live in reality, not a CSI episode.
Jurors have to use their judgment.
When your underage girlfriend dies and your only alibi was that you were "out driving around by yourself" during the window of time she was killed, that's a pretty hard coincidence for a jury to swallow.
And, as I pointed out above, if the new standard of proof for guilt is restricted to usable DNA discovered at the scene of the crime, then Scott Peterson would never have gone to prison.
I don't feel sorry for the guy who blew through the $190,000. He could have had a good start on a new life.
Do we know that they have been exonerated by DNA evidence? Perhaps the DNA evidence just did not prove guilt.
Excellent point: often we have no idea.
What it sometimes means is that the DNA evidence gives the convict grounds for a new trial, and that the prosecutor believes that the DNA evidence will make the outcome of an expensive new trial hard to secure in court - thereby resulting in a dismissal of charges.
Thanks for clearing that up. I had forgotten that your feelings were the most salient aspect of this discussion.
Bottom line is that they didn't have any proof that he did it
There is no such thing as a mathematical proof of a criminal act.
Eyewitnesses can be mistaken. Bizarre coincidences do occur.
and "oh, the DA made an honest mistake" isn't going to fly
Of course it will. DAs are human beings and they make mistakes.
It is not the DA's job to provide the accused's defense attorney with arguments on behalf of his client's innocence.
The accused's attorney actually has to do his own job once in a while.
A mistaken prosecutor is a precious gift to a decent defense attorney.
And it may be that he shouldn't have. After all, neither of us were there. Whatever opinion you might hold, you certainly don't have any proof.
Indeed. And by the fictional and unattainable standard of proof that your television drama viewing habits have instilled in you, very few people in prison for murder would ever be locked up.
Essentially, as long as someone plans a murder well enough to kill someone while they are alone with their victim and spends some time cleaning up after themselves, then - by your standard - they should escape conviction.
Doesn't matter whether they have a strong motive. Doesn't matter if they can account for their whereabouts or not. No detectable bodily fluids, no foul.
>> Perhaps the DNA evidence just did not prove guilt.
Donna, they were freed. You’re not supposed to prove your innocence.
>> Essentially, as long as someone plans a murder well enough to kill someone while they are alone with their victim and spends some time cleaning up after themselves, then - by your standard - they should escape conviction.
beats just grabbing one of the street and saying “Here’s a life sentence of shame, beatings and rape. We know you did it, but we can’t prove it.”
The article said "exonerated by DNA evidence". I'm questioning the accuracy of that.
Oh, I see. Probably another man’s DNA found or something like that.
Indeed. It's called an "overturned conviction" - a black mark on a prosecutor's record, and a potential reason for demotion or dismissal.
I don't watch Television drama, or any other kind of television, in point of fact. I suppose it says something about you that I'm refuting your argument based on one of your own baseless assumptions.
Then please, tell me where you cultivated this belief that only ironclad DNA evidence can be proof of guilt. After all, the standard of scientific proof you are demanding wasn't even possible until a few years ago.
But none of this surprises me. Your statist tendencies have come out on this forum before.
In other words: "I can't argue your point, so I will call you names."
Sad stuff, JP81.
You realize, I hope, that there actually was a trial?
That Karage was allowed to have his own attorney to contradict and dissect the prosecution's case?
That Karage was entitled to full discovery of all the evidence proffered against him?
That his attorney was obligated to seek out any mistakes made by the prosecution?
That Karage was entitled to make his case before a jury of his peers?
You speak as if the prosecutor was both Karage's judge and juror, when he was actually neither.
cough North Carolina
Since when does having no alibi equal a conviction?
Perhaps I have missed something, but it seems as though you are arguing that when the state wrongly takes years of a citizen’s life, that no restitution need be made?
Ever heard of a legal concept know as making the victim whole?
Just wondering.
“They don’t target clean record individuals who would have the $$$ to hire a decent defense attorney to get them off.”
I fixed a minor, yet significant typo for you:
“They don’t target individuals who would have the $$$ to hire a decent defense attorney to get them off.”
Don't judge wideawake too harshly, just because he has difficulties understanding the concept of presumption of innocence
You are very naive about the legal process for convicting the accused in this country. You think the rule of law is applied equitably in courtrooms. You think a defendant is actually given the right to full discovery, and to make his case, and present all his alibis, and to put all his witnesses on the stand. You think if errors in a trial are made, that a defense attorney will clear them up after conviction. You think all the evidence is allowed to be presented.
You probably think that a 3 hour video tape of an interview with the accused prior to being actually charged with a crime, conducted by law enforcement, where the accused waives an attorney, repeatedly asks for a lie detector, and gives consistent, credible alibis for the times and dates of crimes, while maintaining his 100% innocence on every second of the tape, would actually be presented in court. You couldn’t imagine how a judge could legally get away with disallowing the jury to ever see one minute of that tape — to ever know about the defendant’s repeated request to be given a polograph — and to hear of his consistent and specific denial of his guilt from the first second of questioning. You think that’s illegal. That’s because it is. And it happened. And it happens more than what the public ever knows or hears about.
Welcome to the legal system, my friend. This isn’t Court TV. This is real life. If you think there are only 17 people in Texas who are sitting in prison doing hard time who are 100% not guilty of the crimes they were convicted of, you are quite naive. I don’t mean a little guilty— or overcharged — or oversentenced. I mean 100% wrong guy — mistaken identity - no other suspects ever looked at — because law enforcement and D.A.’s think they know it all — and aren’t about to find the real perps.
Those men will sit there and rot unless someone out “here” tells their story, and doesn’t shut up until they’re heard.
Hopefully this won’t happen to anyone reading this. But be careful about thinking that it couldn’t.
Were that it was only him!
NO ONE is safe from being convicted by a jury of people too stupid to get out of jury duty their peers. The prevailing attitude seems to be that they wouldn't have bothered to bring you to trial unless you were guilty, would they?
Have there ever been any demotions or dismissals for overturned convictions made via 'innocent' mistakes on the DA's part?
You got it right. The average juror doesn’t have a clue about “innocent until proven guilty”. Why do you think that 80% or more of criminal cases never make it to trial? They are plea-bargained out through blackmail and threats of what would happen if they take their chances at a trial. They quote the statistics of other people getting convicted and sentenced by a jury of similar crimes, and whether the accused is guilty or not, they agonize with their families and loved ones over whether they should risk their freedom and their future in the hands of 12 strangers sitting in a courtroom.
D.A.’s work their evil every single day playing games with people’s lives, and enjoying every minute of it. It gives them a rush — just like diving off a cliff or jumping out of an airplane. It’s sickening and evil, what they do to human lives every day in this country. Just wait until someone YOU know is accused of something on the word of one person, without any evidence — or because an image is found on their computer. Then watch their lives come apart in ways they never dreamed of. It’s revolting and disgusting.
Our criminal justice system is a joke — and is thoroughly perverted from the bottom up.
Barely two weeks ago...
wasn’t in NY that the jury wanted to go home for the holidays and convicted a black man for a crime, after deadlocking (I think it was in LI...murdered someone at his door last year)
so sorry — so you’re going through it with someone...so sorry...it’s hard..
happens all the time like that...happened to someone i know very well — read the transcripts myself. Super long case with tons of ridiculous false charges piled on — jury came back TWICE saying they were deadlocked and could not agree on ONE single charge. Judge kept telling them to go back and do your job! came back days later — saying guilty on all counts — jury interviewed after sentencing, said they just got worn down from a four month trial, even though they knew he got a raw deal. THEY were the ones who gave him a “raw deal” by their verdict — NOT the D.A.!!!! They also gave him a horrific sentence that mass murderers don’t get — even people who are caught red handed doing unspeakable crimes where there is no question they are guilty.
Stupid jurors....ruined a man’s life for nothing — because they were tired...sickening...
Turned out OK, they holstered their guns, uncuffed him, and graciously allowed him up off the curb after it became glaringly obvious that the accuser wasn’t were he could even see what he said he saw happen. That and he gave a verbal description before he saw my friend, and it didn’t match him (This didn’t stop him from accusing him though! Nor did the local constabulary have the wit to notice the total disconnect between the appearance as described, and in the flesh.)
The fact that he was discussing a business matter with an attorney when the event happened would have helped if the representatives of America’s finest had bothered to check.
He got off light, less than an hour of public humiliation. But for a different colored shirt, he’d probably still be trying to raise bail, and depending on an apathetic public defender.
Still, having a vivid demonstration of just how close we all are to jail time was rather sobering...
It doesn't. It's one of a number of factors that can equate to a conviction.
Perhaps I have missed something, but it seems as though you are arguing that when the state wrongly takes years of a citizen’s life, that no restitution need be made?
It really depends upon the circumstances of the case. In Karage's case, he would never have done jail time if he had not been sexually involved - at the age of 30 - with a child in the first place. There are risks to being a child molester.
Ever heard of a legal concept know as making the victim whole?
The victim, in this case, is the child Karage molested and someone else murdered.
Karage is not a victim - he's just a loser.
I hope you aren't judged to harshly for violating FR etiquette by discussing someone without pinging them.
The presumption of innocence refers to attitude judge and jury are to take when deliberating in session.
The police and prosecutors cannot very well do their jobs by assuming that every possible suspect is innocent and that the crime committed itself without human agency.
It is the job of law enforcement to be suspicious and it is the job of the court to be skeptical of law enforcement's suspicion.
I wish you were right, but I believe at least one of the Texas DNA reversals was for a guy with no priors who was wrongfully IDed by a woman who had been raped by a stranger. So my point is that cases vary from individual to individual in the real world.
Of course. All of us cannot be as omniscient as you are. If anyone disagrees with you, it must be due to naivete or worse.
You think the rule of law is applied equitably in courtrooms.
No, I know it is the job of all the parties to a criminal litigation to strive on their side's behalf. If a defense attorney is doing his job, the prosecutor will not be able to sustain specious arguments.
You think a defendant is actually given the right to full discovery
Of course he is. You apparently assume that discovery means that you are entitled to present everything you discover in court. Those are two separate matters.
and to make his case
Of course he is. Please cite a case for me where defense counsel was not allowed to speak at trial.
and present all his alibis and to put all his witnesses on the stand.
A vague term. If your alibi depends on a witness, and the witness will not testify on your behalf - well the witness has rights too, just like you do.
You think if errors in a trial are made, that a defense attorney will clear them up after conviction.
He certainly can - whether he will, of course, is a different matter. There is certainly nothing stopping him.
You think all the evidence is allowed to be presented.
What the prosecution considers evidence may not be considered evidence by the bench and the same goes for the defense.
If either side were allowed to define what evidence consists of, no trial would ever come to a conclusion.
You probably think that a 3 hour video tape of an interview with the accused prior to being actually charged with a crime, conducted by law enforcement, where the accused waives an attorney, repeatedly asks for a lie detector, and gives consistent, credible alibis for the times and dates of crimes, while maintaining his 100% innocence on every second of the tape, would actually be presented in court.
Why would I think that? It isn't evidence of anything. All it is is the defendant telling the authorities that he is innocent. He can get up on the witness stand and tell the jury that in person.
You couldn’t imagine how a judge could legally get away with disallowing the jury to ever see one minute of that tape — to ever know about the defendant’s repeated request to be given a polograph — and to hear of his consistent and specific denial of his guilt from the first second of questioning.
I can easily imagine it. What facts about the events in question does the tape disclose? None. All it would show is that the defendant insists that he is not guilty - which his courtroom plea would presumably have already shown. He would not be at trial in the first place if he were insisting that he was guilty instead.
You think that’s illegal. That’s because it is.
It's not illegal in the slightest to refuse this defense ploy. The tape is not probative of anything. It's the defense attempting to allow the defendant to testify on his own behalf by proxy on tape while avoiding actually testifying in person on his own behalf and having to submit to a cross-examination. It's a sneaky way of trying to allow the defendant to be the only witness to testify without having to be sworn in.
And it happened. And it happens more than what the public ever knows or hears about.
An informed member of the public would laugh every time he heard about someone trying to maneuver around the due process of law with the above gambit.
Welcome to the legal system, my friend. This isn’t Court TV. This is real life. If you think there are only 17 people in Texas who are sitting in prison doing hard time who are 100% not guilty of the crimes they were convicted of, you are quite naive.
There are almost 750,000 people in prison in TX. There are probably 1.5 million people in Texas who have been in prison. Are there more than 17 who are serving time for a crime which they did not specifically commit? I'm sure. But neither you nor I know the actual number.
I don’t mean a little guilty— or overcharged — or oversentenced. I mean 100% wrong guy — mistaken identity - no other suspects ever looked at — because law enforcement and D.A.’s think they know it all — and aren’t about to find the real perps.
Again, it's not all on the DA or the police. It's on the jury, the judge and the defense attorney too. And let's not forget the defendant. Going into court and claiming that even though the child you were molesting was murdered and even though you cannot prove your whereabouts at the time she was murdered, you are innocent.
Karage may not have been the guy who murdered her (and he may have been too, the DNA evidence did not rule him out - it simply demonstrated that someone else had the opportunity to murder her too, thereby creating reasonable doubt), but he was the guy molesting her.
Had he not been a child molester, he could have avoided this whole mess.
Those men will sit there and rot unless someone out “here” tells their story, and doesn’t shut up until they’re heard.
There are well-funded organizations that work around the clock using Ivy League attorneys to do just that.
Hopefully this won’t happen to anyone reading this. But be careful about thinking that it couldn’t.
Tomorrow isn't promised to any of us, and bizarre things can happen even to adults who do not take sexual advantage of children.
The last thing a prosecutor wants is an overturned conviction. At the least, it's a professional humiliation.
A prosecutor is highly motivated to bring charges against people whom they are convinced are guilty - they drop charges all the time without going to trial in cases they are not convinced of.
There is a difference between being wrongly arrested and wrongly convicted.
It's called attrition.
The attorney who is lead counsel on cases that tend to get overturned gets passed up for that promotion. He finds himself relegated to working on low-priority cases no one in the office cares about.
After a couple of years he realizes he has no future in the office and that he will not be allowed to handle anything important - and he leaves in frustration.
When a prospective new employer calls his old office to verify employment, the employer gets a terse response: "Yeah, he used to work here. [click]."
I think you just illustrated my point about juries assuming that if a case made it all the way to trial, the accused must be guilty.
You are correct.
Most of the Texas DNA exonerations come from cases where there was wrongful identification and not from prosecutorial misconduct.
The Texas DNA exonerations are also primarily 1980s cases which pre-date DNA testing. Today, those circumstances would not occur because DNA testing is done prior to trial and, where requested, the defense can do their own DNA testing.
I have served on juries made up largely of VERY average people without much formal education. I have found them to be generally sympathetic to defendants and skeptical of police and prosecutors to a degree that actually surprised me. They have been highly conscious of the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and some even seemed to take a defendant's denial of guilt, all by itself, as nearly equal to "reasonable doubt". My experiences serving on juries do not bear out your statement at all.
“... my point about juries assuming that if a case made it all the way to trial, the accused must be guilty.” I will say once again that my own experience with juries does not agree with this. Average people tend to be sympathetic to defendants and suspicious of police. When during voir dire, lawyers ask how many individuals on jury panels have had negative experiences with police, hands go up all over the courtroom. The prosecutor can strike only a limited number of these from the jury. Many get on, and they bring their experiences into the jury room during deliberations. I have seen this happen.
Juries assume that the prosecutor does not maliciously intend to waste his time and theirs and that guilt is therefore a real possibility.
Hence the need for jury instructions and the prerogative of challenges.
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