theindependent--2019-07-03--Police urged to axe facial recognition after research finds four of five apossuspectsapos are in

Police urged to axe facial recognition after research finds four of five 'suspects' are innocent

Scotland Yard has been urged to stop using facial recognition technology after independent research found that four out of five people identified as possible suspects were innocent.  Researchers at the University of Essex found that the Metropolitan Police’s live facial recognition (LFR) system was inaccurate in the huge majority of cases: the technology made only eight out of 42 matches correctly across six trials evaluated.  The report, commissioned by the Met, raised “significant concerns” that use of the controversial technology breaks human rights laws.  It also warned it is “highly possible” the use of facial recognition would be held unlawful if challenged in court.  The report’s authors, Professor Peter Fussey and Dr Daragh Murray, called for all Scotland Yard’s live trials of LFR to be ceased until the concerns are addressed.  Duncan Ball, the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner, said the force was “extremely disappointed with the negative and unbalanced tone” of the report – insisting the pilot had been successful.  The Neoface system uses special cameras to scan the structure of faces in a crowd of people to create a digital image, comparing the result against a watch list made up of pictures of people who have been taken into police custody.  If a match is found, officers at the scene where cameras are set up are alerted.  According to the Met’s website, the force has used the technology several times since 2016, including at Notting Hill Carnival that year and the following year.  Use of the facial recognition is currently under judicial review in Wales following the technology’s first ever legal challenge, brought against South Wales Police by Liberty.  Hannah Couchman, policy and campaigns officer for the civil rights group, renewed their calls for a ban on the technology after the research was published.  “This damning assessment of the Met’s trial of facial recognition technology only strengthens Liberty's call for an immediate end to all police use of this deeply invasive tech in public spaces,” she said.  “It would display an astonishing and deeply troubling disregard for our rights if the Met now ignored this independent report and continued to deploy this dangerous and discriminatory technology. We will continue to fight against police use of facial recognition which has no place on our streets.”  The report’s authors were granted access to the final six of 10 trials run by the Metropolitan Police, running from June last year to February 2019.  The research also highlighted concerns over criteria for the watch list as information was often not current, which saw police stopping people whose case had already been addressed.  It also found numerous operational failures and raised a number of concerns regarding “consent, public legitimacy and trust”.  Dr Murray said: “This report raises significant concerns regarding the human rights law compliance of the trials. The legal basis for the trials was unclear and is unlikely to satisfy the ‘in accordance with the law’ test established by human rights law.  “It does not appear that an effective effort was made to identify human rights harms or to establish the necessity of LFR. Ultimately, the impression is that human rights compliance was not built into the Metropolitan Police’s systems from the outset, and was not an integral part of the process.”  Deputy Commissioner Ball responded to the report: “This is new technology, and we’re testing it within a policing context.  “The Met’s approach has developed throughout the pilot period, and the deployments have been successful in identifying wanted offenders.  “We believe the public would absolutely expect us to try innovative methods of crime fighting in order to make London safer.”


theindependent--2019-08-25--Innocent man jailed for 82 days and loses jobs for bringing three jars of honey back to US

Which is why during his Christmas visit to relatives in Jamaica, he made his regular stop and bought three bottles from a favourite roadside stand before heading home to Maryland.  It was a routine purchase for him until he landed at the airport in Baltimore.  US customs officers detained Mr Haughton and police arrested him, accusing him of smuggling in not honey, but liquid methamphetamine.  Mr Haughton spent nearly three months in jail before all charges were dropped and two rounds of law enforcement lab tests showed no controlled substances in the bottles.  By then, Mr Haughton, who according to his lawyer had no criminal record, had lost both of his jobs as a cleaner and a construction worker.  “They messed up my life,” Mr Haughton said. “I want the world to know that the system is not right. If I didn’t have strong people around me, they would probably leave me in jail. You’re lost in the system.”  Months after his release, he is only now fully rebuilding his life after the setback devastated him and his family of six children.  Mr Haughton’s status as a legal permanent resident with a green card complicated his case.  Because he was arrested at an airport for alleged drug felonies, his case triggered a federal detention order that extended his time in jail, court testimony shows.  Twenty days after his arrest, a state police lab test looking for drugs in the bottles came up negative.  Yet the 45-year-old father sat behind bars for two more months before the last of the charges were dropped after a second all-clear in a federal lab test.  “Someone dropped the ball somewhere,” Mr Haughton’s lawyer Terry Morris said. “An innocent man spent 82 days in jail for bringing honey into the United States.”  After landing at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on 29 December at around 10pm, US Customs and Border Protection detained Mr Haughton for more than two hours before Maryland Transportation Authority Police put him in handcuffs, according to charging documents.  The bottles with gold-coloured screw tops labelled “honey” in his bag, they told him, had tested positive in a drug field test for methamphetamine.  Mr Haughton fainted. Police took him to a hospital. Then they took him to jail.  Every year for the nearly 10 years since Mr Haughton has been living in Prince George’s County, the native of Jamaica travels to the island in December to visit his mother.  The green card holder never had any problem returning to Maryland until last year, when a police dog unit started sniffing around his bag.  Mr Haughton thought the dog was interested in his leftover chicken. But Mr Haughton said he quickly noticed agents and officers whispering to one another before disappearing behind a screen. When they returned, a man took Mr Haughton away. His bag didn’t come with him.  Police in charging documents said a dog named Beny conducted a “random scan” and alerted to possible drugs.  “Inside the bag were three large plastic bottles labelled as ‘honey’ of suspected liquid methamphetamine,” charging documents said.  Mr Haughton and Mr Morris contend he was stereotyped because of his race. Authorities, Mr Haughton’s lawyer said, questioned him about “a big Jamaican gang and drug-dealing conspiracy”.  “I’m 100 per cent sure I don’t have drugs,” Mr Haughton recalled telling the agents. “I only have honey.”  Mr Haughton had given up sugar years ago but drinks honey with his tea.  He prefers honey from a particular bee farm in Jamaica because it is cheaper and “more pure” and always asks friends visiting the island to bring him back some.  Carey Phillips, Mr Haughton’s girlfriend, said that when he didn’t come home from his Jamaica trip, she assumed he had extended his stay as he had done in the past and couldn’t get in touch with her.  But days later she got a letter from the Anne Arundel County detention centre from Mr Haughton.  “I was shocked,” Ms Phillips said. “It seems unreal to me. If someone does a crime, you understand, but if there’s nothing, that time is wasted.”  Mr Haughton – facing at least 25 years in jail – appeared in court for a bail review two days after his arrest.  A public defender at the hearing said Mr Haughton had no prior convictions and had lived in the area for the past nine years. A judge agreed to let him go on work release, court files and recordings of the hearing show.  But more than three weeks later, Mr Haughton was still behind bars.  The drug charges triggered detention orders from customs officials, Mr Haughton’s lawyer said.  Although the Maryland State Police lab returned test results on the bottles that indicated “No CDS detected” on 17 January, and although prosecutors had dropped the three felony drug counts on 23 January, Mr Haughton was still facing a misdemeanour charge for possession of a controlled dangerous substance, or CDS.  Mr Haughton asked to be released on 24 January at his second bail review, but Anne Arundel County District Court judge Laura Robinson worried he would not appear for trial.  “The problem is I can’t let him go to ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] because he would be deported potentially,” the judge said, according to a recording of the hearing. “Even if I released you, you still wouldn’t necessarily be released. You would go into federal detention.”  Mr Haughton was sent back to jail, appearing in court for a third bail review on 5 February.  Mr Morris, Mr Haughton’s lawyer, told the judge that Mr Haughton should be released because the immigration detainer was triggered by the felony charges, which had been dropped.  The federal government was in the middle of last winter’s shutdown, and Mr Morris said he couldn’t reach anyone at immigration and customs enforcement to lift the detainer.  “The thing that’s going to end up happening, and they’re going to realise it is, it’s just honey,” Mr Morris said during the bail review. “He’s been in jail for 30 days for honey.”  The judge said she would consider releasing Mr Haughton on his own recognisance but only if the federal government pulled the detention order.  “The ICE detainer is really prohibitive,” the judge said. “I’m kind of up against it on the ICE detainer.”  Had Mr Haughton been stopped at any other location, according to multiple immigration lawyers, federal authorities probably would not have issued a detainer for him.  But because Mr Haughton was stopped at a port of entry at an airport, the felony charges probably triggered “inadmissibility proceedings”, which require only that law enforcement officials have “reason to believe” someone is a drug trafficker to trigger possible deportation proceedings, according to the immigration lawyers.  The standard, however, is “murky”, said Adina Appelbaum, programme director of the Immigration Impact Lab at the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (Cair) Coalition.  As a basis for removing someone from the country, it is “concerning” because “of how broadly it can be interpreted and applied”, Ms Appelbaum said.  “More broadly, this case demonstrates the disproportionate consequences that criminal offences and allegations can have in the immigration realm, including for people who have lawful status for a green card.”  Emma Winger, a staff attorney for the American Immigration Council, said Mr Haughton’s case is unusual in that he was detained over honey, but not surprising in other respects.  “It’s not unusual that people who are held in criminal custody with ICE detainers have their detentions prolonged and then the charges are dismissed,” Ms Winger said.  Ms Winger, like Mr Morris, said the detainer for Mr Haughton probably should have been dropped when the felony drug trafficking charges disappeared.  “Once it was down to possession and not drug dealing, that seems like a good reason to drop the detainer,” Ms Winger said.  But, she added, “it’s a little bit fuzzier because in theory, all [ICE] needs to charge under this ground of inadmissibility is that they had probable cause” to believe Mr Haughton was a drug trafficker who should be barred entry.  Mr Morris said he attempted to reach ICE multiple times to get the detention order lifted but couldn’t make contact.  Both Ms Appelbaum and Ms Winger said they are not surprised.  It is generally difficult to reach someone at ICE to lift detainers for what may be considered low-priority cases, and during the shutdown, Ms Appelbaum said, “there was a lot of chaos and no responses”.  When asked about the case, customs officials directed The Washington Post to Maryland Transportation Authority Police, which directed a reporter to prosecutors in the Anne Arundel County state’s attorney’s office.  Prosecutors answered some questions about their case but directed reporters to the Department of Homeland Security over questions on Mr Haughton’s detainer.  ICE then directed reporters back to customs, where Steve Sapp, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, said privacy laws prohibit the agency “from discussing specifics of any individual traveller’s arrivals inspection”.  Mr Haughton recalls the emotions, the stress and the pain in his children’s voices when they spoke on the phone while he was incarcerated.  “It broke me right down,” Mr Haughton said. “Every time, they asked, ‘When are you coming home?’”  In explaining the need for two rounds of lab tests, Anne Arundel County state’s attorney Anne Colt Leitess said in an interview that the Maryland State Police crime lab is not equipped to analyse honey or liquid, so its results wouldn’t have cleared Mr Haughton.  Because the first test came up negative, she said, the state dropped the three felony drug charges but maintained the misdemeanour charge based on the police dog's findings and the positive field test while law enforcement sent the bottles to a Homeland Security lab in Georgia for more testing.  “The ICE detainer is really what is holding him,” Ms Leitess said. “He was not being held on anything with us.”  For weeks, Mr Morris emailed prosecutors asking for the status of the lab test out of Georgia.  Then, at a court hearing on 21 March – a month and a half after Mr Haughton’s third bail review and nearly three months after his initial arrest – prosecutors dropped the final charge.  Ms Leitess said her office had no control over how quickly the second test results arrived but that it dropped the last charge against Mr Haughton immediately after learning them.  Mr Haughton said he’s been trying to get his life back in order. He has a job driving a bread truck after losing his previous jobs while in jail.  And his children are trying to improve their grades after the trauma of his disappearance affected their schoolwork.  Mr Haughton says he is constantly trying to reassure his children – one of whom burst into tears when Mr Haughton came home because she didn’t recognise her father – that he isn’t going to vanish again.  But some scars, Mr Haughton said, won’t go away.  “I’m scared to even travel right now,” he said. “You’re innocent, and you can end up in jail.”


theindependent--2019-11-11--Rodney Reed: Rihanna, Beyonce and Meek Mill sign petition to stop execution of 'innocent'

Rodney Reed: Rihanna, Beyonce and Meek Mill sign petition to stop execution of 'innocent' man

Rihanna, Cass McCombs, Pusha T, Questlove, Beyonce and Meek Mill are among the high-profile stars who have signed a viral petition calling to halt Texas inmate Rodney Reed‘s execution.  The 51-year-old is currently scheduled for execution on 20 November for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in Bastrop, Texas. However, new information has arisen that could potentially exonerate Reed, who was convicted by an all-white jury in 1998 (Mr Reed is black).  The petition is to rescind his death warrant and ensure he is granted a new trial.  In a statement posted on her website, Beyonce urged Texas governor Greg Abbott to take a “hard look” at the evidence that points to Reed’s innocence.  “Be honest,” she wrote. “Be fair. Give him back his life.”  Rihanna shared the petition and called on her followers to sign as well, tweeting: “One click! SIGN this petition if you don’t believe the government should kill an innocent man!”  In an article published by The New York Times, it was revealed that at least three people have come forward with new testimony regarding Ms Stites’ fiance, Jimmy Fennell – a former police officer who was released from prison in 2018. A decade earlier, he pleaded guilty to kidnapping a woman he encountered while on duty. The woman claimed he also raped her.  A sworn affidavit by a man who served a sentence in the same prison as Mr Fennell said he heard him confess to the murder of Ms Stites, and alleged that Mr Fennell bragged about killing her because she had cheated on him with a black man. Mr Fennell’s lawyer said he denies killing Ms Stites.  Mr Reed’s lawyers say witnesses have since corroborated the existence of an affair between him and Ms Stites.  His lawyers are pleading with Governor Abbott to delay the execution by 30 days, and to order the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to investigate the possibility of commuting his sentence.


theindependent--2019-11-13--Rodney Reed: Urgent appeals to save 'innocent' death row inmate with week until execution,

Rodney Reed: Urgent appeals to save 'innocent' death row inmate with week until execution, as Republicans join campaign

A death row inmate has appealed to supporters to continue pushing for a retrial just a week before his scheduled for execution.  Rodney Reed, who lawyers contend was wrongly convicted of raping and strangling 19-year-old Stacy Stites in 1996 by an all-white jury, has just seven days left to live if his appeal is not granted by Texas governor Greg Abbott.  A petition supporting his claim has been endorsed by celebrities like Beyonce, Susan Sarandon and Kim Kardashian-West and politicians on both sides of the political divide.  “One thing that I really missed was really being a father to my kids – and having an opportunity to be grandfather to my grandchildren," he told the Wrongful Conviction podcast.  “I just look forward to being out there with my family. With my friends, with my loved ones with my supporters".  He added: “On November 20 the state of Texas is trying to take my life, trying to execute me – strap me to a table and inject my body with poisons. Don’t stay back and let this happen just, stay up and stay involved”.  Reed has long contended that Stites was killed by her fiancé, former police officer Jimmy Fennell – who he claims was angry after discovering his white partner was having an affair with a black man.  Mr Reed's attorneys have presented testimonies that support his claim, including one from a former prison inmate who claims Mr Fennell bragged about killing Ms Stites.  Reed's brother, Rodrick Reed, told the podcast: “I have great faith and hope and confidence that he is going to come home alive and well – I believe that. I have to believe that. I can’t put anything negative into my mind. I can’t use my energy in that way”.  The decision will come down to Governor Abbott, an ardent Republican and supporter of the death penalty who has previously referred to the punishment as “Texas justice”.  He has only spared a man’s life once while overseeing the execution of almost 50 prisoners.  But alongside celebrities and a petition signed by almost 3 million people, pressure to grant clemency is also coming from his political allies.  In a letter to Mr Abbott this week, more than a dozen Republicans said that getting it wrong with Reed could "erode public trust — not only in capital punishment, but in Texas justice itself."  Republican State Representative James White, who has served in the legislature for nearly a decade said: "We have a lot of executions, right? We're Texas. This probably is the first one I've directly reached out to the attorney general's office and the governor's office on.  "Not on the prospect that I believe that Mr Reed is innocent. But I do believe there is a lot of information and evidence that does deserve to be vetted."


theindependent--2019-11-18--Sedley Alley: Man executed 13 years ago may be proven innocent by DNA

Sedley Alley was strapped to a gurney and put to death in 2006, convicted of killing a 19-year-old Marine two decades earlier.  Alley had confessed to the slaying of lance corporal Suzanne Collins, but later said his confession was coerced.  Now, a nonprofit legal group dedicated to clearing the wrongly convicted hopes DNA evidence may be used to exonerate the man 13 years after his execution.  Since the early 1990s, 22 death row inmates around the US have been absolved of crimes through DNA evidence.  If the Innocence Project succeeds with Alley, it will be the first time anyone has used such evidence to exonerate a person who has already been executed.  Collins was stationed at the former Memphis Naval Air Station in Millington when she went jogging in a nearby park in July 1985.  Her body was discovered early the next day. She had been beaten, raped and mutilated.  Shortly before Alley was led to the execution chamber and given a lethal injection June 2006, Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck helped argue for DNA evidence testing.  But at the time, the request was denied and Alley, who had spent two decades on Tennessee's death row, was put to death at the age of 50.  That might have been the end of the story if Mr Scheck had not received a call earlier this year from investigators in St. Louis. He said they wanted to discuss a possible connection between Collins and Thomas Bruce, who is jailed in Missouri and charged with sexually assaulting two women and killing a third at a Catholic Supply store there about a year ago.  Mr Scheck said investigators had told him Bruce attended the same avionics course as Collins in Millington, Tennessee.  Mr Scheck reached out to Alley's daughter, April Alley, who agreed to petition for DNA evidence testing on behalf of her father's estate.  Along with her brother, April Alley witnessed her father's execution.  They had their hands up against the glass as he spoke his last words, telling them he loved them and to “stay strong”.  April Alley has been reluctant to talk about her effort to get DNA testing, but when she filed the petition in May, she spoke to reporters briefly.  “Watching my father die was so painful,” she said. “I'm hoping I can get the answer, one way or another, that I want.”  Shelby County Criminal Court Judge Paula Skahan heard arguments in the case last month and promised to rule on the petition Monday.  Shelby County District Attorney Amy Weirich said in an email after the petition was filed that Sedley Alley's case and conviction were repeatedly scrutinised by the courts over 21 years, and his guilt was established with “absolute certainty”.  At the hearing last month, Assistant District Attorney Steve Jones argued the state's DNA analysis law allows only the person convicted of the crime to request testing. He also argued that even if DNA from a third party were found on some of the evidence, it would not prove Alley was innocent.  Alley was convicted based on “a combination of factors that corroborated his confession,” Jones said.  Mr Scheck has said Alley's confession did not match the crime scene evidence. For example, Alley said he hit Collins with his car, but Collins hadn't been run over.  In court last month, Scheck argued that it was a matter of justice to test the DNA evidence, noting the court has the power to order the testing.  Evidence they want tested includes a pair of men's underwear recovered at the scene.  “April Alley wants to know the truth. She has the courage to seek the truth,” Mr Scheck said at the hearing. “DNA testing can ... provide that truth.”


theindependent--2019-11-26--Three innocent men released after 36 years in prison for crime they did not commit

Three men who spent 36 years behind bars for a murder they did not commit have been released, after they managed to unearth new evidence from prison.  Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins and Andrew Stewart were teenagers when they were arrested in November 1983 over the murder of 14-year-old DeWitt Duckett in Baltimore, Maryland.  The pupil was shot in the neck and killed for his Georgetown University basketball jacket while walking to a lesson at Harlem Park Junior High School.  Mr Chestnut and Mr Watkins, who were 16 at the time, and Mr Stewart, who was 17, were playing truant from another school to visit former friends and teachers at Harlem Park on the day of the killing, according to CNN.  A security guard testified that he kicked the trio out and watched them walk up the street before locking the school doors at about 12.45pm – half an hour before the shooting, the news channel reports.  The three friends were convicted of the killing based on witness testimonies and a Georgetown University jacket found in Mr Chestnut’s bedroom.  The jacket, however, reportedly had no traces of blood or gunshot residue, and Mr Chestnut’s mother had produced a receipt showing she had bought it recently.  They trio always maintained their innocence and were denied early release from prison because they refused to confess to the shooting.  The case was eventually reopened earlier this year after Mr Chestnut, who never gave up fighting for a review, filed a public records request and uncovered evidence withheld from the defence team and jury during their trial, CNN reports.  Mr Chestnut sent a letter including the new evidence to Baltimore City State attorney Marilyn Mosby’s Conviction Integrity Unit.  Prosecutors now say police reports show multiple witnesses told police that a different suspect, who was 18 at the time of the crime, was the shooter.  One student reported seeing him flee the scene and dump a gun as police arrived at the school, but authorities at the time focused their investigation on the trio.  The new suspect, who was shot dead in 2002, was also allegedly seen wearing Mr Duckett’s jacket and confessing to the murder after the shooting, another witness said.  An assistant prosecutor working on the case told the court in 1984 that the state did not have any reports that would have raised doubts about the three defendants’ guilt, even though police records had statements involving the 18-year-old and also showed trial witnesses had failed to identify the teenagers in photo line-ups.  A judge sealed those documents, but they were among the information Mr Chestnut obtained last year.  Mr Chestnut, Mr Watkins and Mr Stewart were released from custody hours after a judge cleared their convictions and prosecutors dropped the charges on Monday.  Circuit Court Judge Charles Peters told the men: “On behalf of the criminal justice system, and I’m sure this means very little to you gentlemen, I’m going to apologise”, the Baltimore Sun reported.  Ms Mosby said the result was a “tragedy”, not a “victory”.  Shawn Armbrust, executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, which represents Mr Watkins, said: “Everyone involved in this case – school officials, police, prosecutors, jurors, the media, and the community – rushed to judgment and allowed their tunnel vision to obscure obvious problems with the evidence.  “This case should be a lesson to everyone that the search for quick answers can lead to tragic results.”


theintercept--2019-03-13--There Are Innocent People on Death Row Citing Wrongful Convictions California Governor Halts Ex

“There Are Innocent People on Death Row” — Citing Wrongful Convictions, California Governor Halts Executions

signed Wednesday morning, California Gov. Gavin Newsom imposed a moratorium on executions and ordered the death chamber at San Quentin Prison — unused following a $853,000 renovation a decade ago — closed. “We are, as I speak — as I speak — shutting down, removing the equipment in the death chamber at San Quentin,” Newsom said at a press conference at the state capitol in Sacramento.  In remarks that emphasized racial disparities and the risk of executing innocent people, Newsom described his decision as the culmination of “a 40-year journey” that began when he was just a child. His grandfather introduced him to Pete Pianezzi, who came close to receiving the death penalty in 1940 after being set up by the mob. Pianezzi was eventually pardoned in 1981, at the age of 79. But wrongful convictions remain a profound danger. “You had someone just last year that was released from death row after serving 26 years in San Quentin,” he said, referring to the case of Vicente Benavides, exonerated in April 2018.  Newsom’s order leaves intact the sentences of all 737 condemned people in the state, the largest death row in the country. It also does nothing to stop prosecutors from seeking new death sentences, something California district attorneys have proven eager to do. In this sense, Newsom’s announcement merely formalizes the status quo in a state whose death penalty system has come to be defined by disarray — and where no executions have been carried out in more than 13 years.  Nevertheless, the governor’s language against the death penalty was passionate and unambiguous, suggesting that he could take more decisive action in the future. He explained that he felt no choice but to act now upon being confronted with the question of whether he would continue the efforts of the previous administration to adopt a viable lethal injection protocol. “I would be lying if I said I could support that,” he said. In addition, he said, there are 25 people on death row who have exhausted their appeals, raising the possibility that he would have to oversee their executions, something he would be unwilling to do.  Newsom’s move comes just a few years after California actually voted to hasten executions in the state. Voters in the 2016 election were faced with confusing, dueling ballot initiatives: Proposition 66, which sought to revamp the system in order to speed up executions (a measure strongly supported by law enforcement), and Proposition 62, which sought to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life without parole. Then-Gov. Jerry Brown stayed mum on the issue as did Kamala Harris, then the state’s attorney general and now a U.S. senator and Democratic candidate for president. But Newsom, at that time the state’s lieutenant governor, came out forcefully in favor of abolition, writing that the death penalty was “fundamentally immoral.” When the votes were counted, Prop 62 had failed and Prop 66 had passed by the narrowest of margins.  As predicted at the time, legal challenges have blocked the implementation of Prop 66. Today, California is one of several death penalty states where executions remain stalled with no sign of restarting. In Pennsylvania, which has not used its death chamber since 1999, Gov. Tom Wolf declared a moratorium on executions in 2015, calling the death penalty “ineffective, unjust, and expensive.” Moratoriums have also remained in place in Oregon and Colorado, two states on the cusp of abolishing executions altogether.  Even the most active death penalty states have been continually mired in controversy and litigation over execution protocols. In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine recently announced a pause on executions while the state weighs alternatives to its lethal injection protocol. The decision came soon after he granted a reprieve to Warren Keith Henness in January, citing concerns by a federal judge that the execution would be akin to torture.  In many ways, California’s death penalty system is emblematic of the state of capital punishment nationwide. As in much of the country, people on death row in the state are more likely to die from illness, suicide, or old age than they are to be executed. California’s last execution took place in January 2006, when it put to death 76-year-old Clarence Ray Allen, the oldest person ever executed by the state. Allen, who was diabetic and legally blind, was brought to the death chamber in a wheelchair. Soon after Allen’s execution, a challenge to the state’s lethal injection protocol brought the system to a halt.  Yet California prosecutors continued to seek death sentences — 180 people were sent to death row between 2006 and 2015, the last year for which the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has posted data. Since California reauthorized the death penalty in 1978, death sentences have rarely led to executions. According to data compiled by The Intercept, at least 72 people on death row have had their sentences reduced to life with or without parole and at least 11 have been released from prison, including six who were ultimately exonerated. And the row continues to gray: Fifty-three percent are 50 or older; 79 people have died awaiting execution. Twenty-six have killed themselves.  Nevertheless, prosecutors continue to insist that the death penalty is effective and necessary. The Association of Deputy District Attorneys lambasted Newsom’s order as “hasty and ill-considered,” saying that it violates the will of the people. “The voters of the State of California support the death penalty,” ADDA President Michele Hanisee said, saying that this was “powerfully demonstrated by their approval of Proposition 66 in 2016.” In an interview with The Intercept that year, Hanisee said that hastening executions was about delivering justice to victims, not about clearing the growing backlog of people awaiting execution. “I don’t think the goal is to clear death row,” she said at the time. “That would be perverse.”  News of the governor’s moratorium came as a pleasant surprise to Donald Heller, the veteran California attorney who wrote the 1978 ballot initiative that created California’s current death penalty law. Heller told The Intercept in 2016 that he was dismayed at the way the law was applied, particularly in the case of Tommy Thompson, a man executed in 1998 — and who Heller firmly believed was innocent.  Heller was in Boston and had not yet heard the news about Newsom’s planned announcement when The Intercept reached him on Tuesday night. “I applaud what he’s doing,” he said. “It shows courage and a belief that capital punishment should eventually be abolished.” Heller was an outspoken supporter of Prop 34, the predecessor to the abolitionist initiative defeated in 2016. At that time, he recalled, “it was estimated we had spent $4 billion executing 13 people, which is truly insane.” Today, the estimate has climbed to $5 billion.  Heller calls the ballot initiative he authored in the late 1970s “a colossal failure, because it didn’t function as intended.” Rather than make the death penalty apply to only the most egregious crimes, “it filled death row — and so many cases have been overturned for reasons that dealt with ineffective assistance of counsel. It’s just not effective — and I’m convinced it’s not a deterrent.”  Darryl Stallworth, a former prosecutor turned defense attorney in Oakland who campaigned for Prop 62, was “absolutely delighted” at Newsom’s decision. Stallworth came to oppose the death penalty after prosecuting a young black man in a capital case that ultimately ended with a sentence of life without parole. After 27 years working in the justice system, he has returned time and again to “the fundamental understanding that the death penalty does not deter crime, it does not save lives, it does not provide closure, it subjects people to an awful lot of disproportionate treatment based on color, class, gender,” he said. “It is a system that does not have the proper mechanisms to make sure that they get it right, and even if they do, oftentimes it’s still not constitutional.” Stallworth called capital punishment a “scar” on the nation’s laws. “I’m happy that the governor has recognized the scar, the taint, the damage that it has left on the criminal justice system.”  As Newsom made clear at the Wednesday press conference, the enduring unfairness inherent in the death penalty was what forced him to act. More than 60 percent of California’s death row population are people of color; overall, 61 percent of Californians are white. “Our death penalty system has been — by any measure — a failure,” Newsom said. “It has discriminated against defendants who are mentally ill, black and brown, or can’t afford expensive legal representation.” It does not act as a deterrent and has wasted billions, he said. “But most of all, the death penalty is absolute. Irreversible and irreparable in the event of human error.”  And there are lingering questions about the impact of human error — and of bias and corruption — in a number of California cases, including that of Kevin Cooper, who has been on death row since he was convicted in 1985 of a grisly quadruple murder in Chino Hills. There are serious reasons to question Cooper’s guilt — and to believe that he was framed by law enforcement — and he has long sought DNA testing in an effort to clear his name. But Kamala Harris refused to allow the testing during her time as attorney general — and then Jerry Brown dragged his heels until the last days of his administration, when he finally issued an executive order providing limited testing and consideration of disputed evidence. In February, Newsom widened the scope of the testing.


themanchestereveningnews--2019-03-29--Property developer tried to blame innocent employee for dishonestly claiming almost 50000 in tax

Property developer tried to blame innocent employee for dishonestly claiming almost £50,000 in tax

A property developer who dishonestly claimed almost £50,000 in VAT tried to pin the blame on an innocent employee before admitting it was him.  Mark Fishwick, 49, from Northenden , failed to admit that he'd submitted fraudulent tax returns and dishonestly claimed VAT repayments.  But HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) found Fishwick deliberately stole the money to improve the cash flow of his business.  Fishwick was the company director of Ecobuild (M/C) Ltd - a commercial and residential property builder and developer.  The company was based on King Street West, in Stockport , but was liquidated in December last year.  On the Ecobuild website, the firm claim to have over '30 years of experience' with 'trusted builders'.  It emerged that between October 2016 and August 2017, Fishwick stole £49,000 in total from the taxpayer.  Fishwick, of Shawdene Road, Northenden, admitted VAT fraud and was sentenced to 18 months in jail, suspended for two years at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court on Friday.  He was disqualified as a company director for four years and ordered to complete 250 hours of unpaid work.  Following the case, Tim Atkins, an assistant director at the Fraud Investigation Service of HMRC, said: “Fishwick used taxpayers’ money to try and keep his own business afloat. He even attempted to shift the blame to an innocent employee before accepting that it was all his doing.  “VAT fraud steals money from vital public services. This money is equivalent to the starting salary of two paramedics for a year.  "We ask anyone with information about suspected tax fraud to contact our Fraud Hotline on 0800 788 887.”


thesun--2019-02-14--Pregnant teen and husband burglars killed in A40 police chase were INNOCENT and due to have thei

Pregnant teen and husband ‘burglars’ killed in A40 police chase ‘were INNOCENT’ and due to have their baby on Valentine’s Day

A PREGNANT teen and her husband who were accused of being “burglars” after being killed in a police chase were INNOCENT and were due to have their baby TODAY.  Patrick McDonagh, 19, and his 18-year-old wife Shauna, died on the A40 near East Acton in West London at about 9pm on Sunday.  The car they were in was on the wrong side of the road when they were killed in a head-on collision with a coach.  A second man who was travelling in the car was taken to hospital.  Around 20 minutes earlier police had been called to reports of an aggravated burglary in Harrow and began a road chase.  But cops have now revealed the newlyweds were not present at the time of the burglary they were later linked to.  The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has said it is understood that officers were pursuing the car, a Renault Scenic, for about 10 minutes but terminated the pursuit prior to the crash.  An IOPC statement said: "It has now been confirmed, as part of a separate police investigation, that the occupants of the Renault were not present at the time of an aggravated burglary reported to have taken place in Harrow."  The IOPC said its investigation would look at "the information the police had and the rationale for the pursuit".  A family statement said: "Patrick and Shauna were a young couple who had recently got married and were very much in love.  "Patrick was a devoted husband to Shauna and they were very much looking forward to the birth of their daughter Sienna Marie who was due to be born on Valentine's Day."  A National Police Air Service helicopter was tracking the Renault when it crashed.  Accounts from officers, along with footage from the helicopter, police cars, body-worn video, CCTV and in-car data are among the evidence being gathered by investigators.  The Metropolitan Police made a mandatory referral to the IOPC later on Sunday.  IOPC regional director Jonathan Green said: "My thoughts are with the families and friends of Patrick and Shauna, those injured and all those affected by this incident.  "It is important that we now establish all of the circumstances surrounding this collision.  "We have therefore launched an independent investigation into the events leading to the collision and immediately deployed our investigators to attend the scene and the post-incident procedure."  We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.


thesun--2019-02-24--Innocent man 71 who WRONGLY spent 40 YEARS in jail for murdering his ex-girlfriend and her son win

Innocent man, 71, who WRONGLY spent 40 YEARS in jail for murdering his ex-girlfriend and her son wins £16million payout

AN innocent man who spent nearly forty years in prison for the murder of his ex- girlfriend and her son has been awarded £16 million compensation.  Craig Coley was jailed in 1978 for killing Rhonda Wicht, and her 4-year-old son, Donald, at their apartment near Los Angeles.  The 71-year-old always maintained his innocence, and was pardoned in 2017 by California’s then-governor, Jerry Brown, based on DNA evidence found by investigators.  Officials in the city of Simi Valley officials the compensation would spare Coley lengthy legal action.  "While no amount of money can make up for what happened to Mr. Coley, settling this case is the right thing to do for Mr. Coley and our community," said City Manager Eric Levitt.  California authorities awarded Coley £1.5 million last year - or just under £110 for each day he spent in prison – which he spent buying a home.  With the money from the final settlement he will also be able visit places on his bucket list and continue to help the wrongfully convicted, his friend Mike Bender said.  “He’s looking forward to being able to live his life. No one would want to trade places with him,” said Mr Bender, a former Simi Valley police detective.    The city's police chief and Ventura County's district attorney asked Brown to pardon him because  tests showed Coley's DNA was not on the victim's bedsheet.  The sheet contained DNA from an unknown man and Coley had an alibi for the time of the murders. Investigators later disproved testimony from an eyewitness who placed him at the scene.  His parents died while he was in prison after mortgaging their home to pay his legal bills.  Coley’s lawyer Ron Kaye said the settlement offers some closure and vindication for his client, though no amount of money can compensate him for the life he missed while imprisoned.  "He now can live the rest of his life, which we hope will be really well into the future, with the security he deserves," Kaye said.  Simi Valley police have not arrested anyone else in the killings.  Since his release, Coley has spoken to law enforcement officials about evidence collection, and has met with parents of prisoners who maintain their innocence.  More than 350 U.S. inmates have been exonerated by DNA testing since 1989, according to New York-based the Innocence Project, which helps people who were wrongfully convicted.  On average, convicts who were freed had served 14 years in prison when exonerated.  We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.'


thesun--2019-04-08--How this loving family photo cleared innocent rape suspect accused by his evil fantasist ex-girlfrie

How this loving family photo cleared innocent rape suspect accused by his evil fantasist ex-girlfriend after it proved a rock-solid alibi during four-month jail hell

THIS loving family photograph finally cleared a man who was jailed after his evil ex-partner wrongly accused him of raping her.  The picture of Dan Jones with his newborn nephew proved to be a solid alibi when Sarah Jane Parkinson claimed her partner had attacked and sexually assaulted her.  But the former prison guard endured four hellish months in a maximum security jail before the picture emerged.  Dan, of New South Wales, Australia, met Parkinson in 2011 and they got engaged after just a few months of dating.  Determined to live with his future wife, Dan bought a house and the couple moved in together.  But Parkinson, a police clerical assistant, began to concoct lies that he was violent towards her in a bid to claim their home, 9news.com.au reports.  It's alleged she told her work colleagues that her fiance was abusing her, leaving her with brusies.  But she failed to mention that she suffered a heart condition that made her dizzy, which contributed to a series of household accidents and injuries.  Dan was then called in for a "chat" with Parkinson's boss, Inspector Anthony Hill - and subsequently told that an Apprehended Violence Order (AVO) was being taken against him for abusing Parkinson.  Dan told 60 Minutes that Parkinson had been having an affair with a police officer she worked with.  He was targeted in a series of false allegations when Parkinson claimed she was struck by him with a lump of wood and a tyre lever.  Dan described Parkinson as being like a "complete stranger".  He was arrested and charged with 32 counts of domestic violence on Christmas Eve 2013.  While Dan was served with a court order, Parkinson and her new lover were living in the home he had bought.  He said: "When I first got charged, I found out [Parkinson] had been keeping a diary of things that never happened.  "She’d written entries going back more than six months with a view to using it as a historical document in court."  On March 21, 2014, Mr Jones was arrested at his parents' house for an alleged rape.  Parkinson said Mr Jones rammed her head into a wall, jumped on her, kicked her, forced her to open a condom wrapper, then raped her.    But he image proved that, at the time Parkinson claimed Dan had attacked her, he was actually with his brother Andrew and his partner Amy, who had visited him with their son, Hunter.  They had a photograph taken at around 1pm, with Mr Jones in his pyjamas holding baby Hunter on his knees.  The case was eventually passed to Detective Sergeant Leesa Alexander.  Parkinson accused her ex's parents of stealing her iPad before a tracking device on her car helped investigators prove she had driven up to their property and dumped the tablet on their lawn herself.  Det Alexander told 60 Minutes: "It was clear... that Sarah had lied."  An emergency bail hearing was called by the Department of Public Prosecutions after a series of investigations.  Dan was released from jail on bail conditions.  Early this year, Parkinson finally pleaded guilty to her crimes at court.  She was jailed for three years and one month in prison and at least two of those years will be spent behind bars.  We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368 . You can WhatsApp us on 07810 791 502. We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.


thesun--2019-07-23--Innocent Brit spent a year in Spanish jail after 5m of drugs found at Airbnb villa he rented

Innocent Brit spent a year in Spanish jail after £5m of drugs found at Airbnb villa he rented

A BRIT businessman spent a year in jail in Spain after cops found £5million of cannabis at a villa he rented.  Robert Mansfield-Hewitt, 51, was seized last year in a raid on the Airbnb-listed property near Gibraltar.  Armed police found 1.5 tonnes of hashish in an adjoining garage.  Robert, on a business trip, had been in the property for just 48 hours. He was charged with a “crime against public health” and faced four-and-a-half years in jail and a £7million fine.   Robert, of Chichester, West Sussex, was locked up in Botafuegos prison in Algeciras.  He was eventually freed earlier this month after a judge dropped the charges. However he was still fined £1,400 for renting an unlicensed house.  Although the villa was listed with Airbnb, Robert, an MoD electrical engineer, did not book through the company.  He said: “The whole thing was a farce. They deemed me a flight risk, denied me bail and took my passport.”  Speaking of last May’s raid, the avid churchgoer, who walks with a cane due to a liver condition, said: “It was terrifying. I have never been in trouble with the law. I’m a very gentle soul, I would never get involved with drugs.”  It is understood the property’s owner, a Moroccan-born man in his 60s, has not been quizzed despite having a previous drug conviction.  Robert is due to fly back to Gatwick on Thursday. He said: “Mummy’s very pleased. We’re relieved this nightmare is over.”


thetelegraph--2019-02-24--Innocent California man who served 39 years in jail for murder awarded 21 million compensation

Innocent California man who served 39 years in jail for murder awarded $21 million compensation

A California man who spent 39 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of murder is to receive $21million (£16 million) compensation.  Craig Coley was jailed for the murder of Rhonda Wicht, 24, and her son Donald, aged four, in 1978.  Mr Coley, who is now 71, was freed and pardoned by California's governor, Jerry Brown, after he was cleared by DNA evidence during a lengthy reinvestigation of the case.  A Vietnam veteran and night manager at a local restaurant, Mr Coley had been involved in a relationship with Ms Wicht which had broken down. She was strangled with a rope and her son had been smothered in his bed.  His conviction was partly due to the testimony of Ms Wicht's next door neighbour who told the jury she heard banging. She also said she saw Mr Coley's truck parked outside the building and that somebody apparently matching his description drove it away.


thewashingtonstandard--2019-09-19--New Jersey Cops Who Fired At Innocent Man Ultimately Leading To Him Being Set On Fire Savagely B

New Jersey: Cops Who Fired At Innocent Man Ultimately Leading To Him Being Set On Fire & Savagely Beat Him Get No Jail  Jersey City, NJ — As TFTP reported in 2017, a high-speed chase in Jersey City ended when the car police were chasing crashed and turned another man’s car into a ball of flames. But it’s the chaotic insanity which followed the crash and the fire that resulted in the indictment of several Jersey City police officers and a massive lawsuit against the city and the department.  This week, however, all of the officers involved took plea deals and although they were fired, not a single one of them will go to jail for what they did.  The taxpayers will now be held liable as the innocent victim of gross police negligence and brutality, Miguel Feliz, has filed a $25 million claim against Jersey city and its police department for excessive force used on him in the June 4th incident. Feliz has been unable to return to work since police caused his car to be set on fire, in turn, setting Feliz on fire, and then brutally attacking him.  As TFTP reported, the group of New Jersey police officers involved were indicted, including two for attempted murder, after they were caught on camera kicking Feliz as he crawled from the burning wreckage of a crash involving the pursuit of Leo Pinkston.  The officers all faced a slew of charges each:  However, none of these charges stuck and they will escape almost all accountability. According to NorthJersey.com, officers Eric Kosinski and Francisco Rodriguez each pleaded guilty to endangering another person. Kosinski, Rodriguez and Khan each fired their weapons during the pursuit.  All four former officers are barred from future law enforcement employment.  “This agreement is substantive in that it provides accountability for the actions of the police officers while at the same time taking into account the input of the victim,” Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said in a statement. “It is the most fair and just resolution in a difficult case.”  Ask Feliz — whose body is covered in third-degree burns and whose face was kicked in by police boots as fire engulfed his body — if he thinks this is “the most fair and just resolution.”  As we reported at the time, Jersey City police were pursuing Pinkston, 48, on the night of June 4, 2017, and had attempted to kill him by firing rounds into his vehicle. He fled, but crashed into another car which was pushed into a telephone pole.  The car Pinkston crashed into then caught on fire. The innocent man inside the car—Feliz—was able to escape the flames, but not without injury. His clothes and skin were burning.  As Feliz scrambles to take off his burning clothes as he gets out of the fire, a bystander named Erik Roberto was filming the scene. Roberto screamed to the police, “Oh no…no…Help him out! Help him out!”  But they did the exact opposite.  “They didn’t help him. They just started kicking him and dragging him…I don’t think they treated him in the right way and that’s not how you treat any human being in this world,” Roberto lamented to reporters.  After police rapidly approached the man, with guns drawn, they began kicking him in the ribs and head, apparently mistaking him for Pinkston. It was only after kicking and beating him that they then decided to drag him away from the flames of the burning vehicle.  The actions of the officers are considered abhorrent by Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop who told reporters at the time, “I don’t think there’s any explanation that would justify their actions…The entire pursuit that was previous to that fiery crash had questionable judgment calls by the officers, from the shootings to continuing to pursue the car…”  Laughably and predictably, the Jersey City Police Officers Benevolent Association (JCPOBA) president Carmine Disbrow issued a statement defending the actions of its officers that day.  We at The Free Thought Project beg to differ. The video clearly shows officers, who would have to have been blind not to see a burning man, go up and kick him like a junkyard dog and drag his body like a dead corpse across the pavement.  Feliz now lives in West NY. His father said he suffered severe burns and spent many days in the burn unit in the hospital. He also sustained fractured ribs and has been left permanently disfigured.  His father called the actions of the officers an attempted “massacre” and said he’d just left home to go to work when the accident and beating took place.  The entire incident serves to illustrate how police officers treat individuals they suspect as having committed crimes. No longer are suspects innocent until proven guilty. All too often, as TFTP has tirelessly reported, cops comport themselves as judge, jury, and executioners.


thewashingtonstandard--2019-09-29--Mississippi Cops Go To Wrong Home Execute Innocent Man Claim It Was OK Because He Had No Const

Mississippi: Cops Go To Wrong Home – Execute Innocent Man – Claim It Was OK Because He Had No Constitutional Rights  Southaven, MS — Two years ago, police responding to a call of domestic violence went to the wrong home and killed an innocent husband. A year later, the tragedy grew deeper when TFTP learned that the officers involved in the killing would not be charged. Now, two years later, we are finding that the government is trying to dismiss the family’s lawsuit, claiming that Ismael Lopez had no Constitutional rights, therefore, his murder did not matter.  In July of 2018, the officers who killed Lopez were brought to a grand jury by District Attorney John Champion who attempted to get them indicted on charges of homicide. However, the grand jury irresponsibly failed to return an indictment.  “The grand jury was given all of the evidence and they decided not to indict,” Champion said. “From my perspective, the case is closed at this point.”  Now, according to a document filed by the City of Southaven Tuesday, the city is attempting to justify the murder and dismiss the lawsuit by claiming Lopez has no rights because he was an undocumented immigrant.  Lopez’s family attorneys Murray Wells and Aaron Neglia responded to the filing, calling the policy “ludicrous,” according to WMC5. Wells explained to the news outlet that he’s never seen anything like this before, and neither have we.  “The city announced their policy is that undocumented residents have no constitutional protection,” Wells said. “This is an attempt to chip away at our constitution.”  Wells correctly stated that any person on US soil is subject to the constitution and the Supreme Court has well established this. Otherwise, Wells said using their justification, “Stormtroopers can kill you without any […] repercussions.”  Indeed, that is the case. If the state can simply claim, post-murder, that the person they killed had no rights, what exactly is there a legal system for in the first place?  What’s more, Lopez was actually married to a legal citizen and had lived in the neighborhood for 16 years.  “Everything about this is wrong. I am outraged. Shame, shame on the police department, shame on the DA. Mr. Champion, shame on you. You need to retire,” Pastor Rolando Rostro, Lopez family advocate, said last year.  As TFTP reported at the time, in July of 2017, Ismael Lopez and his wife were the only ones home when Ismael heard his dogs barking, so he took a look outside to see what was going on. Seconds later, he would be shot and killed by people who claim to protect society. Police had no right to be there and had gone to the wrong address.  The Southaven Police Department admitted officers went to the wrong house that fateful night. According to police, they were trying to serve a warrant for domestic assault to Samuel Pearman—who lives 36 feet away from Lopez’s home.  Police claim that when Lopez came to the door, he pointed a gun at them. However, multiple bullets were fired through the closed door and Champion admitted that the autopsy showed Lopez died from a gunshot wound to the back of the head.  According to WMC 5, three officers were at the scene, but only one of them opened fire. That officer fired six total shots—two at a dog that ran out of Lopez’s house toward the officers and four into the house. The bullets went through Lopez’s front door; one hit him in the back of the head. Lopez’s dog was grazed by a bullet.  “I do not believe [the officers] identified themselves at the door,” Champion said.  Champion said Lopez was pulling the gun away from the direction of the officers when the officers opened fire. He said he did not want to speculate about how it happened, but he thought Lopez could have been shot in the back of the head while he turned away from the officers, reports WMC 5.  The autopsy would later prove this to be true.  None of the officers were wearing a body camera nor was any of the incident recorded on dash camera.  The federal lawsuit filed by the family is seeking $20 million. City officials said they are ready to “vigorously defend our officers and city in a court of law.” …because officers who shoot innocent people in the back of the head after going to the wrong home, need defending.  All the officers involved have since returned to full duty, including the one who killed Lopez.  As the Free Thought Project has reported numerous times, entirely innocent people are often shot or killed by police at the wrong home. The innocent home owner comes to the door with a gun to see who the intruders are and bang, they are met with a hail of gunfire from cops who failed to check their GPS before assaulting completely innocent people.  Sadly, as it seems, none of the officers involved in this case will be charged as TFTP reported last year, cops can go to the wrong house, kill the innocent homeowner and face no charges.  A disturbing precedent was set in March of 2017 in a federal appeals court which ruled in favor of police who knocked on the wrong door at 1:30 am, failed to identify themselves, and then repeatedly shot the innocent homeowner until he died.  The homeowner, 26-year-old Andrew Scott had committed no crime when officers came to his home that night on July 15, 2012.  “Government officials insist that there is nothing unlawful, unreasonable or threatening about the prospect of armed police dressed in SWAT gear knocking on doors in the middle of night and ‘asking’ homeowners to engage in warrantless ‘knock-and-talk’ sessions,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “However, as Andrew Scott learned, there’s always a price to pay for saying no to such heavy-handed requests by police. If the courts continue to sanction such aggressive, excessive, coercive ‘knock-and-shoot’ tactics, it will give police further incentive to terrorize and kill American citizens without fear of repercussion.”  In the land of the free, those who claim they have sworn to protect you, can come to your house and kill you, and face no consequences by claiming you have no rights. This is why police in America kill more citizens than anywhere in the rest of the world. This is why people protest. This is why people are angry.


thewashingtonstandard--2019-11-01--Colorado: Innocent Man’s Home Destroyed After SWAT Shows Up In Search Of Clothing Shoplifter – Court

Colorado: Innocent Man’s Home Destroyed After SWAT Shows Up In Search Of Clothing Shoplifter – Court Says He’s Owed No Compensation  A federal appeals court ruled this week that an innocent Colorado man is owed no compensation after a SWAT team literally blew up and tore out sections of his house following the illegal entrance into his home of a suspected clothing shoplifter.  Leo Lech sued Greenwood police after they fired gas munition and 40-millimeter rounds through the windows of his home in the June 2015 during a 19-hour standoff with the shoplifter who illegally entered his home and barricaded himself inside.  The damages and replacement costs total nearly $400,000, according to Lech.  First, take a look at the damage.  If using all those explosive and rounds weren’t enough, the police actually drove an armored vehicle through the doors and tossed in several flashbang grenades and detonated explosives.  Seriously, this is in a neighborhood and over a clothing shoplifter! Who is training these guys? Or should I say, who is indoctrinating them to think they are in a war zone?  According to the Washington Post, after the suspect was apprehended, it left Leo Lech’s son, John, without a home. John lived there with his girlfriend and her 9-year-old son.  However, seeing the damage, you would think the police and the city would have taken responsibility, but they didn’t.  They insulted the Lech’s by refusing to compensate them and then insulting them by offering them $5,000 in temporary rental assistance and for the insurance deductible.  Now, after the Leches sued, a federal appeals court has decided what else the city owes the Lech family for destroying their house more than four years ago: nothing.  On Tuesday, a three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit unanimously ruled that the city is not required to compensate the Lech family for their lost home because it was destroyed by police while they were trying to enforce the law, rather than taken by eminent domain.  The Lechs had sued under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, which guarantees citizens compensation if their property is seized by the government for public use. But the court said that Greenwood Village was acting within its “police power” when it damaged the house, which the court said doesn’t qualify as a “taking” under the Fifth Amendment. The court acknowledged that this may seem “unfair,” but when police have to protect the public, they can’t be “burdened with the condition” that they compensate whomever is damaged by their actions along the way.  “It just goes to show that they can blow up your house, throw you out on the streets and say, ‘See you later. Deal with it,’ ” Leo Lech said in an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday. “What happened to us should never happen in this country, ever.”  Now, Lech is contemplating taking his case to the supreme Court of the united States.  Greenwood Village spokeswoman Melissa Gallegos applauded the 10th Circuit’s ruling saying, “The house was being used as a barricade, and the damage done to it was to remove the barricade and get the gunman out without any loss of life. That is not a use of another’s property under eminent domain, but a use of another’s property during a police emergency.”  A police emergency? The took a tank in there! They were setting off explosives!  Robert Jonathan Seacat, had stolen a shirt and a couple of belts from a Walmart. He was attempting to steal the Lech’s car when police arrived at the house when officers claimed in an affidavit that he fired at them with a handgun.  And for 19 hours, he was held up inside the home.  “They proceed to destroy the house — room by room, by room, by room,” Lech said. “This is one guy with a handgun. This guy was sleeping. This guy was eating. This guy was just hanging out in this house. I mean, they proceeded to blow up the entire house.”  “There was one gunman with a handgun and they chose to turn this house into something that resembles Osama Bin Laden’s compound,” he said.  “They methodically fired explosives into every room in this house in order to extract one person” Lech continued. “Granted, he had a handgun, but against 100 officers?”  “You know, the proper thing to do would be to evacuate these homes around here, ensure the safety of the homeowners around here, fire some tear gas through the windows,” he added. “If that didn’t work, you have 50 SWAT officers with body armor break down the door.”  That does seem a lot more logical and quite a bit safer, but what Mr. Lech doesn’t understand is these guys have all these new weapons of war, as certain gun grabbers say that shouldn’t be on our streets, that they need to play with. Notice who the state protects when those are used in such a manner? That’s right, their agents. They could care less for the homeowner.  Speaking of his home, Lech said, “It survived two World Wars, OK, but it didn’t survive the American police paramilitary operation,”  Of course, the police merely issued words and not real sympathy over the matter.  “My mission is to get that individual out unharmed and make sure my team and everyone else around including the community goes home unharmed,” Greenwood Village Police Commander Dustin Varney said in 2015, KUSA reported. “Sometimes that means property gets damaged, and I am sorry for that.”  Wow! Honestly, this is just pure tyranny and incompetence. Varney’s mission is to keep the peace, not disturb it in such a fashion, and with no remorse for what they did to the Lech’s home, the devastation the family endured and I would imagine the high premiums they were forced to pay following Varney and his team’s weekend warriors party.  Article posted with permission from Sons Of Liberty Media


thewashingtonstandard--2019-11-01--Kansas: Taypayers To Be Held Liable After SWAT Raids Innocent Family Over Growing Tomato Plants

Leawood, KS — Adlynn and Robert Harte and their two children had harmed no one and broken no laws when heavily armed militarized SWAT deputies with the Johnson County sheriff’s department stormed their home like it was an ISIS compound. The “hero” deputies were searching for evidence of marijuana production and use but they found none because the Harte’s don’t use or produce marijuana. They do grow vegetables, however, and they also drink tea.  The Hartes and their two children were held at gunpoint and nearly killed for purchasing supplies for their vegetable garden and drinking tea. After they were seen buying gardening supplies, cops rummaged through their trash and mistook tea leaves for weed, sparking ‘probable cause’ for the raid. Since the raid in 2012, the Harte family has been attempting to seek justice but to no avail. This month, however, they finally got a break.  According to Reason, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit ruled that Adlynn and Robert Harte, who lost their case after a jury trial in 2017, were wrongly denied the opportunity to pursue several of their claims against the Johnson County sheriff’s deputies who stormed into their home as part of a comically inept publicity stunt.  In the realm of unlawful police raids, this one may take the cake. It began with a Missouri State Highway Patrolman staking out a garden store every day in Kansas City in hopes of catching some pot growers. Robert Harte visited the store with his two children to buy supplies for an educational vegetable garden project in his basement.  The sergeant shared Harte’s information with a counterpart in the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office (JCSO), which was planning to raid several suspected cannabis growers on 4/20…such originality. JCSO went through the Harte’s trash on three occasions, eventually finding what officers believed was cannabis clippings soaked in THC extract. Because everyone throws away their weed, right?  But the “marijuana” was actually discarded tea leaves.  Despite a lab technician saying the tea leaves looked nothing like cannabis leaves or stems, deputies Edward Blake and Mark Burns used notoriously faulty field drug test kits which showed the presence of THC. These supposed field drug tests were the basis for planning the raid, but the deputies never photographed or documented the tests — leading Judge Carlos Lucero to note that these circumstances gave the deputies strong motive to lie.  “The deputies did not photograph any of the substances, nor did they send them to a crime lab for testing,” Judge Joel Carson notes in this month’s 10th Circuit decision. “If the deputies would have sent the wet vegetation to a crime lab for testing, they would have discovered that the wet vegetation was not marijuana but instead was Addie’s loose-leaf tea. Rather than conducting further investigation, the deputies prepared a search warrant affidavit relying solely on the loose-leaf tea found in the garbage and Bob’s shopping trip to a garden store eight months earlier.”  They had to find something on the Hartes, because the JCSO had already scheduled the raid on the Harte’s home. Several routine investigatory steps were ignored, making their search warrant “based on nothing more than gardening supplies and a bag and wet tea leaves in the garbage.”  The list of sheer incompetence goes on. In his written decision in 2017, Lucero used extraordinary language to characterize just how reckless these drug warriors were.  During the two and a half hour raid – where heavily armed SWAT team broke in during early morning hours while the children were home – officers frantically searched for anything to justify their debacle, but found only tomato plants and gardening supplies. Knowing the history of no-knock SWAT raids, someone could have easily gotten killed.  The cops had picked the wrong target this time, as both Mr. and Mrs. Harte are former CIA employees and knew a thing or two about research. After the traumatic experience, the Hartes set out to find out why this happened to them. Spending thousands of dollars in legal costs, they were able to procure a probable-cause affidavit.  It was easy to see that the “probable cause” was full of holes, and thankfully the 10th Circuit court actually studied the facts. The reinstated lawsuit includes unlawful search-and-seizure claims against 10 deputies, the sheriff who started the fiasco and the Johnson County Board of Commissioners.  The Hartes can also move forward with trying to prove that the cops lied about the field tests, and other claims under state law including trespass, assault and false imprisonment.  According to Reason, in its new decision, the 10th Circuit says the district court erred in limiting the Hartes to that one federal claim two years ago. The court has again remanded the case, saying the Hartes should be allowed to pursue three other claims: “(1) whether Defendants properly executed the warrant; (2) whether the deputies exceeded the scope of the warrant by searching for evidence of general criminal activity; and (3) whether the deputies prolonged Plaintiffs’ detention, thus subjecting them to an illegal arrest.”  “There was no probable cause at any step of the investigation,” wrote Lucero in 2017. “Not at the garden shop, not at the gathering of the tea leaves, and certainly not at the analytical stage when the officers willfully ignored directions to submit any presumed results to a laboratory for analysis.”


thewashingtonstandard--2019-12-15--Texas:  Cop Found Guilty After Video Caught Him Beating Innocent Man In A Hospital & Lying About It

Fort Worth, TX — The body camera video showing a Fort Worth police officer viciously attack and then falsely arrest an innocent man was so terrible that it actually led to this cop getting charged. However, it left many asking why it took more than a year to indict this cop knowing that investigators had video evidence of the attack the entire time. Now, however, this abusive cop has been found guilty and will be held accountable for his crimes.  “He lied about the facts and circumstances. He lied in his police report. He said that he had been told multiple times to leave. He said in his police report that he told him he was under arrest before he struck him,” said Prosecutor Terri Moore.  The victim in this incident was then-20-year-old Henry Newson who’d just been released from the hospital. As he was waiting for his mom to come pick him up, officer Jon Preston Romer, 38, who was working as security at the hospital, walked up to Newson and began to attack him for no reason.  The subsequent attack led to a lawsuit by Newson and a criminal investigation into Romer.  In spite of the incident happening in 2016, the body camera footage was only just released last year after Romer was indicted. Infuriatingly enough, up until Wednesday, Romer was still collecting a paycheck as a police officer. He was only fired after he was found guilty. In March, he was indicted on charges of official oppression, aggravated perjury and making a false report to a police officer in connection with the incident.  This week, he was only found guilty on the aggravated perjury charge and the other charges are still pending.  Sentencing for this charge has not been announced. Romer faces up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for this third-degree felony.  As the Star-Telegram reported at the time:  Newson, who according to his lawsuit had just spent two days in the hospital for an illness and was waiting for a ride home, was charged with resisting arrest and criminal trespass, but those were dismissed in March 2017 at prosecutorial discretion. The video shows Romer putting Newson in a headlock and taking him to the ground. Then Romer and two other men named in the lawsuit as hospital security guards Jeremy Flores and Jonathan Walterbach appear to pile on top of Newson and punch, kick and handcuff him.  Surveillance video obtained by Newson’s attorney shows Newson borrowing someone’s phone to call his mother when hospital security approaches him. “I’m just trying to figure out what you’re doing,” a security guard said. “They’re picking me up from here,” Newson explained at one point. “I have nowhere to go.”  At no time does Newson ever pose a threat to anyone around him. However, as the conversation escalates, Romer comes in for the kill.  Newson refers to Romer as “bro” and the officer then punches him the jaw and takes him down. Remarkably enough, Newson never fought back and instead tried to get help from the officers, but they did not help.  “The officers knew why he was there, he complied with everything they asked him to do, and they still beat him up,” his attorney, Matthew Bobo said.  “This was a young African American kid with no criminal history, no criminal record,” said Bobo. “He’d been in the hospital for two days and he was waiting for his mom to come pick him up.”  Newson’s arrest and beating sparked protest among anti-police brutality activists in the community. Michael Bell, pastor of Greater St. Stephen First Church and spokesman for the Tarrant County Local Organizing Committee, asked during a news conference last year why Romer — who Bell noted fatally shot a black man during a traffic stop in front of three of his children in 2011 — was not fired, according to the Telegram.  “Why was a police officer who has used deathly force been allowed to remain on the streets until the day of his indictment?” Bell said. “Who made the decision to not hold Romer accountable for his actions once they were uncovered?”  Had they held him accountable, Newson would have never been assaulted.  According to the Telegram, the victim in the 2011 shooting death was 32-year-old handicapped father Charal “Ra Ra” Thomas. Thomas did not follow police orders to exit his vehicle and drove off with Romer’s arm trapped in a window. Thomas continued to drive, dragging Romer along until Romer pulled himself onto a running board and fatally shot him in front of three of Thomas’ children. That death became a source of friction between police and the black community.  Because his department never held him accountable for the shooting death of an unarmed handicapped father, this problem cop was allowed to go on brutalizing innocent people. Finally, he was caught.


thewashingtonstandard--2019-12-22--New York:  Cops Frame Innocent Brothers For Cocaine – Tried To Destroy Video Evidence – It Survived

New York:  Cops Frame Innocent Brothers For Cocaine – Tried To Destroy Video Evidence – It Survived (Video)

New York, NY — To all those who make the bogus claim of “if you don’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about,” consider the following case as even more evidence of how ridiculous that assertion is. Two innocent brothers were framed by NYPD cops who were caught on video destroying video evidence of their egregious act. Luckily for the brothers, the hard drive in the video recorder survived and it caught these badged criminals in the act.  Earlier this year, apparent criminals with the NYPD’s gang unit executed a search warrant on a store owned by two brothers. The entrepreneurs had committed no crime, were conducting 100% legal business, yet they were kidnapped by officers and caged for over a month on false charges.  The cops accused the brothers of having a large amount of cocaine and when they were booked into jail, the DA’s office provided no documentation and asked for the two brothers to be held without bail.  “It was the worst day of my life,” said one of the brothers, who asked not to be identified by name, according to NBC 4. “We never had drugs in the store,” he added.  Highlighting the level of criminality associated with this raid is the fact that the cops used the notoriously faulty field test kits to test the “cocaine.” As TFTP has reported on numerous occasions, tens of thousands have been convicted and served time for crimes they didn’t commit because the cases against them relied on horribly unreliable field drug test kits. So prone to errors are the tests, courts won’t allow their submission as evidence. However, they are continued to be used by law enforcement, needlessly ruining thousands of lives.  This time, however, the test kits showed that the substance tested was not drugs. Yes, you read that correctly. The cheap faulty kit actually returned a negative result for cocaine, but the cops arrested the innocent brothers anyway and had them locked up without bail.  The brothers would spend over a month in jail before lab tests for cocaine came back negative. All the charges were then dropped, but their lives and business had been ruined by their absence. When the brothers finally went back to their store, they found that cops had left behind the field test kits — which all showed negative results. That wasn’t the only thing cops left behind either. As NBC New York reports:  Attorney Marvyn Kornberg, a criminal attorney who represents the brothers, said, “It’s a unit gone wild, that’s what it says to me. They think they’re above the law. They’re ripping out cameras. What are they afraid of the public seeing?”  Naturally, the NYPD, who claims this incident is “under investigation,” said they destroyed the cameras for “tactical” reasons.  “That’s ridiculous,” said Richard Rivera, a former police officer in West New York, New Jersey, who is now a police tactics expert, according to NBC 4.  “They could have covered the cameras. The way they come in doesn’t indicate that any of them is concerned about a remote feed. They’re not worried about security. It’s like a walk in the park to them,” he said, noting that there is no legitimate reason to destroy evidence in that manner.  “This whole incident is a huge mess for them,” he said. “If this is an ongoing drug case, they would want to preserve the evidence, not destroy it, and that’s exactly what they did.”  When asked why they would recommend no bail for the brothers, the DA’s officer pointed the finger back at the NYPD, saying they relied on their word that the claims were true. Unfortunately for the brothers, this blind trust in badged criminals would land them in a cage for over a month.  To date, the brothers still have no idea why these criminals from the NYPD showed up at their store that day. As part of their lawsuit against the city, they have demanded prosecutors turn over the underlying basis for the search warrant. They have also filed a notice of claim to sue the city and the taxpayers will undoubtedly be held liable for these criminal cops.


trueactivist--2019-02-12--Florida Cop Purposely Botches Roadside Drug Test And Arrests An Innocent Man But Is Caught On Video

Florida Cop Purposely Botches Roadside Drug Test And Arrests An Innocent Man, But Is Caught On Video

Police body camera footage shows a Florida sheriff purposely botching the results of a roadside drug test during a traffic stop, and then arresting an innocent man.  The video which was obtained by Reason and filmed last April 17, 2018, shows Florida resident Steve Vann being stopped on the road during a routine traffic stop by former Jackson County Sheriff’s deputy Zachary Wester. The police searched the vehicle and Wester pulls out a small plastic from the center console to test it for methamphetamines using the Nark II field test. As per the manufacturer of the field test, the results “will develop an immediate (within 2 seconds) Dark Blue color as a positive reaction after breakage and agitation of the 3rd ampoule. If the color development is an immediate Pink slowly transforming to Lavender, you do not have either Methamphetamine or MDMA.”  Although the results of this small plastic bag clearly turned red, as seen in the footage, Wester claimed it was ‘blue’ and pressured Vann to admit that he had knowledge of the methamphetamine found inside his car. Vann continued to deny this and was even brought to tears at several points. As a result of this routine traffic stop, Vann was charged with possession of drugs and paraphernalia.  Wester has had a history of bad policing, since he was hired in 2016. State prosecutors have dropped more than 100 cases where this infamous sheriff was involved in, after another camera footage was released last September 2018, which showed the officer allegedly planting drugs in yet another car. Included in the 100 dropped cases was Vann’s charge. Wester was fired immediately after this incident.  More than a dozen of Wester’s victims have filed federal lawsuits against him. Many of his chosen victims had prior criminal records due to drug possession, which made them easy targets. No one wold believe their world against a Sheriff’s word. All charges would likely stand if Wester had not been seen in the camera footages and he would still be patrolling the streets of Florida.  What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!


hitandrun--2019-07-18--Corey Atchison Freed After Serving 28 Years for a Murder He Didnt Commit

Corey Atchison Freed After Serving 28 Years for a Murder He Didn't Commit

After 28 years in prison, Corey Atchison is finally a free man.  Convicted of murder in 1991, the Oklahoma native spent nearly three decades behind bars before a private investigator, Eric Cullen, took up his case. Cullen's work had previously helped to free Atchison's younger brother, Malcolm Scott, who was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1994. In Scott's case, another man who had testified against Scott eventually confessed to the murder before being executed for another crime. In Atchison's, evidence emerged that the authorities had bullied witnesses into offering false testimony.  District Judge Sharon Holmes found that his case was marred by a "fundamental miscarriage of justice," according to people who were in the courtroom and local reports…. "Corey was arrested three months before his daughter was born; this is the first time he's been able to have some real contact with her and the same with his 10-year-old grandson," his lawyer Joseph Norwood told The Washington Post. "I'm very proud to have vindicated them and reunited them."  One might have expected Atchison to express bitterness. (If I had been wrongly imprisoned for nearly 30 years of my life, I would be plotting some kind of elaborate revenge, Count of Monte Cristo–style.) But Atchison told the press that he felt "blessed" and held no grudges. "Life's too short," he said.  Indeed, life is too short. And Atchison's life is 30 years shorter, because overzealous authorities stole that time from him.  I can't help but think about this travesty of justice in the context of the current national freakout many on the right are having with respect to "Big Tech," globalization, automation, and the supposed sins of the free market. To grapple with these issues, these conservatives are racing to embrace nationalism and "declare independence from neoliberalism, from libertarianism, from what they call classical liberalism…from the set of ideas that sees the atomic individual, the free and equal individual, as the only thing that matters in politics." That's how author Yoram Hazony explained it during his remarks at the National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C., this week. (See my colleague Stephanie Slade's excellent writeup of the event.) Other speakers at the conference explicitly singled out private companies like Google, Amazon, and Facebook as bigger threats to individual liberty than big government. Libertarians, the new nationalists say, are fools for caring more about the latter threat than the former.  For the likes of Steven Crowder and Dennis Prager, perhaps the threat of YouTube censorship really is the most serious tyranny they face. Many other Americans have different problems. Neither Google nor Amazon nor any social media company even existed when the government sent Atchison to prison for for 28 years. Who knows if one day Twitter would have shadowbanned Eric Garner, killed by the cops because he was selling loose cigarettes? On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced that none of the officers responsible would face charges. The only person who went to prison in the Garner case was Ramsey Orta—a friend of Garner's who managed to record his final moments.  Giving more power to the government is probably not an appealing agenda for the family of Daniel Shaver, whose killer—Officer Philip Mitchell Brailsford—will receive $2,500 a month because he allegedly got PTSD for shooting the unarmed man in a hotel hallway. Nor would it please the Lowthers, who spent $300,000 trying to stop Child Protective Services from abducting their children based on a mendacious lie.  Our critics—be they nationalist conservatives or progressive liberals—say we libertarians are monomaniacally focused on reducing the size of government. But that's because we recognize that government has more power than any other institution to kill people, deport their relatives, kidnap their children, and destroy their livelihoods. If you're not at serious risk of suffering one of those calamities, you possess a level of privilege many of your fellow Americans do not.  That doesn't mean you are forbidden from complaining about bias or mistreatment at the hands of private organizations such as tech companies and the mainstream media. I'm frequently critical of both myself. But you should be really, really wary of supporting robust federal intervention into these problems, when the likely result will be to give government authorities more resources for oppressing everyone.  The next time someone says that there's no bigger threat to Americans' liberties than Big Tech, remember Corey Atchison.


mercurynews--2019-11-13--SoCal man freed after 11 years for robberies he didn’t commit

In 2008 Ruben Martinez Jr. was sentenced to 47 years and eight months in prison for a series of armed robberies, even though he was at work when two of the crimes were committed.  Eleven years later, he finally proved his innocence.  The 49-year-old was freed this month after serving 11 years of that sentence. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William Ryan vacated Martinez’s conviction, permanently released him from prison, dismissed his case with prejudice and found him factually innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted.  “I did not do this time by myself,” Martinez said at a news conference. “My family did time. My wife did time with me, did the 11 years with me. I couldn’t do it on my own, by my own strength. It was God’s strength that got me through this.”  Martinez and his wife Maria always insisted that he was not the armed robber who hit the same Los Angeles auto body shop five times between 2005 and 2007.  “All my husband wanted was for the truth to be revealed. Well, the truth has been revealed, and he’s a free man,” Maria Martinez told reporters.  He was convicted without physical evidence   Martinez worked for a temporary employment agency at the time of the crimes and said he was working when two of the robberies occurred, according to court documents.  But a witness identified him as the perpetrator and he was convicted in 2008 on nine counts of second-degree robbery. There was no physical evidence linking him to the crimes.  Martinez was tried a second time on the charges after his first trial ended in a mistrial. Two witnesses who testified that he was not the robber were not called in the second trial, according to the District Attorney’s office.  Martinez said he turned down a plea deal that would have included a 2 1/2 year sentence.  He filed several unsuccessful appeals before bringing his case to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Conviction Review Unit.  District Attorney Jackie Lacey told reporters that her investigators were able to track down new information that confirmed Martinez’s alibi. She said the alibis were not fully presented at trial.  “They painstakingly tracked down witnesses and uncovered employment records and pay stubs that confirmed that Mr. Martinez could not have committed two of the crimes that were clearly the work of the same serial robber,” she said at a news conference.  Lacey said that the robberies were all committed by the same person, who has not been caught, so Martinez had to be innocent of those crimes as well.  She ordered him to be released November 1 and he was freed four days later.  “I am sorry for this injustice and I am so happy that you did not give up on us and allowed us to share this moment,” Lacey told the Martinez family.  She said that during Martinez’s years in prison, the couple was “unstoppable in their pursuit of his freedom.”  “Throughout this terrible ordeal, The two were never deterred by setbacks and instead demonstrated remarkable strength and dignity through what I imagine must have been a dark time,” Lacey said.  His wife worked on his appeal  Maria Martinez had worked as a secretary in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and was very close with retired homicide detective Catherine Wills — so close that Wills’ husband gave Maria away when she married Ruben.  “She is such a beautiful person and I knew that Maria would never have anything to do with a person who committed crimes, she’s so straight,” Wills said.  Wills said that she and Maria Martinez spent six months going through every document in Ruben Martinez’s case and presented a thick binder of evidence to the district attorney’s office.  “I told them, ‘Look, I’m 82 years old now, and I’m not going to die until Ruben Martinez is out of prison,'” Wills said.  “I just pinch myself every morning,” Wills told CNN affiliate KABC. “I knew it should happen, but that doesn’t mean it does happen.”  Martinez is the third person to have their sentence vacated since Lacey formed the unit in 2015 and the first to do it without an attorney, according to the district attorney’s office. There are currently 45 cases under review. • Trump says he is a ‘big fan’ of Turkish leader Erdogan • DA: ‘It’s a disgrace:’ East Bay counties to crack down on illegal dumping • Impeachment: Trump reaching the limit of his powers “Although the vast majority of convictions are correctly upheld, I knew that, at times, the pursuit of justice, which depends on human beings, is not perfect,” Lacey said. “And Mr. Martinez’s case serves as a stark reminder to all of us: Despite our best efforts, we don’t always get it right.”  Martinez gave Lacey a friendly side hug during the news conference and said he was grateful to her, the prosecutors who helped free him and the thousands of people who prayed for him and his wife.  “The Lord Jesus Christ is a part of my life, and there’s no grudges. People are human people do make mistakes.” Martinez said. “But what touches me is when the DA got behind me and stamped me … and proved me innocent — so what grudge?” he said.  Martinez said he was studying to get his driver’s license and is looking forward to getting a job so he can be a taxpayer again and pay his bills.


rt--2019-11-26--‘I’ve dreamt about this day’: Three US friends freed after spending 36 YEARS in prison for murder TH

‘I’ve dreamt about this day’: Three US friends freed after spending 36 YEARS in prison for murder THEY DIDN'T COMMIT

Three teenagers from Baltimore, wrongfully convicted of killing a school student in cold blood, have been exonerated after spending more than three decades of their lives in jail.  Childhood friends Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins, and Andrew Stewart were arrested in 1983, when they were 16, and subsequently convicted of gunning down a 14-year-old student at Harlem Park Junior High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Authorities said at the time that the boy was shot in the neck with a 22-caliber handgun in an attempt to steal a fancy jacket he was wearing.  The men have always insisted they were innocent. Nevertheless, they spent 36 years behind bars… until they were exonerated in court on Monday. Their release became possible after Chestnut successfully filed a request to gain access to sealed court records last year, and the state prosecutor’s office launched a review of the case.  The prosecutors discovered that during the original investigation several witnesses told the court that the murder was actually committed by a different student, a man who would eventually die in 2002. Moreover, four juvenile witnesses, who identified Chestnut, Watkins, and Stewart as the killers, failed multiple times to identify them in photo arrays before the trial.  It was also found that their testimonies may have been made under pressure from police and had been recanted. The witnesses said police officers questioned them without their parents being present.  “You, you and you, should never have seen the inside of a jail cell. So, on behalf of this system I apologize to you and your family,” state’s attorney for Baltimore City Marilyn Mosby told the men, now in their 50s, in court.  The three friends, who have finally regained their freedom, thanked their loved ones and everyone who had helped them to fight for justice.  “I’ve been always dreaming of this day,” Chestnut told reporters.  “I sat on my bunk when I got the information and I cried,” said Stewart. “My journey is just beginning because I have to learn how to live right now.”  Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!


sottnet--2019-11-26--'I've dreamt about this day': Three US friends freed after spending 36 years in prison for murder th

'I've dreamt about this day': Three US friends freed after spending 36 years in prison for murder they didn't commit

Three teenagers from Baltimore, wrongfully convicted of killing a school student in cold blood, have been exonerated after spending more than three decades of their lives in jail.Childhood friends Alfred Chestnut, Ransom Watkins, and Andrew Stewart were arrested in 1983, when they were 16, and subsequently convicted of gunning down a 14-year-old student at Harlem Park Junior High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Authorities said at the time that the boy was shot in the neck with a 22-caliber handgun in an attempt to steal a fancy jacket he was wearing.The men have always insisted they were innocent. Nevertheless, they spent 36 years behind bars... until they were exonerated in court on Monday. Their release became possible after Chestnut successfully filed a request to gain access to sealed court records last year, and the state prosecutor's office launched a review of the case."You, you and you, should never have seen the inside of a jail cell. So, on behalf of this system I apologize to you and your family," state's attorney for Baltimore City Marilyn Mosby told the men, now in their 50s, in court.The three friends, who have finally regained their freedom, thanked their loved ones and everyone who had helped them to fight for justice."I've been always dreaming of this day," Chestnut told reporters."I sat on my bunk when I got the information and I cried," said Stewart. "My journey is just beginning because I have to learn how to live right now."