[Newsbot]

Title: Black man is freed from prison 44 years after he was wrongly convicted of rape
Category: Uncle Sam
Posted By: BeaverFever
Date: 2020-08-29 07:14:44

[BeaverFever]

Sadly we hear stories ike this all the time. You really have to wonder how many tens of thousands of innocent black people have been imprisoned in the US over the past decades/centuries Lazy good ol boy cops closing cases by pinning them on the first ‘negro’ they come across ...it,s as American as Apple pie.

[rickc]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Sadly we hear stories ike this all the time. You really have to wonder how many tens of thousands of innocent black people have been imprisoned in the US over the past decades/centuries Lazy good ol boy cops closing cases by pinning them on the first ‘negro’ they come across ...it,s as American as Apple pie.

Oh come on now, I'm sure that you have way more than your fair share of "injuns" locked away for shit that they didn't do. How many of them were convicted by all white juries that had supper waiting for them at home? Besides rape is an emotional crime. Jurors want to believe the victim. They want to punish the defendant regardless of his race. Just look at this forum a few years back with Brett kavanaugh. All you lefties wanted to string him up, kind of like the jury in this story. You wanted to believe the woman. You let your emotions override your logic. You did not want to ask the questions like why was a grownass woman hanging around a bunch of kids? If all this abuse was actually going on why did this woman keep going back to the parties? Why would she bring other innocent girls to these parties if she knew that sexual abuse was going on? Why didn't she alert the authorities 40 years ago when this abuse was supposed to be taking place?

It was all bullshit and a witch hunt, but that did not stop the left from trying to destroy a good mans life. So don't be so quick to condemn the jury in this case for doing exactly what you were doing to Kavanaugh. People that live in glass houses should not throw stones.

[BeaverFever]

rickc rickc:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Sadly we hear stories ike this all the time. You really have to wonder how many tens of thousands of innocent black people have been imprisoned in the US over the past decades/centuries Lazy good ol boy cops closing cases by pinning them on the first ‘negro’ they come across ...it,s as American as Apple pie.

Oh come on now, I'm sure that you have way more than your fair share of "injuns" locked away for shit that they didn't do. How many of them were convicted by all white juries that had supper waiting for them at home? Besides rape is an emotional crime. Jurors want to believe the victim. They want to punish the defendant regardless of his race. Just look at this forum a few years back with Brett kavanaugh. All you lefties wanted to string him up, kind of like the jury in this story. You wanted to believe the woman. You let your emotions override your logic. You did not want to ask the questions like why was a grownass woman hanging around a bunch of kids? If all this abuse was actually going on why did this woman keep going back to the parties? Why would she bring other innocent girls to these parties if she knew that sexual abuse was going on? Why didn't she alert the authorities 40 years ago when this abuse was supposed to be taking place?

It was all bullshit and a witch hunt, but that did not stop the left from trying to destroy a good mans life. So don't be so quick to condemn the jury in this case for doing exactly what you were doing to Kavanaugh. People that live in glass houses should not throw stones.

This is not about Kavanaough who was known to his accuser and specifically named, unlike this black man.

But unless it’s totally lost on you Kavanaugh was never arrested or charged with a crime let alone framed by police, convicted and sentenced to decades in prison like this black man was. So to the extent that you consider these two cases to he similar it’s a perfect example of America’s two-tier Justice system that’s rigged against black people.

[Freakinoldguy]

rickc rickc:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Sadly we hear stories ike this all the time. You really have to wonder how many tens of thousands of innocent black people have been imprisoned in the US over the past decades/centuries Lazy good ol boy cops closing cases by pinning them on the first ‘negro’ they come across ...it,s as American as Apple pie.

Oh come on now, I'm sure that you have way more than your fair share of "injuns" locked away for shit that they didn't do. How many of them were convicted by all white juries that had supper waiting for them at home? Besides rape is an emotional crime. Jurors want to believe the victim. They want to punish the defendant regardless of his race. Just look at this forum a few years back with Brett kavanaugh. All you lefties wanted to string him up, kind of like the jury in this story. You wanted to believe the woman. You let your emotions override your logic. You did not want to ask the questions like why was a grownass woman hanging around a bunch of kids? If all this abuse was actually going on why did this woman keep going back to the parties? Why would she bring other innocent girls to these parties if she knew that sexual abuse was going on? Why didn't she alert the authorities 40 years ago when this abuse was supposed to be taking place?

It was all bullshit and a witch hunt, but that did not stop the left from trying to destroy a good mans life. So don't be so quick to condemn the jury in this case for doing exactly what you were doing to Kavanaugh. People that live in glass houses should not throw stones.

I won't speak for you Americans Rick but thankfully it only happens to blacks and natives up here in Canada to, well except for the following:

$1:

Robert Baltovich was convicted in March 1992 of the murder of his girlfriend, Elizabeth Bain, in Scarborough. Bain disappeared on June 19, 1990, after telling her mother she was going to "check the tennis schedule" on campus. On June 22, her car was found with a large bloodstain in the back seat, but her body was never found.

Baltovich consistently maintained his innocence throughout the trial and his lawyers suggested that the so-called "Scarborough Rapist", who was later identified as serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo, might be responsible for the murder. He was nonetheless convicted and served eight years in prison until Baltovich's lawyers appealed, after which Baltovich was released on bail in March 2001. In December 2004, the Court of Appeal for Ontario set aside the conviction. In 2005, Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney-General announced that Baltovich would face a new trial on charges of second-degree murder, at an unspecified date, but the trial never took place. With no Crown case, the judge directed the jury to make a finding of not guilty on April 22, 2008.[1]

James Driskell
James Driskell was convicted for the first-degree murder of Perry Harder, whose remains were found in a shallow grave outside Winnipeg, three months after his disappearance. Driskell was linked to the crime with three hairs found in his van that supposedly belonged to Harder, but DNA tests years later found that the hairs did not belong to the victim.

In 2005, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Irwin Cotler used a special Criminal Code of Canada provision to quash the conviction, stay the charges, and order a new trial for Driskell, but the Manitoba Department of Justice decided not to order a new trial. It instead entered a stay of proceedings and called for a public inquiry, ending Driskell's conviction without exonerating him.[2]

Anthony Hanemaayer
Anthony Hanemaayer was charged for breaking and entering, and alleged assault with a weapon against a 15-year-old girl at her home in Scarborough on September 29, 1987.[3] During the trial in 1989, the Crown decided to withdraw the assault charges, however, Hanemaayer was still convicted and sentenced for breaking and entering charges. Hanemaayer pleaded guilty to avoid a lengthy prison sentence, and was sentenced to two years less a day in a provincial reformatory. He was released in June 1990 after serving sixteen months in prison, including eight months in pre-trial detention.

At the time of the attack in 1987, the Scarborough area was being plagued by the so-called 'Scarborough Rapist', who was later identified as serial killer and rapist Paul Bernardo. He was convicted of numerous sexual assaults in Scarborough, sexual assaults elsewhere, and the murders of three girls he committed with his wife Karla Homolka.

In 2006, Bernardo confessed to the 1987 assault and provided a detailed account to investigating officers, who also interviewed Hanemaayer several weeks later but did not inform him of Bernardo's confession. Hanemaayer became aware of Bernardo's confession in late 2007, after which he appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal in June 2008. As a result, the court cleared Hanemaayer of the convictions and Justice Rosenberg stated that "it is profoundly regrettable that errors in the justice system led to this miscarriage of justice and the devastating effect it has had on Mr. Hanemaayer and his family."

In June 2010, Hanemaayer commenced a $1.1 million lawsuit for damages suffered as a result of his 1989 conviction for the assault. The courts made a decision not to compensate him, however.[4]

Ivan Henry
Ivan Henry was convicted of multiple sexual assaults in Vancouver, Canada from 1980 to 1982. Similar assaults continued while he was jailed, leading to further investigation by police. His conviction was overturned in 2010. Henry was imprisoned for 27 years.

Réjean Hinse
Réjean Hinse was convicted for aggravated robbery and sentenced to 15 years in prison for his alleged part in the armed robbery in December 1961 of a general store in Mont-Laurier, Québec. He campaigned to establish his innocence based on the fact that he had been in Montreal, over two hundred kilometres away, at the time the crime was committed. In 1997 he was acquitted by the Supreme Court of Canada, which ruled that evidence presented at his trial was insufficient to convict him of aggravated robbery. Hinse was awarded $13.1 million compensation, payable by the Quebec and Canadian Federal governments, the largest wrongful conviction award in Canadian history.[5]

Donald Marshall, Jr.
Donald Marshall, Jr., at the time 17, was convicted of murdering acquaintance Sandy Seale in 1971 and sentenced to life in prison. The two had confronted Roy Ebsary, an older man they encountered in Wentworth Park in Sydney, Nova Scotia, during the late evening with the intent to "roll a drunk". A short scuffle occurred and Seale fell mortally wounded by a knife blow. Ebsary admitted that he had stabbed Seale but then lied about his role to the police who immediately focused on Marshall, who was 'known to them' from previous incidents.

Marshall spent 11 years in jail before being acquitted by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal in 1983. A witness came forward to say he had seen another man stab Seale, and several prior witness statements pinpointing Marshall were recanted. Ebsary was subsequently tried and convicted of manslaughter.[6]

Martensville satanic sex scandal
The Martensville satanic sex scandal occurred in Martensville, Saskatchewan, in 1992 where a mother alleged that a local woman who ran a babysitting service and day care centre in her home had sexually abused her child. Police began an investigation and allegations began to snowball. More than a dozen persons, including five police officers from two different forces, ultimately faced over 100 charges connected with running a Satanic cult called The Brotherhood of The Ram, which allegedly practiced ritualized sexual abuse of numerous children at a "Devil Church".

The son of the day care owner was tried and found guilty, but a new investigation concluded that the original trial was motivated by 'emotional hysteria.' In 2003, defendants sued for wrongful prosecution. In 2004, Ron and Linda Sterling received $924,000 in reparations.[7]

David Milgaard
David Milgaard[8] was convicted of raping and murdering 20-year-old nursing assistant Gail Miller in 1969. When she was found on a snowbank, Milgaard and his friends, Ron Wilson and Nichol John, were picking up their friend, Albert Cadrain. Tipped off by Cadrain, who admitted he was mostly interested in the $2,000 reward for information, British Columbia police arrested Milgaard in May 1969 and sent him back to Saskatchewan where he was charged with Miller's murder. Cadrain testified that he had seen Milgaard return the night of Miller's murder in blood-stained clothing.

Both Wilson and John were also called to testify against him. They had told police that they had been with Milgaard the entire day and that they believed him to be innocent, but they changed their stories for the court. Wilson later recanted his testimony claiming that he had been told he was personally under suspicion and wanted to alleviate the pressure on himself. Milgaard was sentenced to life in prison in January 1970.

Milgaard appealed his conviction several times, but was blocked both by bureaucracy and by a justice system unreceptive to those who were not willing to admit their guilt. But in July 1997, a DNA laboratory in the United Kingdom released a report confirming that semen samples on the victim's clothing did not originate with Milgaard—for all intents and purposes clearing Milgaard of the crime. The Saskatchewan government then apologized for the wrongful conviction, and Larry Fisher was arrested days later. Fisher had been living in Cadrain's basement at the time of the murder.

Guy Paul Morin
Guy Paul Morin was a suspect in the October 1984 rape and murder of his 9-year-old next-door neighbour, Christine Jessop. Morin was found not guilty of murder at his first trial in 1986, but convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment at his second trial after the Crown appealed. Improvements in DNA testing led to a test in 1995 which excluded Morin as the murderer, after which Morin's appeal of his conviction was allowed (i.e., the conviction was reversed), and a directed verdict of acquittal entered in the appeal.

Willie Nepoose
Willie Nepoose was convicted in 1987 for the 1986 murder of Rose Marie Desjarlais. In 1992 the conviction was overturned when it was discovered one of the witnesses had perjured herself, the police had not disclosed some evidence, and evidence was discovered that he was with his brothers in a hotel at the time of the murder.

Roméo Phillion
Roméo Phillion was convicted of the 1967 murder of Ottawa firefighter Leopold Roy, after making a confession to police which he recanted two hours later. He spent 31 years in prison and five years on parole. The case was reopened in 2006, and in March 2009, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturned his 1972 murder conviction and granted him a new trial, in part because a 1968 police report establishing a clear alibi for Phillion had not been turned over to his defence lawyer in his original trial.

Thomas Sophonow
Thomas Sophonow was tried three times in the 1981 murder of doughnut-shop clerk Barbara Stoppel. Sophonow spent four years imprisoned but was acquitted by the Manitoba Court of Appeal in 1985.

Steven Truscott
Steven Truscott, at the time 14, was convicted in 1959 for the rape and murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper. Truscott was initially sentenced to death, but this was later commuted to life imprisonment. He continued to maintain his innocence until 2007, when his conviction was declared a miscarriage of justice and he was formally acquitted of the crime. On July 7, 2008, the government of Ontario awarded him $6.5 million in compensation.

William Mullins-Johnson
William Mullins-Johnson, of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario was found guilty of the first-degree murder of his niece, Valin Johnson, after a two and half week trial in September 1994. He was convicted after a jury trial in which now-disgraced forensic pathologist Charles Smith's evidence played a major role in determining the time of death, the cause of death, and whether the girl had been sexually assaulted. Mullins-Johnson had babysat Valin, 4, and her 3-year-old brother on the evening of June 26, 1993. When the girl's mother returned home, she did not check on her daughter. At 7 a.m. the next day she found Valin dead in bed.

A local pathologist performed an autopsy on Valin. Then "consultation reports" were sought from Smith and four other specialists, based on tissue samples and other evidence from the autopsy. Smith was the only consultant to conclude Valin was sexually assaulted at the time of death. That contradicted the defence's point that Valin, who had a history of vomiting in bed, might have died of natural causes. The jury convicted, which the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld in 1996. The Supreme Court of Canada dismissed a further appeal in 1998.

Attempts were made to clear his name based on available DNA technology, but the tissue could not be located by Smith, who was given the evidence by the pathologist who did the autopsy, until 2005, 11 years after the trial, when the missing tissue samples turned up in Smith’s office. William Mullins-Johnson was released on bail in 2005, pending review of his case. On July 16, 2007, a report by three expert pathologists (written unbeknownst to the lawyers working on his behalf) determined there was no evidence that the girl was sexually assaulted, and the Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant said that William Mullins-Johnson's conviction “cannot stand” and that he should be acquitted by the appeals court. On October 15, 2007 he was acquitted by the Ontario Court of Appeal.

In 2010, five years after filing a $13 million lawsuit for wrongful conviction, Mullins-Johnson and the Government of Ontario reached a $4.25 million out-of-court settlement.

You can figure out the colour of the unjustly convicted by their names and stories and there's only 1 who fits the lefts criteria. So, when it comes to wrongful convictions in Canada justice is apparently blind to race unlike what some people would like you to believe.

I'm also pretty sure that if you look at the history of false convictions in your country you'd discover that they aren't all people of colour either. But, I will say this. Any police officer, prosecutor or judge who knowingly convicts an innocent person no matter their race, creed or colour, they should be forced to spend the same amount of time in the same cell as the poor bastard they wrongly convicted.

[DrCaleb]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

You can figure out the colour of the unjustly convicted by their names and stories and there's only 1 who fits the lefts criteria. So, when it comes to wrongful convictions in Canada justice is apparently blind to race unlike what some people would like you to believe.

Your conclusion is flawed, in that it only presents people who were acquitted or had their convictions overturned.

It doesn't include people who plead guilty to get the pain over faster, or those that serve their sentence but are nonetheless not guilty.

[Sunnyways]

I believe some of these unsolved Canadian cases have DNA samples, e.g. Christine Jessop? You’d think there could be progress now with all this personal DNA testing that helped to locate Joseph DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10 ... -60-white#

The Smith affair illustrates the limits of knowledge in forensic pathology. Smith pursued new scientific findings too far and made false claims of sexual abuse. Many of the great forensic pathologists of the past have fallen into similar traps, being too dogmatic about their autopsy findings, e.g. Sir Bernard Spilsbury who ended up sounding like Sherlock Holmes. Our adversarial approach to evidence tempts experts to avoid any expression of uncertainty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Spilsbury

[rickc]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

rickc rickc:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Sadly we hear stories ike this all the time. You really have to wonder how many tens of thousands of innocent black people have been imprisoned in the US over the past decades/centuries Lazy good ol boy cops closing cases by pinning them on the first ‘negro’ they come across ...it,s as American as Apple pie.

Oh come on now, I'm sure that you have way more than your fair share of "injuns" locked away for shit that they didn't do. How many of them were convicted by all white juries that had supper waiting for them at home? Besides rape is an emotional crime. Jurors want to believe the victim. They want to punish the defendant regardless of his race. Just look at this forum a few years back with Brett kavanaugh. All you lefties wanted to string him up, kind of like the jury in this story. You wanted to believe the woman. You let your emotions override your logic. You did not want to ask the questions like why was a grownass woman hanging around a bunch of kids? If all this abuse was actually going on why did this woman keep going back to the parties? Why would she bring other innocent girls to these parties if she knew that sexual abuse was going on? Why didn't she alert the authorities 40 years ago when this abuse was supposed to be taking place?

It was all bullshit and a witch hunt, but that did not stop the left from trying to destroy a good mans life. So don't be so quick to condemn the jury in this case for doing exactly what you were doing to Kavanaugh. People that live in glass houses should not throw stones.

This is not about Kavanaough who was known to his accuser and specifically named, unlike this black man.

But unless it’s totally lost on you Kavanaugh was never arrested or charged with a crime let alone framed by police, convicted and sentenced to decades in prison like this black man was. So to the extent that you consider these two cases to he similar it’s a perfect example of America’s two-tier Justice system that’s rigged against black people.

Hey you are preaching to the choir here. No way in hell would I want to be black in the U.S.A. That said I do think that you are reaching here solely blaming the cops. The cops would not have been looking for a black man unless the victim said that it was a black man that was responsible for the crime. If she had said that a white guy raped her, and then she picked out a white guy to be the one that raped her, chances are good that particular white guy would have suffered the same fate as this black guy. Jurors do not want to feel that they are releasing monsters back into society. Most times the woman's testimony and picking out the defendant are enough for a conviction. There are probably more innocent people in prison on rape convictions than any other charge. That goes for all races. Many times some lying cheating white whore is screwing a black man on the side. She gets knocked up by the black man. She knows that the social stigma for popping out a black kid is not going to go over to well in her small town (back in the mid 70's when this happened). She claims that she was raped by a black man. Now the town is on edge looking for the perp. Some poor black bastard gets caught up in the net. He "fits the description". He is fucked. At least he used to be before DNA testing. This shit used to happen all the time back in the day. DNA testing is freeing lots of wrongfully convicted rapists.

Why would you blame the cops and the criminal justice system when it was the woman who purposely lied and attempted to ruin an innocent mans life? The cops were doing their jobs following a lead. She said a black man did it, they look for a black man. If they accuse the woman of lying, all hell would break loose. They would be accused of making the victim a victim all over again. After this "me too" movement we cannot begin to question the motives of the woman making the charge, lest we lose our own career and everything else that we hold dear. The fact of the matter is that women DO LIE about rape. They do it all the time. They lie to punish ex lovers that have left them. They lie to punish lovers that they catch cheating. They lie to cover up affairs that they are having. Millions of men have gone to prison for rape so some lying cheating bitch can cover her tracks. Are we really going to blame the "system" for this? Whatever race the woman claims raped her is in for a world of hurt. A black man in a largely white area is probably going to have a much harder time defending himself in court than a white man would, but its no picnic for the white guy either. Both of their lives are probably ruined regardless of the outcome of the case. A First Nations man accused of raping a white woman is going to have a harder time defending himself in court in a white area than a white man would. Its just how it goes.

Your prison population for First Nations members is INSANELY out of line. So either they are all a bunch of dirt bags that do not belong in a civilized society, or there is something drastically, drastically wrong with YOUR criminal justice system as well. I would not want to be black in the U.S.A., but I also would not want to be a First Nation member in Canada either. You have your own two tier justice system to clean up. Mine is on the world wide news every second of every day for the whole world to see. Yours is keeping a Danish journalist from entering your country because your government does not want him to tell his first hand accounts of what is really going on in the First Nations community. I suggest that you start there first.

[herbie]

$1:

Yours is keeping a Danish journalist from entering your country because your government does not want him to tell his first hand accounts of what is really going on in the First Nations community.

Or is the journalist accusing current restrictions as an excuse to further his agenda? Hell, try to enter from the US these days by claiming to be some 'journalist' without papers from a legit agency. Better hope the Border Guard's seen your face on TV...
--only reacting to that one point of your post and that story....

[Freakinoldguy]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

You can figure out the colour of the unjustly convicted by their names and stories and there's only 1 who fits the lefts criteria. So, when it comes to wrongful convictions in Canada justice is apparently blind to race unlike what some people would like you to believe.

Your conclusion is flawed, in that it only presents people who were acquitted or had their convictions overturned.

It doesn't include people who plead guilty to get the pain over faster, or those that serve their sentence but are nonetheless not guilty.

And the conclusion that people of colour are falsely convicted more often than white people is based on an unproveable assumption. Most of the people falsely convicted and who are sitting in prison are there not because of race but because of bad luck, court appointed attorney's, lying associates, unfortunate circumstance and their economic and social status in the community.

Can anyone honestly say a police officer and or prosecuting attorney would purposely go around and look for a black man to convict of a crime when they couldn't find a perp if they had a white man with a criminal record who fit the above criteria in their sites?

I'm sorry but sadly these are convictions of convenience and the colour of the poor dumb bastard they've decided to run up the mast is alot less relevant than people think.

[DrCaleb]

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

And the conclusion that people of colour are falsely convicted more often than white people is based on an unproveable assumption. Most of the people falsely convicted and who are sitting in prison are there not because of race but because of bad luck, court appointed attorney's, lying associates, unfortunate circumstance and their economic and social status in the community.

It is easily provable, as these things are tracked.

$1:

African Americans are only 13% of the American population but a majority of innocent defendants wrongfully convicted of crimes and later exonerated. They constitute 47% of the 1,900 exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations (as of October 2016), and the great majority of more than 1,800 additional innocent defendants who were framed and convicted of crimes in 15 large-scale police scandals and later cleared in “group exonerations.” We see this racial disparity for all major crime categories, but we examine it in this report in the context of the three types of crime that produce the largest numbers of exonerations in the Registry: murder, sexual assault, and drug crimes.

http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoner ... ctions.pdf

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

Can anyone honestly say a police officer and or prosecuting attorney would purposely go around and look for a black man to convict of a crime when they couldn't find a perp if they had a white man with a criminal record who fit the above criteria in their sites?

Yes! It happens!

https://www.netflix.com/ca/title/80214563

Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:

I'm sorry but sadly these are convictions of convenience and the colour of the poor dumb bastard they've decided to run up the mast is alot less relevant than people think.

It is much more relevant than you think. A white jury is more likely to convict a black man or native man than a white one.

$1:

BLACK INNOCENCE AND THE WHITE JURY

Sheri Lynn Johnson*

Racial prejudice has come under increasingly close scrutiny during the past thirty years, yet its influence on the decision making of criminal juries remains largely hidden from judicial and critical examination. In this Article, Professor Johnson takes a close look at this neglected area. She first sets forth a large body of social science research that reveals a wide-spread tendency among whites to convict black defendants in instances in which white defendants would be acquitted. Next, she argues that none of the existing techniques for eliminating the influence of racial bias on criminal trials adequately protects minority-race defendants. She contends that this will remain so even if the prosecution-oriented rules of Swain v. Alabama (peremptory challenges) and Ristaino v. Ross (voir dire) are modified or overruled in cases currently before the Supreme Court. Fi-nally, Professor Johnson details an equal protection argument that turns on accepting the social science data as proof of purposeful discrimination, and she proposes a prophylactic remedy.

https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/vi ... ontext=mlr

[Sunnyways]

What’s striking in the US (not saying it never happens in Canada BTW) has been the resistance of prosecutors to review obviously dodgy cases from the pre-DNA evidence era. I think this derives in part from the weird involvement of election politics in the legal system down there.

[BeaverFever]

This story is from 20 years ago, 1999i the small rural town of Tulia Texas. Just wanted to reiterate that date in case you think it’s from 1899. It definitely sounds like something from the 19th century:

$1:

1999 drug arrest scandal
Tulia gained notoriety following a drug sting in July 1999 that rounded up 46 people, 40 of whom were innocent African Americans. The remaining detainees were Whites known to have ties within the Black community, and in fact lived in the "Black" part of town. Nearly one-third of Tulia's Black males were arrested, about 15% of the town's Black population.[8][9] All charges were based on the word of undercover officer Tom Coleman, a so-called "gypsy cop" who made his living traveling through impoverished rural Texas offering to work undercover cheaply for short periods of time for underfunded police departments. Coleman claimed to have made over 100 drug buys in the small town. He never recorded any of the sales, but claimed to have written painstaking notes on his leg under his shorts and upper arm under his shirt sleeve when nobody was looking.

During the roundup, no large sums of money, illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, nor illegal weapons were found. The accused drug dealers showed no signs of having any income associated with selling drugs. The drugs Coleman claimed to have bought from the accused did not have the fingerprints of the accused on them or their baggies. No independent witnesses could corroborate Coleman's claims. In his testimony, Coleman gave inaccurate descriptions of the "dealers" from whom he had allegedly bought cocaine. One suspect had his charges dropped when he was able to prove he had been at work during the times he had supposedly sold Coleman cocaine. Another produced bank and phone records indicating she was in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, at the time of her alleged crime. Many of the accused, however, seeing the long sentences dealt by all-White juries in earlier cases, pled guilty in return for lighter sentences, despite their proclaimed innocence. The remaining defendants were convicted solely on the basis of Coleman's testimony. The Texas Department of Public Safety awarded "Lawman of the Year" to Coleman.[10][11]


Eventually, the case became a cause célèbre, and money was raised to legally challenge the cases. Many had already served several years in prison before this process gained momentum. By 2004, Blackburn and his team had freed most of the "Tulia 46" and a $6,000,000 collective settlement was reached to avoid further litigation in civil court. Local authorities remain defiant, promising their town will not become a "slot machine" in the face of a new lawsuit stemming from an alleged incident of police brutality during the sweep.[14][15]

In 2005, Coleman was convicted of perjury and sentenced to 10 years' probation and a $7,500 fine.[16]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulia,_ ... st_scandal

https://www.aclu.org/other/racist-arrests-tulia-texas

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.everyth ... later/amp/


Everything about this case is outrageous including the slap on the wrist for the dirty cop and the sheer negligence of the police department, prosecutors, judge and jury members, the paltry settlement for the victims and the town adding insult to injury afterwards by likening the shitty settlement to a “slot machine” prize for the victims.

But there’s no such thing as systemic racism right FOG?

[DrCaleb]

Sunnyways Sunnyways:

What’s striking in the US (not saying it never happens in Canada BTW) has been the resistance of prosecutors to review obviously dodgy cases from the pre-DNA evidence era. I think this derives in part from the weird involvement of election politics in the legal system down there.

Bill Clinton also changed the rules of evidence for federal crimes after the Oklahoma City bombings, so that the only reason for a federal appeal to be allowed was if the accused Constitutional rights had been violated.

So no new evidence, no new testimony, no shenanigans on the part of the State would be heard, unless it was a Constitutional matter.

Up here, we just defund Court appointed lawyers so that unless you are rich, you can't afford justice.

[herbie]

Which isn't always a bad thing:
GF's daughter was a welfare Mom. Had the boy for 9 years, but Dad was dating a legal asst. in Alberta. They sued for custody, and she lost. No evidence or claim she was unfit.
So I told the daughter the fucking truth. She was a welfare queen, the BC gov't had to shell out for everything and was ultimately responsible for the kid. They even had to supply her damned 'legal aid'.
The Judge and Social Services had a choice: keep shelling out for her and the kid, or Poof! he's off to Alberta to a Mom & Dad that work and ultimately Alberta's problem.
That's how much your lawyer gives a shit about you and managed to lose to a law student. That's also how much the gov't of BC actually cares about lazy ass mooches.

She got a job at WalMart quick as she could to not lose the other kid to it's father. That was about 12 years ago, she hasn't missed a day's work or turned down overtime since. And doesn't phone every other day begging for money, either.