(Newswire.net — June 26, 2017) — Nothing frustrates me more than injustice. I’m a calm person, but when I sense, see or hear about injustice, I get very annoyed. This applies at all levels and I understand that sometimes it’s just the way of life. Things are misheard and misrepresented, and when you factor evil people, stupid people and morally corrupt people, then you’re always going to have these issues.
But in modern society, no one should ever go to prison and suffer for a crime they didn’t commit. This is injustice that is not forgivable in an age of forensic science, juries, trials, re-trials and supposed fairness. It does happen though and a recent case whereby someone spent 16 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit has brought this issue back into the spotlight.
You will be happy to know that such incidents are rare, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll be terrified to know that they do happen and they are not as rare as these occasional news stories would have you believe.
How Common Are False Arrests?
There is such a thing as a false arrest lawyer which suggests that this might be a common thing. However, these lawyers mainly focus on shoplifting cases, where the ones being sued are private security firms. There are cases brought against companies and law enforcement as well, but thankfully, incidents where people spend years in prison for a crime they didn’t commit are very rare.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, at least 10 people have been put to death on death row in the U.S. for crimes they didn’t commit. What’s more, there are suggestions that this number may be three or four times higher just for cases that have occurred in the last few years.
Of course, everyone says they are innocent, and just because they say that until the switch is flicked doesn’t mean they are wrongfully killed. But we know for a fact that death row convictions are not infallible. Newly produced DNA evidence has previously helped to exonerate over 20 death row inmates in the past, people that were potentially years or months away from being killed and becoming part of that terrifying statistic.
Reviews were also conducted in the UK with many suggestions that countless people were put to death even though they were innocent. Three inmates were posthumously exonerated between the years 1950 and 1953, when the death penalty was still active in the UK. When you consider how many more people have been convicted and killed with minimal evidence, and how many countries have the death penalty, it’s fair to assume that these figures are much higher.
And that’s just the ones that have been put to death. There are many more who wasted half their lives behind bars despite all evidence suggesting they were innocent. Such incidents are higher with people who have little money to pay for good lawyers, people who are addicted to drugs and people in poor countries with questionable legal systems.
Such is the case with the following:
Sally Clark: Clark served time for the murder of her two sons, in 1996 and 1998 respectively. In 2003, the conviction was overturned after discovering the deaths had occurred as result of natural causes and that evidence had been tampered with. But it was too late for Sally Clark. She fell into an abyss of illness and addiction and eventually died from complications associated with alcohol addiction.
Dewey Bozella: Sometimes law can be amusing, sometimes, as with Plessy Vs Ferguson, it can be both bizarre and crazy on the surface but sensical underneath. With Bozella, it was just tragic. He spent 26 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He was convicted for murdering an elderly woman in 1983, before new evidence was discovered in 2009 that proved he had been framed.
Steven Tuscott: Tuscott only knew prison. He was 14 when he was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. He would have been the youngest person on death row, but he was given a temporary postponement before his sentence was eventually commuted to life. He would spend the next 50 years of his life in prison before being acquitted. He was awarded $6.5 million in compensation, but I’m sure he’d rather have that half century back.