Oct 9, 2023
Rhiannon Giddens - Another Wasted Life (Official Video)
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Rhiannon Giddens - Another Wasted Life (Official Video)
Anthony was wrongfully incarcerated on murder and armed robbery charges in 1996 at the age of 19 with no physical evidence tying him to the case
How states are extending liberties to the unborn — by taking them from women.
Women who are pregnant have found themselves stripped of the right to consent to surgery, the right to receive treatment for a medical condition and even something as basic as the freedom to hold a baby in the moments after birth.
Man Finally Freed After 20 Years for Murder He Didn't Commit - POLICE/PRISON
New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/man-freed-after-20-years-for-murder-didnt-commit/
Man Finally Freed After 20 Years for Murder He Didn't Commit
With the help of the California Innocence Project, Horace Roberts now walks free after spending 20 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit.
Horace Roberts was declared factually innocent on October 15, 2018, of murdering his lover, Terry Cheek, who was actually murdered by her husband. DNA tests conducted in 2017 proved that Cheek’s husband, Googie Harris, killed Cheek and pinned the murder on Roberts.
Roberts was convicted of the murder of Cheek in 1999 and had remained in prison until early this week. The prosecution originally won their case against Roberts largely because his truck was parked close to where Cheek’s body was found along Interstate 15, and his watch was beside her. Unfortunately, Roberts could not make consistent statements to establish that he actually dated Cheek, but had nothing to do with her death.
‘Evidence’ Doesn’t Make Sense
Roberts’ case came to the attention of the California Innocence Project (CIP) in 2003. Justin Brooks, Director of the CIP and a professor at the California Western School of Law, stated that CIP took interest in the case because no physical evidence tied Roberts to the crime. He added it made no sense that the accused would park his truck close to the body and then simply walk back to town, leaving his watch behind too.
DNA tests conducted by the CIP in 2007 on evidence from the crime scene showed two men were actually involved in Cheek’s murder. The profiles of the men could not be established from the DNA databank. After DNA testing evolved, the CIP ran more sophisticated DNA tests in 2017 and got their answers.
The CIP’s DNA results found that the DNA profile under the fingernails of Cheek’s left hand matched that of Joaquin Leal, Harris’ nephew and a convicted sex offender. The DNA under the fingernails of Cheek’s right hands matched that of a male attacker yet unknown. The DNA on a bloodstain on Cheek’s pants also belonged to the unidentified man.
“No one had any idea who Leal was since his name did not appear in any of the case files,” said Michael Semanchik, Managing Attorney at the California Innocence Project at California Western School of Law. “Leal is Googie Harris’s nephew, and ultimately the investigation led back to both of them committing this murder and leaving Cheek’s body on the side of the freeway.”
“Googie Harris set Roberts up,” added Justin Brooks. “It’s the oldest story there is in the murder business. Husband kills wife who is cheating on him. The twist in this case is that the husband then set up the lover to go to prison for the rest of his life.”
Brooks says Googie Harris killed his wife Terry Cheek, and his nephew Joaquin Leal helped him through the act. They both set up Roberts to take the fall. What CIP found particular unnerving is that Harris continued to maintain that Roberts killed his wife and even attended a 2011 parole hearing where he opposed Roberts’ release from prison.
Roberts is Freed
The California Innocence Project presented the DNA evidence to the Riverside District Attorney’s Office. Earlier this month, Riverside District Attorney Mike Hestrin consented to free Roberts from prison. Hestrin reversed the conviction, exonerating Roberts of any wrongdoing. He thanked the CIP for their investigation and vowed to “aggressively apply new technologies to past, present and future prosecutions.”
Roberts has returned home and now reunited with his family. “This is what I missed more than anything—my freedom,” he said.
Googie Harris and his nephew Joaquin Leal have been arrested and are facing charges for the murder of Terry Cheek and the wrongful incarceration of Roberts.
18 More Wrongful Convictions Linked To Corrupt Chicago Cop To Be Tossed - POLICE/PRISON
New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/18-more-wrongful-convictions-linked-to-corrupt-chicago-cop-to-be-tossed/
18 More Wrongful Convictions Linked To Corrupt Chicago Cop To Be Tossed
Eighteen people whose criminal convictions were linked to corrupt Chicago cop Sgt. Ronald Watts will have their charges dismissed on Monday. The wrongful convictions will be thrown out by Judge Leroy Martin Jr. of the Criminal Court. The 18 new exonerations will bring to 42 the total number of wrongful convictions thrown out since 2016 as a result of Watts’ corruption.
Chicago state’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s spokesman, Robert Foley, confirmed the mass exoneration coming up on Monday. But he did not elaborate further on the issue until possibly after the event. This forthcoming mass discharge is the first of such events in Cook County.
It is possible that many more cases linked to Watts and his corrupt team will be overturned when the state attorney general office’s Conviction Integrity Unit completes their review.
Police Top Brass Were Aware of Watts’ Corruptions But Allowed Him to Continue to Operate
It is estimated that up to 100 people suffered wrongful convictions under the tyranny of Watts. The corrupt police officer carried on with his abuse of power at the Ida B. Wells public housing complex. Some accused Watts of planting drugs on them when they refused to pay protection money to his team. Many alleged he framed them after stealing from them. And yet others said they pleaded guilty after his team shot at them and beat them up.
Senior police authorities were aware of Watts’ underhanded operations at Ida B. Wells. Despite mounting complaints and evidence against him, the police top brass allowed him and his team to continue with their patrol and activities at the housing complex – forcing drug dealers to pay money to be protected from the law. They accosted people on the streets at random and asked them to pay up to $5,000 or have drug evidence planted on them.
The corrupt Chicago cop remained on the job even when the state’s attorney office and the FBI ran internal investigations against him. For up to 10 years, Watts and his cohorts were the law unto themselves. African-Americans and Hispanics bore the brunt of his extortions or got imprisoned. He was finally convicted on federal charges in 2012 and sent to prison for 22 months. He was released in 2015.
His career came to an end when he taxed a drug courier who happened to be an FBI informant. However, many of the police officers who worked directly under him remain on the force today. According to internal documents, many of them were the subject of FBI investigations but were never formally charged. Fifteen of them were relegated to desk duty until investigations into their activities with Watts can be completed.
Many with Dismissed Cases May Still File Federal Lawsuits against the Government
Joshua Tepfer, an attorney for the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago Law School and lead attorney for 12 of the 18 persons to be exonerated blamed the government for Watts’ reign of corruption.
“My clients told everyone about it, and no one believed them,” said Tepfer. “They told police investigators, they told judges, defense attorneys and prosecutors. Their complaints were dismissed and ignored.”
Most of the latest overturned indictments were for drug convictions instituted from 2003 to 2008. Some of the accused in these cases were sentenced to probation, with many others sentenced to up to four years in prison. With the mass exoneration, the incarcerated will be released to go home. Many of the men have turned back to file federal lawsuits against Watts and the police department.
Twenty-three federal lawsuits or more for wrongful convictions relating to Watts are still in the court. It is possible that after the 18 men have their convictions dismissed on Monday, that these convictions will be next.
Man Wrongfully Incarcerated For 34 Years Released, Has Sentence Vacated - POLICE/PRISON
New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/man-released-after-34-years-in-prison/
Man Wrongfully Incarcerated For 34 Years Released, Has Sentence Vacated
A Detroit man, Darrell Siggers, was released from prison after 34 years of a wrongful conviction. 54-year-old Siggers was incarcerated at the Wayne County Jail for a 1984 murder he always maintained he never committed. A jury convicted Siggers for the shooting death of James Montgomery largely on ballistics evidence that has since been proven erroneous.
The jury convicted Siggers, who was only 20 at the time, based on the testimony of Detroit Police Sgt. Claude Houseworth. Houseworth claimed that the bullets extracted from Montgomery’s slain body and the ones found at the scene of the crime as well as those recovered from the defendant’s home were from the same gun. The murder weapon itself was never found.
Michael Waldo, Siggers’ most recent lawyer (he has had 16 lawyers over the year), hired ballistic experts to examine Houseworth’s testimony and who determined that Houseworth’s conclusions were wrong and inaccurate.
“In 2015, Mr. David Townshend, a retired Michigan State Trooper with more than 20 years of experience in the Michigan State Police Crime Laboratory Firearms Identification Unit, conducted an independent review. Mr. Townshend determined that Sgt. Houseworth’s conclusions were ‘erroneous,’ ‘unbelievable’ and ‘highly improbable,’” said Waldo in a court document.
David Balash, a retired Michigan State Police firearms examiner, called Houseworth’s testimony “both confusing and at times totally inaccurate.”
The Detroit Police crime lab that processed the original firearm evidence was closed in 2008 after a State Police audit found that many of the ballistic cases it handled were highly flawed. New testing of the firearm and ballistics evidence could not be conducted because the state destroyed the evidence in 2003.
Prosecutors agreed to vacate Siggers conviction in light of the new assessment of the ballistics evidence. Wayne County Circuit Judge Shannon Walker set Siggers free but placed an electronic monitor on him to track his movements. He will have to be re-tried, starting December 3.
After 34 years in jail Siggers says he nurses no anger toward anyone and will enroll in college to add to the associate degree he obtained in prison. For the moment, he is staying with his daughter and getting to know his family better.
“Being in prison for 34 years for something that you didn’t do, and then to be free … it’s just an awesome moment,” Siggers told Free Press.
Wrongfully Convicted Brothers Reunited After Ten Years in Jail, Thanks to DNA Evidence
News Flash: America’s Prison System Sucks
Where do I start?
Before prison?
In prison?
Or out of?
Let’s start from the beginning.
Directly quoted from Timothy Heaphy, a U.S Attorney from West Virginia:
“Our nation now has the greatest number of prisoners of any country in the world, nearly 1 in every 100 adults in America is in prison or jail.”
Over 2.2 million people in America are currently incarcerated. That’s double the amount it was 50 years ago.
And how many of those people are rightfully imprisoned, you might ask?
According to the Innocence Project, 1% of the US population (approximately 20,000 people) are wrongfully convicted. This statistic is from 2011.
According to reports from 2012, only 2,000 of these wrongfully convicted people have been exonerated over the last 23 years.
The American justice system prides itself on it’s policy of ‘innocent until proven guilty’. And you know what that is? Bullshit. In reality, it’s ‘guilty until proven innocent’. And if you’re a minority, you’re as good as guilty.
Nearly half of the 2,000 exonerated for crimes since 1989 are people of color. The majority of these charges were drug offenses, murder, and sexual assault. This number is small compared to the number of wrongful arrests that take place to begin with.
Law enforcement is incredibly biased and prejudiced, and the laws in place allow them to get away with this way too often.
Now, let’s take a look at prisons themselves.
For starters, they’re fucked up.
According to the NYU School of Law, a study conducted showed that, for all the people behind bars, the effect on the crime rate has been essentially zero.
So, if prisons aren’t lowering crime rates, then what is their purpose, you might ask?
It’s simple.
Money.
Let’s take a look at the Corrections Corporation of America, or CCA for short. It was founded in 1983, when America was having one hell of a time with the War on Drugs movement. People were being thrown in jail left and right, so state and federal prisons were overflowing. As is the usual case, people saw this as an opportunity to make money. In particular, Thomas Beasley, who, in 1988 was quoted saying
“You just sell [prisons] like you were selling cars, or real estate, or hamburgers.”
The CCA literally bought prisons, and they certainly have profited. In 2016, the CCA announced that they made $1.7 billion.
If this isn’t messed up enough, lets take a look at the inner workings of prisons.
According to a 2016 study by the School of Business, University of Wisconsin, private prisons dole out 2x as many infractions as government prisons. These penalties can lengthen your sentence. The more people in prison, the more money the CCA makes. Many private prisons even have ‘occupancy clauses’ in their contracts, which literally require states to keep prisons full.
And if they don’t meet these requirements? They get fined.
You think that’s bad? Let’s take a look at solitary confinement.
If you didn’t think that being separated from your family and friends and society was bad enough, that’s nothing compared to the hole you get thrown in when you ‘step out of line’.
A cell in solitary confinement is about the size of a king size bed. Prisoners are locked inside for 23 out of 24 hours a day, for the most minor of infractions.
A cruel and archaic punishment dating back several centuries, solitary confinement has been known to push prisoners to insanity or suicide. They become violent, paranoid, or worse. Every day, prisoners have to be physically taken out of their cell for slicing up their skin or flooding their cells with the toilets. Prisoners hallucinate, lose track of time, and become depressed. Prisoners can be kept in solitary for months on end, even years. A prolonged lack of social contact can cause serious and permanent brain damage.
To make matters worse, you don’t even have to do anything to be put in solitary. If a guard doesn’t want to deal with a person, they can be put in solitary solely for this. People put in solitary can be there simply for being mentally ill, LGBTQ+, or maybe because they just didn’t eat dinner. In fact, according to the HRC and DOJ, individuals in the LGBTQ+ community are more likely to spend time in segregated housing or solitary confinement than any other population. ‘Nearly 30% of LGB prisoners were placed in restrictive housing, compared to 18% of non-LGB prisoners. In jails, 22% of LGB inmates spent time in restrictive housing compared to 17% of non-LGB inmates.’- HRC.org. If you manage to make it out of prison, life isn’t any easier. It’s nearly impossible to get a job or insurance with a felony on your plate, and criminal convictions make it so much harder to get back on your feet.
Obviously, this needs to be addressed, and more importantly, changed. I’m providing some links for more information, and if you want to help as well.
https://www.innocenceproject.org/
https://www.rand.org/topics/prison-reform.html
https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/responsible-prison-reform
Free After 24 Years of Wrongful Conviction Due To Disgraced NYPD Detective - POLICE/PRISON
New Post has been published on https://citizentruth.org/free-after-24-years-of-wrongful-conviction-due-to-disgraced-nypd-detective/
Free After 24 Years of Wrongful Conviction Due To Disgraced NYPD Detective
A 41-year-old man who was sentenced at the age of 17 for the 1993 shooting of his friend has been released from prison after 24 years of a wrongful conviction. Shane Williams was discharged and acquitted last Friday by the Brooklyn Supreme Court after his murder conviction for the death of Marvin Mason was overturned.
The court was able to establish that his wrongful conviction and incarceration was the fault of disgraced NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella. In recent years the legitimacy of many of Scarcella’s convictions has come under scrutiny with accusations that he coerced witness testimony.
Corrupt NYPD Detectives Coerced Sole Eyewitness to Testify Against Accused
Margaret Smith-Leddy, the only eyewitness to Marvin Mason’s murder, witnessed the shooting from her sixth-floor apartment and was the pivotal witness in the case. She told police the killer was 5-foot-2; Williams is over 6 feet tall. She later recanted her testimony in 2009 and signed a written statement in 2015 that requested Williams conviction be reviewed.
Smith-Leddy had even moved to Georgia from Brooklyn to escape pressure from the detectives in the Mason case to testify. Ultimately, NYPD detectives Scarcella and Stephen Chmil coerced Smith-Leddy to into giving damning testimony that convicted Williams.
Now 63, Smith-Leddy wants nothing to do with the case any longer. She was also absent when Williams’ case was reviewed, and his wrongful conviction was tossed. And since the material witness “did not want to cooperate any longer and is unavailable for a hearing,” the prosecution had nothing to go on and had no choice but to agree to vacate William’s earlier conviction.
“I Got My Freedom Back, But the Fight Is Far From Over,” Williams States
Williams always maintained his innocence during the twenty plus years of his wrongful conviction. For the last five years, his lawyers have worked tirelessly to prove his innocence.
“He’s never stopped professing his innocence. He had hope from day one that the truth is on his side,” Hershey one of Williams’ lawyers, said as his voice cracked. “We are overwhelmed with joy.”
Justice Sharen Hudson announced to the courtroom that “the people will not go forward with retrying this case. This indictment is dismissed. We will do some paperwork and then you are free to go.” The courtroom was riotous as they applauded the verdict and rose to embrace Williams.
The indiscretions of Scarcella and Chmil largely led to Williams’ incarceration, even though the Brooklyn appeals bureau found no misconduct conducted by them. Within the last four years, nine convictions linked to Scarcella have been overturned by the Conviction Review Unit, and the agency still has 30 more convictions related to him to review.
While Williams was elated to regain his freedom, he said that “the fight is far from over.”
Native American Man, Tall Bear, Exonerated By DNA Evidence After 26 Years in Prison