#wrongfully convicted

[afrotumble]

Isaac Wright Jr. was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life in prison for being a drug kingpin — a crime he didn’t commit. While behind bars, he studied law, became his own legal advocate, and eventually proved his innocence, exposing a web of corruption that tainted his entire case. After his exoneration, Wright became a licensed attorney, and the prosecutor who helped orchestrate his wrongful conviction tragically took his own life as the truth came to light. ⚖️🔥

[destielmemenews]

Kathleen Folbigg's children most likely suffered from various genetic conditions that led to their deaths. Folbigg was wrongfully imprisoned in 2003 and ordered to serve a minimum of 25 years for the suffocation murders of three of her children and manslaughter for the fourth.

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[kemetic-dreams]

Ledell Lee (July 31, 1965 – April 20, 2017) was an American man convicted and executed for the 1993 murder of his neighbor, Debra Reese. He was convicted in 1995 and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 1997, but numerous questions have been raised about the justice of his trial and post-conviction representation. Issues have included conflict of interest for the judge, inebriation of counsel, and ineffective defense counsel. A request to postpone the execution in order to test DNA on the murder weapon was denied by a circuit judge. After Lee's execution, it was proven that the DNA on the murder weapon belonged to another person, an unknown male.

Controversy over judge's conflict of interest

According to the ACLU:

Additionally, Lee was tried by a judge who concealed his own conflict of interest: an affair with the assistant prosecutor, to whom the judge was later married. Mr. Lee's first state post-conviction counsel introduced the evidence of the affair by calling the judge's ex-wife, who testified about the affair after opposing the subpoena. That lawyer, however, was so intoxicated at the hearing that the state moved for him to be drug tested after he slurred, stumbled, and made incoherent arguments. The inebriated lawyer also represented Lee briefly in federal court, where he raised the important claim that Lee was ineligible for execution because of intellectual disability. Lee won new proceedings because of the lawyer's drunkenness, though his representation did not improve afterward. His next lawyers failed to introduce evidence of the affair, giving up one of many of Lee's important arguments, and never pursued his innocence or intellectual disability claims.

"This is a story of the judicial process gone totally wrong," Lee's lawyer said. "The kinds of attorney failures here: an affair with the presiding judge by the prosecutor, gross intoxication by defense counsel, and wild incompetence undermine our profession as a whole. Mr. Lee has never had the opportunity to have his case truly investigated, despite serious questions about guilt, and his intellectual disability."[11][5]

Throughout the legal challenges, the family of Debra Reese hoped that the execution would go through as scheduled.

                                 HE WAS INNOCENT 

[mimi-0007]

[introvertedx10]

True! I watched a show about it

[gahdamnpunk]

Can we support him please?!

[nowthisnews]

‘I’m free’ — WNBA star Maya Moore helped free Jonathan Irons, who was wrongfully convicted for a non-fatal shooting, after 23 years behind bars 

follow @nowthisnews for daily news videos & more

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Most prisoners prefer to avoid riots; the penalties are just too grave. It was a measure of how bad things were in [HMP] Hull that men so quickly, instinctively, did what they did. The deterioration in conditions, the bitterness caused by the enforcement of petty restrictions, the arbitrary 'nickings', the beatings, the bad visits, the squalor, the dread and tension, the appalling working conditions - all of these led to a spontaneous eruption of fury. The riot had not been planned; it did not have to be. When it broke out prisoners had acted as one man with one aim: to wreck the jail, to avenge themselves by fighting back. I was an unrepentant rioter. The feeling of euphoria that being on the roof gave me was matchless. I felt that by fighting back I had regained some kind of control over my life. The riot meant that I could stay up late, to wander freely around in the darkness, chat to whoever I liked, smoke as much as I wanted, look out into the night. I was going to suffer, but it was worth it.” - Paul Hill, Stolen Years: Before and After Guildford (London: Corgi, 1991) p. 172.

[AL:  Paul Hill was one of the 'Guildford Four' convicted of the Guildford and Woolwich pub bombings in 1974 and released in 1990 when all their sentences were quashed on appeal. He participated in the 1976 riot at the Hull prison.]