How Many Of You Have Been Accused Of Serious Crimes...

How many of you have been accused of serious crimes of which you were (in fact) innocent??

I have been accused of a major crime that if I were guilty could have brought me the death penalty. I was innocent. The grand jury was wise and understood that I was innocent. But what if they were not wise?? After all, we hear that a grand jury could indict a ham sandwhich, so why not me?? What if they were conservative and thought that they would leave the matter for a jury to sort out the matter???? Roll the dice.


I know nothing about Tookie Williams. I do not pretend to know if he is innocent. I do not pretend to know if his activism has helped inner city children from falling into a life of gangs. I do know that the man has spent 25 years behind bars. I do know that the death penalty does not deter crime. I do know that hundreds of our fellow citizens have been exhonarated via DNA evidence from crimes that they were convicted of comitting. I do know that those who receive the death penalty are disporportionatly Black & impoverished.

I have always been against the DP, even before I ran into trouble. I have several reasons for being against it, but nothing brings it home until you are falsely accused of a serious crime.



So you, YOU. Have you ever been charged with a crime that you did not commit?

Not only was I uninvolved, it turned out nobody'd broken into the home in question at all. :shrug:

Do you feel at all like you could have been convicted of something that you did not do??

before they even verified that a crime had occured (the neighbors' burglar alarm had activated, but nobody had actually broken in.) I doubt they'd have had any trouble convincing a juvenile court judge that I'd broke into the neighbors house, had a cocoa farm in the backyard and had kidnapped the Lindbergh baby- it's not like my family could have mounted much of a defense. How does one prove a negative?

I'd like to think people don't get convicted of crimes that haven't occured, but after that experience I suspect that's a bit optomistic. Certanly they were about ready to drag my ass in and I was an unthreatning, well-spoken white girl living in the burbs. Had I been a scruffy kid or a black kid or a boy with a mouth on me, I suspect my Dad would have had to pick me up from juvenile hall and hope to straighten the mess out from there. (And since he's got his own issues with authority after a wrongful arrest I can't assume he'd have pursued the truth if there was an easier way to extricate me from the situation.)

But, as a youngster I was accused of attempting to steal a car. The police were all in involved, and I was going to get arrested for it. Fortunately, there was not enough evidence to prove I was attempting to steal a car.

I feel you on the DP. My whole thing is, what happens after Tookie Williams is put to death, and someone steps forward and say, "I was the one who killed those 4 people!" Can they bring Tookie back?

A guy down here in Georgia was wrongly accused of rape and spent 20 years in jail. I was recently released because DNA evidence showed that someone else committed the crime.

charged with.

But I could afford great legal help and got off relatively light every time.

I kind of took his response to be one that acknowledged the the ecconomic & racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Maybe I'm wrong. :shrug:

that got broken or mislaid in our house. Usually, I was guilty but sometimes I wasn't so I have an inkling of what it is like to be wrongfully accused. But no as a woman they don't usually try to find criminal acts to accuse you with. I can imagine how scary it is though if you are especially if it is a possible death penalty crime.

or is it a song?! the point is that some of us don't have to live it, we can imagine it...and the result, i believe is called "empathy".

i'm glad to know your situation worked out.

"Then when you criticize him, you're a mile away and you have his shoes!"

Had cops show up at his house one morning and demand his sperm, but he never heard anything more about it...

there is no justification or validation for dp. it is murder plain and simple. you cannot say, well we get most of them. 1...... just 1 innocent is murder, for me you cannot have dp. or you morally sin

now i dont agree with dp for many reasons

it is also a battle i dont battle.

but 1 innocent is 1 too many

and we know, there have been many

:hug: Your resposnse means a lot to me. We are often on opposing sides of a debate (even if I don't often weigh in--sometimes it is better just to read and keep my big mouth shut).

One innocent is one too many. We must take a good look at ourselves in the mirror and decide who & what we want to be. This does not meant that we want to "coddle" murders. It means that we want to be humane in the way that we deal with crime & punishment.

And arrested -- because our cops had to cover their liability. I don't blame them.

The charges were tossed and I was asked / forced to sign paper that I'd never been arrested, just "detained".

This happened more than once. :)

And those incidents where days into trying to handle a person in a psychotic situation on my own because no one I called would help. Not doctors, not "mobile psych services", nada.

To this day, although I've never raised a hand against anyone, if I get pulled over for speeding, a posse congregates because you can never erase WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN ACCUSED OF.

There is not a good enough correlation between what happens in real life and how the criminal justice system responds. Not nearly good enough. Not for simple assault, let alone for murder.

And even if there were, I would still oppose the DP.

:D

I know that they can be convicted using bad science and playing on the emotions of the jury. I fought like hell on appeal to help him "get off" as the general public are proned to call it. I say I fought like hell for justice and justice was had on appeal, the court finding that the prosecutorial misconduct was so extreme, they couldn't send him back for a new trial, they released him after he spent 3 years in prison.

I watched as his children begged the jury to spare his life, as they professed that their daddy was a good and kind mind. I cried as they begged for his life and I wrote a list of 12 reversible errors that I recalled during the 10 day trial.

We ended up with 17 errors in that record, the most egregious being the prosecution and the trial court kept key statements and evidence from us, statements that presented reasonable doubt and/or proved he could not have committed the crime.

I have seen the injustice and I am against the death penalty.

I have worked with serial killers that I pray never get out of jail, but I do not wish them death, even when they tormented me and made me feel unsafe.

There is no place for state sanctioned killings/revenge in a civilized society.

I know that you lost your home to Katrina, but I did not know that you worked in the legal profession. There is no one better than you to see the injustices that do occur.

I believe so deeply that our founders set up a system of checks & balances that in theory should prevent injustices from occuring. But the sad reality is that those of us at the bottom rung of the ladder of success will receive the bottom rung of services when we need them.

THIS IS WHY WE ARE DEMOCRATS!!!!!!!!

We believe that everyone should have an equal oportunity.

Thank you, merh, for checking in and giving some life-experience to the discussion.

As always, may the ripple effect touch you.

thank you for your kind words and your efforts.

((((((((me b zola))))))))

Please PM me. I'd like advice. I doubt there's muich that could be done at this late date, but.... one never knows.

do you have a link or did you want to pmail me?

I don't know what advice I could offer, if your partner's story brings you distress, I can try to offer understanding and a hug or two. :hug: :hug:

pulled 27 years in the Kentucky State Penitentiaries.

In at age 21 and out at 48. Armed robbery/murder/kidnapping.
Death penalty case, plea bargain for life sentence. Been out and productive for five/six years now - and completely free of state and fed parole (sawed-off shotgun tag) just recently.
Yeah, he (they) were guilty (kidnapped eyewitnesses' testimony).
As an aside, a trial would have likely been even more "prejudicial", as the deceased victim was a "pillar" of the community.
(I note that Tookie got 120 bucks in one of his robberies; my BIL and his accomplice absconded with 126 dollars.)

...O...

It was all dropped but I got a mug shot, finger prints and my name in the paper. Oh, and $700 spent to have a lawyer with me at municipal count.

I have found that there are certain people who will try all sorts of things with the hopes of being able to sue a corporation or a business. This chick even got in my father's face and screamed the most horrific things about what "YOUR DAUGHTER" was doing with men. My father had to type them out because they were so disgusting that he couldn't say them to me, (I am no prude but the things she said to him were enough to make me gag). Anyway we were both certain that since she lost the burglary case she tried very hard to get him to hit her.

And she was a prostitute and tried to make my father a client. We were fairly sure with that one the "rape" word would get in there had he taken her up on he proposition.

So anyway the answer is YES. And there was another incident that is too long to explain but I do have a record and I really was railroaded. Again with the apartments and people looking for ways to make money.

When I finally moved the moment I got over the Delaware bridge and was out of New Jersey I felt like a 3 ton weight was lifted off my shoulders.

Maybe that is why I always favor the defendant on court TV. I don't trust the legal system at all.

I am 100% against the death penalty.

I don't break the laws, and I don't act in a manner that would tend to get me into those situations (public drunkenness, etc.)

Never been in jail, and feel uncomfortable around people who have been, unless it was for a good cause like civil disobedience like Martin Sheen, etc.

I'm against the death penalty, too. But let's imagine Tookie is innocent of the four murders he was convicted of. It's a perfect example of how bad behavior can get you into a lot more trouble than you bargained for. Tookie was clearly a bad guy who did a lot of bad things and has admitted to hurting people.

I don't want him killed, but I would not want this man on the streets again.

Someone did assault this poor woman but all she saw was the bastard's black t-shirt. I was wearing a black t-shirt. Luckily I had spent the last hour with a group of fifteen people who could vouch for me.

I was never charged and never taken into custody. However, she did point at me and said I did it. I am not blaming her but I shudder to think if I didn't have so many people around me who could prove my innocence.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/03/29/DD109422.DTL

This happened where I used to live. Thank god for Pat McGuinness!

I have to try to get accused of a serious crime.

what I believe. until you are hung by your thumbs, though innocent, you will never know.

I shit you not. There was this crazy kid that lived behind me who shot his girlfriend and then gave the police my description. And as dumb luck would have it, I just happened to stop home to grab some weed at lunch break and the fucking cops grabbed me while I was on the way back to my friend's car. It was fucking crazy. I was being interrogated and shit and I had no idea what the hell they were talking about. I was at once amused, confused and scared to death. Finally one of the dude's friends broke down at the police station and said it wasn't me and I went back to work the polls. They let me go and never found the weed.

If everything went bad. But I had overwhelming evidence that I was elsewhere at the time so in a trial I would have won. But the year or so in jail waiting for the trial would have really sucked. I have a lot of friends that have been in and out of the joint, it's not a fun place.

was arrested for murder, but luckily released. My uncle had nothing to do with it but owned a bar (back in the 1940-50s) where some lowlife hung out and he got dragged into the whole thing along with the guy who did it.

I would never have wanted to walk a mile in Tookies' shoes.

and tried to take every kid's finger prints. (remeber the "Missing Children" Hoax?)


Then 5 years later Four kids were accused of a local arson and illegally hauled in for questioning strait from the school without parental notice.

Everyone was confused because these four young men NEVER partied with each other and NEVER talked to each other at school in a town of less than 3000 people. Plust the arson was in the next town 15 miles away and only two of these guys had cars. Both of which where home even though police claimed they saw BOTH CARS there.

As it truns out...? the four kids were the first four male fingerprints they had taken five years ago.

The first four alphabetically.

Cop that were not only willing to ruin anyones' lives but also sloppy and lazy doing it.

is a far larger problem than most Americans are willing to acknowledge. We have an almost religious belief in the infallibility of the criminal justice system. Frankly, I have no idea if there's a better way, but I think the DP is a result of our refusal to acknowledge the flaws in our system. The very least we can do to address the problems and the lack of perfection in our system is let people LIVE and try to prove their innocence.

because in his opinion it is much better than life in prison. Prison is a bad place to spend your entire life: no freedom, hostile environment, lonely, no women, depressing,...in many ways it is worse than death.

How could the death penalty possibly deter anything when most murders are spontaneous crimes of passion? "Oh, I hate you so much I would fucking kill you right now....but let me consider the consequences first and I'll get back to you next Tuesday?" ?!?!?!?! :crazy: While organized crime syndicates purchase influence in the justice system for their professional murderers.

Many in the "pro-life" crowd are the biggest supporters of ending someone's life with electricity or poison. It's pretty unusual to shock someone with electricity until they die...at least in the real world.

I suppose in cases of a terrorist or militant attacking our country, it's war. So like our party chairman, I support the death penalty only in very extreme circumstances. It's pretty damn unusual to brainwash your religous cult members to fly planes into tall buildings and kill 3,000 innocent people in one morning. That's extreme.

I feel the same...

Thanks to some good lawyerin' aided by my actual innocence, three of the four counts were dropped and the fourth was reduced to a misdemeanor. Scared the pants off of me though!

So, yes...I have.

behind my head at gunpoint. The guy they were looking for looked very much like me and was driving the same model and color car. Lasted about five minutes but was not fun. The guy had shot a gas station employee. After the cop's backup arrived they got my wallet out of my pants and appologized, I was very relieved and wasn't upset or angry at them.