It's the GIFT of FREEDOM.
"DNA tests free man after 28 years in prison; Conviction based on lab work that has been refuted" by Associated Press | December 16, 2009
WASHINGTON - A man who spent 28 years behind bars for a rape and murder he said he did not commit walked out of a federal prison in Arizona yesterday with $75 and a bus ticket to Ohio after DNA testing showed he was innocent.
The conviction of Donald Eugene Gates, 58, was based largely on the testimony of an FBI forensic analyst whose work later came under fire and a hair-analysis technique that has been discredited....
Unfortunately, cases like these and the lies of government and MSM have CALLED INTO QUESTION ALL CASES!!!
Prosecutors had agreed that Gates should be released. However, at their request, Senior Judge Fred B. Ugast delayed Gates’s formal exoneration until next week to give the government an opportunity to conduct one more round of DNA testing....
WTF? Why? So they can plant some of his DNA in a sample and say A-HA?!
They agree the guy should be released, so WTF?
--more--"And if this was only one time or a freak occurrence that would be one thing, but....
"Fla. man exonerated after 35 years behind bars; Rape conviction is voided after DNA testing" by Mitch Stacy, Associated Press | December 18, 2009
BARTOW, Fla. - James Bain used a cellphone for the first time yesterday, calling his elderly mother to tell her he had been freed after 35 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit....
Bain spent more time in prison than any of the 246 inmates previously exonerated by DNA evidence nationwide, according to the project. The longest-serving before him was James Lee Woodard of Dallas, who was released last year after spending more than 27 years in prison for a murder he did not commit....
It is BEYOND the IMAGINABLE to have been LOCKED UP for SO LONG knowing one is INNOCENT!! How do these men keep their sanity?
He was convicted largely on the strength of the victim’s eyewitness identification.... although there are lingering questions about whether detectives steered him.
I'm sorry, world, but THIS HAPPENS ALL the TIME!! Authorities TAILOR EVIDENCE to CONVICT and DISCARD that which would EXONERATE!!!
The jury rejected Bain’s story that he was home watching TV with his twin sister when the crime was committed, an alibi she repeated at a news conference last week. He was 19 when he was sentenced.
Yup, EVEN had an AIRTIGHT ALIBI!!
Ed Threadgill, who prosecuted the case originally, said he did not recall all the specifics, but the conviction seemed right at the time....
If you guys are never going to admit errors, mistakes, or worse then you are never to be trusted at all.
Eric Ferrero, spokesman for the Innocence Project, said a DNA profile can be extracted from decades-old evidence if it has been preserved properly. That means sealed in a bag and stored in a climate-controlled place, which is how most evidence is handled as a matter of routine.
What concerns me about this issue -- with the agenda-pushing MSM's sudden interest in the topic -- is that they will want everyone's DNA in a DATABASE to avoid false convictions, right?!
Last year, Florida passed a law that automatically grants former inmates found innocent $50,000 for each year they spent in prison. No legislative approval is needed. That means Bain is entitled to $1.75 million.
--more--"
Yeah, that's another thing; the MONEY it COSTS TAXPAYERS because of CORRUPT COPS and PROSECUTORS!
"Man freed after DNA tests sues lawyer" by Jeff Carlton, Associated Press | December 24, 2009
DALLAS - A wrongly convicted man freed by DNA evidence....
Patrick Waller, wrongly imprisoned from 1992 to 2008, is on an expanding list of Texas DNA exonerees upset over what they call excessive attorney fees. His lawsuit filed this week is the second in a month as a formerly feel-good story about freedom and delayed justice devolves into a battle over turf and money....
Yeah, it was a "feel-good" story until the WRONGLY CONVICTED MEN wanted their JUST COMPENSATION!
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Readers, WHATEVER AMOUNT these men receive will NEVER BE ENOUGH!
You can NOT PUT a PRICE on LOST TIME!!!
They are entitle to as much money as they can get, and it is ALL YOURS TAXPAYERS -- thanks to CORRUPT AUTHORITIES that are supposedly "protecting" you.
Who can EVER BELIEVE the AUTHORITIES ever again?
And if they do get your DNA in to a DATABASE?
MADISON, Wis. - An Associated Press review found that tens of thousands of DNA samples are missing from state databanks across the country because they were never taken or were lost.
Oh, so they ALREADY HAVE DATABASES and they CAN'T PROPERLY MANAGE THEM!
The missing evidence - combined with big backlogs at the nation’s crime labs that result in DNA samples sitting on shelves for years without being analyzed and entered into the databanks - is preventing investigators from cracking untold numbers of cases. And some of those gaps have had tragic consequences.
Even I am stunned, readers.
“If you got missing samples, some of those people are out there raping your wives and abducting and murdering your children this week,’’ said former Charlottesville, Va., police captain J.E. Harding, who helped uncover missing samples in that state during a search for a serial rapist.
And yet they are kicking down doors, etc, over pot!!!
Nationwide, crime lab supervisors, state police and prison officials blame the failure to collect samples on new and confusing laws and a lack of coordination among the many law enforcement agencies and institutions responsible for taking DNA. “I would just about guarantee you every state has an issue with this,’’ said Lisa Hurst, who tracks DNA convictions for Gordon Thomas
I know mine does (see next article below).
The AP review found 27 states either failed to collect some DNA samples or are unable to say whether they took one from every offender who owes one. At least 13 states are dealing with more samples than they can handle. Kansas, for example, has nearly 40,000 on its crime lab shelves, waiting to be uploaded. In Massachusetts two years ago, an investigation found that more than 16,000 DNA samples in the State Police Crime Lab, some dating back to the 1980s, had not been analyzed. Many of the samples were connected to homicide cases and other serious crimes....
Yup, that's my state!
Exactly how many samples are missing across the country is unknown....
But let's trust the government to protect information they can't protect with their sloppy, shoddy techniques and let's believe them whatever they say because they are the authorities, blah, blah, blah, blah!!!
This, Americans, is a DAMN OUTRAGE!!
Related: UK Defies EU on DNA
Oh, we are not as tyrannical as the Brits yet so it's cool, right?
State databanks contain hundreds of thousands of samples. The FBI’s national database, built with states’ uploads, held 7.4 million as of September. Over the past 15 years, tough-on-crime legislators expanded laws to require DNA from more offenders. First it was sex offenders. Today, 47 states demand DNA from every convicted felon. Twenty-one take it from anyone arrested for homicide or a sex crime, according to Gordon Thomas Honeywell.
Isn't that what PEOPLE SAY when the laws first come along?
Remember how the surveillance society was only to protect us from terrorists and now it is used to solve crimes?
Yup, the technique is always the same: frighten people into submission, impose totalitarianism on them in the name of "security," and then expand the programs into all sectors of society until the globalist control grid is realized.
Generally, prison officials collect DNA from inmates as they enter the institution, often by swabbing the prisoner’s mouth. Local police or probation officers are also supposed to take samples. That means a profusion of collection points. But the laws are so fluid that the agencies responsible for collecting DNA struggle to track which offenders owe samples, authorities say....
Yeah, they can't even handle what they have and are f***ing up what they do, but let's keep expanding the database of the most basic personal effect you have, American.
This is freedom?
--more--"
Thank God I'm from a liberal, open-minded state like Massachusetts.
Massachusetts should join almost every other state in the country by passing a law to give convicted prisoners access to DNA evidence that could prove their innocence, according to a new study of ways to prevent and uncover wrongful convictions.
Related: Massachusetts Justice: Wrongful Convictions
The Bay State is one of only four states without a law allowing prisoners to have DNA tests performed on evidence that remains in police files.
(Blog editor is so ashamed of this abomination of a smug, self-righteous state)
In June, the US Supreme Court said such individuals have no constitutional right to biological evidence for testing, but the court pointed out that most states already allow the testing. Because Massachusetts is not among those states, it is often up to each district attorney whether convicts get to test evidence....
Perhaps the committee’s most notable recommendation is for Massachusetts to join 46 other states that have passed laws allowing convicts to have DNA tests performed on evidence that may prove their innocence. The other states without DNA-testing statutes are Alabama, Alaska, and Oklahoma....
Wow, you are in SELECT COMPANY, Massachusetts!!
That makes your liberal, self-righteous, geographic prejudice most distasteful.
