I can’t find words to describe how it feels to serve time for a crime you did not commit!  You feel broken, defiled and abandoned by a system that, when the horror began, you were confident would right the wrong you had suffered at the hands of the rats that ensnared you or the heartless prosecutors who could care less about truth and justice in their quest for victory and self-aggrandizement! 

In the last two days we have been told of two innocent men who served a combined 63 years behind bars when, in fact they did not commit the egregious crimes of which they were wrongly convicted.  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.  Mr. Gates should have been released years earlier when the forensic tests upon which his conviction was based was found to be erroneous.  But did the prosecutors reach out to free him?  Did the Judge that convicted him and sentenced him demand that he be released immediately?  Absolutely not!  More than ten  years passed before a public defender brought the mistakes to the attention of the court.  How heartless is our Justice system!   This poor man was convicted of rape and murder!!  He was branded as a sociopath who should be imprisoned forever!  How did he feel?  How did his family feel, who had to face the shame and derision heaped upon them by so many who knew, or thought they knew what he had done.  Read the story yourself, Click here: DNA Clears Donald Eugene Gates, Who Served 28 Years – Sphere News, and if you still think there are no GOODCONS, you need to revisit your value system, or your God.

And if 28 years of wrongful imprisonment isn’t enough, today we hear of  another instance of injustice, this one stealing 35 years of a man’s life away.   James Bain, 54, was 19 when he was convicted on charges of kidnapping, burglary and strong-arm rape. He received a life sentence. He’s going home for the first time in 35 years.  You know, the three reasons our Founding Fathers felt it necessary to go to war with England was life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Next to life itself they placed liberty as the most precious gift endowed to man by the Creator.  So you have to wonder where we went so astray.  How did we end up with a heartless ststem of justice that doesn’t think twice about throwing its citizens behind bars for etrocious lengths of time for first-time, non-violent offenses.  Where victory trumps truth and the presumption of innocense has been muted by plea-bargaining. Maybe one day I’ll share my own horror, although it is nothing compared to what Mr. Bain has endured.  But in the meantime I am dedicated to bringing to light the need for reform in our justice system and the fact that many men and women in prison shouldn’t be there, that many more who are imprisoned do not deserve the  horrific sentences this country has heaped upon them and their families, and that, regardless of their crimes, except in relatively few instances, these men and women must not be abandoned by society.  Only God knows the truth  and only He can truly judge. In the meantime, read about Mr. Bain at  http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/17/florida.dna.exoneration/  , a man who after being torn away from all he loved for so many years by a system that could not bring itself to offer even a semblance of apology, just wanted to thank God.   Amen

Tags: cons, convict news, inmate cards, inmate news, prisoners, wrongful prosecution

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