Congressional Hearings on the USDOJ?

(10 paragraphs, 1 quote, 3 links, and signature block) -- A woman whose brother is wrongly incarcerated rather hospitalized for mental illness wrote a blog decribing horrible living conditions that inmates endure in county jails in Texas and stated there is no improvement even after facilities fail inspections. A modified version of my response is below. I am censored and subjected to cyberterrorism for writing about justice issues. See this link for example and the tweet that was not permitted to go to eonline:

@eonline HOW TO SHARE MY CYBERTERRORISM VIA GOOGLE DOCS http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Docs/thread?tid=56924cd29a47031f&hl=en
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Regarding Texas county jails, they have quite a reputation for ignoring the humanity of inmates, just as Memphis/Shelby County Jail has and others. Inhumane conditions in jails are especially egregious because many innocent-until-proven-guilty people there are awaiting trials, some for the lack of bond money. Numerous jail inmates will be found not guilty once they have their day in court, which could take over a year to happen. Indigent citizens frequently sign false confessions of guilt and accept probation to avoid living for months in abusive conditions while awaiting trial for offenses they never did.

I don't think we can blame abusive living conditions in jails and prisons completely on the individuals over specific facilities or even on the nation's economic downturn. Keeping prisoners in sub-human conditions and inmate abuse preceded the economic crisis. The U.S. Department of Justice has a duty to protect the rights of institutionalized persons, including inmates and hospital patients. In large part, the failure is there. The most important part of any structure is its foundation. The USDOJ was and is corrupt and cares nothing about HUMAN RIGHTS FOR PRISONERS. That not only applies to people who are held in offshore War on Terror camps, but it is just as true of American citizens under arrest in domestic facilities. Individual jails have no one to hold them accountable for inhumane inmate living conditions, substandard health care, abuses, and murders behind bars. There are protective laws on paper, but there is little or no enforcement.

The DOJ's lack of enforcement also applies to "free" Americans' constitutional rights. We rely on the DOJ to enforce our civil rights. Unfortunately, many citizens find that our "inalienable rights" are really quite alienable. Discrimination against minority persons and disabled citizens is not only allowed by the USDOJ, but the agency actually participates in it. Consider the Wrongful Death of Larry Neal (Google it), which the USDOJ helps to cover-up instead of helping his family resolve the murder of the mentally and physically handicapped man and arrive at justice. The DOJ is an outlaw agency that refuses to answer the Neal family's FOIA request about Larry's secret arrest and murder in Memphis/Shelby County Jail with responsive documents, and the DOJ withholds investigation of Larry's death. Sick people, especially African Americans, are in a lower caste than pit bulls in America because we have a corrupt DOJ. That is precisely why Texas' county jails and other "correctional" facilities do not do more to improve living conditions for prisoners.

Memphis/Shelby County Jail, where my brother Larry Neal was murdered in 2003, was already under direct supervision following a lawsuit against it by the USA for inhumane incarceration. Yet the DOJ deliberately ignores its responsibility to uphold Larry's survivors' right to basic information about his arrest and murder in a facility under its oversight and exact justice for the crime. Therefore, federal inspections like you described mean nothing, even if the inspectors are honest and report abuse and jails are sued by the USA for their failures. There will not necessarily be enforcement of the terms of agreements that follow federal lawsuits against facilities that have been found to violate civil rights of hospital patients or inmates. On the contrary, the DOJ may do as it does regarding the wrongful death of Larry Neal and actually help hide the crime to protect criminals and even accept known perjury in federal proceedings for agencies to win release from federal overview.

Life is cheap and liberty irrelevant in the eyes of too many American officials. It is time for We the People to use the power of the voting booth to elect officials who will demand human and civil rights for all their constituents and not ignore the humanity of 2.3 million prisoners who are also citizens. Most prison inmates have been stripped of their voting privileges, but candidates should recognize that each inmate is likely to have at least five people who care about them - voters. Human rights for prisoners directly impacts over 10,000,000 Americans. Their quest for human dignity for prisoners is joined by millions more Americans who understand that a nation cannot be judged by how it treats its dignitaries, but how it treats its most powerless people. America sucks on that point, but we can improve. Let's start now and continue throughout the next election. Make human rights for prisoners a campaign issue. Don't pass a national health care plan that ignores prisoners' health. Find out where your candidates stand on supporting H.R. 619, a bill by Rep. Johnson (D-TX 30) to resume Medicaid funds for inpatient psychiatric care for people from middle-class and poor families rather than continuing to have prisons be America's cruel, discriminatory answer to mental illness. Demand that inmates get decent medical care, also.

Recently, Jamie Scott almost died in a Mississippi prison when both her kidneys failed. Weeks passed before she was transferred from the prison infirmary to a hospital, only after petitions and phone calls by thousands of her supporters. What happens to inmates who do not have thousands of supporters? All it would take for most middle-class and indigent Americans to die behind bars is a wrongful conviction or excessive sentence like Jamie Scott has (a double-life sentence over an $11 theft she disputes having done). Hundreds of wrongful convictions have been overturned in recent years by DNA testing and many more prisoners were released after careful review of evidence during new trials and hearings. This proves that wearing an orange jumpsuit does not prove a person is a criminal. Many innocent Americans had their liberty taken because they lacked the financial resources to launch a successful defense. However, most inmates are guilty of the offenses that led to their convictions and were justly sentenced to serve time for those offenses – not die from medical neglect or abuse.

In 2007, it was reported that eight California prisoners died of tooth decay when infection from their rotten teeth entered their bloodstreams and killed them. All they needed was to have their decayed teeth pulled, but they died instead. To separate men and women from any means to provide for their own health care by incarceration and then allow them to die from rotten teeth is equivalent to murdering them. Such criminal negligence is evidence that while America wages wars, supposedly over human rights for people in foreign lands, many of our own citizens are deprived of human rights at home. Americans' health care needs, including prisoners, are ignored in part because of the huge war budget to continue a war that many citizens find objectionable.

The Bible says charity begins at home. Why is America spending billions to secure human rights abroad while inmates from families that pay taxes, fight in wars, and vote in elections are permitted to suffer in the conditions you described? Answer: Inmates' families and others who care about human and civil rights must unite and demand CHANGE, beginning with the foundation of the problem - the USDOJ. Since presidents seem incapable of appointing attorney generals who will uphold justice and enforce the Constitution of the United States impartially for all citizens, America needs congressional hearings regarding the agency's dereliction of duty that has continued for many years and shows no propensity toward change. Thousands of people would welcome the opportunity to testify about their civil rights being violated and justice quests ignored or impeded by the DOJ, and not all of them pertain to prison issues.

Senator Webb is doing a top to bottom review of the justice system. He should include congressional hearings and learn from We the People what that system is like and the negative impact the DOJ's criminality has on our lives. If the Constitution still has power, then let us demand that it is upheld and the rights guaranteed to citizens be honored. If the Constitution has been nullified, then that should be acknowledged and admitted to We the People. The power of the Constitution should not be eroded by legislation like the Patriot Act that flies in the face of its civil protections or a DOJ that refuses to uphold its provisions. Neither should the rights afforded under the Constitution and other laws be ignored for select citizens. While Americans' resources are abundantly spent on wars waged in concern for others' human and civil rights, let us not forfeit our own.

A man who will not take care of his own, especially those within his own household, is less than an infidel.~Holy Bible


Mary Neal
http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI
P.O. Box 153, Redan, GA 30074
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Thanks for Friendship, from Mary Neal

To my new friends (11 links, 14 paragraphs, counting this one - pls confirm receipt). Thank you for including me in your circle of online friends. To see videos about censorship and terrorism to prevent my human rights advocacy, including real-time cyberstalking and terrorism law enforcement ignores, please visit my YouTube channel jkempp703 at this link - http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jkempp703&aq=f  
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Network groups are very useful for uniting people who work together for a common goal. I have joined many groups, although I am not permitted any longer to send mass emails to the African American and prisoner activists groups I joined at YahooGroups. Cyberstalkers nearly always kick me offline when I try to do so. That started last spring after I announced the Human Rights for Prisoners March, which was planned for May 16 in Atlanta. As it happens, there were thunderstorms that day and the march was canceled. See information about it online and what I consider to be 26 main justice concerns - "Human Rights For Prisoners March." It is hopeful to see that some of those concerns are being addressed by lawmakers who recognize the urgent need for change. Many bills are pending before the 111th Congress that would help regarding justice, and some have already passed. Judges are also effecting positive changes. More defendants are being remanded to drug court and mental health court now, and death sentences are down to 1976 levels. In fact, Judge Kevin Fine (USDC, TX) recently pronounced capital punishment as being unconstitutional. That was a major step forward in the state that leads the Union in executions - over 400 since capital punishment was re-instated in the 1970's and over 200 under Texas' present governor.

As you probably know, I am a human rights advocate. Our group members at Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill, founded after the denial of justice following Larry Neal's murder, try to help victims have a voice regardless of their race, religion, or ethnicity. In fact, I was late coming to realize the level of prejudice that exists in America and how much it impacts our lives on nearly every level. I believe that classism is also a major problem in America. A white person who lacks wealth is subject to discrimination in the justice system like Africans are, although at a much reduced ratio - nowhere near the 1 in 9 rate of imprisonment that young African males reportedly have. Although being white reduces the likelihood of being arrested, it seems not to help people who get caught up in the system. For example, in August 2009, a man named Thomas Arthur was about to be executed in Alabama although results from Arthur's DNA test that the forensic lab released in July reported Arthur was no match for the crime scene evidence that was tested. Judge Pulliam sealed the results of Arthur's DNA test, and prosecutors planned to ask for Arthur's death warrant in August. Apparently, the public was not intended to know about Arthur's wrongful execution until years later, like in the Cameron Scott Willingham case (another white man who was executed in 2004 for murdering his children, but information released recently indicates he was innocent). Mainstream news was quiet about the results of Arthur's DNA test, which he had been denied until 2009 after 26 years of imprisonment for a murder it appears Arthur did not do. Fearing that Arthur might be wrongly executed, I worked all night against cyberstalkers on August 31 to alert people about the inmate's predicament.

It is going to take unity among oppressed people to accomplish justice reform. I work as hard to save Thomas Arthur and Jeff Wood, white men, as I do for Troy Davis and Darrell Lomax, wrongly convicted Africans. Now Thomas Arthur is going to get a hearing "before execution" I read. That sounds like the hearing is only a formality. Hopefully, I am wrong about that. See one of my articles at the link below for more information on Arthur and others. It carries information about Troy Davis, Darrell Lomax, and the Scott Sisters as well as other people who are/were victimized by the unjust justice system.

Cameron Willingham's Wrongful Execution and OTHERS http://bit.ly/1iADKT

See the extent of censorship against me at the link below in an article about Arthur's DNA results being ignored and InfoWar that ensued: Care2 eCards program was attacked on September 1, and gMail actually went down. I really don't believe those were coincidences.

Original Thought Magazine re-published the article at this link, and I really appreciate them for doing that: http://www.originalthoughtmag.com/mag/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1428&Itemid=1428

I learned this week that my Twitter tweets may be going to some set-aside area. None of my tweets to save Troy Davis or Hank Skinner, who is scheduled for execution on 3/24/10 in Texas, appear to be registering with the regular tweets. I did a search for both men's names at Twitter's "real time tweets" field on the log-in page, and NONE of mine for those two men showed up although I have tweeted about little else lately. Last night when I conducted a search at Twitter's "real time tweets" field for Troy Davis' name, I got a response from Twitter saying, "NO RESULTS FOR TROY DAVIS." I cannot tell whether that response really came from Twitter or from the cyberdogs who illegally put my computer on their Intranet in order to monitor and control my use of the Internet. I hope they are not trying to tell me something. We all want good results for Troy. We want justice.

Google my name with Troy Davis' name to see many articles I wrote about his denial of a new trial. He has a chance at a new trial now that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a USDC judge in Atlanta will review his substantial new evidence and make that determination. To access more articles I wrote for victims since learning where I live, please see my Google profile at http://Google.com/profiles/MaryLovesJustice

I feel blessed that you granted me friendship and the opportunity to share my struggle for justice with you. I hope you visit my blog at http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/ and share some of my articles with your friends and groups. I am heavily censored, as I tried to show you, and I have trouble posting news. If it were not for people helping by re-publishing articles, AIMI could not be effective promoting HUMAN RIGHTS FOR PRISONERS. Although every justice issue is important, we mainly use online services to help decriminalize mental illness and end capital punishment. Roughly 1.25 million mentally ill people are prisoners like my unfortunate brother Larry Neal was when he was murdered under secret arrest in 2003 in Memphis/Shelby County Jail. AIMI members support H.R. 619, a bill by Representative Eddie Johnson (D-TX 30) to resume Medicaid funding for inpatient treatment in hospitals. Passing that health care bill would create an alternative to imprisoning people for having a common, treatable health condition - mental illness. Mentally ill people, whether black, white, or other, are probably the most discriminated-against people in America. If they have the triple distinction of being a minority person, poor, and mentally ill, they can actually be murdered behind bars like my brother Larry was, and the USDOJ will refuse to investigate their deaths. Pit bulls get more respect.

Please advise me on how to improve my advocacy, and let me know how I can contribute as a group member. Contact me if there is ever anything I can do for you personally as my new friend. If I fail to respond to your attempt to communicate with me via group mail or by email to my MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com email box, it is likely because I did not get your message. The email I was sent about yesterday's radio show was held up until three hours after the show was over, for instance. I feel confident some of you experience the same things. Last week, my family's phones would not work for outgoing calls when it was time for me to call in to the Women Warriors radio show. Cyberstalkers often redirect my incoming mail to Spam or Trash, and they frequently delete it altogether before I have a chance to read it. They do this constantly with emails announcing my new Twitter followers; then they delete the notices from my Twitter followers list as well. Therefore, please note my mailing address below my signature block and add it to your mailing lists. Cyberlords do not welcome online news and views regarding Human Rights for Prisoners, but still we rise!

Please help promote H.R. 619, which was also endorsed by NAMI and other mental health organizations. Mentally ill people should be treated in hospitals and not imprisoned for being sick. Also, help protest the execution of Hank Skinner, who I understand was a prisoner activist before his conviction. Some people believe that is why Skinner is scheduled to die in Texas on March 24, 2010, and is deprived of DNA tests to prove his innocence. Since I have been gangstalked and intimidated for asking WHAT HAPPENED TO LARRY NEAL and advocating for justice reform, it is easy for me to believe that about Skinner's impending execution. Please help. We all need each other.

Follow me at Twitter, where I am KoffieTime (sometimes my tweets post), and I will follow you back! Link - http://twitter.com/KoffieTime

See this link: HOW TO SHARE MY CYBERTERRORISM VIA GOOGLE DOCS?
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Docs/thread?fid=56924cd29a47031f000481a6ec25228d&hl=en
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Blessings!

Mary Neal
http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI
P.O. Box 153, Redan, GA 30074-0153
Google Profile:  http://google.com/profiles/marylovesjustice

Sean Isbell and Other Wrongfully Convicted

The Patriot Act - the power to seize liberty

A YOUNG MAN wrote to me seeking help publishing the fact that he is wrongly convicted. Sean Isbell laid out substantial evidence on his website attesting to his innocence. He is 23. Like most innocent people who wind up behind bars, Sean is convinced that he needs only to prove his innocence, then he will be released. It is not that simple. Sean has already been convicted. Courts have no burden to consider even irrefutable proof of a convicted person's innocence and overturn a wrongful conviction, according Supreme Court Justice Scalia. Furthermore, the High Court determined in a 2009 ruling that convicted persons have no constitutional right to prove their innocence after conviction through DNA tests. What matters is the conviction, not fairness, justice, or the fact that while innocent people are behind bars, guilty parties remain free and may continue to commit crimes. Please visit Sean's website. Google "Sean Isbell Wrongful Conviction," or use this link: http://tiny.cc/Ocqt6 (If the link fails, please use the name of Sean's website. Links that pertain to human/civil rights are frequently attacked by cyberstalkers, especially with regard to prison issues. For instance, none of Sean Isbell's links on his Twitter page work.)

Sean said the "Pledge of Allegiance" every morning in school and at ball games. He went to fireworks on Independence Days and probably has family members who are or were in the military. Therefore he believes we live in a land of liberty and justice for all. He probably does not know yet what I was late learning: Americans' "inalienable rights" to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness are really quite alienable. Those rights are easily set aside when one is charged with crimes and lacks the resources for a good defense at trial or if convincing evidence of innocence arrives after conviction. Furthermore, "inalienable rights" are not bestowed equally on all Americans in the first place. Minority citizens, poor people, and the mentally ill are therefore over-represented in prisons throughout the country.

Sean doesn't get it yet. I imagine he worked for many hours building a website to display his proof of innocence. He probably agonized over which documents to present and in what order. Poor young man. I wonder how many years wrongly convicted people do that sort of thing before they finally understand that their innocence does not matter. Some wrongly convicted people hope that public exposure about their wrongful conviction and support from We the People will help make the justice system behave fairly. I am inclined to disbelieve that since I have spent the past six years on a justice quest after the secret arrest and wrongful death of my mentally and physically disabled brother - an executed man who was not convicted of any offense whatsoever. Larry Neal wound up dead in a jail that had denied having him incarcerated for weeks and ignored his missing person reports.

After Larry Neal's death, the same justice system that drags healthy people down corridors and straps them on lethal injection tables to take their lives refuses to answer how Larry Neal was murdered in government custody. In defiance of the president's executive order to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, boastful claims of transparency in government, and in total disregard of Larry's and his family's human and civil rights, the jail refuses to release information and records on Larry's secret arrest and murder. The Department of Justice also refuses to release records or ask police how they killed the lifelong mentally ill heart patient. Instead, the justice system decided to cover-up Larry's inconvenient death in 2003, and the cover-up continues.

Larry Neal was black. It is less common for black men to be lynched than a few decades ago, but African Americans being killed by police and black families having their civil rights ignored are American traditions. Therefore, Sean Isbell and other white citizens may be more surprised than African Americans are when they are wrongly convicted. It is one of those tragedies that one never expects to happen. The truth is that wrongful convictions happen regularly to people of all races, men and women alike. Sean asked for help getting his case before the public, and I hope this blog helps him to do that. You are invited to assist Sean by copying this information, emailing the link, or you may use the handy "Add This" feature. For people who have suffer great injustices in the justice system like Sean and my family, it helps when others know about the wrongs and express concern.

I have much in common with Sean and other wrongly convicted people. When Larry's death was followed by a cover-up facilitated by our wrongful death attorneys, The (Johnnie) Cochran Firm, various officials, and the USDOJ, I responded by taking the matter before the public on a website. Like Sean, I published documents that evidence the injustices against Larry and our family, expecting change. See the DOCUMENTS tab at my website, "Wrongful Death of Larry Neal" - http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/ . Larry's family had to publish our own injustice like Sean is doing, because mainstream media blacked out The Cochran Firm Fraud (Google the term). I imagine that most innocent inmates are as disappointed at the lack of repentance the unjust justice system shows as I am. Not only is the system reluctant to set things right, but district attorneys actually argue against possibly innocent inmates getting new trials or DNA tests on evidence that was used to convict them (even at the inmates' expense). When the system is wrong, it does not appreciate any DNA test results or witness testimony evidencing the fact. Instead, there is an unGodly tendency is to cover-up mistakes or intentional wrongdoing by people in the justice system, even by illegal means. Regarding Larry Neal, the justice system plans never to investigate his lynching while under secret arrest (and have to prosecute its own members), but instead, my family is persecuted for asking, "What happened to Larry Neal?"

Unfortunately, America's voting machines do not give receipts. Many elected officials no longer seem to care what the public thinks about injustice, and they now propose to expand/improve railroads and build six concentration camps within our country for Americans using taxpayers' money (Google H.R.645). Like many people, I find it alarming that prison is planned for millions more Americans, perhaps under the Patriot Act, which requires no criminal charges. I express my concern and so do relatively few other brave citizens. Our criticism is not welcome; in fact, I am greatly censored. See an example of my online censorship in a YouTube video called "PRISON LABOR PROFITS" at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icRD77mugaI (use the name if the link fails). Public opinion simply does not matter as much as Sean thinks it does, and neither does the Constitution. Even if Sean and other wrongly convicted persons do get substantial public support as they hope, most judges and parole boards continue to ignore their evidence of innocence and deny them new trials. The Thomas Arthur case, involving another wrongly convicted white citizen, is evidence of that fact. When Arthur's DNA results ruled him out as being Troy Wicker's murderer according to the crime scene evidence tested, a judge simply ordered Arthur's test results sealed, and Alabama's D.A.'s office announced plans to ask for Arthur's death warrant a month after his forensic evidence indicated innocence. Arthur's daughter, another blogger, and I reported Arthur's dilemma, unlike mainstream media, and he will now get a hearing. Meanwhile, Arthur remains on death row.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING, REPRESENTATIVES? WHO ARE YOU REPRESENTING?

Democrats vote to renew Patriot Act
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/feb2010/patr-f27.shtml
By Bill Van Auken 27 February 2010

With almost no debate, the Democratic leadership in Congress pushed through an unamended extension of the USA Patriot Act’s most notorious provisions, granting sweeping powers to eavesdrop and seize library, Internet and other personal records of US citizens. The provisions were set to expire by Sunday. President Barack Obama is expected to sign the legislation before then, securing his administration the ability to continue and expand the domestic spying and attacks on basic democratic rights that he and other Democrats had pretended to oppose under the Bush administration.

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To illustrate how deaf the justice system is to public outcry against injustice, consider Troy Davis' case involving the wrongful conviction of a young African American. Davis was convicted for the murder of a white police officer in Savannah, Georgia nearly two decades ago. The case against Davis is so weak that he has fervent support from a former president, the Pope and other world leaders, as well as millions of people worldwide. Yet Davis remains on death row, gagged to prevent him from discussing his evidence of innocence like Sean Isbell can. Public protest against Davis' execution in the absence of proof of his guilt and millions of requests for him to have a new trial were ignored for years. Finally, The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in July 2009 that the Davis case will be heard by a Georgia USDC judge to determine if Troy gets a new trial. The High Court placed stipulations on the judge's decision, however. First, Davis must present irrefutable proof of innocence (although his case has no forensic evidence), and secondly, the proof must come from evidence that was not available when Davis was convicted. If Davis' overworked public defender overlooked any evidence that should have been used in his initial trial, it will apparently be ignored when the judge decides whether to grant Davis a new trial.

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NOTE: I do not care about people's race. However, race is a definitive issue in criminal justice matters. I pointed out the races of persons being treated unjustly in this article to dispell any belief my readers may hold that denial of justice is something that pertains to only one group of people. Wrongful incarceration can happen to any of us. With the Patriot Act being extended and H.R.645 gaining support in Congress and in view of Massachusetts' Martial Law Bill that passed on October 13, 2009, imprisonment in the absence of crime may be the future being planned for millions more Americans. Congressional members and other leaders who are righteous and courageous should stop the End Game and support justice system reform.

Innocent in Prison Project International carries stories of wrongly convicted people from all over the world. Visit at http://www.iippi.org/ - Please see more about wrongful convictions in the article below by Dave Mann.

Who Gets Wrongly Convicted and Why - Published on Thursday, February 25, 2010

On Feb. 4, Freddie Peacock was cleared of his wrongful conviction for rape 33 years ago in New York state. He’s the 250th innocent person exonerated in the United States by DNA testing, according to the New York-based Innocence Project. To mark the occasion, the Innocence Project released a report that details each of the 250 cases.



The report has some fascinating figures on who gets wrongly convicted and why. I've listed a few of the most interesting numbers below.

The 250 innocent people have been sent to prison in 33 states for a combined 3,160 years. That's an average of 13 years in prison. Think about where you were in 1997. (I was in the middle of my sophomore year in college). Bill Clinton was just a year into his second term. Now think about spending every day from 1997 till now in prison for a crime you didn’t commit.



—60 percent of the 250 exonerees are African American; 29 percent are white.

—17 were on death row when they were exonerated. That’s 17 innocent people who would have been executed had DNA testing not cleared them. You have to assume there's been an innocent person somewhere who wasn’t lucky enough to have testable DNA in their case and was wrongly executed in this country—quite possibly in Texas and quite possibly Cameron Todd Willingham.

—76 percent of the wrongful convictions were caused, at least in part, by witness misidentification. In 38 percent of the cases, more than one eyewitness wrongly identifying an innocent person.

—52 percent of the cases involved faulty forensic evidence. Makes me think of the flawed arson convictions of Curtis Serverns and Ed Graf that the Observer chronicled last year.

—In 27 percent of the cases, the accused falsely confessed to a crime that DNA would later prove they didn’t commit.I know many people can’t envision how someone could confess to a crime they didn’t commit, but it clearly happens. And I believe that’s what happened to Alfredo Guardiola, who the Observer profiled last fall.



—Finally, the 250 wrongful convictions allowed the actual perpetrators to commit at least 72 violent crimes that could have been prevented. This is the facet of wrongful convictions that’s often overlooked. Wrongful convictions harm many people, not just the person imprisoned for a crime they didn't commit. That includes the victims (and their families) of violent crimes that could have been prevented had the right person been in prison all along.
http://www.texasobserver.org/contrarian/who-gets-wrongly-convicted
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May God bless Sean Isbell, Troy Davis, Darrell Lomax on California's death row, the Scott sisters who are serving life sentences in Mississippi for an $11 theft they dispute, and all other wrongly convicted persons. May God also bless inmates who received excessive sentences, thousands of innocent women who are imprisoned under the War on Drugs "girlfriend" law (jailed for loving "bad boys" - no crime necessary), children tried and sentenced as adults, and the 1.25 million mentally ill inmates who suffer cruel incarceration because punishment has replaced treatment for mental illness in America.

WAKE UP! IT IS KOFFIETIME!
Follow me on Twitter, where I am KoffieTime: http://Twitter.com/Koffietime

Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI
P.O. Box 153, Redan, GA 30074-0153
**Use the mailing address to make donations and request CDs filled with more examples of cybercensorship like "PRISON LABOR PROFITS" on YouTube.

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Mary Neal's Google Profile - http://www.google.com/profiles/MaryLovesJustice - Get the RSS feed for my Care2 Sharebook at: http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/rss.html/513396753/0/ - Get the RSS feed for my Twitter KOFFIETIME at http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/59790083.rss - Current, urgent justice issues from a laywoman's viewpoint at my primary blog http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/ (the name is a joke, believe me) Articles: http://NowPublic.com/duo - Recommended articles - http://topsy.com/site/freespeakblog.blogspot.com