Chilling

[BlackShanglan]

How's this for a nightmare scenario?

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/05/05/inmate.award.ap/index.html

Jury: Investigator must pay ex-death row inmate
It awards $2.25 million for fabricated confession

Friday, May 5, 2006; Posted: 8:23 p.m. EDT (00:23 GMT)

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia (AP) -- A federal jury on Friday awarded $2.25 million to a Virginia man who claimed a police investigator fabricated a rape and murder confession that sent him to death row.

Earl Washington Jr., who came within nine days of being executed, had sued the estate of the state police investigator, Curtis Reese Wilmore, who died in 1994. Jurors awarded Washington damages upon finding that Wilmore deliberately fabricated evidence that led to his conviction and death sentence.

"I feel great -- and happy," a smiling Washington said after the verdict.

Washington spent nearly 18 years in prison. He was pardoned in 2000 by then-Gov. Jim Gilmore after sophisticated DNA testing, unavailable at the time of the crime, linked a convicted rapist to the murder.

William G. Broaddus, an attorney for the Wilmore estate, declined to comment after the verdict, other than to say he is considering an appeal.

Washington's attorneys claimed that Wilmore fed their client, who is mildly retarded, specific details that he used in his false confession to the slaying in 1982 of Rebecca Lynn Williams in Culpeper, Virginia.

For example, Washington said he left a bloodstained shirt in a dresser drawer in a back bedroom of the victim's home, his attorneys noted. Police never revealed the information publicly.

During the trial, a psychologist testified that investigators could easily manipulate Washington because of his mental deficit.

Washington's attorney, Peter Neufeld, said after the decision that the case boiled down to "two men in a room with the door closed. When they walk out, there's a confession with all kinds of nonpublished details."

Said Neufeld: "We learn years later that one of the men could not have possibly have known those details. Therefore, they had to come from the other fellow in this case, Special Agent Curtis Reese Wilmore."

Wilmore's lawyers acknowledged Washington's innocence but argued that Wilmore did not fabricate the confession.

Washington is now a maintenance worker in Virginia Beach.

Neufeld said Washington's attorneys will attempt get the state to pay the damages against Wilmore's estate.

"When he engaged in misconduct he did it as an agent of the commonwealth," Neufeld said, adding that the attorney general's office paid powerhouse law firm McGuireWoods to defend Wilmore's estate.

A telephone message left Friday with the attorney general's office was not immediately returned.

 

[Guest]

 

[cantdog]

It's one of my deepest and most persistent fears.

I have watched cops convict by the simple expedient of the lie in court.

 

[cloudy]

It's one of my deepest and most persistent fears.

I have watched cops convict by the simple expedient of the lie in court.

Indeed. I'm living proof.

 

[cantdog]

As a teenager i saw a girl be unjustly confined in a mental hospital, too. I was so sad for her, but at thirteen, entirely helpless. I hate thinking about it even now.

 

[togitc]

Speaking as someone who is 'crazy' and treated for it. Those places are not a pleasant experience, even with the modern thought things are harsh. I went in mildly off and came out a lot worse.

not that i needed to share that.

 

[S-Des]

Mine too

It's one of my deepest and most persistent fears.

I have watched cops convict by the simple expedient of the lie in court.

There was a case in Illinois where a man in a small town was tried and convited, then put on death row for the killing of his wife & mother-in-law. There was no proof, but some circumstancial evidence and a motive (life insurance). He maintained his innocense, but nobody listened.

A few years later, the FBI was doing an undercover operation on a motorcycle gang when one of the members confessed to the killing and laughed about the "poor slob" who got blamed. When the operation was over, they notified the prosecutor who refused to listen. Eventually, it was overturned on appeal and the man was released, but to this day the prosecutor insists the man was a muderer and that he (the prosecutor) did nothing wrong.

People ask why I'm opposed to the death penalty . . . I have about 30 of those stories.

 

[Guest]

[soapbox]

Once I thought the death penalty could be fairly applied. I no longer think so. Any system that relies so heavily on human memory, human judgement, and human motivation as our (or any) justice systym is prone to deep flaws. Yes, it's the best thing we have, but we must realize it is not, nor is likely ever to be, perfect. The very idea of "beyond the shadow of a doubt" means that one just manipulates the lights a little and -tada- no shadow.

Yes, we must protect ourselves and our society. Yes, we have established rules and laws to do this, and these rules and laws may not be to everyone's taste or philosophy, in part or in total. We can look around the world and see the results of anarchy as practiced by humans in a variety of situations, and it's not a pretty sight.

But we have to hold on to the idea that we are finite beings. No matter how extensive our knowledge or how wise our judgement, it is limited. There will be a thing unknown. We are also capable of lying, believing our own lies and convincing others that lies are truth.

With that in mind, and what I've seen and heard over the years, I've come to accept that state/government legislated death penalties should not be. Death as a punishment should not be. It serves nothing -- nothing is gained and we are all diminished. There is quite enough means of death and problems around death -- war, domestic violence, starvation, neglect, disease, teribble accident and injury -- that we do not need more.

And simply because a thing has been done in the past or is done in other places does not support reasonably the continuation of doing a thing. Tradition does not make right. If many people doing a wrong thing, it still is wrong.

[/soapbox]

 

[FallingToFly]

As a teenager i saw a girl be unjustly confined in a mental hospital, too. I was so sad for her, but at thirteen, entirely helpless. I hate thinking about it even now.

[threadjack]

That seems to be right around the age where it happens. Sometimes you survive, sometimes you don't, and sometimes you find something to help you cope with the nightmares. Better Than Ezra did an entire album about a girl they knew (actually, I think that the lead singer dated her) as teenagers who ended up in a mental institution, and not being able to do anything about it. Awesome album, btw, but the most relevant song on it -

Artist: Better Than Ezra
Album: Friction, Baby
Title: Desperately Wanting


Past the road to your house
That you never called home
Where they turned out the lights
Though they say you'll never know

I remember running through the wet grass
And falling a step behind
Both of us never tiring
Desperately Wanting

When they pumped out your guts
And filled you full of those pills
You were never quite right
Deserving all the chills
They say the worst is over
Kicked it over and ran
Then they ask what went wrong
When they turn you on again
They turn you on again.

I remember running through the wet grass
And falling a step behind
Both of us never tiring
Desperately Wanting

Kick them right in the face
Make them wish they weren't born
And if they bring up your name
Well they'll say you won the war.
Baby burst in the world
Never given a chance
Then they as what went wrong
When you never had it right
Oh the letters they have dropped off
Though they say you got them all
I finally figured out some things you'll never know.

Take back your life and let me inside
We'll find the door if you care to anymore.

I remember running through the wet grass
and falling a step behind
Both of us never tiring
Desperately Wanting.

[/threadjack]