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Father’s Day

Ileejah Hutchinson — June 14, 2013 @ 1:06 PM — Comments (1)

As the son of a single mother, Father’s Day is different for me. It is also different for the children of the wrongfully imprisoned. Like most Father’s Days I will be presenting my mom with a card that reads “Happy Father’s Day,” and a bouquet of flowers that express the love and appreciation I have for her. It, however, is not for the reasons you may think. My father passed away when I was one year old and my mother raised me to be the man that I am today.

A situation like mine has no one to blame because the circumstances leading up to my father’s death were completely out of human control.  But what about the children whose lives are impacted every day by the yearning for a father who has been imprisoned for a crime he did not commit?

This Sunday as we wake and celebrate Father’s Day with elaborate gifts, great food, and the men who have been father figures in our lives, take a moment to reflect on the countless children who will not being able to wish their daddy a happy Father’s Day or the men whose chance to have children of their own was stolen.

Think of men like William Dillon, a man who spent 27.5 years in prison before his exoneration, who had the opportunity to start a family of his own ripped away from him due to a eyewitness misidentification and jailhouse snitch among other things. This Father’s Day, think of men like Luis Diaz, who while serving a life sentenced missed the chance to create memories with his three children for 26 long years. This Father’s Day we should think of the innocent men serving time for crimes they did not commit, but we should also think of the innocent children who are missing out at a chance to wish their dad a Happy Father’s Day.

 

justice,prison,Uncategorized, , ,


MAYDAY: A Call of the Innocent

Ileejah Hutchinson — May 21, 2013 @ 3:20 PM — Comments (0)

Mayday, mayday, mayday!

This universal call is used to signal and aid individuals who are in distress and seeking assistance. The term is mainly used by marines and aviators; however, in some countries it is also used by law enforcement, fire departments and transportation groups.

The mayday call, which originated in the early 1920s, comes from the French words “venez m’iader,” which means “come and help me.” After a mayday call is given and if there is no response from the coast guard or any person designated to assist within two minutes, any person who hears the call for distress is required to perform a mayday relay, which is a call by one vessel on behalf of another.

IPF has vigorously worked for 10 years to aid persons in distress as a result of wrongful convictions. Exonerees such as, Orlando Boquete, William Dillon and Derrick Williams, to name a few, are perfect examples of successful mayday relays.

The United States of America prides itself on having the best criminal justice system in the world. Sadly it has been proven time and time again that the system is not immune to human error and in some cases, willful misconduct by prosecutors and law enforcement, and outright lies by jailhouse snitches. An innocent person, generally, believes that the justice system will do nothing but protect them, and do its best to eradicate the actual criminals.

Boquete, Dillon and Williams, collectively, spent 58 years in prison before their “mayday calls” were answered. Like all exonerees, Dillon made multiple cries for help; “to anyone who might listen” is how Dillon describes his desperate pleas. Finally with the help of IPF and assistant public defender Mike Pirolo, DNA testing on a key piece of evidence proved that Dillon was innocent. Dillon’s distress calls were finally answered after more than 27 years.

Williams’ sister-in-law took the first step in successfully performing a mayday relay on his behalf. With the help of IPF, Williams was finally able to go home after serving 18 years in prison.

Later this week Orlando will celebrate the 7th anniversary of his exoneration – the day his call for help was answered.

Place yourself in the shoes of Boquete, Dillon, or Williams – imagine spending years locked away from loved ones, family and friends; imagine not being able to fulfill the goals you mapped out for yourself; imagine not being able to make choices of what to eat and where to go. The small things we take for granted everyday are the things they missed, because the system failed and they were convicted of crimes they did not commit.

Because prosecutors, judges, and the State have turned their backs and ignore the cries of the innocent, IPF will continue to respond to mayday calls from those in Florida’s prisons.

It is everyone’s obligation to assist after hearing a mayday call, a cry from the wrongfully convicted, a cry that will prove to be the first step in unlocking the truth. Your assistance can be in many forms – share this post, tell others about IFP and our work, and provide financial support so we can bring home the innocent still in prison.

exoneration,Innocence Project of Florida,justice,prison, , , , , , ,


Mother’s Day: A Harsh Reminder for Innocent People in Prison

Anna Fitzpatrick — May 10, 2013 @ 10:48 AM — Comments (1)

This Sunday families will gather together to celebrate the women who gave them life. But for the wrongfully convicted, Mother’s Day serves as another reminder of the life that was stolen from them by inequities embedded in the criminal justice system. Many wrongfully convicted people spend decades serving a prison sentence they do not deserve, and subsequently miss countless opportunities to spend time with their mothers, fathers, children, and spouses.

Alan Crotzer, a Florida DNA exoneree, bore the weight of this cross when he lost his mother fives years before his exoneration in 2006. In an interview with the IPF, Alan spoke about his mother’s unwavering faith in his innocence and how she inspired him to continue to fight for his freedom. Alan lost spending the last twenty years of his mother’s life with her due to his wrongful imprisonment. Countless other wrongfully imprisoned have faced similar losses.

Florida DNA exoneree Luis Diaz was wrongfully convicted in 1980 and sent to prison when his three children were only five, seven and thirteen years old. He served 25 years in prison until post-conviction DNA testing provided proof that he was wrongfully convicted. By the time he was released, his children were not only grown but married with children of their own. Luis was denied the ability to raise his own children and his children were denied their father for most of their childhood. Each holiday was a harsh reminder that this family was missing a parent.

These two men represent a fraction of the innocent people in prison who are locked away from their families and their freedom everyday.

We hope you celebrate lives of your mothers, wives and daughters. We applaud their tireless efforts. We also ask that you let your thoughts also turn to those who have had their lives stolen from under them by a wrongful conviction and are waiting to come home.

Innocence Project of Florida,prison, , ,


Free, But with a Cloud

Anne — April 01, 2013 @ 10:08 AM — Comments (0)

With a college degree in hand and a healthy outlook on the future, Nicole Harris envisioned in December 2004 that she was on the brink of something big. As the single mother of two young sons, her college graduation was fostered by a network of family members and supporters whose pride in her accomplishments seemed endless. With a degree in psychology she hoped to land a job in her chosen field, and a subsequent move back to her hometown of Chicago would allow her to rejoin her family as well as explore opportunities for employment in her discipline. A few months after graduating, however, her plans for the future went terribly awry. The attainment of a college degree suddenly became a secondary treasure as she found herself charged in the strangulation death of her youngest son, Jaquari, age 4.

Harris steadily maintained her innocence regarding any involvement in her son’s death, but her protestations fell on deaf ears. Her son’s death, insisted prosecutors, resulted from her frustrations due to her son’s constant crying. According to authorities, Harris wrapped a fitted bedsheet cord around her son’s neck and strangled him.

Convicted of the crime by a Cook County jury, Harris spent seven years (of a 30-year sentence) in prison before the 7th U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated her conviction in October 2012. On February 25, 2013, she exited the Dwight Correctional Center a “free” woman.  ”This isn’t just a legal victory,” said Alison Flaum, an attorney with Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Conviction, which joined forces with the law firm Jenner & Block to defend Harris.  “They saw this case for the miscarriage of justice that it was.” Harris has always maintained that her son died accidentally and that she had nothing to do with his death.

Harris’ case  is troublesome, however, on so many levels and in so many ways:

  • Even though she knew she was innocent, she confessed to the crime following a 27-hour interrogation which, she said, included threats and manipulation by police investigating the case.
  • Police initially confronted Harris in a hospital chapel, where she had gone following her collapse after being told that her son had not survived. In such an emotional state, it is no stretch of the imagination to presume that authorial figures often engage powers of persuasion and similar techniques in an effort to elicit false information from vulnerable suspects. 
  • Harris’ oldest son, Diante, then 5, told investigators that he was alone in the home with his brother when he witnessed Jaquari wrap the cord around his neck while he (Daquari) was playing. Authorities, however, dismissed the brother’s claim.
  • The trial judge barred Diante from testifying, deeming him incompetent, presumably, because Diante believed that “Santa Claus, Spider-Man and the tooth fairy” were real figures and not imaginary figures.
  • According to reports in the case, prosecutors noted that Diante told investigators that he was asleep when his brother died.
  • Various reports indicate that Nicole Harris was at a nearby laundromat when the incident occurred, having instructed both young boys to remain in the home during her absence.

In overturning Harris’ guilty verdict, the judges wrote that if Diante had been allowed to testify, his testimony “would have changed the entire tenor of the case [and supported her oldest son's claims that his brother's death was accidental].”

Although Harris has been released from the Dwight Correctional Center and can begin the journey to rebuild the life she left behind in 2005, her legal battles are far from over. The State has appealed the October 2012 ruling and has asked the U. S. Supreme Court to review the case. Additionally, Cook County prosecutors could still move to retry the case. On February 25, 2013, the date of Harris’ release, a representative from the State Attorney’s Office said that a decision to retry the defendant had not yet been made.

In the meantime, Nicole Harris has maintained a positive outlook, insisting that she knew that prison wasn’t her “final destination,” that “eventually we’ll have full victory, and it’ll be all over.”

Through all that she has endured, she is certainly due the future she envisioned when she earned her college degree and stepped forward into a life of promise.

justice,post-conviction,prison, , , , , , ,


Same Narrative, Different Players

Anne — March 25, 2013 @ 4:50 PM — Comments (0)

Final installment in a 3-part commentary on Solitary Confinement. Read Part I here and Part II here.

If anyone were to ask Anthony Graves and Stephen Slevin what they have in common, the two men might automatically respond to the basic facts of their previous incarceration, subsequent release from prison and jail, respectively, and of their ultimate receipt of funds from their respective states for crimes committed against them.

Their commonality, however, is more significant than their incarcerations and subsequent freedoms.

While Anthony Graves,  incarcerated  in a Texas prison for nearly two decades for a crime he did not commit, emerged a free man, his imprisonment affected him in ways only he can fully acknowledge. Speaking before a Senate Judiciary Committee on solitary confinement in June 2012, he relayed in great detail the psychological, emotional and physical horrors visited upon prisoners confined to solitary confinement. Eye-gouging, skin-cutting and other forms of self-mutilations only partially describe the horrors of solitary confinement, the systematic practice of segregating prisoners deemed a danger to themselves and/or other prisoners. Listening to Anthony Graves speak of the psychological effects of solitary confinement is painful. He is the one, however, who lives with the memories only those on the outside can imagine. Difficulties with sleeping are only one of the many consequences he faces as a “free” man. Even though he is no longer behind bars, his freedom comes with–and at–a price: revolving nightmares of his incarceration. Graves’ freedom is, as he described during the Senate hearings, is a journey of caution, one which he must carefully navigate one step at a time.

While Stephen Slevin’s circumstances differ slightly from Anthony Graves’ walk to freedom, their paths are eerily similar.

In August 2005, while driving through Dona Ana County, New Mexico, with no specific destination in mind, Slevin was arrested on a DWI charge and for driving a vehicle that did not belong to him. From the point of his arrest and subsequent transfer to the county’s detention enter, his nightmare began. Never officially charged with committing a crime, he also never had  a trial, languishing in jail for 22 months. From the moment of his detainment, his association with human contact was limited. Initially placed in a padded cell on the jail’s floor–wearing only a “suicide smock”–Slevin faced the first of two impending transfers following a few weeks of medical examination at the facility. While prison policy dictated open showering with other inmates, he was administratively placed in an “observation cell,” which contained its own shower, toilet and a window. The amenities were not, however, due to the goodness and graciousness of jail officials; the services were provided for the purpose of observing Mr. Slevin on a 24/7 basis. Following the assignment of his “private quarters” he was eventually transferred to solitary confinement where, until his release from jail, he remained.

In view of Slevin’s placement, controversy surrounds (to this day) his placement in a 6-by-11 foot cell. With little to no outside contact, his mental health began to deteriorate. Matt Coyte, Slevin’s attorney, who worked tirelessly over the years to free him, said that prison policy dictates that mentally ill inmates be placed in administrative segregation. Not so, according to Jess Williams, Dona Ana County’s public information director. According to Williams, Slevin was administratively placed at his (Slevin’s) request, because, according to the director, Slevin did not wish to be placed in the prison’s general population, that upon an opportunity to join the general population in a cell block with a day room, he refused. The remaining (and only option, according to Williams) was to place Slevin in one of the facility’s 28 solitary confinement cells.

In January 2006, three months after placement in solitary confinement, Slevin began exhibiting delirious behavior. Previously able to compose letters to his sister as well as correspondence to jail officials in appeal of medical attention, he informed jail officials of his inability to sleep and began experiencing panic attacks. According to Coyte, Slevin began a slow mental decline, exhibiting constant rocking, back and forth, in his cell. Other medical conditions arose during his incarceration as well. While he was given food and provided medication during his incarceration, other behaviors and conditions, attributed to his confinement, arose: He quit bathing, fungus grew on his skin, his toenails grew to such lengths they began to curl, and he was in need of dental work. The pain of a decaying tooth drove him to self-extract the tooth. According to his attorney, Slevin “began to decay, essentially, as a human being.”

Photographs of the former inmate, from the time of his arrest to his subsequent release in 2007, show a man nearly unrecognizable from his 2005 booking photo. His face, noticeably drawn, was shadowed by long, thinning gray hair; where no facial hair presented itself in the initial photo, a bushy, flowing, gray beard, reached his chest. Slumped shoulders beneath orange jail attire added to his desolate look. If the eyes are a window to one’s soul, Stephen Slevin’s vacant stare into the camera was a defeatist’s gaze. In an interview conducted with NBC News on March 6, 2013, Coyte reiterated Slevin’s state of mind and health, emphasizing that Slevin’s mental health “has been severely compromised from the time he was in that facility . . . [that] no amount of money will bring back what they took from him.” Based on substantial reports of Slevin’s 22 month incarceration, few will argue with the attorney’s assessment.

While the charges against Stephen Slevin were eventually dropped in 2007, Don Ana County, New Mexico has settled a claim filed in federal court for Slevin’s ordeal. It is one of the largest prisoner civil rights payouts in U. S. history, and if final numbers matter, the judicial disaster amounts to high figures: $22 million awarded to Slevin; $15.5 million agreed upon in a final settlement; $9.5 million from county coffers (in other words, taxpayers will foot the bill) ; 22 months in which Slevin was held in legal limbo, and no county official has thus far been held accountable for the injustice inflicted upon him.

Due to court-imposed settlements awarded Anthony Graves and Stephen Slevin, each man may have a chance of rebuilding their lives following the egregious actions perpetrated against them. No amount of financial settlements, however, can remove the memories and experiences that each endured at the hands of an unjust legal system. A fervent advocate against the practice of solitary confinement, Anthony Graves is a forceful orator overseeing a non-profit organization, “Anthony Believes,” that addresses injustices in the penal justice system. His support of prisoners’ rights takes him on speaking engagements throughout the country where his voice is clear, honest and straightforward. Even though Stephen Slevin is, like Anthony Graves, a “free” man, his current battle with lung cancer (not evidenced by his lack of proper medical treatment in prison) is his first priority.

While we wish Stephen Slevin well and hope that he will overcome his battle with cancer, we also hope that he has begun to heal from the horrors endured in Dona Ana County, New Mexico.

 

 

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John Grega: Vermont’s First Released Based on DNA Testing

Jordan — September 14, 2012 @ 10:31 AM — Comments (0)

We congratulate the New England Innocence Project (NEIP) on their efforts in getting John Grega out of prison. Grega has maintained his innocence since his conviction 18 years ago for the rape and death of his wife, Christine Grega. He was Vermont’s first life sentence without parole and is now its first release based on DNA testing.

John Grega hugs his mother, Marion Grega, for the first time in 18 years after she and his father posted bail to release him from Southern State Correctional.
~courtesy Battleboro Reformer

Vermont’s DNA testing access law came rather late in the year of 2007. This finally allowed those convicted of serious crimes to request the testing of existing DNA evidence that had never been tested before their trial.

In November 2010, a request was made to have swabs from Christine’s body tested. However, the testing did not occur until May of this year.  This DNA testing showed that male DNA from collected on the anal swab could not have been left there by Grega.

Judge John Wesley granted Grega a new trial. Grega’s attorney, Ian Carleton, and State Attorney Tracy Kelly Shriver filed a joint motion asking for a new trial and for the court to vacate the conviction. In exchange, Grega’s legal team agreed to temporarily drop the motion for exoneration and allow the State the option to retry him. For its part, the State appears intent on retrying Mr. Grega even for a rape murder that DNA evidence seems to prove he did not commit.

Grega’s parents posted the $75,000 bond to release him. NEIP Executive Director Gretchen Bennett said that Grega’s work on his own case largely contributed to the speedy advancement of his case. He knew that the DNA existed and made all the proper communicative moves with lawyers to get it tested. The Southern State Correctional Facility Superintendent, Mark Potanas, found him to be a model prisoner who helped his fellow prisoners with their cases while he worked in the library.

Judge Wesley released him under the condition that he does not see his late wife’s family and that he periodically checks in with New York police.

But let us rewind to note how the State responded to the DNA test’s exclusion of John. The State set out to test everyone they could think of in an effort to prove contamination. While this action could be explained as the State making sure the DNA evidence is relevant in this case, their efforts to find another consensual partner suggests that Grega’s late wife was having an affair. Not only is this insulting to him, it is not merited by any other part of the investigation. The family was on vacation in West Dover with their two-year-old son when Christine was murdered. Does the state mean to suggest that she had her affair with another partner amidst this family vacation?  Instead of recognizing the clear import of this new DNA evidence for Grega’s innocence, the State went the opposite way, trying to prove that the DNA evidence is irrelevant and does not in fact prove innocence.  Of course, the State’s efforts were not successful.

This attitude towards DNA evidence is just another amongst the many that arise in resistance to its findings. Yet somehow each resistance is disguised in its own way.

 

justice,prison, , , , ,


Anthony’s Survival

Anne — September 08, 2012 @ 3:20 PM — Comments (2)

NOTE: This is Part II of a three-part commentary on solitary confinement. Part I is here.

Anthony Graves has a story to tell.

But Anthony’s story is no fictional, pretty-boy, imaginative weave of rainbows, sunshine, ice cream Sundays and trips to the beach. There are no velvety beginnings or wonderfully orchestrated endings in Graves’ story. Trumpets blare no angelic melodies and cumulus clouds don’t reveal artistic make-believes only a child of innocence can appreciate.

Anthony Graves’ story is a story about hell. And madness. And slow descents into the madness of hell. And how one, if not careful, can and will plunge into pits of that abyss, never to surface again. There is no phoenix-rising in hell.

Most importantly, however, Anthony Graves’ story is also one about triumph and survival and how a man, who spent more than 18 years in a Texas prison for a crime he did not commit, emerged from the depths of a place where no man or woman, guilty or innocent, wishes to live. In Anthony Graves’ life of hell on earth, “survival of the fittest” took on a new and urgent bearing.

For a solid decade of Graves’ nearly twenty years behind bars, a small, dank holding cell—a cemented space known as solitary confinement—was his home. While the adage, “a man’s home is his castle” can be applicable to those in the free world, Anthony Graves’ “home” warranted no such acclaim. For Anthony, “home” was a cruel, dark and disconcerting place of ill repute. At times, his diminutive, unadorned space seemed to suppress his breath and steal his will to live. But live, he did. And strong, he became. While life and strength can, depending upon one’s essential makeup, become juxtaposed agents in one’s basic desire to overcome the most sinister circumstances, it takes a strong constitution to emerge psychologically sound and not diminished by the memories of dark days and even darker nights.

In a first-ever United States Senate hearing on solitary confinement on June 19, 2012, Anthony Graves, who was released from prison in 2010, became part of the discourse, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights.

In his address to the Senate Subcommittee on the horrors and hell of the psychologically-damaging—but legal—practice of segregating prisoners within prisons, Graves spoke truth to power. The primary speaker at the Senate Subcommittee hearing, UC Santa Cruz psychology professor Dr. Craig Haney, the nation’s leading expert on inmate mental health, presented riveting testimony on the customary tradition of housing prison inmates in separate housing units within the institution. Solitary confinement, Haney testified, “precipitates a descent into madness.” And while Haney’s testimony was academically, theoretically and statistically insightful, it was Anthony Graves’ personal account of solitary confinement in a Texas prison that literally put a face with the practice of legalized inmate separatism.

While Graves sought no celebrity spotlight in bringing attention to the subject, it took a strong personal commitment to testify about the psychological currents he fought and the external battles he witnessed on a continuous basis and not succumb to the emotional and physical effects of solitary confinement.

He was a powerful presence at the hearing, and he pulled no punches during his very candid testimony.

In eloquently articulating the long-term mental and psychological effects of the legalized practice, Graves recounted how fellow inmates would slowly descend into a psychotic “madness” becoming, as Haney testified, a shadowy fraction of their former selves. A great majority of men who had been relegated to solitary confinement, according to Graves, engaged in aberrant behaviors that were not only mentally erosive, but physically damaging as well, including the practice of self-mutilation and other forms of physical torture. His testimony included the revelation of an inmate who gouged his (the inmates’) eyes and fellow inmates who engaged in equally disturbing physical performances.

Piercing screams, a constant auditory presence in such conditions, were commonplace and could be heard emanating from all corners of the units—at all times of the day and night—as inmates began to slowly lose control of their mental faculties. Fellow inmates, attempting mightily to cope with their own demons became, according to Graves, immune to the verbal onslaughts. Call and response chants had no rhythms, no reasons and no rhymes. Solitary minutes extended into hours, which evolved into days, which expanded into months, which, for many prisoners, stretched into a never-ending land of lost souls amid a restricted, chaotic landscape. Prisoners in solitary confinement, confessed Graves, become dehumanized, desensitized and emotionally bankrupt.

While there exists, Graves noted, a need to separate dangerous prisoners from the general population because of safety issues and concerns, the conditions present in solitary confinement units must be addressed and improvements made beyond the proverbial rhetoric of “prison reform.”  Policies, procedures, rules and regulations governing solitary confinement must be implemented through the courts for any changes within individual institutions to be effective and result in any long-term changes. The great majority of inmates in solitary confinement perceive their lives as worthless and their situations dire and hopeless. Nothing good, he testified, comes out of the practice: It is a place no one wishes their most arch enemy to be housed. Not for a minute. Not for a day. Not for a month. And certainly not for a lifetime.

When one is separated from human contact for extended periods of time and denied opportunities to mingle with other prisoners, Graves maintained, the administrative practice serves no social or redemptive purposes, and prisoners can—and very often do—resort to animalistic behaviors and can, just as quickly, begin to feel a psychological and mental violation deeper and more significant than the crime for which they have been accused. For Graves, who maintained his innocence for the duration of his time in prison, his placement in solitary confinement was all the more daunting and repulsive. In such conditions, Graves testified,  there is no room for compromise or any promise of a positive outcome, especially when innocent (as he was found to be) of the crime for which one has been accused, convicted and subsequently incarcerated.

Although his testimony on the perils of solitary confinement revealed a legal custom so horrific—and its practice so brutal—that it left members of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee stunned, his testimony ended on a note of positivity, optimism and change.

While the memories of his ordeal in the Texas prison system still form a harrowing reminiscence of monumental proportions, which he must confront on a daily basis, he hopes that his Houston-based charitable foundation, “Anthony Believes” can begin a stream of hope, healing and redemption for those who have experienced the horrors of solitary confinement and are looking for a way to move forward in their lives. His voice is one worth listening to, and his story is a narrative worth repeating.

“Reasessing Solitary Confinement: The Human Rights, Fiscal and Public Safety Consequences” can be accessed at: http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm

 

exoneration,legislation,policy,prison, , ,


Solitary Confinement: Re-assessing, Re-evaluating, Re-thinking

Anne — July 27, 2012 @ 4:27 PM — Comments (1)

Note: This is the first of a three-part series on solitary confinement.

Dr. Craig Haney, the nation’s leading expert on inmate mental health, and a professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, recently testified before a U. S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights on the effects of solitary confinement upon prisoners. Inmates in long-term confinement, according to Haney, suffer mental breakdowns from the lack of human contact that can lead to a multitude of mental, physical and emotional conditions, including psychosis, mutilations and suicide. Solitary confinement for most inmates, Haney testified, “precipitates a descent into madness” and can cause “profound, psychological damage.”

The increase in solitary confinement in the United States (since the late 1970s), according to statistics provided by Haney, is the result of the “confluence of three unfortunate trends”: mass imprisonment, the shift in responsibility for housing the mentally ill to the nation’s prison systems, and the abandonment of the notion of rehabilitation. Haney, who is also chair of UCSC’s Legal Studies program, estimated that 80,000 of the nation’s 2.3 million inmates in prisons and jails are in long-term solitary confinement. A great number of inmates have spent the majority of their prison sentences in solitary confinement, a legal and administrative practice that separates designated inmates from the prison’s general population.

Professor Haney was invited to testify by Subcommittee chairman Senator Richard “Dick” Durbin, D-Ill, at the first-ever hearing on the constitutional, fiscal, and public safety consequences of solitary confinement. Since 1971, Haney has conducted groundbreaking research into the effects of solitary confinement upon prisoners. His work has been cited in numerous scholarly journals and publications. Since 1971, he has been a leading proponent of mental health issues affecting prison inmates.  As a graduate student, he was one of the principal investigators in an academic undertaking that became known as the “Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE).” He and fellow researchers placed a group of psychologically healthy college students in a prison-like environment, randomly assigning half to the position of prison guards; the other participants were designated as prisoners.

The researchers in the SPE carefully monitored participants’ behavior during the designated period, eventually ending the experiment, however, upon their observation that the otherwise “psychologically healthy volunteers in the simulated prison [setting] rapidly deteriorated into mistreatment and emotional breakdowns.” Thus began Haney’s prolific research into the effects of solitary confinement upon prisoners who have been incarcerated for extended periods of time. Since the SPE, Haney’s work has extended into the effects of capital punishment as well. In 2011, his research was cited numerous times in the majority opinion when the United States Supreme Court upheld a ruling ordering California to release 46,000 prisoners in an effort to relieve the state’s overcrowded prisons.

While a great portion of Haney’s testimony before the Subcommittee centered upon the effects of solitary confinement, he also addressed the state of  prisons’ mental health workers, individuals who are assigned the task of treating inmates who have mental health issues.  Oftentimes the workers are (themselves) stressed and too overburdened to render effective care with respect to noticeable improvements in inmates’ mental health issues. Such inadequate  healthcare not only harms prisoners, Haney testified, it also “endangers the public once those prisoners are released” from prison. Without adequate mental healthcare as well as available, external counseling, prisoners, once released from the confines of a structured environment, are oftentimes present and “untreated” in the public domain.

Many times, according to statistics  provided during the hearing, non-treated inmates (or inadequately treated inmates) commit crimes which cause their return to the familiar, institutional environment of incarceration. A vicious cycle of re-institutionalization becomes, in many cases, the norm. An overburdened healthcare system speaks not only to an inadequate system of governance–as it relates to prison reformation–it also articulates a much broader statement in terms of the responsibilities of government in being fiscally accountable to those who work in conditions as presented in California’s (and other states’) prison facilities.

Haney’s testimony before the Subcommittee concluded on multiple points of note. According to Haney, we put “far too many people in prison, we pay far too little attention to what happens to them while they’re there, we keep them there for far too long, then we disregard what happens to them when they try to make the difficult transition to come out into the free world.” In April 2012,the National Academy of Sciences appointed Haney to a panel to study the causes and consequences of high rates of incarceration in the United States.

Others testifying on issues related to solitary confinement included the Honorable Charles Samuels, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons; Christopher Epps, Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections; and former inmate Anthony Graves, who was released from Texas death row in 2010, after spending 18 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Ten of the 18 years Graves spent on death row were in solitary confinement. He is the founder of “Anthony Believes,” an organization dedicated to the health and well-being of individuals consigned to death row and solitary confinement. His front-line advocacy has garnered national attention on issues related to solitary confinement and prison reformation.

exoneration,justice,legislation,prison,Science, , , , , , , ,


Old, unrevealed evidence may alter trial

Jordan — June 07, 2012 @ 8:16 AM — Comments (1)

Death-row convict may have been coerced to murder

Double-murder death-row convict Miguel Bacigalupo, by way of his attorney, will ask The California Supreme Court for a new trial that will now consider previously excluded critical evidence. The original lead prosecutor, now Superior Court Judge Joyce Allegro, had kept this evidence from the jury. While the state’s high court rarely reverses death sentences, the evidence’s pertinence on the decision of the case will be decided by the the Supreme Court within the next 90 days.

The original judge, Richard Arnason, found the crucial testimony of late Gale Kesselman to be credible. Kesselman’s testimony had revealed to Allegro’s lead investigator that Bacigalupo had met with a cocaine trafficker briefly before his death. Bacigalupo, during his conviction trial, stated that if he would not have committed the double-murder, his family would have been killed.

However, prosecutors now find Kesselman’s testimony inconsequential to the actual guilt of Bacigalupo, because all it reveals is that the murder was organized.

If the hope is that the sentence could be lessened from capital punishment, then how could this evidence not be of importance and deserve reentering consideration? Surely, it may not have changed the jury’s mind but the circumstances of the mandated drug hit could have at least culled some pity from the jury and those deciding his sentence.

Discussion on this article seems to lead by way of the prosecutors. However, all evidence existing ought to have been presented and not purposefully kept from the decision process. The general public must consider how easy it is to fall into a drug cartel and how one would not exactly be able to simply go to the police when their family’s life is on the line. It is such circumstances that should not exactly exonerate Bacigalupo, but be considered more so by the callous justice system.

If this were a movie with Bacigalupo as the main character, if we saw it from his perspective–and if Kesselman’s testimony was true–any naysayer to this new evidence would immediately villainize the trial’s original decision.

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An Uncommon Reunion

Anne — June 05, 2012 @ 10:22 AM — Comments (1)

In the curious case of Brian Banks, the 26-year-old California man recently exonerated for the rape of a young woman in 2001, Facebook can be credited somewhat with helping him not only gain his freedom, but pursue a lifelong dream of playing professional football. While users of the social media site often use the service to connect with friends and locate long-lost acquaintances, Banks utilized it for a greater purpose: to bring his accuser, 24-year-old Wanetta Gibson, to the truth of her false accusations for a crime that never occurred.

In the absence of DNA and other crucial evidence that could free Banks from a decades-long nightmare, a hold-your-breath meeting–arranged by Banks and agreed upon by Gibson–in an investigator’s office would pave the way towards the convicted man’s freedom. Gibson admitted that Banks had not sexually assaulted her, nor had he kidnapped her as had been widely reported. On video and audio tapes that have gone viral on the internet, Gibson can be heard twice, in response to the investigator’s inquiry of the alleged assault, “No he did not [rape me].” There is no coercion, prompting or influence on the investigator’s or Banks’ part. She speaks clearly, forthrightly and without hesitation to all questions posed before her.

The California Innocence Project assumed Banks’ case and assisted in the subsequent legal affairs that would lead to his freedom. He spent five years behind bars and five years on probation, wearing an ankle monitor so that his every move could be tracked. He also wrestled with being labeled a “sex offender.”

Prior to Wanetta Gibson’s accusation and Brian Banks’ subsequent incarceration, he had been highly recruited by a number of prominent colleges across the nation to play football. He was headed to a great collegiate career at USC, playing the sport he loved when his world came to a screeching halt following accusations of the rape. Despite the absence of DNA evidence or other evidence which could tie him to the alleged act, Banks’ defense attorney encouraged him to accept a plea agreement in exchange for a 41-year sentence because, according to published reports, the jury would see, among other “descriptives,” a “muscular black teenager” and not, presumably, an athletically-gifted young man headed to college on a scholarship. Prior to Banks’ incarceration, he had never been in trouble with the law. For Banks, though, a “short” sentence behind bars was a deal worth taking: He was young and would be free in a few years. A “brief” stay in prison was significantly more accepting over the prospect of remaining behind bars until middle age. As a result, he accepted the deal, languishing in prison for five years with, he believed, a career gone as quickly as the myriad collegiate offers that had come earlier.

Enter Wanetta Gibson and Facebook.

Gibson’s Facebook “invitation,” a casual, as though-nothing-had-happened appeal  was, by anyone’s measure, a strange befriending. With the taxed-down monetary settlement (awarded by the school district where she was a 15-year-old student at the time of the accusation) exhausted years ago, her motive for appealing to Banks remains suspect. Various news accounts accuse her (and her mother, Wanda Rhodes, 52) of continuing a charade of monetary acquisition by any means necessary in an effort to remain one step ahead of creditors seeking payment for big-ticket purchases made with the approximately $750,000 settlement.

Former neighbors and acquaintances of the pair do not paint a pretty or wholesome picture of the twosome. Wanetta Gibson, now a mother, and her mother, according to social services and legal documents, are well-known throughout the region as they attempt to evade legal and social service officials. They are, to some who know their story as it relates to Brian Banks, joined at the hip, and are always watching their backs.

In an act of desperation, according to case watchers, Wanetta Gibson may have mindlessly befriended Banks on the social media site in an effort to redeem herself for the travesty which she caused years earlier. Others theorize that the accuser may have wanted to wrest whatever finances she  believed he may have accumulated in prison, because she was currently unemployed, had exhausted all means of legally obtaining money and believed he would perhaps be grateful for her acquaintance (again!) since he was no longer behind bars. One of her primary concerns seems to have been the possibility of repayment of the settlement based on her false testimony.

Others speculate that the mother/daughter duo was, once again, “up to no good,” that something sinister was resting just below the surface, another scam perhaps. Banks posits the notion that Gibson most likely wanted to resume a relationship, that she believed that he may have in fact forgiven her for the years spent behind bars for the lies she had told, and that they could indeed move forward, together, despite the past. Whatever the motive for Gibson’s sudden appeal on Facebook doesn’t, however, cause him to languish over her intent.

Like many other exonerees who have been falsely accused of crimes they did not commit, Banks is putting the past behind him and moving into a different arena, one that doesn’t have bars, ankle monitors or daily activities ordered by officials who work in state-run facilities.

Major newspapers across the country are reporting on Banks’ slow turn of luck: He is scheduled to try out with the Seattle Seahawks football team on June 7th, and a number of other professional teams have expressed interest in him as well. If, however, he doesn’t make the roster with any of the teams, he has been offered, according to Derrick Hall, CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team, a place of employment with the organization. Hall watched Banks in a recent interview and was greatly impressed with the maturity of the young man who appears to harbor no resentment or ill-will toward his accuser or the fact that one-fifth of his life was spent behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

While a number of wrongful incarcerations can be attributed to a myriad of factors, including witness misidentification, poor forensic science, judicial misconduct, “bad” policing, coerced confessions, and ineffective legal counsel (which runs strong in this case), very few cases of exoneration can be attributed to walk-in-the-door, sit-down confessions of truth by an accuser, as in this case. Wanetta Gibson’s liberal entry into the investigator’s office was not only a surprise to Banks–he didn’t believe that she would show up–her confession of truth set in motion a string of events that set the wheels of justice rolling in Banks’ favor. Her conscience or the consciousness of what she’d done are theories up for grab. Only she can make a truthful case of her past and present behavior.

In this socially driven culture of tweets, texts, emails, “breaking news,” and 24/7 news bytes, Facebook has, in this instance, proven to be a savior for Brian Banks. It is reported that he remarked that he “didn’t believe” what he saw on his computer screen when he saw that Gibson had contacted him with the missive to “let bygones be bygones.” While such a casual dispatch may have been easy for her to issue, it will prove for Banks to be one which will indeed direct his path toward new and glorious opportunities and beginnings. Good luck, Brian.

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