Man Free After Serving 14 Years in Prison for a crime he didn't commit

[Catherine Vincent]

It seems like every year, we read an article where a guy (usually Black) spends years in prison for a crime but years later is proven innocent of the crime.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5198221.html


MAN FREE AFTER SERVING 14 YEARS FOR CRIME HE DIDN'T COMMIT

By ROMA KHANNA
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Fourteen years of wrongful imprisonment ended today when Ronald Gene Taylor
emerged from the Harris County Jail carrying his only belongings, a Bible,
court documents and toiletries in an orange mesh bag. Taylor embraced his family
who had waited for about two hours after a hearing this morning for his release.
I always believed this was coming one day," Taylor said. " I'm just glad to see
my family. It ain't really sunk in yet."

Taylor and his lawyers left the Harris County Jail immediately after his release
at about 1:30 p.m. Taylor planned to address Mayor Bill White and the City
Council about his ordeal.

Taylor, 47, was sentenced to 60 years in prison for a 1993 rape, in part on
faulty evidence from the Houston Police Department's troubled crime lab.
New DNA tests announced last week cleared him of that crime. n state District
Judge Denise Collins' court this morning, Harris County District Attorney
Chuck Rosenthal said: " I want to apologize to Mr. Taylor." Taylor appeared
in an orange jail jumpsuit in the hearing before Collins, who told him:
"I thought you would be in street clothes." "I did, too," Taylor said.

Taylor's mother and stepfather attended the hearing, but Taylor's fiancee,
who has believed in and waited for him all these years, could not be there.
"I'll be thinking of him and wishing I was there," said Jeannette Brown,
whose obligations as a nursing assistant and student will keep her from
making the trip from her Atlanta home to Houston. "Waiting to see him is so
hard, but I have to."

[Rhythm and Blue]

1. Thank God for DNA testing,

and it's a shame we couldn't get him out sooner.

[shanti]

2. i knew before even opening the link

that it was a black man :mad: :(

[againes654]

3. Sad how many years they stole from him

and now what does he get? I hope he sues!

[flashl]

11. His success depends on ...

States' compensation for wrongful imprisonment ranges from zero to millions of dollars.

By Amanda Paulson | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Chicago

This month, two men – both freed last year after DNA evidence exonerated them of the crimes for which they'd been in prison – received drastically different news about how they might be compensated for those lost years.

Connecticut legislators voted to award $5 million to James Tillman to help him get his life back on track after 18 years behind bars for a rape he didn't commit.

The Florida Legislature, on the other hand, denied Alan Crotzer's request for $1.25 million and let a bill die that would have standardized a compensation system for victims of wrongful conviction.

Source: The Innocence Project

[japple]

4. K & R for Ronald Gene Taylor and all the others...

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

Get on the mailing list and pass it on.

[Tempest]

8. 208 innocent people exonerated

Read about them:
http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/


The Exonerated
Six riveting stories about innocence, injustice and redemption
http://www.courttv.com/movie/

[kath]

13. Oh, man, you all should go read some of the case stories on the Innocence Project's website --

it's made me so furious that I'm practically shaking right now. :mad: :mad: :mad:

[TK421]

5. This is sickening...and if it were me, and I was innocent I would want blood

:mad: I wonder how he is taking it?

[Tempest]

6. Jeannette Brown is a saint

She waited the entire 14 years for him and believed in him.

A woman like that is rare and priceless.

[aikoaiko]

7. It also shows how damned unreliable eye-witness testimony can be.

[varkam]

10. Eye witness testimony is extremely unreliable.

Though it is extremely convincing to a jury. My personal theory on that discrepancy is that most people view memory as sort of a video recorder - which it is anything but.

[varkam]

9. Just how sorry are they?

Are they 10 million dollars worth of sorry? A pile of cash will not give him back his time, but it's something at least.

[flashl]

12. kick