BlackPerspective.net
Discussing the Diaspora as seen through an internal Black lens
Another falsely convicted Black man is freed by DNA
December 17th, 2007
The continuous current of Black men being freed after spending years and even decades in jail on rape murder convictions, who have now been freed due to technology; underscores the “any nigger will due” policy of the American Injustice System. Evidently this is the policy under which prosecutors across the nation have railroaded innocent Black men into prison.
White men and others have been freed due to DNA as well; but you will see in the following text that it is very disproportionately Black men who DNA testing has been able to exonerate. Almost all the convictions were based on false eyewitness testimony or on the testimony of informants and co-defendants with personal incentive to lie.
The latest case is that of John Jerome White
According to Black Voices
DNA Test Clears Man After 27 Years
By DORIE TURNER,
AP Posted: 2007-12-12 14:23:55
ATLANTA (AP) - A man enjoyed freedom Tuesday for the first time in nearly three decades after a DNA test proved he did not commit a 1979 rape.
John Jerome White, 48, left Macon State Prison on Monday evening.
“I’m just thankful that this is behind me,” White said at a news conference Tuesday morning with the Georgia Innocence Project, which had worked to free him.
“When I first started out, I wondered why this happened to me,” he said, breaking into tears. “I just saw it as something that had to happen because I wasn’t living a moral life.”
White is the seventh Georgia convict to be cleared by DNA evidence, said Aimee Maxwell, director of the Atlanta-based Georgia Innocence Project. In every case, the men were wrongly convicted on the basis of eyewitness accounts.
In October the WALL STREET JOURNAL highlighted another exonerated Black man falsely accused of rape, Michael Anthony Williams.
The article states that “Mr. Williams is one of a growing number of convicts — more than 200 so far — who have been freed from prison after DNA testing proved them innocent.”
In a February 2006 article, Black America Web highlighted the case of Alan Cortez
Last month, Crotzer was freed from a Florida prison after DNA evidence proved that he couldn’t have been the ringleader of a gang who robbed a Tampa family in 1981, and raped the mother and her 12-year-old daughter. But like many black criminal defendants who face all-white juries on charges of violating white women, all it took was the word of the victim — who picked Crotzer out of a photo lineup — and an hour of deliberation for them to convict him. Then the judge did his part in erasing any recurring nightmares that the victims might have about Crotzer hunting them down and hurting them again.
He gave the brother 130 years.
Some 90 percent of false convictions in the rape cases involved misidentification by witnesses, very often across races. In particular, the study said black men made up a disproportionate number of exonerated rape defendants.
The New York Times notes
The racial mix of those exonerated, in general, mirrored that of the prison population, and the mix of those exonerated of murder mirrored the mix of those convicted of murder. But while 29 percent of those in prison for rape are black, 65 percent of those exonerated of the crime are.
Interracial rapes are, moreover, uncommon. Rapes of white women by black men, for instance, represent less than 10 percent of all rapes, according to the Justice Department. But in half of the rape exonerations where racial data was available, black men were falsely convicted of raping white women.
“The most obvious explanation for this racial disparity is probably also the most powerful,” the study says. “White Americans are much more likely to mistake one black person for another than to do the same for members of their own race.”
On the other hand, the study found that the leading causes of wrongful convictions for murder were false confessions and perjury by co- defendants, informants, police officers or forensic scientists.You can go to the Innocents Project’s website for more detail on how false convictions come about. Look under the “Understand the Causes” button.
The innocents project states the following:
Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75% of convictions overturned through DNA testing…
In more than 15% of cases of wrongful conviction overturned by DNA testing, an informant or jailhouse snitch testified against the defendant. Often, statements from people with incentives to testify – particularly incentives that are not disclosed to the jury – are the central evidence in convicting an innocent person.
This is why prosecutions in the legal system must be strongly scrutanized; demand the police, prosecutors and other law enforcement prove their assertions of crimes against individuals; and we must stand up for the falsely accused.
posted in Racial Injustice, Socio-Economic | | | View blog reactions |
6 Responses to “Another falsely convicted Black man is freed by DNA”
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Yobachi Boswell is creator and publisher of BlackPerspecitve.net. I’m a writer, activist and political watcher based in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve also been know to do some spoken word and MCing in my day.
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You know that joke about how white folks think all black folks look alike…it isn’t all that funny. For some reason the stats didn’t surprise me much at all.
I saw a news report and demonstration that says it’s not a joke, they actually do think we all look alike.
Actually in every race people are less able to distiquish people outside of their race, but white folks were the worst at it.
Excellent article. I am a strong supporter of the innocence project and am not at all shocked by the statisitics…As a white person, who never saw a black person other than on TV until I was 11 years old, I can attest to the fact that it is much more difficult for some white people to distinguish between black faces. Now that I have more exposure to black folks it’s much easier, though I admit it would still be easier for me to pick a white guy out of a line up of white guys with similar features then it would be for me to pick a black guy out of a line up of black guys with similar features… and dare I say, it would be even more difficult to pick an asian guy out of a line up of asian guys…Until people are willing to admit this human flaw, innocent people like Mr. Williams will continue to be convicted.
Jules, I have to admit, Asians tend to be difficult for me to distiguish between unless it’s a person I know or have seen a lot.
It’s been proven that I witness testimony, not only when race is envolved, is very unreliable. Like you said, we must recognize and admit to these problems to have a more justice system.
Some of these comments minimize the MAIN point of this article that is that “Black” men are disproportionately accused of and convicted of RAPES they did not commit. They’re are also DISPROPORTIONATELY exonerated after LONG prison stays which have already ROBBED them of their youth and PRIMES of their lives, which cannot be replaced. The short term victory which occurs upon RELEASE from PRISON is only temporary when they attempt to find employment or obtain reparations for their WRONGFUL incarceration!
[...] that most men wrongly convicted of rape are men of color who have often been misidentified by victims pressured by law enforcement to say they’re more sure of identification than they really are (and also by other witnesses [...]