Posted on 03/12/2014 6:27:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
There are many ways to measure 30 years, but for Glenn Ford, the yardstick is simple.
"My sons -- when I left -- was babies. Now they grown men with babies," he said, speaking as a free man for the first time in nearly three decades.
Ford, Louisiana's longest-serving death row prisoner, walked free Tuesday after spending nearly 30 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit.
"My mind's going all kinds of directions, but it feels good," Ford, 64, told reporters outside the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, according to CNN affiliate WAFB.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
If they ever do a remake of Blackboard Jungle, I hope he gets a part. It would be quite a comeback.
Put the prosecutor on death row. I hate the rules of evidence for capital cases.
We see far too many cases of prosecutorial and police misconduct. Find the easiest target and get a conviction.
I should know as I worked for several years in a prosecutors office as an investigator.
One of the reasons I turned against the death penalty. I’m sorry that it took 30 years to clear him but it’s still better than the alternative.
I wonder if they caught the real killer?
Same here. I' still be for the death penalty if there were no corrupt prosecutors or law enforcement officers. The problem is there are way too many of them an virtually nothing happens to them when caught because they have so much dirt on the others. Kind of an unspoken mutual extortion society.
Hey! Hi, my sister works as an
investigator to this day. (Not on
this case, but, of course, she was
ecstatic to have this outcome.)
If the man is innocent, I am thrilled
to have justice done-—a just outcome!
Yup, that's the problem, but then, why punish any crime because the perp might be falsely accused?
Too many of these "exonerations" are the results of legal shenannigans .
Had a case here a while back where a killer was given a new trial on a technicality. After 25 yrs one witness, victim's wife had died, another witness had dementia and blood evidence was lost.
Prosecutor decided not to retry. naacp paraded the guy around as a victim.
That being said, if someone is wrongly convicted by prosecutorial misconduct those responsible should go to jail for a long time. I would also like to see them held financially responsible rather than the taxpayer.
Notice they never mention who the prosecutor was.
Exactly! I had an employee convicted and sentenced to 7 years probated. He’s in his 4th year of a horrible experience. Now, he wishes he had just gone to prison because he would have been out in about 18 months.
Worst of all, most of the past 4 years, he has not been able to see his two young sons even though they are in town.
The courts are horribly incompetent and legislatures and county probation people are bureaucratic vacuous naughts.
The judge in his case was very inexperienced and she made horrible rulings. His own lawyers were disloyal to him and sat on exculpatory evidence. There was no interest by the prosecutor in the truth. The incident itself was incredibly minor. After reading the transcript, I just said to myself OMG, if his life was at stake they would have killed him and would not have given a damn. And, oh by the way, the cops sat on the stand and told bald face factual lies and got away with it.
Based upon his experience as a very poor defendant, and after 65 years on the planet being very pro death penalty, I no longer support it in MOST cases.
Basically, absent a video tape of the crime, OR NOT one scintilla of doubt, I’m against it. Juries are incompetent too. They mostly are awed by the judges and lawyers and can be convinced that God is in the parking lot.
I think determining the truth by 12 citizens in an incompetent give a damn courtroom with about 6 lawyers on all sides that don’t give a damn either has, in this society, become an impossible task. We can no longer govern ourselves and we are, as a society, incompetent to put people to death.
Where does this poor guy go to get his life back. A third to a half of it gone!
Looking sharp Louisiana...
Dunno (sometimes state legislatures will pass special relief bills) but you can bet that for as long as he does still live, he’s going to be making the circuits earning beaucoup $$ doing nothing harder than talking about it all.
The former inmate is reported to have taken the 3:10 train to Yuma.
It is harder everyday to support Death Penalty. Too much corruption within the legal system and police force. I still kinda support it, but definitely don’t blame states that get rid of it.
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