DNA frees Florida man after 26 years (prosecutor-Janet Reno)

Waterbury Republican-American ^ | August 4, 2005 | Associated Press

[Fido969]

Janice Reno's "justice":

[weegee]

"...was not bitter about the time he lost and didn't blame prosecutors."

Gore voter?

[Spok]

I saw this story last night on the network news, and there was naturally no reference to the Reno connection. Every time I watch a story on the MSM, I'm reminded why I shouldn't.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Brainwashed.

[the invisib1e hand]

florida's legal system is hopelessly dictatorial, spiteful, and, of course, unjust. I think it was that way well before reno had too much to do with it.

[Question_Assumptions]

I do hope that they are checking at least some of these people to make sure that they aren't chimeras. In rare cases, fraternal twins fuse to form a single child that has two different genetic codes. At least two women were told that they weren't the genetic mother of children that they gave birth to because their reproductive organs were genetically different than what was found in their blood. That suggests that men could also produce semen with a different genetic code than the dominant code in their blood unless they are testing semen and semen or blood and blood. Yes, freaky but true.

Note that I am not claiming that this particular man is really guilty. I'm simply saying that the guilty could slip through this way.

[TNCMAXQ]

Reno was good at putting innocent people in prison but saying she supported the rights of the accused.

[Kirkwood]

Please cite a reference for this.

[rdcorso]

If he's not furious about spending 26 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit,there must be something wrong with him.I know that I would be looking for revenge,somewhere in the high seven figure area.We have too many prosecutors who use criminal convictions as a way to gain media attention and advance their political careers.This is probably one of those cases where the prosecutor was more interested in getting a conviction then she was in finding the truth.

[bvw]

Early monstering by Reno's SS:

In 1984, Frank Fuster was living the American dream with a nice house in the Miami suburbs and a new wife who was helping him raise his 5-year-old son. Then, Fuster's world fell apart. He and his wife found themselves charged with sexually abusing more than 20 children who attended their unlicensed home day care center.

Fuster -- who it was soon learned had prior convictions for manslaughter and child molestation -- seemed to be the classic perpetrator. Branded a "monster" by parents and the local media, he was convicted and sentenced to 165 years in prison. His case would establish a successful method for prosecuting similar day care abuse cases nationwide, while also boosting the political fortunes of a state attorney named Janet Reno, whose office would go on to prosecute additional cases of multiple sexual abuse at day care centers in the Miami area.

But was Frank Fuster really guilty of the sexual abuse charges for which he was convicted? Or was he the victim of a tainted investigation that led to damning testimony from the state's star witnesses: some 20 children and Fuster's own wife? Eighteen years later, this FRONTLINE investigation reveals new evidence that calls into question the seemingly ironclad case against Frank Fuster. This report also includes new allegations by Fuster's former wife that Janet Reno personally participated in a campaign to break her down psychologically in order to force her to testify falsely against her husband.

"Did Daddy Do It?" recalls the media frenzy and public hysteria surrounding several high-profile day care abuse cases unfolding across the nation at that time. Nowhere was that public panic more pronounced than in Miami, where Janet Reno and other prosecutors had begun vigilantly pursuing day care sexual abuse cases. []

"These people did a number on me," Noel, now 24, tells FRONTLINE. "They were playing games with a 6-year-old's head. They were good at it -- I was confused. But now I know the truth."

That truth, Noel now says, is that he was never abused by his father. What's more, defense attorney Rosenthal questions the accuracy of the state's gonorrhea test, saying that particular kind of test had been shown to be inaccurate, and that the state had quickly treated Noel so that no further testing was possible.

Now Ileana Flores, Fuster's former wife, has come forward to tell FRONTLINE that her trial testimony against her husband was the result of a concerted effort by the state attorney's office to break her down psychologically and force her to testify against her husband. However, this FRONTLINE report also examines how Ileana has changed her story several times over the years.

"What I testified at trial was not the truth," says Ileana Flores, adding that Fuster "didn't do any of those things."

Flores recounts a harrowing tale of being kept naked in her Dade County jail cell, held forcibly under cold showers, and being subjected to repeated psychological badgering aimed at convincing her that she had repressed memories of Fuster's abuse. She even recalls late-night visits from Janet Reno.

"I would tell [Reno] 'I am innocent,' and she would say, 'I'm sorry, but you are not and you're gonna have to help us,'" Flores tells FRONTLINE.

Janet Reno -- now a candidate for governor of Florida -- declines to address Flores' charges, saying only that Flores has changed her story before. When asked to recall specific details about the case, Reno replies, "I haven't looked at the file in fifteen years. I would need you to bring me all the files and I don't foresee having the time to go through the files."

When FRONTLINE offered to provide Reno with the files, she declined to discuss the case further.

Meanwhile, Frank Fuster is serving his 165-year sentence. He says he turned down a deal from the state in which he was offered a sentence of fifteen years if he would plead guilty. "If I had taken [it]," Fuster tells FRONTLINE, "I would have been home ten years ago." He refused the deal, he says, "Because I am innocent."

Source: PBS Frontline. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fuster/etc/synopsis.html

"Monstering" interrogation techniques are currently employed by our forces in the WOT. Recently they are being "celebrated". Well -- they are not applicable or accurate except against some personality types and in some environments. Very limited!

And LOOK -- what Reno and her unterfuhrers did in Miami show how damn easily corrupted the technique is. Bend ONE interrogator (by bribes, blackmail, whatever) and you set up for serious harm -- the results can be made disasterous to those who key on the gained info.

[Strategerist]

Oh, this Chimera stuff is possible but incredibly, incredibly, incredibly rare.

And if a perp was a Chimera, the two DNA samples would still be closely related; he'd be his own "brother", it wouldn't be COMPLETELY different DNA.

I'd put the chance that any of these prison releases due to DNA evidence being Chimeras being released as about zero.

[God pays good]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/11/13/nivf113.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/11/13/ixhome.html

[Question_Assumptions]

This Discovery Channel recently ran a documentary about it that detailed the stories of two women who were told that their children were not genetically their children.

Here's a description of the mild form. This is about the more severe form that I'm talking about. Here's another one. They should point you in the right direction.

By the way, I'm pro-life and don't think that this in any way conflicts with the idea that a child's life begins at conception, though it makes things a little more complicated to explain.

[Question_Assumptions]

Again, I'm not saying that this particular person is a chimera nor that any have been released. I'm simply saying that it's something that might warrant being checked before letting people go. The truth is that we don't know how rare it is because it only shows up in a few oddball ways. I'd hate to see a rapist or murderer chimera litterally get away with murder because people believe that if the DNA doesn't match, there is 0% chance of guilt. It's not 0%, even if it's less than 1%.

[Strategerist]

Given that a chimera would still have very closely related DNA to himself I'm fairly confident that such a result would provoke more detailed testing. At the very least, they'd check if the guy had any brothers and whether they could be linked to the crime, at first.

It's not possible for a chimera to have different DNA completely unrelated to its other set of DNA.

[Fido969]

It's a strange thing, but the Orwellian techniques of finding people guilty of massive child abuse situations run through the liberal's "law enforcement" practices. From Tookie Amerault in Mass to some cases in Maine prosecuted by a publicity hungry DA who was appointed to a high State position by a the very feminist Governor Balacchi, this is a theme we see time and time again.

[MRMEAN]

Question_Assumptions wrote: I do hope that they are checking at least some of these people to make sure that they aren't chimeras.

Question_Assumptions has been watching too much CSI.

[Question_Assumptions]

In the two cases detailed in that program, the DNA was so different that the DNA testers thought the woman wasn't the mother of her own children and they could only establish the relationship by looking at the woman's parents or siblings. If they can tell a mother that she's not the mother of her child, then I can imagine them claiming "no match" for a male chimera and a semen sample that's similarly different.

[Question_Assumptions]

No. Question_Assumptions doesn't watch CSI. Question_Assumptions is interested in justice. That means aquitting the innocent but it also means not aquitting the guilty. What I really want people to do is question their own assumptions that DNA is 100% proof. It's not. It might be 99.44% or even better but it's not 100%.