What Happened in Norfolk (An incredible miscarriage of justice!)

NY Times Magazine ^ | August 19, 2007 | ALAN BERLOW

[neverdem]

At the Keen Mountain Correctional Center, a gray complex of poured concrete in rural southwest Virginia, Joseph Jesse Dick Jr. sits behind the thick glass pane of a prison interview booth like a specimen in an oversize shadow box. A man of delicate bearing with receding reddish brown hair, a sparse mustache and rectangular prison-issue glasses a bit wide on his long, gaunt face, Dick is here because he pleaded guilty to the 1997 rape and murder of his neighbor Michelle Moore-Bosko — a crime he now says he didn’t commit. And maybe he didn’t. Such proclamations of innocence are no longer surprising. The imprisoned man exonerated by DNA evidence or a belated confession by the actual killer or the emergence of a credible alibi witness is a narrative of increasing familiarity. But even in the upside-down world of wrongful convictions, the extravagant case of Joseph Dick and his supposed partners in crime is in a class of its own.

To conclude that Joseph Dick is innocent, you must first believe that the tape-recorded confession he gave to the police was untrue and, second, that three other men who said they committed the brutal crime with Dick also falsely confessed. In addition, you must believe that Dick perjured himself when he helped convict two of those co-defendants by testifying against them at their trials for rape and murder, lied when he named five other accomplices and lied moments before a judge gave him a double life sentence when he apologized to the parents of Michelle Moore-Bosko, declaring, “I know I shouldn’t have done it; I have got no idea what went through my mind that night, and my soul.”

This is a lot to accept. But perhaps the most astonishing aspect of this case is that these may be the...

[skinkinthegrass]

I wouldn't go quite that far. The NY Times does good work sometimes.

point taken/granted. :)...and even a civilian clock strikes 2:00 am/pm, twice a day...some hourly/15"/30"/45"

...the NYT has fallen greatly, they shill incessantly for the Marxist/Soviet Mindset...no better; than a "propaganda sheet" for the DNC/Shrillary et. al.
one other question, how good is it for parakeets? :D

[gjbevil]

Think about it. If you are guilty, you have every reason to NOT admit your guilt. Yet, the cop tactics will get you to admit to it even though doing so is against your interest. If you are innocent, you have every reason NOT to admit to it, yet the cop tactics can get you to admit to it even though doing so is against your interest. In AZ in the 90’s several men confessed to murdering 7 Buddhist monks and nuns. Turns out none were guilty. One was working 100 miles away at the time of the murder at the Greyhound race track. Proof was he was on the video tape of the park running the machines. This was an official video tape managed by the state gaming agency and sealed. It takes an order from the Governor to open the seal. Guess what, there he was working in Tucson at the exact time he was supposedly killing innocent monks in Phoenix. So, to answer your question, yes you would confess to that murder given the tactics of the cops. Someday I hope you have the chance to see for your self.