Wish I could give him a hug and wish him well.
But by the grace of God....
Posted on 12/14/2019 10:38:01 PM PST by grundle
DENTON, Texas -- At 17 years old, Ryan Matthews was wrongly accused of killing a man. Two years later, he was sentenced to death. Now, at age 39, he's graduating from college.
In April 1997, a man in a ski mask shot and killed the 43-year-old owner of Comeaux's Market in Bridge City, Louisiana, right across the river from New Orleans.
Investigators thought Matthews, a black teenager, killed the white business owner, and he was later found guilty by one black juror and 11 white jurors, WFAA in Dallas reported.
Activists rallied, and his family fought. DNA evidence eventually proved their case, and the real killer confessed.
After five years on death row, Matthews was exonerated, set free, and moved to Texas.
"All these years ago when I first came home, a reporter asked me what I wanted to do, and I told them I wanted to go to school," he said.
And he followed through on that promise to himself. On Saturday, Matthews graduated from Texas Woman's University in Denton with a bachelor's degree in applied arts and sciences.
Moved by Matthews' story, his sister and 71-year-old mother also enrolled in the university.
"So I decided to go back and pursue my Ph.D. because hopefully, I'll be able to do some legislative work and get some of that wrongful conviction and reintegration legislation changed," said Monique Coleman, Matthews' sister.
His mother, Pauline, said she's "proud, proud, proud" as she could be.
Matthews said he can feel bitter about his experience, though his feelings are nuanced.
"I am because of what happened, but I can't because it would stop me from moving forward ... I'm trying to be the best I can be," he said.
Its one of those things where we dodged a bullet and an innocent man wasn’t executed.
Good to see he made something of his life and he didn’t allow a second chance to go to waste.
Must be a terrible feeling to be on death row for something you didn’t do.
Wish I could give him a hug and wish him well.
But by the grace of God....
https://www.innocenceproject.org/valerie-jarrett-joins-board-of-directors-for-the-innocence-project/
Good for him.
Perhaps she's busy building up a resume of good-works to impress a jury?
Well done, Ryan Matthews. You didn’t let your anger defeat you.
It’s cases like this that are the reason I’m against the death penalty. It’s seen as a lefty position to be against it but I’d argue that it shouldn’t be, it should really be championed by conservatives. We’re the party of limited government except when it comes to law enforcement where we seem to have an unreasonable amount of trust in authority. I’ve seen too many shady dealings out of law enforcement and the courts to trust that system to determine who should live or die. Our system of justice is too fallible to trust never to make a mistake and I’d rather have a thousand guilty go free than have one person wrongly executed, there’s no going back from that once it’s done. At least a wrongly convicted person serving life in prison can be released if the conviction is later found to be wrong.
We’ve undoubtedly executed innocent people in the U.S. over the years. We need to end the death penalty, it’s not worth the probability that we’ll execute more innocent people.
Time, to reverse punch the system ... put the bad people in the system in there and make them do the time for such injustice. Take their pensions away and punish them ten times over. Guys like this are not an accident.
Yes, wrongful conviction is evil
Indeed. There should be a way to hold those responsible for intentionally prosecuting innocent people. In our adversarial system, the goal of the prosecutor is to convict, not find truth and justice.
Congratulations, Mr. Matthews. And good for you, for not letting anything hold you back.
“It’s cases like this that are the reason I’m against the death penalty.”
Sorry, not me. As I see it, the question really becomes whether 10 killers should be set free to be sure (or almost sure) that 1 person doesn’t get executed who shouldn’t be executed.
The problem that I have is with the 10 killers - when they’re eventually set free (remember all it takes is a Bevin/Huckabee/Dukakis pardon, or a judge) - what do they do? THEY KILL AGAIN, at least many of them (and virtually all go on to destroy innocent lives).
...and so instead of that one innocent man being executed by the state, you have half a dozen or so innocent murder victims (and dozens more innocent victims of violent crimes), due to the fact that the states are, very often, unable to keep killers behind bars.
So I’ll take the 1 innocent death over the 6 innocent deaths...regardless of how the media attempts to play me with articles like this.
I believe the biblical standard is 3 eyewitnesses. Barring eyewitness testimony, all you have is a circumstantial case and I’m more and more leaning in favor of life without parole in those instances. But those found guilty of murder (first, second, whatever degree) should never be allowed out of jail. I’m also in favor of anyone who commits a crime with a weapon that can kill should be charged with an additional attempted murder rap and those convicted should never see the light of day either.
Nobody is talking about setting them free. There Is a such thing as life without parole. I suspect if you were wrongly convicted of a capital offense you’d whistle a different tune.
“There Is a such thing as life without parole.”
This is why some of us want to see FINAL JUSTICE applied, as that is the ONLY WAY to be sure that the public cannot be endangered again:
As to being wrongly convicted and sent to Death Row - I’ll take my chances, the odds of winning PowerBall are higher, particularly if I’m not a felon to begin with.
...in fact I’m probably 1000 times more likely to be killed by one of ‘Bevin’s children’ than be wrongly charged with capital murder, at least if I lived in Kentucky.
At the first trial, the driver of the getaway car pleaded guilty to murder and identified Ryan Matthews as the shooter.
Matthews had no verifiable alibi for the time of the murder.
Matthews was found guilty and sentenced to death.
A couple years later, Rondell Love, who was already in prison for a previous murder, allegedly bragged that he had committed the murder that Matthews was convicted for.
On appeal, the defense claimed that no DNA from Matthews was found at the crime scene, and that skin cells from Rondell Love had been found in a ski mask that was discarded by the shooter.
The prosecution disputed both those claims.
More time passed, and Matthews was eventually released on bond from prison and the murder conviction was later overturned.
During that time period, the getaway driver withdrew his guilty plea and renounced his previous testimony against Matthews.
The getaway driver claimed that he was mentally retarded, and that he - the driver - was not involved in the murder in any way.
The driver was released two years later.
Rondell Love was never prosecuted for the murder that Matthews was convicted for - so, that murder is now unsolved.
If the DNA proved conclusively that this guy is innocent then it's very good that he's out.Our society isn't well served by having innocent people...of *any* color...sitting in prison.
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