Crapaganda.com

Imprisoned for 27 years for a rape he didn’t commit, Michael Anthony Green walked out of jail a free man on Friday and in the process was able to leave behind some of the anger that had fueled his survival behind bars.

Accompanied by his attorney, Green walked out of the Harris County Jail and into the arms of about 20 family members who cheered him.

“Live life,” Green said, when asked what he is going to do now.

Green, 44, was released after the Harris County District Attorney’s Office reopened his case and new DNA tests it commissioned showed he did not commit the 1983 rape of a woman who had been abducted. During a court hearing Friday, a judge ordered that Green be released on a $500 bond, allowing him to be free while the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals makes a final ruling on his innocence.

Asked what kept him going the last 27 years, Green said that in part it was his anger.

“I took and channeled my anger into studying the law,” said Green, clutching a photograph of his mother, who died while he was in prison. “That’s how I lived, day by day … doing what I did. Get up in the law, try to find me a way out.”

Some of the anger that Green had held onto for so many years came to the surface on Thursday, when he had been originally scheduled to be freed on bond. His release was delayed to give him time to calm down after he became upset that he was put in handcuffs and leg restraints one final time as he was taken from the county jail to the courthouse, said Bob Wicoff, his attorney. Green said he got upset because one of the deputies escorting him tightened his handcuffs and threatened him.

Wicoff called it a misunderstanding but said Green was justified in his anger as his life had been taken away. Green entered prison at age 18. Some of the nieces and nephews who greeted him on Friday hadn’t been born when he was locked up.

Green said that while in prison, he didn’t give up hope, writing to state lawmakers, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office and others proclaiming his innocence and asking that his case be reviewed.

In 1983, four men abducted a woman from a pay telephone in north Houston, taking her to a remote location where three of them raped her. The men drove off, leaving the woman there, and were later chased by police. The men abandoned their car and fled on foot. Green was detained by officers that night as he walked in the area.

The victim could not identify Green in person when he was first detained but later picked him from a photo lineup as one of her attackers. Green was convicted of aggravated sexual assault and sentenced to 75 years in prison. He was the only person convicted in the case.

After District Attorney Pat Lykos was elected in 2008, she formed the Post-Conviction Review Section and it chose Green’s case as one of the first to look at. The review team found the only remaining evidence in the case — clothing worn by the victim during the rape — and had it tested. The results excluded Green.

Authorities were able to identify the four men who abducted the women. But because the statute of limitations on the rape has run out, they cannot be prosecuted.

“The tragedy in the Green case is not only was an innocent man in prison, the victim was denied justice, society was denied justice and the real criminals were free,” Lykos said Friday.

Lykos declined to criticize her predecessors when asked why it took so long for Green’s case to be reviewed. She said DNA testing was not available when Green was convicted, it didn’t come to the forefront until the 1990s and that even now Harris County — the country’s third-largest county — doesn’t have the resources to do all the testing it needs to do.

Green said he was grateful for the efforts by the district attorney’s office.

He and his attorney blame bad police work for his wrongful imprisonment, saying improperly suggestive identification procedures that were used in photo spreads and a live lineup helped lead to the victim incorrectly identifying Green as one of her attackers.

Houston police have declined to comment on Green’s case.

Wicoff said Green forgives the victim but is unsure if he will ever forgive the police.

Adrian Taylor, 50, Green’s older brother, said he’s disappointed it took so long for his brother to be released but now he wants to help him look to the future.

“I now have to get him to forgive, forgive and move on,” Taylor said

Source: Raw Story

Earlier this week, a man named Raymond Towler was released from prison after DNA evidence exonerated him. Towler had been convicted in 1981 of raping an 11-year-old girl in a Cleveland park and given a life sentence; he spent nearly 30 years in prison before a group called The Innocent Project took up his case and requested that DNA evidence be re-evaluated.

Towler’s freedom made national news. The judge in the case, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Eileen Gallagher, did not merely free Towler as a formality but left the bench to congratulate Towler at his defense table and gave him an Irish blessing. Towler was also the guest of honor at a Cleveland Cavaliers NBA playoff game.

It’s a tragic story with a bittersweet ending, but there’s an important element that has been largely ignored in the news surrounding Towler’s exoneration: the victim and witnesses identified him as the rapist from a photo. That is, the 11-year-old girl and other eyewitnesses pointed to a photograph of Raymond Towler and told police, “Yes, that is the man who did this.” But Raymond Towler was not the man who did this.

So what happened? Were they lying? Though false rape accusations do occur (as the Tawana Brawley and the Duke University lacrosse team cases show, to name just two high-profile scandals), it seems doubtful that’s what happened in this case. Instead, most likely the eyewitnesses were not lying, nor stupid, nor malicious. They were simply wrong.

Countless cases prove this point. Recently in the District of Columbia, a police sergeant involved in a chase positively identified a 14-year-old boy as the driver of a vehicle involved in a mass shooting. The boy was arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder. As the Washington Post noted, “An arrest based on this identification probably struck most people as reasonable, even laudable. After all, the sergeant is a trained, experienced police officer, and he was certain enough of his identification to commit it to a charging document.” Yet despite his positive identification, the trained police sergeant was wrong; other evidence proved that the boy was innocent.

Then there’s the case of the D.C. snipers who killed ten people and badly injured three others in October 2002. Police were baffled by the killings, though an apparent break in the case came when several eyewitnesses described the shooter: A white man driving a late-model white van or box truck. Based on these multiple eyewitness descriptions, police stopped white vans along the Capital Beltway hoping to stop the killer. Yet when the snipers were caught, it was clear that the sincere, believable eyewitnesses with no reason to lie or exaggerate were completely wrong.

Instead of a single white man driving a white box truck, the murders were committed by two Black men driving a dark blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice. In that case, the eyewitness testimony likely cost human lives: Police had in fact noted the Chevrolet at several of the crime scenes but did not stop or check out the car because the police and public were focused on the non-existent white van reported by eyewitnesses.

Eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful conviction in America. Of the more than 200 people exonerated by way of DNA evidence in the US, over 75% were wrongfully convicted because of eyewitness mistakes. Indeed, according to the Innocence Project, “While eyewitness testimony can be persuasive evidence before a judge or jury, 30 years of strong social science research has proven that eyewitness identification is often unreliable. Research shows that the human mind is not like a tape recorder; we neither record events exactly as we see them, nor recall them like a tape that has been rewound. Instead, witness memory is like any other evidence at a crime scene; it must be preserved carefully and retrieved methodically, or it can be contaminated.”

Often in criminal cases there’s a strong and understandable desire to believe the victim. No one wants to question or challenge a person who has obviously undergone a horrible experience—but it must be done. That eyewitness reports are often very unreliable is not news to psychologists or experienced police detectives, but the general public is often unduly impressed with an eyewitness who says, “I know what I saw, and I saw him do it.” Maybe, maybe not.

And it’s not just in crimes: many people who believe in cryptozoological curiosities such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster also put great faith in eyewitness reports—especially sightings by police officers and others in authority. Yet the evidence is clear and uncontested: people are not good eyewitnesses, and often sincerely claim to see things they did not.

Think of how horrible the rape victim who accused Towler must feel, knowing her mistake took 30 years of an innocent man’s life. Those who offer eyewitness evidence against others should heed Oliver Cromwell’s famous plea: “I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.”

Source: Discovery.com

Video from Cleveland Plain Dealer

Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting.

Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.

President Obama meets with John Walsh

Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.

A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.

The ACLU is suing California to block its voter-approved measure requiring saliva sampling of people picked up on felony charges. Authorities in the Golden State are allowed to conduct so-called “familial searching” — when a genetic sample does not directly match another, authorities start investigating people with closely matched DNA in hopes of finding leads to the perpetrator.

Do you wonder whether DNA sampling is legal?

The courts have already upheld DNA sampling of convicted felons, based on the theory that the convicted have fewer privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that when conducting intrusions of the body during an investigation, the police need so-called “exigent circumstances” or a warrant. That alcohol evaporates in the blood stream is the exigent circumstance to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant.

Newborn babies in the United States are routinely screened for a panel of genetic diseases. Since the testing is mandated by the government, it’s often done without the parents’ consent.

In many states, such as Florida, babies’ DNA is stored indefinitely.

Most parents don’t realize their baby’s DNA is being stored in a government lab, but sometimes when they find out they take action. Parents in Texas, and Minnesota have filed lawsuits, and these parents’ concerns are sparking a new debate about whether it’s appropriate for a baby’s genetic blueprint to be in the government’s possession.

The government has your baby’s DNA (CNN)

Diana Waletzko at the Citizens’ Council on Health Care Press Conference on Protecting Baby DNA.

*UPDATE Suit possible over baby DNA sent to military lab for national database (Austin Statesman)