Free Darlie Addendum

Two days after I finished my article on Darlie Routier, I received the July 2018 issue of Prison Legal News, an excellent source of legal opinions and reports regarding correctional institutions all over the county. It contained the following articles on innocent people falsely incarcerated: Jason Strong was awarded $9 million dollars after being falsely accused of murder in 1999 in North Chicago.

According to court documents, 14 law enforcement officials from 10 local government agencies and the Lake County Sheriff's Office - members of the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force - conspired to convict Strong of the murder by coercing him and others into giving false testimony. However, when the autopsy was reviewed by expert pathologists during federal habeas corpus proceedings, it was determined the victim had been dead two to four days before the scenario envisioned by law enforcement officers. (P.60.)

If the members of these government agencies were now facing the 15 years in prison that Jason Strong had to do before his exoneration, there never would have been a cover-up.

Here's another headline, "North Carolina Prisoner Exonerated for Rape Collects $9.5 Million Settlement". Timothy Bridges did 23 years for being falsely accused of raping an 83-year-old, wheelchair-bound woman. The victim, Ms. Wise, asserted confidently that she could identify her rapist if she saw him, but investigators never even gave her a photo lineup. Detectives also failed to test clothing and blood samples from another suspect that fit the victim's description of her attacker AND had a history of raping elderly women. (P. 48.)

Another exonerated prisoner won $1.5 million dollars when falsely imprisoned for murder for 19 years. Turns out Baltimore Police falsified a test for gunshot residue and ignored the outcry of the murder victim's young son who told police that Sabien Burgess, the accused, was not the attacker. The child's outcry was hidden by the police and defense attorneys didn't see it for almost two decades, and the residue tests were finally shown to be a sham. (P. 42.)

My friends, until stories like these stop making it into the papers, we all have blood on our hands - the blood of innocent men and women whose lives are being wasted behind bars, and the blood of the victims because their attackers still walk free.