On the subject, at lunch today I read this Vancouver Sun article about a man who is suing after spending nearly three decades in prison for a series of rapes of which he is actually entirely innocent.
I found the article frustrating because it declared that he was categorically innocent but didn’t go very far in explaining how this was determined. The most detail they go into is:
After reading the article, I was left wondering how the hell eight different women could independently provide something that adds up to a “weak” identification, and wondering if the appeals court wasn’t obligated to release someone who was basically a monster on the strength of some minor judicial error. Should I feel any sympathy for this guy, really?
Happily, a little hole-in-the-wall freely-distributed micro-local paper provided the decent journalism that the supposedly better of our two city papers did. (Both of our major local papers are little better than fish-wrap.) Anyway, this guy ended up being sent up the river for 30 years because… Well, ultimately because:
…but the proximate cause was:
Also, semen was recovered at the crime scenes but no blood typing was done to confirm a match, and (most compellingly) the series of rapes which was terrorizing the neighbourhood continued after his arrest and incarceration, and eventually another man was arrested and served five years for the crimes. (Maybe they figured enough punishment had been meted out for these rapes?)
In some ways it’s not as outrage-making as the California case, because the element of vindictive evil isn’t there and the people who put him there were probably earnest in their belief that he was responsible - but still. To be branded as a serial rapist and lose twenty-seven years of your life… that’s pretty hard.
For the “Always a bad idea” thread: Representing yourself in a high-stakes criminal case.
