Man gets $75 after being wrongly imprisoned for 31 years
cnn.com
cnn.com
So he was freed because DNA evidence proved he wasn't the rapist. But Melissa McDonald, spokesperson for the Tennessee Board of Parole, said that:
After considering all of the evidence, the board did not find clear and convincing evidence of innocence and declined to recommend clemency in this matter.*
DNA evidence is not "clear and convincing evidence"??
The victim identified him as 1 of the 2 rapists and DNA cleared him. He might not have left DNA behind, but the victim still identified him.
"Board members questioned McKinney during the hearing about admissions to the crime made at a parole hearing after he had already served 28 years in prison. McKinney said admissions were only in hopes of getting released,"
I recall reading about a druggie who confessed to being the Green River Killer or some other serial killer. The real killer was picked up after that.
I think they just let him go to save the money of another trial since he already served so much. He probably would have lost the retrial since the evidence didn't change, but they decided not to spend the money. Seems OK.
In the years since, McKinney confessed to the rape and apologized for it during his parole hearings, which were denied. He was also a very problematic prisoner who was constantly getting into violent altercations with other prisoners and guards.
32 years after the crime, the bed linen was tested for DNA. It had a positive match for Yancy, and the victim's boyfriend, and a third man, still unknown. McKinney's DNA was not on the bed linen.
Based on this evidence, since this evidence would no doubt be considered relevant to the trial, the conviction was vacated. The parole board did not exonerate him because the evidence did not support exoneration, it only supported a new trial. Given that he had already served 31 years in prison, rather than have a new trial, in addition to vacating the sentence, the charges were dismissed and he was free to go.
Vacating and dismissal are not findings of innocence in the legal system. Based on the DNA evidence, it is an absolute fact that his friend Yancy raped and robbed the woman. He gave an alibi for this man, and vice versa. The woman said two men raped her, two men she knew, and identified Lawrence as the other one. Based on the victim's eyewitness testimony and her previous familiarity with the perpetrators, her testimony is extremely credible and the jury's verdict exceptionally reasonable. Not all rapists leave DNA on the bedsheets that is recoverable after 30 years.
Actual legal question not related to the specifics of this case: why not? Doesn't the US justice system operate under the principle of "innocent until proven guilty?" Doesn't vacating a conviction mean that the former convict has not been proven guilty?
- Paraphrased from US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart
Innocent is not a finding or disposition in the Court. You are likely to find the following dispositions in a given criminal case: guilty; not guilty/acquittal; no info (the State drops the case prior to trial but after filing charges, usually due to lack of evidence); nolle prosequi (State drops charges, usually in exchange for a plea or diversion program); withholding of adjudication (closing ones case without a formal conviction).
"Innocent until proven guilty" is very nice sounding, but the reality reads more like this: "the State shall have the burden to prove all the elements of the charges it brings against a criminal defendant beyond and to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt". The difference, the Defense doesn't have to prove its innocence, it doesn't have to do anything, the defense can just sit quietly and watch the State fail to prove its case.
> confessed to the rape and apologized for it during his parole hearings, which were denied. He was also a very problematic prisoner who was constantly getting into violent altercations with other prisoners and guards.
I'd probably try all of those things over the years.
Again, the guy may well be a monster. But those points shouldn't really weigh on the courts decision. How long can an innocent person live in Kafka world before going at least a little crazy?
Want to fix this? Vote for higher taxes to help fund both public defenders (at 10x or more the current level) and social services (that keep people out of trouble in the first place.)
http://www.innocenceproject.org/causes/eyewitness-misidentif...
And yet, when wrongfully imprisoned, you can hold someone back from justice because of their behavior while trying to survive in a hostile prison environment? WTF?
But then again it's hard to release some one that claim they didn't do anything when you have to presume guilt to begin with.
But, consider, when DNA evidence appeared as a viable technology, 5% of death row inmates were set free. The most difficult cases, where you want the system to work perfectly - no one wants to execute an innocent person - failed 1 in 20 times. Something like 270 people were set free. Millions are spent on both sides of these cases, with round after round of appeals.
So, when you get down to lesser crimes, say assault and battery, I'd bet a good fraction of the people in prison really are innocent. In the best case 5% are innocent.
There's no real way to treat the unknown innocents differently than the actual criminals. That's just how the world is.
Perhaps we should offer some paths to redemption. Not that i have any specific love for muggers, it's more that a good fraction of "muggers in the eyes of the law" aren't actually muggers. Anyone convicted now days is pretty much fucked. I can think of a few notable exceptions, but unless you're some sort of military officer with national news attention, you are pretty much done.
We really only know that at it's absolute best best, death row cases, the legal system's false positive rate is 5%. I find that number terrifying.
That is not how facts work. The DNA evidence shows that the DNA was there. It doesn't create a fact out of something else.
It could be that the woman consented to sex with one or both of the men and fabricated the story to explain it to her boyfriend. It could be that McKinny and the woman's boyfriend were gay and the accusation was the woman's revenge after catching her boyfriend in bed with a man. We still don't know these things.
He gave an alibi to someone that was involved in the crime as far DNA goes; he admitted to the crime (although it could have been the case that he done so only to admit guilt as there is no parole without admission of guilt) and asked for forgiveness.
I don't know if there is other considerable evidence to him being present during the burglary and the rape such as fingerprints but another likely option was that there were 3 individuals involved in the burglary 2 of them raped the victim and the 3rd haven't.
In my opinion if you commit a crime with with partners and one of the partners assaults, rapes, or kills some one you are just as guilty as they are for not preventing them in most case; the law in most places agrees with this.
Robbing a house with 1-2 other people and then standing by while they rape some one is nearly as bad as raping someone yourself.
That was my point.
I think it's unnecessary for us to invent crazy hypothetical scenarios above and beyond what the accused themselves are claiming just to avoid confronting the possibility that a rape charge might be real and not she totally wanted it man.
That said, even disregarding the question of guilt it does sound like a shitty way to treat released prisoners, and I'm sure recidivism could be reduced by a lot if you gave them a runway and more help reintegrating.
A woman making a false rape claim to avoid admitting that she cheated is a "crazy hypothetical scenario"? It's a thing that actually happens on a recurring basis. It's probably the leading cause of false rape claims.
I am not arguing that these people are innocent. They probably did it. But they didn't certainly do it. DNA can't fix that because the pieces we don't know aren't the pieces that DNA tells us.
The defense makes the case the guy didn't do it. One way is to give an alternative version of events and the evidence for it.
The defense could just say "nah, but what if it's some kind of gay revenge love triangle?" and sit down. The jury would then convict because that's stupid. But if they also provided a bunch of love letters then maybe that holds water.
Ultimately that's why there's a jury.
You're describing a situation where the prosecution says "this guy did it" and then provides no evidence. Then the defense says "no, this other completely plausible stuff happened" and then also provides no evidence. Then the jury defaults to the prosecution's case which is precisely an inversion of "innocent until proven guilty."
The jury will do what the jury will do, but my very very limited experience (was on jury duty but didn't actually sit on a case, chatted to a defense lawyer and chatted to someone else who has also actually sat on a jury for a murder case - all in the UK) is that they are more inclined to side with the defendant.
Edited to clarify the first paragraph
When it comes to especially horrible crimes (rape, murder, especially of children), I don't believe this is true.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-the-eyes-have-...
http://www.innocenceproject.org/causes/eyewitness-misidentif...
Disclaimer: I donate to The Innocence Project regularly and am a former Psych major intimately familiar with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error
This scares me a bit. The only witness is the victim (who was obviously under extreme stress). The other two people each claim the other as an alibi. Without something more compelling (e.g. scratches on the attackers, or a fingerprint at the scene or another second eyewitness), I don't understand how a single persons word can send someone to prison for life.
Hey, just because he's not guilty doesn't mean he's innocent.
Isn't it is better that ten innocent persons be jailed than that one criminal escape justice? [0]
Edit: Obviously it's more complicated than this. I don't envy anyone having to make these sorts of calls. There are certainly legal minutiae here that the CNN article doesn't get into.