Glenn Ford's first days of freedom after 30 years on death row

[Forest Wolf]

MSN News
March 14, 2014



An incredible injustice. Thirty years that he can never get back. But hopefully he'll get a nice settlement that will set him for the rest of his life.

 

[Habbit Animal]

Notice the indifference to this very good news when there are so many people here who claim to be opposed to the death penalty for this very reason?

Now that a man has been freed after 30 years of wrongful imprisonment, not a word!
Hypocrites. And PC posturing.

 

[Psalm 91]

Notice the indifference to this very good news when there are so many people here who claim to be opposed to the death penalty for this very reason?

Now that a man has been freed after 30 years of wrongful imprisonment, not a word!
Hypocrites. And PC posturing.

I'm sorry. I didn't see the thread because I was busy arguing on other threads, lol.

This is so tragic, but I also think that a lot of us have years wasted for various reasons. It doesn't change the fact that he had no control in his situation. He was held against his will which is different from the rest of us. This is exactly WHY I don't believe in the death penalty. I wonder how many innocent people have been executed.

 

[Supreme]

I'm very happy that this poor, innocent man is now free. I hope he gets a huge sum of money to help him have a very nice lifestyle for the rest of his life. I hope he lives another 30 years, of freedom. He was put in prison as a young man and leaves as a man in late middle ages, but he may still have a lot of time left to put his life to good use.

 

[HannahT]

Sadly, what I read about his settlement? $10,000/per year. That's it!

Thankfully, we have come a long way since the time this man was placed in the jail.

I'm not saying people can't get wrongfully convicted anymore - we are still humans - but gathering of evidence, etc is so much different than it was.

If you look where he is from? I have no doubt in mind he was railroaded due to color as well.

 

[Forest Wolf]

Sadly, what I read about his settlement? $10,000/per year. That's it!

Thankfully, we have come a long way since the time this man was placed in the jail.

I'm not saying people can't get wrongfully convicted anymore - we are still humans - but gathering of evidence, etc is so much different than it was.

If you look where he is from? I have no doubt in mind he was railroaded due to color as well.

I believe that would be reasonable to presume. That his race contributed to his being seen as guilty. It's sickening that that factors into considering a persons innocence or guilt Just as it is with surviving spouses when their spouse is murdered. The first person to be considered suspect is usually that surviving spouse.

It puts a whole new spin on the old axiom, justice is blind. Blind or suffering tunnel vision, it isn't right.

I served as an interim guard on the row for a very short time. There's an atmosphere there that feels like a presence as soon as you walk through the door. As if this gigantic cloak is lowered around you so as to cover you well above your head and feels like a train is following behind on the floor. Even the air feels thicker.
When someone has a date the quiet is almost palpable.

I can't imagine how this poor man survived for three decades there knowing he was innocent and yet watching people go off to meet the fate the state had assigned to him sometime in future.

He should be a millionaire for that trespass. Tax free millionaire.

 

[He is Risen 72]

We should free all the prisoners on death row if they say they didn’t do it.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Notice the indifference to this very good news when there are so many people here who claim to be opposed to the death penalty for this very reason?

Now that a man has been freed after 30 years of wrongful imprisonment, not a word! Hypocrites. And PC posturing.

Ya know, some of us just didn't see it. And now that we have, what do you want us to say?

 

[Forest Wolf]

We should free all the prisoners on death row if they say they didn’t do it.

That would be silly. However, I do think there should be an independent council that takes death row convictions of inmates who have been on the row for decades under review.
Utilizing today's forensics so as to review the evidence and confirm the courts findings.

If we're going to take a life, and I am for capital punishment for those who are truly guilty, we must know that the condemned is indeed guilty and thus worthy of the ultimate punishment.
There is no appeal once they're dead. We can't kill people to show that killing people is wrong when we end up murdering innocent people and then say later, we simply didn't know they were not guilty.

We have to know beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

[Jonathan Jarvis]

You are going to get miscarriages of justice while the police / prosecutors think in the way they do.

Their starting point is usually there is some evidence to link the accused with the crime.

Then the forensic process looks for more evidence to bolster up the initial evidence.

The outcome is if they believe there is sufficient evidence to convict the prosecution process starts.

The downside of this way of thinking is that albeit there may be sufficient evidence to convict, the person may not have committed that which he is accused of.

So if the conviction is later found to be unsafe then the investigation process starts again sometimes decades later, when the evidence is cold.

One possible alternative is to make the police / prosecutor give a personal undertaking to the court, backed up by evidence, that they have explored all possibilities that the crime could not have been committed by a third party.

 

[Nithavela]

What a tragic story.

If people in the US prison industry were treated like human beings, I'm sure one wouldn't have to read about such heart breaking things that often.