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Author Alice Sebold apologises to man wrongly jailed for raping her

Wombatman

He was exonerated on 22 November after a re-examination of the case found he had been convicted on insufficient and now-discredited forms of evidence.

His wrongful conviction came to light after an executive producer working on a film adaptation of Lucky raised questions over the case, and later hired a private investigator.

I wonder what the producer saw to make him to quit and hire an investigator?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59485586

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DarkJager21

Sorry just doesn't cut it in a case like this.

85603

"The book detailed how Ms Sebold was attacked when she was an 18-year-old student at Syracuse University in New York.

Months later, she reported seeing a black man in the street who she thought was her attacker, and alerted police.

An officer then detained Mr Broadwater, who had reportedly been in the area at the time.

After his arrest, Ms Sebold failed to pick him out in a police line-up, selecting another man. But Mr Broadwater was tried anyway and Ms Sebold identified him as her attacker in court. He was convicted based on her account and microscopic hair analysis.

After he was released from prison in 1998, Mr Broadwater remained on the sex offenders register."

Wombatman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250480#Comment_118250480

In her 1999 memoir Lucky she wrote that when she was told she’d selected a man from the lineup who wasn’t the one she identified earlier, she said the two looked “almost identical.” Close enough?

padd b1975

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250443#Comment_118250443

He's "picked a spot on the wall" in response to the apology.

Definitely getting his ducks in a row for a shakedown.

padd b1975

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250534#Comment_118250534

Sure they all look the same!!

He's going to end up a very rich man.

Good luck to him.

Hesh's Umpire

He's 61 now. No amount of money will compensate him for the last 40 years of his life.

thefallingman

While this lady has lived a wonderful successful life, it's so unfair she should be saying sorry from behind bars but sure it was a man so who cares right, she didn't even pick him out of a line up ffs.

85603

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250534#Comment_118250534

We're never getting rid of this tendency in society. It goes deep.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250672#Comment_118250672

Yes, God forbid someone's memory of a traumatic event in the middle of the night might not be perfect. To the chair with her!

What fault there is here lies with the prosecution service. Witness and victim testimony is frequently unreliable through no fault of the people involved and it is the job of the police and prosecution to investigate.

padd b1975

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250874#Comment_118250874

She "positively" identified him in the courtroom (under oath) despite failing to do so in the lineup.

She's in a lot of trouble as well as the police and prosecution.

Wombatman

"Alice Sebold’s publisher Scribner is pulling her 1999 memoir Luckyfrom shelves after the man she accused of rape, and wrote about in the book, was exonerated last week.

The company issued a statement on Tuesday (1 December) announcing that Lucky would be withdrawn while Sebold looked at revising it."

Looked at revising it! Disgusting.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/alice-sebold-book-lucky-rape-case-b1967618.html

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250874#Comment_118250874

There's a large difference between failing to identify your "rapist" in a line-up and having an imperfect memory of a traumatic event.

SnazzyPig

Maybe, just maybe, both were victims.

GLaDOS

The whole case seems a bit strange in the cold light of day. The police/prosecution seemed to be gunning for this guy regardless of the evidence.

Wombatman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250874#Comment_118250874

Pity this intelligent and successful author didn't stand up in court, or anytime after for that matter, and declare her "memory of a traumatic event in the middle of the night might not be perfect".

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251008#Comment_118251008

And maybe, just maybe, they weren't.

Girl Geraldine

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250555#Comment_118250555

I doubt it. Unless she is very wealthy, then what is the point in taking a civil case. No matter what judgement he might get, you can't get blood from a stone.

Any a black man in a US court is unlikely to get a truly fair hearing. The USA is a corrupt, racist degenerate nation run by elderly white conservative men who want to keep it that way. And the judiciary are largely of that ilk too. The ruling class in the USA are more elderly and more homogenous than the old guard in the CPSU in the old USSR.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251027#Comment_118251027

It is unreliable. Generally people don't know when their memory is unreliable as we all universally tend to assume our memory is correct. That is different from simply thinking you don't remember properly

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250952#Comment_118250952

She's in zero trouble (legally or financially anyway). Once she believed what she was saying in the courtroom under oath, and there is no reason to suspect she didn't, then she has done nothing wrong.

padd b1975

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251198#Comment_118251198

What changed in her mind between the lineup and the courtroom to make her so sure?

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251233#Comment_118251233

Who knows. Maybe she struggled to distinguish between two people in the lineup but when told which one it was she became more sure in her mind. This is all pretty rational, understandable and recorded behaviour of people in these situations. Memory is unreliable and can be massively impacted by events after the fact. Those advocating for her to face punishment would basically be suggesting we throw out our entire justice system.

seamus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118250874#Comment_118250874

Yep. The obsession in many countries is with obtaining a prosecution rather than ascertaining the truth. All of the machinations of justice systems tend towards it; closing cases is prioritised over thorough investigations.

A witness picking someone out of a lineup is not responsible for the system using that testimony alone as evidence.

We are slowly coming to terms with the idea that witness testimony is of pretty low value when it comes to evidence and that the jury system may in fact not be the fairest or most efficient system for ascertaining guilt.

Wombatman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251149#Comment_118251149

Probably shouldn't make a career out of writing memoirs with an 'unreliable' memory.

Podge_irl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251490#Comment_118251490

Every person on the planet has an unreliable memory. Witness testimony is consistently inaccurate and every memoir ever written is full of misremembered falsehoods.

No doubt plenty of things you are convinced of in your memory are completely incorrect.

MarkEadie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251136#Comment_118251136

Very true. The poor guy got railroaded

Wombatman

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251509#Comment_118251509

She is planning to revise her memoir Lucky. I guess this involves coming us with a new set of 'misremembered falsehoods'.

joseywhales

Did his defense not question the validity of her identification? Did he even get a trial or was he coerced into taking a plea as usual?

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251924#Comment_118251924

And I assume she will be donating all monies received from this memoir to the man who was jailed.

RabbleRouser2k

She wanted someone to pay for what was done to her. And I absolutely believe she was raped. But to say they were both victims I would completely disagree with.

One had their freedom, one did not. But the tragedy of a rape case (outside of the rape and the long term damage, be it physical or psychological) is that the body goes into this sort of 'protective' mode... and it means that it tries to block out the assault, as a coping mechanism.

This creates problems in that a survivor of assault can often fail to recall the appearance of their assaulter. It's why its so difficult for a victim to identify the perpetrator in a line-up. Its beyond their control-it's our body's coping mechanism.

In her case, where it was a random individual who attacked her (rather than someone known to her)... it makes identifying the individual all the more difficult.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118251136#Comment_118251136

That's just word salad. Most people who are not rich are going to get a lawyer who's overburdened, underpaid, and with a caseload that's stretched far beyond the norm.

So they'll tell a client (an innocent client) to 'plea to a lesser charge'. Maybe physical asssault. Doesn't matter how strenuously they say they're innocent.

There have been cases where women have contacted the men they sent to prison on social media, asking to friend them, then being like 'no hard feelings about me lying, okay?'.

Another claimed she saw her perpetrator in a dream. (DNA on the other hand, said the contrary).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/24/clarence-moses-el-free-denver-rape-case

In England, one man was accused of rape based on facebook messages. Yet they had actually been edited by the person accusing him. When one saw the full facebook conversation (stored as an archive on facebook, retrieved by a family member), this man's conviction was overturned.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/01/02/man-convicted-rape-freed-after-sister-law-finds-deleted-facebook-messages-prove-his-innocence/995197001/

[Deleted User]

Eye witness testimony is notoriously unreliable at the best of times.

This is all on the police/prosecution. Sebold was the victim of the most heinous of crimes and the fact she picked a different man in the police lineup should have set off alarm bells. But no, the boys in blue tunnelled all the way to Mr. Broadwater.