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Child Item

Innocent man freed after 39 years in Prison

Augmerson

**** that. That's unreal. Reminds me of a similar case in Canada. David Milgaard spent 23 years in prison before being found innocent and freed.

RTE Report wrote:

A Cleveland judge has dropped all charges against a man who has spent 39 years in prison for murder, making him the longest-held US prisoner to be exonerated.

Ricky Jackson, 57, will walk free on Friday after paperwork is completed, attorney for the Ohio Innocence Project Mark Godsey said.

Mr Jackson was convicted along with two others for the 1975 murder of Harold Franks, a Cleveland-area money order salesman, after 12-year-old Eddie Vernon testified he saw the attack, according to court documents.

Mr Vernon, now 53, recanted his testimony and told authorities he had never actually witnessed the crime. There was no other evidence linking Mr Jackson to the killing.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/1119/660887-ricky-jackson-ohio/

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SEPT 23 1989

Eddie Vernon should be jailed

Mr_Muffin

Mr Vernon should be locked up for the same length of time providing he is actually telling the truth.

Augmerson

sugarman wrote: »

If I were him I'd be going straight back to prison having murdered the little ****e

The authorities should at least let him box the face off him.

cloud493

Is there any repercussions for the bloke who lied about it?

wnolan1992

Jesus, how would you even adjust to freedom if you'd been in jail for that long. Like, he has literally spent twice as much time in jail as he has outside. That's... pretty f*cked up right there....

brevity

Wouldn't surprise me if that kid was pressured into making that decision.

Cool Mo D

It's just another case that shows how eyewitnesses are incredibly unreliable. Of all the people who are wrongfully imprisoned, its basically always either a false (coerced) confession, or an unreliable eyewitness.

On average, eyewitness identification of a stranger is wrong as often as it is right.

seamus

sugarman wrote: »

If I were him I'd be going straight back to prison having murdered the little ****e

Found more information on this:

In the recent filing, Vernon admits he never saw the actual incident. He approached the crime scene with other onlookers after the shooting. Vernon heard a friend mention the Bridgemans and Jackson, although the friend hadn't seen the crime. Vernon, who was friendly with the corner store owner, volunteered the information.

Police put Vernon before a line-up that included Ricky Jackson. The boy didn't identify anyone. “I thought that was it and I would just go home,” he said. “I couldn't understand how the other boys would still be under arrest after I didn't pick them out.”

But the detective investigating the case took the boy into a back room. “He got really loud and angry and started yelling at me and calling me a liar. He was slamming his hands on the table, and pushing things around, calling me this and that. I was frightened and crying. You know it's a scary thing for someone that young.”

Vernon says he was threatened by police. “The detective said that I was too young to go to jail, but he would arrest my parents for perjury because I was backing out. My mom was sick at that time, and that really scared me. I didn't want my parents to get in trouble over this.”

The boy then went back out into the hallway and identified Ricky Jackson. He later testified against all three defendants.

The case snowballed from there.

A lot of black man went down for crimes they didn't commit back in the mid-late 20th century. There was (and still is to a certain extent) a lot of pressure on US cops and prosecutors to send someone to jail for high-profile crimes. This pressure comes from local politicians who have far too much control over law enforcement bodies and officials.
So it became the norm to pick a local known black troublemaker, fabricate some evidence and put them up for trial. Why black? Because the jury would be more likely to convict a poor black man with a history on flimsy evidence.

No interest in the law or justice. Provided someone went to jail for it, people got their pocket money and their kudos.

This man should want for nothing from now until the day he dies. He should basically be given a limitless credit card paid for entirely by the US government. That wouldn't make it right what's happened, but it would be a start.

Augmerson

Taken from The Cleveland

http://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/index.ssf/2014/11/a_free_man_ricky_jackson_to_le.html

Eddie Vernon wrote:

Vernon testified that he was with other school children on a bus when he heard two pops that sounded like firecrackers. The bus was close to the Fairmont Cut-Rite on Fairhill Road, a street now called Stokes Boulevard, but it was not near the vicinity where he could see anything that took place, Vernon testified. Others on the bus also testified that Vernon couldn't see anything.

But based on a friend's word, Vernon went to the scene and told authorities that Jackson and the Bridgeman brothers committed the crime, a vicious attack on Harold Franks.

"I'm thinking, 'I'm doing the right thing,''' Vernon testified. "I told the officer, 'I know who did it.

Jesus H Christ. He didn't even see it happen?!

[Deleted User]

seamus wrote: »

This man should want for nothing from now until the day he dies. He should basically be given a limitless credit card paid for entirely by the US government. That wouldn't make it right what's happened, but it would be a start.

Different states have different rules but it wouldn't surprise me if he doesn't get a cent from the government.

My favorite part of the story is that he would've got the death penalty but for a dates mix-up regarding when the death penalty could and couldn't be applied. But hey, let's kill 'em all, they have it coming.

cloud493

Poor sod. Imagine being basically separated from the world for 39 years, being convicted of something like that. Jesus.

Augmerson

He's going to love free porn on the internet.

tomwaterford

Mr_Muffin wrote: »

Mr Vernon should be locked up for the same length of time providing he is actually telling the truth.

I doubt it...as he would have never come forward with the evidence otherwise...as bad as 39 years is...its better than forever!! (only slightly)

GM228

tomwaterford wrote: »

I doubt it...as he would have never come forward with the evidence otherwise...as bad as 39 years is...its better than forever!! (only slightly)

Probably seemed like forever!

GM228

[Deleted User]

He has to wait till Friday??? That would really piss me right off.

_Kaiser_

So this poor guy is 57 now and 18 when he went in... 39 years!

Where would you even start? He's missed a massive amount of social and technological change in those 39 years, particularly from a work perspective - assuming someone will even hire him.

Poor fecker

Agree with what someone said above - this guy should be given a massive settlement to cover him for the rest of his life but even aside from that, will he even adapt to what will probably seem like a foreign country to him now in terms of cultural norms, political correctness, the selfie generation etc

K.Flyer

I imagine that there have been many people executed based on false testimonies, his case will seriously strengthen the anti-execution lobbyists.
Hope he gets well compensated for his lost years.

tritium

tomwaterford wrote: »

I doubt it...as he would have never come forward with the evidence otherwise...as bad as 39 years is...its better than forever!! (only slightly)

In general I hate this reasoning-it basically creates a liars charter and then pretends its based on caring about victims in some sense.

Here though, he was a twelve year old kid under extreme duress, I think it would be hard to justify punishing him. The police office who forced him to make the statement however.......

nxbyveromdwjpg

tritium wrote: »

In general I hate this reasoning-it basically creates a liars charter and then pretends its based on caring about victims in some sense.

Here though, he was a twelve year old kid under extreme duress, I think it would be hard to justify punishing him. The police office who forced him to make the statement however.......

He was 12 when it happened, he's had 41 years since then to tell the truth.

Fuhrer

Happens all the time,

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/26/damien-echols-i-survived-death-row

Given all the innocent people that seem to have been on death row, I wonder how many were executed

Grayson

Fuhrer wrote: »

Happens all the time,

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/may/26/damien-echols-i-survived-death-row

Given all the innocent people that seem to have been on death row, I wonder how many were executed

I read an article in the new yorker that said as many as 1 in 25 people in prison in the US may be innocent.

It's scary to think that you could be minding your business, then just arrested, sent to trial and locked up (or executed) for something you've never heard of.

tritium

nm wrote: »

He was 12 when it happened, he's had 41 years since then to tell the truth.

So is his crime lying or not coming clean? I know which one caused the problem in the first place.

There may be many reasons why it took him so long to come forward. Perhaps for a number of years he still harboured the fear of the threats made by the police. After a few years who knows how it affected him dealing with what he'd done. At the end of the day he was a child who was manipulated by an adult to do something wrong. The adult in this case deserves to be punished not the kid

seamus

tritium wrote: »

There may be many reasons why it took him so long to come forward. Perhaps for a number of years he still harboured the fear of the threats made by the police. After a few years who knows how it affected him dealing with what he'd done. At the end of the day he was a child who was manipulated by an adult to do something wrong. The adult in this case deserves to be punished not the kid

Yeah, initially it was probably a fear of the police, and as he got older this probably morphed into a fear that if he did come forward, he could end up arrested, or his own family's life could be ruined.

The human mind is a very malleable thing. He may very well have convinced himself that Jackson was in fact guilty, his evidence was just incidental. A child of that age would typically have little understanding of corruption or of the overall consequences of their actions.
So he could have grown up believing that he was bullied into giving evidence, but not piece together the fact that his evidence put an innocent man on death row.

Spencer Winterbotham

The guy who gets released should be legally allowed to kick the other guy in the face until his eye pops out...

[Deleted User]

If you're responsible for your actions from the age of 18, then the kid had over thirty years to come forward. Unfortunately, punishing him would mean less retractions from others.

[Deleted User]

Don't think it should be legal for him to seek retribution but I certainly wouldn't blame him if he did.