42 years on, law finds innocent Texas man was framed

[emad]

Snip from The Times
From Nicholas Wapshott in New York


WHEN Robert Carroll Coney was accused by Texas police of robbing a Safeway supermarket of $2,000 in 1962, milk cost 11c a pint, instant mashed potato had just been invented and John F. Kennedy was President. Forty-two years on, following stints in prison in Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, Louisiana, Georgia and Mississippi, and after four jail-breaks, the 76-year-old has been exonerated of the robbery and set free because the police extracted a false confession from him by squeezing his fingers in the steel door of his jail cell. Safeway now sells milk at 50c a pint and the supermarket chain stocks food undreamt of by Mr Coney 40 years ago, such as sushi, grape tomatoes and pitta bread.

In 1962 Mr Coney, an African-American veteran of the Second World War and a prisoner in the Korean war, was picked up by police in Lufkin, a rural town halfway between Dallas and Houston, and thrown in jail by deputies from the Angelina County sheriff’s department on suspicion of the Safeway robbery. During their interrogation they repeatedly called him “nigger,” slapped, kicked and punched him, then said: “Nigger, we should take you somewhere and shoot your black ass all to pieces.”

They slammed his fingers in the steel door frame of his cell until, amid yells of pain, he admitted to the crime. Damage to his hand was so severe that he required immediate surgery to avoid amputation. Mr Coney says that the robbery was probably committed by an acquaintance, Henry Cooper, whom he had driven home in a car earlier that day. Mr Coney was not allowed to see a lawyer until he was standing before a judge and when he tried to plead his innocence a court warden silenced him with a racist remark. His false confession led him to be jailed for life. His lawyer at the trial, Gilbert Spring, says today that he has no recollection of Mr Coney and that it was common in the Texas kangaroo courts which passed for justice in the early Sixties for lawyers to be summoned to appear for no fee to defend alleged criminals with no money. The defence case was by necessity hurried, inadequate and ineffective.

“It really contains everybody’s worst fears about what went on during certain darker years in this country,” said David P. O’Neil, of Huntsville, Texas, who worked to clear Mr Coney’s name. “It makes you wonder how many stories are out there like this.” Back in 1962 Mr Coney barely spent two months in jail awaiting an appeal before he escaped, having bribed a guard with $1,500. Two months later he was back inside but not for long. There followed 40 years in and out of prison in various states, where conflicting jurisdictions meant that until last year he could avoid a return to Texas. He was arrested and served 12 years of a 44-year sentence in Louisiana State Penitentiary for passing counterfeit cheques. He escaped from there but was recaptured when overwhelmed by the strong currents of the Mississippi river. Another time he escaped while attending a hospital outside the prison. In 1973 a Texas judge had cleared him of the Safeway robbery but the verdict was not passed on because he was either in jail or on the run elsewhere. His file was lost but last year a Texas prison official rediscovered it. This month Mr Coney was again cleared of the charge by Judge David V. Wilson, who, acknowledging the colourful story, added: “I hope the petitioner hires a good screenwriter.” Mr Coney still bears the scars inflicted by Sheriff Leon Jones. “I remember the sheriff well,” he said, holding up two mangled fingers. “My fingers looked like sticks of baloney.” His girlfriend, Shirley Jackson, 65, whom he fell in love with when she was 14, has stood by him for 50 years and once tried to help him escape from jail. She went to prison for nine months when caught trying to smuggle hacksaw blades to him. “I knew he was a good man and I loved him,” she said. Mr Coney remains philosophical about the injustices done to him. “If I was angry, what could I do about it?” he said. “Anger is not going to solve anything. I’m going to try to pick up the pieces.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1225806,00.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Could history be ready to repeat itself?

We have an administration that has had legal advice on how to condone torture. They are trying to strip American citizens of their right to counsel, speedy trial, etc, etc. They have ruined people's lives by keeping them as "material witnesses" because the "might" know someone who is a "terrorist". They have made up lies to smear the reputation of a West Point graduate who happened to be an imam.

Don't think this sort of thing has stopped happening. And if we don't get the Repukes out of the WH, it will only get worse.

[emad]

2. First step has to be abolishing IRA-style internment at Guantanamo

Brits learned the hard way that internment without trial, access to lawyers, family and basic human rights is an abomination of basic human dignity....whatever the heinous nature of the alleged crimes.

[emad]

3. Wrongfully Convicted Calif. Man Released

Guardian snip:
Saturday August 21, 2004 3:31 PM


LOS ANGELES (AP) - A man whose convictions in two 1985 slayings were overturned has been released from prison after prosecutors decided against retrying him. A judge agreed Wednesday to prosecutors' request to dismiss the case against Harold Hall, 37, who had been sentenced seven years ago to life in prison without the possibility of parole. ``Various reasons, including the passage of time and the unavailability of a potential witness, forced us to make this request,'' the district attorney's office said in a statement. Hall, who maintained his innocence for years, expressed relief and said his perseverance finally paid off. ``I've learned that you've got to have patience, and you've got to be determined,'' he said. ``It's just been a long, long ride. It's been an experience, one that I would not wish on anyone.''

Hall was convicted in 1992 of the stabbing deaths of Nola Duncan, 35, and her brother, David Rainey, 26. Authorities said Hall confessed to the killings but at his trial he took the stand and declared his innocence. He also confessed to a multiple gang shooting in which five people died in 1984, but charges were dismissed after he testified for the prosecution.

An appeals court reversed his conviction in Rainey's death for lack of evidence in 1994, and last year the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted him a retrial in Duncan's slaying after ruling the confession dubious and that authorities used a questionable jailhouse informant. Hall said he is considering filing a civil suit against the Los Angeles Police Department and the city. ``What they took from me, I can't get back,'' Hall said. ``The thing is to move forward, to enjoy what I have now.''
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4440208,00.html

[rasputin1952]

4. The whole system of TX "justice" , as well as some other states...

is skewed to get #'s so that prosecutors can get re-elected/appointed. One of the things that TX'ans liked abolut bush, was his penchant for death.

I'm not surprised, that even the menatlly challenged, and those convicted on the flimsiest of evidence, were executed w/o any form of overview.

I will also bet you every penny I will ever make, bush would not have the guts to pull the swith, trigger or button, on any of them. He like to order death, but is too cowardly to actually execute the act...:grr:

He is a bombastic coward, of the lowest order...:puke: