Innocent Until Proven Guilty

I was looking at the candidates hoping to take Kennedy's place. While reading about Martha Coakley I came across the Gerald Amirault case. That's where I veered off. No longer was I interested in Martha or Gerry, but justice. That is what interested me. "There but for the grace of God, go I."

There is a laudable group known as the Innocence Project that helps prisoners prove that they have been convicted wrongly. It seems to me that just one instance is enough to discredit capital punishment. Our system is not perfect; but it's better than others. With that it mind, those involved in our justice system should work toward improving discrimination, misidentification, unreliable science, false confession, fraud, misconduct from informants, suspect DNA, and bad lawyering.

There is a list of people on death row who have been exonerated. Read the list and what convicted them. Makes you wonder--if it can happen to them, it can happen to you. I repeat; "There but for the grace of God, go I."

Innocent Until Proven Guilty

So I'm almost a week late in reading my Pilot, but I do read it. And I did read something that made me want to comment. BTW, I looked up the Pilot on the web and tried to find the article, but couldn't. Frustrating. I wanted to link to it.

Then, I was just going to wing it. I read the article again and noticed that the author, Effie Caldarola wrote for the Catholic News Service. Yep. That's where I found it.

What's the article that made me move my lazy a**?

"The Alaska Innocence Project"

Caldarola tells the story of Beverly Monroe. She's a lady who was in prison for seven years for a crime that she didn't commit. Why? Well, sh** happens, i.e., police needing to arrest somebody, public eager to convict, and a legislative system that doesn't like to reverse decisions.

DNA proved her innocence. DNA testing wasn't always available. Some states don't allow post conviction DNA testing. I don't know about MA. I would hope we do. I pray that we do. Mistakes are made, that was the point of Effie Caldarola's article.

The Alaska Innocence Project helps to exonerate innocent people. Innocence projects are all over the US. God bless these people. It's a worthy cause.