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Help Jesse Friedman Overturn his Wrongful Conviction
Katha
Pollitt
Opinion
8-1-07 --
The Nation -- There was
great news in this morning's inbox from Elisabeth Friedman, wife of
Jesse Friedman. After running into wall after brick wall in his
attempt to have his conviction overturned, Jesse's finally caught a
break: A federal judge has granted his habeas corpus petition. . . .
Jesse was one of numerous innocent victims of the wave of
mass-child-sex-abuse cases that swept the country in the l980s and
l990s. Convicted as a teenager of molesting boys who took computer
classes from his father, who was also convicted, he served 13 years
in prison for a crime that looks more and more like one that never
happened. ( See the celebrated documentary Capturing the Friedmans
for more on the case.) The ingredients common to sex-panic cases
were all present: an over-zealous police and prosecutor, a hostile
community, frenzied media, dubious therapeutic practices like
recovered memory and hypnosis, immense pressure put on kids to say
what the prosecution wanted to hear, evidence withheld from the
defense, and so on. In the light of what we now know about false
confessions, which minors are particularly likely to make, Jesse's
plea bargain stands as yet more evidence that too often innocent
people can be made to look guilty. . . . Our system of justice runs
on money -- shouldn't be so, but that's the way it is. After almost
20 years entangled in the case, the Friedman family is reaching out
for help. If you can contribute even $5 to Jesse's defense fund, you
can help him take his fight to prove his innocence to the next
level. You can make a donation through Paypal at
www.FriedmanDefenseFund.org.
Or you can write a check to NCRJ with Jesse Friedman on the memo
line and mail it to National Center for Reason and Justice P.O. Box
230414 Boston MA 02123-0414. . . . Please help get the word out --
forward this e mail to your friends, post it on your blog. This case
is about one person railroaded by the justice system, but it's also
about all of us. Our system. Our justice. . . . Elisabeth's letter
is long, but I'm quoting it in full and hope you'll read the whole
thing. It gives a clear account of what's at stake in the upcoming
phase of the case, and is also quite moving.
Jesse Friedman's Website
Capturing the Friedmans - Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia
USA: Serious miscarriage of justice in Louisiana must be rectified
GARY
TAYLOR
AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL Public Statement / AI Index: AMR 51/026/2007 (Public)
/ News Service No: 029 / 12 February 2007
Amnesty
International is renewing its call to the Louisiana authorities for
a pardon to be granted to Gary Tyler, a 49 year-old African-American
man who has been in prison in Louisiana since the age of 17, and
whose 1975 trial was infected with racial prejudice.
Tyler
was convicted in 1975 of the murder of Timothy Weber, a white 13
year-old schoolboy who was shot outside Destrehan High School, St
Charles Parish, during racial disturbances. Tyler had been one of
many black students on a bus carrying black students back to their
homes which was being attacked by white people throwing stones and
bottles, and from which the shot had allegedly come. Following the
shooting, all male students on the bus were searched immediately,
and the bus was searched twice. No gun was found. The bus was then
taken with the students to the police station, where following
questioning, one female student said she had been sitting next to
Tyler and had seen him fire a
gun into the crowd. Following this testimony, police then “found” a
.45 automatic gun stuffed inside a seat, through a long, visible
tear in the seat. The same seat had previously been searched, shaken
and turned upside down several times, and nothing had been found.
Gary Tyler was detained in the police station where there is strong
evidence that he was savagely beaten. He did not make any statement
implicating himself in any way.
At the
time of the incident, racial tensions in the area were running high
as whites attempted to resist racial integration. There were
frequent clashes in which the Klu Klux Klan played a leading role.
Gary Tyler was tried by an all white jury from which members of the
black community had been deliberately excluded. He received
seriously deficient legal representation at his trial from a white
lawyer who specialized in civil cases and who spent only one hour
with Tyler during the whole year previous to his trial. Furthermore,
he did not interview witnesses, present any expert witnesses or
conduct tests on physical evidence offered by the state, and failed
to object to gross errors committed by the trial judge, later found
in the appeal court to have made Tyler’s trial “fundamentally
unfair”. Since the trial, evidence has come to light indicating that
Tyler did not shoot the victim, including witnesses who testified
against Tyler at trial and later recanted, saying that they were
coerced by the police to make statements against him, and
questionable forensic evidence which did not clearly and definitely
implicate Tyler in the murder.
Originally sentenced to death, Tyler’s death sentence was overturned
in 1977 following a ruling by the US Supreme Court in 1976 which
declared the state’s death penalty unconstitutional, and his
sentence was commuted to life imprisonment without parole,
probation, or suspension of sentence for 20 years.
In two
decisions a federal appeals court ruled that
Tyler had been “convicted on the
basis of unconstitutional charge” which had “infected the trial” to
the point of rendering it “fundamentally unfair”. In its first
decision, the court vacated Tyler’s conviction and ordered a
retrial. However, following an appeal by the state, the court
reversed its previous decision ordering a new trial, although it did
not dispute its finding of unconstitutionality, and reiterated its
view that the trial had been fundamentally unfair. On at least three
separate occasions the Louisiana Board of Pardons recommended to two
state governors that Gary Tyler’s sentence should be reduced, on one
occasion, making him immediately eligible for parole, but these
recommendations were rejected.
If
Louisiana’s death penalty had not been found unconstitutional, it is
very likely that Gary Tyler would have been executed before now.
Amnesty International is calling on Governor Blanco to rectify this
shocking injustice by granting a pardon to Gary Tyler with immediate
effect and by ordering a full, independent investigation into his
case so that anyone found to have been involved in any cover-up or
abuse is brought to justice.
For more
information on Gary Tyler’s case and full details of Amnesty
International’s concerns, see: USA:“The Case of Gary Tyler”, AMR51/89/94.
Patrick Swiney Framed For A Double
Murder
ALABAMA
-- Patrick Swiney, 62, was framed for a double murder that occurred
in 1987. He was convicted of this crime in 1989 and sentenced to
life without the possibility of parole in the Alabama prison
system. It was really a "kangaroo kourt"
where the prosecutor, J. Michael Campbell, fabricated evidence to
convict, suppressed evidence of innocence, and told outrageous lies
to the jury.
We
think this is 'Payback Alabama Style' for Patrick's role as a police
officer in busting a drug ring in Gulf Shores, Alabama which
resulted in the arrests and convictions of the Baldwin County D.A.
and Chief Investigator for the Sheriff's office in Baldwin County.
We also
think the prosecutor needs to be thoroughly investigated for his
role with the female victim in this crime. We know they were high
school sweethearts and we know that Patrick's community continues to
say these two were having an affair up until the time she was shot
and killed. Curiously, the prosecutor instructed the State Medical
Examiner, Dr. Joseph Embry, not to perform the vaginal swab and
fingernail examinations during autopsy (using the reasoning that the
female victim was fully clothed when she was shot) thus destroying
forever the DNA that may have revealed who the real killer(s) were
or at least who was having sex with her just before she was killed. Was that the prosecutor's DNA? We may never know.
10
years after the trial, Patrick's wife, Sherry Swiney, Director of
the Patrick Crusade, found two forensic reports that had been
suppressed and never shown to the jury at trial.
One of
these reports said no gun shot residue was found on Patrick and the
other said there was no blood found on him or his clothing in this
double homicide where the victms were shot at point blank range.
Apparently his clothing was only tested for blood and not gun shot
residue unless that has been suppressed too and we just don't know
it yet. If the clothing was tested and if any gun shot residue was
found, the prosecutor would certainly have shown this to the jury.
In
studying the transcripts, we also found police reports indicating
that Patrick was 3-4 miles away
(a 10 minute drive)
from the crime scene at the precise
moment of the
shootings (9:30 p.m.).
In 2002
we received crime scene photographs from the current D.A., Robby
Owens, that show no bullet hole in the kitchen window or screen
which is contrary to the prosecutor's scenario at trial.
In 2003
his team of forensic experts found through scientific technology
that Patrick was not and could not have been the shooter in this
crime. This confirms his innocence and the fact that the real
killers are still out there free to commit more crimes.
In 2003
his team of pathologists determined that the female victim could not
have been fully dressed as stated by the prosecutor, when she was
shot. Gun powder was found on her skin around the wound in her
buttocks but no gun powder was found on the jeans she was allegedly
wearing at the time she was shot.
Now the
Alabama courts have barred Patrick from showing evidence of
innocence to the court, stating that he has not shown a prima facie
case of innocence.
If
anyone is interested in reviewing the documents in this case please
click on the website above, then click on "Habeas Corpus" for a
listing of what documents are available for review.
Patrick
no longer has a lawyer to represent him. The Pentagon mysteriously
contacted his lawyer and is transferring him to an assignment in
Iraq. Patrick's friends, family and supporters are huddling with
legal thinkers and human rights organizations to determine the next
step in obtaining his freedom. So far, he has served 17 years in
prison for a crime someone else committed.
Respectfully Submitted by:
Sherry
Swiney
Director, P.A.T.R.I.C.K. Crusade (PC)
www.patrickcrusade.org
Member of the Board, NJCDLP
http://www.njcdlp.org/
Patrick Swiney-innocent in prison (GSR exonerates him)
www.patrickswiney.com
http://www.patrickswiney.com/legal_index.html
Member
of the High Grass Council - SPEAKUP Campaign
www.wespeakup.org
"The
only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men
(and women) to do nothing"
Edmund Burke (1729–1797), Irish philosopher,
statesman.
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