Man freed after 26 years in jail

[Bozita]

Source: Detroit Free Press


May 21, 2008

Man freed after 26 years in jail

BY JOE SWICKARD
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Vera Massey Jones granted the motion to release Walter Swift this morning in a brief hearing that ended nearly 26 years of imprisonment for a rape he said he did not commit.

In granting his release Massey said, "I am grateful that we’re going to do something right today."

Swift, now 47, was convicted in 1982 of attacking a mother in her Indian Village home on Detroit’s east side, but the original lead detective on the case said the victim’s identification of Swift was flawed from the start.

-snip-

Freedom came after an 11-year investigation and campaign by Innocence Project headed by New York lawyer Barry Scheck.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080521/NEWS02/80521060

[TheWraith]

1. It's scary how often this happens.

Makes you wonder how many death penalty cases like this there are.

[1monster]

2. Far too many.

[Doctor_J]

4. more than 50% in Illinois

That's why George Ryan suspended the DP

[customerserviceguy]

9. Nowadays

if you don't have DNA evidence, you just might not get a conviction that leads to the death penalty. I can imagine the same thing happened when fingerprint evidence became the norm many decades ago, there were probably some folks that could prove innocence if evidence had been preserved.

The flip side of DNA is that when you find solid evidence, then you have certainty when applying a death penalty.

[DainBramaged]

3. Fucking prosecutors never want to accept responsibility for taking a man's life

because they fucked up or were just interested in convicting another Black man.

[mainegreen]

5. You know, sometimes I wonder if uncorroborated identification of a suspect should even be allowed

Really, haven't we already proved that it's about as reliable (or even less so) than a lie detector? It would be one thing if you were picking out someone you knew personally, but it seems if it's something (or some one) unfamiliar a person's memory is complete crap.

[TheWraith]

7. There's a truism among crime scene investigators...

That they'd rather have one piece of evidence than ten witnesses. It's because eyewitnesses can be very unreliable--shock or excitement can fog memory, people can perceive things differently, and people can even rewrite and reorganize their own memories to a degree to make them fit a track of what they think they saw.

[pansypoo53219]

6. i think

about all the criminals who have gotten away with their crimes to commit more.

[Bo]

8. Imagine the Justice system for black people back in the 50s or 40s

Makes your head spin