innocent man released after 35 years in prison

OnWisconsin · Dec 17, 2009

i was gonna copy and paste, but it was a pretty long article....here' the cliff notes:

A Florida man was released from prison for being falsely accused of raping a 9 year old boy in 1974....He was originally sentenced to life.....After filing several petitions through the years for DNA testing and seeing those petitions thrown out by the court, his case was finally heard.....He now has the distinction of serving the longest prison term by any man to have been exonerated for the crime which they were convicted....The prosecutor at the time now says that it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, although he now admits it was wrong.....The man was convicted at the age of 19, so he's now 54.....He was mostly convicted due to eyewitness reports.....

Best part: Florida has a law that says any man found innocent after having been put in prison is entitled to 50k for every year spent behind bars, which means the guy will walk away from prison with 1.75 million dollars.....

texansfan · Dec 17, 2009

soonerdawg said:
i was gonna copy and paste, but it was a pretty long article....here' the cliff notes:

A Florida man was released from prison for being falsely accused of raping a 9 year old boy in 1974....He was originally sentenced to life.....After filing several petitions through the years for DNA testing and seeing those petitions thrown out by the court, his case was finally heard.....He now has the distinction of serving the longest prison term by any man to have been exonerated for the crime which they were convicted....The prosecutor at the time now says that it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, although he now admits it was wrong.....The man was convicted at the age of 19, so he's now 54.....He was mostly convicted due to eyewitness reports.....

Best part: Florida has a law that says any man found innocent after having been put in prison is entitled to 50k for every year spent behind bars, which means the guy will walk away from prison with 1.75 million dollars.....

I'd rather have the lost years back, impossible I know, but the money can't make up for all he's lost.

Boxer22 · Dec 17, 2009

The guy spends 35 years in prison and all he gets is $1.75 million dollars? What a fucking joke.

OnWisconsin · Dec 17, 2009

from the actual article

He was convicted largely on the strength of the victim's eyewitness identification, though testing available at the time did not definitively link him to the crime. The boy said his attacker had bushy sideburns and a mustache. The boy's uncle, a former assistant principal at a high school, said it sounded like Bain, a former student.

The boy picked Bain out of a photo lineup, although there are lingering questions about whether detectives steered him.

The jury rejected Bain's story that he was home watching TV with his twin sister when the crime was committed, an alibi she repeated at a news conference last week. He was 19 when he was sentenced.

Ed Threadgill, who prosecuted the case originally, said he didn't recall all the specifics, but the conviction seemed right at the time.

Doug · Dec 17, 2009

$5.71/hour isn't enough compensation.

texansfan · Dec 17, 2009

Witness ID's have been proven over the years to be unreliable. Of course, back then DNA wasn't even thought of yet. I'm sure a lot of innocent people were put away based on a witness ID alone.

OnWisconsin · Dec 17, 2009

to put it in perspective: the guy was in prison longer than i've been alive

quantumleap · Dec 17, 2009

There should be more stringent rules on what can be used to convict a person. There are way to many Nifongs in the world that make up shit and innocent people suffer because of it. Anyone caught making up testimony should have to spend the same amount of time behind bars that the innocent person did. Any detective twisting the truth to get a false confession should also be made to spend the same amount of time behind bars.

Sad enough to say, the US Supreme Court has voted that police officers can lie to people to coerce them into confessing something that isn't true.

RobFunk · Dec 17, 2009

quantumleap said:
There should be more stringent rules on what can be used to convict a person. There are way to many Nifongs in the world that make up shit and innocent people suffer because of it. Anyone caught making up testimony should have to spend the same amount of time behind bars that the innocent person did.

That's a good point. What happens to the people giving false testimony?! "Whoops, my bad."

KingofNicotine · Dec 17, 2009

The guy should be a fucking billionaire.

If I were the guy I would just kill the prosecutor and get some sort of revenge.

JohnnyMac · Dec 17, 2009

Well, at least they didn't have the death penalty for his crime.

SportSavant · Dec 17, 2009

quantumleap said:
There should be more stringent rules on what can be used to convict a person. There are way to many Nifongs in the world that make up shit and innocent people suffer because of it. Anyone caught making up testimony should have to spend the same amount of time behind bars that the innocent person did. Any detective twisting the truth to get a false confession should also be made to spend the same amount of time behind bars.

Sad enough to say, the US Supreme Court has voted that police officers can lie to people to coerce them into confessing something that isn't true.

sentences should also be limited based on evidence, for example if someone is convicted on only circumstantial evidence, or unreliable eye witnesses, their sentence should be adjusted accordingly.

quantumleap · Dec 17, 2009

SportSavant said:
sentences should also be limited based on evidence, for example if someone is convicted on only circumstantial evidence, or unreliable eye witnesses, their sentence should be adjusted accordingly.

I like that idea.

TheSaint · Dec 17, 2009

JohnnyMac said:
Well, at least they didn't have the death penalty for his crime.

why?? then he would got $3.5 mln!!

badbeat1015 · Dec 17, 2009

soonerdawg said:
i was gonna copy and paste, but it was a pretty long article....here' the cliff notes:

A Florida man was released from prison for being falsely accused of raping a 9 year old boy in 1974....He was originally sentenced to life.....After filing several petitions through the years for DNA testing and seeing those petitions thrown out by the court, his case was finally heard.....He now has the distinction of serving the longest prison term by any man to have been exonerated for the crime which they were convicted....The prosecutor at the time now says that it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, although he now admits it was wrong.....The man was convicted at the age of 19, so he's now 54.....He was mostly convicted due to eyewitness reports.....

Best part: Florida has a law that says any man found innocent after having been put in prison is entitled to 50k for every year spent behind bars, which means the guy will walk away from prison with 1.75 million dollars.....

They don't treat child molesters so well in prison. This man probably went through hell. No money is ever going to fix that.

GilRenard · Dec 18, 2009

quantumleap said:
There should be more stringent rules on what can be used to convict a person.

Don't get me wrong, imprisonment of the innocent is a horrible thing. That said, no system is perfect, including our legal system. These cases seem to get huge pushes by the media, and stir up the populace, but my guess is there are many more criminals who skate free in trial than those that are wrongfully convicted. I don't like to see these cases used by the media to further liberalize our justice system. All that does is benefit the criminals. Yes, it's wrong that this guy was locked up for 30 some years, and it's also wrong if people have been wrongfully executed.....That said, how is that any worse than the much more common occurrence of an innocent killed by someone with a huge rap sheet that should have already been in prison but was walking the streets because of our liberal justice system? I argue this with people all the time, so I've already heard the "learn about the 6th amendment" argument a million times.

Here in Wisconsin we had one of these guys released by a bunch of wannabe lawyers called the Innocence Project. Within a few years this guy brutally raped and murdered a young woman. Some idiots believe that he was "framed" again. Whatever.

joebatters · Dec 18, 2009

What amazed me about this story is how this guy doesn't seem bitter at all. And he looked pretty healthy. I would say something like that would takes it's tool physically, mentaly, spiritualy. He seemed to come out in good spirits. If it was me, I'd be using Prozac toothpaste and eating Xanax sandwiches.

buddym · Dec 18, 2009

That is terrible beyond words but also think about the idiot that got away with it. He could have gone on and done it for years. I hope there is some way with the dna process now that they could find him and let him get some justice

mplastered · Dec 18, 2009

buddy m said:
That is terrible beyond words but also think about the idiot that got away with it. He could have gone on and done it for years. I hope there is some way with the dna process now that they could find him and let him get some justice

I'm suprised it took 18 post for this comment. :103631605

bigtendominator · Dec 18, 2009

joebatters said:
What amazed me about this story is how this guy doesn't seem bitter at all. And he looked pretty healthy. I would say something like that would takes it's tool physically, mentaly, spiritualy. He seemed to come out in good spirits. If it was me, I'd be using Prozac toothpaste and eating Xanax sandwiches.

I think after that much time you just come to terms with it. I am sure he probably had mentally determined he was never getting out.

I am glad that they were able to use DNA to free him after all these years.

innocent man released after 35 years in prison

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