Wrongfully convicted man finally goes free after 40 years...

[Piano Man]

Link

LUFKIN, Texas (AP) -- A 76-year-old man who spent nearly every day of the last four decades in prison walked free after a judge found that deputies extracted his confession to a 1962 robbery by crushing his fingers between cell bars.

Wow. This guys life was completely stolen from him for 40 years. I can't even comprehend 40 years being just 24 yrs old. What a tragedy.

 

[dmcowen674]

This Country failed him miserably

That's Truth, Justice and The American Way for you :thumbsdown:

 

[Darkhawk28]

Sad thing is, he probably doesn't have any practical legal recourse for some sort of compensation.

Oh, we're sorry, but you're free now. Be happy! Oh, there's a half-way house just about a mile down the road. Good luck to ya!

 

[alchemize]

Clearly this is the fault of the liberal Kennedy administration at the time, and it didnt get fixed until the Bush administration was in office!

The good old days weren't always so good.

 

[Darkhawk28]

Dude, I sure hope that was a joke.

 

[CaptnKirk]

Don't you just love 'Texas Justice' ?

Those in Iraq sure do.

 

[phantom309]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
This Country failed him miserably

That's Truth, Justice and The American Way for you :thumbsdown:

What happened to that man had nothing to do with Truth, Justice, or the American Way.

 

[alchemize]

If google serves me correctly, Price Daniel was the governor at the time. A democrat. Hmm...

Yes, Darkhawk, I'm being smart alek

 

[GeneralGrievous]

What happened to that man had nothing to do with Truth, Justice, or the American Way.

He will now blame it on the Bush administration and the evil neocons.

 

[Zephyr106]

Do ne'er gooder, poor, minority, they're all the same: criminalistic habits.

The state was wrong but not by much.

Zephyr

 

[onelove]

well, some posters above miss the point that he wasn't exonerated (as has happened with DNA evidence in some rape convictions lately). He has some bent fingers and some guards used force to extract confessions in the sixties. Doesn't mean that's what happened here (at least the article didn't indicate that any guard admitted abusing him).

Perhaps the more relevant question is what is the recidivism rate for 76 year-old robbers? Jails are expensive and we have more people in jail here than practically anywhere else. This over-incarceration has gotten a lot worse in the last 20 years. Are we safer as a result? at what cost?

http://www.sentencingproject.org/issues_01.cfm

 

[alchemize]

Would he have gotten out a lot sooner if he hadn't escaped so many times?

 

[onelove]

Originally posted by: alchemize
Would he have gotten out a lot sooner if he hadn't escaped so many times?

life sentence is what the article said. whaddya think, alky, should he be put back in for all those escape attempts? I mean, those are separate violations, right?

 

[alchemize]

Originally posted by: onelove

Originally posted by: alchemize
Would he have gotten out a lot sooner if he hadn't escaped so many times?

life sentence is what the article said. whaddya think, alky, should he be put back in for all those escape attempts? I mean, those are separate violations, right?

I missed that part - that's crazy, why would he get life in prison for a first offense armed robbery? or is there more here that I missed.

 

[alchemize]

Wait a minute - something ain't right here...
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Southwest/03/04/escapee.caught.ap/

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A 74-year-old man who escaped from a Texas prison more than four decades ago was arrested in Mississippi during the weekend and returned to prison Monday.

Robert Carroll Coney was sentenced to life in prison for robbery by assault and forgery in 1962. He escaped later that year.

Officials said Coney spent time in other states' prisons and a federal lockup in Kansas in 1976. But he always managed to avoid being sent back to Texas, either by being transferred to other states or other jails.

Coney was arrested over the weekend in Sunflower County, Mississippi.

"It just proves, 'You can run, but you can't hide,"' said John Moriarty, inspector general of the Texas criminal justice department.

Edit: I need to sort this out. Maybe he was in other prisons, not texas prison.