Educational conferences for lawyers are generally academic affairs that often revolve around case law. Today at the Cleveland Marshall College of Law, attorneys had the chance to come face to face with victims of times when the legal system failed. Ideastream’s Mark Urycki reports
Sitting at tables in the law school theater were 9 men who had collectively served 2 centuries of time for crimes they did not commit. From Cleveland to Ravenna to Barberton to Cincinnati innocent people have getting released because of organizations like the Innocence Project that provide legal help. Eddie Lowery and Ted Bradford confessed just to stop their interrogation.
“I asked for a lawyer; they refused to give me a lawyer." said Lowery, who was a young soldier in Kansas. " I asked to call my company commander; they refused to let me call my company commander.”
Bradford says he still beats up himself for succumbing to pressure to falsely confess. “It cost me 14 years of my life.”
Antoine Day of Chicago volunteered to go to the police station but he said police misconduct led a witness to mistakenly finger him.
“These are things that go on because most of these states’attorneys now are just trying to close a case.”
In the cases of Raymond Towler, prosecutors refused to examine the DNA evidence.
“No one offered to go the courthouse and go down to the basement where the evidence was sitting for 24 years, something like that, and take it to a DNA lab.”
Eddie Lowery used his own money to have evidence tested after he had already been released from prison.
“And luckily after 20 years my DNA rape kit was still there in storage.”
The group agreed the death penalty should be abolished. Clevelander Joe D’Ambrosio spent 20 years on death row.
“It is the worst thing ever for someone to sit there and tell you ‘You are going to die on this date and this time’ for something you did not do.”
Many of the men say they cannot allow themselves to be bitter lest their anger become its own prison.