‘GUILTY UNTIL PROVED INNOCENT’;
WE SAY.
OUR PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING;
IF WE DON’T WANT TO BE GUITLY;
WE NEED TO CHANGE.
One of the most infamous
lawyers of the twentieth century
William Kunstler
who fought for civil rights
with Martin Luther King
and represented
the famed ‘Chicago 8’ activists
was the most loved
middle-class family man
and celebrated radical activist
until…
he started to defend
a black teenager,
who was accused
of rape and killing
of an innocent white girl.
Hatred from the wider community
haunted the poor black teenager
he was guilty until prove innocent
and there was still not enough evidence…
He was not convicted yet,
shot in the back of the head
in the darkness of his shabby room
and the respected community wishes
have been satisfied.
William Kunstler
defender of the accused rapist
was suddenly
the most hated
lawyer in America
looked down upon
even by his own family.
Twenty years have past
until the truth came out
an successful white American politician
was responsible for the crime.
He said:
“ I was safe because no one would believe
that I had committed that crime.”
WHY?
There is a possibility
that a very high percentage
of American prisoners
did not commit the crimes
for which they were convicted
or even executed
in our recent times.
Barry Scheck
uses DNA evidence
to free hundreds
of the falsely convicted prisoners.
His legal foundation
gets thousands of letters a year
from inmates who say
they are innocent.
Some can barely write,
many are desperate:
“ I am not the man
that did this Rape,”
writes one of them:
“ All I want is to go Home.”
A potentially wrongful conviction
is a doubt that not even death can erase.
You can’t bring the wrongly executed prisoner back.
Maybe that is the reason
Barry Scheck’s work
remains hugely controversial
with prosecutors and public alike.
A crusader for truth
no one wants to know.
WHY?
Corruption and misconducts
by policemen and prosecutors
often play a role
in wrongful convictions.
Our own prejudice and misconceptions
are so easy to manipulate,
we want to believe
that a black man, a homeless, a nobody
with no one to defend him/her,
committed a crime.
Guilty until proved innocent,
is our verdict.
Justice has been done.
And while I am writing these lines,
in one of the American infamous jails,
an old man waits on death row
waiting for his son to visit him
for the last time…
It was December 2003
in the Australian Supreme Court,
where three judges had just dismissed
the Andrew Mallard’s appeal
from 1994
for wilful murder.
He was to remain in prison for the rest
of his life.
His sister and his mother,
kind, honest, law-abiding people
with great loyalty and quiet strength
could not find anyone
among lawyers, policemen and the general public,
who would believe in his innocence,
except one,
a nine months pregnant and sobbing loudly
a young journalist,
who saw the evidence mounted
that an innocent man was behind bars and no one cares.
With her newborn baby in her arms,
she received a Congratulation card from his prison,
and a letter:
“ You were my first spark of hope
that is now a billowing flame:
you have been my life raft,
I would have drowned.
I’m tired.
Please won’t somebody let me rest?”
As most Australians know,
Andrew was released in early 2006
after unanimous High Court decision
and another man,
convicted killer
is now believed by police
to have commited the crime.
A Corruption and Crime Commission
has also found
that misconduct by two senior policemen and a prosecutor
played role in his wrongful conviction.
He has receive three millions in compensation
for his life wasted in jail,
but this is not enough in Andrew’s eye.
Justice would only be served
by those responsible for his conviction
facing what he faced:
prosecution and jail.
It would never happen,
Andrew knows it as well.
I saw him once,
Sitting at a South Perth coffee shop,
watching normal people going by,
a broken man with early grey hair,
his wrinkled eyes shining with great inner strength,
he survived.
And while I am writing these lines,
in one of the American infamous jails,
an old man waits on death row
waiting for his son to visit him
for the last time…
His son, now 49,
spent most of his life
as a victim.
When he was 6,
he saw his Mother
die,
in the hands of her violent boyfriend.
When he was a young man,
he was robbed and shot,
left on a street to die.
So when he found out,
that his father,
whom he hadn’t known as a child,
was on death row,
guilty of murder,
he went there
full of hate and resentment.
He would bring his father money
for the commissary,
and his father would give him ink portraits
of Plain Indians and buffalo he had drawn.
He asked his father directly if he had killed the man.
His father told him no,
he was a thief but not a murderer.
He believed him, but it was all too late.
He watched his father suffer
in unsuccessful death penalty procedure
before it was postponed for another time.
Finally he watched his father die.
When he questioned his father’s innocence
with a prison guide,
he just shrugged his shoulders:
“ It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Does it not?
I ask,
he asked himself,
49 old victim of our times,
a law abiding citizen until now,
he left the prison,
lonely, lost and resentful,
with no trust in justice any more,
ready to follow in his father’s footsteps
and commit his first crime.
WHY?
‘GUILTY UNTIL PROVE INNOCENT’;
WE SAY.
OUR PERCEPTION IS EVERYTHING;
IF WE DON’T WANT TO BE GUITLY;
WE NEED TO CHANGE.
INNOCENT UNTIL PROVED GUILTY;
IS THE ONLY WAY…