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Tue 31 Aug, 2004 02:28 pm
Quote:U.S. prison frees innocent man after 17 years
Tue 31 August, 2004 21:11
ATLANTA (Reuters) - A Georgia man, who served 17 years in prison for rape and robbery, has been freed, one week after DNA evidence showed he had been wrongly convicted of the crime.
Clarence Harrison, 44, smiled and hugged his attorneys and supporters after a DeKalb County judge granted a motion for a new trial and then dismissed all charges against him, clearing the way for his release on Tuesday.
Prosecutors learned on August 24 that Harrison was innocent, when results from a DNA test of a rape kit showed that he could not have been the man who sexually assaulted and robbed an Atlanta hospital worker in 1986.
Harrison, who maintained his innocence throughout his trial and prison sentence, was convicted one year later largely on the basis of testimony from the victim, who identified him as her attacker.
"She was totally wrong," said Aimee Maxwell, executive director of the Georgia Innocence Project, a non-profit group that attempts to free the wrongfully convicted. The group took Harrison's case last year.
"I think we really need to seriously look at eyewitness identification, because studies have told us what we've seen today: that in a stressful situation, eyewitness identification is notoriously unreliable," Maxwell said.
The Georgia Innocence Project, founded two years ago, has about half a dozen open cases and is investigating more than 250 others. It has received letters from more than 1,400 inmates seeking to have their convictions thrown out.
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Sad, but he was convicted at trial, and was presumed innocent up until that point. I don't think you can say the same for your own system of justice.
cjhsa wrote:Sad, but he was convicted at trial, and was presumed innocent up until that point. I don't think you can say the same for your own system of justice.
How do you come to this conclusion?
I must admit, however, that it is impossible here to get such a long sentence/stay in prison so long for such a crime - especially:
Quote:was convicted one year later largely on the basis of testimony from the victim, who identified him as her attacker.
In Germany, aren't suspects guilty until proven innocent? Can't they be held without access to an attorney for extended periods?
In the U.S., that only applies to terrorist suspects under the Patriot Act.
Since the introduction of the "Allgemeines Preußisches Landrecht" (Common Prussion Country Law) on the 5th of February 1794 we have this princible of Roman Law in[ U]written[/U] form.
No suspects can't be hold longer than 24 hours without juridical order - and have to be released, if the trial doesn't start within a certain period (which depends on several factors).
Even in medieval times suspects were innocent until proven guilty - which is (besides others) the reason for torture.
"Innocent until proven guilty" was first mentioned in the Sachsenspiegel ((German: "Saxon Mirror"),
the most important of the medieval compilations of Saxon customary law. Collected in the early 13th century by Eike von Repgow (also spelled Repkow, Repchow, or Repgau), a knight and a judge, it was written originally in Latin and later in German and showed little Roman influence, largely because Roman law was still virtually unknown at that time and had not penetrated German law.
The Sachsenspiegel was divided into two sections. The first part, the Landrecht, or territorial law, contained what could now be called constitutional law, criminal law, and civil law and procedure. The second part, the Lehnrecht, comprised feudal regulations.
Well, since I studied history AND law, I really should know such :wink:
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