This is what it's like for an innocent man to spend thirty years in jail

http://www.esquire.com/print-this/ray-towler-profile-0311?page=all

by _b8r0 • 15 years ago

356 133 15 years ago

esquire.com

jarin2• 15 years ago

It's scary that something like this could theoretically happen to any of us.

jbooth• 15 years ago

Well, most of us are white. So not really.

jarin2• 15 years ago

Well, in an ideal world this would happen to all races equally. Wait, that doesn't quite sound right.

xiaoma2• 15 years ago

Many white men have also been falsely accused, imprisoned for over a decade and then released on DNA evidence. If there's anyone that's somewhat protected from overzealous law enforcement officers, DAs and judges, it probably wouldn't be a racial group. It would be women.

extension4• 15 years ago

But most of us are "hackers" so yes, really.

bugsy4• 15 years ago

I am not white myself and have never committed anything anyone sane would consider a crime. Yet I have been picked up and thrown in jail several times. Last time was because I was walking my dog at the park without a leash. I have never heard of a white person arrested for this. If someone was raped in the park the week I was walking my dog there, I know I would have been the primary suspect because that's how this works.

nitrogen2• 15 years ago

Though racial discrimination is one of the most visible and widespread forms of discrimination, prejudices can apply to many other, sometimes unprotected classes in which some of us find ourselves. These include age, wealth (against both rich and poor), gender, occupation or interests, the color or make of your car, being a geek, or any other difference. Yes, it really could happen to you.

stcredzero• 15 years ago

"Something like this" happens all the time. Often, you find yourself in a situation where you're surrounded by people who view reality differently than you. If this comes to everyone's attention, then group social dynamics can come into play, where individual views of reality can be challenged by the pressure of a mob.

Most of the time, people just shrug it off, go home or back to their usual community and dismiss this as an aberration. If you are in jail for a crime you did not commit, you face this every day.

Racial prejudice is still a pressure like this. People who live in cosmopolitan areas can go home and shrug it off. People who are isolated and marked as different cannot, so they can see it more clearly. In either case, such prejudices are still with us, but since they've been driven underground, it's hard to know how to deal with them.

timmyd• 15 years ago

In the worlds of William Blackstone

"Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstones_formulation

nazgulnarsil4• 15 years ago

what about 11?

pjscott2• 15 years ago

The general form -- and I forget who first said this -- is "Better that n guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. Solve for n."

AndyKelley8• 15 years ago

This isn't a joke guys. It's an insightful comment to which pjscott responded appropriately.

Bud• 15 years ago

This link doesn't load unless you include the apostrophe in "Blackstone's", but HN seemingly does not allow posting of URLs which include an apostrophe (well, a single-quote, that is).

Bug?

philbo• 15 years ago

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Blackstone%27...

extension4• 15 years ago

It's such an obvious principle yet so few appreciate it.

Assuming the punishment is about as bad as the crime, then punishing the innocent is as bad as committing the crime. So, what's worse: allowing a crime to go unpunished or committing an equally bad crime yourself?

Additionally, a crime committed by the very institution that is supposed to enforce justice is worse than one committed by an autonomous citizen, all other things equal.

Confusion3• 15 years ago

It's so obvious it's vacuous. In order to be able to get many criminals behind bars, you will have to accept innocent casualties. The only way to be sure that no innocent folks are sent to prison is by not convicting anyone. The cost of that solution is obvious and unacceptable. Any principle that ignores the trade-off that must necessarily be accepted is vacuous.

cleverjake• 15 years ago

On a sadly similar note, there is a really well made documentary called Witch Hunt (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1196112/) in which during the 1970s in California, multiple children were coerced into accusing their parents of molestation.

Duff• 15 years ago

The Salem Witch trials are another great example of this phenomena.

maeon3• 15 years ago

In cases like these, _all_ of the people responsible for:

A. convicting him on insufficient evidence.

B. failing to free him on sufficient evidence

Need to be brought in and asked for a reason for why this happened. If they can't come up with a solid reason justifying each action for why this has occurred, and if they do find a reason, remedies for the failure, then they have to serve the victims sentence.

When an airliner goes down, bosses and leaders scramble to find a reason to prevent it from happening again to appease the public, but in a case like this, a fate far worse than getting injured in an airplane crash, they just shrug it off and make a vow to be more careful with this kind of thing.

Better 100 guilty men go free than for an innocent man be jailed. The guys who incarcerated this innocent man better beef up their security systems. Injustice like this needs to be dealt with, and sadly, never will be. the end.

zdw2• 15 years ago

The problem is our legal system is full of perverse rewards - for example, the DA's office and police force probably gets compensated depending on how much "crime" they "control". Thus, putting away people unjustly is rewarded, and they've externalized the negative consequences. They also get to see a parade of people who actually committed the crimes they're accused of, so making the generalization that "everyone who is accused is guilty" is fairly easy.

Plus, the problem with trying to go after all those people is that, in cases like this, many are probably not in the same line of work, have retired or died. Imagine if you took a job where, 30 years after you quit, someone could come after you because of something that might not have been your fault. That's not fair either.

I don't see a good solution to this, other than maybe additional separation of powers - for example, forcing the police and legal system to work further apart and not be rewarded perversely.

MichaelSalib• 15 years ago

Imagine if you took a job where, 30 years after you quit, someone could come after you because of something that might not have been your fault.

If you railroaded an innocent man, tainted evidence, or otherwise brought about a false conviction with massive incompetence, I don't see any problem with people coming after you 30 years later.

haberman• 15 years ago

> Better 100 guilty men go free than for an innocent man be jailed.

This is an awful story, but I'm wary of setting up incentives in such a way that acquittal is the CYA move. People should be held accountable for preventable errors in either direction, but you don't want to make a prosecutor personally afraid to pursue prosecution for a case just because of the possibility that they might be wrong.

gfunk911• 15 years ago

Yes, you do

locopati• 15 years ago

The possibility of not having sufficient proof is the underlying bedrock of 'innocent until proven guilty'.

Confusion3• 15 years ago

The trade-off that everyone is conveniently forgetting is that a multitude of criminals are also being convicted based on insufficient evidence. Any thorough skeptic is unpleasantly surprised when he applies the same standards to which he holds, say, psychological research, to what happens in the court of law and concludes that a great many convictions do not stand up to close scrutiny. This becomes obvious in cases of high-profile criminals: when all eyes are on a case, it gets much harder to convict someone.

sliverstorm• 15 years ago

Better 100 guilty men go free than for an innocent man be jailed

I can't agree with that. I don't feel I can comment on imprisoned for life, but I would go to prison myself for 5 years if that was the price of locking up 100 dangerous criminals for a similar 5 years, assuming they committed relatively serious crimes.

I know the moral high ground is never convict an innocent no matter what the cost, but I personally suspect releasing 100 guilty men poses a huge potential for harm, and I'm kind of a utilitarian.

nitrogen2• 15 years ago

Three semi-related points:

It's easy to be utilitarian until it's your own life at stake or that of someone you love.

Also, a lot of decent, innocent people wouldn't survive five years in prison with their personality and decency intact.

If 1 in 101 prisoners is actually innocent, that would mean there are close to 23000 innocent people currently in US prisons. I'm not prepared to throw 23000 innocent people in prison without some very good evidence that it truly is worth it in exchange for punishing the guilty.

mdaniel• 15 years ago

Thank you, thank you, for posting the print view. One swift backtick and it was ready to read.

wisty2• 15 years ago

They should ban that line "Can you identify the man who did this?"

Original witness statements are the only things that are reliable. After the victim has identified the "perpetrator" from a line-up, they forget the original face, and their memories become re-written to include the face they think is responsible. A friend of mine studying to be a cop knows this (all cops should know this) but they still persist in using testimony that they know is unreliable. Can you blame them though? If they didn't use the line, it would be much harder to get a conviction.

Courts should just read a description, one that was made before the victim (or interviewing officer) has seen the suspect they dragged in. Or the police should get a sketch (or computer sketch) of the assailant before anyone involved has seen any possible suspects.

citricsquid• 15 years ago

The entire damn process should be changed, I sincerely hope these are not actual quotes because some of these questions are so incredibly leading, it's ridiculous that they're allowed especially with children involved.

You get a child to admit to anything with the right words and authority, surely everyone knows this!

baguasquirrel• 15 years ago

The same language used by lawyers and prosecutors are the same words they hear on TV when the ads roll. Are you surprised?

alphakappa• 15 years ago

Very relevant story this week on 'This American Life' about a guy who spent decades in prison because a teenager randomly identified him from a stack of photos just to get the cops off his back. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/282/d...

46Bit• 15 years ago

I think it's as simple as this: witnesses aren't reliable. When you think about how often you turn out to remember little details wrong, it's clear that more often than not you'll pick out the wrong man in a lineup - especially when so traumatised.

Lineups should be replaced by facial reconstruction - get the victim to sort out what the face looked like, then see if it looks like the suspect.

gnaritas• 15 years ago

> Original witness statements are the only things that are reliable.

Even those aren't that reliable; memory is fallible and people remember things wrong all the time. Statements give you nothing more than a vague idea of what might have happened.

noonespecial• 15 years ago

Think of how it must be for the 4 people on the stand who answered yes. They were likely shown a few pictures along with the implication that they were "usual suspects", one of which was almost certainly the culprit. They'd probably seen all of about 5 real-life "people of color" in their lives and simply picked the closest looking one to what they remembered. The system then automatically worked to assure them that this was the guy. Over time their memories sloshed together with the picture and the guy on the bench and then they were sure of it.

But now they know that they were 100% wrong and their testimony cost this guy his life. That's a tough one to live with.

RiderOfGiraffes• 15 years ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2067884

Miscarriages of justice happen. The real crime is that there seems to be no follow-up, no detailed reports, no proposals for making sure the same mistakes don't happen again.

That's the tragedy beyond the individual cases. It will happen again, in exactly the same way, for exactly the same reasons.

ugh• 15 years ago

What gets me about this case is that there was little interest in looking at new evidence as it became available, even active attempts from the prosecution to stop the new evidence from being used.

It wouldn’t even be hard for politicians to frame the question of whether DNA evidence should be tested as often as possible in harsh law and order terms: For every innocent person in prison, the real perpetrator is running around free. We want to be damn sure that we locked up the right people!

nazgulnarsil4• 15 years ago

one of the problems with the justice system that I rarely see mentioned: the literacy level of the public has declined to what? an 8th grade level?

You can not tell me that the logic employed in building court cases is at that level. 12 angry men? In real life there is no juror #8.

pjscott2• 15 years ago

Was the literacy level of the public higher in the past? I couldn't find statistics.

nazgulnarsil4• 15 years ago

I had seen a 12th grade level cited, but I don't think the methodology was rigorous.

edw519• 15 years ago

[Disclaimer: aerospace industry veteran]

When a plane crashes, it is standard procedure to determine exactly what went wrong, what weaknesses in the "system" enabled what went wrong to go wrong, what prescription is needed to fix that system, and for the system to be fixed.

This was a plane crash.

I know this article was about one man, but there's no mention of anything about fixing what must have been broken in the first place. Sadly, I fear, because it doesn't exist.

axiom• 15 years ago

Well, the change that prevents this from happening again is DNA evidence.

Definitely the human factors that caused this will still complicate things, but at least the most egregious kinds of cases can be prevented.

quattrofan• 15 years ago

Don't be sure that having DNA evidence will mean there will never be a miscarriage of justice. So many reasons that can still happen.

bugsy4• 15 years ago

The DNA got him released in the end but it's not the problem with the system since there are cases with no DNA evidence in which people are wrongfully convicted the exact same way he was. Here is a summary of what happened. He is a black. All blacks look alike and are criminals. Therefore he is guilty. This is what went wrong and needs to be fixed, just as with an airplane that leaks fuel and isn't detected because of a faulty fuel readout, the answer isn't to carry more fuel.

Here are some things that are broken.

1. There is a presumption of guilt.

2. Prosecutors are interested in their kill ratio, not justice.

3. Judges are interested in arbitrary exercise of power, not justice.

4. It is very rare to find a public defender who diligently defends the interest of the defense. Public defenders work with the prosecution to get the case through the system.

5. In some jurisdictions elected judges don't need to have law backgrounds, or have demonstrated any competence or knowledge of the law.

6. The prison system is about punishment and exercise of power, not rehabilitation.

gwern• 15 years ago

> Well, the change that prevents this from happening again is DNA evidence.

This is the very optimistic interpretation - another tool and a permanent reduction in the wrongful conviction rate. The pessimistic interpretation is that DNA tests served as a short-term oracle where the system nigh-magically was stripped naked and its true past error rate laid bare, but to which the system will slowly adapt and figure out how to circumvent.

We can probably expect in a few decades to start seeing articles about how DNA evidence gets lost, misinterpreted, planted (remember OJ and the issues with the blood evidence? more than a few police have no issues with framing a guilty man, it seems), and other such strategies that are not obvious to people outside the system.

In other words, if there were suddenly another nigh-magical breakthrough which gave us a second look at true error rates, we would see, superimposed on whatever other trends are going on, a dip in the '80s-'90s and then a slow increase to whenever the second breakthrough's innocence projects got going.

Unfortunately, this is a very long-term prediction and there may never again be a breakthrough as dramatic as DNA testing which would give us the second oracle, so who knows if time will let us distinguish between the optimistic and pessimistic interpretations.

danssig4• 15 years ago

I think you need to go see how DNA evidence is actually used. CSI is not remotely like what goes on, forensics is not any kind of science it's just a kind of "best practices" from cops.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09054/950979-85.stm

DNA has a lot of issues as well.

http://www.bioforensics.com/articles/champion1/champion1.htm...

epynonymous• 15 years ago

fully agree. unfortunately systems are as perfect as the people that run them, in this case the rotten judge, attorney, and even the victim really did this man great injustice. you wonder what ever happened to the victim and the real felon.

fauigerzigerk• 15 years ago

I don't think that's the whole story or planes would crash all the time because someone somewhere failed to do their job properly after a night out with friends. Checks and balances matter. Process matters. The art of organization is to have an open upper bound of what is possible to achieve and still make sure there is a limit to the downside.

Of course it will never be perfect and there is no process and no rules that can work without a sufficient share of decent individuals trying to do their job properly.

makmanalp• 15 years ago

The fact that the appeals were denied is eye-opening. Maybe that shouldn't be allowed? But I'm sure there are tons of non-legitimate appeals too.

anigbrowl• 15 years ago

Exactly right, sad to say.

solipsist3• 15 years ago

From the founder of the Innocence Project:

  What are other countries doing to improve their criminal justice systems?

  Canada is the first country in the world to have "innocence commissions".
  What they do is truly marvellous. They will perform a post-mortem on the
  case of a man who was wrongly convicted and find out what went wrong and
  what they can do to reduce the likelihood of it happening again in the
  future. That is what you do in science, that's what you do in medicine,
  that's what you do in every other institution where life or liberty is at
  stake. We don't do it in the US when it comes to criminal justice, and that
  is appalling.

http://truthinjustice.org/neufeld-interview.htm

thangalin• 15 years ago

Would that I have had two votes to give...

yannickmahe• 15 years ago

It seems so obvious. Why don't more countries do that ?

alexqgb• 15 years ago

Instead, we handle this the way the Obama administration chose to handle the financial crash - by saying it was best "to just move on."

I heard the FAA analogy when this (terrible) policy direction was becoming clear. The commenter observed that handling airplane failures with the same carelessness that we were applying to the banks would mean that no one would every fly.

The problem with similar carelessness in the justice system is that you really can't avoid it by opting out.

bwb• 15 years ago

Wow powerful story, glad to see DNA testing making a difference in a system that will always be hit by bias and other problems.

I recommend Truth Machine (book) too, basically a Sci Fi look at if someone invented a machine that can tell if a person is lieing and how it affects society...

http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Machine-James-Halperin/dp/034541...

elptacek• 15 years ago

I read a story about Cameron Willingham in the New Yorker a while back:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_...

There's also an article about him on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameron_Todd_Willingham

spacemanaki• 15 years ago

That story was incredibly chilling, thank you for reminding me of it. I knew the feeling I got reading this one on Ray Towler was familiar.

TheSOB882• 15 years ago

I'd love to know the information that's being presented here, but it's presented in such a lousy and verbose way that I just don't feel like reading it. Why is it so common for journalism to be faux novelism?

michael_dorfman• 15 years ago

I feel sorry for you, if you think only about "information" and not the presentation of the content. This was a beautifully written piece, and there was nothing "lousy" or "verbose" about it. In my opinion, this was an excellent piece of journalism, and I'm glad that the "long form" piece hasn't completely disappeared.

BrandonM• 15 years ago

The guy spent almost 30 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. You can't spend 5 minutes reading his story. Interesting.

TheSOB882• 15 years ago

I know it sounds deliciously ironic, but I already know the system is fucked up. But the article didn't really draw me in or give me any clues about why what it has to say about the subject is relevant to me.

I mean, we all know that dictators are killing people right now. Does that mean we need to read the stories of their victims' families, and how sad it is? Every time something like that happens?

nazgulnarsil4• 15 years ago

for the facts just jump to the wikipedia page. this is a narrative to take you through the story from the point of view of the participants.

starpilot• 15 years ago

I wonder if the (now 41 year old) victim is aware of all this.

corin_4• 15 years ago

I would think it would be impossible for her (and the then-boy) to not be aware, unless they are now dead.

corin_4• 15 years ago

Esquire's not a magazine I'm particularly proud to be a subscriber to, but articles like this one are what makes it worth while.

They may be a trashy lads mag, masquerading as a high-brow product for upper class gentlemen, but for stories like this, few publications tell them better.

zavulon• 15 years ago

Couldn't disagree more. They are so far above Maxim, FHM, Men's Fitness and other trashy magazines that it's not even funny. A lot of times their writing is absolutely spectacular. In particular, works by Tom Junod, A.J. Jacobs, David Granger, Chris Jones are always worth checking out.

Here's a link to some of their best stuff: http://www.esquire.com/features/page-75/greatest-stories

And the best thing is, they haven't lost any of their greatness over the last 75+ years - this was one of the best magazine stories I've ever read: http://www.esquire.com/features/roger-ebert-0310

corin_4• 15 years ago

I think perhaps I explained my view badly.

Spectacular writing, completely agree, that was the point I tried to make with "but for stories like this, few publications tell them better", and that's why I do subscribe to Esquire (both print, UK edition, and iPad, US edition).

However, there is a lot to Esquire magazine that I really don't like, and that is really very comparable to Maxim, FHM and so on. A few examples:

- 'Women We Love' (an excuse to show semi-naked pictures)

- The 'How To...' guides in the middle of the magazine. A couple of examples currently on their website are "How to Get Some on February 14th" and "How to Have Sex in the Car" (and even the boring topics like "How to smile" are generally badly written and fairly pointless).

- The 'Tough love with Tanya Gold' that appears each month..

And I dislike how much it tends to be aimed at middle/upper class people, from the adverts to the content. I'm not sure how much of that is because this is their actual audience, and how much is because their actual audience wants to feel like they are higher in society than they are. For example, I question that the people spending £10,000s on a watch are also going to buy a bottle of £25 whisky, yet you don't see cheap watches advertised, or expensive whisky. Note that, while it may be cheap whisky, it's still whisky - you won't see beer advertised by them, that's for poor people!

Ultimately, Esquire mixes trashy with attempted high brow with some superbe content - and I hope that, like me (and I assume you), there are more readers who subscribe for the great content than there are who subscribe because they want FHM-style content while feeling good about themselves. Somehow, I doubt that's true.

grellas• 15 years ago

This story reminds me of how little most of know about what it means to suffer.

I can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to be going innocently about your own business, getting pulled over by a traffic cop, and then suddenly being hustled off into a hellish pit for nearly 30 years - voiceless, helpless, and forgotten while being robbed of everything normal in adult life and while bearing the stigma of child molestor.

We all plan for the perfect lives and then complain when things fall short. Well, in our sheltered little worlds, we have no idea what it means to get kicked in the teeth non-stop over the course of a lifetime. This story gives us just a little glimpse and we can all shudder just thinking about it.

I have nothing but the highest admiration for anyone who could endure all this and still emerge with the abiding spirit that Mr. Towler now displays. It is a small miracle that he is not broken, bitter, and vengeful. Let us hope he can still rebuild his life from its broken fragments.

tokenadult• 15 years ago

I have nothing but the highest admiration for anyone who could endure all this and still emerge with the abiding spirit that Mr. Towler now displays.

Hear. Hear. What was especially harsh for him is that in the prison environment, child molesters are the lowest of the low, the prisoners who are held in contempt by other prisoners. He had to exercise immense self-control to keep his dignity intact in that environment. No one should have to live with a false accusation of having harmed a child.

ErrantX2• 15 years ago

As someone who works on investigations into such offences; this weighs on my mind constantly.

There are perhaps one or two cases (out of several hundred) that still have me lying awake at night. In deeper moments of reflection I know I made the right call on them, but I still worry about it, as part of the process of self-assessment. Sadly I don't always see so much concern in others within the same field.

Child abuse is one of those horribly amoral crimes that clouds our personnel opinions, and so often I see prosecutors who simply hate the defendant on a personnel level. That sort of approach sickens me, it is exactly the sort of approach that screwed this guy; from the cop to the judge it was the same problem.

I can't talk for anyone else, but stories like this mean that tomorrow, as with every day, I make damned sure I am certain of what I find out. To the extend of putting my own liberty behind what I present. This sort of thing should be required reading in our field...

matthiaswh• 15 years ago

One thing that has always settled the wrong way with me about television police shows is that they hardly ever approach this topic. I can only imagine what it's like to be a prosecutor or a detective and wondering if you caught the right person. Maybe it's not every case, but as you mentioned, there have to be those one or two where they just keep you awake some nights.

It probably just doesn't make for good television to dwell on this topic. The good guy almost always puts away the bad guy and there's no question about it being the right decision.

I realize cop shows probably portray only a slim resemblance to reality. When I see a show or movie portraying something to do with computers or nuclear reactors there's always that feeling of "that's not how it is in real life!" No doubt, police officers watch the (many, many) shows about their profession with the same thought. However, like it or not, it's these shows that shape the average person's perception of law enforcement. It's the only exposure we get to it, with the exception of maybe being pulled over a handful of times throughout our lives.

Disclaimer: I don't watch any legal shows like Law & Order - maybe they do a better job with this?

hcurtiss• 15 years ago

FWIW, DNA analysis is not, itself, infallible:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727733.500-fallible-...

hellodude129• 15 years ago

I love the work of the Innocence Project. I've been a big financial supporter of them. Please donate if you can.

16s• 15 years ago

A lot of people look the same to me (unless I know them). They are just faces in the crowd. Because of this, I'd never swear under oath that I saw a stranger do something. Unless the person had a very distinct scar or birth mark or purple hair, etc. that I could vividly recall... honestly I cannot tell them from the next person.

I think most people are like this, but convince themselves otherwise.

mhewett• 15 years ago

I'm exactly like you. Everyone looks the same to me. But my ex-wife is exactly the opposite. We once walked into a very crowded baseball game at Candlestick park looking for a friend who was somewhere in the crowd (we had no idea where). She found him in less than 30 seconds a quarter of the way around the stadium. I think most people are somewhere in between these two extremes.

cletus• 15 years ago

This reminds me of an episode of the (IMHO excellent) "The Good Wife". In one episode, it was pointed out that people are much better at identifying and describing members of their own race, basically the cross-race effect or own race bias [1].

I'm glad there was finally justice in this matter, even if it was far, far too late. To Mr Towler's credit, he doesn't seem to be consumed by the obvious injustice.

The one part missing from the story was any mention of the (other) victim, Brittany, who would now be in her 40s (if still alive). What were the circumstances behind her identifying Mr Towler? What are her thoughts on the matter now?

As must as we can chastise the judge and the prosecutor in this case, there was an eyewitness account and the alleged perpetrator was identified (albeit wrongly). How would you react to an accused child rapist on trial?

I wonder what happened to the real perpetrator. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he is now dead and was probably incarcerated for other attacks.

So this man spent 30 years in jail for a crime he didn't commit. At the other end of the spectrum, Roman Polanski plied a 13 year old with alcohol, raped her, absconded to France prior to sentencing [2], remains free and is treated as a cause celebre somehow hounded even victimized by the authorities.

It's hard not to look at that and see two different justice systems in play.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-race_effect

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Polanski_sexual_abuse_cas...

malbs• 15 years ago

What I'd like to know is, did they ever find/catch the actual perp?

jcampbell1• 15 years ago

Not hacker news.

This is what it's like for an innocent man to spend thirty years in jail

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