Man Out Of Jail After 24 Years Of Innocence

[Plenoptic 0]

I heard about this on the news last night and decided to share it with you, it happened in Tampa (where I live). Alan Crotzer was accused of robbery and rapes in 1981. This led him to be sentenced of 130 years in jail (most likely life) Almost 25 years later he is beeing released after DNA testing found that he has been innocent all along. Three years ago he wrote to the Florida Innocence Initiative who eventually started investigating his case.

Originally he and his two brothers were accused but a victim picked him out of the lineup. In 31 states 172 people have been wrongly convicted but found innocent later on by DNA testing. Today that man is finally free. He is moving in with his sister in St. Petersburg (an hour south of me) where he hopes to get a job. A man who had been in jail for 22 years down in southern Florida was given $2 million of compensation money for he was also guilty.

I really do hope they give this guy something for all the time he had to waste in prison. How can you make a mistake like that and not fix it for 25 years. The guy has gray hair now growing. He is 45 years old meaning he was around 20 when he was convicted, some of the best years of his life are gone and probably won't be the same again. I really do feel sorry for this guy. He didn't do anything wrong and had to pay somebody elses crime. I am glad that they finally figured it out though. I bet he will be a rich man though now that he will recieve some type of compensation and money from friends to help him out.

Here is a link to an article talking about this case.

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Notice from jlhaslip:

edit per report

Edited January 24, 2006 by jlhaslip (see edit history)

[Hamtaro 0]

Interesting. That is a lot of time to spend before finally being proven innocent. That's also pretty bad that it took so long. Anyway, good thing DNA testing proved him innocent. Would have been bad if he spent all that time in jail for something he didn't do.

[wild20 0]

Wow! 25 years. I think there should be a amount of money given to the people who have been falsely accused. DNA has proven a lot of people innocent, and stils others, guilty. Even years later. Like a murder, that hasn't been solved, until DNA came out and now he's in jail. Yes, DNA is great! Nice post by the way. It's a dandy long one

[elevenmil 0]

This is just another case of why our whole justice system is pretty much terrible. Wasn't it in either Indiana or Illinois where a group of students did research where they found that many "criminals" on death row where actually innocent, and after some DNA testing, the proof was there. (Someone please clarify this story). My guess is that at least 25-30% of today's criminals are actually innocent people. Now this may seem disgustingly wrong, but that's just my opinion. In today's world anyone can be found guilty, it's a matter of being at the wrong place at the wrong time or simply by breathing air. As long as your alive, you could be a target for being accused of something you actually didn't do...And you just have to feel bad for this particular man, missing the prime years of his life, spending them where it wasn't deserved. If he isn't compensated to the tone of at least a million bucks, he has truly been served wrong, and if I was in his shoes, I would do everything possible to sue anyone I could...

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

i have heard somthing similar to this, except it was a father who was accused of killing his son..but he was found innocent just a little while ago, and he was offered his bail money back which was likr 600k i think, or 100 dollars for the 21 years he spent in jail for the crime he did not commit which would have equaled out to 766,500..i hope he didn't loose his basic math skills those 21 years..and i hope he did the math before accepting anything i cant find the exact artice, but a friend said he saw it in the paper but according to this site http://www.talkleft.com/story/2004/08/12/375/36467/innocencecases/DNA-Frees-Inmate-After-22-Years-in-Prison The state Legislature in 2001 passed a law that allowed DNA retesting in older cases. so maybe people are going through old cases..and finding they screwed up very badly!! thank god for todays tecnology!

[mackygood 0]

man 25 years in jail for something he didn't do?? I would've gone crazy if I was him. Sitting in a jail for 9125 days thinking " I didn't do this". This guy's got some gut.

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

kind of off the topic, but my uncle was in jail a while back and he said that, pretty much any new comber to the jail has been raped by practicly anyone who has been there for a long time and is desperate to get somthing, fortunatly he hung out with the right crowd..and got out unharmed lmao

[Dooga 0]

DNA technologies were quite recent, so I can see why they didn't find any evidence to save him 25 years ago. He should request compensation, but then again, it wasn't the governments' fault, since they didn't have this technology at that time.

[Plenoptic 0]

Ya I didn't know that they started allowing DNA retests after 2001, that is probably why the guy had to wait so long. I am glad though now that they can test DNA to see who really has done a crime. It is going to be crazy for him to see all the new technology and advances around here. I bet the last time he saw Tampa it was empty fields and farms and what not, no gameboys (yet) and stuff like that. Now it is a crowded suburb. Maybe he was sent pictures or something I don't know.

[brainless 0]

I think I've read a headline about someone who's been executed by the USA being found innocent half a year later on amnesty.org ... I was looking for something specific so I didn't take my time to read the article :/ but you might want to have a look at this article:

 

(beware: long text) http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

 

[...]

Innocent and on death row: how does it happen?

 

While there are a multitude of factors contributing to mistaken death sentences in the USA, a deadly pattern emerges from the cases of individuals who were later exonerated. These recurring factors include the inadequate performance of defence attorneys and misconduct by prosecuting authorities eager to gain a conviction at any cost. Juries often rely on false evidence, including the perjured testimony of jail-house informants who bargain for leniency in return for their incriminating statements.

 

It is standard practice for US prosecutors to offer various forms of leniency to suspects and co-defendants in exchange for testimony used to incriminate other individuals. In many capital trials, prosecutors have built entire cases around the testimony of inmates claiming that the defendant "confessed" to the crime in their presence while they were imprisoned together.

 

[...]

 

Far too often, police officers have fabricated evidence and coerced confessions in their zeal to solve a high-profile case. Gary Nelson was falsely condemned for the rape and murder of a six-year-old girl in Georgia. After nearly a decade of diligent investigation, his volunteer lawyers proved that the district attorney had suppressed evidence of Nelson's innocence, that a forensic expert had presented false testimony and that investigators had lied under oath in a deliberate effort to conceal the weakness of their case against Nelson.

 

Other legal officials then often compound these types of injustices by refusing to acknowledge the possibility of an innocent defendant being condemned. Georgia Attorney General Michael Bowers has gone on record to state that there are no innocent prisoners on death row. "There is rarely any question about the guilt of these people, virtually none. That is a myth...these guys on death row are the pits," Bowers said in a newspaper interview. When asked specifically about Ellis Wayne Felker, a Georgia death row inmate with a credible claim of innocence who faced imminent execution, Bowers replied, "I've talked to the cops who investigated him, and I asked them: 'Guys, is there any doubt about his guilt?' And they told me, '*BLEEP*'." Since 1976, four prisoners have been released from Georgia's death row following their complete exoneration.

 

[...]

 

Other defendants are the victims of guilt by association, falsely accused because of their prior criminal record or wrongly implicated by the actual perpetrator of the crime. In several cases, the police appear to have knowingly targeted an innocent person simply because of their inability to find any valid suspect to arrest.

 

[...]

 

Conclusion

 

For more than two decades judges and legislators in the USA have struggled with - and failed to resolve - the central paradox of the death penalty: how to impose an irreversible punishment fairly and accurately, while ensuring that the sentence is carried out without delay. There is clear and convincing evidence that this attempt to balance fairness and finality has now been abandoned, sacrificed for the sake of political expediency.

 

Some supporters of the death penalty have argued that the potential execution of innocent people is a justifiable risk, because of the purported benefits which the death penalty confers on society. This is a falsehood. There is no credible evidence to support the notion that the death penalty possesses any unique value in deterring criminal behaviour or that it brings any net societal benefits in its wake. Indeed, there is considerable data indicating the contrary: that executions have a brutalizing effect on US society as a whole and that the death penalty is corroding the workings of the US criminal justice system. The irrefutable fact that guiltless defendants risk execution only amplifies these negative effects.

 

More than 3,400 individuals are already under sentence of death in the USA and the range of offences resulting in death sentences is expanding. An increasingly draconian political climate and a deteriorating system of legal protections compound the risk of fatal error. What was already a crisis situation has worsened lately, due to a series of legislative and judicial measures which have the sole aim of reducing the time between conviction and execution. Many of the 75 death row inmates released in recent years on grounds of innocence would undoubtedly have been executed had these measures been implemented earlier.

 

Many innocent defendants confronting a death sentence in the USA must traverse a legal minefield of official misconduct, shoddy legal representation and impassable procedural obstacles. Far more than a few innocent lives are at risk: fundamental safeguards which protect the rights and liberty of all people in the USA are being systematically dismantled, in order to hasten a brutal, perilous and ultimately futile punishment.

 

[...]

well, this is an extremely shortened version of the full text, I definitly recommend reading it completely...

 

...releasing someone from prison and giving him a little money (2 million from state pockets ... they've got lots more...) might be ok ... but you can't undo killing someone. I believe I'm right when I call the US government killers...

[serenity 0]

This is sad.. soO sad.. a man that has been convicted for a crime he didnt commit. Things like this makes you wonder what is going on in the world.. why all of a sudden 25 years later they find out that he was not guilty of the crime he was jailed for and the best times of his life are gone.. how will he find a wife at 45> what age do you think that he would have kids? All these questions will be left unanswered because of the world problems..

[kelvinismyname 0]

That sucked...........he derserves a reward for all that time he spent in jail........if i was him i would sue the government big time

[Plenoptic 0]

At the moment they are only giving him 200,000 dollars even though they give $22 million to the other guy in there for 22 years. He can always appeal or whatever it is called to get more money from the Florida Government and I really thing he should. $200,000 isn't going to make up for the 25 years of his life are gone.

[eee 0]

wow sad it took so long some people say that it takes alot of time to do certain things like tha but i don't believe them it shouldnt take that long to proves someone innocent and shouldnt they shouldve tooked the dna test before they locked him up did they just lock him cuz they THOUGH he was the person who did the crimes sounds wierd to me but i don't know anyways props on the info man good looks

[Joshua 0]

I find that in cases where a guy is accused of rape, incest, or sexual molesting, it's guilty until proven innocent. Our justice system is really messed up, and those with their eyes open will realize how bad the childcare system is. There have been cases over here where children were taken from their parents by the state childcare system, DCFS, for letting a kid eat noodles and go down a slide (real case). Tons of people are getting jailed when innocent by them, while kids who get taken from their families actually die because they then get put in homes with real abusers. Some DCFS caseworkers have killed kids in the past... it's all just a huge mess, and they've kept switching the people heading up the childcare system a lot over the last few years. Keep an eye out for this stuff, it's especially bad over here in the midwest.