Free, And Then What? A free man sits in his apartment afraid to go outside except to go to work. An alleged rape victim confesses that she helped imprison the wrong man just to hide an affair. A judge agrees to retest a DNA sample after years of hand-written pleas from jail. My part in Sunday's NYT cover package ([url=http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/11/25/nyregion/20071125_DNAI_FEATURE.html]Free, And Then What?[/url]) was an extremely small one and had little to do with school reform or Chicago (the people I interviewed were in Texas, mostly), but tracking down and interviewing a dozen or so of the more than 200 people who been exonerated by DNA evidence over the last few years was a fascinating and heart-wrenching experience.
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Tue Nov 27, 2007 at 2:14 AM
Free, And Then What?
Alexander, that Sunday New York Times piece was righteous. Congratulations on being part of it. Below the radar of DNA testing, however, are the hundreds of cases that go down every year in Chicago for lesser offenses than murder and rape. And the probably thousands nationwide.
Here is something to think about. When I was "security coordinator" at Bowen High School, we told the gang bangers (just about every major gang except the white ones was at Bowen, and still is at the Bowens) that we were banning their activities inside the school and that we highly recommended they stop engaging in suchlike outside as well. (If you think that just requires a little mentoring, ask around about some of the more exotic "Vs" that kids have suffered for saying they wanted out; at some point, you're in too deep to even get "V'd out", and if you look weak, you're probably dead).
Anyway, the thing was to be consistent and fair. If you did the crime, we were going to see you did the time, then you could come back and, as it should be, start over. And over. And over.
But we also told the bangers that if they were innocent, we'd be their witnesses. So two Latin Kings ten years ago took me up on it. I got a call from a PD at Cook County that he had two clients who claimed they were innocent of a murder they were charged with and that I was their alibi witness. They said they were doing "Sim City" in may classroom at Bowen at the time they were supposedly murdering somebody a mile from the school.
I checked my memory carefully, and agreed. So I went to court next time and as soon as I walked in and was ID'd by the PD to the State's Attorney, the charges were dropped.
I've always wondered after that how many kids are set up for those and lesser crimes, given a five-minute Public Defender shuffle, and then put away for a long long time.
There are kids out there doing very nasty ugly things, many of which I witnessed back when I was doubling as an English teacher and "security coordinator." As nasty and ugly as you can imagine. But that didn't mean that any gang banger should be charged with any local crime. The breakdown of law and justice in the USA was taking place in our cities a long long time before the Bush administration decided to strangle it in its bathtub.
So if you're still in touch with that team at The New York Times that did such a good job on the Sunday Page One piece (which I read while waiting for the family outside of church, saying "Yes!" which is not something I often say for NYT pieces), why not suggest a lengthier review of all the battery and other crimes for which kids have been sent up. It's worth a try. The capital crimes are the most dramatic, and the suffering of those wrongfully convicted the most obvious. But the train on that railroad often starts at some much smaller stations than those labelled 'Murder" and "Rape".
Here is something to think about. When I was "security coordinator" at Bowen High School, we told the gang bangers (just about every major gang except the white ones was at Bowen, and still is at the Bowens) that we were banning their activities inside the school and that we highly recommended they stop engaging in suchlike outside as well. (If you think that just requires a little mentoring, ask around about some of the more exotic "Vs" that kids have suffered for saying they wanted out; at some point, you're in too deep to even get "V'd out", and if you look weak, you're probably dead).
Anyway, the thing was to be consistent and fair. If you did the crime, we were going to see you did the time, then you could come back and, as it should be, start over. And over. And over.
But we also told the bangers that if they were innocent, we'd be their witnesses. So two Latin Kings ten years ago took me up on it. I got a call from a PD at Cook County that he had two clients who claimed they were innocent of a murder they were charged with and that I was their alibi witness. They said they were doing "Sim City" in may classroom at Bowen at the time they were supposedly murdering somebody a mile from the school.
I checked my memory carefully, and agreed. So I went to court next time and as soon as I walked in and was ID'd by the PD to the State's Attorney, the charges were dropped.
I've always wondered after that how many kids are set up for those and lesser crimes, given a five-minute Public Defender shuffle, and then put away for a long long time.
There are kids out there doing very nasty ugly things, many of which I witnessed back when I was doubling as an English teacher and "security coordinator." As nasty and ugly as you can imagine. But that didn't mean that any gang banger should be charged with any local crime. The breakdown of law and justice in the USA was taking place in our cities a long long time before the Bush administration decided to strangle it in its bathtub.
So if you're still in touch with that team at The New York Times that did such a good job on the Sunday Page One piece (which I read while waiting for the family outside of church, saying "Yes!" which is not something I often say for NYT pieces), why not suggest a lengthier review of all the battery and other crimes for which kids have been sent up. It's worth a try. The capital crimes are the most dramatic, and the suffering of those wrongfully convicted the most obvious. But the train on that railroad often starts at some much smaller stations than those labelled 'Murder" and "Rape".
