July 29, 2016

“Sometimes prosecutors withhold exculpatory evidence of a defendant’s innocence, and don’t turn it over until they are forced to. Take a look at the exonerations reported in recent years and you will see a pattern of prosecutors continuing to fight against our release even when our innocence is uncovered. Many innocent prisoners have been buried alive in these prisons by this kind of corruption….

“How do the culprits sleep at night? Well, to be honest, these people have no consciences. It’s like any other day at the job for them. Some have built their careers on the backs of us innocent prisoners, and now they sit in high places.

“Until the day comes when culprits responsible for wrongful convictions are held fully accountable – wrongful convictions will never stop.”

– From “When Courts Are Used As A Weapon Against The Innocent” by Lorenzo Johnson at Huffington Post (July 12)

Johnson had served 16 1/2 years of a life-without-parole sentence when in 2012 the Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals found insufficient evidence for his conviction. He remained free for four months, after which the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously reinstated the conviction and ordered him back to a Pennsylvania prison. He continues to seek a new trial.

Sept. 23, 2014

The Duke Law School Wrongful Convictions Clinic was a crucial ally of defense attorney Sean Devereux in the recent exoneration of Michael Alan Parker, whose “satanic ritual abuse” conviction bears many fundamental similarities to Junior Chandler’s.

Now, co-director Theresa Newman tells me the clinic “is reviewing the case file to determine if we can help Mr. Chandler prove his innocence.

“We are at the VERY early stages of our review, so we do not have a good sense of things yet and cannot even estimate a timeline for the review.  The file is large and the case is complicated, so the review will take some time.

“That said, we are mindful of how long Mr. Chandler has been imprisoned and, to the extent possible, will try to conduct the review without undue delay.”

Even given Ms. Newman’s cautious caveats, this review must be seen as opening new possibilities for Junior Chandler.

As many doors as the legal system has slammed in Junior’s face, there has always seemed to be one more. Thank you, Wrongful Convictions Clinic.

Feb. 13, 2012

“It is evident that, although mistakes were made in the handling of the (Little Rascals) case, these children definitely were sexually abused by one or more individuals at the day care center. To suggest otherwise is to revictimize these smallest victims.

“As a professor of social work at UNCG whose specialty is child abuse, I would like the public to be aware that research has shown that 97-99 out of 100 children who report that they have been sexually abused are telling the truth. When a child tells you that an unauthorized adult is ‘playing doctor’ with him/her, it is highly likely that he/she is describing some sort of abuse.

“If you do not believe the child, you become part of the victimization of that child. If you believe that detection and prosecution of child abuse cases are witch hunts, then you protect child molesters and allow them to continue to traumatize children. I cannot imagine that the responsible people of this state want to put themselves on the side of criminals who abuse children.”

Elisabeth Porter Hurd, Greensboro

– From a letter to the editor of the Greensboro News & Record, June 9, 1997

Does Dr. Hurd still believe that the Little Rascals children “definitely were sexually abused”? And that to doubt the prosecution’s case was to “protect child molesters and allow them to continue to traumatize children”?

Last week I asked Dr. Hurd whether she might have changed her mind – so far no response.

Feb. 22, 2017

“[When Rich Rosen, Theresa Newman and Jim Coleman began planning the state’s first innocence project], not everyone agreed their work was worth doing. To many… colleagues, in North Carolina and across the country, the letters they were reading were no more than acts of desperation: There was zero chance these inmates were innocent, only that they had nothing to lose by filing paperwork. The American criminal-justice system had always trivialized its own chances at convicting anyone wrongly, feeling certain – as lawyer Christine Mumma no longer could – that protections at trial made that outcome impossible….”

– From “A Justice Startup” by Benjamin Rachlin in “Innocent: The Fight Against Wrongful Convictions,” a Time special edition

Rachlin’s piece is excerpted from “Ghost of the Innocent Man: A True Story of Trial and Redemption,” to be published in August.