4/20/19: The president often complains about the laws, and we know he’s a fan of torture and the death penalty.
More than 2,400 innocent men and women.
Apparently, no one has told him that a record number of Americans were exonerated last year.
(Not him, though.)
The 151 prisoners released in 2018 spent a total of
1,639 years behind bars, including 66 persons jailed for murder. In 23
cases exoneration was based entirely or in part on DNA proof. In 99 cases
prosecutors helped free wrongly convicted prisoners. Richard Phillips was freed after spending 45 years and two
months in a Michigan prison for a murder he did not commit. Wilbert Jones spent
44 years, 9 months, behind bars in Louisiana for a sexual assault carried out
by another man. Vincente Benavides was released after 25 years on California’s
death row, the kind of place where an alarming number of innocent individuals
have been lodged, before justice prevails.
In all, this brings the total number of
“criminals” exonerated in the last two decades to 2,418 and pushes years lost
in prison to 21,095.
POSTSCRIPT: Phillips, at least, will receive $1.5 million in restitution for his nearly half-century
lost.
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