On a snowy evening in late March, just over a year after walking out of prison, where he had spent 23 years for a crime he didn’t commit, William Lopez entered a CVS in the Bronx and did something inexplicable. After paying for a prescription at the pharmacy counter, he paused to grab some other things—two sticks of Old Spice deodorant and some allergy medicine. Then, without paying, and in full view of a security guard, he walked out. Police were called and Lopez was arrested.
Lopez told his lawyer he had been preoccupied and took the items by accident. This actually made sense; navigating his new-found freedom posed a daily challenge for the 55-year-old Lopez, and he was often distracted. “His mind was not all there,” his lawyer recalls. “He was anxious about a lot of things.” But Jeff Deskovic, Lopez’s closest friend, heard a different explanation, one that disturbed him. To him, Lopez confessed, “he committed a petty theft to get reincarcerated.”
Deskovic was stunned. Just a few weeks earlier, The New York Times had published a long profile featuring both of them, showing Lopez moving on with his life—singing karaoke and bonding with other former New York inmates who had been released after wrongful convictions. “It’s kind of like we get together for treatment or something,” he told the Times, “like we have the same disease.” If casting himself as sick might have been a signal that Lopez was struggling more, not less, as time passed, no one read it that way. No one could have guessed he would sabotage his freedom by shoplifting thirty dollars’ worth of stuff.
Lopez was “in a dark place,” Deskovic says. And to a certain degree, he understood. Himself exonerated in 2006 after spending 16 years in prison for a rape and murder he did not commit, Deskovic had fought his own demons after being released. But not only did he survive, in 2012 he founded the Jeffrey Deskovic Foundation for Justice, with the mission of finding and freeing others like himself. Lopez was the organization’s first success story—Deskovic proudly walked him out of Brooklyn Supreme Court in January 2013. Then, he refused to leave his side. Deskovic knew too well how hard it is to emerge from prison to, as he puts it, “a world that you don’t belong to.” He wanted his foundation to ensure that new exonerees did not struggle as much as he had. So Deskovic tried to provide Lopez with all the things the state had not: a temporary apartment, some money to get by, and guidance on everything from cell phones to the subway. In the process, the two became fast friends. “I saw a lot of myself in him,” Deskovic says, “even though he was a lot older than me.”
Lopez had no desire to go back to prison—quite the opposite. But he had become convinced that it was inevitable.
So, even as Lopez celebrated his first year of freedom over lasagna and wine this past January, the fear of prison haunted him. As court dates in the appeal approached, “it started to play a larger and larger role in his mind,” Deskovic says, “to the point where he was mentally preparing himself to be reincarcerated.” Lopez’s arrest at CVS came just over a week before oral arguments were scheduled to start.
“There was an element of me that was angry at him,” Deskovic recalls. But he knew Lopez was driven by fear. Both men had seen people sent back to prison because prosecutors did not want to admit to a wrongful conviction. For Lopez, the dread was too much to handle. “He said, look, Jeff, If I’m gonna go back, why wait? Let me get used to it.” His original sentence had been 25-years-to life; he thought he would have a shot at getting out on parole. However irrational it seemed, for Lopez, it felt like a way to control his own destiny.
Lopez never went back to prison. His misdemeanor charge was reduced to a violation. Days later, just one week before oral arguments were set to begin, Brooklyn’s new district attorney, Kenneth Thompson, who had defeated Charles Hynes in a major electoral upset the previous fall, finally dropped the murder charges against Lopez. Pursuing his predecessor’s appeal, Thompson said, would be “contrary to the interest of justice.”
Lopez could finally exhale. He spent the spring and summer enjoying life, much of the time with Deskovic. They traveled to Portland, Oregon for the annual Innocence Network conference. They went to a Mets game. They goofed around at Rye Playland, an amusement park in Westchester County. (“Sharing another first with him!” Deskovic wrote on Facebook, under a photo of the pair at a mini golf course.) His relationship with his wife of nineteen years, Alice, whom he married in prison, seemed to improve, too. Lopez had symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and Alice had struggled to cope. But, after the charges were dropped, “they kind of hit their stride,” Deskovic recalls. In July, Lopez posted a selfie, along with a photo of himself going kayaking. “Hello everyone,” he wrote. “These photos were taken less than a week ago under the wonderful blue skies.”
So it came as a shock when, less than two months later, Deskovic got a call from Alice at 3 o’clock in the morning. Lopez had suffered a massive, deadly asthma attack in the middle of the night. By the time Deskovic rushed to the hospital, his friend was already gone.
Jeff Deskovic and William Lopez sing at Karaoke Cave in downtown Manhattan in January.
In March 2013, two months after William Lopez first walked out of Brooklyn Supreme Court, 58-year-old David Ranta left the same courthouse in a daze. He, too, had spent 23 years in prison, after being convicted on false evidence presented by a dirty NYPD detective for a crime he did not commit. “I’m overwhelmed,” he told reporters. “Right now, I feel like I’m under water, swimming.”
Less than two days later, he had a heart attack.
Unlike Lopez, Ranta recovered after surgery. Although he had no history of heart problems, his lawyer told reporters, “The accumulated trauma of being falsely convicted and incarcerated for 23 years, coupled with the intense emotions experienced surrounding his release, has had a profound impact on his health.”
Subsequent reports described Ranta “in good spirits.” But his hospitalization threw cold water on the feel-good media moment—it was a sudden, sobering glimpse at the real toll of a wrongful conviction. In an unusually rapid settlement, last February the City of New York agreed to pay Ranta $6.4 million in compensation. But there is no sum of money that will recover the health he sacrificed during the many years Hynes’ office kept him in prison despite evidence of his innocence. For him—and for the eleven New Yorkers exonerated since Kenneth Thompson took office—the mental and physical cost is impossible to measure.
Lopez suffered from asthma from the time he was a boy; perhaps it would have taken his life even if he had never gone to prison. But it’s not likely. Even without the trauma of a wrongful conviction, prison is like a debilitating illness; it literally speeds up the aging process. Both Lopez and Ranta were released in their 50s—hardly geriatric in the outside world, yet considered “elderly” by the New York State Department of Correction. A report funded by the Edgar and Margaret Sandman Fellowship in Aging and Health Law & Policy estimated that, physiologically, a 55-year-old person behind bars is equivalent to someone more than ten years older on the outside. Fifteen states classify prisoners aged 50 and older as elderly.
Prison is like a debilitating illness; it literally speeds up the aging process.
“The impact of being wrongly incarcerated does not show up when you’re in prison,” Deskovic explains. Much of the trauma manifests itself later, making it harder to find a home, get a job, or sustain relationships. “Psychological research of the wrongfully convicted shows that their years of imprisonment are profoundly scarring,” the Innocence Project reported in a 2009 study examining inadequate compensation for exonerees nationwide. At least 20 states provide no compensation for people who are wrongfully convicted. New York does, but on a case by case basis, and according to an amount determined in civil court. But as the Innocence Project notes, “After years of fighting to prove their innocence, exonerees need a safety net, not another long legal battle.” Counseling and medical care are among the most immediate services exonerees desperately need.
In the wake of his death, newspapers reported that Lopez died just days before his $124 million federal civil suit against the city was supposed to go to trial. That would have been cruel irony if it were accurate. “That Monday we were having our first conference with the judge for some preliminary matters,” his lawyer said. Like most exoneree lawsuits, Lopez’s would have taken a couple of years at least. What’s more, his lawyer added, the lawsuit is partly based on “a practice and pattern in the DA’s office to suppress evidence,” which meant the city was likely to put up a fight.
To Deskovic, this reality is far more cruel than what the headlines claimed. Had Lopez become financially stable more quickly, maybe he would have been less burdened. Maybe he would still be alive. “Why does it need to be this long drawn out process? It doesn’t seem fair or just to me,” he says. “It typically takes less than a year to wrongfully convict people. Why does it take so much longer to compensate them? Is it because the defendant in one case is a regular person and in the other defendant is the state?”
Lopez’s lawsuit will move forward, with any money going to his wife and daughter, Crystal, who was just a baby when her father was arrested. The sum will almost certainly be a tiny fraction of the $124 million.
Alice Lopez was distraught when I spoke to her on the phone, grief-stricken one moment and furious the next. “I bet you it was the stress,” she said about her husband’s sudden death. “I lived with it every day.” For almost her entire marriage, Alice had watched as Charles Hynes blocked attempts to revisit her husband’s case. Then he was finally freed, only to live every day in fear. Sometimes Lopez would wake up with nightmares. “He was worried that he was gonna go back to prison,” she said. “And the asthma was getting worse.”
“Once they dropped the charges, he relaxed a bit,” she added. “But at that point, his asthma was really bad.”
Alice Lopez holds Hynes “tremendously responsible” for what happened to her husband. “The state did this,” she said, through angry sobs. “The state did this to him. And they’re gonna pay.”
The wake for William Lopez was held on September 24, at the Ortiz Funeral Home in the Bronx. Among the guests were Nicholas Garaufis, the judge who released him, and his wife. Friends who knew Lopez in prison as “Willie” also came, as well as fellow exonerees from New York. “They talked about how short his freedom had been and how unfair it was,” says Deskovic. “And how despite it all, Bill persevered.”
Deskovic, too, plans to persevere, continuing to focus on his work. “It’s what Bill would have wanted,” he says. In a particular sense, Lopez’s death is especially cruel for him.
I met Deskovic in 2006, soon after he was first released from prison, and got to know him through activist work, and some journalism projects. He could be awkward, sometimes difficult, and at times his loneliness and vulnerability were palpable. An in-depth 2007 profile in the New York Times described him as “a lost man.” This made his accomplishments over the years all the more impressive—from speaking engagements to a master’s degree from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, to, eventually, his own foundation. Yet, in a sense, it was his friendship with Lopez that was the most heartening to see.
I caught a glimpse of it up close in March of last year, seven weeks after Lopez was released. We met at Deskovic’s office on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. Lopez wore a suit and tie and was soft-spoken, with a raspy Bronx accent and the slight intensity of a man who has recently left prison after a long time. He and Deskovic took turns telling his story.
Lopez and Deskovic went to prison the same year. While they never crossed paths, Lopez eventually worked in the law library, which gave him access to law journals and newspapers, so he was able to keep up with the exonerations throughout the state. Deskovic stood out to him. He was impressed with his activism and his columns about criminal justice reform in the Westchester Guardian. When Deskovic used a portion of his $8.3 million false imprisonment settlement to start his foundation, “that’s when I knew he was in it for the long haul,” Lopez said. He called the office.
Soon they were talking every week. Deskovic immediately recognized Lopez’s case as having the classic hallmarks of a wrongful conviction: a dearth of physical evidence, a prosecutor who withheld exculpatory evidence, hapless defense attorneys, a hostile judge. Especially alarming was the fact that the trial had turned on the testimony of two eyewitnesses, one of whom had described the killer to police as a dark, black man taller than 6’3. (Lopez was short, with a lighter complexion). The other had been on a two-day crack binge at the time of the crime. Later she would tell a cellmate at Rikers Island that Lopez was not really the killer, according to the cellmate, who sent a letter describing the recantation to Lopez’s lawyers. The letter arrived after trial but before sentencing, yet his lawyers did nothing with it at the time.
Deskovic’s team eventually uncovered more evidence of Lopez’s innocence. Most significantly, they tracked down another witness to the crime, who had been since deported to the Dominican Republic. Via video feed, he testified at a hearing that he was “certain” Lopez was not the man he saw, describing the real killer as having dark black skin.
“I knew what it was not to have anything. I knew what it was to be lonely.”
“But now I have Jeff,” he added. “And Jeff’s become my best friend.”
Deskovic came to rely on Lopez, too. He had never made friends easily. “I don’t always relate to everyone,” he says. “I enjoyed talking to him. I enjoyed spending time with him.” Even before losing his formative years to prison, he was always a bit socially challenged. It was one of the reasons he had become a suspect in his own case. After his high school classmate was raped and murdered in 1989, Deskovic “cried copiously” at her funeral, The New York Times reported, “though they were not close friends.” This aroused suspicion—even though his DNA did not match semen taken from her body, police became so convinced he was guilty, they coerced him into a false confession. Later, Deskovic would explain that his classmate’s death had upset him so much because she was one of the few kids in school who had not treated him unkindly.
On the day Lopez was released from prison, Deskovic took him shopping at Macy’s to buy clothes for the outside. It’s one of Deskovic’s favorite stories. That day in the office, they told the story together.
“He bought me my first set of clothes,” Lopez said.
“What was that like, by the way?” Jeff interjected.
“That was—to this moment I’m still trying to figure it out,” Lopez said. “That feeling, it was so huge.” Lopez walked out of Macy’s in a brand new outfit: “I wound up leaving my old duds in a trash can,” he confessed.
“Did you feel like a new man?” Deskovic asked, eagerly. “Did it feel different?”
“I was able to walk out a new man, with dungarees,” Lopez said, as Deskovic laughed. “And colors! Colors, of course. Colors that I could never have, clothing I could never have.”
In prison, certain colored clothing is contraband. “It can have the most small amount,” he explained. But that day, he said, gesturing proudly, “I had blue jeans on, I had sneakers that had colors—all that. And it was great. To this moment, you know, I’m still excited about that.”
Deskovic recently brought up the visit to Macy’s again. He remembered how Lopez seemed to transform with every piece of drab prison clothing he replaced with something new. “You could see his face was changing,” he said.
“He ended up with a really, really big smile.”
Photos: Top and bottom: Michael Kirby Smith/The New York Times/Redux. Singing: Victor J. Blue/The New York Times/Redux. Kayak: Facebook.
This is one of the saddest articles I have read in a long time that shows THE U.S.A.’s justice system has gone down the drain. We ( LEGAL US CITIZENS) are better than what some crooked DA did to many people. He was voted out, but that guy should be in PRISON HIMSELF. Why doesn’t the current DA go after him????!!!!
It’s no secret that the justice system is broken. District attorney’s run for their jobs instead of being appointed, so the desire to pad a career path rather than justice takes over. Over zealous prosecutors who re entirely concerned with conviction rates are visible from coast to coast. It used to be that defense attorneys were the bottom feeders, but now it’s the prosecutors that are considered the scum. The sad part is that te justice system does nothing to stop this. Investigators, police, and the prosecutors hide or manipulate evidence to effect an outcome, and any sort of responsibility for their actions are never held. Rarely is a prosecutor punished for sending a man to prison because they intentionally lost evidence, didn’t inventory it, or simply destroyed it. There are far too many wrongfully convicted people in prison, and not enough oversight to keep it from happening. This is what I propose…..if a prosecutor gets a conviction, and the judge determines that the prosecutor was responsible for misconduct that wrongfully convicted the accused, the prosecutor must serve 25 percent of the sentence the defendant was sentenced to, or would have been sentenced to. To add to that, you make all DA positions appointments only by a panel of judges at the local, state, and federal level. The appointments last for 6 years, and each term would be renewed upon a review by those same judges. If a DA is found to have manipulated cases, his law career is over. If he is found to be inadequate at his job, the panel of judges can replace him/her with another. This will enforce a value system in prosecutions that will make the attorneys strive to be fair and will allow those that truly seek justice to hold those positions. The DA should not be a politician.
Lady Justice wears a blindfold and holds the scales of justice as a representation of a system that does not deliver justice to the poor and powerless. William Lopez suffered a gross and heinous injustice at the hands of Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes, a man without a soul who clearly was devoid of human decency.There has never been one rule of law in the United States. Those who are well connected, well heeled and powerful live by a different set of rules. The justice system punishes the poor, the most severely with harsher sentencing (mandatory minimums) that does not fit the crime, or in the case of William Lopez are wrongfully convicted. It’s a given that people who have money receive lighter sentences or none at all. Then there are times the justice system doesn’t work because the man wearing the robe is an epic failure to a system of justice that allows his own personal prejudices to color the decision making process.The presence of corrupt lawyers, judges, D.A.’s with over-sized egos, and the ever present problem of police who abuse their authority, give false testimony, plant evidence, take money from the people they arrest or during traffic stops when no arrest has been made are criminals with a badge. There’s a special place in hell for the corrupt who destroy lives, whole families, and who profit from the suffering they have had a part in creating.
Incredible! I am sure that he shoplifted because he was affected psychologically for loosing two decades of his life. He was jailed unfairly while the real criminal went on with his life. I sure hope that this poor guy got millions of dollars back.
This is what happens when a man, particularly one that knows the difference between right and wrong, allows himself to be the property of the state, or any other corporate entity. Once you hire a lawyer (liar) you have admitted that you are incompetent, and incapable of presenting yourself. Indeed you have given explicit permission of enslavement to those that only want to enslave you.
There is nothing written on paper that requires a man to be compliant with a corporation, and all governments are corporations. Believe it or not, but the constitution is empty contract written by dead men. It is void. The only thing that keeps it alive is an ignorant populace that props it up as the supreme doctrine of rule over their lives. It is hardly a document of justice or social equality, or democracy. It may have started that way, IDK, I wasn’t there, but it has morphed into a monster of control that allows a gangster pack of federals to take, take, take without repercussion. They hate you, but they love your labor value, and your belief. Belief for them pays more than the belief in the gods they have also created and proliferated.
In 1973, I saw a woman being kidnapped off the streets. I intervened. The man pulled a gun. I pulled a gun that my friend had in his car. Police showed. The kidnapper had a valid police badge and ID. I was arrested, and beaten with a gun and blackjack whilst my hands were cuffed behind my back. I was charged with attempted murder of policeman. I phoned my lawyer at precint, and told cops I didn’t want to make a statement. Cops threatened to kill me and say that I tried to escape. I made a statement in fear of my life. Kidnap victim was illegal alien who refused to testify. Grand jury indicted for wreckless endangerment and other felonies. I pled guilty to attempted unlawful weapons possesion to avoid prison. Since 9/11 terror attack, no one will hire me.
I have no words for this, only emotions. THIS is the type of incident that breaks lives into shattered pieces in an instant. THIS has been going on for years and only the afflicted and vulnerable can see it. THIS is a level of existence in our culture that holds such a tentative position, most folks can’t even imagine the strength and fortitude it takes just to break even on a daily basis, OMG if there are children at hand, magnify the pressure by 10x THIS IS POVERTY.
A position unknown and ignored by any person that has even the smallest amount of ASSETS by which to leverage some form of passable lifestyle.
I have said for years, This system will not be changed by anyone holding $50,000 or more ASSET FOUNDATION. This is equity in a home, cars, guns, gold, adult toys, ect.) These people will put up with most anything ( fees, fines, mundane jobs, erosion of personal rights) to not risk losing what they have, (more than those that don’t). THIS is the PRIVILAGED CLASS.(they ain’t rich, they’re just not broke).
A voice of reason, not emotionally attached to the situation can see this with clarity. Unfortunately, that voice is not available to our culture.
THIS is a critical mass situation that keeps the STATUS QUO firmly in place. UNTIL the ability to placate the privilaged
Oddly, I went right from this article to one in the most recent New Yorker about a sixteen-year-old boy in the Bronx who was falsely charged with stealing a backpack. He didn’t do it, but through numerous fuck ups in the justice system he spent three YEARS in Rikers Island prisons, most of it in solitary confinement. The prison is now under investigation for its excessive use of solitary and for guards beating inmates and then threatening to kill them if they availed themselves of the health clinic.
Though finally out of prison, this young man has raging PTSD and has tried to commit suicide several times. He missed three years of high school, his prom and graduation, and thanks to this totally fucked up system is now facing a future in which he has no job skills, no education and dim prospects, at best, of ever being hired. His life was a wrecked as if he’d actually committed a crime.
I hope he sues the prison into the ground. Only when those abused like this bring charges and insist on being paid for their suffering will it change.
My heart is broken for Mr. Lopez and his family. We must keep telling his story until something changes. This was a beautifully written piece that should be made into a major motion picture with wide release. I pray you have a book in the works. You have s great talent.
Until the day we prosecute these SOB’s, we will continue to get this mess. And until the day this our angry and irate society gets off its “tough on crime” jargon, we will continue to incacerate most of the world’s prisoners, even more than the so called “third world” countries.
In this country we have a prosecutor and a defender. The prosecutor’s job is to convict. There is no one looking for the truth. We judge a prosecutor that does not convict a failure.
I get so angry when I hear about these stories as my brother was wrongfully convicted and spent almost 12 years in prison and the fact that we cannot prosecute or sue the district attorney or prosecutor who put him there for any reason.
You are required to file within 6 months for compensation for being wrongfully convicted, but they can take as long as they want to respond and when they do they are not required to award you anything. In my brothers case it took over 3 years for the case to be heard and by that time it was too late for him.
I sat and watched while they denied every single case that day and keep in mind they do not have to give a reason and they don’t. (California)
He suffered from post dramatic stress disorder from being incarcerated and need help. He could not hold down a job because he would have panic attacks. He was put on anti depression pills every time we took him in which did nothing except he would sleep all day. Unfortunately our family did not have the money for psychiatry care he really needed. Ultimately he ended up back in the prison system.
Former DA Hynes -it now appears- was as corrupt as they come. A disgrace on all of Brooklyn. The disgusting Hynes along with all of the ADAs that worked in that corrupt office (just following orders) should be put in prison. Instead NY taxpayers will need to pay for the misdeeds of these unscrupulous elected officials. when they should be footing the bill out of THEIR pockets (and then be locked away -as to do no more harm.)
Over and over we will pay for “dishonorable service” from the corrupt. We will lose $$$ when the lawsuits succeed, and then pay retirement benefits to the “corrupt” whereas if they were charged and fired, would be forfeited
So, who is going to prosecute those who use the law to ruin innocent lives?
There can never be justice until men like Charles Hynes, and those involved in this cover up serve the same sentence as those they framed. He lost an election and walks away with no punishment for his crime which equals murder as far as I am concerned. He needs to be put in a cell with Bubba and made a sissy for a few years, and after much anal reaming just maybe he might see how wrong he was. This is totally unacceptable in our judicial system and they must be held accountable for their evil actions also.
It was an excellent article, about something we hear about every day. We incarcerate more people per capita than any country on earth. And we apparently don’t even care if they are guilty, as long as we can get a conviction. There should be greater consequences for prosecutors and police when they prosecute people they have reason to believe are innocent. Why should they get away with destroying an innocent person’s life?
Very touching story. I want to cry and I want to go into a rage at the state of our criminal justice system. Prosecutors have too much power in the system. If he wasn’t trying to cover his own mistakes this wouldn’t have happened. Thank you for writing this piece.
This is a great story.
Immaculately written, as though using a paint brush on a fine canvas.
The characters jump out at you and one can actually feel the agony of false imprisonment.
Anger rises at a corrupt justice system.
I applaud Mr. Deskovic, for his efforts to actually help reverse the injustice of that system.
Please, consider writing a book about this issue Ms. Segura.
For every case like this one there are thousands of cases where minorities are walking the streets free to victimize innocent people. So what if they get it wrong once in a while. They don’t ever tell you why that person was arrested, where he was and what he was doing that made the police single him out. They paint these black and Mexicans out to be sweet innocent little boys who were minding their own business at the time of their arrest. Pleeese!
What an incredibly well written article. So sad that his life on the outside was so short lived. At least he was able to die with his wife at his side instead of in a tiny little cell with nobody there to care about him. The system sucks a lot of the time but unless they (prosecuters, judges) are held responsible for their actions like the rest of us are nothing will change. Rest in peace Mr. Lopez!
I bet that lawyer was REALLY PI-SED. Just think 30% of $124,000,000 = $41,333,333.00. As for Benito Mussolini’s comment, What kind of idiot are you? You actually TRUST the government that much? bullyboy Clinton the rapist “floated this idea back in the 1990’s. You remember him the guy that the democratic party had to pay out $26,000,000.00 a YEAR to a number of different women to keep out of the country. Your “idea” moves you into the same class as Himmler, pol pot, mao, stalin, etc. The thought that anyone would even consider tagging humans that have not committed a crime, is repugnant.
Darn the bad luck.
This story was a waste of time and space. It could have all been said in three paragraphs, it didn’t require a book full of repetition.
Having spent a little time in local jail for driving infractions there is one thing I learned about myself… I will never do time in prison. I will find a way to kill myself before I let that happen. Even if it’s a year, it’s too much. To lose your entire life and have to start over like that is even worse than the confinement. Definitely any sentence would be a death sentence for me.
Do you blame him. 23 years behind bars for something he didn’t do. You get out and can’t find a job. No food and a place to sleep. Go back and have meals and a nice bed . Air conditioning and heating.
Mr. Hynes and the false witness both need to do the rest of their days in jail. This is part of the problem. It happens often and the persons behind years of cruel and unusual punishment never get punished.
I totally agree they need to do time . Let them rout in prison
There are many DAs like Mr. Hynes in CALIFORNIA who will give false facts and also withhold evidence at a trial just to close the case regardless of the innocence of the suspect in question in court, THE TRUTH NEVER REACHES THE COURT OR THE JUDGE PRESIDING ON THE CASE !
I agree. If the high-and-mighty had the threat of losing their positions hanging over their heads they wouldn’t be so gung-ho to “get anybody” to answer for the charges. Real or faked.
This article is sad. At the same time I can’t help but believe it has truthful bearings. This kind of thing, sadly, can happen to anyone of us for a crime we did not commit. I really am not sure who is worse, prosecutors or our so called representative’s. I feel bad for the families that are impacted by this blatant miscarriage of the justice system. Prayers be with you.
just remember all of you who are posting “innocent until proven guilty.” how many of you here have posted ranting and raving a innocent person convicted of a crime and said wrongful things when the person was entirely innocent the whole time? and how many are sitting on death row who are truly innocent but yet you say execute him. get my drift?
I doubt he was innocent, they all say they are innocent, always, this is karma for him to have a heart attack, he lied about being innocent. and died for it. plain and simple.
This article was so well written. I loved the way it was written with so much heart. Excellent job.
Somebody should go after the crooked prosecutors and police who do stuff like that.
Why isn’t Mr. Hynes in jail?
Had Lopez been implanted with a GPS chip, he could probably have proved his innocence at the original trial and the real criminal been brought to justice. It is encouraging to think that in the future, due to ubiquitous surveillance, this sort of tragic error will be eliminated.
He was kept in prison after evidences of his innocense”.
By such a handle GPS chip implant is just a further humiliation on a suspect, and ready to take advantage of because his rights.
wait!!!what!!!! due to the fact they lost a plane who has one of the most high tech gps was lost…
NO Big Brother for me thanks!!! I will take my chances.
Good thinking benitoe … one must find the good in everything.
*of course, your GPS chip theory assumes a prosecutor willing to find that needle of innocence in the haystack.
It doesn’t stop there. As liberties are gradually curtailed in the outside world, the contrast with prison will diminish. This will make it much easier for inmates to transition back into society.
quote”This will make it much easier for inmates to transition back into society.”unquote
Your complete lack of empathy belies your lame attempt at hiding it with false sarcasm. In reality, you’re just another pig sucking authoritarian.
I try to avoid empathy, although in Les Miserables, I admit weeping at the death of Inspector Javert. It’s true that empathy can be useful for inciting a mob to violence. For example, in this comment section you have stated that Charles Hynes ‘deserves to hang from a vigilante rope’.
I know nothing about the facts of this case outside what is stated in this article, but perhaps Hynes had his own reasons for believing that Lopez was guilty. Or maybe he simply refused to acknowledge that errors can happen. If you are a prosecutor, responsible for sending thousands of people to prison (as the public demands), the possibility of making errors must be hard to acknowledge. It would mean confronting the fact that you have probably helped to send innocent people to prison. Some might be able to rationalize that the US justice system is not perfect, but still necessary. Others might simply deny the possibility of error.
So I think it’s unfair simply to blame Mr. Hynes. The original judge, prosecutor and defense lawyer should bear a share of the responsibility. Perhaps the system itself needs to be reformed. The urge to blame a single individual and then punish them severely is probably what led to the original miscarriage of justice.
A “prosecutor who withheld exculpatory evidence” is somehow not personally responsible for the commission of a criminal act?
This would be astounding if it were not so commonplace.
If every person who have been wrong by our “Justice” system gets a writing like this one, this planet will be out of Ink.
Powerful writing, exquisitely done.
Thanks for the well-written article. 23 years is a LONG TIME to sit in a cell and wonder if the system is going to correct its wrong.
It’s a hard problem to fix unless we’re willing to start putting the police, prosecutors, and judges in jail.
You got that right. Charles Hynes richly belongs in jail… and not in one of those camp cupcake jails.
I’m sorry..you are wrong. He deserves to hang from a vigilante rope.
The police found it suspicious that a person would cry when a classmate was murdered? How is that remarkable at all – even if they weren’t close? I don’t buy it.
I’ve often wondered about the residual mental and physical issues related to any incarceration, much less a false one, which must overwhelm the system with floods of anxiety, rage, and fear.
What a moving story. I remember hearing a brief blip on the radio about a man who had stolen in order to be sent back to jail; it was powerful to hear his story so thoughtfully and humanely fleshed out. Thanks for calling attention to these issues. You and Sadhbh Walsh are doing yeoman’s duty in this vast and terrible field. Keep making us look at what our system does; it’s the only way to change it.
Why is it that people rant about lawyers, but tend to give some sort of exemption to prosecutors? As a former member of the bar, let me assure you, they are the worst.
These prosecutors are pretty much the only people that can overcome my strong sense of empathy and wish great suffering on another. Them, and Hitler and Stalin.
HI Mona –
Have you read or heard about the book. “Licensed to Lie” by Sidney Powell? I have not read the book, but I saw her on book tv. She really made some points about misconduct in the DOJ. The cases she may have covered may not be exactly similar to those of the gentlemen mentioned here, but in other ways does point to major problems. That’s one book I can come up with now approaching the subject, but it is one that seems as though it would be interesting (and blood-boiling).
And I also have to agree with those saying this was a very well done piece.
and dick cheney
I can only agree, this article is well written and sets my emotions in play. Where did we ever get the idea we had a DEMOCRACY ? The founding fathers didn’t really start a DEMOCRACY. Landowners only please. This exceptional system has been a DELUSION for a long time. I believe this website is a beginning of this discussion. But like DemocracyNow don’t forget how many people are actually involved in the discussion.
ONLY THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES CAN CHANGE OR DISMISS OUR RAGING GOVERNMENT. IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO CURTAIL THE U.S.
“…I heard that murderers die for their crimes, even if we make a mistake sometimes…” – Tom Paxton.
Recovering from such an ordeal IS difficult. Terry Waite, held in Libya for 4 years, often in solitary, came home, and for the first while, wanted to be alone.
Prison is dehumanizing. Too much emphasis on punishment, too little on recovery.
Great article, but infuriating at the system. Thanks.
Isn’t malicious prosecution grounds for disbarment? How many cases brought by Hynes have been overturned?