https://shanecrum.org/2020/08/02/two-thoughts-from-shane/
Learn more about his case at his web site.
You can send him a message or make a donation.
Archive for the ‘Innocents’ Category
A prison post from my friend Shane Crum
Sunday, August 2nd, 2020Funeral Services for Bruce Perkins
Friday, July 24th, 2020Carol called me this afternoon. She sounded very tired. But reconciled that Bruce was finally at rest.
She does regret Bruce not ever getting to meet so many of his friends before he left. I told her we all knew and loved Bruce, the kind man, the gentle giant, the good friend. We didn’t need to physically meet him.
We, who know the story, and how he endured, with grace, 30 years of the slings and arrows of cruel and outrageous fortune, rose above it with his dignity intact, and at least got out of the Texas hellholes for the last year of his life, —-we admire the perseverance, his courage, the integrity, his faith and trust in his Lord,—-the strength and love of Carol, his wife who stood by him all those years. Brave, tough folks.
Carol asked me to forward along the information re Bruce’s funeral service.
He’ll be waked at:
Corley Funeral Home
418 N. 13th St.
Corsicana, TX 75110
(Funeral Home Phone: 903-874-3755)
Service to begin at 2 PM, Saturday, August 1, 2020.
Frank Kane, NCRJ Clerk-Treasurer
Joseph Allen Parole Hearing
Thursday, July 23rd, 2020The NCRJ has been sponsoring the case of Joseph Allen since 2004.
It is a terrible case. Joseph was once even freed, with no restrictions, for a number of years after a judge ordered his acquittal. But the corrupt forces that railroaded him into prison refused to let that stand, and persuaded the Ohio Supreme Court to lock him up again.
Here is more information about the case from the NCRJ website.
Joseph will have a parole hearing in December. He is most anxious that supporters write letters of support.
Here is guidance from Joseph’s lawyers:
No longer than a page
- a little bit about their background, such as their job, where they live, etc.
- how they know Joseph/history of relationship;
- describe any positive things they know about Joseph, such as his character, his accomplishments, specific examples of good things that he has done, improvements they have seen in his character over the years, etc.;
- describe how they would support Joseph if he is released, whether emotional, economic, spiritual, job offer, etc.
Letter should be addressed to “Members of the Ohio Parole Board.”
You can mail your letter:
Attention Ricky Parsons
Kravitz, Brown & Dortch, LLC
65 East State Street #200
Columbus OH 43215-4277
You can also email it to Ricky Parsons <[email protected]>.
Thank you for your support of Joseph.
-Bob Chatelle
John Swomley has taken the case of Paul Litchfield
Thursday, July 23rd, 2020
Boston attorney John Swomley, the lead attorney of the team that freed Bernard Baran, is now working to free another innocent Berkshire county prisoner, Paul Litchfield. Please visit Paul’s website:
https://paullitchfield.webs.com/
And consider making a donation.
-Bob Chatelle
The Case of Shane Crum
Sunday, July 19th, 2020
For several months, I have been corresponding with an Ohio prisoner named Shane Crum.
I have come to believe in his innocence. If you’d like to learn more, here is his web site:
It is a most difficult case, and his family’s resources are exhausted. To proceed, they are trying to raise some money.
You can donate to his defense fund at his web site.
-Bob
Great News in the Wilcox-Aldridge Case!
Friday, June 19th, 2020
“COLUMBUS —The state of Ohio will pay $1.2 million to M. Jenny Wilcox and Robert Aldridge, former Huber Heights residents who were wrongfully convicted in 1985 of 23 child molestation charges and told it’d be 60 years before they’d be eligible for parole.
“Wilcox, whose last name is now Reach, will receive $726,315, while Aldridge will be paid $527,255, according to a settlement approved Monday by the Ohio Court of Claims. The state will pay another $646,430 to Cooper & Elliott, the law firm that represented the two.
“Wilcox and Aldridge appealed their convictions and had them overturned in March 1996 — after spending 11 years in prison. The highly sensational case fell apart after it was determined that key information was withheld at trial, testimony was coerced and the state was aware of the possibility that its child witnesses were committing perjury. Three witnesses later recanted as adults.”
Read the article in the Dayton Daily News.
Gross police and prosecutorial misconduct contributed to their wrongful conviction.
Here is a summary of the case from the Dayton Daily News and the entry in The National Registry of Exonerations.
Many allies of the National Center for Reason and Justice made significant contributions to fighting this injustice, including Private Investigator Martin Yant, Dr, Richard Ofsche, Dr. Melvin Guyer, and NCRJ Advisor, Dr. Elizabeth Loftus.
Congratulations to them all, but especially to Jenny Reach and Richard Aldridge!
A life of Shame
Friday, November 22nd, 2019
[Angela Piazza/for Statesman]
“What do you do when you are 25 years old and a county like Williamson County comes after you and you don’t have any money?”
–Troy Mansfield
A chilling case of cruel and unusual prosecutorial misconduct. Read the article by Tony Piohetski in the Austin American-Statesman.
h/t Bill Dobbs of the Dobbs Wire.
The Wrongful Conviction of Bruce Perkins
Saturday, September 21st, 2019
eric hexheimer/houston chronicle
“Swept up in a wave of extraordinary child sex abuse claims in the 1980s and early 1990s, prosecutors across the country charged dozens of parents and caregivers with appalling-sounding acts despite scant physical evidence. Suggestive, leading questioning by untrained police and counselors produced outlandish accusations, including claims of bizarre satanic rituals. Yet an unshakable belief that even young children always tell the truth yielded lengthy prison sentences.”
Read the article by Eric Dexheimer in the Houston Chronicle.
How Confirmation Bias Sends Innocent People to Prison
Saturday, July 27th, 2019
(innocence project)
“While cases like these often feature wrongdoing by individual prosecutors and police officers, a new study suggests the problem is deeper. After analyzing 50 wrongful convictions and other investigative failures, Texas State criminologists Kim Rossmo and Joycelyn Pollock found that confirmation bias, reinforced by groupthink and strong incentives to quickly identify the perpetrators of highly publicized crimes, figures prominently in the mistakes that send innocent people to prison.
“Once police decide they have the right suspect, Rossmo and Pollock report in the Northeastern University Law Review, they tend to develop “tunnel vision” that obscures other possibilities. They become focused on building a case against the person they’ve decided is guilty, ignore or minimize countervailing evidence, and interpret ambiguous evidence in a way that supports their initial conclusions.”
Read the article by Jacob Sullum in Reason.
Wrongfully Convicted Anna Vasquez Named to Houston Forensic Lab Board
Friday, June 7th, 2019
“In 2006, advocates with the National Center for Reason and Justice got involved. The case was one of several they argued were involved with national hysteria around satanic ritual abuse.”
The NCRJ is proud that we could play a part in correcting this injustice.
Read the article by Paul Flahive from Texas Public Radio.
