Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
See Also
Finally Free, San Antonio 4 Want Full Exoneration from Texas Public Radio
From NBC.com:
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Please support our work: http://ncrj.org/donate/
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
(Kristie Mayhugh, Cassandra Rivera, Elizabeth Ramirez, Anna vasquez — photo by Debbie Nathan)
The National Center for Reason and Justice has sponsored the San Antonio 4 since we learned about their plight, in 2008. Before Anna, Cassie, Kristie and Elizabeth found us, they’d written to other groups asking for help but were turned down.
NCRJ is a unique, watchdog group. One of our missions is identifying false allegations of harm to children, including sexual abuse. We investigated the San Antonio 4 case and discovered that the medical evidence which helped convict the women was severely flawed. We were the first to receive a call from one of the alleged victims when she came forward to recant her accusations. We recruited the Innocence Project of Texas (IPTX) to do legal work.
NCRJ is overjoyed that, with our assistance and IPTX’s, as well as that of a growing and vibrant support community, these women are on the road to freedom and hopefully exoneration.
But the road is long. In America, anyone accused of hurting children is automatically condemned as the lowest of the low. Such people find it almost impossible to get help to preserve their due process rights, even from those who otherwise passionately defend civil and human rights.
This has to change. This is why NCRJ sponsors cases like the San Antonio 4 and others nationwide. We do this to help free innocent people and make the criminal justice system more rational, humane, and just. We do it so people can learn about the larger issues embedded in these cases, then confront them. What are these issues?
For one, what happened to the San Antonio 4 shows how easy it is in America for ordinary people to be falsely accused, denied due process, and banished from society. All kinds of ordinary people get caught up in our justice system. Some are more vulnerable than others.
Anna, Kristie, Elizabeth and Cassie are lesbians. The authorities knew that back in 1990s. As their case shows, gay people are not always protected by the criminal justice system. On the contrary, they can be targeted. The San Antonio 4 are low-income people of color—also easy targets for our culture’s growing anxieties and tendency to maintain order by accusing, punishing, and ostracizing.
As the criminal justice system can railroad the innocent, it tramples the civil and human rights of people who have committed crimes. Child sex abuse is a terrible crime. But using society’s revulsion for this crime, the system has employed sex offenders as a wedge to treat every accused person with increasing harshness both in prison and afterward—sometimes for a lifetime.
Even guilty people have human and due process rights. Yet even when they have served their time and paid their debt to society, they are typically banished from the community, undermining their ability to reintegrate as law-abiding people, and hurting their families and communities.
One form of banishment is the sex offender registry and accompanying restrictions on housing, work, travel, and social life. These policies do not protect children. In fact, studies show that they may put children at increased risk. These rules are often senselessly cruel.
More than two million people are in prison in the U.S. Per capita, and in pure numbers, we incarcerate more people than any other country. Many good people are disturbed by this. Many worry about the barbaric way that the accused and convicted get treated. But when confronted with people labeled as child abusers, many good people stop thinking.
This situation endangers us all. As long as we allow some people to be turned into pariahs, the justice system will be able to get away with injustice—denying due process to anyone and everyone.
That’s why the San Antonio 4 case is nationally important. That’s why NCRJ is proud to support Anna, Cassie, Kristie, and Elizabeth.
Please support our work: http://ncrj.org/donate/
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
(Kristie Mayhugh, Cassandra Rivera, Elizabeth Ramirez, Anna Vasquez — photo by Debbie Nathan)
From Associated Press via ABC News:
“Their case came to the attention of attorneys affiliated with the nonprofit Innocence Project of Texas and National Center for Reason and Justice more than a decade after the women were imprisoned. The groups investigate potential wrongful conviction cases and Mike Ware, an attorney for the women who has worked on the case for two years, filed petitions on their behalf last month with the state appeals court.”
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/attorneys-san-antonio-free-20925304
Some more press:
4 released San Antonio Women to Pursue Exoneration — from Huffington Post
San Antonio Four Freed After Years In Prison — from San Antonio Current
4 released San Antonio Women to Pursue Exoneration — from Associated Press
The San Antonio Four are Finally Free from Texas Monthly
Please support our work: http://ncrj.org/donate/
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
The NCRJ brought this case to the Innocence Project of Texas. We recognized the junk science presented at trial and educated the attorneys, the media, and local supporters.
3 of ‘San Antonio 4’ to be released pending new trial decision, lawyer says
from NBC News
Three of San Antonio Four could go free after judge grants bail from The Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/18/san-antonio-four-granted-bail-free
Please support our work: http://ncrj.org/donate/
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
“More than a decade later, their case came to the attention of attorneys affiliated with the nonprofit Innocence Project of Texas, which investigates potential wrongful conviction cases and pushes for criminal justice reforms.”
It was the National Center for Reason and Justice that brought this case to the attention on the Innocence Project of Texas.
http://www.statesman.com/news/ap/crime/apnewsbreak-san-antonio-4-could-soon-go-free/nbs9D/
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
The National Center for Reason and Justice took up the case in 2008, enlisting legal defense help from the Innocence Project of Texas three years ago. Lawyers with the Innocence Project said one of the two child victims (now an adult) recanted testimony last summer, saying her father “coerced and coached her into making false allegations against her aunt and three friends.”
From the San Antonio Current
http://blogs.sacurrent.com/thedaily/new-hope-for-san-antonio-four/
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
Joseph’s lawyer emailed me a while ago. Joseph has been released from solitary and is now in the general population.
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
“Allen had served roughly 15 years before he was released, along with codefendant Nancy Smith, in 2009 by Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge, who later acquitted the pair. Smith and Allen originally were found guilty by a jury in 1994 of molesting 4- and 5-year-old children on Smith’s Head Start bus route, allegations they have long denied. – See more at: http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2013/10/26/joseph-allen-has-chance-for-parole-next-year.”
From the Lorain Chronicle-Telegram:
http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2013/10/26/joseph-allen-has-chance-for-parole-next-year/
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
I finally heard from Joseph Allen today. Here are a few excerpts from his letter: (some grammar and spelling corrections were applied)
“The reason that no one’s heard from me or received any phone calls is because the prison on 10/10/13 put me in the hole because my case is high profile. And I’ve been in the hole ever since. I do not see how they can keep me in the hole because my case is high-profile. My case has been high-profile since November 1993. They seem to be doing everything wrong to me in trying to keep me away from talking to all the inmates. No inmates have ever given me a problem about my case. They know about it and they all speak well of me. They should not have me in the hole like this. They won’t even allow me to call anyone but one time on Wednesday late at night. Only once. They seem like they are trying to keep me from being in the news of from having freedom of speech. The prison staff wants me silenced. I need someone to contact me, some one to help put a stop to them holding me in the hole. I need a lawyer to come see me here so I can let him know what is going on against me in here by some of the staff.”
…
“I need to be out of here so I can make phone calls or talk with the inmates. I don’t have anyone I can talk to, being in the hole like this. They won’t even allow me to watch TV or go to the law library or religious services. All day and all night I see nothing but the wall of the cell. Most of the time it is very cold in the cell.
“And every time the CO’s take me anywhere they always handcuff me and my legs too. I haven’t been to any programs in here because they won’t allow me to say nothing in here. I asked them for a holy King James Bible and a dictionary and I still haven’t got them.”
…
“I do not read any newspapers or watch TV. I do not know if they will allow me to receive newspapers.”
There is no reason to keep Joseph Allen in solitary confinement and to subject him to this kind of inhumane treatment. I suspect the prison does this in response to political pressure. His innocence is likely a great embarrassment to some powerful people in Ohio.
Since Joseph is not allowed books, magazines, newspapers, or TV. It is important to his sanity that he receive cards and letters. Cards and letters will also remind the prison authorities that there are people outside the walls that care about him. His address:
Joseph Lee Allen
#A293-486
Lorain Correctional Institution
2975 South Avon Beldon Road
Grafton OH 44044
Joseph can’t get through this terrible ordeal without the help and support of his friends and people who still care about justice.
-Bob Chatelle
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
“Much evidence was not seen by the jury, most damning to prosecutors was a videotape of parents and even detectives coaching the children to pick Allen out of a line up, even pinching a child to get a reaction when asked to look at Allen. The jury never saw it.”
Copyright 2008-2025 Bob Chatelle. Design by Fort Hill Design.
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