“In my case, the prosecution withheld a lot of information they were supposed to give us with our discovery. The discovery is when the prosecution is supposed to give the defense everything they intend to use against the defendant. They are also supposed to provide any and all exculpatory evidence. The little trick they used was to give the documents back to the agencies that generated them during the investigation. The reason for this is to say that the prosecution did not have them in their possession, and therefore could not turn them over to the defense. An example of this was two statements we discovered around 2003 from Christopher and Mark Mowery. Apparently, my daughter said that these two individuals witness me abusing her. When the police interviewed them, they both said the events she described never occurred. The court ruled that had my original attorney done his due diligence, we would have discovered them prior to trial. Therefore, it was a harmless error. An innocent man in prison is a harmless error.”
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
Documents Withheld; Help Needed — a Prison Post from Shane Crum
July 23rd, 2021Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
Confronting the Registry
July 20th, 2021On July 6, 2021 NCRJ Director Emily Horowitz joined an important discussion of sex-offender registries. Eastern State Penitentiary is a former prison in Philadelphia and is now a National Historic Landmark, open to the public for tours seven days a week. They also sponsor several special events each year, such as “Confronting the Registry.” Please watch the video of this illuminating discussion. Posted with permission from Eastern State Penitentiary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ehqeXABcQk
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
The State Convicted Him of Child Abuse. A Medical Expert Said It Was Likely Diaper Rash
July 1st, 2021
“Newton’s theory of the crime—the basis of the prosecution’s case—was impossible, according to Winfield’s appellate legal team.
“During the 2018 evidentiary hearing, Winfield’s attorneys presented testimony by physician and burn expert Stephen Milner. He had previously been director of the Johns Hopkins Burn Center, surgical director at the Johns Hopkins Wound Center, and director of the Michael D. Hendrix Burn Research Center. He testified that he had performed over 5,000 burn-related procedures. In the Superior Court’s ruling, the judge wrote that the ‘court infers that Milner has seen many more burns and genital burns in children and infants than [Newton].’
Read the article by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg in The Appeal.
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
The Ohio Parole Board – a Prison Post from Shane Crum
June 17th, 2021“Several years ago, as Mike Dewine just became Ohio’s governor, I sent in a “clemency application” to the Ohio Parole Board. The clemency application covers several options for the governor to consider. A pardon is just one of them. In the application, I stated that a pardon is for people who have committed a crime for which the governor could forgive them. I also mentioned that I was an innocent man and did not know if I wanted a pardon. I have committed no crime for which to be forgiven. I went on to say that he could look at the evidence himself by logging onto the website my family had set up for me. We had not yet met Bob Chatelle, and he had not set the other site up. All the evidence files are on the site.”
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
Anger – a Prison Post from Shane Crum
May 31st, 2021I hope some of you are reading these remarkable posts from Shane. He paints a chilling picture of the prison life of an innocent person.
“How many times have you ever been accused of doing something you know you did not do? When that accusation comes, don’t you vehemently deny it? Have you noticed that the more serious the false allegation against you, the more forceful the denial? The most serious and disgusting allegations invoke anger.
“I have been told there are two major differences between those who are guilty, and those who are innocent, in prison. The first is to say that the innocent are always angry. Angry because both the system has failed them in a colossal way, and the accusation remains with them the entire time they are in prison. If it angers you to be falsely accused, then think what it must be like to have that same false allegation pointed at you daily. The second difference is that those who are guilty sleep at night, and those who are innocent do not. Try to imagine being trapped in a nightmare you can not get away from even while you are awake. Your mind will not let things rest, and therefore you do not rest.”
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
Loneliness – A Prison Post from Shane Crum
May 26th, 2021“I am wondering what the word, “lonely” means to all of you? For me, it takes much more of a surreal meaning. It breeds feelings of emotional pain, anxiety, and desperation. I am sure you are saying you feel these things as well. So, let me enlighten you as to what I am really talking about.
“There was a time when I would get to feeling lonely, I would simply find family or a friend to talk to. I would go to their house, call them on the phone, or sometimes they would just show up. I was with people I greatly cared for. All of those feelings would slip away into some place in the back of my mind. Just waiting for the next opportunity to present themselves. Keeping in mind, the internet was not as prevalent in our society when I was a free man as it is now. Social media was in its infancy. From what I can tell, social media has not helped us build our social skills. A cold computer screen does not convey things like, tone of voice, facial and body expressions, or other body language that can express so much more than any written word can. That is another subject I suppose.”
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
The Horror of Being Innocent in Prison: a Post from Shane Crum
May 13th, 2021“Over the years, I saw the strength my Mother had in uncertain times. I do not think anything I did would be considered brave. I still think it is something I needed to go through. So, I just followed my Mother’s example. I stood up and stepped forward. I have been doing this for 25 years now. The fear, uncertainty, and anger have become a part of my everyday life. It is hard to remember what it was to live without those things so very present everyday. The toll it takes on your confidence, your trust in others, and how you view the world is more than anyone should have to pay.
“I am a social pariah to everyone (staff and inmate alike) in prison. The vast majority do not care about my claims of innocence. Even if they would be willing to look at the evidence, their first response is usually something like, ‘You had to do something to get all of that time.’ It really is a no win scenario.”
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
It’s Time to Revisit the Satanic Panic
April 18th, 2021
“Early in the 1980s, baseless conspiracy theories about cults committing mass child abuse spread around the country. Talk shows and news programs fanned fears, and the authorities investigated hundreds of allegations. Even as cases slowly collapsed and skepticism prevailed, defendants went to prison, families were traumatized and millions of dollars were spent on prosecutions.”
Read the article by Alan Yuhas in The New York Times.
And register for this important free event sponsored by the NCRJ.
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
Is QAnon reviving Satanic Panic?
April 16th, 2021
Friends of Justice is a personal blog. Here I speak only for myself.
Stranger Danger
April 9th, 2021https://youtu.be/v71MsDLV7ig
On 3/5/21 Paul Renfro and Emily Horowitz had a conversation about Paul’s new book: Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State (Oxford University Press, 2020).
Beginning with Etan Patz’s disappearance in Manhattan in 1979, a spate of high-profile cases of missing and murdered children stoked anxieties about the threats of child kidnapping and exploitation. Publicized through an emerging twenty-four-hour news cycle, these cases supplied evidence of what some commentators dubbed “a national epidemic” of child abductions committed by “strangers.”
In this book, Paul M. Renfro (Assistant Professor of History, Florida State University) narrates how the bereaved parents of missing and slain children turned their grief into a mass movement and, alongside journalists and policymakers from both major political parties, propelled a moral panic. Leveraging larger cultural fears concerning familial and national decline, these child safety crusaders warned Americans of a supposedly widespread and worsening child kidnapping threat, erroneously claiming that as many as fifty thousand American children fell victim to stranger abductions annually. The actual figure was (and remains) between one hundred and three hundred, and kidnappings perpetrated by family members and acquaintances occur far more frequently. Yet such exaggerated statistics-and the emotionally resonant images and narratives deployed behind them-led to the creation of new legal and cultural instruments designed to keep children safe and to punish the “strangers” who ostensibly wished them harm. Ranging from extensive child fingerprinting drives to the milk carton campaign, from the AMBER Alerts that periodically rattle Americans’ smart phones to the nation’s sprawling system of sex offender registration, these instruments have widened the reach of the carceral state and intensified surveillance practices focused on children.
Stranger Danger reveals the transformative power of this moral panic on American politics and culture, showing how ideas and images of endangered childhood helped build a more punitive American state.
