Wrongful Convictions

It is human nature to try to make sense of nonsense.  In this day and age, every time we hear of another bizarre crime, our minds go to work trying to figure out how such things happen.  How could a family man imprison three women for ten years in the middle of Cleveland, Ohio?  We try to find the reasons.  …

Jeffrey Havard An open letter to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood Written By Lori Howard Office of the MS Attorney General ATTN:  Hon. Jim Hood P.O. Box 220 Jackson, MS 39205 Attorney General Hood, I am writing to you regarding a statement your office made on your behalf to CNN on February 20, 2012: “Our office has the singular responsibility …

A simple, tragic murder is made complicated When British student Meredith Kercher was murdered in Perugia, Italy in 2007, the local police and prosecutor swiftly arrested three people and declared, ‘case closed’.  Two weeks later, local small time crook Rudy Guede was also arrested.  Evidence of his presence littered the room where Meredith died; his DNA was even found in …

     Amanda Knox has published her book, Waiting to Be Heard, and  is engaged in a series of media interviews.  Pundits on both sides have been weighing in and the internet debate about the case rages on.  Exactly what is it about this case which makes it so interesting and controversial?   My theory is that what we have …

A (semi) literary review of “Waiting to Be Heard” by Amanda Knox. “That’s what arrest is: it’s a blinding flash and a blow which shifts the present instantly into the past and the impossible into omnipotent actuality.” Aleksandr Solzenicyn – The Gulag Arcipelago Why “semi”, why not just literary? Because unfortunately this is a book narrating a sad reality and …

   In an earlier article, I wrote about some of the troubling aspects of the prosecution of Amanda Knox and Raffeale Sollecito in Italy.  The failure to tape the interrogations, the arrest and prolonged imprisonment of Lumumba, the destruction of critically important computer hard drives,  and mistakes in the handling of evidence and in crime scene control are just a …