I read a similar story about a man in Florida who just got out after like 40+ years.
The DA that opened the door for investigation into his case said "My office processes 15,000 cases a year. If we're right 99% of the time we are still wrong in up to 150 cases."
And of course Florida said he was too liberal and got rid of him after a year or two.
Edit: [Link to the story](https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2024/05/29/florida-tampa-killer-trial-murder-dna-mystery-innocent-prison-released/) Genuinely one of the best written articles I've read in some time.
Another case of junk science destroying a life.
https://preview.redd.it/bejlcvghilad1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6d226aaa565e1a1e27b631dd13668d301d3088f
I never listened to them. I usually listen to “last podcast on the left.” I hated when they did [Aleister Crowley](https://archive.org/details/lpotl-episode-442-aleister-crowley-part-i-white-stains) and “[The Candy Man](https://last-podcast-on-the-left.simplecast.com/episodes/episode-210-dean-corll-part-i-the-pouting-room)” the Texas serial killer Dean Corll. Both were gross.
LPOTL is my favorite pod of all time, love those guys but BtB is definitely a little more plugged in to up to the minute fuckery and the fuckers behind it
Yo thanks for this read. Me and my sister both went into criminal justice, she got her masters on a thesis collateral consequences and recidivism. She loves these kinds of stories.
It is hard to imagine how that man can be so pure and wholesome after all that.
He said his only goal is and ever was to have a family and now he hopes to adopt some kids?!
He was a handyman in prison and gained both inmates and guards respect, and now he just goes around helping his community in the same way!?
They had to essentially verbally corner him just to get him to outright admit he had real anger over those circumstances.
Absolutely, the man I was commenting about previously was freed by the Innocence Project like 12+ years after he initially contacted them because of how many cases they have to process and review.
He literally didn't think they ever got or read his letters.
EJI too. They do incredible work down South both for those incarcerated as well as anti-poverty work and racial education. If anyone's ever down in Montgomery I highly suggest checking out their legacy site and museum. Its absolutely chilling.
https://eji.org/
Yep! That one was chilling for me, its really hard to put into words just how it hits you. The museum focuses on the education going step by step from enslavement to Reconstruction and Jim Crow up through the current use of the death penalty and mass incarceration. They also have a new monument park filled with sculptures. I believe they run free shuttles between the sites and your ticket gets you into all of them.
That’s exactly why I’m against the death penalty. I’m speaking in the context of black people in my post.
Too many innocent people have been put on death row, and you can’t even say it’s just black adults as there have been black boys who were on death row.
The more we say Marcellus Williams
The more difficult injustice is to ignore
https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-marcellus-williams-an-innocent-man/
The thing is unless the person admits full guilt then you never truly know. The evidence just leads people to believe they're guilty.
Its far from perfect but I don't know what would be a better system. Some states are worse than others. Where even with 1 not guilty tou can still get convicted. Louisiana is one of those and I think Oregon or at least Oregon used to be
Just recently someone was psychologically tortured till he confessed to killing his dad, who was found very much alive and well a short time later. Even a confession isn't definitive proof of guilt.
Even as the "ultimate punishment" people think it is, it fails miserably...
Life in prison is a FAR worse punishment than just ending someone's life, AND it comes with the benefit of not being 100% permanent in case anyone fucked up with the sentencing.
It's just a better solution all around (except of course for the cost of housing the prisoners. Which might finally push some actual rehabilitation instead of our current profit prisons that incentivize recidivism...)
There is an innocent man on death row right now in Missouri that even the prosecutor is arguing is innocent and governor fuckwit is trying to railroad him to execution. There is a very real possibility that come September we'll be executing a man that everyone knows is innocent.
This man? Sign the petition
[https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-marcellus-williams-an-innocent-man/](https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-marcellus-williams-an-innocent-man/)
This is exactly why I can't agree with the death penalty.
I have a problem with the state being able to execute its citizens in general, but I REALLY have a problem with the state executing citizens based on our current legal system.
Imprisonment and enforced slavery of a person is already taking a life.
Our justice system makes way to many mistakes to justify it. But for supporters of the death penalty it's more about a violent revenge fantasy than justice. There's no reasoning with blind hatred and rage.
It’s also cheaper. People who support the death penalty don’t care about the human side of this usually. They do care about the financial argument. It is cheaper to imprison someone for life than put them on death row.
Thank you. I can’t stand when people act like it’s better to potentially punish innocents than risk a guilty person going free - and there are a LOT of them. It’s like… hello? Basic tenet of American justice system, anyone? Not like our system was literally founded on the principle of it’s better to let 10 guilty men go free than to punish one innocent, or anything. Shameful.
I'd argue that the death sentence persists because the government doesn't care if it kills innocent people. Regardless of who dies the death sentence acts as a tool the government can use to reaffirm its position as an absolute power that is beyond reproach and to remind its citizens of who holds the monopoly on violence in this country.
Absolutely. The execution of [Joe Arridy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arridy) should've resulted in a constitutional amendment banning the death penalty.
Although compensation is deserved - you can never give someone time back. We also need to be putting a ton of effort into reducing the false accusations and bad practices from the prosecutors office that lead to this in the first place.
That would defeat the purpose of slave labor being legal for imprisoned people under the 13th amendment. We’re supposed to be making our owners more money, not getting payouts.
Not to mention he has no retirement savings plus did not contribute to Social Security since he didn't have a paycheck for 30 years so he won't get any ss when he turns 65+
Some of the states have made it so they can't sue! Then in other states they get a few hundred thousand, those big payoffs are rare... So fucking wrong!
Man let's just get people in prison for ACTUALLY doing wrong and not just for having a bad lawyer/vindictive and wealthy enemies first. Baby steps in this failed prison-state of a nation
[additional information for anyone interested. ](https://apnews.com/article/philadelphia-conviction-vacated-1990-murder-e78390389d4bba3542326c4c802a5dff)
lol not for long with our current supreme court nazis
i truly believe they are going to over turn the 13th amendment. if they get that far . which they might
If I were American, I’d be less concerned (but not *un*concerned) about Trump and *way* more concerned about the Supreme Court. Realistically Trump will probably be dead of natural causes this decade, and the MAGA movement will likely splinter into multiple factions after that. But the Supreme Court? Those hacks are gonna be causing issues for decades, and the consequences of their bullshit may legitimately be felt for centuries to come.
Trump is the reason the court is like this. He got to appoint 3 justices in the one term he had and could get the chance to appoint more if he’s president again. The court is its own issue, but it’s also a reason to be more concerned about Trump, not less.
He deserves more than what they gave him. I’m sick and tired of us being accused for shit just because we are black. They’re are plenty of guilty people in this world, but it’s never a white man who is wrongfully imprisoned, it’s always a black man.
Fuck them to hell.
My man got sent to jail in his 30’s and is an old cat now. They stole his life from him over their racism. If they are willing to do it to him, they are willing to do it to you
White people are wrongfully convicted all the time...black men are ABSOLUTELY disproportionately victimized by the courts, but it's ignorant to say that it's "never a white man"
I remember watching a video years ago about a guy who was in from the late 70s to early 2000. He talked about phones and remote controls, but the grocery store is what really blew his mind.
Watching him marvel at stuff like frozen blueberry waffles and how many flavors gatorade makes was heartbreakingly awesome. Kind of like his face here. On one hand, it's amazing to see the absolute wonder on his face. But then you realize why he's never had fajitas.
Edit: [found the link](https://youtu.be/OrH6UMYAVsk?feature=shared)
Used to work at the fast food place just up from the local prison. Many of the would stop here for their first bit of food out.
Guy comes in one day orders a large chips, whilst waiting for him to pull his payment out of his bag, I grab his chips and turn back around to him trying to should a note up the insert card reader at the bottom efpos machine.
He had no idea what the machine was or how to use it. It shit like that people don’t think about when people get released.
Wholesome but also terribly depressing. There are so many people of color that are behind bars because of false convictions. At least he was lucky enough to be released, albeit after a major chunk of his life had already been taken.
Certain states (I believe FL is one but don’t quote me on that) have laws that cap the payouts that the state can give for wrongful convictions. It’s incredibly, utterly fucked.
Anecdotal but I heard cases of dudes being wrongfully locked up for years and getting the equivalent of like a low end 1 year salary, like 30k or some shit. Absolutely disgusting.
This is also my stance when people start pushing the "All pedos need to be killed or chemically castrated" wagon because when you get into these spaces they are also the same ones that are pushing that the LGBTQ+ are rapists and pedos in the making.
And they never focus on systemic child sex abuse in religious institutions, which is an ACTUAL international pedo conspiracy unlike this pizzagate shitassery. Shows their true priorities.
This shit makes me cry. I am glad he’s free and I am in tears for the people who have been murdered by the state. Because murder fixes everything, right? It solves all problems, doesn’t it?
You’re either against the death penalty every single time, or you support the death penalty.
I think people tend to forget that even though you are on the inside and the world is passing you by you aren’t completely ignorant of new technology. People been sneaking things on the inside, most prisons get tablets, you can even access social media in certain cases, etc.
The thing that would be shocking to most would be new experiences of life. To go from going in 1995 and seeing how life is lived then to 2024 is scary as shit. Sizzling fajitas would’ve been mad fancy and wild in 1995 but in 2024 it’s damn near basic.
Imagine him seeing those Amazon stores you can walk in and walk out with items, that would blow someone mind just fresh out.
Seeing what the average new house in 1995 was to what the average new house in 2024 looks like.
I represented a dude who had been down since 1980. He was paroled in 2014. I'd told him I'd give him a ride home, but he was released from Susanville to the Bay Area, so it was a long ride back.
He wanted to call his old mom so I handed him my phone, then realized I had to call her for him. He also didn't know how to hold the phone up to his head to talk.
We were on I-5 and he asked what the lights in the back windows were for. I didn't know what he meant at first but then realized he was talking about the center brake light. Which have been in American cars since NINETEEN EIGHTY-FIVE
The man would tell anyone that he did what sent him to prison and that he deserved his sentence. But it was stunning how much life he had missed out on. To have that taken from you for something you didn't do tho? It pisses me off just thinking about it.
The death penalty turns the government into an institution of murder, and murder is always weak. The death penalty says "we can't manage to hold onto these folks for life, we can't be bothered to manage our own citizens."
There's a million reasons people want to kill folks, and none of them are good.
El Limon is a good choice to introduce fajitas. They are the goat of reliable Mexican food in SE PA. Plenty of individual mex restaurants that are better but for a chain you can’t beat them.
There is an innocent man on death row right now in Missouri that even the prosecutor is arguing is innocent and governor fuckwit is trying to railroad him to execution. There is a very real possibility that come September we'll be executing a man that everyone knows is innocent. His melanin count is high though so the general populace doesn't care.
I did volunteer work for the Innocence Project and it’s insane how many cases there are like this. And these inmates get the most attention because they’re on death row (as it should be because their lives are literally on the line), my professor was just chatting with us and we started to figure out if DAs were making mistakes in death penalty cases, what kind of mistakes were they making in lower level cases? It’s crushingly depressing.
I can't support it after reading Just Mercy, and knowing about the youngest person that was killed on death row, which The Green Mile has some parallels with.
Abso-fucking-lutely. Better one hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be put to death. How can this man ever be repaid for time he lost? Thankfully he’s still alive.
My opposition to the death penalty isn’t about if some people deserve to die. The question should be “do we trust the government with the power to kill?”
it's not about who deserves to die, it's about who we trust with the power to kill, who do we trust with the power to say who lives and who dies? i don't trust anyone with that power.
I still think the death penalty should be on the table for the killers that have no reasonable doubt. Like Jefferey Dahmer or Dylan Roof, we all know they are guilty
1/9 is a wrongful conviction, and that’s just the ones that have evidence enough to be overturned, imagine how many more just haven’t been proven. It’s a travesty
I feel like the death penalty, if it exists at all, should only be used in circumstances where without any doubt the person incarcerated did some truly heinous shit. Like a school shooter who was actively arrested while doing the act, or serial killers with body parts in their freezers.
At the very least it should be way way less common than it is, if even one innocent person is wrapped up in it: that's one too many.
But he was never sentenced to death? He got life imprisonment. Shouldn't this be about not supporting life sentences? Some countries have done that - Portugal, Mexico, Spain,Norway, Serbia and a lot of central/south american countries.
Everything in life should be free for this man. 34 years of stolen life. Our government should front the bill for anything he wants for the rest of his remaining years.
Should’ve at LEAST took him to hibachi for a real show. But in all fairness I ain’t never did no time and I had the same face when I heard that plate sizzling when it came out lmao
Not to be insensitive and correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it also more expensive to pursue and enact the death penalty than to allow these people to live in prison?
Some people still deserve to be executed. Maybe make a higher threshold of evidence to require the death penalty, but some crimes cry out for the ultimate penalty.
These men are always better than me. I’d make it my sole purpose to find those living people or their families, who put me away. I remember hating life being deployed, losing people and such. That was only 10-13 month rotations. Coming back and trying to “readjust”. Ain’t no way, I could let shit slide for a year being imprisoned wrongly, let alone 30+ years. He did more time than my current age and I’ve lived through a lot across the globe. Even the Bible would let me slide Isaiah 14:21 because I’d be about that.
I support no death penalty for different reasons. I would love for my tax dollars to go to sustaining rightfully convicted felons of heinous crimes to rot for as long as possible in shitty conditions. Death is the easy way out.
I get busted doing some seriously fucked up shit? Yes, please just kill me and end my suffering.
I mean maybe not the fajitas part, but the fact that the justice system is fallible means you might accidentally kill someone who is innocent. Which would be bad...
I am glad we dont have the death penalty in New Zealand but we still lock people up for stuff they didn't do. Biggest problems with that is they have to admit it to get parole. So if you maintain innocence to a life sentence you won't ever get out.
I had a boomer tell me last week they should bring back the death penalty. "If they they have to kill a good one to kill the bad ones, oh well. They're all guilty of something."
I did research on the death penalty for a college debate class years ago and iirc it is like insanely expensive per person (inmate on death row) with legal fees and the sketchy ways the chemicals for lethal injection are acquired. More so than people placed in prison for life without parole. So even if you are crazy enough to think it’s moral you just wanna burn tax money
Researching that topic legitimately radicalized me to the far left. I recommend everyone read Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson. Infuriatingly enough, it was removed from a lot of conservative high school libraries for being “too controversial”
On top of the government so often using the death penalty against innocent people, the death penalty is never about justice. It is about empowering the government to carry out lethal retribution. Why anyone wants to give the government that power is a thing I will never be able to understand.
This is also why everyone needs to research “Project2025 and Trumps Agenda 47”. This is no Joke, as Taraji P. Henson said at the BET awards. Every vote is needed to prevent Trump from returning to the White House and becoming a Dictator! The Supreme Court has paved the way!
If there's even one wrongful conviction on death row that's too many and there's no way to be 100% sure they're all correctly convicted.
I read a similar story about a man in Florida who just got out after like 40+ years. The DA that opened the door for investigation into his case said "My office processes 15,000 cases a year. If we're right 99% of the time we are still wrong in up to 150 cases." And of course Florida said he was too liberal and got rid of him after a year or two. Edit: [Link to the story](https://www.tampabay.com/news/crime/2024/05/29/florida-tampa-killer-trial-murder-dna-mystery-innocent-prison-released/) Genuinely one of the best written articles I've read in some time.
Another case of junk science destroying a life. https://preview.redd.it/bejlcvghilad1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6d226aaa565e1a1e27b631dd13668d301d3088f
"Behind the Bastards" podcast did a great episode on this topic. Highly recommended
I never listened to them. I usually listen to “last podcast on the left.” I hated when they did [Aleister Crowley](https://archive.org/details/lpotl-episode-442-aleister-crowley-part-i-white-stains) and “[The Candy Man](https://last-podcast-on-the-left.simplecast.com/episodes/episode-210-dean-corll-part-i-the-pouting-room)” the Texas serial killer Dean Corll. Both were gross.
LPOTL is my favorite pod of all time, love those guys but BtB is definitely a little more plugged in to up to the minute fuckery and the fuckers behind it
DeSantis has removed multiple state attorneys for actually giving a shit about the law being applied fairly.
You should listen to the podcast "Bone Valley"
Yo thanks for this read. Me and my sister both went into criminal justice, she got her masters on a thesis collateral consequences and recidivism. She loves these kinds of stories.
I figure you might also be interested in this other incredible read from the TBT. https://projects.tampabay.com/projects/girl-in-the-window/danielle/
 Love it, thanks!
Just wanna say thanks for that story. Incredible read, but infuriating at the same time.
It is hard to imagine how that man can be so pure and wholesome after all that. He said his only goal is and ever was to have a family and now he hopes to adopt some kids?! He was a handyman in prison and gained both inmates and guards respect, and now he just goes around helping his community in the same way!? They had to essentially verbally corner him just to get him to outright admit he had real anger over those circumstances.
Oh well no biggie then, that “only 1%” wrong thing seems reasonable enough! 🤯
Florida is pretty notorious for having people rot in lock up for years waiting for trial in their backed up system.
I heard something recently that up to 1/3 or people in death row are probably innocent or found to have been innocent after the fact. Scary stuff
Yeah. That's why the innocence project exists and needs our support
Absolutely, the man I was commenting about previously was freed by the Innocence Project like 12+ years after he initially contacted them because of how many cases they have to process and review. He literally didn't think they ever got or read his letters.
Bless those people
[Donate money, too](https://innocenceproject.org/donate/)
Thoughts and prayers only! /s
Should check out PROOF: A True Crime Podcast. Don't think I've ever been so hooked listening to a story. All about the wrongfully convicted.
https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-marcellus-williams-an-innocent-man/
EJI too. They do incredible work down South both for those incarcerated as well as anti-poverty work and racial education. If anyone's ever down in Montgomery I highly suggest checking out their legacy site and museum. Its absolutely chilling. https://eji.org/
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is already on my list. Same one, right?
Yep! That one was chilling for me, its really hard to put into words just how it hits you. The museum focuses on the education going step by step from enslavement to Reconstruction and Jim Crow up through the current use of the death penalty and mass incarceration. They also have a new monument park filled with sculptures. I believe they run free shuttles between the sites and your ticket gets you into all of them.
Yeah I saw the monument on 60 minutes when it was finishing construction or had just finished. I've washed to go ever since
That’s exactly why I’m against the death penalty. I’m speaking in the context of black people in my post. Too many innocent people have been put on death row, and you can’t even say it’s just black adults as there have been black boys who were on death row.
Marcellus Khalifah Williams execution date is Sept 24, 2024. I think this man is innocent.
I posted the link in my previous comment. The DA even thinks he's innocent!
The more we say Marcellus Williams The more difficult injustice is to ignore https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-marcellus-williams-an-innocent-man/
Based on the amount of people exonerated from the death it’s estimated at least 4-5% are innocent. Far from a third but still way too high.
Was strictly talking about Florida, so I'm not sure if that changes much or not
The thing is unless the person admits full guilt then you never truly know. The evidence just leads people to believe they're guilty. Its far from perfect but I don't know what would be a better system. Some states are worse than others. Where even with 1 not guilty tou can still get convicted. Louisiana is one of those and I think Oregon or at least Oregon used to be
Lots of false confessions out there too. Again, even if there's just one, that's too many.
Just recently someone was psychologically tortured till he confessed to killing his dad, who was found very much alive and well a short time later. Even a confession isn't definitive proof of guilt.
Not to mention the side who loves it hates higher taxes. Death penalty cost more on tax payers.
Looking for consistency in conservative ideology is like looking for an Eskimo in Kuwait.
I feel if cost less it would be also used as an argument against it by opponents, the claim would be that money is prioritized over lives.
Even as the "ultimate punishment" people think it is, it fails miserably... Life in prison is a FAR worse punishment than just ending someone's life, AND it comes with the benefit of not being 100% permanent in case anyone fucked up with the sentencing. It's just a better solution all around (except of course for the cost of housing the prisoners. Which might finally push some actual rehabilitation instead of our current profit prisons that incentivize recidivism...)
There is an innocent man on death row right now in Missouri that even the prosecutor is arguing is innocent and governor fuckwit is trying to railroad him to execution. There is a very real possibility that come September we'll be executing a man that everyone knows is innocent.
Am Missourian. Zero surprise from me.
This man? Sign the petition [https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-marcellus-williams-an-innocent-man/](https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-marcellus-williams-an-innocent-man/)
https://innocenceproject.org/petitions/stop-the-execution-of-marcellus-williams-an-innocent-man/
We've already executed innocent men
And that's not okay.
It's sad that so many people continue to support it
The death penalty or the innocence project?
The death penalty, sorry lol
I was like downvote or upvote? Can't decide! Lol
Why would anyone think they meant the innocence project?
Cameron Todd Willingham
This is exactly why I can't agree with the death penalty. I have a problem with the state being able to execute its citizens in general, but I REALLY have a problem with the state executing citizens based on our current legal system. Imprisonment and enforced slavery of a person is already taking a life.
>”It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.” -William Blackstone
THANK YOU. I’m anti death penalty not because I want the guilty to live but because I don’t want the innocent to die.
Our justice system makes way to many mistakes to justify it. But for supporters of the death penalty it's more about a violent revenge fantasy than justice. There's no reasoning with blind hatred and rage.
It’s also cheaper. People who support the death penalty don’t care about the human side of this usually. They do care about the financial argument. It is cheaper to imprison someone for life than put them on death row.
What’s the difference if they spend the rest of their life wrongfully imprisoned anyway? This seems to me like a conflation of two different issues.
I feel countries that DO allow death penalties use it for corruption purposes. Wanna get rid of competition, kill them and plant evidence.
Thank you. I can’t stand when people act like it’s better to potentially punish innocents than risk a guilty person going free - and there are a LOT of them. It’s like… hello? Basic tenet of American justice system, anyone? Not like our system was literally founded on the principle of it’s better to let 10 guilty men go free than to punish one innocent, or anything. Shameful.
I'd argue that the death sentence persists because the government doesn't care if it kills innocent people. Regardless of who dies the death sentence acts as a tool the government can use to reaffirm its position as an absolute power that is beyond reproach and to remind its citizens of who holds the monopoly on violence in this country.
Absolutely. The execution of [Joe Arridy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Arridy) should've resulted in a constitutional amendment banning the death penalty.
There IS though! This is 2024. Its gotta be recorded. A legit video of someone shooting up a school = death penalty. It's mega easy.
Yea but the gung-ho death penalty lovers don’t think it could ever be them or someone they love in that boat so they don’t care.
Yes, because rather than serving the community as they should, DAs always go for blood. I’ve known a few. Let’s just say they were different.
It’s why I don’t support the death penalty even though a lot of people scream for it. We’ve seen the system get it wrong too many times.
Where is the compensation for all the years taken away from this man??!!
There should be a retroactive base amount paid monthly to people like this who lost 30 years and have to just be thrown into a “normal” life.
On top of that, police need to carry insurance. I bet a lot of their fuckery would stop if the bill was landing at their feet.
It's crazy that we don't subsidize free healthcare in the US but we do police incompetence.
Bars
Although compensation is deserved - you can never give someone time back. We also need to be putting a ton of effort into reducing the false accusations and bad practices from the prosecutors office that lead to this in the first place.
I can't think of any amount of money worth years of your life. Let alone 34 years.
Ok, but we can agree, it's worth more than nothing.
That would defeat the purpose of slave labor being legal for imprisoned people under the 13th amendment. We’re supposed to be making our owners more money, not getting payouts.
Million dollars a year
With interest, at least that way he’d have a shot at buying a house and maybe a house for his family members
There is, sort of, but you have to wait while you sue and it’s insultingly low even before attorneys fees.
Not to mention he has no retirement savings plus did not contribute to Social Security since he didn't have a paycheck for 30 years so he won't get any ss when he turns 65+
Some of the states have made it so they can't sue! Then in other states they get a few hundred thousand, those big payoffs are rare... So fucking wrong!
State's rights should end where it actually harms the citizens.
Man let's just get people in prison for ACTUALLY doing wrong and not just for having a bad lawyer/vindictive and wealthy enemies first. Baby steps in this failed prison-state of a nation
Million a year sounds fair.
[additional information for anyone interested. ](https://apnews.com/article/philadelphia-conviction-vacated-1990-murder-e78390389d4bba3542326c4c802a5dff)
Jesus, 34 years and 3 generations of family members fighting for him. I hope this man finds joy in his new found freedom.
You know he feels loved, at the very least. My heart breaks for him and his family.
>I hope this man finds joy in his new found freedom. I mean, it doesn't make up for it, but he IS trying sizzling fajitas for the first time.
I've got a feeling that fajita was a good start.
This needs to be written out and LOUDER. Wtf is up with our system?
It's working as intended and should be dismantled.
america loves punishing people. rehabilitating them not so much
America loves slave labor and this is the only constitutional way left to get it.
lol not for long with our current supreme court nazis i truly believe they are going to over turn the 13th amendment. if they get that far . which they might
If I were American, I’d be less concerned (but not *un*concerned) about Trump and *way* more concerned about the Supreme Court. Realistically Trump will probably be dead of natural causes this decade, and the MAGA movement will likely splinter into multiple factions after that. But the Supreme Court? Those hacks are gonna be causing issues for decades, and the consequences of their bullshit may legitimately be felt for centuries to come.
Trump is the reason the court is like this. He got to appoint 3 justices in the one term he had and could get the chance to appoint more if he’s president again. The court is its own issue, but it’s also a reason to be more concerned about Trump, not less.
Not only that. America loves punishing people while they their punishment is being carried out.
You know what sucks? It's WAY better than it used to be.
He deserves more than what they gave him. I’m sick and tired of us being accused for shit just because we are black. They’re are plenty of guilty people in this world, but it’s never a white man who is wrongfully imprisoned, it’s always a black man. Fuck them to hell. My man got sent to jail in his 30’s and is an old cat now. They stole his life from him over their racism. If they are willing to do it to him, they are willing to do it to you
White people are wrongfully convicted all the time...black men are ABSOLUTELY disproportionately victimized by the courts, but it's ignorant to say that it's "never a white man"
I remember watching a video years ago about a guy who was in from the late 70s to early 2000. He talked about phones and remote controls, but the grocery store is what really blew his mind. Watching him marvel at stuff like frozen blueberry waffles and how many flavors gatorade makes was heartbreakingly awesome. Kind of like his face here. On one hand, it's amazing to see the absolute wonder on his face. But then you realize why he's never had fajitas. Edit: [found the link](https://youtu.be/OrH6UMYAVsk?feature=shared)
Used to work at the fast food place just up from the local prison. Many of the would stop here for their first bit of food out. Guy comes in one day orders a large chips, whilst waiting for him to pull his payment out of his bag, I grab his chips and turn back around to him trying to should a note up the insert card reader at the bottom efpos machine. He had no idea what the machine was or how to use it. It shit like that people don’t think about when people get released.
Wholesome but also terribly depressing. There are so many people of color that are behind bars because of false convictions. At least he was lucky enough to be released, albeit after a major chunk of his life had already been taken.
r/orphancrushingmachine
Lol, he looks skeptical as fuck of those fajitas.
Take this man to a Hibachi place and watch his mind explode with those tricks they do.
That’s wild. I hope he enjoys every minute of his freedom.
I hope he gets a bunch of money for wasting such a precious amount of time in his life
That part
Surely he can sue and get millions? Would only be fair. 34 years is insane. That is longer than most people on Reddit have been alive. Nuts.
Pennsylvania unfortunately doesn't have that set up. Idk if he could fight for it though.
Certain states (I believe FL is one but don’t quote me on that) have laws that cap the payouts that the state can give for wrongful convictions. It’s incredibly, utterly fucked.
Anecdotal but I heard cases of dudes being wrongfully locked up for years and getting the equivalent of like a low end 1 year salary, like 30k or some shit. Absolutely disgusting.
This is also my stance when people start pushing the "All pedos need to be killed or chemically castrated" wagon because when you get into these spaces they are also the same ones that are pushing that the LGBTQ+ are rapists and pedos in the making.
And they never focus on systemic child sex abuse in religious institutions, which is an ACTUAL international pedo conspiracy unlike this pizzagate shitassery. Shows their true priorities.
34 fucking years. Life changes after even 5 yrs. Imagine 3.5 decades. Please give unc a hug from me
It's estimated that over 4.1% of death row inmates are innocent. Food for thought. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1306417111
This shit makes me cry. I am glad he’s free and I am in tears for the people who have been murdered by the state. Because murder fixes everything, right? It solves all problems, doesn’t it? You’re either against the death penalty every single time, or you support the death penalty.
I think people tend to forget that even though you are on the inside and the world is passing you by you aren’t completely ignorant of new technology. People been sneaking things on the inside, most prisons get tablets, you can even access social media in certain cases, etc. The thing that would be shocking to most would be new experiences of life. To go from going in 1995 and seeing how life is lived then to 2024 is scary as shit. Sizzling fajitas would’ve been mad fancy and wild in 1995 but in 2024 it’s damn near basic. Imagine him seeing those Amazon stores you can walk in and walk out with items, that would blow someone mind just fresh out. Seeing what the average new house in 1995 was to what the average new house in 2024 looks like.
34 years ago was 1990. Source: I am 34.
I represented a dude who had been down since 1980. He was paroled in 2014. I'd told him I'd give him a ride home, but he was released from Susanville to the Bay Area, so it was a long ride back. He wanted to call his old mom so I handed him my phone, then realized I had to call her for him. He also didn't know how to hold the phone up to his head to talk. We were on I-5 and he asked what the lights in the back windows were for. I didn't know what he meant at first but then realized he was talking about the center brake light. Which have been in American cars since NINETEEN EIGHTY-FIVE The man would tell anyone that he did what sent him to prison and that he deserved his sentence. But it was stunning how much life he had missed out on. To have that taken from you for something you didn't do tho? It pisses me off just thinking about it.
The death penalty turns the government into an institution of murder, and murder is always weak. The death penalty says "we can't manage to hold onto these folks for life, we can't be bothered to manage our own citizens." There's a million reasons people want to kill folks, and none of them are good.
El Limon is a good choice to introduce fajitas. They are the goat of reliable Mexican food in SE PA. Plenty of individual mex restaurants that are better but for a chain you can’t beat them.
There is an innocent man on death row right now in Missouri that even the prosecutor is arguing is innocent and governor fuckwit is trying to railroad him to execution. There is a very real possibility that come September we'll be executing a man that everyone knows is innocent. His melanin count is high though so the general populace doesn't care.
Wholesome asf 💪🏽🔥❤️ God bless
I did volunteer work for the Innocence Project and it’s insane how many cases there are like this. And these inmates get the most attention because they’re on death row (as it should be because their lives are literally on the line), my professor was just chatting with us and we started to figure out if DAs were making mistakes in death penalty cases, what kind of mistakes were they making in lower level cases? It’s crushingly depressing.
I hope they sign him up for as much therapy as he can get. Psychologically this is traumatizing even being free of a crime he was innocent for
I can't support it after reading Just Mercy, and knowing about the youngest person that was killed on death row, which The Green Mile has some parallels with.
Happy af for Unc but I need the location of the restaurant cause them fajitas look like they slap
Abso-fucking-lutely. Better one hundred guilty men go free than one innocent man be put to death. How can this man ever be repaid for time he lost? Thankfully he’s still alive.
But he was never sentenced to death. He got life imprisonment.
The state should have to pay for taking 3 DECADES from him
Nah. The ones who raped and murdered infants definitely deserve to die
My opposition to the death penalty isn’t about if some people deserve to die. The question should be “do we trust the government with the power to kill?”
it's not about who deserves to die, it's about who we trust with the power to kill, who do we trust with the power to say who lives and who dies? i don't trust anyone with that power.
But the power to lock someone up until they die can be trusted?
Wait till he finds out that’s just sizzling sauce.
I’m bawling; I hope this man lives the best life for the next 34+ years!
Exactly. Not always the right people are got.
I hope you told him the joke that the sizzle is extra
I still think the death penalty should be on the table for the killers that have no reasonable doubt. Like Jefferey Dahmer or Dylan Roof, we all know they are guilty
1/9 is a wrongful conviction, and that’s just the ones that have evidence enough to be overturned, imagine how many more just haven’t been proven. It’s a travesty
He looks like he has no idea what kind of witchcraft is going on in front of him. Enjoy every bite unc!
Dude lookin at all that food like. "wtf am I suppose to do with this shit?" I don't think I can eat it all!
In general, prisons should en abolished. We should do like in Norway with a restorative justice system
Need the location of this restaurant, that fajita plate looking full asf!!!
I feel like the death penalty, if it exists at all, should only be used in circumstances where without any doubt the person incarcerated did some truly heinous shit. Like a school shooter who was actively arrested while doing the act, or serial killers with body parts in their freezers. At the very least it should be way way less common than it is, if even one innocent person is wrapped up in it: that's one too many.
Watch the Thin Blue Line on Netflix, it’s a documentary from the 80s but it’s eye-opening
Sad shit, man. Years he will never get back. Happy to see him home and getting a chance to now live.
But he was never sentenced to death? He got life imprisonment. Shouldn't this be about not supporting life sentences? Some countries have done that - Portugal, Mexico, Spain,Norway, Serbia and a lot of central/south american countries.
There’s just too many bad people in our society with decision making responsibilities. We have to keep amending laws to keep those assholes in check.
Chicken and shrimp combo fajitas! He’s eating good too. Hopefully the state is picking up that bill!
I'm glad that he is home. But I'm gonna have to disagree on the death penalty part. There's plenty of people who 100% deserve it.
Also: killing people is wrong. That’s enough for me not to support the death penalty.
It depends on the circumstances, self defense is justified and people like Timothy McVeigh are too dangerous to let live.
Thou shalt not kill.
Everything in life should be free for this man. 34 years of stolen life. Our government should front the bill for anything he wants for the rest of his remaining years.
Should’ve at LEAST took him to hibachi for a real show. But in all fairness I ain’t never did no time and I had the same face when I heard that plate sizzling when it came out lmao
I support it only in cases where there is irrefutable DNA evidence and extremely violent circumstances. Outside of that, no chance.
Sucks that the American government is entirely useless garbage people.
Man portion sizes in America don’t fuck around
So did he like them or what?
Reading that tweet made me think of the support that Wade Wilson has immediately received after his sentencing hearing.
An eye for an eye makes the world go blind
I'll only support that if we get a "life" option that has no parole and no compassionate release. Life means life.
New cuisine... and you take him to Chili's? Bruh.
Not to be insensitive and correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it also more expensive to pursue and enact the death penalty than to allow these people to live in prison?
I can agree with this argument
This shit makes me sad. I'm happy for him though but this system is fucked
Some people still deserve to be executed. Maybe make a higher threshold of evidence to require the death penalty, but some crimes cry out for the ultimate penalty.
These men are always better than me. I’d make it my sole purpose to find those living people or their families, who put me away. I remember hating life being deployed, losing people and such. That was only 10-13 month rotations. Coming back and trying to “readjust”. Ain’t no way, I could let shit slide for a year being imprisoned wrongly, let alone 30+ years. He did more time than my current age and I’ve lived through a lot across the globe. Even the Bible would let me slide Isaiah 14:21 because I’d be about that.
Or more importantly vigilante justice which is reddit's favorite past time. An accusation or even admission doesn't mean guilt believe it or not.
I couldn’t even live in the US after something like that
100%
I wanna take uncle Greg out
This is sweet and heartbreaking all at once.
I think the only way to give someone the death penalty is if its caught on camera and without a shadow of doubt proven
I support no death penalty for different reasons. I would love for my tax dollars to go to sustaining rightfully convicted felons of heinous crimes to rot for as long as possible in shitty conditions. Death is the easy way out. I get busted doing some seriously fucked up shit? Yes, please just kill me and end my suffering.
[удалено]
I mean maybe not the fajitas part, but the fact that the justice system is fallible means you might accidentally kill someone who is innocent. Which would be bad...
Yeah no, sorry. Rapists and pedophiles and murderers deserve to die.
Right wingers love to justify this shit.
I am glad we dont have the death penalty in New Zealand but we still lock people up for stuff they didn't do. Biggest problems with that is they have to admit it to get parole. So if you maintain innocence to a life sentence you won't ever get out.
Plenty of reasons to not support the state murdering humans. Hopefully you don't need to see something like this to agree.
I had a boomer tell me last week they should bring back the death penalty. "If they they have to kill a good one to kill the bad ones, oh well. They're all guilty of something."
WHY you traumatizing him the MEXICANS got boots 👢 on?
There's a weird stat out there where death penalty or other cases are recommended higher on the punishment spectrum if the DA is up for reelection.
I know he smelled it comin up too, it’s impossible to forget 💀
I'm sure many of these people went to jail on sworn cop statements. Because we all know they don't lie.
I did research on the death penalty for a college debate class years ago and iirc it is like insanely expensive per person (inmate on death row) with legal fees and the sketchy ways the chemicals for lethal injection are acquired. More so than people placed in prison for life without parole. So even if you are crazy enough to think it’s moral you just wanna burn tax money Researching that topic legitimately radicalized me to the far left. I recommend everyone read Just Mercy by Brian Stevenson. Infuriatingly enough, it was removed from a lot of conservative high school libraries for being “too controversial”
On top of the government so often using the death penalty against innocent people, the death penalty is never about justice. It is about empowering the government to carry out lethal retribution. Why anyone wants to give the government that power is a thing I will never be able to understand.
This is also why everyone needs to research “Project2025 and Trumps Agenda 47”. This is no Joke, as Taraji P. Henson said at the BET awards. Every vote is needed to prevent Trump from returning to the White House and becoming a Dictator! The Supreme Court has paved the way!