Injustice in Michigan

Related Links: Marxism in Michigan

Over the last few months I've been helping a person who has been falsely accused by the local prosecutor. I know my friend has been falsely accused because I am intimately involved and party to the situation. Last week my friend was summoned to court, and asked me to respond to the charging 2-page petition. I wrote 12 pages and sent to the defense attorney. I have never seen anything so shoddy, evil, and malicious...and coming from the Oakland County Prosecution's office that is sworn to uphold and protect the constitution and the laws of the State of Michigan. I could never come to that conclusion except the petition claims to communicate the facts about situations in which I was present, and in fact my name is used. Of course, I am misquoted, etc.

I have a second friend that committed suicide last summer under what many of us believe was a coerced confession, if in fact my friend confessed to anything. The notes and diaries that were left behind gave no indication of any guilt or malady. This second friend was meek, mild, and trusting. The detective involved has a reputation of being mean and ruthless. My friend could easily of collapsed under such a tyrannical treatment as has been reported to me.

I watched a YouTube video of a 14 year old boy being harassed during interrogation by detectives regarding the murder of a girl. The poor boy maintained his innocence, but the detectives lied about how they knew he did the deed, and were generally trying to break him down under false pretense. He didn't break, but 10 years later was put away for 9 years in prison for the murder. Just recently DNA confirmed that he was all along telling the truth and they let him out of prison. Life ruined.

Tonight, I read the blog of Daniel Turner, a local man who fought off sexual molestation charges twice in a year. Finally, after he had mortgaged his house to defend himself, lost his job, and local reputation as a terrific soccer coach of a kids league, the cops and prosecution declared it was all a mistaken identity and let him go free, without so much as an apology. Of course his life is ruined.

Then, a close friend told me of a man who is in prison for sexual abuse because a young mentally disturbed girl accused him on the testimony stand. Although she has a record of a troubled youth, and the man has none, her solo testimony about a single event that supposedly happened 2 years ago, has put him away for life. She's reported by some to be vindictive. He has maintained his innocence. The cops could find no collaborating evidence from his home, relatives, or other witnesses. Yet the court's found him guilty and he's not in solitary confinement because if he was out of his cell the other prisoners would kill, a convicted, but I believe innocent man.

And let's not forget Mike Nifong.

If I wasn't involved with my friend, I'd think little about any of this. But I see what it's doing to my friend's family, and my friend. It's horrible. My friend is at times irrational, but why not when the last year's events, at the hand of the Oakland County Prosecutor's office as been so irrational and lacking in justice. It's as if the 94 assistant prosecutor's have nothing else to do, but to create work in order to save their jobs.

If you know of other stories of people that were falsely accused here in Michigan, especially Oakland County, and whose life has been ruined because of overzealous cops, and ambiguous prosecutors, please contact me.

Let's get some laws and procedures on the books that will prevent false charges so easily without strong collaborating evidence.

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One person wrote, and put me on to The Innocence Project. A great website for all of us to visit. The videos are engaging -- interviews with men and women wrongly convicted. Click on the image of their home page above.

I also saw a quote that was valuable, and describes myself. "Another key to happiness: Refuse to be upset with injustice unless you're ranting only 5% of the time and working constructively 95% of the time to correct it."

The following is quoted from: http://www.lawmall.com/abuse/

The criminal prosecutors achieve or expect to achieve fame, fortune and power by racking up criminal-case victories regardless of the guilt or innocence of the accused under existing principles of law. They readily learn that the way to become elected or appointed to Congress, the state or local Legislature, a judgeship, district attorney or U.S. Attorney position or other governmental office, is to get and publicize convictions, and to maintain that they are just in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary in too many cases.

The consequences for the overzealous prosecutor is too often the sought-after fame, fortune, power and political position, but the victims (including virtually everyone in the community) are left to pay the bill for wrongful incarceration, excessive criminal proceedings, destroyed families, wrongfully-confiscated property depriving a newly-accused defendant of the funds to defend himself/herself, wrongfully-impoverished families requiring governmental assistance, loss of skilled workers, loss of voters needed to strike a more just political balance in the country, and various other consequences which need to be explored by the press and book authors.

Here's a few sites of interest:

http://www.publicintegrity.org/pm/default.aspx

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

http://www.lawmall.com/abuse/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutorial_misconduct