PUBLISHER'S NOTE: What a horrible time for anyone to be locked up in a prison anywhere is the world. Canada, The U.S.A. Europe, Asia, Africa, wherever. Were talking about countless detainees, inmates, guards, and prison workers - as wealth as people at risk in the communities around them. We're also talking about avoidable deaths, sensible public health measures, and the spectre of states blindly administering preventable unsanctioned death sentences. Prof. Jessica Henry's message is clear: 'We can save lives by reducing prison populations now.' It should be heeded. HL. PS: I was pleased to learn that Prof. Henry's upcoming book “Smoke But No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened, will soon be published." It looks like this book will be of considerable interest to myself and to the the readers of this Blog. I will keep an eye out for it. PPS: It's to be published by The University of California Press, which tells us: "Rodricus Crawford was convicted and sentenced to die for the murder by suffocation of his beautiful baby boy. After years on death row, evidence confirmed what Crawford had claimed all along: he was innocent, and his son had died from an undiagnosed illness. Crawford is not alone. A full one-third of all known exonerations stem from no-crime wrongful convictions. The first book to explore this common but previously undocumented type of wrongful conviction, Smoke but No Fire tells the heartbreaking stories of innocent people convicted of crimes that simply never happened. A suicide is mislabeled a homicide. An accidental fire is mislabeled an arson. Corrupt police plant drugs on an innocent suspect. A false allegation of assault is invented to resolve a custody dispute. With this book, former New York City public defender Jessica S. Henry sheds essential light on a deeply flawed criminal justice system that allows—even encourages—these convictions to regularly occur. Smoke but No Fire promises to be eye-opening reading for legal professionals, students, activists, and the general public alike as it grapples with the chilling reality that far too many innocent people spend real years behind bars for fictional crimes."Stand by!
Harold Levy. Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Take, for instance, Rosa Jimenez. Jimenez, a young and impoverished pregnant mother, was working as a babysitter in Travis County, when a child died in her care. A wad of paper towel was found lodged in his throat. Authorities reasoned that a child could not have swallowed that much paper on his own; therefore, the adult last in his presence must have forced it down his throat. After an emotional and protracted trial, Jimenez was convicted of murder. She has been in prison for 17 years. But here’s the thing. Judge after judge has ruled that Jimenez did not receive a fair trial and that she is likely innocent. Most recently, a federal judge threw out the murder conviction and ordered that Jimenez be given a new trial or be released. But she remains behind bars, waiting to be released, trapped in a coronavirus-induced shutdown of the courts and the prosecutor’s offices. While she waits, Jimenez battles Stage-4 kidney disease. Exposure to the coronavirus could well prove fatal."
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COMMENTARY: "Opinion: We can save lives by reducing prison populations now," by Prof. Jessica S. Henry, published by The Statesman on April 13, 2020. (Jessica Henry is an associate professor in the Department of Justice Studies at Montclair State University and author of the upcoming book, “Smoke But No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened.”)
GIST: COVID-19 is sweeping through prisons and jails, converting terms of incarceration into unsanctioned death sentences for thousands of people behind bars, including the wrongly convicted. States need to reduce their prison populations right now before prisons become morgues for the innocent and guilty alike.
Take, for instance, Rosa Jimenez. Jimenez, a young and impoverished pregnant mother, was working as a babysitter in Travis County, when a child died in her care. A wad of paper towel was found lodged in his throat. Authorities reasoned that a child could not have swallowed that much paper on his own; therefore, the adult last in his presence must have forced it down his throat. After an emotional and protracted trial, Jimenez was convicted of murder. She has been in prison for 17 years.
But here’s the thing. Judge after judge has ruled that Jimenez did not receive a fair trial and that she is likely innocent. Most recently, a federal judge threw out the murder conviction and ordered that Jimenez be given a new trial or be released. But she remains behind bars, waiting to be released, trapped in a coronavirus-induced shutdown of the courts and the prosecutor’s offices. While she waits, Jimenez battles Stage-4 kidney disease. Exposure to the coronavirus could well prove fatal.
Prison populations need to be reduced immediately. Prisons are incubators for the virus, leaving the people incarcerated inside trapped with no recourse. The incarcerated are unable to leave, and they are unable to take measures that would protect them from the rise of coronavirus, such as social-distancing, hand washing with soap or hand sanitizer, and accessing medical care.
This is not a hypothetical scenario. People are dying in state and federal prisons around the country. On Tuesday, Bartolo Infante, 72, became the first Texas inmate to die of complications relating to the virus. Kelvin Wilcher, a 49-year old Texas correctional officer also died from the coronavirus.
Faced with mounting death tolls in federal prisons around the country, Attorney General Barr issued guidance last weekend ordering the release of the prison elderly and other medically vulnerable populations from federal prisons.
Make no mistake, it is not just the people incarcerated who are at risk. People who work within prisons enter and leave every day at the start and end of their shifts. The churning that occurs means that correctional staff repeatedly expose themselves, their families, society at large and the incarcerated population they serve to the disease.
Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have implemented reform measures to reduce the numbers of people incarcerated in prisons and jails. This makes good sense. States should release the elderly (including people convicted of violent crimes and serving life sentences who are no longer threats to society), the medically vulnerable, people close to the end of their terms or people cleared for parole, and people who are imprisoned for low-level offenses, technical parole violations or because they cannot afford to make bail.
Upon release, people with safe homes to return to should be sent home. While the sentences of low-level offenders can be suspended or commuted, other offenders can be monitored under house confinement. People who need a safe place to quarantine or simply to go to upon release could be sent to motels or hotels that are operating well under capacity, or even empty college dorms where appropriate."
The entire commentary can be read at:
https://www.statesman.com/opinion/20200413/opinion-we-can-save-lives-by-reducing-prison-populations-now
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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