Civil Rights Division Chief Emily Maw said, “This case presents multiple injustices: 1. the wrong man has been in prison for 29 years, 2. the right man was not fully investigated and prosecuted, and 3. this victim has endured not just the deep trauma of child sexual assault, but the trauma of knowing the wrong man has been imprisoned for almost three decades while the man who raped her walked free. This is a very sad case, but we are hopeful that this will bring some closure to the victim and that she, and Mr. Brown, can move forward in healing.”
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GIST: "A Louisiana man walked free after having spent nearly three decades behind bars for a rape the victim herself has long insisted he didn’t commit, authorities said.
Patrick Brown, 49, was convicted of aggravated rape in 1994 in a case involving his 6-year-old stepdaughter, Orleans Parish prosecutors said.
But the girl never testified, and Brown's conviction was based on adults' testifying "to what they believed she had said," the Orleans Parish district attorney said in a statement.
The woman, now an adult, "has remained steadfast for over 20 years" that Brown is innocent, "and the evidence corroborated the victim’s account," the district attorney said.
Criminal District Court Judge Calvin Johnson released Brown on Monday.
Attorney Kelly Orians said her client never lost hope he'd be free someday. She overheard him telling a courthouse bystander that his freedom isn't a stroke of luck.
"He said to somebody: 'This isn’t like winning the lottery. This is an act of Jesus Christ,'" Orians said in an interview Wednesday. "He’s said he never lost hope this would happen, largely due to his faith in God."
District Attorney Jason Williams, who won election in 2020, said it was "disheartening" to know the victim's insistence that Brown wasn't her attacker hadn't been heeded for so many years.
“Listening and engaging victims and survivors of sexual assault is a top priority in this office," Williams said in a statement. "It is incredibly disheartening to know that this woman was dismissed and ignored, no matter how inconvenient her truth, when all she wanted was the real offender to be held responsible."
Williams said wrongful convictions have a particularly corrosive impact on the judicial system.
“When someone is wrongfully convicted, not only is it an injustice for the person who has years of their life stolen, but it is an injustice for the victim and the people of New Orleans because the real perpetrator is left to harm others," he said.
Orians said Brown and his loved ones couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
Wednesday morning as they made up for all the years he was locked up at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, a maximum-security facility in Angola.
“They’re really just focused on spending time together and making up for the last three decades of not being able to be together," she said.
In his first 48 hours of freedom, Brown is trying to acquaint himself to 2023 technology.
"All of it. Everything between cellphones, computers, hybrid cars, electric vehicles, debit and credit cards, it's all very overwhelming and completely brand new to him," Orians said.""
The entire story can be read at:
The victim began to write a series of more than 100 handwritten letters in 2002 to the courts and Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office that asked for the case to be reviewed because Brown wasn’t her attacker. She also said that the prosecutors were aware that he didn’t rape her and it was another family member. “I’ve written over 100 letters … mailed them to the DA’s office. I’ve shown up unannounced to talk to someone and been turned around,” the victim told The Guardian.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
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SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
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