Transformative Storytelling: Why Grisham and McCloskey Made Me Oppose the Death Penalty – A RAINBOW OF ROLE MODELS {WEDNESDAY SERIES}
I celebrate ACHIEVEMENT EVERY DAY! Wednesday’s “A Rainbow of Role Models,” I do not see race, skin color, religion, sex, attractiveness (ok, I do like beautiful ladies), age, or any other nonsense. I love learning from inspirational people who inspire me to drop MY EXCUSES and DO IT! Role models who stretch my ambitions and model GIVING BACK!
There is dignity in achievement and success—becoming a great factor in civilization.” Carter G. Woodson.
I hope you will share these short articles; perhaps a few people will be curious to learn more.
Disclaimer: Good Day, Readers. WealthBuildingPowers blog is a financial literacy/competency blog and does not provide specific investment recommendations.
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Inspiring Change: John Grisham, Jim McCloskey, and My Journey to Oppose Capital Punishment – A RAINBOW OF ROLE MODELS {WEDNESDAY SERIES}
Nightmare or Reality?
Imagine your daughter is in jail, accused of murder. She has an air-tight alibi, you. But the Police and prosecutor refuse to believe you. Your court-appointed lawyer advises you to take a plea that takes the death sentence off the table. And then you wake up. Your daughter is sound asleep in her room. This was just a nightmare. For some in our country, it is their years-long absolute nightmare.
A Flawed System
John Grisham and Jim McCloskey published the book “Framed,” telling the stories of ten cases where several men and one woman were falsely accused of murder, and one innocent man was executed/murdered.
From an incompetent Police Force to a Governor caring more about re-election, NO one will ever be held accountable for his wrongful death.
Framed, a book I recommend, recounts the tedious, hard-fought battles to save innocent lives—cases where reasonable doubt was present and hard, irrefutable evidence proved innocence!
Innocent Americans were arrested, found guilty, and imprisoned for decades. Some were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, and some were sentenced to death row for crimes they did not commit. From these actual cases, I recognized, but for the grace of God, go I.
I NO LONGER SUPPORT THE DEATH PENALTY
Growing up, I thought, as many Americans do, under some circumstances, the death penalty was warranted. I changed my opinion while living in Illinois when Anthony Porter was exonerated and released from death row.
“In 1983, Porter was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of two teenagers in a southside Chicago park. No physical evidence linked him to the murders, but after more than 17 hours of coercive interrogation, another man, William Taylor, told police that he had seen Porter commit the murders. Porter came within 50 hours of execution in September 1998, when the Illinois Supreme Court, concerned that Porter was mentally incompetent because of his low IQ, issued a stay and ordered a hearing on his mental capacity. While that hearing was pending, journalism students at Northwestern University began investigating his case. They found that Taylor, who was in the park’s swimming pool at the time of the murders, could not have seen the killings. Taylor recanted his testimony and signed an affidavit saying that Chicago police had threatened, harassed, and intimidated him into naming Porter.
The students’ investigation led them to another man who gave a videotaped confession to the murders. Porter was exonerated in 1999.” https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/anthony-porter-exoneree-whose-case-spurred-abolition-of-death-penalty-in-illinois-has-died
In 2003, Illinois Governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of 167 death row inmates to life terms after determining that the death penalty was flawed.
Illinois abolished the death penalty in 2011.
Today, it is estimated for every eight people executed in the U.S., one person on death row has been exonerated. One thousand six hundred-three men and women have been executed in the United States since the 1970s.
Do the math!
OUR BIASES
Everyone holds unconscious beliefs about various people and group. These biases stem from the world in which we live and the millions of bits of data we see and hear. Unconscious bias is more prevalent than conscious prejudice and often incompatible with our values. When you couple our human biases with unethical and incompetent Police, Medical Examiners, SMEs, Prosecutors, and even Jurors, an innocent person can be sacrificed.
“FRAMED” BY JOHN GRISHAM & JIM MCCLOSKEY – ASTONISHING TRUE STORIES OF WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS
“John Grisham teams up with Jim McCloskey, the founder of an organization that works to free the wrongfully convicted, to spotlight 10 cases in which innocent people were falsely accused of a crime, went through trials marked by various sorts of bias and misconduct, and were unjustly incarcerated. Grisham and McCloskey …… show guiltless suspects being victimized by corrupt police officers and detectives, dishonest government officials, racist and/or unsympathetic jurors, untrustworthy witnesses, incompetent doctors, and underprepared lawyers.
Grisham’s cases include the story of the Norfolk Four, Navy sailors browbeaten by detectives into confessing to a rape/murder in 1997, and the ordeal of three men convicted of killing a 70-year-old woman, based on the testimony of a police informant saving himself from doing time and despite all three being exonerated by DNA testing.
McCloskey’s chapters profile individuals he has worked with, among them Clarence Brandley, a Black janitor convicted by an all-white jury of murdering a white 16-year-old volleyball player, and Ellen Reasonover, a witness who became a suspect in the murder of a gas station attendant when the police pressured two women to testify that she had confessed to them. Many of these cases were brought in front of judges based on police hunches, which they buttressed by manipulating uneducated and impressionable witnesses and defendants, suppressing evidence, and, in some cases, coercing confessions. The list of perpetuated wrongs is endless, and the co-authors are empathetic to the plight of people who had nothing to do with the crimes they were accused of committing. The truth eventually came out in these cases, but that does little to lessen the impact of this sobering look at what happens when we turn a blind eye to injustice.”
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/john-grisham/framed-3
CONCLUSION – Voices for Change: How John Grisham and Jim McCloskey Influenced My Stance on Capital Punishment”
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt is a legal standard that requires the prosecution to prove a defendant’s guilt in a criminal case with evidence that is so convincing that no reasonable person could doubt it.
Unfortunately, our criminal justice system is so flawed the above legal standard fails too often. We cannot take the chance of taking an innocent life and must demand the 27 states that still allow the death penalty STOP because the last thing anybody wants is to keep convicting innocent people to be wrongly convicted and sentenced to death or life in prison.
As of May 2024, 27 states in the United States have the death penalty, including:
Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming
If you live in one of these states, share this blog with your representatives and governor. I recommend they read this book and decide if they can live with the consequences of killing an innocent person.
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I am a proud nerd (as my beautiful wife and daughter have told me) investment and finance blogger with an N.C. State, Chemical Engineering, University Rutgers, MBA and Harvard University, Advanced Management education.
I left a corporate career because I desired to make a difference as a speaker and writer. I was blessed to be coached and mentored by strong women and men in my family and professional life. It is my time to serve and give back.
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I started my first business at ~13 years of age (a small but brilliantly created plant nursery). I am a successful investor in stocks, options, and real estate and am happy to share my finance and investment lessons. I am NOT a licensed financial advisor. Please do not construe my suggestions on this blog as recommendations for your situation. As an investor, you must establish your risk/loss tolerance. Investment in any asset involves risk, including complete loss.
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