Wrongful Convictions

On the news you will hear things like, "A women was raped and killed today, her body was left in an ally." or "A little boy was kidnapped and killed." Then the next day someone is put behind bars. But years later they are let out for wrongful convictions. What does this mean? Well it means that some people are put in jail for a crime that they didn't do, but there is evidence that might suggest that they did it. Why does this happen? Well while people are worrying and freaking out about the criminal being on the loose, the police are trying to get someone behind bars to subside the concern. The person that gets thrown in jail is not always guilty of the crime they are said to have committed. This is because the police are pressured to get someone in jail which is not always fair to everyone. This happened to Anthony Johnson who was wrongfully convicted for second degree murder of a women, his girlfriend.

On October 19, 1984, a young women named Angela Bond was found dead with a fork and knife in her body. She was sexually assaulted and then killed. Under questioning was her 27-year-old boyfriend, Anthony Johnson. He was arrested and charged with the murder of Ms. Bond in December 1984. Johnson went to court on February 1986, his lawyer renounced making an opening statement. The prosecution relied on the police claim that Johnson had made a statement about the types of weapons used to murder the victim, information only the killer would know, even though the statement wasn't recorded until a report was written two months after he was arrested. There was supposed evidence found, a 90% chance that the hair in a shower cap at the crime scene belonged to Johnson. But Johnson wore a shower cap routinely at his job at the Medical Center. The defense also attempted to portray Matthew Brown as the killer of Bond, when the defense called brown, he refused to testify and asserted his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. Johnson testified in his own defense, saying that he was innocent and said that he didn't have special knowledge about the murder weapons. He was convicted of second-degree murder on February 25, 1986, and sentenced to life in prison. In 2004, Johnson enlisted the assistance of the Innocence Project of New Orleans which filed a petition for DNA testing and began re-investigating the case. On March 26, 2006, the DNA tests excluded Johnson as the source of DNA under the victim's fingernails. On February 21, 2007, Johnson was granted a new trial because of the DNA results. The key element was that the witness's statement about Johnson taking out the trash on the day of the murder was wrong, he took out the trash the day before. On February 21, 2007, Johnson was released on bond during the appeal. In October 2007, there was a new trial that was won. But in June 2009, the Court ordered the case back to the trial court for an evidential hearing. Following that hearing, on July 22, 2009 a new trial was ordered. After the retrial, prosecutors linked the DNA recovered from Bond's fingernails to Matthew Brown. The state dismissed the charges against Johnson on September 15, 2010. He spent 22 years in jail for something he didn't do.

I choose this story because I found it crazy that this guy had to stay in jail for 22 years for a crime he didn't commit. The fact that the police and court accused him of being guilty with a lack of solid evidence was a little ridiculous. I think that we have a great justice system especially with the introduction of DNA testing to help solve crimes, but sometimes the people who work for the justice system do things to give it a bad reputation. While reading this story, I constantly felt frustrated because the police didn't seem to pay attention to the little details. I also felt bad for Anthony Johnson, he was accused of murdering his girlfriend and then was told that he gave a statement saying he knew about the murder weapons even though he didn't, it seemed quite unfair to me. Although our justice system is great, it also has many flaws.