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Matt
GutFeel Senior
Joined: 26 May 2004
Posts: 59
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 Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2004 5:12 pm Post subject: Wrongfully convicted man free after 40 years behind bars |
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LUFKIN, Texas (AP) -- A 76-year-old man who spent nearly every day of the last four decades in prison walked free after a judge found that deputies extracted his confession to a 1962 robbery by crushing his fingers between cell bars.
After walking out of the Angelina County jail Tuesday with his wife, Robert Carroll Coney said he was not bitter.
"I'm going to try to pick up the pieces," Coney said. "If I was angry, what could I do about it?"
Coney was convicted of robbing a Safeway supermarket in 1962 and sentenced to life in prison. Many times he escaped from facilities in other states -- including South Carolina, Louisiana and Mississippi -- only to be recaptured each time. He was returned to the Texas prison system last year.
Coney said his identity had been confused with a man he had carpooled with through Lufkin on the day of the robbery.
State District Judge David Wilson, who dismissed Coney's charges, investigated and found that the sheriff of Angelina County at the time and his deputies used physical force to extract confessions, often crushing prisoners' fingers between jail cell bars.
When Wilson questioned Coney, the prisoner held up two twisted and bent fingers.
"I remember the sheriff well," Coney said.
He said the jailers, in addition to mangling his hand, threatened his life and scared him into confessing. Wilson's findings stated Coney probably did not see a lawyer until he stood before a judge in the case with then-court-appointed lawyer Gilbert Spring. Spring said he didn't remember Coney's case and told Wilson that courts frequently called attorneys in the 1960s to stand with defendants for no money.
"It really contains everybody's worst fears about what went on during certain darker years in this country," said Huntsville attorney David P. O'Neill, who worked on Coney's case.
Coney said he may consider a civil suit at some point but initially wants to focus on his family.
Holding his wife's hand as he left the jail Tuesday for their Dallas home, Coney said little about the ordeal.
"We're going home," Coney said.
Source: cnn.com |
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Editor
Site Admin
Joined: 09 Apr 2004
Posts: 337
Location: India
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| Posted: Sat Aug 28, 2004 10:52 am Post subject: |
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What else can i call it than mere destiny Matt!
It is really heartening to hear such cases of torture and injustice  And four decades is a pretty long time...i must admit tat this man had a strong will to survive and face the difficulties of life or accept life as is... |
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RebelliousOne
GutFeel Senior
Joined: 11 Jul 2004
Posts: 64
Location: Arkansas
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| Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2004 11:48 am Post subject: Re: Wrongfully convicted man free after 40 years behind bars |
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| Matt wrote: | LUFKIN, Texas (AP) -- A 76-year-old man who spent nearly every day of the last four decades in prison walked free after a judge found that deputies extracted his confession to a 1962 robbery by crushing his fingers between cell bars.
After walking out of the Angelina County jail Tuesday with his wife, Robert Carroll Coney said he was not bitter.
"I'm going to try to pick up the pieces," Coney said. "If I was angry, what could I do about it?"
Coney was convicted of robbing a Safeway supermarket in 1962 and sentenced to life in prison. Many times he escaped from facilities in other states -- including South Carolina, Louisiana and Mississippi -- only to be recaptured each time. He was returned to the Texas prison system last year.
Coney said his identity had been confused with a man he had carpooled with through Lufkin on the day of the robbery.
State District Judge David Wilson, who dismissed Coney's charges, investigated and found that the sheriff of Angelina County at the time and his deputies used physical force to extract confessions, often crushing prisoners' fingers between jail cell bars.
When Wilson questioned Coney, the prisoner held up two twisted and bent fingers.
"I remember the sheriff well," Coney said.
He said the jailers, in addition to mangling his hand, threatened his life and scared him into confessing. Wilson's findings stated Coney probably did not see a lawyer until he stood before a judge in the case with then-court-appointed lawyer Gilbert Spring. Spring said he didn't remember Coney's case and told Wilson that courts frequently called attorneys in the 1960s to stand with defendants for no money.
"It really contains everybody's worst fears about what went on during certain darker years in this country," said Huntsville attorney David P. O'Neill, who worked on Coney's case.
Coney said he may consider a civil suit at some point but initially wants to focus on his family.
Holding his wife's hand as he left the jail Tuesday for their Dallas home, Coney said little about the ordeal.
"We're going home," Coney said.
Source: cnn.com |
Matt:
Desdpite what the judges claimed, the fact remains that this man confessed to the crime of robbing a store; and there were witnesses; and there were other supporting documentation to show that he did the crime.
The US is becoming a nation that puts more reliability on a panel of judges than on a jury of the defendants peers. This man admitted to robbing the store. If he were innocent, he would never have confessed. Indeed, there is no torture so terrible that it would make me confess to a crime that I did not commit.
More to the point: The US judicial procedures to review cases takes all opinions into account, and the fact that this one case took 40 years to free the man demonstrates to me, at least, that a lot of politics went in the decision to free him.
I believe a liberal judge decided to free the man despite the physical evidence to the contrary. Coney's defense was bogus; indeed, he is probably Black, and therefore, considered not guilty because all Americans were supposedly "raciast' in the early '60.
This case is just another example of the liberal bias that dominates the US judicial system.
RO |
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