‘Sentencing the Wrong Man to Die’
“This is terrible” my wife said, “they were going to execute an innocent man” like it was my fault (I’m a lawyer and ex-FBI, real law and order). So I read the article and I learned:
A--This is far from an innocent man. He was an armed robber and molester at the least and certainly on track to kill.
B--Nothing in the article establishes he was the wrong man. Somebody robbed and raped and killed that poor lady and Brown was preying on a woman in the same area on the same day. His accomplice identified him as responsible; who are the police and prosecutors supposed to pursue?
C--Brown might have been ineptly defended and “wrongly convicted,” but it took a decade for the lawyers and courts to arrive at a ruling overturning the conviction for “Rosebirdesque” technicalities. This has no bearing on guilt, only legalistic procedures.
The headlines are inflammatory and inaccurate and the article is biased. Barry Siegel, don’t scare my wife, you’ve been hanging around defense lawyers too much. A bad guy went to jail deservedly but was not executed because of flaws in the prosecution--where is the injustice?
RICHARD S. CLARK
San Diego
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