Exoneration

For the exoneration project we listened to story on This American Life about four teenagers who were wrongly convicted for the rape and murder of the of a young woman, and were sent to prison for 15 years before they were exonerated because of DNA evidence.

The radio story explain how four teenagers all around the age of fifteen, who were wrongly convicted of rape and murder when police pinned the crime on the completely innocent boys. In Chicago, 1986 a woman was found dead by train tracks, with signs of rape and her head bashed in. The reason this murder was so prominent, was because the woman was white medical student, and found near a mostly black neighborhood. When someone was not arrested quickly, the public began to get angry causing the police force to feel pressure to convict someone for the crime. The police brought in three boys to trying to get them to confess with physical abuse. When the one of the boys did not confess the police told him that if he singed a confession, he could go home and see his mom, but when he did they locked him up instead. The police used the best guess profile as the confession,the boys confession also included the one boy who didn't confess from physical abuse so they were able to arrest all three boys. The police then brought in a fourth boy who they asked to confess to seeing them commit the crime, when the boy turned it down, they added him to the trail as another one of the rapist. During the trial, police were able to get one of the boys to confess to the crime, one the stand, in order to get a shortened sentence. The teenagers were found guilty and sent to prison with a life sentence. Fifteen years later one of the boys heard about prisoners being exonerated from DNA testing. He sent a letter explaining his situation to a lawyer who took their case. Because the semen found at the crime scene did not match any of the boys DNA, they were released from prison, and shortly after two men confessed to the crime.

My reaction to this story is that it is terrible how bad people can be sometimes. Four young boys were convicted of a crime that they didn't commit, just because there was pressure from the public on the police force. wrongly arresting the boys not only messed with there lives permanently, but also allowed two murders to get away with their crime. Its sad to think that the people in our justice system can be corrupt, when so many peoples lives are riding on their decisions. This is also a hard story for me to hear because the boys were about my age when they went to prison. If i went to prison right now I would be able to handle it. The men never got to learn how to drive or got to go to college an they had to be extremely mature when they were just kids. I could never do what they did.