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    IAMBlastedBiggsLostBurnerHamilton Nolan
    9/22/14 10:14am

    Shit. As much as you would like to wax poetic about a man dying free, like a dove or angel or whatthefuck ever, all you can do is mutter "shit", because the man's adult life was spent in prison, and he was innocent all along. His entire adult life was taken from him, and it shouldn't have been.

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      weinerIAMBlastedBiggsLostBurner
      9/24/14 3:38pm

      And their is no immediate money flow compensation from the state to support the person when they are "released" so they either turn to crime or die of starvation or illness. I mean, asthma inhalers cost 50 cents in most of the 3rd world places I've been to but here without insurance and a Dr visit it cost me around 500 to get one. What the holy fuck?

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      IAMBlastedBiggsLostBurnerweiner
      9/24/14 3:44pm

      That's an excellent point that I admit that I missed. Even in cases where this horrible ending doesn't happen, what do you have? An innocent person who lost their adulthood to the fucking prison system, and since applications don't include the "And was the felony conviction legitimate?" follow up, if you say 'yes' to the felony question, you're fucked. So there's no earning ability, no money to establish a life, and, well, sucks for you, dude/dudette. Can't do the time, don't do the crime, even though you didn't really do the crime in the first place.

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    Jerry-NetherlandHamilton Nolan
    9/22/14 10:27am

    People shrug their shoulders and tsk-tsk at stories like this, then move on. It is mortifying to imagine that countless innocent people are serving long prison sentences - many actually on death row, a few already executed. It should inspire greater outrage, but it's become so common, for too many Americans, it's just another Jean Valjean story.

    But this isn't fiction - it's very real and it happens because the judicial system - particularly State Attorneys General and Municipal District Attorneys are overburdened dealing with drug cases - most of which require more community services - and more decriminalization), rather than just prison warehousing.

    Instead, these Attorneys General and District Attorneys are left with just enough time and resources to ram through convictions and draconian sentencing on poor alleged perpetrators (always the poor -who haven't the means to mount a real defense). It's an American tragedy, and in this case, William Lopez did lose his life - the life to which he aspired - without getting to live it.

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      UhhhWhat7Jerry-Netherland
      9/22/14 10:56am

      If you really want to depress yourself read this: http://www.npr.org/2014/07/25/335…

      TL;DR: Alabama is the only state with (1) elected judges and (2) elected judges who can override a life imprisonment sentence and give the death penalty instead. Guess what they do a lot in election years when they have to be "tough on crime"?

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      OneEyeJimJerry-Netherland
      10/10/14 10:31am

      The first step is to end the "for profit" prison system.

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    Conservative logicHamilton Nolan
    9/22/14 10:07am

    So nothing really unique about this case. Another innocent man becoming a victim of politicians "don't want to look soft on crime" bullshit. Maybe our free market can look to do something to benefit humanity (since the government won't) instead of something that just imprisons man's physical body and tries to ruin man's mind.

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      TRUMP DELENDUS EST (fka Chatham Harrison)Conservative logic
      9/22/14 10:33am

      Don't kid yourself that it's politicians who came up with this "soft on crime" bullshit. It's the average Joes who decide that sort of thing. The average citizen's capacity for institutional violence is remarkably high, especially if it's a group they don't identify with.

      I know people who will just come out and say that they will happily wrongfully execute one innocent if it means exterminating a few murderers. After all, if they were really good people they wouldn't be in a position to be imprisoned, anyway. You know how those kind of people are. Dirty, lazy, shiftless. We're all better off with them in jail.

      Don't shoot the messenger, but that's how a good third or half of this country thinks.

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    tito_swinefluHamilton Nolan
    9/22/14 10:53am

    "Overzealous?" The prosecutor was not overzealous, he was wrong, criminally negligent or corrupt. Overzealous is meant for Ralph in accounting who stays late each night collating the files.

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      Graymyas LeighHamilton Nolan
      9/22/14 10:07am

      Find the prosecutors that are responsible and hang them in the street.

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        e_is_real_i_isntGraymyas Leigh
        9/22/14 10:20am

        Prosecutors are only part of the problem. The other part is the group in charge of recovering evidence. I suspect there are at least a couple of cops involved in this who either fabricated evidence, lied about evidence, or discarded contradictory evidence, possibly in collusion/conspiracy with the prosecution.

        The worst are the false confessions, some driven by interrogations that put critical evidence into the hands of the accused - where they tell the accused the methods and circumstances of the crime or tell them there are witnesses and other evidence that places them there when there isn't actually any such evidence.

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        Mr.JohnGraymyas Leigh
        9/22/14 10:37am

        I love that this is the most American response to someone being sentenced for a crime they didn't do.

        "Find someone and have us a lynching".

        Awesome.

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      7 Kinds of StupidHamilton Nolan
      9/22/14 10:08am

      I gotta stop clicking these articles first thing in the morning.

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        MobbDizzle7 Kinds of Stupid
        9/22/14 11:46am

        Or, take uppers before reading. Horrible shit man. I spent 10 months falsely and that was UNBEARABLE. I cannot understand this.

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      fartbuttHamilton Nolan
      9/22/14 10:07am

      It's amazing that a site that has real stories like this shares space with moronic articles ranking 'holes'.

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        Mount_PrionHamilton Nolan
        9/22/14 10:40am

        I'm sure the effort doesn't feel slight for the people actually working on exoneration, but I agree that there needs to be a lot more of it.

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          henwyHamilton Nolan
          9/22/14 10:09am

          He should have stayed in prison. It's a dangerous world out there were all those allergens.

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