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    Raineyb1013Breanna Edwards
    2/10/17 4:39pm

    Dude, Pence never gave a fuck about you. It’s not so much that he abandoned you as he just didn’t care.

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      SessileRaptorRaineyb1013
      2/10/17 4:48pm

      Plus there’s no damn way in hell he ever wants his name associated with a black man getting out of jail, regardless of the circumstances.

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      DolemiteRaineyb1013
      2/10/17 6:13pm

      “He should have apologized and gave me the pardon”. I take it they don’t get much news in the prison, so he has no idea what kind of person Pence is. I’d believe Pence grew to be 20 feet tall before I believed he’d apologize to this man and pardon him. 

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    STLOrcaBreanna Edwards
    2/10/17 4:32pm

    Every news story about Mike Pence needs to start with the words “Christ, what an asshole.”

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    TheCatBite3000Breanna Edwards
    2/10/17 5:29pm

    This kind of shit is just another shadow of slavery. Pence & millions of other whites do not care about wrongful convictions bc as far as they’re concerned, any excuse to lock a brown person up is good news. This is the same reason that people shouldn’t necessarily rejoice when a black person gets a harsh sentence for killing another black person. Are we all glad a dangerous person is off the streets? If they’re the actual perpetrator, yes. But, often the impetus behind the punishment is that it’s seen as an opportunity for a “two-for”. One nigger is already dead, & now we get to kill another one (or lock them up for life). YAY!!:/ For so many, it’s not about justice for a family that’s lost someone. The outcome is about something far more insidious. Also, racists love wrongful convictions. First, they consider your skin color a crime, in & of itself. They mentally assign criminality to strangers they don’t even know, on sight. So, if you end up locked up, they don’t care. Another plus for them is that no matter how your situation is rectified later, once you’ve been in prison, your life is effectively ruined. Yes, there are exceptions. But, they know that your prison time has removed you from a competitive role in society. Even if people know you were wrongfully convicted, & believe you, they’re going to be afraid of someone who did hard time in prison (especially since black men are most likely to be wrongly convicted of a violent offense, which means going to a violent state facility- convicted white men who take bribes can return to their old lives after a federal sentence bc they didn’t go to Shankville & they usually have a better safety net). Being a convict is just as much about your experience doing a stretch, as it is about what sent you there. A wrongful conviction will likely make you unemployable, & severely limit who is willing to date/marry you. Pence & every shitbird like him knows this, & they’re happy about every life they can ruin.

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    Ugh.Breanna Edwards
    2/10/17 4:54pm

    Wow. There’s really no way to spin that shit.

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      Raineyb1013Ugh.
      2/10/17 4:56pm

      I’m sure some idiot will try.

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      Ugh.Raineyb1013
      2/10/17 4:59pm

      Yep. I look forward to the defense of unnecessary red tape.

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    Pernicious SlugBreanna Edwards
    2/10/17 8:42pm

    DNA evidence had long ago pointed to another man as the shooter, the victims and the former prosecutor who helped put Cooper behind bars have long had a change of heart and declared Cooper innocent, making pleas on his behalf.

    BS. 

    Aside from Pence ignoring this injustice, an innocent man lost 10 years of his life (and his family suffered) because of these people as well as some “tough” cops. “Making pleas” and “having a change of heart” means nothing, they should face prison time.

    Please read this article:

    http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2015/12/05/keith-cooper-man-imprisoned-crime-he-didnt-commit/76677626/

    On the witness stand, Kershner and his mother, Nona Canell, testified that Cooper and another man broke into their apartment the previous October, demanding drugs and money.

    “I would never forget that face,” Cooper recalled Canell saying on the stand.

    ...

    A test, done months before the trial, determined Cooper’s DNA was not on the hat.

    “Keith Cooper can be eliminated as a possible contributor,” Indiana State Police DNA analyst Lisa Black wrote in her findings.

    But on the day of the trial, the deputy prosecutor, Michael Christofeno, and Cooper’s defense attorney, Jack Smeeton, reached an agreement about the DNA result — one that seemed to contradict the findings.

    “…the expert opinion of Lisa Black,” the agreement said, “is that neither Keith D. Cooper nor any other person can be eliminated as having possibly worn the hat.”

    A hat he could not have worn suddenly became a hat he could have worn.

    Christofeno, who now has a private practice in Elkhart, said the DNA evidence wasn’t an important part of the state’s case. The case against Cooper, he said, was built on the eyewitness testimony.

    ....

    On Sept. 26, 2003, Coleman, the jailhouse informant, decided to right a wrong. He wrote an affidavit recanting what he previously said about Cooper.

    “I affirm that the statement given by me … about Keith Coopers (sic) involvement … was entirely fabricated by me to gain favor with the Elkhart Drug Task Force…,” according to Coleman’s handwritten affidavit.

    Later, Coleman wrote another affidavit — one that provided more details about how he became a witness. He said Rezutko, the Elkhart detective, purposefully placed him and Cooper in the same cell to try to obtain information about the robbery. But Cooper only told him that he was innocent.

    Detectives “helped me create a fabricated statement against Keith Cooper and Christopher Parish. Details about the crime that I had no idea about,” Coleman wrote. One of those details: the black hat.

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