The lesson is as charged as superbolt lightning: An innocent man or woman sentenced to die is the perfect witness against what many see as the inherent immorality and barbarity of continuing capital punishment. The post-traumatic stress faced by a wrongly convicted person who has awaited execution by the government doesn’t dissipate simply because the state frees the inmate, apologizes, or even provides financial compensation-which often is not the case. The daily paths they travel as former death-row inmates are every bit as daunting, terrifying, and confusing as the burden of innocence that once taunted them. (*Figures in all captions are rounded to the nearest year and don’t include time in jail pre-sentencing.) People who were sentenced to death after being convicted of crimes they didn’t commit share moving testimonials about their experiences on death row and life after exoneration. I interviewed Ajamu and others who represent vastly different backgrounds but share a similar, soul-crushing burden: They were sentenced to death after being convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. Ajamu was released on parole in 2003 after 27 years in prison, but the state of Ohio would not declare him innocent of the murder for nearly another 12 years, when the boy’s false statement and police misconduct were revealed in a related court hearing. But Cleveland homicide detectives told the boy they would arrest and charge his parents with perjury if he changed his story, according to his later court testimony. It would be publicly revealed 39 years later that the boy who testified against him had immediately tried to recant his statement. Yet mere months after his arrest, the high school junior was condemned to die. Another witness testified that Bridgeman was not on the street corner when Franks was killed. Not a shred of evidence, forensic or physical, connected Bridgeman to the slaying. Ajamu was 17 when he was convicted.Ījamu, then named Ronnie Bridgeman, was found guilty primarily because of the testimony of a 13-year-old boy, who said he saw Bridgeman and another young male violently attack the salesman on a city street corner. Ajamu was sentenced to death in 1975 for the murder of Harold Franks, a money order salesman on Cleveland’s east side. Also give out consistant penalties as well, and have precedent examples.A version of this story appears in the March 2021 issue of National Geographic magazine.Ī 63-year-old man named Kwame Ajamu lives walking distance from my house in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. So one "Steward team" can investigate one incedent and the other can investigate the other. With the cheif steward dishing out the penalties, and 2 ex drivers having a non driver as their side to analise the incedents. (I have a list of proposals id like to put to FOTA and the FIA that would make the soprt more open)ģ] Stewarding needs to become more standardised with a pool of Ex Driver Stewards, id recon that 8 is about right, and a pool of 12 non driving stewards with one or two "Cheif Stewards" that go to each race. Lack of transperancy is my biggest crime at present, followed by not listening to the fans enough, then id recon would be stwearding and consistant punishment of drivers.ġ] Transparency needs to be delt with by letting everyone know what engine and gearbox is in what car for what session, as well as for one team, putting their chassis numbers on their press releases.Ģ] Listening to the fans, letting them have their say for the sporting regs and some technichal regs as well, after all the customer always knows best.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |