An injustice that Biden can still set right

 

For 40 years, I have devoted my life to advocating for reforms to America’s broken criminal justice system and our deeply flawed use of the death penalty. After spending far too many painful final moments with those on death row, I now want to call attention to a different kind of case: a presidential pardon request that offers America a chance to redress an appalling miscarriage of justice by recognising the innocence of those involved.

Nothing troubles me more than the punishment of people for crimes they didn’t commit. That is precisely what happened to Chris Turner, Charles Turner, Clifton Yarborough, Levy Rouse, Russell Overton, and Timothy Catlett, who collectively have spent more than 200 years in prison for the 1984 murder of Catherine Fuller.

Like the infamous case of the Central Park Five, in which innocent young men were convicted of brutally assaulting and raping a female jogger in Central Park, the two Turners, Yarborough, Rouse, Overton, and Catlett were the victims of a prosecutorial rush to judgment.

All six were convicted despite the absence of physical evidence connecting them to the crime, and law-enforcement officials failed to investigate an obvious suspect, who later proved to be the likely killer.

A beloved mother and wife, Fuller was brutally assaulted and murdered on Oct 1, 1984, while walking home in the busy H Street Corridor of Washington, DC. Based largely on rumours, the police arrested 17 young people from the neighborhood, and after harsh interrogations, two of them agreed to testify against the others in exchange for leniency.

The stories they told differed markedly, neither matched the physical evidence, and both witnesses later recanted under oath. Nonetheless, eight young men (two of whom have since died) were ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison. They have consistently proclaimed their innocence ever since.

We now have a good idea of what really happened. Another man, not among the 17 young people who were rounded up, likely killed Fuller. Police and other witnesses had noticed him loitering suspiciously on H Street before the crime, before fleeing the scene as police arrived.

He was even spotted hiding the likely murder weapon as he fled. Two weeks later, he assaulted two other women just two blocks from 8th and H, leading to his arrest and conviction. Prosecutors never turned this information over to defense attorneys in the Fuller case, nor did they connect the dots themselves.

Subsequent events continued to point to the man’s guilt. Released from prison in 1992, he returned to the neighbourhood and committed an identical assault and murder just blocks from the original Fuller crime scene, and is now serving life in prison without parole for this crime.

Yet because of a flaw in the justice system, a presidential pardon is the only way to help six innocent men. The Supreme Court denied them relief in 2017, partly because it could not consider the most compelling evidence of their innocence: the probable assailant’s identical 1992 murder.

After the eight defendants were convicted, they were quickly cast aside by the District of Columbia. A prominent newspaper even published a commentary calling for their execution. These young men, the columnist wrote, warranted bringing back “Ole Sparky,” the city’s electric chair.

Vilified, humiliated, and unjustly imprisoned, the men could have given up. They could have admitted guilt in an attempt to win early release, or resigned themselves to a life behind bars. But they did neither. Instead, they displayed the kind of grit and spirit that we all aspire to. They all maintained their innocence, and they all committed to making the most of their time in prison.

Fortunately, the six surviving men have been released from prison over the last several years, and they have all committed themselves to bettering their community. It would be only natural for them to harbour hostility towards the place that wrongfully locked them away for so much of their lives, but they have demonstrated remarkable magnanimity.

They have become pillars of their community, honored by the Greater Washington Urban League for their community service; working at local schools and the MLK Memorial Library; serving as youth-safety ambassadors; volunteering through the Free Minds Book Club to mentor young inmates; thriving at their jobs; and building or rebuilding families.

And yet all of them remain what they never should have been: convicted murderers.

The president’s clemency power is a tool of mercy. It is also a tool of justice. These innocent men deserve both, and a presidential pardon is the only way for them to receive what justice demands. Joe Biden can recognise their wrongful conviction and years of post-release service to their community – and he can show mercy – by pardoning these men now. - FMT

Helen Prejean is the founder of the Ministry Against the Death Penalty.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.