Can you imagine the feeling in the pit of your stomach as a judge tells you you’ll
be spending the rest of your life in prison, and you’ve done nothing wrong.
It’s hard enough being blamed as a child for stealing candy when it was actually your
smirking brother, but how must it feel to be wrongly imprisoned?
In 2015, it was reported that 149 people were released from U.S. prisons after being cleared
of guilt.
The average sentence of those prisoners was 15 years.
54 people were cleared of murder, and five people that were cleared, were waiting for
a life-ending seat in the electric chair.
But one innocent man has served the most unwarranted time in U.S. history, and that’s who we’ll
talk about today, in this episode of the Infographics Show, Why Did This Innocent Man Serve 39 Years
in Prison?
Recent reports talk of a man named Albert Woodfox, who was kept in solitary confinement
for 43 years in America.
He has always said he was innocent of the murder of a prison guard in 1972.
Most lawyers who know the case have said this man was innocent, with one lawyer telling
The Guardian that he spent all those years alone in a cramped cell, “for a crime in
which all the evidence was undermined.”
So, Mr. Woodfox, we apologize if we have it wrong about the longest prison sentence of
an innocent man in the USA.
It’s also likely there have been longer sentences of innocent people around the world,
but perhaps these cases didn’t get into the English-language media.
Ricky Jackson was released from prison in 2015 after serving a sentence of just under
40 years.
This native of Cleveland was convicted of murder when he was just 18.
He spent all those years in prison and can be seen in photographs after his release,
grinning widely, his hair now greying, and his eyesight not what it used to be.
He doesn’t look bitter in the photos, but he was suing the City of Cleveland for his
wrongful arrest, stating the police deliberately framed him.
His lawyer said, “We now know substantially more about the fallibility of eyewitness identifications.
Too many people have been sent to prison wrongfully based on bogus identifications.”
Jackson was already awarded $1 million in compensation, but he is looking to prove he
was denied his constitutional rights as an 18-year old and that several police officers
had deliberately fabricated evidence.
One report states, “Police searched the homes and cars of all three defendants, but
they never recovered a murder weapon or any stolen property.
Nor were police able to link any of the three defendants to the green getaway car seen by
several witnesses.”
The arrest and conviction rested mostly on the testimony of an apparent eyes witness,
a 12-year old boy named Edward Vernon.
The conviction was overturned when Vernon came forward and recanted his testimony in
2013.
According to reports, police had little to no evidence that Jackson had committed the
murder of Harold Franks, a salesman who was slain outside a store.
Reports from back then state that Hanks had acid thrown in his face, after which he was
clubbed and then shot several times.
The assailants stole $425 and ran away.
The 12-year Vernon had said at the time of the murder that Jackson, as well as Wiley
and Ronnie Bridgeman, killed the man.
In 2013, he said at the time, the cops made him say it.
He said the police said if you don’t say it was those two brothers and Jackson, we’ll
put your family in jail.
He also said that later in life he didn’t come forward because he was afraid he would
be prosecuted for lying.
As an adult he also got into some trouble himself, being convicted of drug trafficking
and gross sexual imposition.
All three men received the death sentence, but all three sentences were commuted to life
terms.
One of the brothers served 25 years as an innocent man and was released on parole in
2003, and the other brother served 37 years as an innocent man.
The men want justice, which they believe they do not yet have, even considering they are
now innocent men.
They are going after the police who put them in prison, even though some of those 8 officers
are now dead.
Other reports state that at the time of the robbery and murder, Vernon had been on a school
bus and had heard shots fired, but he actually hadn’t seen who did it.
He did talk to police, and it seems he was forced into saying it was those three guys
that did it.
The thing is, police had another suspect who had been implicated in the crime not just
by informants but also by his own mother.
The lawsuit against the police says they ignored that, and went after the three people it seems
they wanted behind bars.
What happened to the man who was implicated in the murder?
A few years later he was found guilty of multiple counts of armed robbery.
The lawsuit goes further, too, saying cops beat Jackson up to try and get a confession.
It states that police “repeatedly put a phone book on Mr. Jackson’s face and other
areas of his body and hit him through it so that it would not leave any marks.”
Cleveland’s finest, according to the lawsuit, also put the three men in a lineup.
The boy didn’t identify them, not until the cops made those threats that if he didn’t
pick the three men, his mother and father would end up in prison.
Other reports state that classmates of Vernon have even come forward to police to say that
no way did he see anything.
After all, they were on the same bus.
Police ignored those statements, too.
They testified in court, but three juries were not interested.
How does Jackson feel now?
He has been asked that question by the media numerous times;
“I intend to live well,” he told The Smithsonian.
“But it has nothing to do with whether I’m here in this nice house, or whether I’m
homeless.
It has to do with attitude.
I’ve been given an opportunity, you understand?
And I’m not going to waste it by holding grudges.”
He told the press that prison at first was tough and he had to fight, but as he got older
he changed, studying, finding solace in novels and books about history, biology, and nature,
saying he would often read a book a day from the prison library.
“I had this ember inside me, some little smoldering piece of hope.
I’d say, If I give up, what am I really surrendering to?
And so, you go on,” he said in that interview with the Smithsonian.
He wrote to journalists and filmmakers about how it was so obvious they had been set-up.
Many times, he could have had his sentence shortened if he’d admitted guilt, but each
time he passed on that.
Jackson now calls life “rebirth”, and says he is lucky, as many innocent men are
still in prison today.
As for the 12-year old kid who helped put him in prison, Jackson has met with him and
says all is forgiven.
In an interview he said, “He was just this goofy little kid who told a whopper.”
With some cash in the bank and a woman in his bed, he’s doing alright.
He plans to visit Jamaica and Ireland, spreading wings that were clipped by police corruption
for almost 40 years.
So, how many innocent people do you think are in prison?
How many innocent people accept plea bargains?
Do you trust the police to always be ethical?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
Also, be sure to watch our other video called This man spent 43 years in isolation!
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