Ernest Sonnier (right) was sentenced to life but was released from prison after 23 years because DNA testing proved he was wrongfully convicted. (Getty Images)Sigh.
This man's story pisses me off. It's a perfect example of the shortcomings of this country's judicial system in which injustice often prevails.
There's no justice in telling this man: "Oops, we're sorry you were in jail 23 years for a crime you didn't commit and that having the evidence that could've exonerated you, we dropped the ball and didn't look into it," and leave it at that. How do you make amends for something like this?
By Gary Tuchman
AC360 correspondent
Ernest Sonnier was 23 when he was arrested and charged with rape and kidnapping. He was convicted and sent to prison He was taken in handcuffs from his Houston home and didn’t leave prison for another 23 years.
A week and a half ago, at the age of 46, Sonnier was freed after essentially being told by prosecutors, sorry – but we now inform you that DNA evidence we’ve just gotten around to checking indicates you did not commit this crime.
And get this – when the DNA that was examined was compared with other specimens in police possession, it came up positive for two other men already in the system. Men who are felons, but are no longer in prison.
As you wonder whether or not authorities will arrest those other men, we can tell you the answer is no. It won’t happen because the statute of limitations has expired. That’s just some of the discouraging news about this case.
Also discouraging, is this: Ernest Sonnier is now the sixth person to be freed from prison after allegations of shoddy work from the same crime laboratory, which is run by the Houston police. Over the years, the lab has been accused of ineptitude, corruption, and has even suffered flooding and water leakage which led to the corruption of genetic materials.
Now, the District Attorney, who is relatively new, has pledged that all cases that involved DNA in Houston will be reviewed. That means hundreds of cases will be re-examined. This all raises two serious questions: how many innocent people are behind bars because of poor lab work, and how many guilty people are not behind bars where they deserve to be?
Ernest Sonnier was identified by his victim in court in 1986. Prosecutors said lab tests showed hair found in the victim’s vehicle was consistent with his. Shortly after Sonnier’s trial, DNA testing became routine.
The DNA from the hair and bodily fluids found in the car and on the victim has been available for years. But the lab’s backlog was endless, and there was no mechanism for verification. A national group that tries to help the wrongly convicted, the Innocence Project, got involved in Sonnier’s case, and the testing was completed.
Sonnier, who has no idea how to operate a cell phone and marvels over satellite TV, is now a free man.
He says he will forgive, but he can’t forget.
Sonnier is staying at home with his grateful mother and father. He hugs great nieces and nephews he has never been allowed to touch.
He has not officially been exonerated. He had a criminal record before his arrest (which likely diminished any credibility he might have had with police and prosecutors.) He is now on supervised release.
So the district attorney and her investigators say they will spend weeks or months investigating his past. But unless they find out something new, Ernest Sonnier will officially be cleared. And the real criminals will continue to count their lucky stars that Sonnier took the rap for them.
Not surprisingly, many people are crying "Racism!" when this is primarily a judicial issue.I'm no judge or lawyer, but it seems to me that in order to be as objective as possible--or to at least give that impression...--laws are set up to minimize interpretation, and while that's a sensible cause meant to set uniform procedures and avoid bias, along with subjectivity common sense goes down the drain.
Case in point: the criminals whose DNA implicates them in this crime will not be charged because of laws that set statute of limitations establishing a maximum period of time after a crime to prosecute suspects. Now, how is that pursuant to justice? The damage inflicted by criminals on victims does not expire, so why should the ability (willingness...) to prosecute and convict criminals should?
We are plagued by a general lack of common sense; otherwise, those who dropped the ball at the corrupted crime lab and police department would be serving time.
Sources: CNN
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