Cleared by DNA tests, Tampa man is freed from prison after 24 years

>> Stories like this are the source of conflict for my opinion on the death penalty. I feel that the possibility of new evidence coming to light and the possibility to be freed if wrongly convicted should be an integral part of our justice system. Certainly once someone is put to death, that possibility is gone forever. Unless you consider exoneration after death to be sufficient. But I can't.


http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...a-news-florida

Cleared by DNA tests, Tampa man is freed from prison after 24 years


By Mitch Stacy
The Associated Press

January 24, 2006



TAMPA · Alan Crotzer stepped into the warm sunlight outside the county judicial building Monday and raised his arms to the sky, celebrating freedom after serving more than 24 years in prison for crimes he did not commit.

A judge had just ordered Crotzer, 45, freed after DNA testing and other evidence convinced prosecutors that he was not involved in a 1981 armed robbery and rapes that led to his 130-year prison sentence.

"It's been a long time coming," said Crotzer, his black hair graying at the temples. "Thank God for this day."

Crotzer walked free more than three years after he wrote to the Innocence Project in New York and lawyer David Menschel, law student Sam Roberts and the Florida Innocence Initiative began investigating his case.

"Are you ready for what you waited so long to hear?" state Circuit Judge J. Rogers Padgett said to Crotzer during the brief hearing.. "Motion granted, you're a free man."

Members of Crotzer's family and other courtroom spectators clapped and cheered as a bailiff removed shackles from his wrists and ankles.

Prosecutor Mike Sinacore congratulated him. "Trying to fix an error in the system is just as important as trying to convict someone who is guilty."

I often wonder if those who are picked up and or convicted of crimes they didn't commit are often "frequent fliers" of the criminal justice system and were picked up as the usual suspects who are guilty of other crimes anyway.
Color me cynical. Makes you worry about the ones who got away however.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Daynathepayna

I often wonder if those who are picked up and or convicted of crimes they didn't commit are often "frequent fliers" of the criminal justice system and were picked up as the usual suspects who are guilty of other crimes anyway.
Color me cynical. Makes you worry about the ones who got away however.

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I don't doubt at all that this happens. Actually, I recall a very recent case of a man who committed a very brutal crime after being exonerated and freed for an earlier wrongful conviction. Nonetheless, I think that the death penalty it useful only in an ideal and infallible system, which we of course just don't have.

Oops....

It's exactly why I'm not a fan of the death penalty. And I put a couple of guys on death row when I worked homicide, or the DA did after conviction.

There is always room for error, witnesses can be wrong, some witnesses flat lie to us and on the stand. I believe strongly the guys in my cases are guilty, the evidence is pretty overwhelming, but I'd have soon they got life w/o parole. The appeals are so numerous in this state and costly that it's no cheaper to kill them.