Do you believe in “Death Penalty”? I don't.

Do you remember that moment or experience, which altered everything you believed in life or something you knew for sure turned out to be stunningly false or GaF [grey-as-f***]. 

I’ve had my share of watershed moments & experiences of the strange kind. Those are the incidents that showed me how little I know & how spectacularly stupid I am.

I don’t know if it has everything to do with the culture I grew up in, I, till age 25, believed death penalty is the right thing to do if a person commits monstrous crimes like brutal murder & rape. What’s the point of giving the criminal 25 years or life-time imprisonment. That’s a ridiculous waste of scarce resources to feed a despicable criminal for 25-50 years. And how do we know he wouldn’t commit more bone-chilling crimes in prison or when he is released outright or on parole. Death Penalty felt fairly ‘common sense’ to me. But then I was reminded by a good ol’ man, Abraham Lincoln — “Son, common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in our minds before age 18.”

Let’s inject some context here.

I was born in India where the judicial system is shoddy at best — the rich almost never ever get charged — forget about getting convicted for their crimes. But I grew up believing in the First World — I believed in the US justice system - in its fairness & efficacy.

In early 2007 my eyes fell on John Grisham’s only non-fiction book — The Innocent Man. It narrated the story of Ron Williamson, who was convicted & put on ‘Death Row’ for the gruesome rape & murder of Debra Carter, 21, on December 8, 1982, in Ada, Oklahoma. Ron’s drinking buddy Dennis Fritz too was sentenced to life for the same crime. Both — Ron & Dennis — were released after 11 years in prison in 1999 after DNA evidence proved their innocence. The cops & prosecutors, who got Ron & Dennis convicted, were found not only to be negligent but they also hid exculpatory evidence [evidence that proves a person’s innocence], planted false evidence, got fake testimonies from a criminal & did everything they could to convict Ron & Dennis even when it was crystal clear that they had the wrong men. The greatest horror was that they always had the right man —Glen Gore— within sight, but they deliberately let him slip through the cracks as he was a dealer who supplied drugs to the cops. If cops had charged Gore, he was likely to end up opening a can of worms which the cops didn’t want. Gore was eventually convicted on 21 June 2006 [24 years after Debra Carter’s murder] — sentenced to life in jail without parole.

Dennis Fritz [left] & Ron Williamson

Glen Gore

The data shows that the US has about 4% [90,000] people wrongfully imprisoned. Now, at first, some may feel that the 96% correct conviction rate isn’t too bad. But think about Ron & Dennis, who spent 11 years in jail for the rape & murder they didn’t commit. 

Now think about another case Grisham’s book sheds light on. Denice Haraway, 24, was abducted and killed on April 28, 1984, in Ada, Oklahoma.

Karl Fontenot [left] & Tommy Ward

Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot spent 35+ years in jail for Denice Haraway’s rape & murder they never committed. Now think 90,000 people who spent the best part of their life in jail because of a wrongful conviction. Think about someone you love or you being put in jail for life when you were innocent as a squirrel. When you are put in prison, you don’t have one bad night, you have 10, 20, 30, 40 years of bad nights. I don’t know about you, but I can’t even imagine being imprisoned even for a day for rape & murder — forget about getting convicted, I can’t even imagine being charged for such spine-chilling crimes. 

In the Netflix documentary based on Grisham’s book, I’ve listened to Tommy Ward, who has been in jail for 36 years, speaking to a reporter from his prison canteen. Tommy spoke so gracefully & said, without pretence, 

“I don’t hold any ill-will towards those who convicted me.” 

Are you f***ing kidding me, Tommy? 36 years in jail for a crime you didn’t commit & still you’ve the courage to choose forgiveness over hatred. Tommy Ward gives me the chills. I always thought I’ve dignity & grace, and I bloody do, but what Tommy has is beyond me & beyond any human heart. How can a man who’s been wrongfully convicted & been in jail for 36 goddamn years be so calm & dignified? It blows my mind. This man has a heart of gold.

Tommy Ward

Hard Facts

1. Tommy Ward, 60, is eligible to be released on parole if he admits to the crimes he is convicted of. Tommy maintains his innocence.
2. I wondered if, in the US, the wrongful conviction rate is 4%, what it would be in India. I couldn’t, unsurprisingly, find any official figures, but it is estimated to be about 3-5 times of the United States — that’s staggering 12%-20% wrongful convictions. India has an even bigger menace where once charged, you’re guilty unless proven innocent. I found the statistics & they’re mindboggling — 70% [331,000 people] of the official prison population in India are ‘under trial’. Trials can take 5 to 50 years in India. In simple words, 331,000 people are stuck in prisons in India even when they’re not proven guilty. As India has a less than 50% conviction rate, it means at least 165,500 [half of 331,000] are innocent but in prison.
3. Karl Fontenot [35 years in prison] & Tommy Ward [36 years in prison] were finally declared not guilty. Fontenot was released in December 2019. Ward was scheduled to be released in December 2020 but Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter cock-blocked it & sent the recent ‘not guilty’ verdict for further review. Ward is still in jail as I write this on 31 May 2021.

Even in rare scenarios, when wrongfully imprisoned people are released from prison 10-20-30-40 years later, they’re given no compensation & often not even an apology. And how does one get those 10-40 years of their life back?

This level of injustice makes absolutely no sense to me. It makes me want to go to Law School & fight this menace. But I’m too goddamn old & I’m too goddamn committed to my fights, my purpose already. I just hope the young & brilliant people around me, who choose to become lawyers do it for something greater than prestige & money. I hope they do it to fight miscarriages of justice. Because even if you could get one Innocent Man out of the prison, you’re already Golden — you’re already a Godsend!

P.S. If you’re not much into reading, which most of the humans aren’t now, you can watch the six-episode documentary — The Innocent Man — on Netflix.