Deliberate Injustice: Tales of a Jailhouse Lawyer

In 2009, a woman was sexually assaulted. I did not commit this crime. The woman, who I will not name to respect her right to privacy and healing, did what any survivor of an attack should do -- she went to the police and filed a report. In her report, she described a dark complected Black man, standing between 5'10" and 6'0" tall, with shoulder length braided or locked hair. When describing the vehicle of the man who assaulted her, she identified 7 different types of vehicles, and gave 3 partial license plate numbers. In the aftermath of an attack like the one she suffered, it is understandable for some details to be more clear than others. During investigation, it is the imperative of the police force to find the facts and evidence that best align with the survivor's narrative. On August 10, 2011, Det. Ronald Hahn (Aurora Police Department) arrested me in Lone Tree, Colorado. In the arrest warrant affidavit, he swore under oath that DNA Analyst Beth Hewitt (Color...

"The subject of wrongful convictions is rarely addressed in the public forum. Wrongful convictions and their subsequent incarcerations are rarely as accidental as we are led to believe. More often than not, they are the result of State actors deliberately creating criminality where none existed. These intentional acts of malfeasance are based on bias, agenda, or political aspirations. According to the 2023 Annual Report by the National Registry of Exonerations , between 1989 and 2023, 3,478 people were wrongfully convicted of crimes they did not commit. During this time over 31,678 years were stolen from the children they left behind, the spouses that moved on, and family/parents who died or had to bury the wrongfully convicted person. The numbers found in the report only account for those people for whom misconduct and malfeasance were identified and addressed. How many people have remain incarcerated because of deliberate manipulation and misuse of the criminal legal sys...