Wrongfully Convicted on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Gail Miller was found raped and murdered on this day (January 31) in 1969 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. On January 31 1970, David Milgaard, was wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. 

For the next 22 years, David Milgaard would be incarcerated in a Saskatchewan prison, given a life sentence in 1970 after his conviction, until his release on April 16, 1992. Five years later, DNA testing would not only exonerate Milgaard, but would identify the person who had committed the crime. Milgaard would receive $10,000,000 in 1999 for the miscarriage of justice.

Since 1989, DNA testing has freed hundreds who were convicted of crimes they did not commit. There are many other cases where DNA strongly suggests innocence but does not conclusively prove it. Convicting and imprisoning an innocent person is arguably the worst thing a government can do to one of its citizens, short of mistakenly executing him. (There's increasing evidence that this has happened too.) Just about everyone agrees that these are unfathomable tragedies.

The Innocence Project claims that there are about 20,000 people in prison right now that are wrongfully convicted.

See also: List of 10 high-profile wrongful murder convictions in Canada

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The Longest Prison Sentence on This Day in History

 

This Day in History. Richard Honeck, 84, who had served the longest prison sentence in American history, was granted parole on this day in 1963, from the Southern Illinois Penitentiary after serving 64 years incarceration. He had been incarcerated since September 2, 1899, for the brutal murder of schoolteacher Walter F. Koeller and had been eligible for parole since 1945, but had not been released because his immediate relatives had all died. On August 25, 1963, an article by Associated Press reporter Bob Poos brought the case to national attention. One of the people who read the article, Mrs. Clara Orth of San Leandro, California, agreed to take her 84-year old uncle into her home. Honeck would survive 13 more years, dying on December 28, 1976, in a nursing home at the age of 97. 

The time served by Richard Honeck has been exceeded since his release in at least three cases.

Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby (1886–1987) served 66 years and 123 days at Indiana State Prison from 1908 to 1974 after stabbing a man in 1907 during a poker game/bar fight.

Joseph Ligon (1938-present) served 68 years at the State Correctional Institution – Phoenix and was at one time the oldest juvenile lifer in the US, Ligon at age 15 was sentenced in 1953 to life without parole for murder, a mandatory sentence at the time. Ligon first rejected a resentencing and parole offer in 2016. Ligon was again resentenced in 2017 and immediately eligible for parole but refused it, pending his appeal. Ligon contends that he should be resentenced to "time served" and released, so he can cut all ties to the justice system. He was released in 2021, after serving 68 years in prison. 

Paul Geidel, (1894–1987) who was convicted of second-degree murder in 1911, served 68 years and 245 days in various New York state prisons. He was released on May 7, 1980, at the age of 86. Geidel's case differed from Honeck's in several key respects. First, he was initially sentenced not to life imprisonment but to twenty years to life, but was later declared insane and was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital. Secondly, Geidel was offered parole at an earlier date than was Honeck – in 1974, when he had served only 63 years. By this time, Geidel had become institutionalized and declined release, voluntarily choosing to remain confined for an additional six years.

William Heirens, (1928–2012) the "Lipstick Killer," confessed and plead guilty to three murders in Chicago in 1946, sentenced to three life terms, and imprisoned 5 September 1946. He exceeded Honeck's record of time served in August 2010. Heirens died still incarcerated on March 5, 2012.

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A Correctional Officer's Death on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Correctional officer Kristopher Moules died on this day in 2016. Kristopher Moules, 25, and Timothy Gilliam Jr., 27, an out-of-county inmate being housed at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, US, fell to their deaths after an altercation between them caused them to slam into the exterior of the fifth floor elevator doors. Despite the elevator having its up-to-date working credentials, the door popped open on impact, causing the men to fall five flights down the shaft to their deaths. The county declared CO Moules' death a homicide and declared Gilliam's death an accident.

A Florida study found that on average, law enforcement and correctional officers died 12 years earlier than the general population. Source

Correctional officers are also more likely to commit suicide:

"Between 2010 and 2015, at least 20 corrections officers working for the Massachusetts Department of Correction (MADOC) died by suicide. The average suicide rate for MADOC corrections officers over this period was approximately 105 per 100,000 –a rate that is at least seven times higher than the national suicide rate (14 per 100,000), and almost 12 times higher than the suicide rate for the state of Massachusetts (nine per 100,000)." Source

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Suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: American President Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus on this day (April 27) in 1861, which, in effect, made him a dictator. 

"What are habeas corpus rights?  According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 'Habeas corpus is a fundamental right in the Constitution that protects against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment. Translated from Latin it means ‘show me the body.’ Habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument to safeguard individual freedom against arbitrary executive power.'  A citizen must be charged and cannot be held indefinitely.  A charge requires a trial, and if found guilty in a trial, there is a sentence for a specific amount of time." Source

Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus "had been so broad as to allow local authorities to arbitrarily arrest anyone they personally considered to be disloyal or whose politics they simply disliked. Some of those arrested had done nothing more than criticize Lincoln. Union General Henry Halleck famously arrested a Missouri man merely for saying, '[I] wouldn’t wipe my @$$ with the stars and stripes.' Estimates of those arrested range widely, but overall 10,000 to 15,000 were probably imprisoned and denied a prompt trial." Source

"This wasn’t the first time the government in Washington had trampled the Bill of Rights. No less than the administration of John Adams, an American founding patriot, briefly shut down newspapers and dissenting opinion with its Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798." Source

The same thing is happening today with the handling of the cases of the defendants in the January 6 so-called “insurrection” in Washington DC to protest the Presidential election. "Those being held for many months without a trial are being denied their habeas corpus rights under the U.S. Constitution and even dating back to English law hundreds of years before our Constitution was implemented.  They are not only being incarcerated without having had a trial, but there is some evidence that they are being mistreated or are being held 23 hours a day in solitary confinement which is a punishment accorded only the most dangerous criminals." Source

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