If a state screws up a prosecution and sends the wrong man to jail, and discovers that it screwed up, is it not the responsibility of the state to free the wrongly convicted man AND to clear the man's name?
Um, well.....YES!!
But the governor of North Carolina is refusing to pardon a man that he wrongfully convicted when he was the prosecuting attorney of the municipality before he was the governor.
The wrongfully accused was convicted of raping a five-year-old and a six-year-old a little over twenty years ago; the victims have recanted their testimony and told the state that the victim's grandmother, now deceased, told them to lie to protect their nine-year-old cousin who actually committed the rapes. The cousin is serving a life-sentence for murder.
The original conviction was thrown out by a judge and the current prosecutor threw out new charges, saying the man was innocent.
But the governor won't do the right thing and clear this man's name. At the same time he pardoned another man who was cleared by DNA evidence after serving twenty years for rape.
The governor of North Carolina should issue the pardon and an apology. It's one thing to send an innocent man to jail, discover a mistake, and issue a pardon, but quite another for the governor of the state to deny a pardon that will allow the freed man to get on with his life. Now the wrongfully accused has to wait until 2009 for a new governor to have the brass to do the current governor's job and carry out a governor's obligation.
This is wrong. Here's the story.
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