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Locked away at 18, Robert DuBoise hugs his mom outside the prison after DNA freed him at 57
(slrpnk.net)
His entire life was stolen from him.
this post was submitted on 29 May 2024
229 points (99.6% liked)
Abolition of police and prisons
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Abolish is to flourish! Against the prison industrial complex and for transformative justice.
See Critical Resistance's definitions below:
The Prison Industrial Complex
The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.
Through its reach and impact, the PIC helps and maintains the authority of people who get their power through racial, economic and other privileges. There are many ways this power is collected and maintained through the PIC, including creating mass media images that keep alive stereotypes of people of color, poor people, queer people, immigrants, youth, and other oppressed communities as criminal, delinquent, or deviant. This power is also maintained by earning huge profits for private companies that deal with prisons and police forces; helping earn political gains for "tough on crime" politicians; increasing the influence of prison guard and police unions; and eliminating social and political dissent by oppressed communities that make demands for self-determination and reorganization of power in the US.
Abolition
PIC abolition is a political vision with the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.
From where we are now, sometimes we can't really imagine what abolition is going to look like. Abolition isn't just about getting rid of buildings full of cages. It's also about undoing the society we live in because the PIC both feeds on and maintains oppression and inequalities through punishment, violence, and controls millions of people. Because the PIC is not an isolated system, abolition is a broad strategy. An abolitionist vision means that we must build models today that can represent how we want to live in the future. It means developing practical strategies for taking small steps that move us toward making our dreams real and that lead us all to believe that things really could be different. It means living this vision in our daily lives.
Abolition is both a practical organizing tool and a long-term goal.
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That poor man. What a fucking nightmare.
If he still ran things, Ober would not have freed DuBoise just because someone else’s DNA was found on the murder victim. Yes, Ober told the Times, he knows bite mark evidence is now “controversial.” He downplayed the science but stressed that it remains admissible in all 50 states. Yes, he knew the jailhouse informant had recanted, but only after DuBoise’s lawyers “got to him.” Yes, in his time as a defense lawyer, he’d seen people he believed were innocent go to prison. But not in this case.
Ober had taken DuBoise’s exoneration personally, partly because Andrew Warren, the outsider who’d upset Ober in the 2016 election, had led the way.
Actual evil. Ober himself deserves the fucking chair for unrepentently trying to put an innocent man on it!
Also, just in case anybody wasn't quite infuriated enough:
If Warren’s rise felt like it came out of the blue, it ended even more abruptly. On the morning of Aug. 4, 2022, as Warren watched a grand jury indict the alleged true killers in the Grams case, he got an email: You’ve been suspended.
Gov. Ron DeSantis had yanked Warren from office, citing his statements in support of abortion seekers and transgender people, as well as his reluctance to prosecute certain nonviolent crimes. Though a deputy escorted Warren from the building, he still went on TV later to announce the murder charges — the press conference DuBoise had seen at the truck stop.
In Warren’s place, DeSantis appointed political ally Suzy Lopez, another prosecutor who has raised doubts about DuBoise’s innocence. She recently approached a Times reporter in a courthouse hallway and suggested the presence of Robinson’s DNA didn’t mean DuBoise wasn’t also at the murder scene. She quipped, “You should ask the (Tampa Police Department) what they think of the DuBoise case.”
...
Seth Miller, a lawyer and executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, said cooperation between their lawyers and the state attorney’s office “tapered off” after Warren’s removal. He stressed that he wants to work with Lopez.
“Under whatever leadership is there now, we don’t have any collaborations,” Miller said.
...
Teresa Hall, who led conviction reviews during DuBoise’s exoneration, left the office last summer, after leaders said she was dishonest about a vacation taken while on paid medical leave. Asked about the state attorney’s suggestion that the DuBoise case wasn’t thoroughly re-investigated, Hall said, “I proudly stand by the work I did for the state attorney’s office.”
Her replacement left in February, and the office is again interviewing candidates. A spokesperson said a senior attorney is reviewing innocence cases in the interim.
In the meantime, the panel of former judges tasked with helping review cases has been disbanded, with plans for the new leader to refill the panel.
TL;DR: the fascists have systematically dismantled the office for having the audacity to act as even the tiniest speed bump in their bloodthirsty quest to incarcerate innocents.
Just stay out of the entire state of Florida. And if I was this dude I'd take my million or whatever insultingly low pocket change they give him and leave the entire USA for real.
The whole thing is tragic, but this part worried me:
"... [Lopez] suggested the presence of Robinson’s DNA didn’t mean DuBoise wasn’t also at the murder scene."
With no other evidence of the innocent man being at the scene, and hard evidence of the presence of another, unrelated man being there instead, she still wants to set the threshold of innocence at "prove DuBoise wasn't there!"
Maybe someone with legal training can clarify, but it seems to me that under that standard anyone without a rock-solid alibi is automatically a suspect, even if their is no grounds for suspicion otherwise.
Holy shit. I highly recommend that anyone who has the time read this.
Also, fuck Ron DeSantis. An innocent man was freed, and DeSantis nearly saw him imprisoned until he died. Just because someone was reluctant to prosecute nonviolent crime and provided shelter for trans people and people seeking abortions. What an evil human.
A really long read, but highly informative. If someone has half an hour, I would recommend this article.
(Warning: graphic depictions of a broken legal system and a malfunctioning society.)
What a mind fuck
This problem is bigger than anything I can understand, but I'm starting to think the Norwegians are doing it right.
As comprehensive as that report is, I can’t help but notice that it did not give the impression that the guy’s family did much to help. Poverty is limiting but IIRC his sister did not visit for a 3 year stretch or something like that. Pre-Warren, indeed the prosecutors stood as a barrier to freeing DuBoise. But IMO he could have be exonerated ~10-15 years sooner if his family had driven a relentless campaign.
what’s wrong with conservatives here?
Ron DeSantis will probably never experience the degree of shame that he should for dismantling the infrastructure to free innocent people. I struggle to understand this because I don’t think conservatives think of themselves as scumbags. But then how do conservatives reconcile their own introspection of themselves in a way that does not make them assholes? A friend turned conservative once told me a good system incarcerates innocent people in order to convict more baddies -- that it’s an acceptible colatteral damage for the greater good. The whole /innocent until proven guilty/ philosophy is lost on conservatives as they elect hard-ass judges every chance they get. Yet they do not seem to see themselves as assholes. Ron DeSantis is successful in taking power because of this. He represents republicans well for the assholes they are.
To try to be as fair as possible, we could try to see this as conservatives having compassion for the victim that triggers uncontrolled irrational behaviour. But at election time what separates liberal judges from the hard-ass judges is treatment of victimless crimes.