#free all wrongfully convicted people

[13thpythagoras]

the past is fixed...

existentialists are all about free will, so any solid existentialist philosopher needs a manifesto about how free will cannot actually change the past.

Revisionist history is part of how oppression works. They tell us we have a history of being different "color" races yet all humans are the human race. Make it make sense...

Only oppressors try to rewrite the past, and they do this constantly.

Like for example how the GOP trolls are always blaming Democrats for slavery, even though the Confederate south at that time were Democrats, and Republicans were in the north hunting slavers and shooting to kill, and today again we see racist-revivalists in the south are now Republican and the north are Democrats.

If you have under a 5th grade reading level like Trumpo Marx and his band of angry closed-minded goons, you probably got lost and confused before reading about how this switch occurred during LBJ's extremely weird presidency where they had just killed JFK so they could start the Vietnam Genocide/"wAr" -so they revise all of that history and pretend like the Gulf of Tonkin was real and that there was no political party reversal in 1964 with the signing of the bill of rights, which is sad that we needed that but now that I'm thinking about it, this seems like a cruel negotiation. Was the bill of rights the chip traded behind the scenes with fascist powers for the Vietnam Genocide? History is complex and unresolved as you can see.

Yet philosophically speaking, "in theory," the past is absolutely and completey determined.

Free will has nothing, just absolutely zero to say about changing the past, and revisionist history is a primary tool of oppressors, as illustrated so well by Orwell's 1984. Yet there are myriad unique perspectives to history that all must be accounted for.

So when I say "maximize free will" is like my own personal "hakuna matata" phrase, or "live long and prosper," it is just a mantra of positivity, except this one didn't come from the approval of Disney bosses...

Traditional or old school utilitarians would say maximize happiness. To me, happiness is trite amidst ongoing genocides and oppression. Did we incarnate here to spiritually retire or did we incarnate here to help heal this troubled, troubled world? Maximize happiness to me strikes as hollow, shallow, like eh go see a movie and get therapy and some prozac and you're done? No, happiness is a product of the journey, not the destination. Free will leaves that door open for me to say, what if I'm like YOLO fuck happiness I want to free the people in chains

[MAXI] [MIZE] [FREE] [WILL]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Amazing what you can get done when you're not golfing everyday.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 1, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Aug 02, 2024

“This is a very good afternoon,” President Joe Biden said today. “[A] very good afternoon.”

“Today, we’re bringing home Paul, Evan, Alsu, and Vladimir—three American citizens and one American green-card holder. 

“All four have been imprisoned unjustly in Russia…. Russian authorities arrested them, convicted them in show trials, and sentenced them to long prison terms with absolutely no legitimate reason whatsoever. None.” 

In a complicated prisoner swap involving the U.S., Russia, and at least seven other countries, Americans Paul Whelan, Evan Gershkovich, and Alsu Kurmasheva and British-Russian activist Vladimir Kara-Murza, who openly opposed the invasion of Ukraine, came home from Russia. Four German citizens who had also been wrongfully detained—meaning they had not broken laws but were being held as political bargaining chips—were also part of the exchange, along with a fifth who was released from Belarus. 

Also in the swap were seven Russian citizens who had been detained as political prisoners, four of whom worked with Alexei Navalny, the political opposition leader who died in February in a Russian prison. They have left Russia and will make their way to other countries. It is extraordinary that the U.S. government managed to force Putin to release his own citizens, and Biden called it out. “It says a lot about the United States that we work relentlessly to free Americans who are unjustly held around the world,” he said. “It also says a lot about us that this deal includes the release of Russian political prisoners. They stood up for democracy and human rights. Their own leaders threw them in prison. The United States helped secure their release as well. That’s who we are in the United States.

“We stand for freedom, for liberty, for justice—not only for our own people but for others as well. And that’s why all Americans can take pride in what we’ve achieved today.” 

In exchange, Russian president Vladimir Putin got the prisoner he wanted most, hit man Vadim Krasikov, back from Germany. In addition, the U.S. released three Russians, Slovenia released two, and Norway and Poland each released one. All told, eight Russians went home. 

Foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum noted that “a group of brave journalists and democracy activists are being exchanged for a group of brutal spies.” The exchange included no money or sanctions relief. 

The U.S. had been calling for the freedom of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as part of the negotiations when he died abruptly in Russian custody in February 2024. His death briefly derailed the negotiations that had been going on since shortly after Biden took office. Even before he took office, he had asked his national security team to dig into all the cases of hostages being wrongfully detained, which they were inheriting from the previous administration. “I wanted to make sure we’d hit the ground running,” Biden said today, “and we did.” 

He noted that with today’s releases, his administration “has brought home over 70 Americans who were wrongfully detained and held hostage abroad, many since before I took office.” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan later noted that the administration has reclaimed U.S. citizens from “Afghanistan, Burma, Gaza, Haiti, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, Rwanda, and elsewhere.”

Asking Germany to release Krasikov was a big ask, but the government was willing to exchange him for Navalny. After Navalny’s death, it seemed likely the deal could not be revived. But Sullivan believed he saw a way forward, and Biden called German chancellor Olaf Scholz and asked him to continue to move forward. “For you, I will do this,” Scholz said. The president told Sullivan to get it done. In April President Biden sent a formal request to Scholz asking him to make the complicated swap that transpired today. When a reporter today asked Biden what Scholz had demanded in return, Biden answered: “Nothing.”

In his remarks today, Biden emphasized that the deal was “a feat of diplomacy and friendship—friendship. Multiple countries helped get this done. They joined difficult, complex negotiations at my request. And I personally thank them all again.  And I’ve thanked them personally, and I’ll thank them again.”

“This deal would not have been made possible without our allies Germany, Poland, Slovenia, Norway, and Turkey. They all stepped up, and they stood with us. They stood with us, and they made bold and brave decisions, released prisoners being held in their countries who were justifiably being held, and provided logistical support to get the Americans home. So, for anyone who questions whether allies matter, they do. They matter. 

“And today is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world—friends you can trust, work with, and depend upon, especially on matters of great consequence and sensitivity like this. 

“Our alliances make our people safer.”  

Sullivan was clear about where specific praise was due. “Today’s exchange is a feat of diplomacy that honestly could only be achieved by a leader like Joe Biden,” he said at a press conference this afternoon.” He directed the team and was personally engaged in the diplomacy necessary. “There is no more singular or concrete demonstration that the alliances that the president has reinvigorated around the world matter to Americans—to the individual safety of Americans and to the collective security of Americans,” Sullivan said. “And honestly, guys, I can just say this was vintage Joe Biden, rallying…American allies to save American citizens and Russian freedom fighters and doing it with intricate statecraft, pulling his whole team together to drive this across the finish line.” 

Tearing up, Sullivan added, “Today…was a very good day.”

This deal was in the works during the weeks when the press was hounding the president and suggesting he was not fit to do the work of the office. In fact, a senior administration official briefing reporters this morning pointed out that on July 20, an hour before he announced to the nation that he would not accept the Democratic nomination for president, Biden “was on the phone with his Slovenian counterpart, urging them to make the final arrangements and to get this deal over the finish line.” 

This is the largest prisoner swap since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The administration warned journalists that no one should think that there has been a breakthrough in the relationship between the U.S. and Russia or that tensions have eased. Putin’s continuing attacks on Ukraine and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and our European partners, as well as his growing defense relationship with China, North Korea, and Iran, all mean that “you will not see a policy change from President Biden or the administration when it comes to standing up to Putin’s aggression as a result of this,” an official said. 

But the deal does suggest that Putin might be finding it in his own interest to look like he might be willing to negotiate on different issues going forward, a reflection of the damage the Ukraine war has inflicted on his own society. Russia has recently pulled its ships from the Sea of Azov, Russian mercenaries just suffered big losses in Mali, and today, Russian media reported that the country’s largest oil refinery was on fire. Putin might also be seeing that Trump’s path to the White House has gotten dramatically steeper in the past couple of weeks. 

Indeed, Putin’s decision to go ahead with the swap was a blow to Trump. Gershkovich was a Wall Street Journal reporter when he was taken into custody in March 2023, and the Wall Street Journal covered the negotiations in quite some depth today. Reporters Joe Parkinson, Drew Hinshaw, Bojan Pancevski, and Aruna Viswanatha noted that Trump got wind that a deal was coming together and began to insist at his rallies and in interviews that Putin would free Gershkovich only for him.

Putin has proven Trump wrong. 

That did not, however, stop Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance from claiming that Trump deserved credit for the swap despite Trump’s insistence that Gershkovich would be released only after Trump was reelected. For his part, Trump didn’t express any joy at all in the deal, simply claiming that Biden got fleeced and saying “[o]ur ‘negotiators’ are always an embarrassment to us!”  

And from the Department of Poor Timing, MAGA representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina tweeted this morning: “Biden is MIA. Why is no one talking about it?”

At today’s White House announcement, a reporter noted that former president Trump “has said repeatedly that he could have gotten the hostages out without giving anything in exchange,” and asked President Biden: “What do you say to that?”

“Why didn’t he do it when he was president?” Biden answered.  

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[ninyard]

so, answering the questions about posthumous (after death) trials!! prefacing this with the fact that i am 10000% not an expert by any means

so, some reasons why there are posthumous trials is because 1) prove that the defendant did indeed commit those crimes 2) to provide closure & justice to society/the families of the victims 3) to exonerate (free from blame) someone who was wrongfully convicted. let’s go over them all, and which i think is the most likely reason for nathan to have a posthumous trial. trials like these are only ever performed under pretty extreme circumstances, and are typically to prove someone’s innocence.

this is the one that i’m personally leaning to with nathan, just based off of what i remember from the text and how neil described the fbi questioning. the fbi was building up a case against nathan, and even with him now being dead they have proof that “the butcher of baltimore” will no longer be putting anyone in the ground. since nathan seems to be a pretty prolific serial killer, it would likely be important for the public to no that he’s no longer at large.

this one kind of connects with number one; the fbi wants to calm the public down. nathan’s been consistently murdering people for over two decades. that’s a reign of terror the likes of which has never been seen in the united states, that we know of. the country, or at least the new england area, would be completely stressed out over him. not to mention the fact that nathan and his lackeys definitely left a trail of bodies behind them as they globe-trotted behind neil and mary. the trial would help ease public consciousness

i can kind of see number three happening, as in there were likely a few people wrongfully convicted as “the butcher of baltimore” over the years (especially since nathan had the baltimore police in his pocket). i do doubt it would be the main reason for a posthumous trial though!!

that’s the end of my rambling!! i hope that i answered some questions about posthumous trials

one example from the real world of a posthumous pardon is about three years ago, in virginia, seven black men were pardoned 70 years after they were wrongfully executed after being accused of raping a white women. if you’d like to know more feel free to look up the martinsville seven. i don’t know any examples from the modern day of anybody actually standing trial after they’ve died, but considering nathan was at large for more than 20 years i can see why they’d make an exception.

-🐏🐏

This is so interesting thank you so much for this!!!!

I’d be real interested to see if it’s something Nora is going to explore in the next books but I don’t think she’ll go into detail even if it’s included. It’ll be like a “the trial happened” and not like… the trial as it happens if that makes sense

[avelera]

The Narrative Morality of HBO's "Barry" Series Finale

OK, so post HBO Barry series finale, I'm trying to figure out what I call the "narrative morality" of the story. IE, what morality is rewarded, what gets punished, and whether or not there's a common thread at all, because a story where no consistent morality is rewarded or punished is also a statement.

So let's dive in with a few of my takeaways on what Barry is trying to "say", at least within season 4 and its finale. Cut for spoilers.

Possibility 1: "It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

This to me is not the most convincing argument, but it is the quickest to articulate. There is no narrative morality. The fact is that Bill Hader is making a statement about the inherent senselessness of life. Fuches didn't deserve to get away. Coiseneau didn't deserve to go to jail for Barry's crimes. People deserved a happy ending who didn't get one, despite doing everything right, and people who deserved to die didn't and indeed, have every indication of going on to live fulfilling lives.

On a wider level, it's an indictment of Hollywood and films (in my opinion) like American Sniper that glorify violence and turn villains into martyrs. By expecting a moral to this Hollywood story, you are played for a fool. It means nothing. It all means nothing. Objectively, many people are dead who didn't deserve it or take any actions to cause it. To seek meaning in the violence is a fool's game.

Possibility 2: "To Thine Own Self Be True"

The only way to gain redemption in "Barry" is to operate with integrity. By coming clean to her son about what she did and who she really is, Sally secures for herself a marginally happy ending as a theater teacher with a son who loves her and the adoration of her students.

By realizing that he has always been, deep down, a heartless piece of shit and a criminal, Fuches self-actualizes, becomes who he has always been deep down, redeems himself by rescuing Barry's son (who he put in danger in the first place) and walks off into the night, presumably satisfied with his choices.

By resolving in his final moments to come clean about Janet's murder, Barry didn't fully secure redemption but he did get all he prayed for: to be seated at the right hand of his father figure in death, to be seen as a hero by his son, and to be lionized after his death.

By failing to admit to himself that he was the cause of Cristobal's death, NoHo failed to achieve redemption. Instead, he receives the fool's gold of dying in his lover's arm, a statue of his lover literally made of fool's gold. He told Sally there was nothing he could do to help her, he failed to take responsibility in that moment, because he did have the power to act with integrity, just like he did in the events leading up to Cristobal's death, and he failed to do so. His reasons were understandable but ultimately, he wore a mask, and those who wear masks are punished by this narrative.

Coiseneau is the fakest of them all. On numerous occasions he's given chances to come clean, to act with integrity, to care about what actually matters in life like Janice and his son. He is over and over again tempted away from acting with integrity by instead pursuing fame and the appearance of success. He is no inherently a bad person, but he is over and over again show to be far too seduced by the temptations of Hollywood fame and his own legend to ever truly break free and act with integrity.

Janice's father also fumbles with integrity at the end, choosing the easy explanation of Coiseneau being his daughter's murderer, rather than pursuing the truth. As a result, his daughter's true murderer is lionized by the media and her lover is wrongfully convicted of her death.

In essence, when people act with falsehood and give in to convenient narratives about themselves, instead of pursuing integrity and truth, regardless of the morality of that inner truth (being a criminal is still Fuches being true to himself) the narrative punishes them. When people are true to themselves and act with integrity, even if its only to admit their own monstrousness, the narrative rewards them.

As a story told by Bill Hader, who is embedded in the shallowness of Hollywood with its shifting alliances, massive egos, frailties and foibles, "Barry" as a story about fake people constantly failing to improve themselves, act with integrity, or even acknowledge who they really are, but choosing to live instead in the fairytale palaces of their false images of themselves, fits thematically with much of what we see on screen. It doesn't preclude other themes and morals, but to me at least, there's a running theme of integrity vs. falsehood in terms of who is rewarded by the narrative and who is punished.

Possibility 3: Every Act of Violence Removes More Of Our Choices

Violence is condemned by the narrative of "Barry" but in a very interesting way. One act of violence never cements a person's unhappy ending, but it removes choices available to them. Each lost life is one more path that has been cut off from the world, and the characters who commit violence, who commit murder, see their own lives and available choices pruned away as well with each murder committed.

The narrative is actually rather optimistic towards Barry when he first signs up for the acting class. There is a sense that this is his highest point, his earnest decision to try to escape the violence. However, his past haunts him. It cuts away options he might have had in his own happiness. When he chooses to return to that world out of self-interest, the narrative once again condemns him. Each murder, each coverup with another murder, spirals. Each death cuts away another path Barry might have taken in his life. He can no longer visit friends without guilt. He can no longer have people in his life, or be an actor the way he wanted to, or enjoy the acclaim he hoped to achieve, or live openly with his family eventually, in a place of his choosing, because of his acts of violence.

Sally commits only one major act of violence, but that too has a sense of placing a ceiling upon all she might have achieved in life. She can no longer act freely without guilt. She can no longer aspire to heights that would draw attention to her that might uncover the murder. She can no longer be all she might have been, because she is responsible for a man's death.

Coiseneau is punished by the narrative for the violence he partakes in. He is punished when he chooses to act with violence and shoot "Barry", who turns out to be his own son. He is punished when he does not act to bring Janice's actual killer to justice. He is punished when he doesn't wait a few more moments for Barry to turn himself in for Janice's murder, instead taking Barry's death into his own hands and damning his own memory as a result. All his choices are taken away by this moment of violence.

Fuches might have finally blossomed into the criminal he has always been, deep down, but his options are still limited. He is a figure of shadows now, incapable of coming out into the light. He can't share Barry's life with him, or be in John's life, or walk openly outside the criminal element. He has found himself in the darkness, but each act of violence has reduced all his other options to nothing, he cannot have anything but the life of a petty criminal.

The organized crime characters all have their choices limited by the violence they've committed, over and over. They don't get out. They suffer brief, brutal lives, often dying as a result of their own machinations. Cristobal tries desperately to go legitimate, but can't escape his past. NoHo wants desperately to live in a world where he can be safe, have Cristobal, be happy, and be fulfilled, but the violence he's partaken in precludes this, it closes so many of these doors to him. With Cristobal's death, he loses even more.

Each act of violence diminishes us. It diminishes the world. It reduces the choices available to us and to the world, because those two are inextricable. Violence is not only never the answer, it steals from the life and options of those who commit it.

[gallyg]

The Killer Inside: Amanda Young in Saw X

Amanda is a weird character. Her first act as a disciple of Jigsaw is to assist with the bathroom game of Saw I by kidnapping Adam Stanheight. The struggle to subdue Adam leaves Amanda a panicked mess, which she is visibly still calming down from when she delivers Adam to the bathroom. When the game is over, Amanda can't stand the thought of Adam slowly starving to death, alone in the dark. She violates John's command. She breaks the rules. She kills Adam. John sees all of this and says nothing.

The next time we see Amanda in the chronology of the classic films, she appears to be a fully-fledged Jigsaw killer. If you think about Saw II's plot twist and take it seriously, everyone in the nerve gas house was a bit player in the real game, Eric Matthew's game. Amanda calls Eric "[her] first test subject," which means that John was actually assisting Amanda on this particular Jigsaw operation by talking to Eric for two hours. What a cool, supportive dad. And Amanda seems so much more confident in this one! Saw II was one of the more elaborate schemes pulled against law enforcement in the franchise, and Amanda was the mastermind at the core of it.

For contrast, though, consider how legitimately scared and traumatized Amanda is by Xavier's rampage and Laura's death in the nerve gas house. Was that all an act? I don't know. Recall that five minutes after being locked in the bathroom, Eric Matthews beats the shit out of Amanda and calls her "nothing, bitch," sending her into a PTSD doom spiral that ends in her attempting her second off-book murder. Was that an act? I don't think so. Amanda in the Saw II era puts on a great show of being the next Jigsaw, but it is an illusion.

Saw X explores the path from Amanda's Saw I-era anxiety to her Saw II-era mask. The intermediary step proposed is an interesting one; what if Amanda simply expressed her misgivings to John, attempting to reason with him? "Perhaps," Amanda seems to think, probably subconsciously, "if I had simply asked John if I could free Adam, he would have let me. Nobody had to die." And so Amanda pleads to John that Gabriela isn't so bad that she needs to play a game, that her soul is not so thoroughly corrupted that this is the only option left. John does not hear these pleas.

This is extremely interesting to me for a few reasons. For one, it suggests a capacity for emotional intelligence Amanda has not previously demonstrated. The Saw movies don't explore Amanda's life before being arrested and framed by Eric Matthews, but DVD commentary for Saw III suggests that that film was made with unspoken assumption that Amanda holds a deep-seated anger within her, originating from her experiences growing up with an abusive father. This creates a picture in the mind of Amanda being someone who never had a chance at a normal life at all. But in Saw X, we see Amanda expressing her desires with expectation that they might be considered fairly. She learned that confidence, however small, from somewhere, however distant. Her life could have been different.

How tragic, then, for Amanda's concerns to be fully dismissed. She was an abused child, wrongfully convicted as a young adult, became a heroin addict in prison, and was then tortured by John Kramer. There's no way Amanda has a surplus of people in her life that she would feel comfortable opening up to, especially considering the few pre-Jigsaw relationships of hers we know of.

Beyond just rebuffing the plea to free Gabriela, John then goes on to belittle Amanda, asking her how she will ever handle anything if she can't handle this ("this" being, again, not torturing a young woman, possibly to death, for being a drug addict). Remember that Eric Matthews belittling Amanda is what drove her to attempted murder. This is a real pain point for her in the Saw II era, and we see the seed of that pain point here in Saw X. John Kramer is another abusive father figure.

The second reason I'm fascinated by this moment of Amanda requesting an alteration to John's plan is because of how this frames the arc of John and Amanda's relationship. First, in the Saw I era, Amanda's insecurities are unhidden yet undiscussed. Then, in the Saw X era, her insecurities are expressed but ignored. Finally, in the Saw II era, Amanda hides her insecurities behind a mask of confidence.

(Not to get ahead of myself, but this trajectory aligns well with Amanda in the Saw III era desperately clinging to this mask while her insecurities have only grown stronger. Compare how Amanda talks while expressing her doubts in Saw X vs Saw III. In Saw X, Amanda tells John that drug addictions are complicated in a timid tone that comes across as almost rehearsed. She's careful with her words. In Saw III, Amanda says "I can't do this" between sobs and later delivers the iconic "fix me, motherfucker" speech while literally trembling with rage. In Saw X, she is asking to be heard. In Saw III, she is no longer asking.)

The final reason I love Amanda in Saw X so much is that it gives a bit more depth to her philosophy as a Jigsaw killer. While Amanda would like to spare Gabriela, she thinks Cecilia should skip her test entirely and be put into an inescapable death trap. She doesn't phrase it quite so directly in the moment, but that is what she's telling John when she says that Ceclia "doesn't deserve anything."

Thinking about Amanda's list of victims and her reactions to their fates, this lines up perfectly. Amanda has no problem with Adam or his comparatively minor crimes, and it hurts her to see him suffer. Kerry is arguably an accomplice in Eric Matthews' crimes, and Amanda shows up to watch the angel of death trap go off in person. Amanda is stone-faced as she watches Obi burn to death, but sheds a tear for Laura as she succumbs to the nerve gas. With this framework, the ambiguity of whether these reactions were authentic is gone.

This all speaks to Amanda's motives being just as multifaceted as John's. The need for revenge, the need for release, and the need for approval were always there, but Amanda hasn't always felt all three as intensely. The emotions that led her to suffocate Adam were the same emotions that led her to shooting Lynn. Her cruelty is her mercy. Her love is her hate. In Saw III, she's the only one who's honest about it in the end. Saw X shows us the moment she learned to hide it.

As one final note, I also like that Amanda is a baby dyke in Saw X. I cried sapphic tears of joy when she pulled off that pig mask, and I never got tired of watching her stomp around in her combat boots. But I like the character development a little bit more, sorry.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

Are you saying there SHOULD be a death penalty? You know there’s a lot of wrongly convicted on death row in prison, right? What’s wrong with prison abolition? Also, in my hypothetical world everybody would get changed anyway, so there’d be no reason to imprison anybody for the super violent stuff that people want to imprison people for because nobody does anything bad in the firat place.

I’m not again prison abolition. I am also not against killing a person who abuses children, rapes people, or serial killers.

This is about ideals, not reality. If you get to have a magic mind control button in this hypothetical world, I’m freeing all the wrongfully convicted.

[beardedmrbean]

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Prosecution of violent crime in St. Louis is rising sharply in the six months since an embattled progressive prosecutor was replaced by an appointed circuit attorney, according to the prosecutor's office.

Gabe Gore said Tuesday that his office has prosecuted 45% more cases than in the same six-month period of 2022, when Kim Gardner was the city's top prosecutor. Gore, speaking at a news conference, said his office also has made a dent in a backlog of pending criminal cases by resolving about 2,500 of them — mostly violent crimes in a city with one of the highest homicide rates in the nation.

“There’s no type of crime that we are looking the other way on,” Gore said. “We are enforcing the laws. We don’t accept the notion that as a citizen of the city of St. Louis you have to accept a certain amount of property crime, or what people would refer to as petty crime, as a cost of living in the city."

Gore, a Democrat, was appointed by Republican Gov. Mike Parson in May following Gardner's resignation. Her turbulent tenure included prosecution of a sitting Republican governor, frequent run-ins with police, and criticism from Missouri Republican leaders over a backlog of cases and a high number of cases where those convicted of violent crimes were not penalized with more jail time.

The new top prosecutor said he has hired 24 attorneys to fill assistant prosecutor positions that were vacant. He's also secured working relationships with private lawyers and the U.S. Attorney's Office in St. Louis to help prosecute homicide cases.

But he acknowledged that more work remains. Gore inherited 250 homicide cases. Fifty-three have been resolved but charges have been made in 37 new homicide cases since he took office. Meanwhile, his office is reevaluating 24 killings that Gardner’s office did not charge “but that the homicide division believes have merit," Gore said.

At the time of his appointment, Gore faced a backlog of 6,700 pending cases. That number has been reduced to around 4,200. He said violent crimes were dealt with first. The remaining cases — misdemeanors and low-level felonies — are expected to be resolved by the end of March.

The Rev. Darryl Gray, a leading civil rights activist who also chairs a civilian-led jail oversight board, said St. Louis needs to focus on preventing crime before it happens, not what happens after. He said that since Gore took office the city jail has reached capacity. Over 90% of the jail’s 750-plus detainees are young Black men, Gray said.

“We still have crime,” Gray said. “And until Gabe Gore and elected officials begin to talk about prevention, all we’re going to have are full jails.”

Gore said he has hired a director of community engagement and appointed a former judge to lead a new conviction integrity unit to examine possible cases of wrongful convictions. Three convictions are currently being evaluated, Gore said.

Gardner, a Democrat, became the city’s first Black circuit attorney after her election in 2016. She was part of a movement of progressive prosecutors around the country who sought diversion programs including mental health treatment or drug abuse treatment for low-level crimes, pledged to hold police more accountable, and proactively sought to free inmates who were wrongfully convicted.

Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a lawsuit in February seeking Gardner's ouster on three grounds: failure to prosecute existing cases; failure to file charges in cases brought by police; and failure to confer with and inform victims and their families about the status of cases.

Gardner said Bailey’s attack on her was politically and racially motivated.

Public opinion turned against Gardner in February after 17-year-old Janae Edmondson, a volleyball player from Tennessee, was struck by a speeding car after a tournament in downtown St. Louis. She survived but lost both legs.

The driver, 21-year-old Daniel Riley, was out on bond on a robbery charge despite nearly 100 bond violations including letting the battery of his GPS monitor die and breaking the terms of his house arrest. Critics questioned why Riley was free despite so many bond violations.

Gardner first drew the ire of Republicans in 2018 when she charged then-Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican, with felony invasion of privacy, but the charge was eventually dropped and Greitens resigned later that year.

The Greitens case drew scrutiny that led to the conviction of Gardner’s investigator. Gardner received a written reprimand for failing to produce documents and saying incorrectly that all documents had been provided to Greitens’ lawyers.

In 2019, Gardner announced an “exclusion list” of police officers prohibited from bringing cases to her office. The nearly 60 officers were accused of posting racist and anti-Muslim comments on social media.

Gore said he is still deciding if he will run in the 2024 election to keep his job. He offered no timetable for making that decision.

[crowleys-bentley-and-plants]

A curious ask for a criminology student. Which is worse: a guilty man going free or an innocent man being sent to prison? Why?

oh anon i will never shut up now i love this question. prepare for the biggest word vomit you have ever seen lol

okay so first, this question is very vague, because what is the guilty man guilty of? stealing something once isn't as bad as murdering hundreds of people for example (to give an extreme example lol). same goes with the innocent man, going to prison for a couple of years is far less severe than being sentenced to life for something they didn't do (not gonna include the death penalty because firstly my country doesn't have it and secondly im fundamentaly against it)

however, if we take a general view grounded in ethics and principles of justice, many legal scholars and philosophers (such as William Blackstone who famously said "it is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer") argue that sending an innocent person to prison is worse. i tend to agree with this because i think the legal system should prioritize protecting the rights of individuals, especially when it comes to something as severe as taking away someone's freedom. the foundation of justice should be built on the principle that it’s more important to avoid harming innocent people than to ensure that every guilty person is punished.

a wrongful conviction doesn't just harm the individual, it also weakens the moral authority of the justice system itself. when the system makes such errors, it undermines public confidence in its fairness and reliability, which can have a ripple effect, causing people to doubt its ability to deliver justice in future cases.

on the other hand, allowing a guilty person to go free could endanger public safety. it can also lead to a sense of injustice for the victims and society as a whole, who expect the legal system to hold wrongdoers accountable. additionally, when a guilty person is not punished, it could send a message that criminal behavior doesn't always have consequences, potentially encouraging more lawbreaking. in this sense, the legal system fails to fulfill its duty to maintain order and deter future crimes.

ultimately, i think it depends on the values we prioritize: protecting society at large or protecting the rights of individuals. both outcomes are harmful in different ways, but for me, the wrongful imprisonment of an innocent person strikes at the heart of what justice is supposed to stand for. a justice system that fails in this regard loses its legitimacy, and without that foundation of fairness, the system itself starts to break down.

if you take both extremes, so a mass murderer going free against an innocent person being put in prison for life, then i think it's definitely the innocent person going to jail that's worse. after all, in many legal systems, the principle of "innocent until proven guilty" emphasizes that it is better to err on the side of letting a guilty person go free than to risk imprisoning the innocent. but if you start thinking about a mass murderer going free vs someone being put in prison for idk 6 months, then the situation becomes more complex. while the mass murderer being free clearly represents a greater immediate threat to society, the question still hinges on how we value individual rights versus collective safety. i think most legal professionals would argue that collective safety in this case is more important. like Jeremy Bentham said "the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation." from this view, allowing a mass murderer to go free would be a serious failure of the legal system, as it would likely lead to more harm to society and further endanger innocent lives.

which is true of course, but a justice system that consistently prioritizes security over fairness risks becoming oppressive. if the system starts to wrongfully imprison individuals, even for short periods, in the name of protecting the public (the "better safe than sorry" argument), it could create a dangerous precedent. this could lead to abuses of power, where innocent people are routinely sacrificed for the perceived greater good, eroding public trust in the system over time.

so yea i believe that prioritizing the protection of the innocent is critical. if a legal system loses sight of that, it risks sacrificing its moral authority in the name of safety, leading to deeper systemic problems in the long run

disclaimer: this is just my opinion, you dont have to agree with me. i would love hearing other point of views but please be respectful about it

[emma-radfemcanu]

I don't think this sentiment is unpopular on here tbh but... I would gladly accept a few innocent men being in prison if it meant that the majority of actual sex criminals were too

I'm not saying that is how the legal system actually should be, and I guess it's kind of irrelevant anyway seeing how hard it is to a get a conviction for rape even with loads of evidence (although there actually was a case of a man in the UK being wrongfully imprisoned for like 17 years, but the whole reason that story is notable is because it's so rare)

You see people insisting 'it's better for 100 guilty men to be free than 1 innocent man in jail' and I always want to ask, 'better for who exactly?' Not for the victims of these violent men, or for all the other women who are in danger from them. But it's better for men and clearly that's all that's important- if we believed women and actually investigated sexual crimes properly then that would involve men facing consequences for their actions

Think of how many women are traumatised and in danger because of all these dangerous men walking free, this is seen as completely fine as the possibility (however tiny) of a man being in prison for a crime he didn't commit is much worse... awful, completely unjust, etc

Why is it so terrible that a few men might wrongfully be imprisoned (and it would be a few, sexual crimes are very hard to prove), but countless women just have to be accept being unsafe? Why are women's lives acceptable collateral damage but not men's?

I wish it was easier for sex criminals to be convicted and for them to be in prison where they belong, and if that means that a few innocent men are in there too, so be it

[owenramsey]

⸻ charlie hunnam, 38, cis male, he/him // in the WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH neighborhood of Wilmington, you’ll find OWEN RAMSEY who’s lived there for THREE YEARS and they spend their days working as the OWNER OF BLACKBIRD PUB. They’ve been described as COMPASSIONATE, PATIENT, RETICENT, and GUARDED by the people that know them. This is his story.

“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire. If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start.”

triggers: death, murder

What do you do when you’re wrongfully convicted of murdering your own wife, and sent to death row to await the punishment for the last thing you would ever do? Do you keep fighting or do you let it bring you down? Owen still doesn't know the answer despite having lived through the nightmare first hand. He hardly remembers what life was like before the incident that claimed his wife and sent him away for what he thought would be for good. But he lived a happy life before. A good life even, with a house and a beautiful wife, a white picket fence and a golden retriever named after a dog in a movie his wife loved as a kid. The eventual attorney had been born to hard working parents in Ridgway, a quaint artsy town a couple of short hours from Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. He did well in school, had plenty of friends, and after high school pursued a law degree. Owen couldn’t have asked for more, and he certainly didn’t get it — quite the opposite. Coming home to find his pregnant wife killed on their kitchen floor in 2013, Owen could have never imagined what was in store for him.  

Soon enough he found himself tried and convicted of killing his own wife, with all the evidence surely pointing him out as the one behind her death. It tore him apart at the seams, his sanity in danger when he eventually started questioning his own innocence to the point where he began believing everything the prosecutor told him. Only his younger siblings never stopped believing he had nothing to do with the death, and kept fighting for his innocence even after he was sent to death row to await his punishment.  

If Owen’s sister hadn’t hired a private investigator to help her tie the loose ends together and shed light on her brother’s innocence, it was likely he would have never seen the light of day again. New evidence that pointed in the direction of another perpetrator surfaced and meant the case was reopened shortly before Owen was scheduled to take his punishment. He was put on standby for almost six months until the real killer finally confessed. Owen was a free man— but he didn’t feel free. Every inch of his home was filled with memories of better days, or awful nightmares from the day his wife died. The people who used to greet him in the morning when he went to get the paper now looked at him with pity in their eyes, or suspicion. No matter where he went in town, everyone knew who he was and what he had been through; and they wanted to know more. He couldn’t deal with the attention and did the only thing he could think of; sell his house and move away.  

His sister welcomed him into her home in Midtown, Wilmington, South Carolina where he hid away for a good few months until he could move into his new place in town. He bought Blackbird Pub for something to do — or for somewhere to drink, and is currently trying to settle in and get his life back on track as well as he can. Owen still sometimes tries to practice law here and there, an on the side type of job since clients aren’t easy to come by, even with his proven innocence. It’s not easy, not after having lived through what he did, but he tries his hardest — if not for him, then definitely for his sister and younger brother.

[moreespressoformydepresso]

TreeMina legal AU V1 (yes there are more) where Treech is a defense lawyer and Lamina is a prosecutor. Both are notoriously good at their job and they hate each other for it. Especially because of all the underlying intrigue in the legal world. They’re both good people with honorable motivations, but the broken nature of the system keeps them from truly appreciating each other as they stand on opposite sides of a suspect’s fate.

Pretty much every case that doesn’t involve both of them ends in their favor, and their record against one another is an almost perfect 50/50. The fiery passion they have for their craft and commitment to their perceptions of justice clash in their every interaction, causing them to mutually deem the other ad blind to the cruelty in this world, and it’s only when they’re forced to see each others’ perspective that they start to realize that maybe they’re not all that different. That maybe, if they’d stop being so stubbornly closed off to the other’s perspective , they’re perfect for each other.

Lamina’s seen crime in her life. Countless innocents left traumatized for the rest of their lives, only for those responsible to walk away scot-free. When she was young, she vowed to make a difference. So she could save future victims and bring closure to those she couldn’t. That dedication eventually led her down the path to become a prosecutor, working every day to put those who wrong others behind bars at all cost, so they cannot hurt anybody else.

When he was little, Treech lost his family. Not because they died or divorced or left him, no. He lost them because his father was wrongfully convicted for the murder of his mother, serving a lifetime in prison. He and his father had been together and he said that during the trial, but he was a child. The prosecutor argued his dad had made him say it, and the testimony was deemed insubstantial. He spent the rest of his life working to become a criminal lawyer so he can prevent other families from suffering the same fate. Privately, in the depths of his heart, he hopes to one day have built enough reputation to force his dad's case to be reopened and set him free.

Their lives led them to valuing the complete opposite side of the legal system. Both try to protect innocents, but their pasts gave them a different view of that concept. Somehow, two people with the same goal are starkly different people who clash at every possible opportunity until one fateful day. See, Lamina truly believes in what she's doing, but she only sees things from her perspective. Treech and lawyers like him are too jaded to believe people who work for the Department of Justice would ever care enough to listen to them about their problems with said department, so Lamina believes she and other prosecutors are not in any way favored. Their jobs are just as hard as that of the lawyers. What she doesn't understand is that the department of justice controls what documents the defence sees, and the important ones that can reduce sentences are hidden in footnotes or mentioned one time in the entire report with nothing to make it clear they may matter. Lamina has free access to these files, whereas lawyers need to request permission to view details about other cases, and the judge can deny this request.

In one, fateful case, Lamina believes she's got it in the bag. It's clear as day to her, until the last few minutes of that day's session. Treech seems... on edge. Careful with his words, though still eloquent and outwardly calm as ever. An actor, greedy for money and fame like all those other lawyers trying to let monsters run free but with a mask of affability most of them forego entirely. He's certainly more pleasant than the other ones, never raising his voice or screaming, but if anything that infuriates her more. The way he pretends to be such a nice, respectable person while arguing against locking up criminals and pleading for them to be allowed to harm even more people! This case was going to be like all the others, she'd thought, but since yesterday her greatest adversary had seemed... different. More determined than ever before, which said a lot because he was one of the most headstrong lawyers out there. If she didn't know lawyers as well as she did, she'd call him passionate. Yet, at the end, it seems like he'll just hand her the win this time. A whole session spent arguing why they should be granted access to a completely irrelevant case. It was connected to this one, he and his team had argued. His fellow lawyer had been angry, fired up as he damn near paced behind the microphone. How stupid of them to try and stretch out time like this, knowing it wouldn't change anything. Last session, the lawyer Treech was a replacement for had stepped down as defence and ended the case for the day when they didn't get access, an obvious ploy to buy time. Now they were trying again? Pathetic! She'd made her stance clear: If the Department of Justice had deemed it important, they'd have given access to this other case straight away. They'd have made it clear from the beginning like they always did. And that was that.

Except, once the final verdict was brought down and access was denied once again, Treech asked them calmly if that was their final decision, eyes calculating in that way they did when he was about to deliver a killing blow of an argument. Straight to the jugular of whichever prosecutor he was up against. At the confirmation of his question, Treech stood up. All collected cool, but when he looked Lamina in the eye she felt fear grip her heart at the sheer burning fury in his eyes. An anger so deep she'd never thought it was possible for someone as mild as him to feel it in the first place. His smile would have looked condescending to her before, but his eyes made it look more bitter than anything. And then he began to talk, all cold professionalism barely containing a righteous hellfire that burned beneath his every word. With every syllable from his lips, she felt her heart sink more.

Treech had been part of the case they'd tried to get access to. That's why they contacted him to beg him to help them. Dates and details and locations and names listed off matter of factly like he was reading them from a paper, evidence and conclusions so succinctly put together not even Lamina could find a hole in them. Connections between that case and this one, undeniable proof they're linked so closely it's impossible to deny they're about the same crime syndicate. 5 other suspects, all proven without a shadow of a doubt to be the main culprits behind the operation. A crime this man was on trial for right now. He'd only played a small part, and he was about to be convicted like a mob boss because the defence was denied information. Only saved because Treech chose to take on the case.

And he keeps going. Except his cold demeanor is breaking as he talks about the denial of their request. As he talks about Lamina. How she'd argued there was nothing of importance in that case, yet the man she was trying to convict was likely to be let free because of that very same case. How she'd lied about it. But... she hadn't. They'd told her it was nothing important, just a similar crime that they had to use case law for, not this one. It wasn't supposed to matter this much. But her adversary kept talking, accusing her of lying. And the jury was nodding along, and then it hits her. He's right. She lied. And she hadn't even realized it, because she'd never even looked at the case. So busy with all the cases she took on that reading an old case she'd been assured was useless would've been a waste of time. And here she was, doomed to lose the case because she'd lied. The suspect was freed due to unfair trial, because she'd lied.

It's from that moment on that Lamina starts looking more closely into the cases she gets. She does more research and works to never let this happen again, shaken by Treech's empassioned speech. Not a night goes by where she's haunted by that fire, the tears she swore she saw shimmering in his eyes as he damn near ranted about the unfairness of the system, about all the innocents put behind bars, lives ruined because people like her needed to feel better about themselves. It makes her doubt herself and her motives, though she knows she's just trying to help people. In the end, she decides it would be best to discuss this with the people on the other side of the courtroom. If something like this flew over her head for years, what else had she missed?

So she reaches out to Treech, and despite his hesitance he agrees to meet her. They talk, and slowly bond as they try to figure out how to fix the broken system. As Lamina works to help him gather information for his father, they grow closer together until they eventually realize they're in love. It's difficult, being together despite their polar opposite roles in the world, but they make it work.

[cyarsk52-20]

megan didn’t even have to say a name and everyone knew

If you love him so much then why don’t you marry him Aubrey

All those wrongfully convicted people in prison and we got people wanting a rightfully imprisoned man free likeeee was the conjugal visit that good (prison sex) ? Did you benefit from your j pay? Wrote a good letter for him?

[willing-but-not-able]

So, I have a playlist of no commentary longplays to help me sleep and I've recently added Phoenix Wright DD and SoJ (since no one has the other games in a full longplay) and that got me wanting to talk about Phoenix Wright and some of my favorite things, small issues and big issues with the games.

I have played every game (that's localized) so I wanted to start this little series(?) with my disappointment with Dual Destinies.

There will be a spoiler warning for all these posts just in case someone hasn't played the game, so here's that warning.

It's no secret that everyone in the fandom pretty much hates Dual Destinies. You're either annoyed at the strange/weak plot or tired of how hand-holdy the games were.

For me, I didn't mind the game holding my hand except for that consult button because if the game had a good enough plot I can see why they would have added features/dialogue to help players.

Playing this game as a kid, there were some cases I'd be stuck on for days and I can easily see how interest would be lost if you got severely stuck in a case.

So, the hand holding wasn't too much of an issue.

My problem was Athena.

Now whether you love or hate her, I can't bring myself to like Athena because of how her plot was dismantled from her very inception.

When first playing DD, I knew Athena was gonna be a character that wouldn't be very fun to watch. Unlike Edgeworth or Apollo (before SoJ), I could tell Athena was gonna have a "one game plot" and that she would disappear right after.

However, she didn't and this is the issue with Athena.

Athena has no more plot.

The writers essentially boxed her in a corner by giving her "I need to save my friend" as her main plot. When she should have "I want to save anyone who's been wrongfully convicted."

Especially with the climate in the Justice System irl, being riddled with holes and other loopholes that get innocent people locked up and guilty people free, it would have been perfect to have Athena--and her ability--to be focused on saving people who truly are innocent but were convicted anyways. An appeals kind of game, so to say.

However, that didn't happen and instead her entire goal when she was first introduced was to save Blackquill.

Now, don't get me wrong, Blackquill is one of my favorite characters, but it's simply because I like his design and personality. As a writer, his inclusion isn't my favorite thing ever.

He's a plot device for Athena and once he was "solved" what happened to Athena? She lost her plot.

SoJ pretty much proved that with what is arguably the worst case in PW history.

Turnabout Storyteller was a long haul to get through. Not only did it feel like a game of unwinnable tennis, but it also felt like I was going through a tutorial for the second time. This case also is a perfect exemplification of why Athena is now ruined.

She has no room to grow. No hardships attached to the courtroom and not even a difficult case to work with. When Athena's "Blackquill" plot was solved in DD she has nothing else to carry her and winds up becoming an aimless character.

She's just there to replace Apollo or Phoenix.

Unfortunately, I actually hate that she is this way because it would have been really cool to see a character who can actually tell if people are being truthful or not and we could have circled back to Kristoph Gavin and found out what he was hiding and why.

Instead, we get Athena's black Psyche locks and that fell flat on its face.

I wanna rundown why that didn't hit as well as it should:

We just met Athena and have no record of her history. Even if she tells us, it's just that-- something we heard. Even with the tragedy of her mother, we didn't find anything out about that until several cases later when it's impact isn't gonna hit as hard.

Why the death of her mother isn't as impactful as it should be lies with the game itself. A bombing in a courthouse happens, the leader of a village is murdered, the death of a lawyer takes place, and someone is on death roe. There are just way bigger things going on.

Yes, the death of a parent is severely heartbreaking, but that's the only reason we feel for it in the game because it is traumatic to lose a parent.

To explain what I mean, it's similar to stories you hear on the internet of people who have suffered the loss of a loved one or family member. Yes, we're upset and our heart goes out to them, but once we get off our phone the impact of that event no longer concerns us. This is why writers need to know how to impact a reader/viewer (or in this case a player) so we feel the same gut wrenching feeling the character is feeling. We shouldn't chalk it up to "oh, that's really bad, so I understand why she's sad."

If it were me, I would have liked to see Athena with a "trilogy" of her own since Apollo is kind of beyond saving at this point.

For Athena, she should have had Turnabout Storyteller as her first case. Without Blackquill, of course, and gone through a case where someone is frozen with fear seeing the death of someone they considered a parental figure. Then, through all the Turnabout Big Top's she would end up with a firm disposition. "I have to save the lives of those who are crying out their innocence." Then, in her second (or in my opinion) the third game, we're introduced to Blackquill and their relationship. The friendship they had and the end it's about to meet. If we got even a little bit of characterization from her, it would have made saving Blackquill all the more satisfying. Athena could have easily carried three games with her ability and her background, but instead it was boiled down to one game and forgotten in the next.

Phoenix Wright games always have very interesting characters and I find myself thinking about them a lot, so this was just one, but I'm sure you'll find me talking about someone else sonner rather than later...

~Thanks for reading~

[impishtubist]

Fudge/Sirius is one of the funniest ships imaginable, now that I’m thinking of it. Imagine being Fudge and whoops, your secret ex just escaped prison, nobody knows how, and you are now having to deal with a Wizarding World that just found out that Azkaban isn’t as secure as you all thought. Everyone is on high alert all year yet somehow nobody ever sees this guy, not innocents walking around, not his cousins (who you’ve subtly kept an eye on since the breakout in case Sirius goes to them), not his former friends or any of the old Order members, no Hogwarts students, freaking nobody knows where he is. A year goes by and miracle of all miracles, your deranged ex (who somehow didn’t lose his sanity in prison but considering the rumors about his family, maybe he was already nuts and just mimicked people to learn how to function in society and masked his insanity) doesn’t kill the Boy-Who-Lived like everyone expected, so you cautiously take a breath and try to put the breakout behind you, what are the odds the definitely-crazy inmates will also learn to escape Azkaban? It’s not like Sirius can go free them…right? He hates his family, you know this (except if his statements about despising blood purity were a lie and he was actually devoted to Voldemort, who’s to say that he wasn’t lying about hating his family too? His cousin is in Azkaban…). Then, right when you’re dealing with people claiming Voldemort has returned, pretty much every single maximum security prisoner is freed and you cannot handle the thought of Voldemort being free, so you figure your convict ex did the impossible yet again and arranged yet another break out; after all, his cousin was among those freed and family is a big deal among those types, it’s not outside the realm of possibility for Sirius to return to free his former allies (several of whom are family to him). And then, you walk into the Ministry one night and learn your worst nightmare has come to life and Voldemort is indeed back (and also there’s a rather worrying security breach considering there’s about a dozen people present who definitely should not be in the Ministry right then. For some baffling reason, you spot 6 students and nobody tells you why these kids are even here or even who there names are. One is certainly a Weasley but there’s so many you don’t know who that one is, another is the female Weasley but you don’t know her name, one’s Harry Potter, one looks like Frank and Alice Longbottom so you think that’s their son, one is some random blonde girl, and the other looks vaguely familiar and you think it’s that girl that the Prophet reported was involved with Krum and Potter last year but you’ve never met her and also she was rushed to a Healer almost immediately because she got hit by Dolohov’s favorite curse so you don’t know for sure). You also discover that it turned out your homicidal and blood-purist ex actually wasn’t a Death Eater at all and was framed, so he wrongfully spent 12 years in Azkaban. Oops? You can’t even make it up to him because he died in the fight, his cousin killed him. What a wild time Fudge is having from POA-OOTP if he dated Sirius once.

This is the best ask I have ever woken up to, thank you for blessing my inbox with it this morning.

[free-eddie]

Read and research all of Eddie’s legal documents in a one stop shop location and analyze with the free-eddie.com findings.

free-eddie.com/legal-documents

[beardedmrbean]

A man walked free on Monday after spending nearly three decades behind bars for a rape he didn't commit. 

Patrick Brown was convicted in 1994 of raping his then 6-year-old stepdaughter, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office in Louisiana said. The sexual assault survivor did not testify at Brown's trial and, beginning in 2002, she repeatedly asked for the case to be reviewed, insisting Brown wasn't her attacker, the district attorney's office said.

But the case was not investigated again until recent years.

"It is incredibly disheartening to know that this woman was dismissed and ignored, no matter how inconvenient her truth, when all she wanted was the real offender to be held responsible," Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams said in a statement Monday. "When someone is wrongfully convicted, not only is it an injustice for the person who has years of their life stolen, but it is an injustice for the victim and the people of New Orleans because the real perpetrator is left to harm others."

Williams said that the office's civil rights division "conducted a thorough investigation and the evidence corroborated the victim's account, which has remained steadfast for over 20 years." Williams did not provide details on the exonerating evidence. 

The office asked the court to vacate Brown's conviction and Judge Calvin Johnson presided over a hearing Monday, after which Brown was released.

Civil Rights Division Chief Emily Maw said she hoped Monday's news brought some closure to both Brown and his stepdaughter.

"This victim has endured not just the deep trauma of child sexual assault, but the trauma of knowing the wrong man has been imprisoned for almost three decades while the man who raped her walked free," Maw said in a press release. "This is a very sad case, but we are hopeful that this will bring some closure to the victim and that she, and Mr. Brown, can move forward in healing."

Prosecutors have not shared details regarding the man the woman says raped her as a child. CBS News has reached out to the district attorney's office for additional details.