Hello
How’s everyone doing out there? Hopefully all is well and you’re counting your blessings. As for me, I am blessed and giving praise unto God for his goodness.I may not be physically free, but the lord has provided me with the greatest form of freedom. For this I am thankful.
Well, hopefully I need no introduction and everyone knows who I am right now. If not, I don’t suppose that it would hurt for me to take a few moments to tell you who I am and a little about my situation (nightmare!). I’m Benjamine John Spencer III, I was wrongfully convicted of a crime that I did not commit back in March of 1988. To date, this wrongful conviction has consumed more that twenty two (22) years of my life thus far. Twenty two years, one month and two days to be exact and counting on.
Anyway, I just wanted to greet all of the lovely people out there who have taken or at least shown an interest in our cause. I say our cause because what has happened to me can happen to anybody (one of you to be more exact). I mean, just think about it, all that is takes is someone to say that they saw you do it! No matter how big of a lie that they have told, the jury is more likely to believe the accusation. What about your alibi?
Well if you are so fortunate to have one, it will go out the window, as the prosecutors will sure allege that you have somehow compelled your witness to provide you with such and alibi. The rule of law is that the accused is “innocent until proven guilty!” Did you catch that “the accused”, think about it for a minute, how often have you saw the accused as innocent? My point being that this works in theory but very rarely does it work in principle. When a person is accused of an offense, especially here in Dallas County, it is incumbant upon the accused to rigorously prove that he or she did not commit such offense! That’s sad but all too often it is the reality of our judicial system.
What the DNA cases have done is helped to expose a failing and sometimes a very corrupt system, that innocent men are being “railroaded” and sent off to prison for crimes they did not commit. In these cases something has gone awry, the victim was either mistaken about their attacker or coersed into identifying the wrong person by rogue cops. So back to what I stated previously, all that it takes is for someone to claim that they saw you and its sufficient enough for an arrest and your wrongful conviction. So long as the accuser is willing to stand by their claim ( doesn’t matter how big a lie that they’ve told) the conviction will stand.
What would compel a person to lie on an innocent person? That is the Zillion dollar question to which we’re unlikely to ever have a legitimate answer. Take my case for instance. My neighbors (my three accusers) and I have never had any bad experiences with one another, not one of them can honestly say anything negative about me, I’ve never done either of them wrong! Yet they took it upon themselves to make up these false, ficticious, allegations against me and Robert Mitchell. A question often asked is “why would they lie?” Honestly, I don’t know. All that I know is that I was not seen by any of them because I was not there!
At any rate, I believe that it’s time for changes to be made in the way that cases are developed. All interviews wit witnesses and the accused should be video taped to protect the integrity of what is said. Due diligence should be rendered in seeking the truth and greater measures should be take to discourage those who would make false accusations against a person(s). There has to be a way to weed out those who for whatever reason would come forward to divert the investigation through lies and deception. Again I stress that this could easily be you, your husband or son.
I apologize, I got just a little carried away, so please forgive me. I certainly want to apologize to Kristina whose time and energy will be consumed in putting me on the blogs. Thanks Kristina for your time and efforts to reveal injustices of our day.