General
A simple question
I have read The Devil’s Knot and I have to say the details are outstanding. It was very researched and well written. I have followed this case in detail since watching the two documentaries. I own both of them and watch them from time to time. I have had my doubts about a few things but never of their innocence. I just don’t know where justice will ever be found for these three. I have to agree with Damien that none of the judicial team is going to admit that they made a mistake and have to admit that they ruined 3 innocent young men’s lives…..so where does that leave Damien, Jessie and Jason? I just don’t understand why they are so hesitant on a new trial. What would it hurt except they may have to admit they made a mistake. I pray for everyone in this case and that justice will prevail soon so these young men can get out and try to have a normal life one day. They deserve some happiness.
Teri Glover
North Little Rock, Arkansas
Unfortunately, it goes against the grain for most officials to admit error. At the same time, members of the legal profession, especially the judicary, bemoan the public’s declining confidence in our police and courts. A willingness on officials’ parts to examine problems, admit errors and make essential changes would go a long way to restoring public trust. But so long as police, prosecutors and judges prefer to look at “wins” and “losses” as though they were playing a football game, with no replays—or retrials—the public is right to doubt courts’ claims that they seek either truth or justice.
Success! Could change be in the air?
Sometimes the legal system—laws, police, courts, and prisons—can seem intractable. That’s been especially true in Arkansas. So it is important to pay attention when change happens, and to look closely at how it was brought about. The article at left describes a big about-face on the part of the Arkansas Department of Correction, brought about by people who banded together to work diligently with elected officials. Kudos to the folks at CURE, the NAACP, Arkansas Voices for Children Left Behind, and members of the Baptist faith who put such effort into the long fight to provide more reasonable calling rates for families and others who wanted to maintain their connections to inmates. Thanks also to Arkansas Sen. Irma Hunter Brown of Little Rock (above) and Rep. Sharon Dobbins of North Little Rock for their attention to this issue.
Arkansas Department of Correction officials tried to put the best face on their sudden change of heart, but it was purely tactical. For years, the department has been willing to gouge inmates’ contacts in the free world, and extracting millions of dollars from them to beef up the prison budget. Faced with the possiblity of legislation that would have left them licking bigger wounds, the department opted for compromise, a reduction in their take from the prison-phone contract, in lieu of losing income from it entirely.
Prison spokesperson Dina Tyler continued to maintain the department’s contention that money from the phone system “makes life betters for the inmates,” by providing “things like gate money and recreation equipment.” But prison expenditures that Tyler has said are paid for by the phone income are all required by law, department policy, or accreditation standards. There can be no doubt that, even with the reduction of phone fees that are going to the state, the money that is still being collected constitutes an unfair and highly regressive tax on a select part of the state’s population. We are not fooled by prison director Larry Norris’s remark, after 13 years of taking cash from some of the state’s poorest families, that now, “it doesn’t hurt to be able to do a positive thing.” We know the department was forced to swallow this “positive” pill. But we should also take heart at this news and consider what it might bode for other much needed corrections.
