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Time - Man of the Year
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0406107.000
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1992-08-28
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NATION, Page 25American NotesINJUSTICEThey're Free At Last
Few people know better than Clarence Chance and Benjamin
Powell just how slowly the wheels of justice can turn. After
serving 17 years for the murder of a Los Angeles County sheriff's
deputy, Chance, 42, and Powell, 44, were set free last week when
a superior court judge found that there had been improper police
conduct in the investigation of the killing.
The two men owe their freedom to new evidence unearthed by
Jim McCloskey, a New Jersey independent investigator who took
the case after receiving a letter from Chance claiming that he
had been wrongly convicted. His alibi: he was locked up in the
county jail on the day of the murder. McCloskey tracked down
three witnesses who had testified against Chance and Powell
under what they said was pressure by the L.A.P.D. County
prosecutors who joined the investigation then discovered that
police had not revealed the fact that a jailhouse informant who
had provided damning testimony had failed two polygraph tests.
During their stay in prison, neither Powell nor Chance
gave up hope they would be vindicated. Said Chance: "I have to
learn moment to moment what freedom is."