home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- 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."
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-