Eideard

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable.

Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy, the folks call her Mrs. Anderson, and the children Milly, Jane, and Grundy go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee.
The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master.

Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

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Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Thousands of protesters crammed Egypt’s Tahrir Square on Tuesday, hoping to catch a glimpse of a Google executive whose detention by secret police has made him a figurehead for anti-government demonstrators.

Wael Ghonim’s arrival in the downtown Cairo square was met with loud cheers from the massive crowd, according to the CBC’s David Common…

Ghonim, 30, who heads Google’s Middle East and North Africa marketing divisions, was released Monday after nearly two weeks in custody, during which he was blindfolded and interrogated.

“When you don’t see anything but a black scene for 12 days, you keep praying that those outside still remember you,” Ghonim tweeted Tuesday. “Thanks everyone.”

In an interview following his release, he acknowledged he had helped set up a Facebook page that set off the massive protests that have gripped Egypt since Jan. 25.

He called the protests “the revolution of the youth of the internet and now the revolution of all Egyptians.”

Ghonim went missing on Jan. 27, when he was snatched from the streets of Cairo by three plainclothes officers. His whereabouts were not known until Sunday, when a prominent Egyptian political figure confirmed he was under arrest and would soon be released.

Ghonim dismissed accusations of treason by security officials.

“Anyone with good intentions is the traitor because being evil is the norm,” he said Monday.

“If I was a traitor, I would have stayed in my villa in the Emirates and made good money and said like others, ‘Let this country go to hell.’ But we are not traitors.”

Bravo!

Part of having a conscience is acting upon the guidance of that guidance. One of the earliest existential dichos I try to respect is that recognizing evil, a crime, a need, a solution – requires you to act upon that recognition. Those who sit back and whine – and do nothing constructive – provide no value to their own life or the lives of those they affect.

Two Christians who were on trial in Algeria for breaking Ramadan fasting rules have been cleared of wrongdoing.

Human rights groups said the trial was a violation of the right to religious freedom under the constitution.

Hocine Hocini and Salem Fellak were arrested in August during the month of Ramadan, after they were seen eating lunch on the building site where they worked in Kabylie, northern Algeria…

The two men admitted they had been eating, but said they had done it discreetly, and felt they had done nothing wrong.

The judge at the court in Ain El Hamman threw the case out because “no article [of law] provided for a legal pursuit” against the men, thereby rejecting the prosecutors’ request for three-year prison sentences…

Algeria is a mostly Muslim country; the ministry of religious affairs estimates there are only about 11,000 Christians among a population of 36 million.

Phew! An illustration of the trials and tribulations of a minority in a theocracy – where minority status is determined by religion alone.

Cutting off the GPS monitor

A Florida judge threw out the rape and murder conviction of a man who served more than half his life in prison before DNA testing exonerated him.

“Let me take the opportunity to apologize to you for the criminal justice system of the state of Florida,” Broward County Circuit Judge Thomas M. Lynch IV told Anthony Caravella, 41, who served more than half his life, or nearly 26 years, in prison for a crime DNA tests said he didn’t commit…

Caravella was 15 and had an IQ of 67, well below normal, when he was charged with the Nov. 5, 1983, murder of Ada Cox Jankowski, 58, in Miramar, Fla.

Public defender Diane Cuddihy argued last year new evidence showed police had hit and coerced the mentally challenged teen into confessing, promising a girlfriend would be freed if he helped them…

DNA test results exonerated Caravella Wednesday. County prosecutors asked Lynch Thursday to throw out his conviction and life sentence.

“I waited a very long time for this — it feels good, man,” the Sun-Sentinel quoted Caravella as saying.

Caravella was provisionally released six months ago when early tests seemed to clear him. But he had to wear a GPS monitor and obey a curfew while prosecutors did further forensic testing.

He said Thursday he felt 10 pounds lighter without the GPS device around his ankle.

How many more like him remain in prison – convicted unjustly?

Loretta Zilinger, Dean Cage, his fiance, Jewel Mitchell

For 16 years, Loretta Zilinger loathed Dean Cage for what she believed he did to her when she was 15 years old.

Dressed in her immaculate Catholic school uniform, she was on her way to class in October 1994. She heard footsteps coming up behind her. By then, it was too late.

A tall man attacked her, hauled her into an empty building and threatened to kill her. She kept her eyes open as he performed sex acts on her. She used her hands to touch his face; her fingers traced his nose, his eyes and his lips. She wanted to remember him.

Several days later, Chicago police brought her into the meat market where Dean Cage, a tall black man, worked. A police officer instructed
her to identify her attacker by gently tapping the officer’s arm.

Instead, she wailed frantically. She pointed at Dean Cage.

Cage, then 26, was shocked when the police arrested him. “I’m innocent,” he insisted.

That didn’t matter. Two years later in 1996, Zilinger’s testimony would convict Cage, sending him to prison for 40 years. Zilinger was absolutely sure. Even his voice sounded like her attacker’s, she said.

After four appeals and 14 years in prison, Cage won his freedom. A sample of the assailant’s saliva, retrieved from the victim’s body in 1994, was the proof he needed. A DNA test, which was not available at the time of the trial, was performed on the saliva and excluded him.

This story is about the emotional twists and turmoil each experienced through the original trial and aftermath. Through the years following Cage’s conviction. And especially in the months since Cage’s exoneration in 2008.

But, a positive result makes it all worth it. Cage plans to marry his fianceé in May — and he has already invited Zilinger.

Daylife/AP Photo used by permission

Two mothers sat on hard wooden benches Monday in a Dallas County courtroom, waiting for a hearing that would bring joy to one and anguish to another.

It was the day Richard Miles was freed from prison after a prisoner advocacy group discovered that evidence had been withheld before his murder and attempted murder trial in August 1995. Dallas police never told prosecutors or the defense that an anonymous caller implicated another man in the shootings.

Miles’ mother could barely contain her excitement.

“It’s a great day,” said Thelma Lloyd, who smiled brightly after ceremoniously cutting the jail ID bracelet off Miles’ wrist. He had spent 14 years behind bars. “He’s reborn now.”

The mother of the murdered man could barely contain her tears. Ruby Williams cried in a courthouse hallway after the hearing as she clutched an 8-by-10 photo of her son in his red high school graduation robes.

“I’m devastated,” Williams said. “Just when I’m comfortable to deal with this, it’s an open wound…”

And then there was the piece of evidence that jurors never heard about: Three months before the trial, a woman phoned police to say her former boyfriend had admitted the crime to her and showed her the 9 mm pistol he said he had fired. That call was noted on a memo found in police files years later.

Tom D’Amore, the original prosecutor in the case, said he recalls the case but not in detail. He said Monday that he never had information about that phone call…

Judge Andy Chatham told Miles as he stood before the judge’s bench that he could not guarantee anything, but it appeared that his convictions would be overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeals. Chatham released Miles on his own recognizance, …

Texans can take pride in the few folks in their justice system who are prepared to right the wrongs of the past. Maybe guarantee a difference in the future? That’s up to Texas voters.

Gordon Brown embarrassed again by arrests based on insinuation
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This whole exercise has been a farce worthy of Mel Brooks. Gordon Brown’s flunkies should audition for “The History of the World, Part 3″ – presuming “Part 2″ is still dedicated to the Bush-Blair twins.

The government faced a barrage of criticism after police released without charge the remaining 11 suspects arrested a fortnight ago in the north-west of England over an alleged terror plot.

The last two men to be released joined nine others given their freedom last night and one freed on 11 April.

Opposition parties, human rights lawyers and Muslim groups accused the government of mistreating the suspects and botching the anti-terror operation…

Shami Chakrabarti, director of human rights group Liberty, said: “In the vital task of policing open societies, it is inevitable that you arrest more people than you charge and that sometimes suspicion will never be converted into evidence. But national security deportation is an extremely shadowy process and we need assurances from ministers that these powers will only be used for public safety and not for political signalling.”

Gordon Brown had claimed the operation uncovered a “very big plot” against the UK.

We Posted about this when it got started by the Commissioner of Klutzy Car Exits and Silly Walks. Including Bob Quick’s resignation.

When push comes to shove, you can’t continue to abuse police powers if you turn up nothing more than people who read books the government doesn’t approve of – and make statements unacceptable at tea-party book signings.

Captain Richard Phillips, (R), alongside Cmdr. Frank Castellano, CO of USS Bainbridge
Daylife/Reuters Pictures

Hero Capt. Richard Phillips was freed today in a dramatic ending to a four-day high seas standoff that riveted the world.

Three of the four ragtag pirates who held the world’s most powerful Navy at bay on the Indian Ocean were killed, and the fourth was taken into custody.

Phillips was said to be in good condition.

On Saturday negotiations had broken down when the Somali pirates reportedly insisted they would only free Phillips in exchange for their own freedom – a deal nixed by US officials.

Phillips, 53, captain of the 17,000-ton relief cargo vessel Maersk Alabama, offered himself as a hostage to save his 19-man crew Wednesday when armed pirates took his ship.

He and the pirates had been drifting in an out-of-gas lifeboat, surrounded by massive US warships who could do little but keep pirate reinforcements from reaching the lifeboat.

The audacious pirates even opened fire Saturday on a small Navy vessel sent from the destroyer USS Bainbridge.

Bravo!

Tim Masters squarely blames Fort Collins, Colorado, police and prosecutors for his inability to land gainful employment and for his not having a wife and kids at this stage in his life.

In 1987, Masters became the prime suspect in the slaying of Peggy Hettrick, a 37-year-old found in a field near his house….

Masters was convicted of murder in 1999, but a judge last year threw out the conviction and released him from prison, citing new evidence that did not implicate Masters. Masters now has a lawsuit pending against several police officers, ex-prosecutors and the city….

In hearings that began in September 2007, Masters’ new defense team alleged police and prosecutorial misconduct in the investigation and trial.

In January 2008, a judge threw out the conviction and freed Masters after DNA evidence pointed to someone else.

Masters’ attorneys last year filed a lawsuit against several Fort Collins, Colorado, police and former prosecutors, alleging malicious prosecution, attorney Maria Liu says. The suit is in its pre-discovery phase….

CNN: You spent some prime years of your life — late 20s, early 30s — in jail for a crime you didn’t commit. What do you think you missed most by not being a free man in those years?

Masters: There’s so much. Right off the top, I’d say having a family. I think they’re very much responsible for me not having a family right now, a wife and kids. But it goes back further than just them arresting me. It goes all the way back to my high school days when they labeled me a murder suspect among all my peers and my teachers and everything. It goes back a long time.

CNN: Any hard feelings toward the Fort Collins Police Department or the prosecutors in the case?

Masters: Oh, absolutely. They locked me up for a decade for something I didn’t do.

It has always amazed me how, when DNA exonerates someone, the press reports that he/she is not bitter. I always figure that’s the lawyers talking. I cannot possibly believe that someone spends years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit and is not bitter. I have always assumed that he is bitter but that his lawyers have advised him never to say that.

More than 17,500 detainees have been freed from custody in Iraq this year, leaving about 15,800 in custody.

Coalition officials said in a news release that it had been determined those released no longer posed a threat to Iraqi citizens, Iraqi security forces or the government.

“It is our responsibility to release detainees in a safe and orderly manner according to the Geneva Convention,” said Brig. Gen. David E. Quantock, deputy commanding general of detainee operations. “We’re releasing an average of 50 a day, 1,500 a month, which is a very good pace.”

Quantock said detainees are offered education and vocational training meant to give them skills to become productive members of Iraqi society.

Of course, many already have skills useful in the new Iraq society.

Yes, I noticed the General had heard of the Geneva Convention.