Themis, the goddess of justice and the natural order, was a counselor of the Titans, Olympians, and humanity. All sought her wisdom on laws of the natural order. Even Zeus, king of the gods, deferred to her judgment. Were it not for our ignorance of such wisdom, perhaps the strife in our civilization would not exist today.
Welcome to our next episode of the Faith in Humanity series.
We read of the immortals because their behaviors and judgments are something to aspire towards. We seek an understanding of them, to a degree, to apply that understanding to the world around us. For instance, worshippers of the Christian faith hold that it is God's will should something positive or negative befall us that is beyond our understanding.
More often than not, however, we slowly begin to see the impact of corruption in our lives. It is not the will of the gods that adds misery to our lives. Instead, we do horrible things to each other. No matter the darkness that falls from our actions, sometimes a light shines down to guide our way home.
The following are stories of individuals who, cast into the darkness, eventually found their way out into the light.
Paul Browning, convicted of robbery and murder, was sentenced to die by a jury of his peers in 1986. Paul repeatedly stabbed a jeweler named Hugo Elsen and punctured his heart multiple times. The jeweler's wife ran in terror to notify the police. She easily identified him as a black man with shoulder-length Jheri-curled hair wearing a blue cap. There was nowhere for Paul to run as police quickly apprehended him while he was hiding in a motel room.
Police found Paul in the room with stolen jewelry littered about the area originating from Elsen's store. One witness was 80% certain they saw Paul fleeing from the store despite the minor setback when she declared that all black people looked alike. The case was a slam dunk. Justice, blind and all-seeing, saw this man legally convicted.
If Themis, or our modern Justice, had sight, she would have noted multiple anomalies in the above scenario. When captured by police, Paul Browning had an Afro instead of Jheri-curled hair. Debra Coe, a "reliable" state's witness, really said she was 80% certain Paul was the one fleeing the store. The 20% margin of error must have resulted from her racist inability to admit she could be wrong. She did, in fact, admit to not being able to tell black people apart. Paul's nightmare doesn't end there.
He was indeed in a room with stolen jewelry when police arrived, but that was only because he was lured by his supposed friend, who was also acting as a police informant. The informant had a documented history of lying in court. Elsen's wife, Josy, unable to identify Paul in two separate lineups, professed in court that she was 100% certain it was Paul who killed her husband.
The police were busy serving cold hard justice. They ignored the obvious fact that Paul had afro-style hair. They stood their ground when they identified tennis shoe imprints that had to belong to Paul despite the police taking Paul into custody with loafers. Additionally, both the police and prosecution relied on the "testimony" of the informant's wife when she said the blood on a recovered jacket belonged to Paul despite expert witness testimony that said otherwise.
I'm not even sure they had a license to practice law. Police, in one of many instances, didn't consider Elsen's own testimony before he died. Despite Elsen telling police that the killer had "shoulder-length loosely curled hair," they still arrested Paul for the murder.
An expert witness reported that the knife wounds on the victim were not consistent with the knife found at the scene. Prosecutors suppressed information of Elsen's description for the sole purpose of scoring the conviction. Prosecution also provided favors to the informant in exchange for testifying against Paul.
Where was the defense? I have no clue. They had access to the witnesses and enough holes to walk through to challenge the prosecution's case successfully.
After serving 33 years, for a crime he didn't commit, in Ely State Prison, the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals identified the "extreme malfunctions of his murder trial".
When he finally walked out of prison, hopefully, a free man, one woman waiting for 33-years for his release was there to greet him-his 86-year old mother. Never knowing for certain that she would ever see him again and yet, never losing faith, she embraced him with tear-filled eyes.
As of July 25, 2020, Paul has a lawsuit pending against the Los Vegas Police department for their part in his wrongful imprisonment.
I feel a special kind of anger arises when learning about child abuse from the media. When hearing about child sexual abuse, I immediately support the victim's side. We want to protect the victim and make sure the predator never sees the light of day. In many cases, the only evidence is from the testimony of the abused children.
In the early 1980s, the daughter of Jeffrey Modahl reported that her uncles molested her. Jeffrey immediately reported the accusation to authorities. Police and child protective services (CPS) interviewed Jeffrey's daughter and the rest of the kids in the family. The allegations of child sexual abuse from the children against the adult members of their family led to their removal from the kids' home and placement into sheltered care.
In sheltered care, CPS continued interviewing the children using leading and highly suggestive interview techniques now debunked. The result of the interviews were further statements of horrid sexual abuse. The adults vehemently denied ever abusing the children. Their cries of injustice were drowned out by the innocence of the children's accusations.
During the trials against the family, the prosecution had their star witness in the form of Jeffrey's daughter Carla Jo. Prosecutors trained and rehearsed Carla Jo's testimony after taking her out shopping for clothes and toys. Carla testified against each adult member of her family, recalling horrid and grotesque acts of abuse. The defendants had no chance of freedom during this trial. All of them were convicted and sent to prison.
Prosecutors of the case intentionally withheld medical evidence that showed Carla Jo was not violated as she described. The CPS representative led the children to describe or invent the sexual abuses they proclaimed. The prosecution never attempted to protest this evidence. Defense attorneys never bothered to investigate further during the original trial.
We can never regain the time that we've lost. Paul Browning and Jeffrey's family can attest to this fact. Fortunately, their lawsuits will provide at least a modicum of relief for the remainder of their lives.
Lindy Chamberlain placed her 9-week daughter into her tent for her evening rest. Sometime later, Lindy heard cries in the dark. On instinct, she ran to her tent to check on her daughter. What she saw, instead, exiting the tent with something in its mouth.
Her daughter Azaria was nowhere to be seen in the tent. Lindy cried out in alarm, and a search ensued. Investigators found Azaria's bloody jumpsuit, but nothing more. Instead of finding a body, police and the media instead hunted her killer. Unfortunately for Lindy, she was now their target.
After a year of trials and incarceration, Lindy was convicted of murder and received a life sentence. Her husband at the time, a minister at a Seventh-Day Adventist Church, was convicted as an accessory to murder and received a 3-year suspended sentence.
Four years into her life sentence, someone discovered a missing key piece of evidence near a dingo's lair. It was a matinee jacket Lindy said her daughter was wearing the night of the murder. No one really looked for it following Lindy's arrest and trial because the police stated that the jacket never existed.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
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