When the the Star Spangled Banner is sung at Tropicana Field before the Rays take on the Cleveland Indians tonight, you might want to look more closely at the singer. William Dillon, 52, was released from prison to make the gig after serving 27 years for a murder that he did not commit. His story is not simply an inspiring account of one man’s struggle to prove his innocence, but illustrative of the problems in our criminal justice system.
Dillon was a talented baseball player being looked at for the major leagues when he was arrested for the murder. Police were investigating the beating death of James Dvorak on the morning of August 17, 1981. He had been beaten to death and left in a wooded area. Police had taped off the scene and were interviewing witnesses when Dillon approached an officer to ask about the crime. He was later brought in for multiple interrogations under the assumption that he must have known something about the crime (and given the lack of any other witnesses or suspects). The trial relied on an admitted perjurer and what the ACLU describes as “a fraudulent dog scent expert.” Then there was the sight-imparied eyewitness and jailhouse snitch. A key witness, Donna Parrish, was Dillon’s sexual partner and gave conflicting and at points incoherent testimony. She later recanted her testimony and said that she had been pressured by the Sheriff’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office and threatened with 25 years in prison.
DNA evidence was never tested and, as in many such cases, prosecutors fought his every effort to test the evidence and seek later reviews of the evidence. Prosecutors relied on a jailhouse snitch. These snitches are notoriously unreliable but jurors often accept their testimony. These snitches look for anyone to testify against to cut a deal with prosecutors and there are many cases where they simply made up accounts to please prosecutors. Nevertheless, some prosecutors routinely use them — mining prison yards for instant witnesses. Thus Dillon’s case had all of the troubling elements of abusive criminal cases: lack of direct evidence, failure to test DNA evidence, reliance on snitch testimony and an eye-witness id. Moreover, there has been no discipline of prosecutors or police responsible for these failures. There has not even been an inquiry into allegations that prosecutors threatened and coerced false testimony from witnesses. Once again, a state pays out over one million dollars and destroys a man’s life, but there is no serious inquiry into the wrongdoing of either investigators or prosecutors in the case.
It was the Innocence Project of Florida – not the police or the prosecutors — that sought to test sweat on a bloody T-shirt — the key piece of evidence at trial. It belonged to another man. The jailhouse snitch later recanted his testimony against Dillon.
While in jail, Dillon turned to music and became a popular country singer in the prison. He is now seeking a singing career. He has written songs with cathartic themes and titles like “Black Robes and Lawyers” and “Passing Time” and “Only Freedom Matters” and “Lost in Time.”
Here is an interview with Dillon:
Source: FOX
Matt J: Russian Jewish.
But that’s not it. He didn’t dominate by fear; he pestered public officials until they did what he wanted; what do they care?
Then they all had to protect each other from my trying to correct the situation.
Acutally my ancestors came from the same place HIS came from; but mine weren’t nuts.
idealist707 1, July 20, 2012 at 4:51 pm
It struck me on readíng this that judges and priests have several things in common:
One, a visible one is this thing of robes. One can ask the question how many choir boys or how many law clerks can be hidden under them, at the same time?
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You don’t even want to ask. Do you know how to notate something at the top of the page?
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Secondly, both deliver judgements without much hope of successful appeal.
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Better be careful where they put the judgments. Ask Monika Lewinsky.
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Third, one declares his judgement as unpublished, and thus unaccountable; the other does it in his box and the penance is either of short duration or eternal.
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What about the stain on the dress? I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky!
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Fourth, the men are corrupt and the women a bit weird too.
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Okay, see above.
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Fifth, all declare that they judge us in hopes of our salvation.
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God is Great.
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Sixth, both receive funds, but only one brags about it even though no taxes are paid.
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Who do you think you are? Don’t act like you’re Leona Helmsley.
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Seventh, all rested and so shall I.
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What are you going to do tomorrow?
Was your immigrant significant other Italian? That would explain a lot. I have a slight limp on the left, but it’s environmental, not genetic.
The Italians think they’re better at it than the French. There’s a contest going.
Give them Devils Food cake. With sour cream frosting.
“No different from Rome in the Year 32 A.D. and no different from other countries around the world now…just a different style and of course, different headgear.”
It struck me on readíng this that judges and priests have several things in common:
One, a visible one is this thing of robes. One can ask the question how many choir boys or how many law clerks can be hidden under them, at the same time?
Secondly, both deliver judgements without much hope of successful appeal.
Third, one declares his judgement as unpublished, and thus unaccountable; the other does it in his box and the penance is either of short duration or eternal.
Fourth, the men are corrupt and the women a bit weird too.
Fifth, all declare that they judge us in hopes of our salvation.
Sixth, both receive funds, but only one brags about it even though no taxes are paid.
Seventh, all rested and so shall I.
Yes, Matt Johnson, I “have some experience” in the courts, but no, I am not a lawyer. NAL. Not a Lawyer.
My experience in the courts resulted from the fact that when I divorced a guy I should never have married, he learned that in the domestic relations courts, you can go to court forever for “changed circumstances” and since he wanted to be supported for all his life (and was an immigrant who had gotten his citizenship fraudulently), he chose to sue me (and everyone associated with me) forever. When I ran out of money for lawyers I had to learn how to do that stuff and go to court for myself.
The courts are corrupt. That’s the short story.
The long story is longer than history. Not only do the judges protect each other, they do everything else that is presented in “I CLAUDIUS” or any other drama thing — you know that story even if you are only an accountant.
I sure wish they’d eat cake some time soon — I’d bake it myself…
Malisha,
Does that mean non-precedential?
You’re not a lawyer? Apparently you have some experience in that area.
I know from the appeals process that the “judges” protect each other, and they protect the prosecutors. It’s an open joke. If this keeps up for too long, they might get to eat cake. Of their choosing.
Matt Johnson — you say you’re “only an accountant.” Well I’m not EVEN an accountant, and hold NO degree in anything. But I have been in a 35-year judicial corruption mess that was started by a litigious paranoid SUING THE JUDGE for giving me custody of my son. (Then he went on to sue 21 other people in 6 different states because he imagined they had helped me! He sued all my witnesses, all my relatives, and a bunch of unrelated people he imagined were part of this nefarious plot to keep him from being King of the Universe.) So I learned, as they say, in the trenches. But the most important element of this is that the judicial system is set up to protect itself, to sustain itself, and to satisfy itself. That is why, when a court makes decisions it knows must not become followable decisions, it simply declares them “unpublished” and moves on to corrupt other cases different ways.
What we have is what we have earned as a society: a power base that gets as much as it can get from those to whom it does as much as it can do without risking any real loss of power.
No different from Rome in the Year 32 A.D. and no different from other countries around the world now…just a different style and of course, different headgear.
ID707,
Most appreciated.
BD, SHANO, MALISHA, MATT J.
THANK YOU ALL. IT IS NOT A JUSTICE SYSTEM.
AND IT WORKS AS IT IS INTENED TO DO.
FRIENDS, don’t most of us hunker down in most of life’s situations, avoid getting the system’s eye on you, avoid giving offence, avoid everything in hopes of irritating the system. WHY? Caz we know that we will lose. The game is rigged. And everybody knows inside them that it is.
Ay You’re right. it is certainly a death of a different sort, being deprived of not only liberty but the normal life events we all experience. Nothing can make up for that.
Malisha,
I’m only an accountant. I have no doubt you know a lot more about this than I do. It was a learning experience.
Fool me once, your fault. Fool me twice, my fault. Ask Bush Jr. if he knows how to pronounce that.
You could be right AY.
Matt Johnson, the US Judicial System DID “manage that.” They wanted to get rid of you and they did. That is judicial management, US Style. If you were the corporation, and the other side had sued YOU, they would have gotten rid of THEM for you.
The Judicial system DOES WORK. It does exactly what it sets out to do. In the case of the wrongly convicted, it means to convict them.
Appears to be a lot of disgust regarding the U.S. justice system. Me thinks the word justice is a misnomer. Legal system, okay. Justice, not necessarily.
The case I lost was extremely insignificant by comparison. The documentary evidence I submitted in my defense, refuting the claims of the accuser, was blatantly evident beyond any doubt. The documentary evidence I submitted, that was impossible to deny, was completely ignored by the “judges.”
My case wasn’t really anything. I only got fired then appealed the wrongful termination all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. I lost all the way.
The point is, my case was extremely basic and the U.S. judicial system couldn’t even manage that.
From Dred Scott to Joshua DeShaney, we have ignored and converted and PERVERTED the life interest. Our country, ’tis of this, is the result.
AY, Raff, the man was denied his LIFE INTEREST. The Constitution guarantees that we will not be deprived of property, liberty or life without due process of law. THere are property interests protected by our laws; there are liberty interests protected by our laws; but our laws do not protect our life interests.
This is the “black hole” in American law into which all other massive bodies fall, because the gravity of this missing quantity is greater than any of the other considerations the millions of cases can display.
Raff,
I bet a court will hold that the SOL has run…… But I’d argue that it does not begin to run until the disability is corrected……
Leejcarrol,
If you think of the advancements in technology and other losses he has been dealt a sort of death penalty……
In my litany of appeals and habeas corpus petitions set forth above, I omitted the defendant’s right to appeal to the United States Supreme Court directly from the highest court to rule on his case in his particular state (usually a state supreme court but sometimes like in OK an appellate court). He gets another shot at the U.S. Supreme Court after he exhausts his federal habeas corpus case in district court and his appeal thereto a U.S. Court of Appeals. Often, this long route is the only way the United States Supreme Court will entertain a criminal defendant’s right to a fair trial from a state court.
Tonight, a free man gets to sing. Twenty seven years in prison. The state courts were lame. I note too, that this trial involved “hearsay of the dog”. This is a topic I discussed on this blog before.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/07/13/516403/alabama-private-prison-debtors-prison/
Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Hub Harrington
In 2010, four residents of Harpersville, Alabama filed suit against several local officials and private prison company Judicial Corrections Services, alleging that they were illegally imprisoned in the Shelby County jail.
The charges were alarming: the four inmates claim low income defendants are routinely denied adequate counsel, are not advised on their constitutional rights and — most egregiously — are saddled with outrageously high fines and bond rates that the indigent have no way of paying.
On Wednesday, Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Hub Harrington handed down his decision, and tore into the defendants:
When viewed in a light most favorable to Defendants, their testimony concerning the City’s court system could reasonably be characterized as the operation of a debtors prison. The court notes that these generally fell into disfavor by the early 1800′s, though the practice appears to have remained common place in Harpersville.
From a fair reading of the defendants’ testimony one night ascertain that a more apt description of the Harpersville Municipal Court practices is that of a judicially sanctioned extortion racket. Most distressing is that these abuses have been perpetrated by what is supposed to be a court of law. Disgraceful.
Thank goodness he didnt get the death penalty.