Man Wrongly Jailed For Rape - Forced To Pay For Room And Board For Prison Stay

January 3, 2008 (The Weekly Vice) - Meet Warren Blackwell, a British man who was jailed for 3 years following a woman's false accusations of rape. While the loss of his freedom cost him invaluable time with his family and lost wages, he never expected to find what else it would cost him.

Background:

Mr. Blackwell's nightmare began when the woman, now 38, claimed she had been seized with a knife outside a village club early on New Year's Day 1999, taken to an alley and indecently assaulted. Although the man had no previous convictions, the woman picked Blackwell out of a police line-up, which lead to charges and eventually a conviction under English law.

Things went from bad to worse. In October of 1999, Blackwell launched an appeal, however it was steadfastly refused. In fact, on the same day, the British Court of Appeal increased his sentence from three to five years imprisonment following an application by the Attorney General.

Eventually the case came under review by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which uncovered the woman's long history of sexual assault allegations. The long list of the woman's accused attackers included the woman's two ex-husbands, her own father and a boy she had accused when she was a teenager. It was later determined that the girl was still a virgin following the false allegation.

The woman was also found to have changed her name at least eight times, filed false rape claims with 3 different departments and has a history of mental illness which was more than apparent when she carved the word "HATE" into her arm with a pair of scissors.

The evidence was so overwhelming and compelling that when the case came up for appeal, the prosecution refused to oppose the motion.

David Farrell QC for the Crown said, "This conviction is unsafe. What has come out of the woodwork paints a picture of a woman with immense personal problems with serious difficulties in distinguishing between truth and lies."


Injustice Strikes Twice:

For Mr. Blackwell, the ordeal robbed him of more than three years of family life at a critical stage in his children's lives. His 16 year old stepdaughter Holly was just 9 years old when the ordeal began. Tanya, his girlfriend of 14 years was also forced to pick up the pieces. She remained undaunted in her support for Blackwell through the many years of trial and incarceration.

When Blackwell, a Woodford Halse, Northamptonshire resident was vindicated by the local Appeal Court, he formally petitioned for compensation against the time he was wrongfully imprisoned.

The petition was granted by the Government, however a full 20% of the recouped earnings were siphoned off to cover the man's 'living expenses' while he was in jail.

Blackwell said he failed to stop the 'bed and breakfast' deductions of his lost earnings because his attorney told him there was little that could be done about it.

Prior attempts by the wrongly accused to reverse the assessment of 'room and board' expenses has come before the House of Lords in the past, but the principal was upheld.

"It's the principle of the thing," he argued. "They slam you in jail for three years and four months, brand you a sex attacker, leave your family to cope without you, then turn around and say sorry but demand £12,500 for living expenses incurred during your time inside."

"I tried to fight against it but my solicitor [attorney] says the only hope of overturning the decision would be to go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights. I would probably use up all the compensation money on legal fees if I did that."

Weekly Vice Reaction:

Although this case exposes the outlandish miscarriage of justice towards the wrongly accused in the UK, we wish this were an isolated incident. The fact is, even in the United States, restitution for those incarcerated is certainly not guaranteed. In fact, in many states, there are more government resources for those released on parole than there are for those who have been wrongly incarcerated and later exonerated and released.

Currently, an overwhelming number of people who have been exonerated of a crime are not compensated for the toll the incarceration took on their lives socially and economically.

Thus far, only 22 states in the US have laws in place to provide some level of compensation for those who were wrongly convicted. This means a majority of those who went back to court and proved their innocence are then required to sue for this compensation.

This process utilizes significant resources that a recently released inmate typically does not have. For those who do have the knowledge or financial ability to bring a case, the enormous cost of the additional legal wrangling involved may soak up much of the payout. Many victims of this outrageous process are handed the more daunting challenge of simply restoring their name, let alone consideration of a lawsuit that may or may not result in restitution for the time that has been lost.

What's more, the payout often times received is meager in comparison to what is usually lost. Marty Tankleff for example was sentenced to a New York state prison after being wrongly convicted of killing his parents. Although his case was recently overturned, Marty just recently visited his parent's graves for the first time since their deaths.

Ronnie Taylor, a Houston man who was recently exonerated of a crime he didn't commit was engaged to be married before his arrest in 1993. DNA testing proved his innocence 14 years later - allowing him to finally marry his bride Jeanette Brown. (source)

The Innocence Protect, one organization established in 1992 utilizes DNA testing as a means to force new hearings for those who are wrongly accused. It's website lists hundreds of cases of wrongly convicted individuals who's cases were overturned after a conviction.

While the Weekly Vice does not subscribe to every point of view of the Project's mission statement, one has to wonder where our culture would be without such advocates. Many wrongfully accused individuals have languished in prison for decades before their faulty convictions were tossed out.

Here are a few more examples of justice gone horribly wrong:

Dennis Brown from Louisiana was convicted of a 1984 rape and spent 19 years in prison before DNA testing confirmed that he could not have been the rapist.

Marvin Anderson became the ninety-ninth person in the US to be exonerated of a crime due to post-conviction DNA testing. Even when another individual confessed to the crime Lamont was accused of, the Judge upheld the conviction until DNA evidence finally confirmed Lamont's innocence. He wasn't exonerated until 1992, nearly 20 years after his arrest.

Orlando Boquete's wrongful conviction of attempted sexual battery was vacated a staggering 24 years after his arrest back in 1982.

Robert Clark, wrongly convicted of rape, kidnapping and armed robbery in 1982, languished in prison primarily by mistaken eyewitness. Mistaken identity seems to be a common theme with the cases that later get overturned by post-conviction DNA evidence. Clark was finally vindicated 24 years later.

Luis Diaz was wrongly convicted in 1980 as the 'Bird Road Rapist', where 25 women were attacked, many of them sexually assaulted. Diaz was convicted for 8 of them. His case was overturned 25 years later in 2005.

Conclusion:

These are only a handful of the cases you can view HERE, however they are a sampling of the many instances where our legal system goes horribly wrong to such degree that compensation for one's life cannot be calculated as a mere loss of wages as most restitution awarding states provide.

The Weekly Vice supports tough sentencing guidelines for all sexual assault cases, particularly those of minor children. We also believe however, that states should be equally aggressive with some level of state subsidy, restitution or other adjudged compensation that is deemed appropriate for each individual case. A dismal 22 states is not a goodwill showing for a nation who prides itself on a Justice For All philosophy.

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