The justice system is bad now, but it was worse back in the day, before hashtags and social media, where a man like Wilbert Jones who was 100% innocent had no way to fight back against the police and dirty prosecutor.
It is a slap in the face that after spending his entire adult life in jail, they want him to pay $2k to be free.
Wilbert Jones was 19 years old when police arrested him in 1971 on suspicion of kidnapping and raping a nurse in Baton Rouge, La. Now, 43 years after he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a judge has overturned his conviction. Jones will be released and walk out of prison a free man—after he pays $2,000 bail.
State District Judge Richard Anderson ruled that the decades-old case against Jones was “weak, at best” and determined that authorities at the time withheld evidence that could have exonerated Jones decades ago. NBC News reports that Jones showed no visible reaction in the courtroom when the judge announced his freedom and the $2,000 bail.
In his ruling, Judge Anderson said the state’s case against Jones “rested entirely” on the nurse’s testimony and her “questionable identification” of Jones as her assailant. She picked Jones out in a police lineup more than three months after the rape, but also told them that the man who raped her was much taller and had a “much rougher voice” than Jones.
According to Jones’ attorneys, the nurse’s description fit a man who was arrested but never charged in a similar case 27 days after the nurse’s attack. In 1973, that same man was arrested in the rape of a third woman but only charged and convicted of armed robbery in that case.
Anderson said in his ruling that this evidence shows police knew of the similarities between that man and the nurse’s description of her attacker, but “[n]evertheless, the state failed to provide this information to the defense.”
The prosecutor in the case has an astounding 11% conviction reversal rate. Everyone in jail isn’t innocent, but how many black men have lost their lives because they were just black and at the wrong place at the wrong time?
Far too many to count.