I’ve taken myself to The Innocence Project website a few times, intending to write something about it here at some point. Yesterday’s release of James Woodard from a Texas prison sets a good point. May it be repeated as many times as there are innocent incarcerated people, and as quickly as possible.

Mr. Woodard’s story is both tragic and heroic. The man was wrongly convicted of having raped and murdered his girlfriend in 1980.

Imagine grieving the rape and murder of your girlfriend or boyfriend while being railroaded for the crimes.

Imagine the strength required to deal with the pain and rage and fear of that situation in its early days. Imagine the different kind of strength needed not to cave into despair when the injustice stretched first into years, and then decades. Imagine that dance with hope and discouragement for 27 years.

When he was released yesterday, he had been in prison for just that long.  It’s the longest time served by any of the 216 people exonerated through the work of the Innocence Project.  During all those years he maintained his innocence, even though he might have gained his freedom sooner had he confessed to the crimes.  When ruling for his release, the judge commented:

“It says a lot about your character that you were more interested in the truth than your freedom.“

That’s why Mr. Woodard has become one of my heroes. Whereas many people hold what’s true and right so cheaply as to toss it aside in any moment of inconvenience, Mr. Woodard endured who-knows-what for decades rather than abandon them. That’s a level of resolve—or what my dad would have called just plain bull-headedness— that everyone would do well to aspire to.

The Innocence Project is a great model organization for creating greater transparency and accountability in government. They have breakdowns of causes of wrongful imprisonment sorted as to government misconduct, police misconduct, laboratory misconduct or error, etc.

Their blog also currently features a story about a challenge to prosecutorial immunity in a California case which the Supreme Court has agreed to hear. (I have previously written about the issue of prosecutorial immunity.) As necessary as it is to protect prosecutors from unjust litigation, it is equally necessary to protect the public from prosecutorial abuse, so it will be interesting to see what the current right-leaning Supreme Court does with the issue. I’ll dare to hope that it’s something worthy of Solomon, but won’t be surprised by something far short of that.

For now, however, here’s to Project Innocence and James Lee Woodard. May we all be more about what they are about.

Peace.

Deborah Alicen