Actual Innocence

7 Pages 1796 Words

usses the fact that eyewitnesses, especially those under stress are notoriously inaccurate. As people try to identify under racial line groups, they become even less reliable. In the case of Walter Snyder, a black man was tried and convicted on the basis of mistaken identity, is explained. In this case, Snyder's family had spent seven years and thousands of dollars, even obtaining a second mortgage, to prove his innocence. The Snyder case rested uneasily in the hands of Governor L. Douglas Wilder a democrat in the conservative state of Virginia. Snyder's innocence was “a political liability to the governor and his innocence was a legal corpse that the courts had no interest in reviewing (pg 71).” Finally a call to the leading newspaper in Richmond was made. A pardon petition from both the defense and the prosecutor was an exceptional human-interest story. The governor's public relations representative was outraged and concluded in Governor Wilder signing an executive order, claiming that he had been dragged into the fray despite acknowledging that S...