Battleangel

Racially profiled and locked away for good on less than sturdy grounds, Alan Newton has now been released after spending 21 years in prison, wrongfully convicted.

A man who spent more than two decades in prison after being wrongfully convicted of a brutal rape was freed Thursday because DNA evidence has cleared him.

And for those that struggle to show that this proves the system actually works, consider that Alan Newton requested the DNA evidence on no less than three occasions. The system claimed the sample had been lost or destroyed, but as it turned out, it was exactly where it was indicated to be. It was just that no one could be bothered to look which is also the core issue here. Newton is black so most likely he’s guilty of something, or so they must have reasoned. Even likelier, the authorities staged the initial identification, prodded the store clerk along, and proceeded to impede any attempts to show Newton’s innocence. Sure, mistakes happen all the time, everywhere in the world, but this goes far beyond a simple mistake. Few civilized nations would go to such lengths to cover up the truth in what can only be described as a clear-cut case of bigotry.