"Proved innocent" Gerry conlon, "Forever lost, forever gone" paddy Joe Hill

[dicko]

Jeez these fellas had a number done on them! Both were convicted of similar offences (IRA bombings in the 70's) and both were totally innocent. Gerry confessed after having the crap kicked out of him for 7 days by police detectives. Paddy had the same treatment (inc. having a pistol shoved in his mouth breaking his teeth) but didn't confess still got stitched up by forensics and his mates confessed.

Books tell about their lives growing up, dealings with the legal system and life in prison. The contrast and similarities between their stories was interesting. Gerry was much younger and more immature than Paddy. Both had and still have similar mental problems from their ordeal. Paddy was a bit of a pocket rocket and seemed (on the face of things) to handle prison a bit better, becoming popular after a couple of years when everyone in prison knew he was actually innocent. prison officers would literally shake his hand and wish him luck before his court hearings.

Also pretty interesting how they got on with the real IRA responsible in prison. On one hand, they had contempt for them because they didnt like that the violence the IRA had done in the bombings caused them to end up in prison (or agree with the violence full stop). On the other hand the IRA protected them in prison in the early years before the general (British) prison inmates realised they were innocent.

As a law student the legal side of things interested me, some of the problems that existed with the system still exist now. Two stood out. Firstly, uncorroborated confessions (i.e. they are not supported by other evidence) can still be admitted as evidence in most cases. So, if the confession is tainted it won't be backed up. Second, the rules of evidence for grounds for appeal are very strict and fresh evidence might not automatically be allowed as a basis for an appeal.

On top of this evidence was destroyed/hidden and not revealed to the defence before the various court hearings.

Pretty sad because this stuff happens all the time, even now (maybe not quite this bad). The only reason I personally oppose the death penalty...these guys, innocent men, would be dead now.

I was too young to see their release but had the fortune of meeting them a couple of weeks ago and having a dinner and chat with them. They had some stories which had me speechless, you can hear a pin drop when they get speaking about what happened to them.

Top blokes with lots of Irish humour, very similar to Aussie humour.

Read the books if you haven't already.

ps- now i can get back to a more merry topic, the book "Churchill's cigars" ! , read about 30 pages so far.

[bolivr]

Thanks Dicko, that is interesting and is a reminder that in such periods of history of a nation there is a lot going on in the background that does not make the news of the day. Stuff like this just makes you shake your head. Pretty cool you got to meet these guys.

[mazolaman]

cheers Dicko,there were many people who were wronged in this way.

It is often frightening and enlightening to find out what is done in our name...

[Ryan]

These, and other, people were wrongly inprisoned but it is important not to forget the atmosphere that was around at the time of their conviction.

Pubs were being bombed in the UK, images of bodies in the street in the papers. There was enormous pressure on the authorities involved to find and convict those responsible. With that kind of pressure, mistakes and errors of judgement are made when rules are bent in order to secure convictions. These people wrongly lost a quarter of their lives in prison and that's a terrible thing, but in cases like this it's important to remember context.

As was already said, it's a good argument against the death penalty. It's also a good argument against breaking the "rules" to get confessions. There are more recent parallels in other parts of the world.

On a lighter note, when I moved to the US in the early 90s, nothing impressed girls more than fictional answers to "So what's the war like in Ireland?".

Bountiful times..

Then I moved back to Ireland and couldn't bullsh1t women so easily anymore.

That was a slow period.

[dicko]

Bolivr - Cheers mate. Yeah it's scary to think some innocent people will be sitting in jail right now most likely.

Mazoloman- That's interesting mate. Paddy qoutes that at the end of his book "dont be angry for me, be angry yourself because this was done in your behalf"

Ryan- I have no idea what the pressure must have been like on the authorities involved. Insane. jobs and public confidence was on the line. However, these are the times you need people to conduct themeselves professionally and with integrity.

love that story mate, nice work!! I would have done the same. American girls seem so keen on accents. Just between us I think between Irish and Australian accents we have things covered pretty well lol

[Peter11216]

I posted a somewhat lengthy reply but my computer died, just before I added it. The gist of it was that I just heard a very good radio program about a guy who spent two decades in prison for a murder that, not only did he not commit, but had nothing to do with in the first place.

If anybody is interested you can find it on the website for This American Life.

The other thing, more directly related to this kind of case, I wanted to bring up are U.S. domestic investigations of terrorism. I'm looking forward to a book, hopefully coming out soon called, The Best Terrorists We Could Find: A Decade on the Domestic Front of the War on Terror, by Petra Bartosiewicz. She has a couple of artiles in Harper's magazine, and has been interviewed about things she is writing in the book. Some of the cases are galling.

Since dicko mentioned capital punishment, it might be interesting to note

Illinois just repealed the death penalty.

Best,

Pete

[dicko]

Thanks for the links Petrus.

Just checked out the last one about death row in Illinois. 18 people exonerated off death row! That is very, very scary stuff that 18 innocent people might have ended up dead