How do you ‘PROVE IT’. What can you say other than ‘I am innocent of this’.
More than once over the years I have heard that someone who attended my trial commented on why I never testified or spoke up in my own defence.
Well, when you are arrested, charged then eventually tried, throughout you are always reminded not to speak to anyone about anything related to your case. If you are familiar at all with how the process and judicial system really works, then you know that not only are the police never to be trusted but the same goes for your own so-called ‘representatives’.
When you are arraigned, you plead guilty, not guilty or no contest.
Not guilty means just that, that you did not do what they have accused you of. Further, if you do not know what happened then what is there to say? If a person says you committed this crime then all you can do is try to prove them a liar, and the evidence false or tainted. If you were home alone at the time of the crime then you have nothing to add.
Being tried for crime, especially Capital Murder, it's not like one of those dramas on TV where the police are held to moral and legal standards, and the defence has unspoken of access to resources or scientific data. You, the defendant, sit there when the lies are told and your attorneys do no investigation of their own, when the only evidence is provided is done so by the same or powerful organisations that is accusing you of this to begin with. Your own attorneys make deals day in day out with these same people on other cases. They attend the same religious institutions, country clubs and members-only organisations. You watch all of this unfold while being told to say nothing.
If you get loud or cry out corruption you are literally physically restrained, sometimes even gagged You are let in and out of the courtroom, to and from the gaol while visibly restrained in front of all to see, including those chosen to judge you. The scene set is designed to make you appear dangerous, untrustworthy, guilty.
What if you have documented legitimate evidence that casts doubt on your accuser, or that in their own words proves that they have and are lying about you. That prior to this, in a different trial at a different time, the same sole accuser admitted in that court that the same prosecutor and police coerced those false accusations against you. What is your defence when there is no physical evidence linking you to this crime and only one ‘eyewitness’ who you can show lied about you.
How do you respond to the judge not allowing the jury to hear and see the documentation that shows the lies, that shows the extensive history of mental illness and vindictive nature of who the State has a coerced into falsely testifying against you. What do you say when your attorneys neglect to provide a defence?
You have an alibi for at least part of the time someone says you were somewhere else with them committing the crime. Which necessarily means that they are lying. Your representatives do not present this in trial.
There are many other things happening that the jury will never know of, and you are not able or in a position to show them because of all the obstacles you face.
What do you say besides ‘not guilty’? How do you prove it?
Over 20 years later I'm still trying to explain the whys and hows of what occurs during a trial and appeal. I think that what has been exposed through post-conviction investigation and what has been otherwise revealed through my accuser’s own words all these years later do prove what I said so long ago. NOT GUILTY.
Sometimes the people who sit in judgement only need to hear those two words from you. If they would only listen, then they would have their answer.