I'll tell you who is destroying our justice system

When you meet so many people inside who obviously are wrongly convicted, when like me you are serving a life sentence for killing your wife - a murder that some free person out there committed - it is encouraging to hear that Sean Hodgson has been freed by the appeal court.

But in another way it is most disturbing. What about the multitude in here who shouldn't be here?

I like the way that Helen, my wonderful sister, put it in a recent letter. 'It's a very interesting and a very sad case. It was sad to read that people are not generally given parole unless they admit guilt and say sorry,' Helen wrote.

'That scares me. So you would have to lie so you could be freed? You're being punished for being honest.

'Every time a miscarriage of justice is proved it must make people think, which can only help you and others. At least I hope it will.

'It is a rotten system.'

Thanks, Helen. It is.

And note that not one voice has been raised about that fellow's prosecutors. When a huge question mark hangs over cases, wouldn't it be interesting if prosecutors had to explain why they push so hard for convictions.

How could the prosecution have worked on the jury so tenaciously when they knew that they had the wrong man?

When my conviction is shown to be completely wrong, I am going to ask publically for the prosecution to explain themselves.

It's that attitude, that unconscionable twisting of the minds of the jury, that helps to keep the system rotten. I smile when I hear people going on about banker's fees. It's about time they started looking at prosecutors' rewards for utter deception.

Every time they cause a jury to convict an innocent person, they are destroying the system. And what do they get for these 'successful' prosecutions? Praise, and a fortune. If they were genuine humans, they would never be able to sleep.
- Roger Gordon

Links
Sean Hodgson
Roger Gordon's story