Keith Madeley, who is 26 years old, is serving a life sentence in prison for the murder of Fred Sheppard, with no hope of parole for 25 years If this had been the United States, he would be sitting on death row.
Fred Sheppard was 77 years old when he was found dead, in his outhouse, on March 7, 1995. He had been shot several times. The police arrested Keith Madeley and, according to Madeley, beat him up until he confessed. When a judge decided that a confession that was the result of a beating was not admissible, the police found a jailhouse informant to testify against Madeley. There was no other direct evidence linking him to the crime. He was convicted and sentenced to the maximum allowed under Canadian law.
Roy Hopkins is serving time in Warkworth Penitentiary, for robbery. He says he killed Fred Sheppard. He says he may be a crook and a thief, but he won’t let another man rot jail for 25 years for a crime that he committed.
You might remember that Guy Paul Morin was convicted at least partly on the testimony of a jailhouse informant (who later recanted, recanted his recantation, then recanted again). Jailhouse informants usually testify in exchange for something. If you think it’s pretty stupid to offer an incentive for people to lie, you’re not alone.
After boxing promoter Don King was found innocent by a jury in New York, he took the entire jury on a trip to Hawaii.
Am I the only one who thinks this is so stupid that it doesn’t even deserve a serious rant? Does anybody need a detailed explanation of why it should be illegal for a defendant to reward a jury for finding him not guilty?
The most incomprehensible part of this story is the fact that, apparently, King broke no laws. As long as he didn’t offer the reward to the jury in exchange for the verdict before they gave the verdict, what he did was legal. All he had to do was sit there and wink at them, I guess.
This, from a nation that struts the world in out-sized britches constantly proclaiming themselves the greatest, the biggest, the best. Do we really need to give those smug, sanctimonious Europeans another reason to hold America in contempt?
