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AFTER 24 YEARS IN PRISON, MAN HAS A REASON TO SMILE

Winston "Kevin" McKesson has an abiding sense of justice and human decency. As a criminal defense attorney he works tirelessly for those same principles. Every once in a while we hear about a person who has been falsely accused of a crime and then exonerated. In Georgia a recent case involving a man imprisoned for 24 years was cleared by DNA evidence not available at the time of his conviction. In an article in the December 8th edition of the New York Times (nytimes.com) Shaila Dewan describes the plight of Robert C. Clark, Jr. who was convicted of robbery, rape and kidnapping some 13 years ago, now exonerated by modern technology in Marietta, Georgia. If this had been just an isolated case, it would be one thing. It is not. Through the efforts of famed Attorney Barry Scheck, there is now a national Innocence Project for post-conviction DNA Testing, headquartered at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City. And, increasingly, volunteer groups such as Americans For Open Records (AmFOR.net) quietly work behind the scenes to help the wrongfully convicted obtain counsel, DNA testing, expert witness testimony and freedom. With modern day technology crime scene investigators and forensic scientists have more accurate techniques to determine evidence supporting the guilt or innocence of a perpetrator of a crime. Unfortunately there are certain instances where individuals have been executed before their innocence was proved. For this reason death sentences in Illinois have been put on hold, while Texas continues to hold the record for number of executions.

Reprinted article first published on PRLaw Inc Lawyers and Business Executives in the News website, on 1-12-06 at prlawinc.typepad.com, ghost-written by Lori Carangelo, founder of Americans For Open Records (AmFOR) to promote attorneys who defend victims of malpractice and civil rights violations.