Source: CNN.com
Link: http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/04/03/man.exonerated.ap/index.html
Title: "Man freed after serving 13 years for woman's death"
Date: April 3, 2005
In a case running twenty-six years, justice has perhaps found itself after much confusion.
In 1979, Kristy Ringler, 19, was found in the middle of a road suffering head wounds that would cause her death. In 1992, Larry Souter, 53, was convicted and sentenced to a term of twenty to sixty years for her death. Thirteen years Ringler's family waited for justice.
And thirteen years did Mr. Souter wait: On Friday last, Souter left prison, having seen his conviction overturned. Mr. Souter, on release, told reporters, "I'm not a bitter person. I'm very excited and very emotional. I had a lot of support behind me."
According to court testimony, Souter and Ringler met at a bar and later attended a party. He said she decided to walk along the highway after she refused to let him drive her home. Souter said he returned to the party.
For years, medical experts disagreed about how Ringler was injured. One said she was probably hit by a vehicle, another said the wound matched the shape of a whiskey bottle found on the road nearby.
CNN.com
While we might stop and wonder at why no conservatives are complaining that yet another federal judge has overturned the will of the people--e.g. a conviction--such a digression would be pointless. Nonetheless, in January of this year, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cited "sufficient doubt" about Souter's conviction, and ordered a lower court to determine whether or not he should receive a new trial.
And then it happened:
The woman, whose name has been sealed by the judge, read about Souter's appeal and recalled that her father's motor home had a broken mirror in 1979 and he had refused to talk about how it was damaged.
Police records show that the woman's father also told investigators he had driven on the road where Ringler was hurt around the same time her body was found, Souter's attorney John Smietanka said.
The woman's father died about five years ago.
CNN.com
• • •
Let us presume, for the sake of decency, that Ringler's death was simply a tragic accident, and not the result of any specific negligence such as drunk driving or sleeping at the wheel. This, of course, also demands credibility for the cause of doubt: we shall presume that yes, Souter
is innocent and the injuries were caused by the mysterious motor home.
I'm trying to cast this in the best light possible, because justice itself is screwed: a woman is dead, a man has served thirteen years in prison following a thirteen-year process to put him there, and the guilty party, whose greatest crime would be not finding a place to stop and call for help, goes unpunished. One wonders if that man lived with the knowledge of what he was concealing, or whether the circumstances ever occurred to him. After all, it took thirteen years to get Mr. Souter into prison.
Justice can only find itself. Mr. Souter is free, and that's all Justice can do. The potential guilty party is no longer with us, officially unsanctioned and unpunished, though we cannot presume his conscience. The dead are still dead, the hurt are still hurt, and the mourning still mourn. Jurors from 1992 must now go forward believing they got it wrong and sent an innocent man to prison ... this is what we call a f@cking mess.
But it's also the closest thing to Justice we can get, some days.
____________________
Notes:
