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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (June 16, 1957)
66 Paid foi (Grime 99 f - iCI fl 1 "N- . j I ,1 i rrrr nrr i yij t n r 1 am ' 1 How would you feel if you were unjustly imprisoned for 16 years? Here is the story of a man who lived this experience. 1 spent 1(5 years in prison for a crime I didn't commit. When the doors of State villo prison in Illinois opened for me in April. l'.tMi, news men and well-wishers ex pected to meet a bitter, spite ful man. They were surprised to find I was neither. Yet I know what hate is, and at one time I could have matched anyone in lutterness. Hut those are things which I left behind prison walls. If newsmen had met me during the first days of my imprisonment, they would have seen the angry man they expected. It was IMS then, anil like a lot of others I had just weathered the depression. Prosperity was mound the corner at last, in the form of several valuable mines I was working in the Southwest. Then suddenly 1 was ar rested anil extradited to Illi nois. The victim of a $10 robbery in Hock Island iden tified me as one of two holdup men. In those days there was Family UVrklv. June Ifi. I9.iT no public defender for people too poor to hire an attorney. I had witnesses in New Mex ico who could have cleared me, but no money to bring them to Illinois. I sal in my cell the night of my sentence and learned hate intimately. Then, slowly, self pity was eaten away by some thing God has given man to distinguish him from other creatures. I wanted to rise above odds. What's more, I knew I could: men had done so before against even more overwhelming odds. I began studying law, soci ology, theology, psychology, and accounting. Rut law was my key to freedom and I con centrated on it. It wasn't easy. Years dragged by, most of them nt hard labor. My health failed, and the prison authorities lacked funds for proper medi cal care. Just recently, n doc tor examined me and told the Illinois legislature, "He has suffered serious and perma nent injury as a result of his lti years imprisonment . . . attributable to forced con finement, nervous and mental strain, inadequate food and medical care." Nevertheless, I learned how to file petitions and bring action in civil courts. I bom barded authorities with legal papers. But I was blocked at every point. Officials refused to give me access to records: all requests for investigations were pigeonholed. To fellow convicts I was "bugs." They laughed at my hopes to clear my name and labeled me "the petitionin' man." was too busy battling for freedom to pay much at tention, but my battle wasn't just with law terms, proce dures, precedents. Inside my own heart and mind was an even tougher tight. That old bitterness died hard; each setback gave it new vigor. Yet I knew that if it again gained control of me, I would be locked in a prin far more ruinous than one of concrete ami steel. Even if 1 was freed, what Would hap pen to me if hate and animos ity won out? I had seen too many vic tims of these two diseases in State ville. They were as hopelessly trapped as the drug addict or the alcoholic. I wanted freedom, but I wanted to enjoy it. too. I wanted to join the world out side those walls, not i'it it. Years of failure, though, made it hard for me not to jeer at justice and the tri umph of right. Then in 10-17 a Federal judge in Chicago took cognizance of my case and ruled that state author ities must answer my petition. That meant producing those forgotten records. And those records, in turn, would even tually reopen investigation of the case. Legally, that was the turn ing point. In the battle within myself, however, I still had a lot to learn. I had taught myself the law and how to fittht injustice. But only others could help mc learn how to win a final victory over malice And I found those others while in prison. Injustice, I learned, is some thing that can happen to any body, like a disease or an accident. But once alerted to a wrong, people will dedicate themselves to righting it. Judges, attorneys, prison offi cials were among those who taught me that lesson in humanity as they helped in the final years of my struggle. State's Attorney Bernard J. Moran of Rock Island opened the last door to freedom when he obtained a confession from the actual holdup man after two years of diligent investi gation. The hoodlum named his accomplice, a man already imprisoned in the state of Washington. O tateviixe is behind me now, l-J and I think my stubborn legal ofTorts can take credit for my physical freedom. For the freedom from vindictive ness and revenge, I must thank others. I'm still asked. "What about the people who put you in jail? What do you feel toward O
