People sometimes ask me -- which is the worst miscarriage of justice you have been a part of? Without hesitation -- and I've seen more injustice as a lawyer in my lifetime than anyone should have to see -- I say: "Nothing compares to what the State of South Carolina -- York County prosecutors, a trial court judge, a jury, and a bevy of appellate court judges and state Supreme Court judges -- did to my client Billy Wayne Cope."
Billy Wayne Cope died today at the age of 53. His legal team -- which
has more than tripled in size since James Morton, Michael Smith and Phil
Baity represented him at trial, released the following statement:
"In the years we represented Billy, he was unfailingly polite, optimistic, and full of faith, and he maintained these qualities in the long years that followed his conviction. Our inability to save him from this fate is one of the deepest disappointments of our lives and careers.
Billy’s death marks a sad end to a horrible miscarriage of justice. Billy confessed to a dreadful crime he did not commit. When DNA later proved the actual killer was a career burglar and serial rapist named James Sanders, who had just been released from prison in North Carolina, law enforcement should have faced up to the truth and admitted they obtained a false confession from the grieving and psychologically vulnerable father of a murdered child. Instead, the prosecution concocted a fantastic new theory that Billy must have cooperated with Sanders -- a man he never met -- in raping and murdering his own daughter in his own home. The State, then, succeeded in convicting both, the real killer and Billy, of a crime only one person actually committed. Billy Cope lost everything -- the last 15 years of his life, his family, and now any chance that this legal atrocity will ever be set right. This is a dark day for justice in South Carolina."
I've been fortunate in my line of work to experience the great joy of walking innocent clients out of prison and back into the arms of their loved ones. In fact, less than 24 hours before learning of Billy's death, I was on Cloud 9 after learning that the Cook County State's Attorney's Office had agreed to drop charges against my client (and three other Chicago teens who falsely confessed to a double murder in 1995). If you do this work long enough, you learn a sobering lesson. The wins are wonderful. You never forget them. But it's the losses, especially the cases of Unrequited Innocence, that will haunt you until your dying days. RIP BWC.
"In the years we represented Billy, he was unfailingly polite, optimistic, and full of faith, and he maintained these qualities in the long years that followed his conviction. Our inability to save him from this fate is one of the deepest disappointments of our lives and careers.
Billy’s death marks a sad end to a horrible miscarriage of justice. Billy confessed to a dreadful crime he did not commit. When DNA later proved the actual killer was a career burglar and serial rapist named James Sanders, who had just been released from prison in North Carolina, law enforcement should have faced up to the truth and admitted they obtained a false confession from the grieving and psychologically vulnerable father of a murdered child. Instead, the prosecution concocted a fantastic new theory that Billy must have cooperated with Sanders -- a man he never met -- in raping and murdering his own daughter in his own home. The State, then, succeeded in convicting both, the real killer and Billy, of a crime only one person actually committed. Billy Cope lost everything -- the last 15 years of his life, his family, and now any chance that this legal atrocity will ever be set right. This is a dark day for justice in South Carolina."
I've been fortunate in my line of work to experience the great joy of walking innocent clients out of prison and back into the arms of their loved ones. In fact, less than 24 hours before learning of Billy's death, I was on Cloud 9 after learning that the Cook County State's Attorney's Office had agreed to drop charges against my client (and three other Chicago teens who falsely confessed to a double murder in 1995). If you do this work long enough, you learn a sobering lesson. The wins are wonderful. You never forget them. But it's the losses, especially the cases of Unrequited Innocence, that will haunt you until your dying days. RIP BWC.
No comments:
Post a Comment