I do hope that Mississippi votes Diaz back in. He has the GUTS to take a stand and not give into the ‘good ole boys’ club. I have been there myself. It is an uphill climb.

Diaz is just giving a JUSTICE SYSTEM a good old fashioned spanking. Guess one could compare it to disciplining a child…it doesn’t make you popular even though it is the ONLY and RIGHT thing to do.

I also would hope that people will realize that simply because someone has been found guilty does NOT mean they truly are. There are many aspects to a case and events can be distorted in court. Look at the EXONERATIONS already achieved through DNA because someone gave the benefit of the doubt instead of sticking a lethal injection into an INNOCENT person.

I personally KNOW for a FACT that Havard is INNOCENT as are many others I am fully AWARE of. I did NOT take the defendant’s ‘word’ for it. I did my own investigation. I am still reeling from what I have learned from CONCRETE EVIDENCE in Havard’s case, the Henry Moses case, the Tyler Edmonds case, the Brett Jones case and the Devin Bennett case. Dr. Steven Hayne was used as an ‘expert’ forensic pathologist in ALL of the cases. Hayne is NOT a forensic pathologist nor has he EVER been board certified. He walked out on the EXAM for the Medical Examiner’s certification. These are FACTS.

The ‘big boys’ in politics have KNOWN about these atrocities since the mid 90’s yet continued to let Hayne perform autopsies and testify at trials.

He perjures himself from the git-go by stating he is ‘board certified’ yet he cannot recall (how convenient) WHO certified him. So any ‘testimony’ spewing from his mouth afterwards should have been inadmissible…period.

Diaz, thank God, was apparently aware of Hayne and is unethical practices and the controversy surrounding this man. Diaz took a stand on the side of GOD and that was to do the RIGHT thing and vote in favor of these appeals. He saw error and reasonable doubt which is part of the due process our constitution guarantees.

“A man is morally free when, in full possession of his living humanity, he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity.” George Santayana

AND

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana

Diaz seems determined to ensure HISTORY does NOT repeat itself. I think the he deserves a RAISE!

And just for the record…Radley does too!

Judicial independene from political whims and pressure (and tactics) is the final fail-safe for liberty and individual rights. Perhaps Mississippi should just focus on crawfish and producing awesome quarterbacks. They seem to have a lot of trouble living up to their membership in these United States.

He’s one of the major funders of the Mississippi Innocence Project.

Had the chance to meet him at their fundraiser last year, where he was keynote speaker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innocent_Man:_Murder_and_Injustice_in_a_Small_Town

He’s done this once. It involved the deliberate false prosecution of a minor-league baseball player in Ada, OK for a murder he didn’t commit. He received the death penalty (which triggers all sorts of mandatory reviews and appeals) and even the Innocence Project tag-teamed with his lawyers to get him free. He received large settlements from the city of Ada and the state of OK for his false conviction.

So, yeah, he certainly has the wherewithal to write a book about shady justice.

Given that MS is his home state (and all of his fiction takes place there), I wonder if he’d be interested in some of the stories that Radley’s covered (and broke). I bet they’d hit close to home.

Maybe that’s what needs to happen- Grisham needs to write about these cases as if they’re another one of his fictional novels, and once people get sucked in to the story about the overworked public defender with the cards stacked against him taking on the crooked DA and crookeder coroner he reveals in the last chapter that it’s all true, is going on today, and if you want the story to have a happy ending then you should donate to the Innocence Project.

Not that I expect Grisham to do this, but it would be pretty cool.

There are more disputable FACTS in this case. Facts in FAVOR of Havard. I can’t wait to see Jeffrey Havard walk out of that prison, EXONERATED and a FREE MAN! Then Mississippi can eat his DUST!