Man Wrongly Accused of Rape of Lovely Bones Author Alice Sebold Has Conviction Overturned

[exboyfil]

https://www.vulture.com/2021/11/man-exonerated-in-alice-sebold-rape-case.html#comments

On Monday, November 22, four decades after The Lovely Bones author Alice Sebold accused a now 61-year-old Anthony Broadwater of rape, his conviction was rightfully overturned in court due to what the Associated Press reports as “serious flaws with the 1982 prosecution and concerns the wrong man had been sent to jail.” The author says she was raped during her freshman year at Syracuse University in a tunnel near campus. Months later, she spotted Anthony Broadwater, a Black man unrelated to the assault, and brought him to the police’s attention. On the witness stand in court, she wrongly identified him as her rapist, and Broadwater was sent to prison for 16 years. Sebold’s assault became the subject matter of her debut book, the 1999 memoir Lucky.


Most of the blame resides with the prosecutors and the police, but over the years shouldn't Sebold have wondered about whether the fact she couldn't pick the right person in a line up enter into her thinking? Especially as it became more obvious how much hair analysis was junk science. I do think I understand what the police did. They leveraged bad "evidence". The hair analysis would pick practically any black person as being consistent, and Sebold was reassured in her testimony by being told about this "ironclad" evidence.

It looks like any black guy would do to clear this case.

[Joinfortmill]

1. Scary

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. A reminder that cops and lawyers are interested in clearing cases, not solving them.

And that people's lives are wrecked as a result, while others are then in a position to earn millions. "Lucky," indeed.

[LisaL]

3. Eyewitness identification is behind many wrongful convictions.

A person can be convinced that they correctly identified someone, and be completely wrong.

[oasis]

4. Sebold spotted and reported Broadwater "months later" after her assault.

[exboyfil]

5. And then couldn't pick him out

Two days later in a lineup. I have looked at the lineup, and four and five are not near identical twins. I am white so I know the dificulty in cross race identification, but I can easily see the difference in an old black and white photo. The two were in front of her, and she checked the wrong box. The prosecution without some real evidence should have ended there.

It seems any black guy would do.

[LisaL]

9. No DNA testing back then.

My understanding DNA was found, but after all these years the rape kit is long gone. If they preserved the rape kit, DNA would have been able to get tested even now.

[Demovictory9]

6. her books were huge bestsellers... she's made a lot of money off of her story of rape

which I dont deny it happened.... it makes you wonder though... how long she's known the wrong man has been in prison

[Sherman A1]

7. She may have known from the start

But, her silence certainly means she didn’t care if she did know.

[LisaL]

11. I doubt she knew.

Some witnesses are so convinced that their mistaken ID is accurate, they refuse to believe they made a mistake.

[DFW]

8. If the wrong man was sent to prison for 16 years

I'm for the "investigating" cops, the DA and the accuser being sent away for an equal amount of time.

Only with such a law on the books will a huge wall of reluctance be introduced to protect innocent "convicted out of convenience" people from having their lives taken from them in this manner.

It has been expressed, in on manner or another, over the centuries, from Genesis to Maimonides to Franklin to Dostoyevsky: "It is better to acquit ten guilty than to punish one innocent!" ( "Лучше оправдать десять виннных, чем наказать одного невинного" if you need the original). And, in our ever-unfulfilled need for vengeance, we have been doing the opposite for just as long.

[LisaL]

10. So you would suggest jailing rape victim for 16 years for mistaken identification?

NT

[DFW]

12. No, not for "mistaken" identification. If she DELIBERATELY identified the wrong man as her attacker

Then yes. If she truly believed she had the right man, then no.

"Maybe" does not cut it. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" is needed to deprive someone of 16 years of his life. If it is definitely the attacker, lock him up and throw away the key, as far as I am concerned. If it "might be" him, but might not be him, that is an unspeakably horrible reason to lock someone up for sixteen years. One innocent victim is enough, and does not justify making another person an innocent victim just because rage and a thirst for revenge demand it.

[LisaL]

13. Nobody says she deliberately identified a wrong man.

WTF would she deliberately identify the wrong man? Clearly her ID was worthless, but she didn't do it to deliberately put a wrong person in prison. Prosecution shouldn't have taken the case to court with such a bad "evidence."