A lie put me in jail for 37 years !!

 

        “FORGIVE US AS WE FORGIVE…”

Thirty seven years is a long time. Thirty seven years in a pleasant productive situation is great. Thirty seven years in prison must be awful. Thirty seven years in prison for a crime you did not commit must be living hell.

Yet two days ago “Bruce L” wrote a note to the Detroit Free Press that said:” What an incredible man. A true brother who kept his integrity intact in a situation that would have eventually destroyed a person of weaker character.  Welcome back to the world.”

Let us find out what this is all about.

On December 14, 2020, an article by Omar Abdel Bacqui was published in the Detroit Free Press. It was about a man named Walter Forbes who became a free man on November 20, 2020 after spending more than 37 years in prison.

So, what was so special about that? Many men spend long years in prison for crimes they commit. Ah! That is the point. He was exonerated “after witness admits to lying.”

It is a long story. A story of a man who spent more than 37 years, more than 13,000 days, and nights in prison for a crime he did not commit.

What really happened?

In 1982 Forbes was a student at Jackson Community College. He had dreams of “owning a real estate development firm.” One night he broke up a bar fight and the next day a man “who was involved in the fight” shot him.

On July 12, 1982, the man who was involved in the fuss with Forbes died in a fire “that appeared to be deliberately set” in his apartment.

Forbes was arrested at his home, charged with arson and murder in May 1983 and sentenced to life in prison.

“I could not believe it was happening.  One of the things I had faith in was that the truth was going to come out, that there was no way that they were going to convict me for those lies. Up until I was convicted I thought the system would work, that it would correct itself. In hindsight I was naïve,” he said.

Time passed. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. In 2010 the Michigan Innocence Clinic took on his case. In 2017 “The prosecution’s star witness admitted to fabricating her story.” In other words, she had lied.

What was Forbes reaction?  “I don’t hold contempt for the people who lied to convict me.”

Really? Why?

“The reason is selfish: I wasn’t going to allow them to destroy me. If I did not forgive, it would not be detrimental to them, it would be detrimental to me,” Forbes said.

He really thought the system of justice would work and realized he was naïve to believe in it at the time. He was a young black man imprisoned for something he did not do.

Forbes, however, had to work on himself to find inner peace. He would wake up at 2 or 3 o’clock in the night and meditate.

He says he always knew what the result would be “but I had no clue what I had to go through or who was going to be of help along the way. Surest thing I knew was I had to keep moving forward.”

In November 2020 “he realized it was actually happening. That he was going to be a free man and that his name would be cleared.”

Now he is looking forward to seeing his 94 year old mother who lives in Mississippi. But (because of COVID-19) he will have to do something before he travels from Detroit to see her.

It is something he has done for the past 40 years.

Take a guess. He must “wait patiently”.

                           ===000= #prison #freedom #Walter Forbes