Ask HN: Just got an innocent man out of prison. What now?
A year ago, I saw a Dateline NBC episode about an Iraq-war vet, Sgt. Ray Jennings, who allegedly killed an 18-year-old girl in a parking lot. The evidence didn't persuade me, so my dad and I started our own investigation.
We wrote a 34-page letter to the DA's office, which you can read here: http://www.ehrlichfirm.com/criminal-cases/raymond-lee-jennin... The letter persuaded them to reopen the murder investigation.
Last week, after 11 years behind bars, Ray walked out of court a free man. But he was released onto the street with no resources. Do any of the great minds at HN have any ideas about how I can help him get money for housing, food, and clothes?
The most obvious answer is litigation. And in a year or two, Ray will probably receive some compensation from the State. Unfortunately, there's no way to access those funds in time to cover his immediate expenses.
In the future, Ray also may be able to earn some income talking about his story. Unfortunately, the charges against him won't be formally dismissed for another 2 months, and until then he is understandably reticent about speaking publicly.
I have set up a GoFundMe campaign. It did well, but momentum has stalled. I'd appreciate any recommendations about how or where to promote it:
https://www.gofundme.com/RayJennings
Thanks for your help. I'm sorry that I was a bit caustic in previous posts asking for help with this case. I contacted the Mods, and they encouraged me to try again with a different approach.
219 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 270 ms ] threadUntil the charges are formally dismissed, it's hard to imagine any employer will actually be willing to hire him. The DA's office is really making his life hard by refusing to just immediately stipulate that he's an innocent man.
I had no luck finding legit sites with a quick Google search, but maybe others are aware of something?
If nothing exists, that sounds like an interesting development opportunity.
But when finding other employment is hard, it's a pretty good option if you can work on the necessary skills.
Ray mostly just wants to spend time with his kids, whose lives he has been missing from for so long.
If he's formally exonerated, double jeopardy will prevent the state from ever trying him again, so the state has an incentive to keep him in that state.
(Also, fuck the DA. What is it with SoCal and horrible DAs?)
It's not really a surprise; no decent person would voluntarily sign up to send pot-smokers to prison.
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haftentsch%C3%A4digung
In the US, there have been cases where the wrongfully imprisoned have received ~600k/yr: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/innocent-man-16-65-...
In practice, the State makes it VERY hard to ever recover those funds. There are guys who were exonerated years ago who are still waiting to receive a single penny.
First, the standard for being compensated is higher than the one for being let out of prison. Ray is free right now because the state has admitted that it no longer has confidence in his conviction.
However, it has not affirmatively conceded his innocence. That may sound pedantic. It let him out of prison and admits he isn't the target of the ongoing investigation. But from a legal perspective, it makes all the difference in regards to whether he is actually entitled to compensation.
Second, even if the State agrees that someone is theoretically entitled to compensation, there are significant budgetary delays. State law requires public hearings before funds can be appropriated, so sometimes you have to wait months upon months for the funds to be allocated... much less actually delivered.
I currently tutor a formerly homeless man whom I met through an Episcopal church.
They saw him sleeping outside the front door and took him in. They connected him with low income housing services who found him a subsidized apartment and gave him a job working in the cafeteria of their school.
I'd visit a few parishes and ask friends/family who are churchgoing for direction.
Best of luck and I hope Ray gets on his feet.
Do you know of any online Christian outlets or forums that might be open to promoting Ray's GoFundMe?
Unfortunately I can't imagine many private companies are in need to of the skills one learns in the infantry.
If he had not been in prison for 11 years, his past military experience would absolutely open a great many doors for him. Successfully serving and being honorably discharged says a great many positive things about a person, something many businesses are very aware of and actively look for.
It portrayed him as a craven killer who was brought to justice only through the Herculean efforts of police and prosecutors who wouldn't let the absence of any physical evidence stop them from getting a conviction.
I don't have faith that the justice system will naturally get things right, but I do have a general faith that the bureaucracy and motivations of the system would prevent such a conviction from ever happening in the current day...e.g. DA's not wanting to screw up their conviction rate by bringing such a weak case to trial. My faith is pretty shaken now...if this is the kind of case that can make its way to a murder conviction and rejection of review by the state Supreme Court, it most definitely leaves me unsettled about all the kinds of cases that don't receive media attention.
This frequently posted video ("Don't talk to police") now looks much more naive than cynical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (Associate Justice for the United States Supreme Court)
So, for instance, if an illegal search turns up clear evidence that a company is evading taxes, justice for the case at hand says that the company should be punished. But the principle of law says that precedent must be set that the police can't violate the 4th amendment.
This is not a hypothetical example. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverthorne_Lumber_Co._v._Uni....
Congratulations on your achievement though, that was really good of you and your dad to do.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/TESTIMONY+IN+2000+SLAYING+CO-W...
Edit: added the following
Yeah, down-voting doesn't invalidate my my feelings on the matter, and looking at the appelate court's decision to uphold the verdict [1] just affirms that I would need a whole lot more convincing this guy is innocent.
[1] http://www.leagle.com/decision/In%20CACO%2020111219009/PEOPL...
If Dateline is interested in speaking to you, one could be relatively sure that Dateline would be equally (if not more) interested in speaking with him.
I see your post now mentions that he might be reluctant to speak until his charges are formally dropped (I don't recall seeing that initially, so either I missed it or you edited it perhaps?). Scheduling an interview and having it go to air is likely to take time anyway, but I'd imagine that if he requested some fee to speak to Dateline that they'd oblige given the situation.
Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic, but I'd like to think that a network that profited over the publicizing of a conviction would give at least some small compensation to have the convicted discuss his release and case.
The media seem to prefer that formulation of his name, because it sounds creepier.
This is the best news article: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-20160624-jenning...
And this is a great blog post: http://mimesislaw.com/fault-lines/prosecutors-ask-court-to-r...
You can see this at work when, for whatever reason, killer Joel Rifkin was only referred to by his first and last name for a long time in the tabloid press. Lots of people share that name and it was unfair to them to be associated with a killer. There was actually a Seinfeld episode making fun of this as it became a problem in NY which has a lots of Rifkins. Now he's typically referred to as Joel David Rifkin.
Ray actually just got a laptop, and I'm teaching him the basics of computing. It's amazing how much things have changed in 11 years!
If you have social media accounts, post the links to your GoFundMe page and the personal website you have listed above out on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Better yet, include them as responses/messages directly to accounts held my media corporations because someone at that company is reading them to monitor their PR. And I bet most of the employees subscribe/follow that account as well - and they might see it and pick it up. Example - "Hey @MSN, this story needs to be spread. Please help this man get his life back. http://...."
I also just made a modest donation in support of this cause.
I am doing my best right now to reinvigorate the GoFundMe campaign. I'm grateful to everyone who shares it with others!
edit: by "severe" fuckup, I also mean, just plain incomprehensible. At least in other egregious cases, there's a mountain of quasi-science [1] or a coerced false confession [2]...if the drama that managed to propel this bumbling case this far forward doesn't result in at least a HBO miniseries a few years from now, I will be very surprised.
[1] http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire
[2] http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/507/c...
This conviction is a black mark on the record of the great State of California. And it really shows the dangers of listening too closely to victims and their families, who are (understandably, in their pain) often much too quick to fixate on a suspect. Yes, they wanted justice for their daughter -- I get that. But true justice required finding the actual killer. Putting an innocent man in prison is not justice for anybody.
BTW I've chipped into the GoFundMe campaign.
Jobs: Side gigs on craigslist. Lawn care, concrete, helping people move...you can look on craigslist and find these. It's not perfect, but it's -some- cash flow until he can find someone willing to hire.
Transportation: There are enough funds to get an old car for probably around $1k or less just to start out. Can resell it later and get something better once he gets more stable. But it will provide transport to side gigs and worst case a roof over his head. I've had to sleep in my car more than a few times.
2. There was physical evidence that directly exonerated Ray, including the the negative results of the gunshot residue test on his uniform, and the absence of pseudo-stipling on his pants.
3. There was overwhelming circumstantial evidence pointing to Ray's innocence. For example, the prosecution could never explain why he would have brought an unregistered 9mm firearm to work in the first place. Nor could they explain why, after committing the murder, he would have stayed at the scene and called the police.
4. There is significant evidence pointing to the guilt of a different individual, which will be revealed once the current active investigation is finished.
The North County is cheaper and has more open land for stealthily camping.
I also do freelance writing and one of my newest blogs covers that. It is linked from that blog specifically, but here is the direct link: http://writepay.blogspot.com/
That doesn't mean that what worked for me in specific will work for him in specific, but it is a place to start.
If he is a veteran, he may also be entitled to free medical care and access to other military services, though I don't know how his conviction impacts that. I believe felons cannot get food stamps, so there may be a lot of things he cannot access until after things are completely cleared up legally. In the mean time, he can go to soup kitchens and the like for a meal.
My homeless blog takes the position that an individual's agency is incredibly important. A lot of charity is done in a really harmful manner. I am not the only person to have that idea. I recently tripped across a book titled "Toxic Charity." So I try like hell to blog about what a person can access without having to sell their soul, lose their dignity, give up their agency and so on. That limits what is available, but I think it preserves things that really matter.
Best of luck.
Since the major city and the county have the same name and I was still in the county, I decided to make it a countywide resource to the best of my ability.
It is shockingly hard for a homeless person to find the information they need online. I have had a college class on how to do online search and sometimes have difficulty finding things online so I can get an address and phone number even when I know for a fact they exist.
Most websites for homeless service providers are not intended to be client facing. They are intended to impress potential donors. They typically do a poor job of telling needy individuals what they need to know.
So, there is demand for the info. I assure you, I am not getting rich off of it. One of my Achilles heels is that I like being helpful. So, although this is, sadly, one of the most successful projects I have ever had in terms of traffic and being taken seriously as a valuable resource and making a difference in the world, it has put damn little money in my pocket.
Further, I find it galling that a homeless individual is being criticized for trying to monetize their expertise in the topic. Most of the time, I get this shitty attitude that admitting to being homeless online amounts to me trying to panhandle people. So, in other words, I am homeless, I am not allowed to merit an earned income. I am only allowed to hope for charity and ingratiate myself for crumbs. No matter how I get my money, it is inherently immoral.
And people wonder why my financial problems are proving to be so stubborn, as well as why I have such strong feelings that the wrongly convicted individual we are discussing should be allowed to pursue an income that doesn't involve making a spectacle of his misfortune.
But, this is HN so...I guess it's to be expected.
(And I say "sadly" it is one of my most successful projects in part because homelessness is on the rise nationwide. The general rise in homelessness is part of why there is demand for the info. In my case, "getting rich" would mean what? Getting off the street? How dare I aspire to such self indulgence and selfishness when there are poorer homeless people than I.)