Arizona ignoring recantation to keep Courtney Bisbee incarcerated

Petition | Help Free an Innocent Woman | Change.org

During the trial, I was the prosecution’s “star” witness. But after turning 18, I no longer feared my mother and officially recanted my testimony in a sworn affadavit, admitting that it was all a lie made up by my mom, Janette, for financial gain …

Courtney Bisbee’s parents have already spent their life savings, sold 2 homes, and are using their retirement to free her. I can no longer sit by and watch this innocent woman spend any more time in prison for a crime she didn’t commit. She should be freed and reunited with her family.

via Petition | Help Free an Innocent Woman | Change.org.

Ignoring recantations and confessions is nothing new, and it’s a national rather than local phenomena.

In Texas, the rapist that Timothy Cole was serving time for repeatedly tried to free the innocent young man. Tim died behind bars of asthma attack, and was posthumously DNA-exonerated.

In Michigan, “hit man” Vincent Smothers confessed to participating in twelve hits, but was only prosecuted for eight. A year earlier, Detroit police had already coerced a confession to the other four – a quadruple homicide – out of 14-year old, half blind, developmentally disabled Davontae Sanford, without a parent or guardian present. Smothers continues to confess, and the courts continue to ignore him. Similarly, the Detroit police had coerced a confession out of emotionally challenged Eddie Joe Lloyd, who was DNA-exonerated not long before his premature death. Sanford and Lloyd had a horrid, incompetent defense attorney in common, as well.

In Florida, jailhouse informant Clarence Zacke admitted that he’d been coached to lie on the stand against serial confessor Gerald Stano and against Wilton Dedge. Florida judges ignored Zacke’s admission and executed Stano (1998) and allowed Dedge to remain bars until he was DNA-exonerated (2004), despite the involvement of phony dog handler John Preston in both cases. Preston had been found a charlatan and a perjurer in Dale Sutton’s Ohio federal case in December of 1982, within the knowledge of at least one of those Zacke named as his coaches … prosecutors Chris White and (John) Dean Moxley. Preston convictions remain intact nationwide under similar circumstances – Gary Stanley Bennett’s in the same county as Stano and Dedge, Stephen Epperly in Virginia, and who knows how many others.

Epperly likely is innocent, too, as there was documented prosecutorial misconduct, and as – out of the 1,000 criminal investigations Preston claimed to have participated in nationwide – Epperly’s is the only one that Preston voiced misgivings about, publicly.

Keith Pikett upped the ante on scent evidence frame-ups, participating in over 2,000 Texas criminal investigations prior to being DNA-discredited. Texas courts continually forget Calvin Miller’s case, so as to continue to pretend some legitimacy in intact Pikett convictions.

For the answer on how this worsens, decade after dastardly decade, compare and contrast the solid reporting by Mike Tolson in his 11/4/09 Houston Chronicle article, “Suit over dog scent allegations grows by 3,” to the sappy crap offered up by Brandi Grissom in her 6/1/13 Texas Tribune/NYT article, “Free After Six Years in a Cell, Now She’s on Her Own.”

Today’s newspapers and broadcasters are turning stories of widespread, related conviction corruption into single upset conviction fairy tales, wherein the “Once upon a time” beginnings are as fictionalized as the happy endings.

There’s a hideous court ruling the media can now hide behind, commonly referred to as “false light;” they can publish or broadcast outrageously damaging, unverified statements without fear of being sued. As newspapers and broadcasters increasingly prefer to engineer election and legislative outcomes over reporting factually, you’ll find no friends in the mainstream media if public corruption targets you or a loved one.

In addition to the friends you may find in confessors or recanters, you will definitely find friends in the families of the falsely convicted – including Courtney Bisbee’s family – friends that’ll buoy you up; friends that’ll back you up.

If you open the Change.org petition from the link above, you’ll find that all that Courtney had to do to land in prison was to show up for work.

It follows that if you show up for work regularly, like Cortney, you may someday need friends like her family. So pay it forward … sign the petition.