poem on wrongful convictions

I went to a poetry reading over spring break and when i heard this poem I automatically thought of our class discussion.  The poet was kind enough to give me a copy of her piece and would really appreciate some feedback! I really enjoyed the poem.

In Hugo Adam Bedau's 'Causes and Consequences of Wrongful Convictions' the glitches that are held in the criminal justice system.  “What is truly amazing is the extent to which advocates if America’s current death penalty system have disregarded or otherwise downplayed the significance of these irrevocable errors---- as though they were relics of a distant past.”  Bedau outlines the numerous proven cases of wrongful convictions.  The previously mentioned quote highlights the fact that although these wrongful convictions end in a terrible fate for innocent people, the country seems almost unfazed by their actions. Errors made by the death penalty system range from; the defendant was convicted of a murder, rape, or other capital crime that never occurred, to the defendant did kill the victim but the killing was accidental/ in self-defense/ driven by insanity.  This poem depicts the process of a wrongful conviction and holds emotions from an innocent inmate themselves.


not the man who wore the mask with gratitude to the innocence project (innocenceproject.org)


sentenced served sixteen years
real perpetrator found not yet
exoneration date 999
died six years after exoneration

    the victim, who was white
    the victim, who was black

sentenced served twenty-three years
compensation not yet
exoneration date 706
unreliable limited science

   the witness, who was six years old
   the witness, who was an inmate

sentence served nineteen years
age at conviction seventeen
government misconduct
compensation not yet

   the supreme court, who sent him back
   the governor, who ordered random tests

sentenced served eighteen point five years
exoneration year 2001
compensation not yet
real perpetrator found yes

   she's got no money, no clothes
   she's never seen the house

sentenced served fifteen years
compensation not yet
exoneration date 307
solved his own case

   the judge, who issued a formal apology
   texas, which has no expungement

recantation perjury
fals confession forensi
misconduct bad lawyering
stopped for suspicious behavior

   picking up his son from daycare
   sending flowers to his mother and wife

destroyed against laboratory
protocol pieces inside a notebook
misidentification evidence
protested innocence

   forty percent of aa men
   have type o blood

he was sixteen years old
when he first arrived at Angola
and forty when he was released