I wonder if Dateline would have interest in updating his story, and if there might be any compensation for something like that. I'm not involved in TV production, but you would think if they had enough interest to report on his conviction (which happens every day) there would be an even better story regarding his release.
Your original question was "how I can help him get money for housing, food, and clothes?". Whether or not you speak to the media, and whether those appearances are paid, probably wouldn't impact your client's financial situation unless you intended to share it.
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.
You may do that? You absolutely should. You're promoting his cause. See if you can have space in the program to talk about his transition and the financial assistance campaign in particular.
There's a ton of media interest. I'm only going to appear on Dateline if I have some assurance that the new piece will be fairer than the original one that got my attention.
What did you find unfair about the original piece? I haven't seen it but I had assumed it would be relatively favorable if Dateline had chosen to publicize the case 15 years after the murder and 6 years after the conviction.
The Dateline piece came out right after Ray's conviction. I just happened to see it 5 years later.
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.
Goddamn that's scary that this man's exoneration depended on a chance viewing of Dateline...Props to you...my initial reaction to this post (I hadn't seen your other appeals to HN) were that this sounded too good to be true, but even the stories and accounts about Mr. Jennings that were pro-status-quo were alarmingly flimsy.
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.
In Holmes' defense, the job of a Supreme Court justice is to establish common law precedent for the future, not to get the right decision for the case at hand.
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.
Well, people are often convicted based on circumstantial evidence. That's why there is a jury, to weigh the available evidence. Personally, I wouldn't give this guy any help based on what I've read, and certainly not without reading the entire record of each trial. Also, the prosecutor should have definitely sought a lower charge of manslaughter after the 2nd hung jury.
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.
Why don't you try reading the letter OP wrote which got this man released instead of shody reports of hearsay "evidence" from a 2-bit not-even-cop trying to impress the detectives on the case?!
