"The wheels of justice grind very slowly, but sometimes they grind in the right direction." Hinds County Circuit Court Tomie Green spoke those words to Cedric Willis March 6, 2006, as she was exonerating him of all charges against him, setting him free 12 years after his arrest. Willis was an innocent man, unjustly charged and imprisoned.
One of the real travesties in the Willis case—and there are many—is that records show that the men who prosecuted Willis in 1997, Ed Peters and Bobby DeLaughter, purposely suppressed the DNA evidence that was eventually used to get Willis out of prison. In a back-room deal, the prosecutors convinced the trial judge, Breland Hilburn, to toss out the DNA evidence that they knew cast enormous doubt on their entire case. They also managed to get witness testimony that supported Willis' alibis disallowed.
Any thinking person would have to wonder why such powerful men would be threatened when the evidence shows that they had the wrong man. Rather than working for justice, they seem only to have had their personal box scores in mind. Furthering the injustice, the perpetrator of the crimes—a robber, murderer and rapist—has never been found, nor is there an active search for him.
Neither Peters, DeLaughter nor Hilburn can be held criminally liable for their actions. As public servants "just doing their job" the law sides with prosecutors; however, no lawmaker in his right mind could have had such intentionally inflicted travesties in mind when creating laws to protect prosecutors and judges from honest mistakes. The Willis prosecution wasn't a mistake. Far from it, it was about as intentional a subversion of the laws as can be imagined. And it could have cost a man his life.
In an inspired bit of synchronicity, Peters and DeLaughter's dishonesty and greed finally reached a tipping point about the same time Mississippi got a little religion and passed a law giving cash restitution to exonerees. The Mississippi Supreme Court disbarred Peters, and DeLaughter spent 15 months in prison for lying to the FBI. The two Hinds County big shots got their wrists slapped for an unrelated case of judicial bribery.
Clearly, if the two of them have shown extraordinary callousness and disregard for the law in these two cases, the chances are damn good they had a hand in other undertakings that most of use will never have any knowledge of.
Shield laws should not be used to excuse negligent, dishonest or egotistic behavior. And Jackson is too small a town for such people to go unnoticed.
Last week, the JFP got word that the city of Jackson is offering Willis a settlement in his $36 million lawsuit. Though the city would not confirm the amount—and of course, will not admit to any wrongdoing through the offer—we know that Willis is ready to be done with the legal community of Jackson, which has not, in the larger scheme of things, done him any favors.
It's way past time to end this sham, Jackson. Earn back some legal integrity.
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