Location: deep inside a prison cell in Florida
"To be wrongly accused, wrongly convicted, and wrongly imprisoned
is unimaginable."
Florida Governor Charlie Crist
in the Tampa Tribune, Friday, April 14, 2008
Check out the "Tampa Tribune" web site, www.tbo.com to read the complete article, excerpted above, titled, "Senate Votes to Compensate Crotzer," another story about Alan Crotzer, who wrongly served 24 years, six months, 13 days, and 4 hours, wrongly convicted and imprisoned. After serving over thirty years myself, 24 years seems almost like "short time."
The Tribune article sounds almost exactly like my story, except for the charges. Substitute my murder case and my name, and it could be the same: (excerpted)
1. A lengthy list of evidence seemed to show Charlie could not have committed the crime he was convicted of.
2. There were enormous discrepancies between the description of the perpetrator and Charlie. (witnesses described someone 5'5" - 5'8" tall, 150 pounds, slim, blond hair, blond mustache, possibly Hispanic. Charlie is a much larger man than the person described by eyewitness, Albert McKinley, who spent over an hour with him, as shorter and thinner than his own 5'10" tall, 170 pound size.
3. Several witnesses placed him elsewhere at the time of the crime. Charlie's ineffective public defender would not call any of those witnesses, alleging they were unnecessary, the state had no case anyway, with convicted felon state witnesses who were given "immunity from prosecution for first degree murder" in exchange for their perjured testimony that Charlie told them he shot someone.
NOTE: Only the guilty are given immunity - the innocent don't need it.
4. Charlie's fingerprints weren't anywhere at the scene of the crime - and the prints of others were. FACT: prosecutor Mark Ober withheld the results of an FBI National Laboratory report that clearly stated that the fingerprints found at the scene of the 1975 shooting "did NOT match" Charlie Norman's fingerprints. Never revealed evidence.
5. Twenty-eight suspects were quickly ignored when Charlie's name was dropped by career criminal, James Grayes, Ober's pet informant and one of the biggest liars in Hillsborough County courthouse history.
6. Absolutely no physical or forensic evidence linked Charlie to the crime scene. Several handguns provided to detectives by Grayes, purportedly belonging to Charlie, were tested and examined by the ATF and FBI - not the murder weapon.
And there is much, much more. Check out the "Case Facts" at the web site, www.freecharlienow.com to find out more.
Hurray for Alan Crotzer, Gov. Crist, the Florida legislature, and others involved in his vindication. All we ask is the same consideration.
Charlie
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