I Did a Good Thing · 8:05am Nov 28th, 2022

I'm unsure if I ever posted this, but it's been sitting around since 2020, so I figured I ought to get it out there.

Years ago, back when I worked for Kroger, I had this friend who shall remain anonymous. She told a story about how her adult son was wrongfully convicted. It’s been years, so I might not have all the details, but the gist was that he suffered from seizures. One day, while visiting his girlfriend while she was looking after a baby, the girlfriend left the room while he was holding said baby. When he came to, both he and the baby were on the floor. The baby was hurt, but not critically so, and the case went to court.
Now, common sense might dictate that there were mitigating circumstances. The seizure obviously wasn’t deliberate, so what happened should have been considered an accident and not a crime. However, the prosecution didn’t see it that way. I don’t recall what the exact crime was, but the sentence was life.
When my friend told me of this, one name came to mind: The Innocence Project. It’s an organization of lawyers who investigate cases of wrongful conviction and try to overturn them. I’d heard of them amongst men’s rights groups regarding their good work in freeing men who’d been falsely accused of rape. I told this to my friend, saying that she ought to at least check out their website. She did. She did her research and found them to her liking. She submitted her case for review, and they took it. Unfortunately, this sort of thing can take years, so she’d give me only irregular updates whenever something happened.
Time passed, and I left Kroger for theoretically greener pastures. We fell out of touch, and I would hardly ever visit the place that once haunted my nightmares. However, recent circumstances finally gave me an excuse to go back. Her son is free, has been for over a year, and is now expecting a baby girl.
Now I know that my part in this story was, at best, negligible. It was The Innocence Project that did all the heavy lifting. However, I still feel good about my contribution, meager as it was. I took part in helping a wrongfully convicted man walk free.

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