America's Broken Justice System

[resodko]

Charles Farrar: Petition Calls for Freeing Man Doing 145 Years in Recanted Sex-Abuse Case



Twelve years ago, based almost entirely on the testimony of a troubled adolescent girl with a long history of telling preposterous stories, an Arapahoe County jury found Charles Farrar guilty of a horrible crime. That testimony was recanted not long after the trial, but Farrar is still in prison, serving a sentence of 145 years to life for a series of sexual assaults that his alleged victim says never happened.

That's the short version of the noirish, nightmarish but all-too-real journey through the legal system of Farrar, whose case was explored in detail in my 2011 feature "Beyond Belief." It's a bizarre story that enraged and puzzled many Westword readers and left some wondering how they could express their support for Farrar's efforts to get his conviction overturned -- a question for which a Minnesota woman who's never actually met Farrar now has an answer.


"I didn't know Charles from Adam before something similar happened to my brother," says Heather Gatheridge, who's launched a change.org petition seeking a new trial or release for Farrar. "But like my brother, I know Charles is innocent, and I don't feel like I can just sit here and not try to help him, even if it's in a small way."

While doing research online related to her brother's case, Gatheridge came across the Justice for Charles Farrar Facebook page set up by family and friends. That led her to the Westword coverage, which traces how easy it is to convict someone of heinous child sex-abuse allegations despite a lack of investigation or supporting evidence.

In 2002, Farrar was found guilty by an Arapahoe County jury of multiple counts of sexual assault on a minor -- his stepdaughter Sacha, who accused him and her mother of forcing her into hundreds of sexual encounters from the age of eleven until she was fifteen. There was no physical evidence in the case and minimal investigation by authorities, who relied almost entirely on Sacha's testimony. (Other family members, who could testify to Sacha's history of false accusations and wild stories, were ignored or never interviewed by investigators.) A few months later, after refusing to testify against her mother and reaching her eighteenth birthday, Sacha returned to court and recanted her story, saying she'd fabricated the entire tale in order to go live with her grandparents.

Judge John Leopold refused to grant Farrar a new trial, concluding that Sacha's recantation wasn't any more credible than her original testimony.



Colorado case law urges courts to regard recantations in sex abuse cases skeptically, since victims might be pressured by family members to withdraw allegations. But Sacha has stood by her recantation for the past eleven years and wasn't living with family at the time she admitted perjury. A deeply divided Colorado Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 2009.

Gatheridge says she's appalled by how little attention Farrar's case has received on a national level. She hopes the petition site, which fires off e-mails to Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and Attorney General John Suthers on behalf of those who sign, will help bring more awareness of his plight. "Charles is such a kind man and quick to thank me," Gatheridge says. "But I've really done nothing but what any normal person should do. It may not be much, but hopefully with social media he can gain some steam to help his case."

Below is a video excerpt from my 2011 interview with Farrar, describing how his hopes were raised by Sacha's recantation, only to be dashed by the judge's decision not to grant a new trial.

 

[resodko]

Judge John Leopold refused to grant Farrar a new trial, concluding that Sacha's recantation wasn't any more credible than her original testimony.

can anybody explain to me why this "judge" hasn't been stripped of his position, tried and convicted for false imprisonment and executed?

 

[resodko]

btw, this is a revisit of a thread from the past

Monster Or Victim Of A Flawed System?

 

[resodko]

I was prompted to search for it because of this news story that i saw today:

Exonerated of rape, Brian Banks now realizing NFL dream – in different capacity


It's been nearly half a lifetime since Pete Carroll walked up to Brian Banks at Long Beach Poly High and said, "Hey, you can do something. You can be something."


Banks was 15 years old at the time, and to him, that message seemed clear: he had a future playing football.


But two years later, Banks became ensnared in an ordeal of injustice, anger and heartbreak that lasted a decade. On his way to possibly playing for Carroll at USC, Banks was wrongly accused of raping a girl at his high school. Rather than facing 41 years to life in prison if he fought the charges and lost, he pleaded guilty and was sent to prison for five years.

"I screamed and yelled and begged for people to help," Banks said Sunday by phone. "And even then no one listened."

Banks, now 29, was cleared and freed in May 2012 after serving five years of probation (in addition to the five years in prison) when his accuser recanted her story. He got a tryout from Carroll and the Seahawks, and then another from the Falcons. But it was too late for his original dream to come true.

 

[resodko]

in a Just system, the girl, the prosecuting attorney and the judge (in the Brian Banks case) would all stand trial for false imprisonment and, if convicted, face execution

 

[Spitfire]

The authorities who allow things like this to happen should be punished the hardest. But it may also be worthwhile to reflect upon the possible role of the paranoia, tendency towards righteous indignation at the slightest provocation, and easily misguided zeal for punishment that are pervasive in modern western culture and may influence (whether subconsciously or overtly) the way that officials handle such cases.

I tried really hard to make that last sentence make sense. Sorry if it still doesn't. That's the best I can do.

 

[Crowns&Laurels]

Insofar as the justice system today promises to presume others innocent until proven guilty, have fair trials and so forth, so to do they often do exactly the opposite.

The system has become much more adversarial to those accused, where it was supposed to actually defend the accused as well as the accuser. This was the beauty of the American justice system and now it has become an embarrassment with modern law.

The continuation of this is going to change the system into an inquisitorial one, where the matter is taken pretty much out of everyone's hands and into the courts. Essentially, a scenario where judges may as well be the rulers of their counties or states.

I myself do not want to go back to the ideologies of the Middle Ages

 

[Angel4Truth]

Judge John Leopold refused to grant Farrar a new trial, concluding that Sacha's recantation wasn't any more credible than her original testimony

wow, he admits her story that got him convicted wasnt credible to begin with, yet said a recantation also isnt credible????

 

[WizardofOz]

Yet, were it up to certain posters on TOL, Charles Farrar and Brian Banks would have both been executed years ago...:think:

 

[resodko]

Yet, were it up to certain posters on TOL, Charles Farrar and Brian Banks would have both been executed years ago...:think:

not so

they wouldn't have been convicted on the evidence of a single "victim's" testimony

 

[resodko]

The authorities who allow things like this to happen should be punished the hardest.

it's become an intrinsic part of the system, spit

U.S. Criminal Justice Is a Disgrace

Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) -- “As a prosecutor, a judge, an attorney in private practice, and now, as our nation’s attorney general, I’ve seen the criminal justice system firsthand, from nearly every angle. While I have the utmost faith in -- and dedication to -- America’s legal system, we must face the reality that, as it stands, our system is in too many respects broken.”

In a widely reported speech this week, Eric Holder delivered that assessment of U.S. criminal justice. Many commended his frankness, but if you ask me he’s confused. A broken system of justice shouldn’t command the utmost faith; it should arouse the utmost skepticism. And his appraisal was actually too generous. America’s criminal-justice system is not “in too many respects broken”: It’s a national disgrace, from top to bottom.

The U.S. is not a forgiving country, and most Americans believe in harsh punishment for serious crimes. I’ve no quarrel with that. But the principle of proportionality -- really, the very notion of justice in sentencing -- seems to have been overthrown. According to a forthcoming report from the American Civil Liberties Union, 2,074 federal inmates are serving sentences of life imprisonment without possibility of parole for nonviolent crimes. Think about that.

The U.S. -- a country that loves freedom, so I’m told -- has virtually abolished trial by jury. According to one recent count, guilty pleas resolve 97 percent of federal cases that are prosecuted to a conclusion. Instead of bothersome trials, the U.S. has a plea-bargain system in which prosecutors not only bring the charge but also, in effect, determine guilt and pass sentence. As this astonishing assault on civil liberty proceeds, judges have allowed themselves to be turned into rubber-stamping functionaries, apparently for reasons of administrative simplicity.

 

[resodko]

wow, he admits her story that got him convicted wasnt credible to begin with, yet said a recantation also isnt credible????

and this is the "justice" system that some here defend :nono:

scumbags, all of them

 

[Lighthouse]

in a Just system, the girl, the prosecuting attorney and the judge (in the Brian Banks case) would all stand trial for false imprisonment and, if convicted, face execution

Yup.

Yet, were it up to certain posters on TOL, Charles Farrar and Brian Banks would have both been executed years ago...:think:

You need to learn to pay attention. resodko has it correct.

not so

they wouldn't have been convicted on the evidence of a single "victim's" testimony

:thumb: