AP: Texas Man, 76, Walks Free From Prison

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MicroBalrog

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Texas Man, 76, Walks Free From Prison

Fri Aug 20, 4:25 AM ET

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LUFKIN, Texas - A 76-year-old man who spent nearly every day of the last four decades in prison walked free after a judge found that deputies extracted his confession to a 1962 robbery by crushing his fingers between cell bars.


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After walking out of the Angelina County jail Tuesday with his wife, Robert Carroll Coney said he was not bitter.

"I'm going to try to pick up the pieces," Coney said. "If I was angry, what could I do about it?"

Coney was convicted of robbing a Safeway supermarket in 1962 and sentenced to life in prison. Many times he escaped from facilities in other states — including South Carolina, Louisiana and Mississippi — only to be recaptured each time. He was returned to the Texas prison system last year.

Coney said his identity had been confused with a man he had carpooled with through Lufkin on the day of the robbery.

State District Judge David Wilson, who dismissed Coney's charges, investigated and found that the sheriff of Angelina County at the time and his deputies used physical force to extract confessions, often crushing prisoners' fingers between jail cell bars.

When Wilson questioned Coney, the prisoner held up two twisted and bent fingers.

"I remember the sheriff well," Coney said.

He said the jailers, in addition to mangling his hand, threatened his life and scared him into confessing. Wilson's findings stated Coney probably did not see a lawyer until he stood before a judge in the case with then-court-appointed lawyer Gilbert Spring. Spring said he didn't remember Coney's case and told Wilson that courts frequently called attorneys in the 1960s to stand with defendants for no money.

"It really contains everybody's worst fears about what went on during certain darker years in this country," said Huntsville attorney David P. O'Neill, who worked on Coney's case.

Coney said he may consider a civil suit at some point but initially wants to focus on his family.

Holding his wife's hand as he left the jail Tuesday for their Dallas home, Coney said little about the ordeal.

"We're going home," Coney said.


MB - And some people want the death penalty?
 
I read this, and thought, "Wow, he's a better man than me."
...Robert Carroll Coney said he was not bitter.

"I'm going to try to pick up the pieces," Coney said. "If I was angry, what could I do about it?"
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But then I got down to this
Coney said he may consider a civil suit at some point...
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and thought, "Aha, he is human after all." Actually, can't say as I blame him, although his various escapes over the years might work against him on that - I dunno.
MB - And some people want the death penalty?
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Yep. I won't say that something like this couldn't happen in this day and age, but I'd give ya' pretty long odds against it.
 
I have this odd idea that such behaviour on the part of sworn peace officers warrants the death penalty....


Probably not a popular view.
 
Quote(Yep. I won't say that something like this couldn't happen in this day and age, but I'd give ya' pretty long odds against it)


Actually with increased population, less respect, less common sense I feel
the odds are greater to some degree that it can happen, does happen.
If you are Joe average and have problems with the law today GOD help you
because not much else will.
 
"Yep. I won't say that something like this couldn't happen in this day and age, but I'd give ya' pretty long odds against it."

I'd say it's becoming more and more likely, especially in light of the actions of troops (many of whom are police officers or jailers in civilian life, or will be after their military duty) in the prisons in Iraq.
 
If there was justice those responsible would serve 40 year sentences and the man would be compensated !
 
After walking out of the Angelina County jail Tuesday with his wife, Robert Carroll Coney said he was not bitter.
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That's cuz he DID it!!!

Well, at least he's not a liar, he never denied doing the hold-up.......Just because his confession was coerced doesn't mean he didn't do it. Maybe his joints are mangled due to that damp prison air.
 
He's not necessarily guilty...

First of all, anyone who says that he's "not bitter" after being wrongfully imprisoned is either a saint or lying.

Still, its the smart tack for him to take since hating someone only hurts you in the end. You have to forgive or at least let go of your anger for you're own sake. This is scarcely a novel observation but an important one.

As for filing a civil suit, yes that is an indication that the gentleman is human. But maybe not in the way we think. There's a difference between justice and revenge after all.

Plus it's a practical matter. You don't earn very much money in the prison workshop even over 4 decades. This man is 76 years old and he would probobly like to make up for all of that lost living as best he can. Sure just being able to feel the grass under your feet whenever you want to goes a long way but money doesn't hurt. Why should this man spend the rest of his life as a pauper on the dole or working a minimum wage job in his golden years just because he was wrongfully imprisoned?

Saying you're "not bitter" is one of those good kind of lies. I think it is cruel for us to take that as evidence that this man deserved to be in jail all those years. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't.

But given that most criminal defendents, guilty or not, proclaim their innoccence and given that this man has had four decades to protest his innoccence I don't think that reinterating what he sees as obvious is what he's focused on right now.

I doubt this man is lying about his treatment by the police. As a person with conservative principles I see it as a bad idea to encourage police brutality even by implication.

This is not for the sake of criminal defendents that we bar torture in extracting confessions it is for all of our sakes. When the police get in the habit of extracting confessions by torture they tend to get lazy and take the path of least resistance. It is much easier to get the confession of someone you "know is guilty" in that kind of environment than it is to do the leg work of gathering and collecting other kinds of evidence.

It is our understanding of the dangerous quality of the confession as evidence which has forced us to place stricter controls on its use and has in turn spurred spectacular developments in law enforcement techniques and technology.

One of the chief reasons for having armed citizens out and about in society is because it allows us to reduce crime rates without having to resort to brutal police tactics and it does so in way that enchances rather than degrades the rights of the people.

I am certain that you were not adovcating torture and that you merely doubted the veracity of the defendent's claims and it was this disbelief that spurred your acerbic remarks. That is your right. I have offered my commentary above with the deepest respect and with the goal of making what I regard as important points.
 
Nowadays, if a prison guard so much as makes a joke about an aspect of the death penalty within earshot of a condemned prisoner, it's construed to be sufficient to constitute cruel and unusual punishment, and the sentence is then reduced to life without parole.

Put this attitude together with the decades-long automatic appeals program, and it's unlikely that even small numbers of innocent people are being put to death.
 
anyone who says that he's "not bitter" after being wrongfully imprisoned is either a saint or lying.
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Or broken. :(


And after a few weeks of freedom, maybe his spirit will heal enough for him to get angry.




Other than that, well said, Raccoon.
 
I am sure that this liberal reporter means to give the impression that this man is wrongly accussed but in spite of him saying that he was mixed up with someone else, I have not heard evidence to convince me one way or the other.

Now I certainly do not advocate torture to extract a confession but I have also not heard this man's case and have not decided based simply on the report of this reporter that he is innocent.

You know, life is a pretty rough sentence for a convenient store robbery! I guess "armed" robbery is "armed" robbery and carries a pretty heavy sentence in 1962 Texas but we did not heard enough about this case to decide or to decide if the recent judge decided more correctly.

If he was truly innocent, I hope those who put him there are apprehended and punished appropriately.

Geeze!! What a mess!

PigPen
 
I have not heard evidence to convince me one way or the other.
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I have. It's called "innocent until proven guilty". There is ZERO evidence of this man's guilt, ergo, he IS innocent.
 
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