Don't disagree. And to your point, KC Freedom has dropped several cases they were called to look into because the case against the convicted held up to scrutiny (one of them due to my work with gas station surveillance footage that had wonky timestamp issues confirming who shot first). Pleading innocence is of course quite common among the guilty, so organizations of that type have to be careful. Sometimes, if not often, advocates can get too overzealous and suffer from their own bias, so it goes both ways.
Yes, specifically in Carne's case, he was a drug dealer, and he was on the premises at the drug house they sold out of. But he did not chase the victim down the street with a MAK-90 and shoot him in the parking lot of the fish restaurant. The shell casings were in the entirely wrong area from where they'd needed to be if the primary testimony was accurate, and testimony that contradicted that story and fingered the real shooter was ignored. Several documents that countered the narrative (e.g. shell casing locations), as well as pointed to the real perpetrator, mysteriously disappeared (I don't think this was ever reported on). Fortunately, backups were found. One of those who testified was high on cocaine and easily influenced, later saying she was threatened into testifying against Carnes, and both later recanted their testimony (which I shot on video). The entire affair was a mess from the get-go.
With a quick search I found the below URL, which provides some pretty in-depth details:
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=6223
Carnes turned his life around during his time in prison, in part due to KC Freedom Project helping him down a path of redemption. He recently got married and is now himself doing work with both KC Freedom Project and the Innocence Project, along with some charity work. Only time will tell if that sticks, of course. Back then he wasn't a good guy, but he also wasn't a murderer. I know Carnes personally, by the way. I met him several times, interviewed him in prison, and have stayed in touch on Facebook.
While I'm still skeptical of the Sidney Holmes situation, what I agree with keelai on is that there are far too many cases of wrongfully convicted. The system is broken, too easily allowing corruption and bias to overshadow common sense, logic and evidence. And the scope of the problem extends far outside of just the wrongly convicted. It's infected every aspect of civilized society, with cognitive bias becoming a fundamental component of most people's mindsets and worldviews, sometimes with religious-like fervor.
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Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.
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