Because This Just Pisses Me Off, Part One Of Two

Right. We all know about attorney-client privilege, that clause in the law that says that an attorney can't be ordered to incriminate his client by revealing information the client revealed in confidence.

But I bet you never heard a story like the sordid tale of Alton Logan.

See, Alton Logan is in jail. Serving a life sentence, without parole, for a murder he did not commit. He is 54 years old, and has been in jail for TWENTY-SIX YEARS.

His life is utterly, irrevocably destroyed. There is no way to recompense him for what has been done to him; he has lost nearly half his life to the prison system, and they STILL HAVEN'T LET HIM OUT.

He is innocent.

Want to know why he's in jail?

Because the attorneys for the ACTUAL killer of the police officer of whose murder Logan stands accused, held the real killer's confession in silence, under the attorney-client privilege, for 26 years.

The real killer just died; so now, in a pointless attempt to seem like they serve justice, the attorneys have revealed the truth: that their client, Andrew Wilson, was guilty of the murder of Lloyd Wickliffe, and Alton Logan was in fact an innocent man.

The article makes interesting reading, as the two lawyers describe in detail the tortured reasoning they went through to try to justify their decision to send an innocent man to jail for 26 years, rather than violate the confidence of a man who was, at that time, on death row for two other murders. Wilson was convicted of shooting two other police officers; Logan had no police record and was by all accounts a decent, hard-working citizen.

To protect the "rights" of a killer, criminal, and general non-contributing scuzzbag, these two lawyers sentenced a good man to death in prison.

Now, 26 years later, now that the evidence that might have been available to confirm Alton Logan's innocence is long gone, now that the witnesses are unrecoverable, now that virtually no-one is left who knows, or cares, about this travesty, NOW, these two hardworking public servants come forward to offer a piece of information that might have made all the difference in the world AT THE TIME: a signed affidavit, from both lawyers, stating that Andrew Wilson confessed to Wickliffe's murder.

Of course, in the absence, NOW, of any actual evidence other than that statement, and seeing as Andrew Wilson is dead, and cannot be questioned, Alton Logan will never be released from prison. Despite the fact that he is an innocent man; despite the fact that he has done nothing wrong; despite the fact that he has already paid 26 years of "debt to society" despite owing nothing; despite the fact that the information that could have saved him rested in the hands of lawyers so honorable, so bound by their moral code, that they kept their silence rather than betray the confidence of a convicted murderer; Alton Logan will die in prison.

Dale Coventry and W. Jaime Kunz, the two public defenders in question, deserve to have something said to them.

I'll say it.

You're trying to buy atonement, absolution, with the blood of a man who did nothing to you, committed no crime, and harmed no-one. Releasing this information now is merely cruelty; as lawyers you knew perfectly well that this would bear no legal weight by now, and come too late to do him any good. This man's death is on your souls. Alton Logan is an innocent man, that you have murdered with your silence.

There is, and can be, no absolution for you. You deserve a life of guilt and shame; you deserve a death of ignominy and despite.

For what you have done in the name of your murdering client, for your murder to protect a murderer, you deserve to take Alton Logan's place. You deserve to lose all you hold dear; to see all you love turn to ashes; to fail utterly, in every way, and to remain in prison for the rest of your miserable lives, with the sure and certain knowledge that an eternity of punishment awaits you.

And you should always, always remember that it was YOUR DECISION that made those things happen to you.

There are no words to describe an act this despicable. Your silence spits on the soul of the law; your words trample on the ideas you claim to support; your contemptible attempt to justify killing a man to avoid trouble on the job expresses exactly the evil, slimy, disgusting nature that is why people hate your execrable species.

You don't deserve to have me swear at you; my foulest word is worth more than your best action in life.

Die in a fire.