In 1995, a man named Tirell Swift was convicted for a rape and murder that he never committed. After repeatedly trying and failing to convince the authorities of his innocence, he lied by saying that he did commit the crime. Swift was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Fifteen years later, DNA evidence finally proved that he was not responsible for the crime, and just a month or so ago, he was fully exonerated. Back in 1995, Tirell Swift was 17 years old. Today, he is 34 years old. So far, he spent half his life behind bars.
It's quite shocking to listen to a story like Tirell's. Here's a man, totally innocent, that is convicted for something he never did, and somehow, the Illinois legal system does not see this. For seventeen years! As a most extreme hypothesis, perhaps the court did know of his innocence, but they kept him in prison just to avoid more work on the case. If that were true, that's pathetic. And even if it's not, it's still pathetic that a completely innocent man was blamed for something he never did, and as a consequence, wastes half of his life rotting in a cell. Tirell's story shows that states' legal systems in America are not perfect with their convictions; in fact, they are far from perfect. I'm not really sure what could be done to fix this problem though besides allotting more time for the analysis of court cases and having more people involved with the analysis. Of course, to do that would take lots and lots of time and money. Yet no matter how much this problem is seemingly fixed, I don't think courts will ever make consecutive flawless convictions; nobody's perfect. It's a shame that there are so many wrongful convictions out there, so many years of untruth.
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