Deathbed Confession Frees Innocent Man Jailed in Chi for 26 Years - Man in Sri Lanka Unjustly Jailed for 50 Years

From the AP:

"Two attorneys recently revealed that their former client, Andrew Wilson, admitted to committing the crime that has sent Logan to prison, but attorney-client privilege had kept them from coming forward.

"Wilson's death last year allowed the attorneys to unseal an affidavit stating that Logan was not responsible for the fatal shooting of security guard Lloyd Wickliffe at a McDonald's restaurant in January 1982.

Dale Coventry, one of the attorneys who signed the affidavit, said Friday night that he hopes prosecutors will acknowledge they went in the wrong direction with the case."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080419/ap_on_re_us/the26_year_silence;_ylt=Ag0Vob3N..y_1dyEjgd.tqBvzwcF

I understand attorney client privilege, but how could those guys live with themselves knowing that? How about attorney client urging to do the right thing? Anonymous tip anyone?

Jesus, 26 years in Cook County Jail - "Only innocent man in Shawshank..." indeed. And the family still had to come up with $1,000 bond.

And in Sri Lanka, from Yahoo News:

"Arrested for killing his father late one night in 1958, James was ruled mentally ill by a judge, sent to an asylum for the criminally insane — and forgotten.

Decades after his doctors pronounced him cured, he remained trapped in a criminal justice nightmare. The hospital could only release him to the prisons authority. The prisons authority could only pick him up under a court order. The courts never called for him because they couldn't find his file.

Most of his relatives abandoned him, believing he was crazy.

James never stood trial, never even had a bail hearing, yet he spent 50 years of his life a prisoner."

The kicker - his father wasn't murdered. And there are others like James, still lost in the shuffle.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080419/ap_on_re_as/sri_lanka_forgotten_prisoner;_ylt=ApXAKesL7.ofmInA.JHci2pvaA8F