Charles Chatman Texas inmate exonerated January 2007

[packy]

Exonerated by Innocence Project
A Dallas man has become the 30th Texan to be released from prison since 2001 after exoneration by DNA evidence. Renee Feltz reports.

Chatman spent 27 years behind bars. He is the longest serving prisoner in Texas who has been freed by DNA evidence. DNA testing has freed 14 other Dallas County inmates.

http://www.fsrn.org/content/headlines-package-january-3,-2007

Scroll down for more at link.

[Justme38]

Exonerated by Innocence Project
A Dallas man has become the 30th Texan to be released from prison since 2001 after exoneration by DNA evidence. Renee Feltz reports.

Chatman spent 27 years behind bars. He is the longest serving prisoner in Texas who has been freed by DNA evidence. DNA testing has freed 14 other Dallas County inmates.

http://www.fsrn.org/content/headlines-package-january-3,-2007

Scroll down for more at link.

I read somewhere he was also the 5th person from the same county to be exonerated. I would investigate that county, with 5 people proven innocent after conviction. IMO

[Pauli]

I am just watching this on the news now.. wow, 27yrs of this mans life with his family is lost.. what a shame. I wonder how many more there are like this.

[wheezer]

With the help of the Innocence Project, Charles Chatman was released from the Dallas County penitentiary January 3rd after serving more than 26 years on a wrongful conviction of aggravated sexual assault. In 1981, a young age of 20 Chapman was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. However, DNA testing now proves that Chatman was innocent of that crime and he exits prison a 47 year old man.

Chatman expressed his gratitude to Judge John Creuzot for his support and to Innocence Project of Texas Board President, Michelle Moore, for her prior work on Chatman's motion for DNA testing. Chatman's release is also due to the hard work of one of his attorneys, Innocence Project of Texas Chief Counsel Jeff Blackburn.

Chatman, committed to the Innocence Project's cause, will continue to advocate for those who remain in prison for crimes that they did not commit.

http://innocenceweekly.blogspot.com/2008/02/charles-chapman-exonerated.html

[wheezer]

DNA tests fuel urgency to free the innocent;
New efforts underway nationwide to identify wrongful convictions
BYLINE: Kevin Johnson

CARROLLTON, Texas -- After spending nearly 27 years buried in the vast Texas prison system for a crime he did not commit, Charles Chatman's first weeks of freedom have been overwhelming.

Each of the six rooms in his new apartment, including the bathroom, is larger than any of his previous cells. The gleaming entertainment system and sleek laptop from family, friends and attorneys might as well be hollow props on a movie set, because Chatman, 47, has little idea how to operate them -- testimony to more than a generation lost behind bars.

Chatman was exonerated last month by DNA testing while serving a 99-year sentence for sexual assault. His release Jan. 3 marked the 15th such exoneration in Dallas County during the past five years, the most of any county in the nation. Aside from New York and Illinois, Dallas County also has produced more exonerations than any state.

As DNA technology and investigations identify a mounting number of wrongful convictions, the urgency to find others like Chatman is increasing. From Virginia to California, local prosecutors, law students and defense attorneys are combing through hundreds of thousands of old files in search of flawed convictions.

Last week, two men were cleared of separate murder convictions in Mississippi after new DNA testing led authorities to another man now charged in both slayings. It was the first time post-conviction DNA testing had led to an exoneration in Mississippi, one of eight states that does not have a law allowing for such testing. Lawyers with the Innocence Project pushed the state to move forward with the testing.

Since 1989, there have been 213 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the USA. Of those, 149 came in the past seven years, according to the Innocence Project, the parent organization of a far-flung network that helps prisoners obtain DNA testing or other evidence that could prove their innocence.

Among efforts to ferret out the wrongfully convicted:

*In Virginia, officials are conducting a sweeping examination of more than 534,000 files, the largest such review in U.S. history. Three years and five exonerations after the effort began, authorities have identified 2,215 more cases they say are worthy of scrutiny.

"If we identified (only) one guy who shouldn't be in prison, would it be worth it? I say yes," says Pete Marone, who as director of the state's Department of Forensic Science is helping to direct the review.

*A team of attorneys and law students at California Western Law School, part of the national Innocence Project network, fields up to 1,000 inmate requests for help each year.

Jeff Chinn, assistant director of the Southern California Innocence Project, says 5% to 10% of those requests are selected for further investigation. Since the program began in 2000, five have been exonerated, including Timothy Atkins, who was freed last year after serving 20 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction.

*In Arizona, volunteer lawyers, law students and investigators have screened more than 2,500 cases in the past decade and secured one exoneration: Byron Lacy, freed in 2003 after serving six years for killing a security guard and wounding another man. About 20 other prisoners have won some kind of post-conviction relief, such as a shorter sentence.

*In what may be the most aggressive move by a local prosecutor, Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins has turned over more than 400 files to law students working for the Innocence Project of Texas. The students are reviewing decisions by previous administrations to reject requests for DNA testing.

Watkins, Dallas County's first African-American district attorney, says opening the files may have been his easiest decision since being sworn in last year, even in a state where politicians have a reputation for supporting aggressive law-and-order policies.

"The reason I'm here is a result of what happened in the past," Watkins says. He cites a tradition of aggressive prosecution in Dallas and routine denials of prisoners' requests for post-conviction reviews, which he says shrouded past errors. Those errors have emerged, Watkins says, largely because the local forensics laboratory preserved the biological evidence at issue in many of the recent challenges by prisoners.

For many places, a review of convictions such as that in Dallas County is not possible because physical evidence has not been preserved. The lack of uniform preservation standards is a big concern among advocates for post-conviction challenges, says Peter Neufeld, co-founder of the Innocence Project.

But for Watkins, the available evidence offered "an opportunity to restore the credibility of this office."

Judge takes interest in case

In 17 years on the bench, Dallas Judge John Creuzot has heard countless defendants declare their innocence. But Chatman's 2001 application for post-conviction DNA testing was different.

"I noticed the guy had been inside for a long, long time," Creuzot says. At the time, Chatman had served 20 years of his 99-year sentence for rape.

It is rare for a prisoner to pursue a challenge after so long behind bars. Creuzot thought of boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, freed after spending about 20 years in prison for the slayings of three men in New Jersey. Carter's case inspired the movie The Hurricane.

"Maybe it was the movie," the judge says. "Something about (Chatman's case) caught me."

Chatman had lived in the same neighborhood as the rape victim. He was nearing the end of a four-year term of probation for a 1978 burglary conviction when she was attacked, and he was included in a police lineup of possible suspects. The victim identified him as her attacker, and he was convicted in 1981.

As Creuzot reviewed the file, the possible existence of untested DNA evidence and the identification of Chatman in the lineup -- both among the most common reasons for a wrongful conviction -- seemed to demand more scrutiny.

Months later, during Chatman's first appearance in Creuzot's courtroom, the judge says something else struck him, and raised questions about Chatman's guilt. "I can just remember his face when he said, 'I didn't do this. I didn't do this,'" he says.

A first attempt at DNA testing of the assailant's biological sample by the Texas Department of Public Safety did not produce a result, according to a chronology of the case prepared by the district attorney's office.

Chatman feared that further testing also would prove inconclusive and consume the biological sample -- and with it, any chance of exoneration. Chatman and Michelle Moore, his attorney from the Innocence Project of Texas, asked that additional analysis be suspended in 2004 until testing technology improved.

Moore says Chatman showed remarkable judgment -- and patience -- in seeking the delay. "How many people would have done that?" she asks.

The opportunity for more reliable testing came last December, when the judge ordered a new analysis using a method known as YSTR testing at Orchid Cellmark, in nearby Farmers Branch, Texas. The new testing allows for better identification of male DNA profiles in samples in which female genetic material often is present, says Robert Giles, Orchid Cellmark's executive director of research and development.

Before ordering the test, Creuzot brought Chatman back to his office to see whether he wished to go forward, knowing that the new test -- if inconclusive -- likely would leave no more material to analyze.

"I asked him, 'Are you sure? This is it.'"

"Yes," Chatman responded. "I didn't do this."

At 8:30 a.m. on Jan. 2, weeks before results were due, the phone rang in Creuzot's office. Chatman's DNA was "not a match." Creuzot summoned an anxious Chatman from the county jail, where he was staying temporarily while awaiting the results.

"I knew what the test should say, but I still had that little doubt," Chatman says. "I had been a hard-luck guy for a long time."

When Chatman arrived, Creuzot stuck out his hand and said: "Man, Happy New Year!"

"He looked confused at first," the judge says. "I asked if he wanted to call somebody; I handed him my phone. He had never used a cellphone before, so I had to dial the number for him."

There was so much paperwork to process, Creuzot couldn't release Chatman immediately, so he ordered a celebratory lunch.

"I asked what kind of steak he wanted; he didn't know what to say, except to request that he wanted it 'cooked a lot,'" Creuzot says.

Chatman sat with the judge's 7-year-old son, Ethan, at a table in Creuzot's locked courtroom. (Ethan, on a holiday break from school, had accompanied his father to the office.) Chatman hadn't used a knife in years and began tearing the meat with his hands.

Lunch was one small measure of the seismic change in Chatman's world -- a change Creuzot made official that day. He called the prison to inform the warden that Chatman was not coming back.

A 'logistical nightmare'

Creuzot was instrumental in securing Chatman's release, but not all of the wrongfully convicted have found similar advocates.

Lack of funding for post-conviction analysis, including DNA testing and expert testimony, has hamstrung prisoner-assistance campaigns. The percentage of overturned cases is small, and the challenges are daunting.

Virginia's Marone calls the historic effort there to review thousands of old cases a "logistical nightmare."

The broad review, ordered more than two years ago by then-governor Mark Warner, was triggered in part by the discovery of blood and other potential biological evidence attached to old case files, some dating to 1973. The evidence had never been disclosed. The state began reviewing all of the files from 1973 to 1988, the time period at issue.

Because the files were not automated during that time, much of the project has required a hand-search of the documents in a labor-intensive and increasingly expensive examination. Marone says the analysis has cost about $1.4 million, and money is running out.

Virginia and the cash-strapped Arizona Justice Project had hoped to win some of the millions of dollars Congress set aside in 2006 to assist in DNA testing. Late last year, USA TODAY disclosed that the Justice Department had not distributed any of the money.

"That is wrong," Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy said last month at a hearing to address the issue. "That is irresponsible."

The Justice Department, which pledges to resolve the problem, had said that rules imposed by Congress made it difficult for states to qualify.

For example, the law requires that states' attorneys general compel police departments to preserve biological evidence for testing. However, attorneys general don't always have authority over the operations of all police agencies.

In Dallas County, much of the work to identify the wrongfully convicted is falling to law students and volunteer lawyers. Crowded into a small jury room in the Frank Crowley Courts Building, they leaf through thick case files, some more than three decades old.

Many of the students, drawn from local law schools, get no formal credit for the work. They work on all aspects of the cases, from re-interviewing witnesses to ensuring that those who are freed have new clothing when they leave prison.

Jessica Mines, 27, a second-year law student at Texas Wesleyan, says seeing the release of a prisoner such as Chatman is "priceless."

Considering a lawsuit

Since Chatman's release, he has traveled to Washington, where he was welcomed at a Senate hearing and met briefly with Leahy, a vocal backer of legislation to help free the wrongfully convicted.

Chatman is eligible for up to $50,000 per year from the state for each of the 27 years of lost time. He is weighing a lawsuit over his incarceration and will get the state money only if he decides not to sue.

His family and attorneys provide much of what he has -- the apartment, furniture and a new pickup. He earned a general educational development (GED) certificate in prison and is considering enrolling in college, or pursuing a career as a welder or auto mechanic.

For now, the new truck mostly sits in a parking space because he fears he'll lose his way if he strays too far from his sprawling apartment complex. But there are plenty of other options for life outside his cell.

"I can just go take a bath," he says, "and lay in the tub any time I want."

http://criminal.lawyers.com/news-headline/DNA-tests-fuel-urgency-to-free-the-innocent--New-efforts-underway-nationwide-to-identify-wrongful-convictions-l:747001961.html?method=rss

[wheezer]

Judge dismisses rape charge against innocent man

Charles Chatman spent 27 years behind bars

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News

A Dallas County judge Tuesday dismissed an aggravated rape charge against a man exonerated by DNA testing.

http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/wheezer5695/0227chatman.jpg
Charles Chatman

Charles Chatman, who was released from prison last month, spent 27 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. He is the 15th man from Dallas County exonerated by DNA testing since 2001 and has served more prison time than any of those exonerees.

“It’s just a relief,” Mr. Chatman said, staring at the dismissal paperwork in his hands. “I don’t have to worry about court no more.”
Michelle Moore, his attorney from the Innocence Project of Texas and the Dallas County Public Defender’s office, said the dismissal will help

“He wants to live a normal life,” she said after the hearing. “This will help him do that.”

Mr. Chatman said he owes a lot to Judge John Creuzot, who signed the dismissal Tuesday after pushing for the DNA test that showed Mr. Chatman was not the rapist.

“Without Judge Creuzot, none of this would have happened,” Mr. Chatman said. . “He didn’t look at it and let it go like a lot of people.”

Mr. Chatman also testified last month before the U.S. Senate about why the Justice Department has not spent $14 million set aside four years ago to help states test old forensic evidence.

Mr. Chatman, who was released from prison last month, benefited from a 2001 legislation change that make DNA testing easier. Since then, Dallas County has had more exonerees than any other county in the nation.

Mr. Chatman was a part-time janitor on probation for burglary in 1981 when a white neighbor picked it from a line up. A blood test showed that his blood – and that of 40 percent of black men – matched that of the rapist.

The victim is now in a nursing home. She once lived five houses away from Mr. Chatman for 14 years. They knew each other by sight and name.

Mr. Chatman, who said he was working at the time, missed three chances at parole because he refused to apologize or admit he committed the crime.

A large extended family, many who attended the court hearing Tuesday, has helped Mr. Chatman rent an apartment in Carrollton and get a car, and he counts himself lucky. He's thinking about going to college.

Mr. Chatman, who attended the recent Barack Obama rally at Reunion Arena, said he had recently registered to vote and was hoping the dismissal would make him eligible

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/022708dnmetchatman.2e6f0647.html

[Details]

It's a wonderful story - so glad there was a good judge, and sounds like the prosecutor there is finally being sensible - all evidence should be available to check, to see if we've imprisoned an innocent, and worse still, let the guilty go free.

However - I hope he takes the money and doesn't sue. In this case, it doesn't sound like he has grounds. With no DNA, a witness lineup was the best way back then to find the guilty - and since she knew him, that's the best type of witness ID there is (which still can always be mistaken). They never tried to destroy the evidence nor obstruct it's testing. He's got no grounds, and the money from the false conviction sounds like a fair amount of money.

It's refreshing to hear this type of story from Texas though - they've got a bad record. I don't understand it - how do you claim to support "aggressive law-and-order policies" without doing all you can to ensure you have actually arrested the criminal? But time and time again, they oppose checking the evidence after conviction to be sure they've got the right person - which effectively lets the criminal roam free.

[packy]

I agree all evidence should be available to check but unfortunately for a lot of people the evidence is lost or the only tissue they had was used up in testing.

Was it in TX that they found outright corruption in a lab in which they had falsified test results for years?

[Details]

Yeah - it's too bad when the evidence is lost. But there have been a lot of cases - particularly in Texas, where the prosecutor didn't want to release any sample material to allow the test - that's what drives me nuts. How can it not be something any honest prosecutor would want, to be sure the right person is in jail?

[packy]

Yeah - it's too bad when the evidence is lost. But there have been a lot of cases - particularly in Texas, where the prosecutor didn't want to release any sample material to allow the test - that's what drives me nuts. How can it not be something any honest prosecutor would want, to be sure the right person is in jail?

Their career is more important?

[Details]

I think so - although I think in a lot of cases it's a bit of racism, or pure ego to believe they couldn't be wrong.

[wheezer]

This is what I don't understand. Why aren't ALL states required to preserve evidence? Someone really needs to explain to me why this is just not mandatory across the board.

Do all states require the preservation of crime scene evidence?

In addition to the District of Columbia, only the 22 following states have created legislation that compels the preservation of evidence: Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, Washington & Wisconsin.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/253.php

This is another thing that to me seems like a no brainer. All interviews with a suspect should be video taped. Every single interview.

Do states legislate the electronic recording of interrogations?

To date, Illinois, Maine, New Mexico, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia have enacted legislation requiring the recording of custodial interrogations. State supreme courts have taken action in Alaska, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire and New Jersey. Approximately 500 jurisdictions have voluntarily adopted recording policies.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/314.php

[Details]

It's partly a matter of cost (after all, most of those convicted are guilty - by an overwhelming percentage), and partly a matter of time - when a suspect is ready to talk, you don't want to be held up because the camera isn't ready to go, or to have a sleazy defense attorney suggesting that this confession isn't good because it wasn't in front of the camera properly, etc.

I'd like to see all interrogations videotaped, but making a law saying always could lead to some issues.

[wheezer]

It's partly a matter of cost (after all, most of those convicted are guilty - by an overwhelming percentage), and partly a matter of time - when a suspect is ready to talk, you don't want to be held up because the camera isn't ready to go, or to have a sleazy defense attorney suggesting that this confession isn't good because it wasn't in front of the camera properly, etc.

I'd like to see all interrogations videotaped, but making a law saying always could lead to some issues.

I understand the cost factor.
This is the stuff that if I am going to pay higher taxes, I want the money spent on. For me it is worth it, if only 1 out of 10,000 is innocent. For me personally there is no monetary price high enough to keep an innocent person out of prison.

[packy]

For me it's worth it too. It could be any one of us that may be wrongfully convicted.

I think preserving evidence should be across the board too, and yet even with a law in place there's no guarantee. Lost, stolen, misplaced. . .

[Details]

The cost to preserving evidence - yeah, likely worth it (there's always a point where it is not - let's say it costs one million dollars to preserve the evidence in a trial of a murderer who confessed, and there's videotape of the crime - you want to spend that million dollars?) for most evidence - I'd always ask for the cost first before saying to always do it. But reasonable preservation - keep the stuff in a box in reasonable condition - absolutely.

The one I'm more concerned about is videotaping - I think it should always happen, but if at some point it doesn't happen (camera breaks, guy says something before it starts, or says something outside of camera range), I don't think the defense should be able to say that this means a confession is invalid, information can be suppressed, etc. That's the cost I worry about - the guilty freed.

[wheezer]

Many have confessed to crimes they did not commit.

How could someone confess to a crime one didn’t commit?

One-quarter of the over 200 wrongful convictions overturned by DNA evidence in the U.S. have involved some form of a false confession. Yet it’s virtually impossible to fathom why a person would wrongly confess to a crime he or she did not commit. Researchers who study this phenomenon have determined that the following factors contribute to or cause false confessions:

• Real or perceived intimidation of the suspect by law enforcement

• Use of force by law enforcement during the interrogation, or perceived threat of force

• Compromised reasoning ability of the suspect, due to exhaustion, stress, hunger, substance use, and, in some cases, mental limitations, or limited education

• Devious interrogation techniques, such as untrue statements about the presence of incriminating evidence

• Fear, on the part of the suspect, that failure to confess will yield a harsher punishment

How to prevent “false confessions” from leading to wrongful convictions

• The entire interrogation – during the time in which a reasonable person in the subject’s position would consider himself to be in custody and a law enforcement officer’s questioning is likely to elicit incriminating responses – should be electronically recorded. This is simply the only way to create an objective record of what transpired during the course of the interrogation process.

• In cases where law enforcement failed to make a recording, at minimum, a mandatory instruction should be given to the jury, directing them to disregard the confession if they believe it was coerced. Ideally, the judge should suppress "confessions" that were not recorded or improperly recorded so that they are not heard by jurors.

The practice of recording of interrogations can be implemented in one of three ways:

• Via legislation

• By action of the highest court in a particular jurisdiction

• Through adoption of policies by individual police departments

An important note about videotaping interrogations is that it is only a reform when the videocamera is either focused upon both the interrogator and the suspect or when focused solely upon the interrogator. Research indicates that when the videocamera is fixed only upon the suspect, the problem of false confession is exacerbated, prompting jurors to disregard the appearance of the interrogator and conclude that the confession was given freely.

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/314.php

Look at the case on this Forum of Chris Ochoa and Richard Danziger. This is a very scary case about false confessions.

This is why for me personally no price is to high to insure that all evidence is secured. No matter what.

[Details]

I am aware of all this. I followed the Stephanie Crowe case for quite awhile, among others. That doesn't change the facts that most cases, when there's a confession, it's a true confession, one that has corroborating evidence found through the confession - such as the usual one where the killer confesses, and tells the police where to find the body, or where the crime scene was, or where the murder weapon was - and they didn't know that before.

Videotaping is good - but there are a lot of true confessions, and to throw them out, to let all those killers free because something went wrong with the videotape, is to condemn many more innocent people to death - not through the death penalty, but by the violent and callous hands of the murderers.

There are prices too high to pay. If preventing innocent people from being convicted means letting out an extra 50 stone cold murderers per innocent kept free - that will kill at least 50 or more other innocent people. So - which do we choose - 50 innocent people tortured, raped, and killed in any way a murderer likes, or one innocent person unjustly sentenced? We have to choose - it is our choice. That's why I like LWOP unless there is an extremely high bar of proof in addition to a particularly heinous crime - we can free an innocent if we can find out that they are.


Yes - make it a rule that confessions be videotaped if possible - but if not, any law needs to be written in such a way that the confession is not invalidated if it manages not to be taped. It's up to the defense to point out and educate the jury on false confessions for those cases where there is one (and most confessions are still true - we need to remember the good cases as well, to avoid freeing murderers, to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater, as the saying goes).

[wheezer]

This is why I am all for LWOP.
Of course we have to mean it. LWOP has to mean LIFE. Not 10, 15, or 20 years then you go up for parole. I also believe in prisoners being kept together based on their crimes. All murderers together, all rapists, all child molesters. People convicted of Fraud, or unarmed Burglary should be kept completely away from those that are violent. People convicted on drug charges(not dealers) kept separate. I just want to insure that if God forbid we do convict an innocent person we can go back and rectify the situation. By keeping the evidence and doing away with the DP this can be insured. Again I want LWOP to mean it. I also think prison should be a punishment. I am disgusted by what is allowed to go on. There would be no television, computers, fluff reading material. I want those that will eventually be released trained in some kind of trade. Make the prisoners make products that can be used by our country. My only issue is the DP. That is it.

[Details]

Yes. LWOP has to mean it entirely. And, LWOP should be different from normal imprisonment where we need to try to rehabilitate someone to eventually, hopefully, rejoin society. My big standard is that they should have only what the poorest Americans have, that no person who works for a living and obeys the law should ever get less from that than a prisoner gets for being locked up. I'd give them limited TV, only educational reading material, a real minimum - and no weightlifting equipment for them to use to get strong enough to beat up on each other and guards. Some level of privilege, only so the guards can threaten to take it away for misbehavior - maybe the food could have two levels - bad and worse - if you misbehave, you get worse.

Maybe a little reward system, if you work hard on products that can be used, you get slightly better food or more reading material.

[wheezer]

Yes. LWOP has to mean it entirely. And, LWOP should be different from normal imprisonment where we need to try to rehabilitate someone to eventually, hopefully, rejoin society. My big standard is that they should have only what the poorest Americans have, that no person who works for a living and obeys the law should ever get less from that than a prisoner gets for being locked up. I'd give them limited TV, only educational reading material, a real minimum - and no weightlifting equipment for them to use to get strong enough to beat up on each other and guards. Some level of privilege, only so the guards can threaten to take it away for misbehavior - maybe the food could have two levels - bad and worse - if you misbehave, you get worse.

Maybe a little reward system, if you work hard on products that can be used, you get slightly better food or more reading material.

I am in complete agreement with you. Yes, I do not want inhumane conditions, but wow, we have went from one extreme to another. There has to be a middle ground. Prison should be a punishment.

Certain crimes for me should be automatic life sentences. Murder obviously. Not accidental(car wreck or some other kind of accident), but intentional murder. Child molesters should be life. One time. There is no way to fix this kind of sickness(under current medical knowledge). So if it can't be fixed, lets not let them out.

I agree that prisoners that can be rehabilitated should be kept separate. They should be educated in some kind of trade.