wheezer
02-27-2008, 02:02 PM
Exonerated man gets life back on track
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/wheezer5695/1kk81480.jpg
Dennis Maher
Dennis Maher's red hooded sweatshirt was anything but lucky. He was wearing it the day a 23-year-old woman was sexually assaulted - and so was her attacker. Eyewitness misidentification landed Maher in prison, where he served 19 years of his life for crimes he did not commit.
On Thursday, Feb. 14, Maher, 47, shared his story with Suffolk in the C. Walsh Theatre. His lecture, sponsored by the Performing Arts Office in conjunction with their performance of "The Exonerated," captured the audience, all whilst wearing a t-shirt, jeans and a scruffy, graying beard.
One fall night in 1983, Maher, an average Joe from Lowell, Mass., was stopped by police and didn't know why. "I gave them my driver's license and they ran my name," said Maher. "Then they searched me and arrested me for possession of marijuana." But when Maher arrived at the Lowell police station, he learned the real reason for his arrest. He recalls the officer saying, "We're questioning you about a rape that happened last night and a rape that happened earlier today."
On Nov. 16, 1983, a 28-year-old woman from Lowell, Mass. was taking her usual walk home from work when she was attacked. The man that accosted her had tried to engage her in conversation before forcing her into a nearby yard and sexually assaulting her. The next day, a 23-year-old woman was attacked less than 100 yards from the site of the first assault. The second victim, who was able to escape her attacker after a struggle, described him as wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, a khaki military-style jacket and wielding a knife.
Maher, who had no prior criminal record and was a sergeant in the United States Army at the time, did not fit the vague description given by the victim but was dressed in similar attire. Items found in his vehicle, such as an army field jacket, a military issue knife and a rain slicker, led police to suspicion. He was then charged with the two attacks and another unsolved rape that took place the previous summer in Ayer, Mass.
The Lowell attacks were tried together, but no biological evidence linked him to either crime. One month after being convicted of both Lowell attacks, he was convicted of the Ayer attack as well. According to the Innocence Project, the prosecution relied on the identifications made by the victims despite the fact that biological evidence was available for testing.
At just 23 years old, Maher was sentenced to life in prison and his reputation suffered as he was deemed a sexually dangerous person. "At first it was really hard because I was an angry person when I was in prison," he said. "I just had to do one day at a time. So one day I made peace with myself that I was going to die in prison unless I got DNA tested."
In 1993, Maher learned about the Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy organization dedicating to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing. "I sent them about 1,400 pages of transcripts," he said. "But everything I filed Judge [Robert] Barton denied without a hearing. So the day I heard that he had retired, I called the Innocence Project in New York."
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/wheezer5695/h88z7ss2.jpg
Bernard Baran, Rob Feldman, co-founder of the New England Innocence Project, and Dennis Maher
Aliza B. Kaplan, an attorney from the New England Innocence Project, was then assigned to his case. "It was a real emotional time because I hadn't had a lawyer for about 15 years," said Maher, who recalled one prison guard saying, "It's about time. If anyone in here is innocent, it's Maher."
During this time, when Maher was fighting to prove his innocence, he faced a lot of opposition behind the prison walls, especially from therapists at the mandatory treatment programs. "Everyone in prison is innocent," joked Maher. "But my family stuck by me 100 percent. For me, they were my inner strength."
Maher also found support in his cellmate, Bernard Baran, another wrongly convicted man who was exonerated through the Innoncence Project. "There was a comfort knowing that Dennis was sitting there with me with the same look on his face," said Baran, 42, of Pittsfield, Mass. "Nobody in there wants to hear you say you're innocent."
Baran was wrongly convicted on January 30, 1985 of molesting five 3-, 4- and 5-year-old boys and girls at the Early Childhood Development Center, where he had been employed as a teacher's aide. "The amazing thing was that the other inmates could tell we were different," said Baran. "You're there, but you feel different from everyone else in there."
The Innocence Project, which had been seeing positive results while working on Baran's case, tried to gain access to the biological evidence collected from the victims of the two Lowell cases. Originally, they were told that the evidence could not be located, but the case picked up momentum, according to the Innocence Project, when a law student found two boxes of evidence in the basement of the Middlesex County Courthouse. According to the Innocence Project, the boxes contained the pants and underwear collected form the rape victim, which had seminal stains and possible blood stains found by the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory.
"You figure this is 18 years later," said Maher. "[The victim,] was hopefully getting her life back together, and now they're telling her that she may have put an innocent man in jail."
The Forensic Science Associates (FSA) tested the evidence and found that the donor of spermatozoa to the sample could not have been Maher. Since the DNA did not match, Maher was excluded from the two Lowell cases. Shortly after, prosecutors were able to locate biological evidence to be sent for testing. Once again, the tests excluded Maher as the source of the DNA.
"I said that if I were to get released, I would take two months off, get a job, meet a woman, and get married," he said.
Then on April 1, 2003, April Fool's Day, Kaplan called Maher and asked, "When do you want to go home?" Maher recalls thinking it was a joke and saying, "Is this for real?" It was. Two days later Maher was released after 19 years of proclaiming his innoncence. "The state had to admit they were wrong," he said. "Have you ever heard the state admit they were wrong?"
Maher has had some sense of closure since his name has been cleared. He now works as a mechanic for Waste Management and is married with two children, a three-year-old son and a daughter name Aliza, after his attorney.
Suffolk performs play based on wrongly accused
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/wheezer5695/03185a0w.jpg
Students capture audience with adaptation of award-winning documentary play
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/wheezer5695/21ik6u4v.jpg
Performing Arts Production brings the wrongly accused voices to life
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/wheezer5695/4n10vy0r.jpg
Suffolk's presentation of "The Exonerated"
In conjunction with Dennis Maher's lecture, the Performing Arts Office presented "The Exonerated," an award-winning documentary play written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen .
"The Exonerated," which was performed on Feb. 21-23 at the C. Walsh Theatre, tells the stories of six people wrongly convicted of capital crimes. Through a captivating performance by both Suffolk students and faculty, the characters proclaimed their innocence and shared their experiences of being on death row.
"The play raises a lot of questions that need to be discussed by the community," said Kristin Baker, director of the Performing Arts Office.
Authors Blank and Jensen wrote the play based on 60 interviews they conducted in the summer of 2000. The interviewees did not share one common race, ethnicity, age, or religious or educational background, but they were all convicted of capital crimes and spent time on death row defending themselves - each one of them innocent.
The performance was marked by its unique presentation and delivery. Each character was seated on a black wooden chair, which were lined up in rows on various levels on the darkened stage. When it came time for one character's monologue, the character would simply stand up and the spotlight would illuminate only them. The simple and unadorned scenery added to the impact of the stories and the emotions circling the theatre.
The production, directed by Baker, included stellar performances by Vicki Karns, associate professor of Communication and Journalism, Jeremy Solomons of the English department, and John Hames of the Center for International Education, as well as students Sharif Butler, Gustave Cadet, Clarence Flanders, and Brian LeFort.
Blank and Jensen's "The Exonerated" won the 2003 Outer Critics Circle, the Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Awards, and the Defender of Justice.
http://media.www.suffolkjournal.net/media/storage/paper632/news/2008/02/27/Arts/Exonerated.Man.Gets.Life.Back.On.Track-3237866.shtml
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/wheezer5695/1kk81480.jpg
Dennis Maher
Dennis Maher's red hooded sweatshirt was anything but lucky. He was wearing it the day a 23-year-old woman was sexually assaulted - and so was her attacker. Eyewitness misidentification landed Maher in prison, where he served 19 years of his life for crimes he did not commit.
On Thursday, Feb. 14, Maher, 47, shared his story with Suffolk in the C. Walsh Theatre. His lecture, sponsored by the Performing Arts Office in conjunction with their performance of "The Exonerated," captured the audience, all whilst wearing a t-shirt, jeans and a scruffy, graying beard.
One fall night in 1983, Maher, an average Joe from Lowell, Mass., was stopped by police and didn't know why. "I gave them my driver's license and they ran my name," said Maher. "Then they searched me and arrested me for possession of marijuana." But when Maher arrived at the Lowell police station, he learned the real reason for his arrest. He recalls the officer saying, "We're questioning you about a rape that happened last night and a rape that happened earlier today."
On Nov. 16, 1983, a 28-year-old woman from Lowell, Mass. was taking her usual walk home from work when she was attacked. The man that accosted her had tried to engage her in conversation before forcing her into a nearby yard and sexually assaulting her. The next day, a 23-year-old woman was attacked less than 100 yards from the site of the first assault. The second victim, who was able to escape her attacker after a struggle, described him as wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, a khaki military-style jacket and wielding a knife.
Maher, who had no prior criminal record and was a sergeant in the United States Army at the time, did not fit the vague description given by the victim but was dressed in similar attire. Items found in his vehicle, such as an army field jacket, a military issue knife and a rain slicker, led police to suspicion. He was then charged with the two attacks and another unsolved rape that took place the previous summer in Ayer, Mass.
The Lowell attacks were tried together, but no biological evidence linked him to either crime. One month after being convicted of both Lowell attacks, he was convicted of the Ayer attack as well. According to the Innocence Project, the prosecution relied on the identifications made by the victims despite the fact that biological evidence was available for testing.
At just 23 years old, Maher was sentenced to life in prison and his reputation suffered as he was deemed a sexually dangerous person. "At first it was really hard because I was an angry person when I was in prison," he said. "I just had to do one day at a time. So one day I made peace with myself that I was going to die in prison unless I got DNA tested."
In 1993, Maher learned about the Innocence Project, a national litigation and public policy organization dedicating to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing. "I sent them about 1,400 pages of transcripts," he said. "But everything I filed Judge [Robert] Barton denied without a hearing. So the day I heard that he had retired, I called the Innocence Project in New York."
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/wheezer5695/h88z7ss2.jpg
Bernard Baran, Rob Feldman, co-founder of the New England Innocence Project, and Dennis Maher
Aliza B. Kaplan, an attorney from the New England Innocence Project, was then assigned to his case. "It was a real emotional time because I hadn't had a lawyer for about 15 years," said Maher, who recalled one prison guard saying, "It's about time. If anyone in here is innocent, it's Maher."
During this time, when Maher was fighting to prove his innocence, he faced a lot of opposition behind the prison walls, especially from therapists at the mandatory treatment programs. "Everyone in prison is innocent," joked Maher. "But my family stuck by me 100 percent. For me, they were my inner strength."
Maher also found support in his cellmate, Bernard Baran, another wrongly convicted man who was exonerated through the Innoncence Project. "There was a comfort knowing that Dennis was sitting there with me with the same look on his face," said Baran, 42, of Pittsfield, Mass. "Nobody in there wants to hear you say you're innocent."
Baran was wrongly convicted on January 30, 1985 of molesting five 3-, 4- and 5-year-old boys and girls at the Early Childhood Development Center, where he had been employed as a teacher's aide. "The amazing thing was that the other inmates could tell we were different," said Baran. "You're there, but you feel different from everyone else in there."
The Innocence Project, which had been seeing positive results while working on Baran's case, tried to gain access to the biological evidence collected from the victims of the two Lowell cases. Originally, they were told that the evidence could not be located, but the case picked up momentum, according to the Innocence Project, when a law student found two boxes of evidence in the basement of the Middlesex County Courthouse. According to the Innocence Project, the boxes contained the pants and underwear collected form the rape victim, which had seminal stains and possible blood stains found by the Massachusetts State Police Crime Laboratory.
"You figure this is 18 years later," said Maher. "[The victim,] was hopefully getting her life back together, and now they're telling her that she may have put an innocent man in jail."
The Forensic Science Associates (FSA) tested the evidence and found that the donor of spermatozoa to the sample could not have been Maher. Since the DNA did not match, Maher was excluded from the two Lowell cases. Shortly after, prosecutors were able to locate biological evidence to be sent for testing. Once again, the tests excluded Maher as the source of the DNA.
"I said that if I were to get released, I would take two months off, get a job, meet a woman, and get married," he said.
Then on April 1, 2003, April Fool's Day, Kaplan called Maher and asked, "When do you want to go home?" Maher recalls thinking it was a joke and saying, "Is this for real?" It was. Two days later Maher was released after 19 years of proclaiming his innoncence. "The state had to admit they were wrong," he said. "Have you ever heard the state admit they were wrong?"
Maher has had some sense of closure since his name has been cleared. He now works as a mechanic for Waste Management and is married with two children, a three-year-old son and a daughter name Aliza, after his attorney.
Suffolk performs play based on wrongly accused
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/wheezer5695/03185a0w.jpg
Students capture audience with adaptation of award-winning documentary play
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/wheezer5695/21ik6u4v.jpg
Performing Arts Production brings the wrongly accused voices to life
http://i104.photobucket.com/albums/m196/wheezer5695/4n10vy0r.jpg
Suffolk's presentation of "The Exonerated"
In conjunction with Dennis Maher's lecture, the Performing Arts Office presented "The Exonerated," an award-winning documentary play written by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen .
"The Exonerated," which was performed on Feb. 21-23 at the C. Walsh Theatre, tells the stories of six people wrongly convicted of capital crimes. Through a captivating performance by both Suffolk students and faculty, the characters proclaimed their innocence and shared their experiences of being on death row.
"The play raises a lot of questions that need to be discussed by the community," said Kristin Baker, director of the Performing Arts Office.
Authors Blank and Jensen wrote the play based on 60 interviews they conducted in the summer of 2000. The interviewees did not share one common race, ethnicity, age, or religious or educational background, but they were all convicted of capital crimes and spent time on death row defending themselves - each one of them innocent.
The performance was marked by its unique presentation and delivery. Each character was seated on a black wooden chair, which were lined up in rows on various levels on the darkened stage. When it came time for one character's monologue, the character would simply stand up and the spotlight would illuminate only them. The simple and unadorned scenery added to the impact of the stories and the emotions circling the theatre.
The production, directed by Baker, included stellar performances by Vicki Karns, associate professor of Communication and Journalism, Jeremy Solomons of the English department, and John Hames of the Center for International Education, as well as students Sharif Butler, Gustave Cadet, Clarence Flanders, and Brian LeFort.
Blank and Jensen's "The Exonerated" won the 2003 Outer Critics Circle, the Drama Desk and Lucille Lortel Awards, and the Defender of Justice.
http://media.www.suffolkjournal.net/media/storage/paper632/news/2008/02/27/Arts/Exonerated.Man.Gets.Life.Back.On.Track-3237866.shtml