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Herman Atkins' New Life

By TChris, Section Innocence Cases
Posted on Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 06:07:24 AM EST
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by TChris

Herman Atkins had never been to Lake Elsinore, but he was convicted of robbing and raping a woman he found working in a Lake Elsinore shoe store. His father was in the highway patrol, and he'd heard of wrongful convictions, but he never thought it would happen to him. Two women identified his photo, and his blood type was the same as that of the person whose semen was found on the victim's sweater. He served more than a decade in prison before DNA testing exonerated him.

Eyewitness misidentification is the leading cause of wrongful conviction, said Gerald Uelmen, a law professor and executive director of the state Senate-created Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice.

What's Atkins doing now? After failing to find a job, Atkins went to college, then opened a vending machine business. Now he's working as a social worker and pursuing a graduate degree in psychology. Atkins started the LIFE Foundation, a program that assists the wrongfully convicted with basic necessities after their release. As TalkLeft reported, Atkins recently participated in the Faces of Wrongful Conviction conference.

Atkins' lawsuit against one of the original investigators in the case, former Riverside County sheriff's Detective Danny Miller, will go to trial next month. Atkins intends to prove "that Miller fabricated a report from a witness who placed Atkins in the Lake Elsinore area at the time of the attack."

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    • Herman Atkins' New Life | 8 comments (8 topical)
    Re: Herman Atkins' New Life (none / 0) (#1)
    by Richard Aubrey on Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 07:14:56 AM EST
    Since they got the wrong guy, the right guy stayed free. However, he may have been caught for something else. Has there been any cross-checking with DNA? Has anybody ever followed up on these cases by talking to the eyewitnesses? It would be nice to know their view, and nice to know what the procedures were surrounding the misidentification.

    Re: Herman Atkins' New Life (none / 0) (#2)
    by roger on Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 08:12:32 AM EST
    RA, I agree with you completely on this. In hindsight, the victims may recall whether or not the police suggested a subject, or pushed them in some way. If this happened in a case where I was the victim, I would be livid.

    Re: Herman Atkins' New Life (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 08:59:36 AM EST
    It's good to know that Herman has been able to rebuild his life to the extent that he has. Too often this is not the case. I wonder how Gerald Amirault is doing. Or Grant Snowden. Or Bobby Finje.

    Re: Herman Atkins' New Life (none / 0) (#4)
    by Dadler on Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 09:27:04 AM EST
    justpaul, Or Leonard Peltier, who's been rotting in jail for thirty-plus years when there isn't a shred of credible evidence left that he was guilty of anything, much less killing FBI agents at the Pine Ridge reservation in the early 70's. Check out the documentary "Incident at Ooglala" (sic?), made more than ten years ago, produced and narrated by Robert Redford. It will turn your stomach. And be especially tuned in to now-jailed former governor Bill Janklow and how utterly morally empty he is, along with almost everyone involved in putting him wrongfully behind bars. Talk about a presidential pardon long overdue. That Clinton didn't pardon him was unconscionable to me.

    Re: Herman Atkins' New Life (none / 0) (#5)
    by Dadler on Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 09:28:28 AM EST
    That should read "along with almost everyone involved with putting Peltier wrongfully behind bars." Don't want to leave the impression Janklow is wrongfully jailed.

    Re: Herman Atkins' New Life (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 09:44:08 AM EST
    Dadler, I'm glad you corrected that statement. Janklow deserves far more than he got.

    Re: Herman Atkins' New Life (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 10:31:49 AM EST
    Richard A. If it is not automatic it should be. But given the quality of convictions I wouldn't wonder that it is not, and would be far from welcome by many authorities. A thirty year old unsolved case of murder was recently closed here in the UK after a routine traffic bust. The murderer of a fourteen year old boy was convicted, unfortunately his parents were deceased by this time.

    Re: Herman Atkins' New Life (none / 0) (#8)
    by Dadler on Mon Apr 24, 2006 at 10:39:04 AM EST
    justpaul, No kidding, glad I corrected it too. Also, I should've mentioned THE book on the Peltier case, IN THE SPIRIT OF CRAZY HORSE by Peter Mathiessen, which was held up in court for years by the FBI and others portrayed unflatteringly in it (Janklow among them). Thick as a dictionary, but riveting as hell. Along with the film I mentioned, and putting post-9/11 into context, you can hardly keep your lunch down when you realize Peltier is our longest tenured, sarcasm intended, political prisoner. That there are now, in this "war", many more like him is just wretched. And what put Peltier behind bars, to me, is the same kind of institutional paranoia and abuse of power that Bush & Co. have almost perfected post-9/11. Not to mention, probably more on point for this thread, the little people rotting in jaily wrongly.

    Herman Atkins' New Life | 8 comments (8 topical)