Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Could you imagine spending 17 years in prison for a crime you didn’t commit? That’s exactly what John Bunn had to go through when he was only 14 years old. Despite the lack of evidence, John Bunn was convicted for the murder of Rolando Neischer, a correction officer. According to an article from CNN, Bunn was convicted after being identified in a lineup by Robert Crosson, a witness and acquaintance of Neischer. However, the blood and fingerprints at the scene did not belong to Bunn; this information was seemingly ignored. In 2009, he was finally freed on parole and it was only this year that he was officially exonerated by a judge. Having almost no evidence to support the accusation, John Bunn’s situation raises the question: why did the court decide to imprison him?

My take on this story is that facts were not the reason that John Bunn was put in jail, but rather fear. The fear accumulated by the public that the murderer was still evading capture and roaming free. People likely wanted to feel safe and put their mind at ease. In doing so, they tried to arrest someone as quick as possible, accusing the image most associated with a criminal–a black person. This fear continues to exist today, though in more of a general sense. The desire to hastily imprison criminals mixed with subtle racial biases leads to wrongly convicting innocent people. John Bunn spent 27 years trying to prove his innocence and numerous stories similar to his are always happening in the world.

They won’t admit and say that I’m an innocent man. But I’m an innocent man, your honor, and I have always been an innocent man…You all convicted and had a wrong man in prison, and you all still have somebody on the loose that killed someone.

John Bunn