My Dear Friends, Supporters, and all of you that I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting,
It is now the 9th anniversary of my arrest on the fabricated charges for the horrible murders of race car great Mickey Thompson, 13 years earlier on 3/16/88.
I want to thank all of you who have taken your time to visit this blog, and most of all, those dear friends who set it up so that we have this channel of communication available to us. I'm sorry I'm so busy with legal I can't always reply personally.
I am extremely happy for the opportunity to share the true facts, the real evidence with you, not the fantasy woven by the prosecutors and police. I even welcome those of you who may visit who feel I am the enemy and/or that I may be guilty. Perhaps when you see the true facts, and realize that I only want truth and justice, not only for myself, but for others. I want to see the system "fixed", since it is so badly broken. Then, you might reconsider whether I am really the guilty enemy.
Right now the wrong person is in prison for the Mickey and Trudy Thompson murders on that fateful morning 22 years ago that so badly impacted so many lives. The real perpetrators are still out there to do it again, that is unless they are locked up for another murder, which much of the evidence we've uncovered is the situation.
But, whenever the wrong person is prosecuted/convicted, society suffers in many ways. The over 200,000 innocent inmates nationally (over 17,000 just in California) cost billions of dollars each year to wrongly prosecute and 'warehouse'. Plus, the bad guys, those who did 'it' (the crime, if there was a crime, as there was here. Many 'crimes' alleged did not occur, e.g. to do with families) are still out there to do it again.
Imagine the feeling of hopelessness of being innocent in prison, sold out by authorities who are charged by law with enforcing the law, and think about the loss to loved ones, and others who depend on the wrongly incarcerated, such as employers, employers, creditors, on and on. I believe that at least six to ten people are directly effected by each wrongly incarcerated person.
For these reasons I hope you will consider seeing the new true-to-life movie, CONVICTION (see the official trailer, below). We all need to be aware of how very bad the problem is - and I understand that this is a gut wrenching film. We need to try and do something about this cancer in society for the future of the United States, and your children, their children, and so on down the line. I would have never believed this, but please learn from my experience.
If the government, with unbridled powers to prosecute, and an unlimited budget to do that with (although I wonder where it is coming from since the government is in such bad financial shape), incorrectly decides you are guilty, then you are done unless you also have an unlimited budget and a top attorney/team of investigators.
For a sobering education on just one part of this problem, 'false eyewitness ID', which is involved in more than 70% of wrongful prosecution, please visit the CBS 60 MINUTES website and closely view an installment by Leslie Stahl on Eyewitness: How Accurate Is Visual Memory? , which incidentially, was key in my conviction.
Witnesses claimed to have seen me near the Thompson home a few days prior to the murders "scoping things out". Evidence the prosecution hid for trial, now discovered, proves I was not there. But once in, it takes forever to get back to Court to prove your innocence.
I will do it and get out. We have far more evidence than this to prove my innocence. However, the scope of the problem is underscored by this:
a. Four years after my wrongful conviction, my State appointed lawyer (I've run out of money to hire my own attorney) still has not filed even my first stab at an appeal.
b. And, the Court in which I was convicted claims they cannot find the trial record that we must have before we can file the appeal. Sadly this is typical State sponsored obstruction of justice to hinder that truth. Although this is particularly bad, it goes on very often.
But, I have a good plan. We've just filed two actions to expedite - and I never give up. We will prevail. It only depends how quickly.
If, after looking into this a bit (you might also do an internet search for prosecutorial and/or police misconduct, and/or abuse), you begin to see the scope of the problem, I beg you to consider a Christmas gift to:
Attn: Justin Brooks, Executive Director
THE CALIFORNIA INNOCENCE PROJECT
Cal Western School of Law
225 Cedar St.
San Diego, CA. 92101-3046
They do wonderful work. Any amount will help them. They are
severely underfunded and also take cases that are not DNA dependant.
We've all heard of the over 250 innocent defendants which DNA has freed via the work of the also wonderful INNOCENCE PROJECT, based in New York, and their Directors Barry Scheck and Peter Neufield.
However, most people don't consider that for the vast majority of innocent inmates, DNA has nothing to do with their case, so it can't free them. Most wrongful convictions are the result of incorrect eyewitness identification and/or prosecutorial/police misconduct, as we can prove convicted me. New York based INNOCENCE PROJECT only handles DNA based cases, while the CALIFORNIA INNOCENCE PROJECT, who is considering taking my case, handles all. The email address for the CALIFORNIA INNOCENCE PROJECT is Jpb@cwsl.edu . A visit to the INNOCENCE PROJECT website is very informative.
I am extremely blessed that the first legal pleading I crafted and filed on behalf of another inmate, my cellmate, a young Mexican man who speaks little English. Based upon me examining his trial record, I believe that he is innocent, and his conviction is the result of poor legal representation. We just got a very positive ruling from the High Court for him. Since only 4 out of 100 cases get this level of hope, I feel very gratified for him. His name is Eddie Baltierra. Please keep him in your prayers.
As for us, if any of you folks have a few hours per month (or more!) and are willing to help with some computer/internet research such as tracking down addresses/ emails for people we need to put on our contact list, or to do some typing, we desparately need the assistance. If so, please email that to friendsofmichaelgoodwin@gmail.com and we will soon get back to you. I have no direct access to the internet or blog. I can't even view it, but my Godsend of an outside advocate prints things off and mails them to me.
Yes, prison is draconian. It is hell. It is designed to keep you in whether you are innocent or guilty. More on that in my next posting.
I recognize that I've said precious little about my case, but the big picture for everyone is far more important. We wanted to keep this even much shorter than this. But I promise some real juicy stuff in my next posting. I plan to do two per month.
I cannot reply individually to communications. I'm truly overwhelmed 12+ hours per day 7 days a week on this case that has about 400,000 individual pieces of evidence.
However, I will try to filter the questions that are most frequently asked and give answers as best I can to them. Plus, I will disclose the evidence that my attorneys allow proving my innocence - and who really killed Mickey and Trudy, which we have a prima facie case to prove.
Finally, I want to apologize from the bottom of my heart to all of you who have suffered so badly; and there are so many of you, from my very poor decision to go into business with Mickey Thompson 26 years ago. Many of you warned me about him, but my ego got in the way, with me believing that I was smart enough to keep him from cheating me. Little could I comprehend the depths of his designs on my business, his dishonesty, and his enemies that I've now learned about (that may have wanted to rid this world of him). So many of you suffered so badly from my 'naivete'. I'm truly sorry.
My greatest sorrow goes out for my wonderful ex-wife Diane and my equally special 97 year old Dad. I hurt badly for each of you every day.
And God Bless All of You and Thank You Again for Your Interest.
I'm Innocent.
Michael Goodwin
