IA - Color of skin or content of character? Terry Harrington's lost quarter-century

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This is an amazing, amazingly well-written, story from Sports Illustrated's Jon Wertheim. It documents the lost 25 years - years he spent in prison for a murder he did not commit - of Terry Harrington, of Omaha, and the relentless work of the woman who learned of his tale of injustice when she was employed as an Iowa prison's barber - the amazing Ann Danaher, of Kansas City.

Convicted by an all-white jury in Iowa of the killing of a retired police captain, Terry Harrington's tale - and that of Ann Danaher - is an object lesson in the power of injustice - but also of the ultimate power of truth, for which we should always strive.

A storybook ending eludes the case - Harrington and Danaher would not always see eye to eye; but the overwhelming thrust of this well-worth-reading tale is that we must never give up hope; and that we have a moral responsiblity to do for others:

Wrongly Accused

Terry Harrington spent 25 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit
 
good story, and im glad it worked out for him, but this :

/quote He, in turn, felt hurt when, to his mind, she began taking too much credit for his freedom. Upon his 2003 release, Harrington told a Des Moines reporter, "I think God put [Annie] in my life to be the vessel through which I worked." Now he's more tempered, "She did great work for me, but so did a lot of good lawyers"/unquote

kinda took the "feelgood" out of it. without annie, he would still be in prison. SHE set the wheels in motion. i found that statement very selfish and mean, but then he got millions, she didnt... sad
 
good story, and im glad it worked out for him, but this :

/quote He, in turn, felt hurt when, to his mind, she began taking too much credit for his freedom. Upon his 2003 release, Harrington told a Des Moines reporter, "I think God put [Annie] in my life to be the vessel through which I worked." Now he's more tempered, "She did great work for me, but so did a lot of good lawyers"/unquote

kinda took the "feelgood" out of it. without annie, he would still be in prison. SHE set the wheels in motion. i found that statement very selfish and mean, but then he got millions, she didnt... sad

True. But I think serving 25 years in prison for a crime one did not commit could cause havoc with one's ability to respond to....well, to just about anything. One might see the world with very different eyes.

And as for the money - no amount of money could repay Mr. Harrington for the lost years. He deserved the amount he was awarded.
 
i agree that he deserves whatever money he got, just that the lawyers worked for money, (not pro bono, it says so in the article) annie worked for justice, and he basically blew that off.
 
good story, and im glad it worked out for him, but this :

/quote He, in turn, felt hurt when, to his mind, she began taking too much credit for his freedom. Upon his 2003 release, Harrington told a Des Moines reporter, "I think God put [Annie] in my life to be the vessel through which I worked." Now he's more tempered, "She did great work for me, but so did a lot of good lawyers"/unquote

kinda took the "feelgood" out of it. without annie, he would still be in prison. SHE set the wheels in motion. i found that statement very selfish and mean, but then he got millions, she didnt... sad

You missed the sentence right before that, where the writer noted that Ms Danaher felt hurt that Mr Harrington decided to live in Omaha, close to his family and friends, rather than moving to Kansas City to be near her.

My take on it is that at some point, Ms Danaher became too attached to the case and/or to Mr Harrington himself and he now feels the need to keep some distance between them.

Yes, he got millions of dollars. I can tell you, though, that if I were offered what probably ended up as around $4 million dollars (after attorney's fees) in return for 25 years of my life, I'd laugh like a loon. To me, it's a no-brainer. I think of everything I've done and everything that has happened to me in the last 25 years and there is NO WAY I would trade it for $100 million dollars, let alone $4 million. And that's not even counting all the demeaning, humiliating and harmful things that happen to prisoners.

To me, Mr Harrington deserves every penny of that award and should have gotten more.
 
He not only deserves every penny of the award, he deserves the inalienable human right to associate with whomever he wants, and the right to reject others's claims as to their involvement in his past; in fine, he also deserves the right, as we all have, to make mistakes in judgement, if that indeed is the case here, with Ann Danaher.

While we all would love the perfect storybook ending with all the loose ends tied up in bows, our own lives rarely reflect such successful outcomes. To feel that a man who was imprisoned for 25 years for a crime he did not commit should also be a magician of human relationships - well, that's a bit steep. Life is not a film by Disney.
 
good story, and im glad it worked out for him, but this :

/quote He, in turn, felt hurt when, to his mind, she began taking too much credit for his freedom. Upon his 2003 release, Harrington told a Des Moines reporter, "I think God put [Annie] in my life to be the vessel through which I worked." Now he's more tempered, "She did great work for me, but so did a lot of good lawyers"/unquote

kinda took the "feelgood" out of it. without annie, he would still be in prison. SHE set the wheels in motion. i found that statement very selfish and mean, but then he got millions, she didnt... sad


I'm sorry his honesty took the feelgood out of the story for you, but I think he would have been remiss if he were to infer that Ann and Ann alone got him out of prison. She was a catalyst, wonderful in what she did, but she wasn't a single person working all alone for his freedom, others worked, too. That doesn't take away from what she did, it just adds others to the "thank you" list.

Plus, if Ann was working on behalf of justice, then she has surely been so blessed to see justice served! Hopefully she doesn't now feel badly about what she did!


He not only deserves every penny of the award, he deserves the inalienable human right to associate with whomever he wants, and the right to reject others's claims as to their involvement in his past; in fine, he also deserves the right, as we all have, to make mistakes in judgement, if that indeed is the case here, with Ann Danaher.

While we all would love the perfect storybook ending with all the loose ends tied up in bows, our own lives rarely reflect such successful outcomes. To feel that a man who was imprisoned for 25 years for a crime he did not commit should also be a magician of human relationships - well, that's a bit steep. Life is not a film by Disney.

Well said.
 
Sort of like George Lopez divorcing his wife who donated a kidney to him, isn't it?
 

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