Shattered Faith

Our very first post on this blog, back in September, was about how wrongful convinctions harm victims' families. We talked about Jeanette Popp, whose daughter Nancy was murdered in 1988; the two men convicted of her murder were found to be innocent, and Jeanette has spoken about how it felt to believe one story about who was responsible for her daughter's murder, only to learn that that story was untrue. She is also outspoken in her opposition to the death penalty.

An article from the February 24th Dallas Morning News, "Mother of '88 murder victim says her faith in justice system shattered after exonerations," features Jeanette's story. Here's an excerpt:

After the trial, [Jeanette] met with jurors.
"I hugged every one of them," she says. "There wasn't a dry eye in the place. ... I couldn't have thanked them any more for the justice they had given my child.
"I wouldn't have questioned the police or the prosecution," she says. And "the evidence was so overwhelming, so overwhelming."
But on the 12th anniversary of her daughter's death, she watched Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle say on TV that Mr. Ochoa and Mr. Danziger might be innocent. Another man, Achim Josef Marino, had confessed to the crime, and DNA evidence appeared to exonerate Mr. Ochoa and Mr. Danziger.
"My legs just gave way," Ms. Popp says.
"I can't do this again," she remembers sobbing. "Please, God, don't make me do this again."
Prosecutors told her they had been trying for four years to tie all three men to the crime. But the Wisconsin Innocence Project showed there was no connection. When she realized Mr. Ochoa and Mr. Danziger were not guilty, her heart went out to their mothers.
"Chris' mother and Richard's mother lost their child for 12 years, as surely as I lost Nancy," she thought.