MEDIA ADVISORY
July 1, 2005
CONTACT:
Marty Durand
(208) 344-9750
ext. 202
mdurand@acluidaho.org
100th
Innocent Person Freed from Death Row Tells His Story
BOISE - Ray
Krone, the 100th innocent person released from death row,
will speak at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 811 S. Latah, on
Friday, July 8th at noon. The public is invited to
attend free of charge and encouraged to bring their own lunch.
Ray Krone is
available for media interviews. Please call (208) 344-9750
ext 202
Krone, a former
Boy Scout and Air Force veteran was living in Arizona when his world
was turned upside down. Arrested for a murder he didn’t commit,
Krone refused to believe that our legal system would convict him. He
told his parents not to worry. And when faced with the choice of
selling his house to pay for a lawyer, he opted to be represented by
a public defender instead. “I was thinking, ‘Why should I do this
when they’re going to know it’s not me as soon as they investigate?’
“
But Krone was convicted, based largely on circumstantial evidence
and the testimony of an “expert” witness who asserted that bite
marks found on the victim matched Krone’s teeth. In 1992, Ray Krone
was sentenced to death.
He refused to give up and continued to fight through the appeals
process. In 2002 he was able to convince an appeals court that DNA
found at the murder scene pointed not to him but to another man.
When prosecutors dropped the charges, Krone became the 100th
person exonerated from death row since 1973. He had missed out on
life for the 10 years and four months he was imprisoned.
Today, Krone works to avoid bitterness about his experience. “I have
the ability to be angry, but I’ve tried to avoid the anger,” he
says. “I sat in prison all that time, and I watched people who were
so bitter and angry that they became victims. At some point you’ve
got to take control of your life and rise above things. I hope I
won’t ever get to the point where I am so overwhelmed with grief and
tragedy that I would actually give in.”
Now 45, Krone works against the system that failed him. ”I would
not trust the state to execute a person for committing a crime
against another person,” he says. “I know how the system works. I
know what prisons are like. It’s not about justice or fairness or
equality. It’s absolutely wrong. Any chance I can, whether I start
with one or two people or a whole auditorium full of people, I’ll
tell them what happened to me.”
What:
100th Innocent Person Freed from Death Row Tells his
Story.
Who: Ray Krone.
When: July 8th,
noon.
Where: Sacred
Heart Catholic Church, 811 S. Latah St., Boise.
Cost: Free. The public is invited to attend.
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