The Innocence Project
“You can end your life in ten minutes time. That quick…it can happen to the smartest person in the world,” said Bruce Godschalk, a recent exoneree from prison. Mr. Godschalk, like many others in America, was convicted of a crime he did not commit. In May of 1987, the 26 year old Mr. Godschalk was convicted of 2 counts of forcible rape, and 2 counts of burglary in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Sentenced to 11-22 years, Mr. Godschalk spent 15 years in jail for a crime he did not commit. He spent 7 more fighting with the prosecution for rights to the evidence that was sure to exonerate him of the crime, and was finally exonerated on February 14, 2002. How did this happen? How was an innocent young man jailed so quickly for such a terrible crime? Mr. Godschalk explained that it began with his own sister. The police were offering a $5,000 reward for capture of the suspect for the crimes. All Mr. Godschalk’s sister, a drug addict, saw was the money that she could use to buy drugs. For this reason, his sister falsely tipped off the police that her own brother was the wanted suspect. The police swooped down on the 26 year old Mr. Godschalk, and asked him to come to station and answer some questions. They told him that as soon as he answered them, he could go home. “I was put in a small room,” Mr. Godschalk narrated, “and that’s intimidating.” He was interrogated by the two police officers. The officers, wanting to close the case, fed Mr. Godschalk bits and bits of information about the crime, and kept telling him that as soon as he told them what they wanted to know, he could go home. “They basically told me, ‘you don’t need a lawyer’—hard to believe, huh?,” Mr. Godschalk said. He soon had enough information from the police officers to do what they wanted him to do all along: Mr. Godschalk made a false confession, thinking that he could then go home. Little did he know. The officers took him to court, he was quickly convicted on the basis of his false confession, and immediately jailed. In Mr. Godschalk’s words, jail was “lower than Hell.” After 15 years, however, Mr. Godschalk came across the Innocence Project. He learned that the Project was a non-profit, based out of Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law, which worked to exonerate and free wrongly convicted prisoners based on DNA evidence. Like about a hundred others every month, Mr. Godschalk wrote to the Innocence Project, explaining his plight and asking for help. Even though the Project’s lawyers have about 180 cases, they accepted Mr. Godschalk’s, because they believed that there was, in fact, DNA evidence capable of exonerating him. It took 7 years to get rights to the evidence that would exonerate Mr. Godschalk, because the prosecution knew that the evidence did have the power to free Mr. Godschalk. However, when it was finally obtained, Mr. Godschalk was exonerated. He was now 48 years old. Of surviving those 22 years as a convict, Mr. Godschalk explained, “I’ll tell you what kept me motivated. It was love…for my family…faith, love. Did I lose hope? Yeah, I did…because of the confession. For a while, I really did lose hope.” Since 1989, there have been 223 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the United States. Added together, those 223 innocent convicts have spent over 2700 years in jail for crimes they did not commit.17 of those 223 served time on death row. The average age of the exonerees at conviction is 26. For 15 years, the Innocence Project has worked to pinpoint trends in reasons for wrongful conviction, and employed policy analysts who work to prevent more wrongful convictions. These analysts have found that 77% of the cases of wrongful conviction involved misidentification by eyewitnesses. Unreliable or fraudulent forensic evidence played a role in 65% of the 223 cases. False confessions played a role in 25% of these cases. The Innocence Project recommends legislation requiring interrogations to be recorded, to prevent such false confessions. “I’m strong…very strong. Up here,” Mr. Godschalk said. “They can take your body from you, but not your mind.” Mr. Godschalk lost what could have been the best years of his life. Between the ages of 26 and 48, many would have gotten a degree, gotten a job, and gotten married. Mr. Godschalk re-entered society itself at 48. When asked if he thought the United States justice system was corrupt, Mr. Godschalk answered “no.” When asked if he still harbored bitterness about his false conviction and years spent in prison, Mr.Godschalk replied, “no. If you do, it’ll just eat you up inside.” The Innocence Project continually works for people like Mr. Godschalk, who have had their lives taken away from them. For more information, contact www.innocenceproject.org, to help keep people like Mr. Godschalk able to say that the U.S. system is not corrupt, and to give people back their lives, and let them start again. Laura Hogikyan
