A bitter sweet freedom - Damian Skinner

One Minute Remaining - Stories from the inmates

Almost one year ago I was scrolling through Instagram when I stumbled across a page dedicated to one of the many innocence style organisations that is dotted across the united states, setup in response to thee overwhelming number of people who are incarcerated for crimes they didn't commit.

On the page there was a photograph of a young African American boy pictured with a big smile wearing a baseball outfit the name of that boy was Damian Skinner.... the story spoke of how Damian had been arrested tried and convicted for a murder in 1996, Damian had been convicted with next to no evidence, apart from a so called eye witness, who didn't even see the crime take place. He would tell police that he saw Damian in a car head in the direction of the crime and then moments later heard gun shots.

Damian's older brother was a known gang member and he said that police believed he'd in fact committed the crime but with no evidence to arrest him they brought Damian in and told him he would need to testify against his brother or face prison himself. He refused and sealed his fate..

Damian would spend the next almost 28 years fighting to clear his name without success. Eventually coming up for parole but was denied multiple times, the biggest hurdle was the fact that he was never willing to admit to the crime and thus in the eyes of the board he was not taking ownership or showing any remorse.

however on his most recent appearance he would have legal representation and a strong argument was put forward and finally he was granted his parole...

Almost 6 months later it's time to check in with Damian to see how he's doing as a free man.

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