Wrongly accused man free after 25 years

LOS ANGELES, California — Willie Earl Green walked out of a California courtroom as a free man Thursday after serving nearly 25 years in prison for the execution-style murder of a Los Angeles woman, which he insists he never committed.
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Willie Green said he “would never ponder harming anyone” after working for civil rights in Mississippi.

A Los Angeles judge set the graying 56-year-old free after ruling that the prosecution’s star witness, Willie Finley, lied to a jury during key portions of his original testimony. Finley recently recanted his story.

Green, who earned a college degree while at California’s San Quentin State Prison, said he was “humbled” by his release.

“Today is a glorious day,” he said. “It’s a great day. I never gave up on this day. I knew one day this day would come.

“I never asked for mercy. I only asked for justice to be served, and it was served today.”

“Good Friday arrived early for my husband,” said Green’s wife, Mary.

Green had been serving 33 years to life for the murder, burglary and robbery of Denise “Dee Dee” Walker, 25, at a Los Angeles crack house in 1983.

Based on Superior Court Judge Stephen Marcus’ ruling, Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Hyman Sisman told the court, his office would not pursue a new trial.

After his release, Green and his wife embraced.
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“It’s real,” she said as her husband’s eyes teared up. “I’m fine now. This is the second best day of my life. The best was the day I married you.”

In February, Green proclaimed his innocence to CNN’s documentary unit during an interview inside his prison cell at San Quentin.

“I was once a freedom marcher in Mississippi fighting for civil rights and social justice during the Martin Luther King Jr. era,” he said. “I would never ponder harming anyone, let alone kill a human being, after spending my early life fighting for nonviolent social change the way King taught us.”

Walker was killed August 9, 1983. According to court documents, the single mother had been preparing crack cocaine in Finley’s kitchen when a man dragged Finley inside the home after pistol-whipping him on a sidewalk.

Within moments, a second intruder entered a back door of the apartment with a sawed-off shotgun. Finley testified that the newcomer beat him again with the shotgun. After stealing money from a bedroom, the second intruder returned to the kitchen, exchanged weapons with his accomplice and left, according to court documents.

Moments later, Finley testified, he heard the first suspect yell to Walker, “you’re the only one who knows me,” followed by multiple shotgun blasts. But instead of calling for help as Walker lay dying with multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, Finley scoured his house for drugs the gunmen missed, documents state.

A month later, Finley was arrested and charged with selling drugs. At that time, police showed him mug shots of possible suspects in the Walker case, but Finley was unable to identify anyone.

According to court documents, the case appeared stalled until Walker’s mother told police that her daughter had been the victim of an assault and robbery a year earlier. Two men had been arrested in that case: Willie Green and his cousin, who was Walker’s companion at the time. Both men pleaded guilty to grand theft of a television set.

On the night of Walker’s murder, Green’s cousin was in prison.

Green, who had briefly lived at Walker’s apartment a year earlier, told police he was in the San Fernando Valley at the time of the murder. But he also had no one to corroborate his alibi.

Detectives interviewed Finley again in jail, showing him additional photographs of possible suspects, this time including Green. By that time, Finley had been informed about Green’s prior encounter with Walker and tentatively identified him as the second intruder, according to court documents. At a live lineup, Finley selected Green as the second intruder.

During his testimony, Finley identified Green as the second intruder, claiming he heard Denise Walker scream “Willie.” Prosecutors cited Walker’s use of the name as crucial evidence that she was referring to Willie Green, because most of Willie Finley’s friends called him Doug.

However, Los Angeles police detectives found no evidence connecting Green to the crime scene, according to court documents.

In his ruling Thursday, Marcus said the relationship between Walker and Green probably played a significant role in the jury’s decision to convict. Finley now says it was the primary reason he identified Green in the photo lineup.

Marcus noted that Finley had failed to reveal that he suffered from hemophilia and that his vision had been impaired after the two beatings on the day of the killing.

Marcus also said that Finley lied when he said he was not under the influence of cocaine at the time of the murder or when he was testifying.

Walker’s case has never been solved.

After his release, Green said he wasn’t bitter about his experience.

“I don’t hate anybody,” he said. “I don’t hate Willie Finley for doing what he did. I forgive him, too.”

Green, who said he’d never even met Finley, said it was unfortunate that he’d spent so much time behind bars while Walker’s real killers went free.

“Everybody’s talking about me,” he said. “But nobody’s talking about the victim. She didn’t get any justice. Me being locked up for 25 years didn’t give her any justice.”

Problems creep out past official front in China

Last month, Olympic organizers were showing off a new basketball arena and denied that any residents were forcibly evicted to build the many sites for the Summer Games. But the Olympic Media Village sits where Li Yukui and his neighbors had to leave their homes.

Olympic officials promised to clean Beijing’s severe air pollution, but an Ethiopian runner said last week that he won’t run the marathon because breathing the air could harm his health.

And the neighborhood volunteers touted for learning English to give directions to visitors instead spend their time monitoring residents and even confronted one pregnant woman about whether she was violating China’s one-child policy.

Five months before the Olympics, China is discovering the difficult line between promotion of its many successes and concealment of deep problems that dog the communist nation.

China’s crackdown on pro-independence protests in Tibet is just one front of this struggle. The world’s most populous nation wants to present a united image of harmony and prosperity. But the ruling Communist Party, which bristles at outside criticism, sometimes contains dissidents and ignores human rights complaints.

“You host an international event like this, you open yourself up to international scrutiny. China underestimated the risks,” says David Zweig, director of the Center on China’s Transnational Relations in Hong Kong. “China is hoping to say, ‘We’re doing great,’ and they are, on many fronts. But on other fronts, they are vulnerable.”

After Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia said he would skip the Olympic marathon because of pollution, Beijing announced it would close every construction site and ban half the cars from the roads before the Games on Aug. 8-24.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao admitted this week that “problems of one kind and another in preparing for the Olympic Games are unavoidable.” At his first news conference of the year Tuesday, he remained upbeat about the Olympics: “I believe the smiles of 1.3 billion people will be reciprocated by the smiles of the world’s people.”

‘The truth, but not the whole truth’

At the Games, “you will see skyscrapers, spacious streets, modern stadiums and enthusiastic people. You will see the truth, but not the whole truth, just as you see only the tip of an iceberg,” human rights activist Hu Jia and Beijing lawyer Teng Biao, wrote in an open letter published on websites of human rights groups and elsewhere last September.

Tuesday, Hu was tried in a Beijing court for “inciting subversion of state power.” Teng was taken by police to the suburbs, so he could not attend the trial.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other world figures have pressed Beijing on Hu’s case. Wen said at his news conference that the matter would be “handled according to the law,” and he denied there was a crackdown on dissidents before the Games.

Teng, who was detained for two days last week, disagrees. “Look at Hu Jia, Yang Chunlin and others who have been arrested because of the Olympics,” he says. Yang, a land rights activist who organized a petition drive titled “We want human rights not the Olympics,” was tried last month for the same crime as Hu. Five other Beijing lawyers wanting to attend Hu’s trial were detained briefly.

“There was an instruction at a senior level to prevent us attending,” lawyer Zhang Tianyong says.

“It is highly possible that people like myself will be detained this August during the Games,” Zhang says. “They are illegally infringing our basic freedoms, but I will continue to offer people legal help.”

Violating the government’s code of silence can bring severe consequences. Li Yukui and his neighbors say their homes are now the Olympic Media Village. Li says he was forcibly evicted, and his wife was sent to a labor camp after they protested the way the government calculated compensation for their property.

The government closely controls what people can see on TV or read in the newspapers. When CNN broadcast images of Tibet protests during the past week, TV screens went blank. In recent days, websites such as YouTube have been blocked.

“There has definitely been a ratcheting up of both website blocking and the technology they have to filter and slow down information,” says Jeremy Goldkorn, the Beijing-based editor of the website danwei.org.

Restaurant owner Sun Ruonan says there have been positive changes. “A few years before, I could not even think of opposing a government policy, let alone actually say something. So there has been progress, but much still needs to be changed and improved.”

Sun is fighting to save her old family restaurant from demolition near Tiananmen Square. Her building is the last on her street after developers bulldozed neighbors’ homes.

“There is no transparency about how this area will be developed. The officials don’t act according to the law but for personal gain,” she says.

Minutes after Sun began talking with a USA TODAY reporter, policeman Zhao Liang demanded to see the reporter’s credentials and warned Sun to “be very careful what you say, don’t just say whatever you like.”

Volunteer patrols

The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games recently showed off neighborhood volunteers who wear bright red armbands and normally patrol Beijing’s streets. Wang Naijin, 53, is one of the volunteers, typically retirees.

“One of our duties is monitoring family planning,” Wang explains. “To give you an example, last year, I spotted a woman with a swelling belly, but she already had a daughter. I went to see her and her husband many times, to urge her not to have the baby. They said they still wanted a son, but in the end, I persuaded them, though we can’t use force.”

A U.S. State Department report last week highlighted forced abortions as one example of China’s “poor” human rights situation.

China’s Health Ministry acknowledged the problem when lawyer Chen Guangcheng exposed the issue in an area of Shandong province in 2005. Chen was later jailed for four years.

Outdoor cafes and bars on Sanlitun, a popular Beijing street, bar people from sitting outside to prevent any public disturbance.

“It is much stricter this year,” says Wang Huayou, who manages an ice cream store. “The police are worried about any kind of incident. We don’t know if we will be able to have outdoor seating during the Games. Our foreign guests like to sit outside, but the city management officials won’t let us.”