Story continues<\/button><\/p>\nBut he wasn\u2019t released from prison until last December 22, because the state of Wisconsin asked the federal court to stay the decision until after its appeal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel a lot of things now that I am finally free,\u201d Wilber said in a statement to Native News Online. \u201cI feel elated, relieved, overwhelmed, grateful, blessed, but also anxious. I had been in prison for a homicide I didn\u2019t commit for nearly 18 years and in the same maximum-security prison for 16 and a half.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Wilber was sentenced in 2005, he continued to contact attorneys and experts, hoping that he could retain someone that would see that he had been wrongfully convicted and advocate for him. He found the addresses to forensic pathologists and other experts in physical evidence in the area, and wrote to them from prison. Two responded: Dr. Kenneth A. Siegesmund, a forensic scientist, and Dr. Lindsey C. Thomas, a forensic pathologist who testified as an expert witness for the prosecution in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd in May 2020.<\/p>\n
“Danny\u2019s is the only case in which I have answered an incarcerated person directly, rather than through their attorney,\u201d Dr. Thomas told Native News Online. \u201cHe is incredibly articulate and thoughtful and analytical and reasonable, and that obviously came across to me in his letters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Thomas\u2019s experience includes being the medical examiner for tens of thousands of cases, conducting over 5,000 autopsies, and reviewing hundreds of other autopsies. She has testified as an expert witness in nearly 100 separate trials.<\/p>\n
Wilber also retained appellate attorney Robert Henak, who represented him for the remainder of his imprisonment in the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, the federal Eastern District of Wisconsin, and the federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis case involves a dual tragedy: the death of an innocent man and a conviction of another,\u201d Henak wrote in his brief.<\/p>\n
The state of Wisconsin\u2019s theory was that Wilber, while attending a late-night house party, was out of control, had started a few fistfights, and then shot the homeowner, David Diaz, in the back of the head from 2-3 inches away.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was being a total jerk,\u201d Henak said. But that didn\u2019t make Wilber guilty of murder, he argued.<\/p>\n
Witnesses said that Wilber was in front of Diaz. The state\u2019s theory was that when he was shot, he\u2019d spun 180 degrees and landed on the floor, facing away from Wilber. However, the investigation revealed that Diaz had died immediately and fallen face forward into the kitchen \u2014 where Wilber was located, according to several witnesses. There was no direct evidence that showed Wilber fired the fatal shot.<\/p>\n
Other witnesses said either that Wilber did not shoot Diaz or that they did not see the shooting at all. The physical evidence had many inconsistencies, but the prosecution somehow convinced a jury that Wilber was the shooter.<\/p>\n
According to Henak, Wilber was convicted because the jury wasn\u2019t given another possible scenario: Once police chose him as a suspect, they were committed to his conviction.<\/p>\n
\u201cDanny was convicted because there was limited information at the first trial, and the jury wasn\u2019t given a viable second person [who could have done the shooting],\u201d Henak told Native News Online. \u201cThey figured out who they wanted it to be [who committed the crime] and didn\u2019t want to investigate beyond that.\u201d<\/p>\n
After investigating the physical evidence, Siegesmund and Thomas both concluded that there was no way Wilber could have committed the crime. The state of Wisconsin consistently rejected that conclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are SO many examples of obvious innocence, like Danny\u2019s, where the people with the power to do justice simply drag their heels,\u201d said Dr. Thomas. \u201cIt\u2019s utterly tragic.\u201d<\/p>\n
Being shackled may have saved Wilber. \u201cIf it hadn\u2019t been for the other luck of the off-the-wall ruling by the judge that he be shackled in front of a jury, he would still most likely be in prison for something he didn\u2019t do,\u201d Henak said.<\/p>\n
Dismissal of Charges<\/p>\n
On May 27, Milwaukee County District Attorney Paul Tiffin filed a motion in Milwaukee County Circuit Court to dismiss the charges against Wilber. Circuit Court Judge Glenn Yamahiro granted it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is my opinion, with the passage of time and the testimony of the original trial, the State can\u2019t reasonably convey that the defendant committed beyond a reasonable doubt,\u201d Tiffin told the court.<\/p>\n
Still, Danny Wilber spent 17 years and 10 months in the Wisconsin prison system, the first 16 years and four months in the maximum-security Waupun Correctional Institution. He was moved to the medium-security Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution in January 2021, while the state\u2019s appeal of Judge Griesbach\u2019s ruling was pending.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world is a lot different than when I was arrested in 2004 and it has taken a psychological toll on me,\u201d said Wilber. \u201cI know I can and will adjust and that it\u2019ll take time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilber\u2019s next steps are to seek damages against the state of Wisconsin for his wrongful imprisonment. He is hoping to raise funds to help offset the legal costs he incurred, and a GoFundMe<\/a> campaign was organized on his behalf. In Wisconsin, the state\u2019s maximum payment for a wrongful conviction is $25,000 plus legal expenses. This statutory compensation cap is the lowest of any state. However, other options are available in federal court if a person chooses to file for damages there.<\/p>\n\u201cAfter fighting for my freedom for so long, I know whatever I put my mind to, I will succeed,\u201d said Wilber. He hopes to share his experience with others and continues to advocate for others he met while in prison. He continues to assist other wrongfully incarcerated men with their cases and plans to further his studies with law. He\u2019s also working on writing a memoir of his experience fighting the criminal-justice system.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m truly grateful and wake up each morning and count my blessings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
About the Author: “Darren Thompson (Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe) is a freelance journalist and based in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, where he also contributes to Unicorn Riot, an alternative media publication. Thompson has reported on political unrest, tribal sovereignty, and Indigenous issues for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, Indian Country Today, Native News Online, Powwows.com and Unicorn Riot. He has contributed to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Voice of America on various Indigenous issues in international conversation. He has a bacheloru2019s degree in Criminology & Law Studies from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. “<\/p>\n
Contact: dthompson@nativenewsonline.net<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n[ad_2]Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[ad_1] Danny Wilber, released from the Milwaukee County Jail on December 22, 2021. (Photo\/Lacey Kinnart)…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32878,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32879,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32877\/revisions\/32879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}