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| Damien Echols waived his 5th Amendment rights and, perhaps mistakenly, took the stand. |
The so-called West Memphis Three have become very well
known in recent years, garnering a large following on Facebook and other
Internet outlets. I’d heard the phrase and read passing headlines related to
the case, but knew nothing about the crimes that three men from Arkansas were
convicted of and for which they spent 18 years in prison. I saw the news
flashes last year when they were released after signing an Alford plea deal in
which they maintained innocence for their crimes but admitted that the
prosecution had sufficient evidence to convict – a bizarre facet of the legal
system if ever there was one. And so after nearly two decades in prison (they were
teenagers when convicted) and long-standing public campaigns demanding reviews
of the evidence, appeals and retrials, the West Memphis Three went free.
