Fundamental Fairness in Champaign

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CHAMPAIGN, IL - Marcus Edwards, 18, of Champaign died at 9:15 a.m. Sunday
(July 11, 2004) at Carle Foundation Hospital, Urbana.

Edwards took his own life in the CCCC, Champaign County Correctional Center,
upon being found not guilty of drug possession, but guilty of destroying
evidence, and sentenced to 60 months.

The paradox is firstly: how can anybody know to convict someone of evidence
destruction if the evidence was destroyed? They can't. Fundamental fairness
must play a role in such findings. Apparently there was none.

Add to that fact that there was no possession conviction, it seems Edwards
was sentenced to 5 years in prison for possession of nothing, and
destruction of something that could either: 1. not be destroyed or 2. used
as a ruse to convict, and contradictory to common sense and fundamental
fairness.

This was the third suicide in CCCC in 2,004, an apparent all time yearly
high for the relatively new jail and state officials. Safeguards have been
implemented, though too little too late for Edwards and two others, Terrell
D. Layfield, 25 and Joseph Beavers, 37, who also took their own lives this
year.
Our condolences and sympathies go out to their friends and families,
hopefully they will not be forgotten.

-Eric Frampton

I will write until I'm too weak to write, then I'll get a lighter
en. -Neil Simon

http://home.earthlink.net/~eric-frampton

--
I will write until I'm too weak to write,
then I'll get a lighter pen. -Neil Simon