West Memphis Three (Part Five: Alford Plea)

"When we told prosecutors we were innocent, they put us in prison for life. Now when we plead guilty, they set us free."

On 19 August 2011, three men - Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley Jr. - were transported from their respective facilities to a courthouse in Jonesboro, Arkansas. They were there to plead guilty to a crime they had spent the better part of two decades denying. At the same time, they were asserting their innocence and obtaining their freedom in an unusual legal maneuver called an Alford plea.

What led up to that decision was the culmination of years of painstaking progress. What had started back in 1996 as a single HBO documentary had become a movement by 2011 heralded by celebrity backers and advocates pushing new DNA evidence. Yet at the end of the day, three men regained their freedom at a cost while questions continue to linger about the deaths of three boys...



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