James Bain / ap photo

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BARTOW, FLORIDA – For years, James Bain insisted he was home watching TV with his twin sister when a 9-year-old boy was kidnapped and raped.
The victim had picked him out of a lineup, and his repeated pleas for DNA testing were rejected until the Innocence Project of Florida got involved in his case earlier this year.
On Thursday, he was finally set free. He made his first-ever cell phone call, to tell his elderly mother he was out of prison after 35 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.
As Bain walked out of the Polk County courthouse, wearing a black T-shirt that said “not guilty,” he spoke of his deep faith and said he does not harbor any anger.
“No, I’m not angry,” he said. “Because I’ve got God.”
His wants now are simple: fried turkey, Dr Pepper and maybe going back to school.
The Innocence Project says the 54-year-old has spent longer behind bars than any of the other 246 inmates exonerated by DNA nationwide.
In 1974, Bain was sentenced to life in prison for the kidnapping and rape of the boy in a field. Scientists had not yet developed the sophisticated DNA testing that officials more recently used to determine he could not have been the rapist.
“Nothing can replace the years Jamie has lost,” said Seth Miller, a lawyer for the Innocence Project, which helped Bain win freedom. “Today is a day of renewal.”
Before Bain, the longest-serving inmate exonerated by DNA was James Lee Woodard of Dallas, who was released last year after spending more than 27 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.
Friends and family surrounded Bain as he left the courthouse Thursday after Judge James Yancey ordered him freed. His 77-year-old mother, who is in poor health, preferred to wait for him at home. With a broad smile, he said he looks forward to spending time with her and the rest of his family.
“That’s the most important thing in my life right now, besides God,” he said.
Earlier, the courtroom erupted in applause after Yancey ruled.
“Mr. Bain, I’m now signing the order,” Yancey said. “You’re a free man. Congratulations.”
After the Innocence Project got involved in Bain’s case, a judge finally ordered the DNA testing and results from a respected private lab in Cincinnati came in last week, setting the wheels in motion for Thursday’s hearing.
Bain was convicted largely on the strength of the victim’s eyewitness identification, though testing available at the time did not definitively link him to the crime. The boy said his attacker had bushy sideburns and a mustache. The boy’s uncle, a former assistant principal at a high school, said it sounded like Bain, a former student.
The boy picked Bain out of a photo lineup, although there are lingering questions about whether detectives steered him.
The jury rejected Bain’s story that he was home watching TV, an alibi his sister repeated at a news conference last week. He was 19 when he was sentenced.
Ed Threadgill, who prosecuted the case originally, said he didn’t recall all the specifics, but the conviction seemed right at the time.
“I wish we had had that evidence back when we were prosecuting cases. I’m ecstatic the man has been released,” said Threadgill, now a 77-year-old retired appeals court judge. “The whole system is set up to keep that from happening. It failed.”
Eric Ferrero, spokesman for the Innocence Project, said a DNA profile can be extracted from decades-old evidence if it has been preserved properly. That means sealed in a bag and stored in a climate-controlled place, which is how most evidence is handled as a matter of routine.
Florida last year passed a law that automatically grants former inmates found innocent $50,000 for each year they spent in prison. No legislative approval is needed. That means Bain is entitled to $1.75 million.
from The Associated Press
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SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA – The California Department of Parks and Recreation is forming a task force to address equality issues for its women and gay employees.
Parks officials said Thursday the move is part of a settlement with a lesbian park ranger who filed a harassment lawsuit in San Diego County.
Jennifer Donovan claimed that colleagues posted obscene drawings and left underwear and sex toys in her locker during the six years she worked at San Onofre and San Clemente state beaches.
Her attorney, Wendy Musell (Myoo-sell’), says the settlement calls for a panel to monitor recruitment and equality issues for women, gays and transgender people. The department will also audit and improve its equal employment opportunity procedures.
The parks department did not acknowledge any wrongdoing.
from The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – The biggest U.S. gay rights battle next year is brewing in a California federal court as raucous fights over same-sex marriage in state legislatures and at state ballot boxes subside.
In part, 2010 will reflect a growing move by same-sex marriage advocates to building support for their civil rights cause outside of the election process.
The federal challenge to California’s ban may be the only conflict in clear sight after a mixed 2009 that saw Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire legalize gay marriage and Washington, D.C., vote for legalization, while there were setbacks in other states that had been expected to follow.
“The focus is very much on this one case,” said Andy Pugno, a California lawyer who successfully defended California’s ban in the state supreme court and is helping in the federal defense as well.
New York state legislators failed to back gay marriage and a New Jersey effort has hit snags and has a few weeks to act before a new governor who opposes such gay unions takes office. Maine voters rejected same-sex marriage by a thin margin similar to the California 2008 ban, which is being contested in the San Francisco federal court.
“We believed that this is something that needs to be vindicated at the federal constitutional level, and I think that that is reinforced by what’s happened in Maine and what did not happen, for example in New Jersey, and what did not happen in New York,” said David Boies, one of the lead lawyers in the federal case.
Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004 and California had a summer of legalization in 2008 before voters banned it.
Trial is set to start January 11 in San Francisco. Boies and co-lead Ted Olson argue that marriage is a U.S. constitutional right too fundamental to limit and that gays and lesbians are a discriminated group that deserve special court protection.
Opposing attorney Charles Cooper says restricting marriage to a man and a woman reflects a reasonable government position that heterosexual couples are best for families. It is not a question of hate, and gays and lesbians have plenty of political power, making special court protection unnecessary.
OF PERSUASION AND BALLOT BOXES
Thus far every success for gay marriage has come in court or by legislators — never in a referendum.
“We are winning when people have a voice in the matter,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, an influential conservative Christian lobby and activist group.
Major gay rights groups are focusing on a campaign to build support, creating a “ripple effect” as allies convert friends and associates, according to Marty Rouse, national field director of Human Rights Campaign.
California grass-roots groups are fighting one of the few efforts to get voters to the polls, although big and wealthy gay advocacy groups have abandoned or ignored an attempt to get California voters to reverse themselves in 2010.
“We’ve basically run out of states where this in the courts. So we are not expecting more reactive ballot measures against us,” said John Henning, executive director of Los Angeles gay rights group Love Honor Cherish, which is gathering signatures to put gay marriage before California voters in November 2010.
An election sharpens attention and leads to changes of opinion, he said. The thought of an African American as U.S. president seemed unreal until Barack Obama ran.
Henning may be in the minority about ballot box fights.
“It is very difficult to persuade people to change their minds in the middle of an election campaign,” said lawyer Matt Coles, director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.
from Reuters
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