Now my anonymous friend from the previous post (and a number of other ones) is going to love this, but it's news, it's the truth, and it happened, so it's getting posted regardless. Today, NJ has officially exonerated Byron Halsey after 22 years in prison for a brutal pair of child rapes and murders that he did not commit. Halsey was nearly sentenced to death, and might have been executed before this evidence had come to life if the death sentence had been imposed. You can read more, and even see and interview here.

In this case, Halsey, who suffers from learning disabilities, was interrogated for 30 hours, without a lawyer. Prosecutors pointed to semen on the victim's body and a cigarette butt, claiming that they pointed to Halsey, but new DNA testing has proved that none of the pieces of physical evidence is tied to Halsey.

Sadder still, the man that prosecutors are now charging with the crime, Cliff Hall, committed a string of brutal rapes from 1991-1992 while Halsey was serving crime for Hall's crime. This is another thing that we need to remember: every time we convict an innocent person of a crime, a guilty person goes free.

In the case of Paul House, while House had spent 22 years on death row, it's likely that a guilty person has gone free. Instead of insisting that, despite all the evidence, House is still guilty, we should step up, do the right thing, and get an innocent man home.