This text belongs to ‘Dossier Negro’, a newsletter inspired by the podcast of the same name, which Enrique Figueredo will send biweekly on Wednesdays. If you want to receive it, sign up here.
I welcome you to what, if you wish, will be our fortnightly appointment with those darker reflections of life. We will take as a starting point for them each latest installment of the Dossier Negro podcast of this newspaper. We will expand aspects that have to do with the chronicle of events, the world of criminality or the judicial field. With something as dramatic and disturbing as judicial errors, we inaugurate this epistolary link with the vocation of creating a solid community.
In cases of unjust convictions, the real culprits delight in their impunity and, moreover, there is no real rest for the victims, if in the end the truth is revealed and it is discovered that there has been no real punishment. This trance is especially painful if homicides or murders are being addressed. Imprisoning innocents is a brutal outrage that has been committed for centuries. One hopes that with improved investigative techniques errors will be reduced to a minimum. In the Spain of 1915, caciquil power was still deeply rooted. Five Reapers were sentenced to life in prison for a five-time murder they didn’t commit. Despite being proven that they were 80 kilometers from the scene of the crime when it occurred, they were found guilty.
Wanninkhof case. It is one of the most resounding judicial errors in recent Spanish judicial history, with certain aromas of homophobia. Dolores Vázquez was convicted with flimsy evidence and in the midst of great irregularities, accused of killing the daughter of the woman she had been dating for a while. Some DNA tests of her exonerated her after 516 days of imprisonment.
Misfortune and loss. Another of the exculpations that the advances in genetic techniques allowed to achieve was that of Rafael Ricardi. He had already been in prison for 13 years when it was learned that he did not commit the rape for which he was in prison. He was released from prison in 2008 and received one of the highest compensation granted in Spain for such an error: 550,000 euros. He enjoyed them little. He died in 2014.
Avoid the electric chair. JoaquÃn José MartÃnez, a Spaniard, spent three years on death row in a Florida prison, believing that every night he went to sleep would be his last. After achieving a repeat trial, he was released in 2000. In an interview with this newspaper, he spoke of the cruelty of that situation.
Corrupt watchers. The Roman poet Juvenal said it: Who will watch over the watchmen? Police corruption generates brutal insecurity and is a source of serious injustices. The case exposed in the series LucÃa en la web is a good example. In the United States, it was that of Derrick Hamilton who achieved his freedom after 23 years in prison. He received seven million dollars when leaving.
