randomWalks

Over the many long years in prison, Thomas Lee Goldstein's sense of disbelief, his bitterness at the judicial system, even his revenge fantasies slowly faded, leaving only a feeling of numbness and a grim patience.

He screamed his innocence to an unhearing world until finally one judge, then another, then another - five federal judges in all - agreed that he had been wrongly convicted of murder in 1980 and ordered him set free late last year. Even then, local authorities kept him locked up for four more months before turning him loose on April 2, more than 24 years after he was first picked up for a murder that it now seems clear he did not commit.

..

Mr. Goldstein says he does not harbor dreams of revenge, but rather of holding the system that so betrayed him accountable. He spends his days as a paralegal at the small Pasadena law firm of Hadsell & Stormer and working with Mr. Kaye on a damage claim against the authorities who took his freedom.

Mr. Kaye said he had not yet decided how large that claim would be.

"How do you really evaluate in financial terms what 24 years of life are worth?" Mr. Kaye said. "He was locked up from age 30 to 55. He didn't have a chance to find a wife, have children, build a career. He is a talented legal researcher, a talented draftsman. I ask you, is $25 million enough? Is $50 million enough?"

Stories like Thomas Lee Goldstein's are what make it impossible for me to support the death penalty. Bad enough that he's lost 24 years of his life -- almost as long as I've been alive! -- but at least he's still around. What of all the people who've been executed or are on death row still convicted on evidence even flimsier and more suspect than that in his case?