Alice Sebold: Convicted Until Proven Innocent

Apologies Accepted

Alice Sebold misidentified a man as a rapist and that man spent 16 years wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. She wrote a memoir about the rape and the trial of the man she believed assaulted her. The memoir was a huge bestseller and she went on to literary fame, writing several novels to both critical and commercial success. Recently her memoir was in production to become a film when one of the executive producers noticed some things in the trial that didn’t quite add up. He hired a retired police detective who, in only 48 hours (that’s 2 days) discovered evidence that fully exonerated the man mistakenly accused of rape.

Released from jail in 1998, Mr. Broadwater spent years listed as a sex-offender, unable to secure solid employment, a social outcast with few friends. His life after prison is simply a series of contrasts between what might have been and what is, robbed of opportunities by a chance unlucky encounter with a woman on the street and the US judicial system.

Alice herself also had a chance unlucky encounter with the US judicial system. The prosecutors lied to her, gave her false information that she believed. Now that we know that Mr. Broadwater was innocent, wrongfully identified and convicted, we have an apology from Alice for mistakenly accusing him. How do you apologize for being a part of a system that wrongfully punished an innocent person? How much responsibility does she bear for her role?

Never fear, we are here with the answers (and chicken and d*ck jokes, too)!