I have been incarcerated for almost thirty (30) years for sexual assaults I did not commit. When people first hear that, they look at me in disbelief and suddenly the subject is changed. Is it because the human mind can't relate to such a thing? We are all creatures of habit. We all like our freedom and our own space. Throughout history men have given their lives for freedom.
A defense attorney is supposed to defend; defend your right, defend your freedoms. The minute a defense attorney fails to do that, the entire system, and justice itself, has been corrupted and compromised.
My trial attorney, Charles English (now deceased), ran it down to me before the trial started. If I was guilty, we would avoid doing any forensic testing as it would convict me without a doubt. I told him that I was innocent. I told him to run all the tests, but he never did. To this day, I don't know why. What is worse, is that he failed to preserve the forensic evidence, even after personally getting a court order to do so. He simply never served the Los Angeles Police Department with the judge's order. Therefore the evidence that would have set me free years ago was destroyed soon after my trial. How can a man live with himself after betraying his client?
I was convicted solely on witness misidentification. There was never a shred of forensic or physical evidence, such as finger prints that pointed to me as the perpetrator in these horrible crimes. As a matter of fact, blood and fluid samples taken from me did not match any samples taken from the victims. There was no eidence to arrest me, let alone convict me, other than the traumatized testimony of the victims. It was never introduced at my trial that within two months of my arrest, several more women were attacked in the same apartment community (Los Feliz Village Apartments, Los Angeles, CA), in exactly the same manner as the ones I was convicted of. The description of the assailant was very similar to the descriptions that were given in my case.
The police knew that there were two other individuals that were suspect in all the attacks, but did no believe that they had arrested the wrong man. They called it a "copy-cat" crime. The police believed that a man that looked very similar to me decided to continue these attacks, using the very same MO at the very same location.
They never, for a minute, paused to consider that they were plainly and simply wrong and so they rushed to conviction. The actual assailant has been free to roam the streets of Los Angeles, and probably other cities and states, assaulting women for years!
In my petition of Haveas Corpus, which you can read for yourselves in the documents section here, we asked the courts to allow me to obtain and test blood and/or saliva samples from the primary victim in my case. The court refused to grant my request. My family and supporters have repeatedly requested that the victim simply spit in a cup so the enzymes could be tested.
My criminalist said that would be enough for a PGM/DNA test that would absolutely exonerate me. A rational person would think that she would want to make absolute certain that the man she identified as her attacker was actually the right man. She would not even consider giving the sample to be sure that the man that caused her so much pain and suffering was indeed being punished. The sad truth is that her attacker is still out there, free to attack time and again. She has stopped nothing by refusing to let us test her saliva, only succeeded in putting an innocent man in prison for seventy (70) years!
In this country, a person is supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Don't bet on it! When society places expediency over reality; innuendo over truth; there can never be real justice. The prosecution is supposed to have the job of proving a person's guilt. The defense is to prove that the person is not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. that is not what happened to me. I was deemed guilty from the minute I answered my door that awful day.
I look back to the very beginning of this nightmare, and am astonished that this could actually happen to me, to an innocent man. I answered a knock at my door and opened it to find drawn guns pointed at my head. It was so surreal, I kept thinking that it was all some mistake and the police would realize their error and leave. It soon became all too real as i was booked into the LA County jail. That was the very first time I'd ever been in jail for any reason. I closed my eyes and tried to rest, tried not to think. But for me, this was the beginning of the end.
I had graduated from Pace University in New York City in 1971 and moved to Los Angeles in 1972. I just wanted to settle down, get a good job, live a normal life. You know, the kind of life where you work, pay your own way, find someone to love and have a family with, enjoy the simple things in life like friends and parties and freedom to do pretty much what you want.
On November 2, 1982, my whole life and world came apart, destroyed du to a misidentification, and an attorney that did not fulfill his role as someone I contracted with to protect my freedom and innocence.
Now my normal life is being locked up day and night, having maybe a few hours in the sunshine, eating the same meals over and over and over again on the same days each week. I get to make one phone call a week and write letters to my family. There are no special days, holidays, birthdays or celebrations for me. I am paying with my life for someone else's crimes, and he is free.
"So justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us. We look for the light but all is darkness; for brightness, but we walk in deep shadows. Like the blind we grope along the wall feeling out way like men without eyes. At midday we stumble as if it were twilight; among the strong, we are like the dead. We all growl like bears; we moan mounfully like doves. We look for JUSTICE, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away." ~Isaiah 9-11
Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you would like to contact me, please do.
~Bruce Kanter
Life Inside - Visitors; A light in the darkness by Joey Upland (date unknown)
(click for larger image)
The Ray Towler Story; Esquire Magazine March 2011
May, 2011
To Whom It May Concern:
In reference to your story in the March 2011 issue of Esquire, page 136, "The Ray Towler Story"
I have been incarcerated for the last twenty-six years in the California Department of Corrections for crimes I did NOT commit. These crimes continued at the same location AFTER my arrest, but the LAPD did not investigate the possibility that they were related even though the description of the assailant matched the description of the assailant in the crimes I was convicted of.
Recently the Innocence Project investigated my case but could not help because years ago the gathered samples and other evidence was routinely destroyed by the Los Angeles Police Department. My trial attorney was so negligent that he failed to deliver to the LAPD a court order to preserve the evidence. Had he not been so negligent, I would not be in prison today.
Over the years, we have contacted the primary victim in my case, asking her to submit to a saliva test in order to conduct a simple test. All that we have asked her to do is to spit in a cup so the PGM enzyme analysis could be done. She has continually refused the request even though the results of the PGM test and modern DNA testing would prove my innocence. A Petition of Habeas Corpus was filed with the California Supreme Court in 1997 (see attached file).
If there is someone out there with any advice, ideas, legal assistance, media contacts, or other information that could possibly help me, or if you are interested in helping me prove my innocence PLEASE contact me. If additional information is needed, please write and I will be glad to provide you with whatever you may need.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to consider my desperate plea for help in getting the truth uncovered. Twenty-six years is a long time for an innocent man to be locked up.
Best Regards,
Bruce Kanter C82106
Avenal State Prison
P.O. Box 9 320-66 L
Avenal, CA 93204
To Whom It May Concern: In reference to your story in the March 2011 issue of Esquire, page 136, "The Ray Towler Story"
I have been incarcerated for the last twenty-six years in the California Department of Corrections for crimes I did NOT commit. These crimes continued at the same location AFTER my arrest, but the LAPD did not investigate the possibility that they were related even though the description of the assailant matched the description of the assailant in the crimes I was convicted of.
Recently the Innocence Project investigated my case but could not help because years ago the gathered samples and other evidence was routinely destroyed by the Los Angeles Police Department. My trial attorney was so negligent that he failed to deliver to the LAPD a court order to preserve the evidence. Had he not been so negligent, I would not be in prison today.
Over the years, we have contacted the primary victim in my case, asking her to submit to a saliva test in order to conduct a simple test. All that we have asked her to do is to spit in a cup so the PGM enzyme analysis could be done. She has continually refused the request even though the results of the PGM test and modern DNA testing would prove my innocence. A Petition of Habeas Corpus was filed with the California Supreme Court in 1997 (see attached file).
If there is someone out there with any advice, ideas, legal assistance, media contacts, or other information that could possibly help me, or if you are interested in helping me prove my innocence PLEASE contact me. If additional information is needed, please write and I will be glad to provide you with whatever you may need.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to consider my desperate plea for help in getting the truth uncovered. Twenty-six years is a long time for an innocent man to be locked up.
Best Regards,
Bruce Kanter C82106
Avenal State Prison
P.O. Box 9 320-66 L
Avenal, CA 93204
Photo's of Bruce and Family
Contact Information
By Mail: (please address envelopes exactly as written below to allow for proper processing by the officials at Avenal State Prison)
Bruce Kanter C82106
ASP 320-66L
PO Box 9
Avenal, CA 93204
By Email: (no, I don't actually have access to email in prison but friends and family monitor this email address and will print and mail all correspondence to me; replies will be retyped letters sent to your email address)
freebrucekanter@gmail.com
Bruce Kanter C82106
ASP 320-66L
PO Box 9
Avenal, CA 93204
By Email: (no, I don't actually have access to email in prison but friends and family monitor this email address and will print and mail all correspondence to me; replies will be retyped letters sent to your email address)
freebrucekanter@gmail.com
Documents
...court transcripts, writs and other documents relevant to Bruce's original trial and subsequent petitions will be posted here. Please be patient and if you have any questions, please email or leave a comment and we will respond directly...
Abbreviated Petition for Habeas Corpus 04.29.1997
Abbreviated Petition for Habeas Corpus 04.29.1997
It's never too late...
...to help a man, wrongly convicted of a crime he did not commit, regain his freedom. Regardless of the years remaining of the unjust sentence he has been forced to endure, his quest for freedom is just as important as those of men in the early stages of wrongful incarceration.
These pages will contain his story, his pleas for justice that have heretofore fallen on deaf ears. His voice, broadcast to the unhearing, unwilling to listen, unable to help shall find a home here. Hope springs eternal in his heart that society, law enforcement, friends and those in a position to help will hear of his case and put an end to this tragedy of justice.
Please use the navigation bar above to view contact information, court documents, letters written by Bruce, new articles and photographs of Bruce and the life he was forced to leave behind.
These pages will contain his story, his pleas for justice that have heretofore fallen on deaf ears. His voice, broadcast to the unhearing, unwilling to listen, unable to help shall find a home here. Hope springs eternal in his heart that society, law enforcement, friends and those in a position to help will hear of his case and put an end to this tragedy of justice.
Please use the navigation bar above to view contact information, court documents, letters written by Bruce, new articles and photographs of Bruce and the life he was forced to leave behind.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)