I have been following this on your blog and though I don’t know him or know you very very well, this struck a nerve with me for personal experience reasons. Its too much of a long story to recount, but I happen to have had the chance to get to know someone who was on death row in texas for 22 years. I knew him fairly well. and he was very much like your friend. Got in trouble a lot, mixed up with the law from a young age. Long story short, he was railroaded and convicted for a brutal rape and murder… and many people, including his mother, thought he did it. I met him after he had already been exonerated. After DNA evidence and earlier evidence that had been hidden pretty much proved his innocence, still there are lots and lots of people who SWEAR it was him. He felt constantly dehumanized and accused by people. As if by being a messed up kid, he had somehow landed himself in a position where he deserved this mistake. In talking to him though, from the moment I met him, there was this little voice that said I believed him when he said he didn’t do it. He just wasn’t capable of it, it was a feeling, but I was sure.

Sometimes you just have to know what you know, trust that little voice and let it go. Injustice is a scary and terrible thing. I hope for your friend it works out, I hope for you, you can maintain some kind of hope or presence of mind without letting it drive you crazy thinking about it.

and no matter what is said and done… you are right about human beings and I hope the people in his life can remember that no matter what. If now, a week from now or 20 years from now, someone happens to find something that proves his innocence - he will very very much have needed everyone to remember that.