American Notes Injustice

Few people know better than Clarence Chance and Benjamin Powell just how slowly the wheels of justice can turn. After serving 17 years for the murder of a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy, Chance, 42, and Powell, 44, were set free last week when a superior court judge found that there had been improper police conduct in the investigation of the killing.

The two men owe their freedom to new evidence unearthed by Jim McCloskey, a New Jersey independent investigator who took the case after receiving a letter from Chance claiming that he had been wrongly convicted. His alibi: he was locked up in the county jail on the day of the murder. McCloskey tracked down three witnesses who had testified against Chance and Powell under what they said was pressure by the L.A.P.D. County prosecutors who joined the investigation then discovered that police had not revealed the fact that a jailhouse informant who had provided damning testimony had failed two polygraph tests.

During their stay in prison, neither Powell nor Chance gave up hope they would be vindicated. Said Chance: "I have to learn moment to moment what freedom is."