""Japan believes that their society is so different that they can adjust to anything and preserve their national essence," he said. "Therefore the Japanese are capable of sudden explosive changes. They went from feudalism to emperor worship in two to three years. They went from emperor worship to democracy in three months."
Some foreign observers have been as enthusiastic about promoting Japan's alleged uniqueness as the Japanese themselves. Of course, all nations are unique, but in Japan this truism became a fetish...
Donald Keene, perhaps the greatest post-war U.S. scholar of Japanese literature, told me a similar story from the other direction. His lectures in Tokyo, mostly in Japanese, are invariably standing-room only as Japanese students flock to learn from his encyclopedic knowledge of Japanese language and literature. Yet as soon as he draws on the board a simple kanji --the multi-stroke characters derived from Chinese -- there are often gasps of amazement from members of the audience astonished that a foreigner has penetrated Japanese hieroglyphics."
"When Darryl Howard was convicted of murder in 1995, he cried out ”I didn’t do it!” then sobbed in open court. He has maintained his innocence ever since....
Howard’s incarceration spans a period of time over which several scandals have raised questions about the dispensation of justice in Durham County. In 2010, a report commissioned by the North Carolina attorney general and follow-up investigations by the Raleigh News & Observer uncovered widespread corruption and malfeasance in the state’s crime lab, including in many cases from Durham County. Fallout from that scandal contributed to the removal of Nifong’s successor, District Attorney Tracey Cline, in 2012. Prosecutors are rarely ever removed from office for misconduct. For it to happen twice, in the same county, within five years is extraordinary.
...there has never been much compelling evidence that Howard is a murderer. Howard was convicted of killing a woman named Doris Washington and her 13-year-old daughter Nishonda in November 1991. The two were found dead in their Few Gardens apartment. Howard was convicted both for their murders and for subsequently setting a fire to their apartment to cover up the crimes. Despite indications that both women had been sexually assaulted, no DNA or biological evidence connected Howard to the crime scene. He was convicted entirely on eyewitness testimony, much of which was vague, contradictory, or later recanted.
...newly discovered evidence further argues for Howard’s innocence. In court papers filed this week, the Innocence Project reveals that DNA testing of a rape kit taken from Doris Washington found some sperm that went undetected during the initial investigation. That sperm is a match to a career criminal, not to Howard. Attorneys for Howard have also uncovered evidence that prosecutors in the case may have withheld important exculpatory evidence, including a credible statement from an informant days after the murder who attributed the crimes to a local gang, not to Darryl Howard."
Forever ReBlog.
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