Consider the case of Jimmy Landano. Landano is a former heroin addict and ex-con who did time in Attica. He's now doing life plus fifteen years in Rahway State Prison in New Jersey for killing a policeman in 1976. He was also convicted of robbery, gun possession, breaking in, car theft, and conspiracy.
Four eyewitnesses and an accomplice who admitted his own role in the murder testified in court that Landano was the man who fired the fatal shot. Hairs found in the killer's hat were similar to Landano's; his name was in the address book of another accomplice to the murder; and he had no airtight alibi.
The case against the ex-con and ex-junkie was overwhelmingly persuasive. And when he threatened to "come after" the prosecutor when he got out of prison, the judge and jury were even more convinced that they had convicted a dangerous criminal who should spend his life behind bars.
But Landano claims that he was set up by members of a motorcycle gang known as The Breed in order to protect the real killer. They planted a hat similar to his own on the seat of the getaway car, Landano says. His history as a heroin addict and his incarceration in Attica for grand larceny made him a perfect "throwaway."
Four eyewitnesses pointed to a photograph of Landano as the cop killer; but not all of their facts fit. One eyewitness claimed the killer had a thick mustache while another described the man as having no mustache at all; Landano has a bushy mustache. One forensics expert testified that hairs found in the killer's hat might be Landano's; another expert said they probably weren't. The killer's ski jacket looked comical on Landano, the sleeves reaching only two-thirds of the way down his long arms, exposing two tattoos. Tight at the shoulders and around the chest, it restricted his movements; he couldn't even make the zippers meet. His mother and girlfriend testified that he had been with them during the morning of the killing; but even if the jury believed them, there was theoretically enough time for Landano to commit the crime.
Jim Landano spends his free time in prison reading court transcripts and police reports, pleading his case to anyone who will listen, writing letters to lawyers and reporters, and helping other inmates with similar cases. He is forty-four years old, and it will be twenty more long years before he is eligible for parole. The waiting makes him edgy; he is terrified of growing old in prison and missing out on the chance to straighten out his troubled life. Prisons breed hatred and desperation, he says. "When you treat people like animals," he repeats, over and over, "I've been framed," Landano says with fierce conviction. "I'm innocent."
It's one man's passionate declaration of innocence against the sworn word of four eyewitnesses, three accomplices, and a jury of twelve people who carefully weighed the evidence and found Jimmy Landano guilty.
