Charles Raby’s Wrongful Conviction: When All That Can Go Wrong Does Go Wrong.

Charles Raby

In 1992 a petite, 71 year old retired bank teller from Houston, Texas named Edna Franklin was found brutally murdered in her home. Soon after, police arrested 22 year old Charles Raby, who subsequently signed a confession. Raby was on parole from prison on a robbery charge at the time. He was a product of poverty, a broken family, child abuse, drugs, alcohol, foster care and a litany of other factors that put him at risk of a life of crime and violence. Once he confessed, there appeared to be little doubt that justice was served. However, as they say, the devil is in the details.

As I explored Mr. Raby’s case I learned much about the criminal justice system in our country. It is a system with many moving parts. Like any machine, to work properly all the parts need to function as designed. For Raby almost all of the parts were faulty.

My examination of Charles’s case opened my eyes not just to the fact that he is innocent of this crime; it also led me to the discovery of just how flawed our criminal justice system has become. We are a country that leads the world in mass incarceration. Our criminal justice system is steeped in racism. Sacred principles that we as Americans hold near and dear to our hearts such as “innocent until proven guilty” and the concept of civil rights are fading into the past.

I do not make any claims to being an expert on criminal justice. However, I suspect that many people in this country are as naive as I once was in thinking that law enforcement and the judicial system are serving to keep the public safe.

Charles’s plight haunts me, but it opened my eyes to a bigger story. His case is a perfect storm of all that can go wrong in a criminal investigation and trial. As such it is an appropriate lead in to the failings of our criminal justice system. Recognizing those failings is the first step toward making corrections.