Heather Lende of The Anchorage Daily News reports that Haines residents apologize to wrongly convicted man:
A month ago, the Chilkat Valley News stunned old-timers and shocked newcomers with Phillip Jackson's story. In 1973 he was convicted of arson and sent to prison for burning down the Haines School. Now another Haines man has confessed.
Phillip was too drunk to know for sure where he was when the fire started. Some of his belongings were found in the wet charcoal left where the school used to be. That, and testimony from leading citizens about his bad character, were enough to put him in jail for 41/2 years. Phillip always said he was innocent.
When Chilkat Valley News reporter Jeff Goodhart called the judge who presided over Phillip's trial and asked him how this could have happened, the judge didn't remember the case. Well, Phillip will never forget being led away from the courtroom by a guard who called him "a no-good Indian."
Link courtesy of Mark Madrid of the American Indian Movement, Florida.