Jan Brewer Lets Innocent Man Rot in Jail

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist


The marriage of William and Carol Macumber was unraveling in 1974, and, unfortunately for Bill, Carol was an employee of the local sheriff's office and was studying fingerprinting.   As he fought to save the marriage, Carol went to her superiors at the sheriff's office and told them that Bill had told her that he had killed two people in the desert north of Scottsdale twelve years prior.    Some fingerprint evidence turned up, evidence that Carol had the ability to manufacture, and Bill was convicted of the murders and sentenced to life without parole - largely on Carol's testimony.

But, unknown at the time, another man had confessed to the murders several years earlier.  Ernesto Valenzuela had killed two other people.  He told his lawyer in 1967 that he had also killed the two people out in the desert.  The lawyer kept that admission in confidence for several years until Valenzuela was killed in prison.  Then with permission from Valenzuela's mother, the lawyer came forward with the information.  When Macumber was arrested, the lawyer who knew of the other confession offered to testify at his trial, but the judge in the case refused to allow it, believing that the admission by Ernesto Valenzuela was "unreliable."

Other people took up the cause, and in 2003 another lawyer investigating the case located Macumber's son, now in his forties, and told him that he believed his father was innocent and that his mother had framed him.    The son, who knew his mother well enough to be concerned, took up the cause of getting his father freed.

Last year the Arizona Board of Executive Clemency voted unanimously to recommend that the 74-year-old Macumber should be freed because the Board felt that he was innocent.   The Board's recommendation went to Governor Jan Brewer.  Ms. Brewer, who had just a few days earlier announced her candidacy for election as governor, declined to free Biill Macumber without giving a reason.

Bill Macumber is ill and will very likely die in prison for a crime he did not commit.  He is frail enough not to be a threat to society.  But Jan Brewer, who uses Rosie the Riveter as her campaign image, wants to have a tough image - tough on Mexicans, tough on crime, and tough on prisoners.  Letting a convict go, even an innocent one, would tarnish her tough bitch image.

So Bill, you will just have to suck it up and die behind bars, because Jan Brewer has her own priorities - and you ain't of of them!

(To sign a petition about this legal injustice and Jan Brewer's despicable inaction, please visit  http://humanrights.change.org/petitions/view/free_william_macumber_2)


Free William Macumber!  Fire Jan Brewer!