This ladies and gentlemen this is Davontae Sanford, a 23-year-old exoneree from Detroit, Michigan. When Sanford was just 14 years-old, he plead guilty to the involvement of the murders of four individuals, but he was innocent! Now I know that sounds a little bizarre to most, thinking “why would someone say they were guilty of something they didn’t do,” but the truth is, it happens more than our criminal justice system is willing to admit. In a popular article entitled “Why Innocent Plead Guilty” by Jed S. Rakoff, it states that 

​On July 13, 2015 the Waller county jail in Hempstead, Texas claimed that Sandra Bland took her own life in an isolation cell using a plastic bag. The country watched in outrage over her arrest and subsequent death. The family of Bland are adamant that she did not take her own life; however, a grand jury has decided that there is not enough evidence to make an indictment to prove otherwise. Fast forward five months to December 27, 2015 just an hour and a half from Waller County to Harris County where Houston’s Fox 26 media outlet announced that Robert Stephen was found dead in his isolation cell at Houston Police Department’s central jailhouse. 
How are these two incidents similar? Both victims were claimed to have resisted arrest and behaved erratically which led to them being placed in isolation with the clearance of medical examinations. Both victims were brought in on charges that would lead to their ultimate release, so it wasn’t as if they were expecting to spend any significant amount of time in jail. And the most alarming and heartbreaking similarity is that both victims were found dead in jail ​while in the custody of police authorities, with their families emphatically claiming that neither of these victims were suicidal.

Back in December of 2015, the family of Robert Stephen Jr. received the most horrifying news any family could receive during the Christmas holiday season, that he was dead after being arrested for alleged intoxication by the Harris County Police Department in Houston, Texas. A spokesperson for the Harris County Jail stated that Stephen was apprehended after a store clerk called authorities because of his aggressive behavior at a local convenient store. During the arrest, law enforcement stated that Stephen acted belligerently and therefore was placed in an isolation cell after being cleared by a medical examiner. Seven hours after allegedly being “checked on” every fifteen minutes, he was found dead in his cell. Authorities at the time claimed not to know the cause of death, however, after four months of having no answers and getting the runaround, his autopsy was finally released showing what his family and friends suspected, he had been brutally beaten, incurring injuries that were likely the cause of his death!

On July 13, 2015 the Waller county jail in Hempstead, Texas claimed that Sandra Bland took her own life in an isolation cell using a plastic bag. The country watched in outrage over her arrest and subsequent death. The family of Bland are adamant that she did not take her own life; however, a grand jury has decided that there is not enough evidence to make an indictment to prove otherwise. Fast forward five months to December 27, 2015 just an hour and a half from Waller County to Harris County where Houston’s Fox 26 media outlet announced that Robert Stephen was found dead in his isolation cell at Houston Police Department’s central jailhouse.

How are these two incidents similar? Both victims were claimed to have resisted arrest and behaved erratically which led to them being placed in isolation with the clearance of medical examinations.
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