It has been 44 years since the shooting death of a Baltimore police officer. That is how long a member of the old Black Panther civil rights group served for the killing.
Eddie Conway, 67, the man who was charged with the murder, was released from prison last week. According to the Baltimore Sun, Conway’s case was affected because of the faulty jury instructions that have been going on in the high courts of Maryland.
Many have argued that Conway was innocent and went to jail for no reason at all. The Black Panther group was hated by the police force because the Panthers were very aggressive and they were remembered as fighters during the civil rights era.
Some have even said Conway was set up because of the political activities that took place at the time.
Eddie Conway told the Baltimore Sun, “It wasn’t real for me until it actually happened because it seems like I have been up this road so many times in terms of challenging the case,” he said in the radio interview. “It wasn’t until I walked out onto the sidewalk that I finally said, OK, this is real.”
The family of the police officer who was killed still to this day says that Conway is guilty and they were upset that his jail time was up.
Conway was released by the courts of Maryland because of the Unger Decision. This was a ruling by the Appeals Court that claim all of the defendants who were tried in the state before 1980 were denied the proper constitutional rights because the jurors were not told properly what to do in the trial therefore at the time was not in the favor for Conway.
Conway was released after serving 44 years in Maryland State Penitentiary in Jessup.