A Shot To The Heart Analysis

In the article A Shot to the Heart, by Stephanie Clifford, there is leading issue about wrongfully convicting an innocent person. The story that is discussed in the article is about a case known as the Potter murder. The Potter murder consisted of a group of men involved in robbing and murder at the Irene New Hope Grocery in New York. In the back of the Irene Grocery store was an illegal gambling den. On the evening of August 18th in the den of Irene’s Grocery two men burst through the doors waiving the gun telling the men gambling to get down. The criminals robbed and shot at the men gambling. A man who was shot and killed was a police officer named Oswald Potter. There were three men claimed to be involved with the robbery and murder. It …show more content…
All the men who were involved in the murder said Gary was not the man that was involved with the crime. Gary contacted two layers to help him look into retrying his case to get him out of jail. The lawyers found his case mostly consisted off of I.D. recognition and not through evidence. The police also obtained fingerprints that did match Gary’s. the fingerprints belonged to a man named Martinez. He looked identical to Gary which is why he was identified as the one who was involved in the crime, during the line-up. Gary’s trial will be heard within the next year and he will be told if he will get out of jail at that trial. Gary spent twenty years of his life in prison, on a sentence and case he did not have any involvement. Gary confessed to being involved in criminal activity in his home town, including selling drugs. But he said in the low come area he lived in, selling drugs was normal and did not seem wrong. Unfortunately, that was the biggest crime he did commit. Forcelli was a detective on Gary’s case, when he heard about the wrongful conviction he felt horrible. He talked about how he took twenty years from Gary’s life. During those twenty years Forcelli married and had kids, Gary was not given the chance to do the