(Press release from Advocates for Ajay)
Of course not! But last night Advocates for Ajay received an award at the Davis Vanguard Awards Ceremony for their efforts to educate the public about the wrongful conviction of Ajay Dev. Over 1,000 people believe Ajay has been wrongfully convicted for the alleged rape of his adopted daughter. The crime of rape usually has no witnesses, they typically are just he said, she said cases. Ajay’s case is different because she claims that some of these rapes happened while other people were present and those people unanimously agree that this never happened.
Advocates for Ajay have marched many times, demonstrated, petitioned, written hundreds of letters and given interviews on radio, TV and in newspapers on his behalf.
The wrongful conviction of Ajay Dev is a tragedy of catastrophic proportions. A young woman from Nepal chose to make false claims against her adopted father, Ajay Dev, in order to stay in the United States. The accuser’s testimony was full of inconsistencies. Her medical records, her doctor, and her adoption social worker all revealed that there was no evidence of rape or other sexual assaults, even though she claims the alleged rapes happened approximately every other day for a period of 5 years (over 750 rapes). The trial court allowed the accuser to be the translator of a pretext call in which she inserted an alleged admission used to convict Ajay, even though an accredited translator disagreed. Ajay Dev’s appellate lawyer writes in the brief; “In sum, Ajay’s trial was wrought with grievous errors at every stage of the trial – during the presentation of evidence, during closing argument, and during deliberations. That is, at every turn Ajay’s trial was severely compromised.” denying him of his Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to a fundamentally fair trial.
The awards ceremony took place at the Senior Center in Davis, CA with 175 attendees. David Greenwald, the founder of the Davis Vanguard opened the event and also gave awards to UC Davis School of Law Prison Law Clinic, Robb Davis (Davis City Councilman), Stewart Katz (attorney), The Davis Phoenix Coalition, and Uniting for Racial Justice. The keynote speaker was Scott Sanders, Orange County Public Defender. The night ended with a lively discussion by the panel of: Gabriel “Jack” Chin, UC Davis Law, Deborah Davis, University Nevada-Reno, Lisa Rea, Restorative Justice International and Scott Sanders.
David,
Thank you for a wonderful event. I learned a lot about restorative justice and what types of strategies that are used by prosecutors and/or law enforcement that can cause a wrongful conviction.
The keynote and panel discussion regarding prosecutorial misconduct brought to light many problems that truly need to be addressed in our legal system. The fact that there is not much accountability for prosecutorial misconduct really illustrates the fact that the public needs to involved and demand that accountability. I also liked that one of the panelists said that everyone in the system needs to be part of the solution to stop this misconduct otherwise they are enabling it to happen–the judge has to say something, the lawyers, the media and the citizens.
I also want to thank you for allowing Ajay Dev’s story to be told in so much detail. At the end of the night, many people wanted to hear more about this devastating case. Several people told me that his case brought tears to their eyes. Ajay’s entire appellate brief and reply brief are on line to learn about his case at http://www.seekingjusticefortheinnocent.com.