It’s a really difficult thing for someone to live through, the experience of a wrongful or politically motivated prosecution, and still survive without their lives having been deeply affected. It’s so difficult in fact that most people don’t really survive intact. If they aren’t convicted in trial, where even their freedom will likely be taken away, their cases often end only after they accept an unjust plea agreement or worse as the result of their ordeal. The whole process can take a severe psychological toll on you, even if you win, leaving people emotionally broken with lost faith in the law enforcement and humanity. It’s just a really challenging situation for anyone to go through and in my opinion it takes a special type of personality to withstand it.
When it comes to actually overcoming a malicious prosecution, on top of the need for a great number of factors to be in your favor (like having an incredible amount of public attention or a brilliant attorney), you need to either have the money to take on the government’s unlimited resources or have the will to survive the inundation of legal maneuvers, political arm twisting, and police misconduct that you will no doubt face over the course of the ordeal. In my situation, I endured attacks on my career, attacks on my efforts to protect & care for my daughter, and attacks on my character, as they made persistent efforts to form me into one of the many ridiculous plea agreements that they proposed. My personality though prevented me from ever accepting an unjust conclusion to the sham prosecution I was facing. For me, a plea would mean knowingly taking part in a criminal conspiracy. It would mean contributing to a direct attack on the public’s right to liberty and freedom. I wasn’t raised by perfect people and I’m far from perfect myself, but I was raised by a mother who taught that I must never accept unjust treatment from anyone. As I saw it, I’d be a damned fool to do anything other than telling those crooked prosecutors to roll their plea agreement up & shove it up their asses. I would and fight that nonsense until I won or they killed me. Fortunately, I won. I found their proposals, their begging, pleading, and threatening pressures, to all be disgusting. I was utterly indignant. I was the opposite of the cowering, conceding patsy that expected and eventually, it was my attackers who gave in.
Unfortunately though, the cost of righteous indignation is pretty high. I’ve stepped on some toes. In fact, I pretty much have an entire county government full of politicians and other civil servants using their influence and connections to discredit me, hoping to prevent me from taking any action that would harm their careers. Many of those who have supported me have unfortunately absorbed some of this cost themselves, just for being in my corner, with attacks on their careers and reputation. One person in particular, who I greatly respect, was outright blackballed out of their profession for being in my corner. By refusing to play along with this politicized legal system, I’m now a marked man. I’m now a cause for fear and resentment by members of a sadly corrupted political institution. The thing is though, without being who I am I wouldn’t have survived. If I were a person who’d consider taking the “safe” way out by yielding to a plea or compromising my integrity in some other way, so without question (as most are, apparently), I’d just be another citizen complicit in a corrupt and abusive system. I’m thankful for who I am. I’m sure that those who’ve suffered along with me understand all of this, paying the costs of righteous indignation and all. When my daughter is old enough to ask what this was all about, I’ll be able to tell her that like Martin Luther King Jr. and like Mahatma Gandhi, her dad stood up to terrible injustice, took all that the tyrants had to give, and in her honor overcame a great wrong. I feel very good about that. I have learned from those that I’ve worked with and who have supported me as well. I can put my indignation into perspective and I am greatly appreciative for what they all have sacrificed in the name of justice too.
For a couple of years now, LeonWalker.com has mostly been used as a tool to give the public insight into this case. Some of my supporters and I have provided accurate information on the case to combat the streams of dishonest BS that came from the Oakland County Prosecutor and the rest of my attackers. I’ve also given some personal insights into what my views on things are here. A lot of this was just us experimenting with social media and the web, and it has been very helpful as a learning tool for myself and others. In the near future though, LeonWalker.com is going to change. In the coming weeks and months it’ll be introduced with a much more relevant goal. My case is long over. I’ve won, with the prosecution on the even of trial giving a ridiculous series of excuses and throwing out the charges, the facts are a matter of public record. Even though the site here still gets plenty of traffic from people looking for information on the case, this case will only be a footnote to the site, as I branch out into bigger and better things. It’s time to put the experience that we’ve gained to use.
If you have any input, maybe a suggestion for what you’d like to see here, feel free to comment here or visit the contact page to let me know.
