Aggravated: The True Story of How a Series of Lies Sent an Innocent Man to Prison, is a book about my brother, Steve Sirois, one of many innocent inmates trapped in the American criminal justice system with very little ability to rectify their situation. The book will explore the question, “How do you prove the unprovable?” The answer, sadly, is that even though I think I can prove that the vast majority of the accusations against Steve were lies, none of it would make any difference in a legal case.
The one bit of evidence which might have overturned his conviction (and given the district court the option of retrying him or not) involved a juror who I believe lied by omission to get on the jury, but that evidence was ignored by the courts because of a statute that requires inmates to file appeals within a certain time period. Since Steve’s appeal was submitted after that time, the court didn’t consider the evidence in the appeal at all, rendering the evidence unusable.
I’ll explore that issue and many others in the blog, which should be considered a supplement to the book. Some subjects that I couldn’t cover thoroughly in the book will have a more complete airing on the blog. The book was published in December 2020.
Michael Sirois