The price of being regular

A tooth was the only proof … A prison for people without criminal records … And one former prisoner we’re not sorry for.

Reading the Agenda’s story on Monday, “The Price of Innocence,” took me back to the time I was face-to-face with a man who’d just been freed from a wrongful conviction, and I kept trying to sneak a peek at his snaggle tooth.

The story was also a reminder that for all our talk about “liberty and justice for all,” the criminal justice system is a flawed government program, and it can turn a regular, law-abiding person’s life into a nightmare — just like what happened to Ray Krone.

I met Krone on April 8, 2002, just a few hours into his freedom.

He stood poolside at a Phoenix hotel wearing shorts, maybe a t-shirt or a buttoned short-sleeve shirt, and taking questions from the scrum of local and national press about his 10 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. The advancement of DNA technology and bulldog lawyering solved the case and freed him.

I managed to get a few minutes with him by myself, and I wanted to get a good look at his deformed teeth without being rude or obvious or having to ask him to bare them for me, which would have been rude and obvious.

He was known as the “Snaggletooth Killer” when he was on trial for the murder of Kim Ancona, and it was his teeth and a so-called dental expert that landed him on death row.