A FREE MAN IN A FREE NATION

Freedom has many faces, as Kevin Green discovered recently. Green had spent the last 16 years in a California prison for the beating of his wife and the murder of his unborn child. Thanks to DNA evidence, another man has been charged, and Green was allowed to return to his home in central Missouri.

The backbone of a nation of laws is the ability of its judicial system to admit errors in cases like this. Green was convicted in large part because of the testimony of his wife, who remembered, after coming out of a coma, that it was her husband's face she saw during the brutal attack. But the new DNA evidence was stronger than her memories, a judge decided.

Now Green is seeking compensation from California for the years he was wrongfully imprisoned. That is his option in a free land: to sue the government when it steps over its limits. Had such an option been available in 1776, there might not have been a revolution.