About Us
EDDIE DEE WILLIAMS, lived in Seaside in the early 1990s, and was working as a kitchen steward at the Shilo Inn. He told the Ear there was a good deal of racial prejudice at the time, and he had a hard time even renting a place to live. Things really got out of hand at a wedding reception and New Years party, when seven bikers crashed the event and brutal mayhem ensued. Eddie fought back and was charged with assault when he turned himself in. He was released to go home after the arraignment, but because of the racial gravity of this situation, the judge decreed that Eddie be given a police escort. Sgt. STEVE BARNETT, who Eddie became very fond of, was assigned to drive him back and forth to work. Eddie’s life gets far more complicated from there, and he’s written a book about his “roller-coaster true life story,” “JUSTIFIED LICENSE TO KILL.” The book takes some interesting twists and unexpected turns, and provides an intriguing peek into that era on the North coast.
Mistaken identity is a defense in criminal law which claims the actual innocence of the criminal defendant, and attempts to undermine evidence of guilty by asserting that any eyewitness to the crime incorrect thought that they saw the defendant, when in fact the person seen by the witness was someone else.
Self-Defense
Double Jeopardy Due to Racism
In Justified License to Kill, the principal of double jeopardy is twisted into a stark illustration of systemic injustice. Despite being found not guilty twice for acting in self-defense, protagonist Eddie Dee Williams is repeatedly targeted by a vengeful biker gang. The legal system, initially clearing him, fails to offer true protection, effectively allowing him to be placed in a state of ongoing jeopardy due to racial bias and the inadequacy of the law to account for persistent, life-threatening aggression. This forces Eddie into a continuous fight for survival, about legal precedent and more about the desperate reality of self-preservation in a world unwilling to truly protect him.
Systemic Racism
In Justified License to Kill, Eddie Dee Williams comforts the insidious grip of system racism, which manifest not just in overt structures of authority and justice. From persistent police brutality and baseless arrests to enduring a biased legal system that forced him to prove self-defense multiple times.