This originally appeared at http://socialistworker.org/2008/09/19/save-troy-davis
September 19, 2008
Jocks 4 Justice is a group of athletes and writers that has come together to speak out against racism and the criminal injustice system, and in defense of the victims of notorious miscarriages of justice.
The group previously organized in defense of the Jena 6, six Black high school students in Jena, La., who were targeted for prosecution after suffering a racist attack, and Gary Tyler, who has spent more than three decades of his life behind bars in Louisiana for a crime he didn't commit.
Now, Jocks 4 Justice is once again raising its voice to call for clemency for Troy Davis, an innocent man on Georgia's death row. Despite witnesses who say they were coerced by police into giving false testimony against Troy, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied clemency.
Troy now faces an execution date of September 23, even though the U.S. Supreme Court isn't set to hear an appeal in his case until September 29.
TROY DAVIS is an African American man who has been on Georgia's death row for the past 18 years, convicted of killing a white police officer named Mark MacPhail. Now, after the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles has denied Troy clemency, he faces execution on September 23.
But something stinks of "Southern justice" in the Peach state. The simple fact is that an innocent man could be careening toward a legal lynching.
Here are the undisputed facts:
--Troy's fingerprints didn't match those found at the crime scene.
--There was no gunshot residue on Troy's fingers. In fact, no physical evidence at all connects Troy to this crime.
--So why is Troy on death row? Because of testimony from nine people who said that Troy pulled the trigger. But an astounding seven of these nine people have since recanted their testimony in sworn affidavits, with several saying they were pressured to finger Troy by police. Of the two who haven't come forward, one is said to be the police's initial suspect, and the other testified that the shooter was left-handed, but Troy is right-handed.
These seven people were afraid. They were intimidated. But now they want to come forward and tell the truth, in open court--that Troy Davis did not kill Mark MacPhail. Yet the courts won't let a jury hear their compelling statements.
An innocent man will be put to death like a dog on September 23 unless we stop it. This is not justice. This is a lynching.
We, the undersigned Jocks 4 Justice, call upon the governor, the Supreme Court, or any controlling authority to stay Troy's execution. There are seven people ready to recant their testimony. For the sake of Troy, and the sake of justice, they deserve to be heard.
Jim Brown
NFL Hall of Fame; founder, Amer-I-Can
Dr. John Carlos
1968 Olympic bronze medalist and one-half of the immortal Black Power salute; Olympic Project for Human Rights
Lee Evans
1968 Olympic gold medalist and 400-meter Olympic champion; Olympic Project for Human Rights
Etan Thomas
NBA center, Washington Wizards; author, More Than an Athlete
Jim Bouton
Former New York Yankee; author, Ball Four
David Meggyesy
Western regional director, retired, NFL Players Association; former NFL linebacker
Jeff "The Snowman" Monson
Ultimate Fighting Championship
Walter Beach
Former NFL player, Cleveland Browns
Clifton McNeil
Former NFL player, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers
Walter "The Flee" Roberts
Former NFL player, Cleveland Browns
Lester Rodney
Oldest living sportswriter; sports editor for the Daily Worker, 1936-1958
Scoop Jackson
Sportswriter, ESPN.com
Dennis Brutus
Former director, South African Non-Racialist Olympic Committee; professor emeritus of Africana studies, University of Pittsburgh
Leonard McNeil
Councilmember, San Pablo, Calif.; former draftee, Philadelphia Eagles; 1968 Olympic boycotter
Ron Davis
South African attaché, 1996 Olympics; former National Coach in Nigeria
Doug Harris
Former executive director, Athletes United for Peace
Dave Zirin
Sportswriter, the Nation; author, A People's History of Sports in the United States
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
What you can do
Troy's supporters are calling on activists to make their voices heard in protests or other actions calling for the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to halt Troy's execution and for the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold his appeal.
To call on the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its clemency decision, telephone board chair Gale Buckner at 404-657-9350, or fax her at 404-651-6670. You can also send the board an e-mail [2]. Call Georgia Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker at 404-656-3300, or fax him at 404-657-8733.
Find out more about Troy's case and how you can get involved at the Troy Anthony Davis [3] Web site. You can send words of encouragement to Troy by writing to: Troy A. Davis 657378, GDCP P.O. Box 3877 G-3-79, Jackson, GA 30233.
Marlene Martin's "Anatomy of a frameup," [4] published in the new issue of the International Socialist Review, documents the long history of injustices in Troy's case. Troy's sister, Martina Correia, was interviewed in the New Abolitionist, newsletter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, in an article titled "The fight for my brother Troy." [5]
See the Campaign to End the Death Penalty [6] Web site to learn more about the struggle against capital punishment across the country.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Material on this Web site is licensed by SocialistWorker.org, under a Creative Commons (by-nc-nd 3.0) [7] license, except for articles that are republished with permission. Readers are welcome to share and use material belonging to this site for non-commercial purposes, as long as they are attributed to the author and SocialistWorker.org.
[1] http://socialistworker.org/department/Activist-News
[2] mailto:clemency_information@pap.state.ga.us
[3] http://troyanthonydavis.org
[4] http://www.isreview.org/issues/61/rep-troydavis.shtml
[5] http://nodeathpenalty.org/content/new_abolitionist.php?issue_id=7&story_id=75
[6] http://www.nodeathpenalty.org
[7] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
William Coleman (Connecticut hunger-striking inmate at Osborn C.I.)
16th September 2008
On the 1st July 2008 we released a statement informing you on the plight of William Coleman. Since September 16th 2007 he has stopped taking solid food and has maintained his hunger protest despite losing vast weight and falling ill on occasions.
The sole reason for his protest is to protect his children and highlight to others what damage is done to people like Bill by the broken and corrupt Connecticut judicial system.
Today, to mark the one year anniversary of his hunger strike, Bill has stopped taking all fluids. This is a decision that has not been easy as his family and supporters have worked hard to prevent this from happening over the past four years. However, we were unable to convince him to stop.
Time will soon run out if we are unable to help him and we urge you to help. The help Bill is looking for is a fair and neutral investigation into Connecticut’s broken judicial system that ruins many people’s lives. Bill’s case is only one example of many. We urge everyone to help us before it is too late.
Bill has expressed in no uncertain terms that he does not want to be force fed. The DOC has applied for and succeeded in getting a court order to do just that. Bill has a Living Will that expressly forbids force-feeding.
Please visit Bill Coleman, Innocent Man. This web page has been put together by his family to help the public understand what he has endured and how the justice system has failed him.
We feel that time is running out, help now.
Thank you for your time,
From Bill’s Family, Friends and Supporters
On the 1st July 2008 we released a statement informing you on the plight of William Coleman. Since September 16th 2007 he has stopped taking solid food and has maintained his hunger protest despite losing vast weight and falling ill on occasions.
The sole reason for his protest is to protect his children and highlight to others what damage is done to people like Bill by the broken and corrupt Connecticut judicial system.
Today, to mark the one year anniversary of his hunger strike, Bill has stopped taking all fluids. This is a decision that has not been easy as his family and supporters have worked hard to prevent this from happening over the past four years. However, we were unable to convince him to stop.
Time will soon run out if we are unable to help him and we urge you to help. The help Bill is looking for is a fair and neutral investigation into Connecticut’s broken judicial system that ruins many people’s lives. Bill’s case is only one example of many. We urge everyone to help us before it is too late.
Bill has expressed in no uncertain terms that he does not want to be force fed. The DOC has applied for and succeeded in getting a court order to do just that. Bill has a Living Will that expressly forbids force-feeding.
Please visit Bill Coleman, Innocent Man. This web page has been put together by his family to help the public understand what he has endured and how the justice system has failed him.
We feel that time is running out, help now.
Thank you for your time,
From Bill’s Family, Friends and Supporters
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Help Save a Life
A man who is almost certainly innocent needs your help, and fast.
On Friday, the Georgia Department of Pardons and Paroles is going to meet and decide if he should be executed.
They will either take into account compelling evidence challenging his guilt, or they will choose to ignore that evidence and allow his sentence to stand. They have to power to stop this indefensible execution and we must implore them to make the right decision.
Troy Anthony Davis was convicted of the murder of off-duty Savannah Police Officer Mark MacPhail in 1991. No physical evidence links him to the crime, and he has steadfastly maintained his innocence. His conviction was based solely on the testimony of witnesses. There was no other evidence against him. Since his trial, seven people who had previously testified against Troy changed the story they had told in court.
Some witnesses say they were coerced by police. Others have even signed affidavits implicating one of the remaining two witnesses as the actual killer. But due to an increasingly restrictive appeals process, none of this new evidence has ever been heard in court.
Can you take 30 seconds and help save the life of a man who is almost certainly innocent? You can learn more and take action here:
http://action.aclu.org/savetroy
On Friday, the Georgia Department of Pardons and Paroles is going to meet and decide if he should be executed.
They will either take into account compelling evidence challenging his guilt, or they will choose to ignore that evidence and allow his sentence to stand. They have to power to stop this indefensible execution and we must implore them to make the right decision.
Troy Anthony Davis was convicted of the murder of off-duty Savannah Police Officer Mark MacPhail in 1991. No physical evidence links him to the crime, and he has steadfastly maintained his innocence. His conviction was based solely on the testimony of witnesses. There was no other evidence against him. Since his trial, seven people who had previously testified against Troy changed the story they had told in court.
Some witnesses say they were coerced by police. Others have even signed affidavits implicating one of the remaining two witnesses as the actual killer. But due to an increasingly restrictive appeals process, none of this new evidence has ever been heard in court.
Can you take 30 seconds and help save the life of a man who is almost certainly innocent? You can learn more and take action here:
http://action.aclu.org/savetroy
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Guest Shot - Ben Jones: Executing Troy Anthony Davis
The following opinion was originally published in the Yale Daily News at http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/25011
Published: Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Jones: Executing Troy Anthony Davis
By Ben Jones
Guest Columnist
Debates about the death penalty often take place in the abstract: Is the state justified in depriving life from someone who has robbed it from someone else? Though these debates have their place, by themselves they prove woefully inadequate when making policy decisions. To justify the death penalty as public policy, one must be able to justify some form of it in actual practice — along with its inevitable imperfections.
When we look at the practice of the death penalty, what we find is nothing short of appalling. Troy Anthony Davis’ nightmarish odyssey through the criminal justice system serves as a case in point.
Davis sits on Georgia’s death row for the murder of an off-duty police officer. Since being sentenced to death in 1991, new developments have unfolded in his case that cast significant doubts on his conviction. Specifically, seven out of nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimonies against Davis, with some coming forward with allegations of police coercion. This new evidence significantly weakens the prosecution’s original case, which was unable to produce any physical evidence linking Davis to the murder. At the very least, we can say that it is well within the bounds of reason to question Davis’ guilt.
So what has been the response of the justice system to these new developments? It would seem that a retrial should be in order for Davis. Instead, the courts at both the state and federal level have blocked Davis’ attempts to present his case anew in court. The most recent setback came this past March, when the Georgia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 against Davis, on the rationale that it preferred the old testimony to the new. Apparently, coerced evidence has unique authority in the eyes of the justices.
Now an execution date for Sept. 23 is inexorably bearing down upon Davis. Though a last-minute stay saved Davis’ life in July 2007, there is no guarantee that he will be so lucky this time.
Davis’ plight puts to rest the myth that the death penalty is reserved for only the most heinous criminals, those whose guilt is beyond question. Throughout U.S. history, the death penalty has been subject to error and downright abuse. Going back to the 19th century, we come across the account of the Boorn brothers, who were about to be hanged for the murder of Russell Colvin when Colvin showed up at the execution. During the Jim Crow era, oftentimes little distinguished a state execution from a lynching, as authorities would wrap up the trial, sentencing, and hanging of black defendants within a single day. And as late as the 1950s, white juries in the South were sending blacks to death row for thefts of only a few dollars.
The problems continue to this day. DNA testing and investigative reporting have revealed that a host of individuals on death row do not belong there. In Louisiana, an investigation led to the exoneration of over 25 percent of the state’s death row population. Across the country, the total number of exonerations since 1973 has reached 129.
Some say that the recent flurry of exonerations is a sign that the system works. They forget, however, that the same tools helping to exonerate prisoners on death row have also demonstrated the innocence of individuals already executed.
Further tweaking of death-penalty statutes by courts and legislatures will not bring an end to these irrevocable errors. It is folly to believe that a “foolproof” system of capital punishment is possible, as Mitt Romney once pushed for as governor of Massachusetts. Human errors are inevitable in government, as with all human institutions.
Given government’s fallibility, it follows that certain powers should remain outside of its hands. The power to execute, which provides no benefit to society in terms of cost or security, certainly falls in this category. The stakes are simply too high, the consequences of error too great, to justify the continued use of capital punishment.
As long as the death penalty remains in place, individuals like Troy Anthony Davis will find their lives unjustly put in jeopardy. Enough is enough.
Ben Jones is a graduate student in the Political Science Department. Contact him at benjamin.jones@yale.edu
Published: Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Jones: Executing Troy Anthony Davis
By Ben Jones
Guest Columnist
Debates about the death penalty often take place in the abstract: Is the state justified in depriving life from someone who has robbed it from someone else? Though these debates have their place, by themselves they prove woefully inadequate when making policy decisions. To justify the death penalty as public policy, one must be able to justify some form of it in actual practice — along with its inevitable imperfections.
When we look at the practice of the death penalty, what we find is nothing short of appalling. Troy Anthony Davis’ nightmarish odyssey through the criminal justice system serves as a case in point.
Davis sits on Georgia’s death row for the murder of an off-duty police officer. Since being sentenced to death in 1991, new developments have unfolded in his case that cast significant doubts on his conviction. Specifically, seven out of nine non-police witnesses have recanted their testimonies against Davis, with some coming forward with allegations of police coercion. This new evidence significantly weakens the prosecution’s original case, which was unable to produce any physical evidence linking Davis to the murder. At the very least, we can say that it is well within the bounds of reason to question Davis’ guilt.
So what has been the response of the justice system to these new developments? It would seem that a retrial should be in order for Davis. Instead, the courts at both the state and federal level have blocked Davis’ attempts to present his case anew in court. The most recent setback came this past March, when the Georgia Supreme Court ruled 4-3 against Davis, on the rationale that it preferred the old testimony to the new. Apparently, coerced evidence has unique authority in the eyes of the justices.
Now an execution date for Sept. 23 is inexorably bearing down upon Davis. Though a last-minute stay saved Davis’ life in July 2007, there is no guarantee that he will be so lucky this time.
Davis’ plight puts to rest the myth that the death penalty is reserved for only the most heinous criminals, those whose guilt is beyond question. Throughout U.S. history, the death penalty has been subject to error and downright abuse. Going back to the 19th century, we come across the account of the Boorn brothers, who were about to be hanged for the murder of Russell Colvin when Colvin showed up at the execution. During the Jim Crow era, oftentimes little distinguished a state execution from a lynching, as authorities would wrap up the trial, sentencing, and hanging of black defendants within a single day. And as late as the 1950s, white juries in the South were sending blacks to death row for thefts of only a few dollars.
The problems continue to this day. DNA testing and investigative reporting have revealed that a host of individuals on death row do not belong there. In Louisiana, an investigation led to the exoneration of over 25 percent of the state’s death row population. Across the country, the total number of exonerations since 1973 has reached 129.
Some say that the recent flurry of exonerations is a sign that the system works. They forget, however, that the same tools helping to exonerate prisoners on death row have also demonstrated the innocence of individuals already executed.
Further tweaking of death-penalty statutes by courts and legislatures will not bring an end to these irrevocable errors. It is folly to believe that a “foolproof” system of capital punishment is possible, as Mitt Romney once pushed for as governor of Massachusetts. Human errors are inevitable in government, as with all human institutions.
Given government’s fallibility, it follows that certain powers should remain outside of its hands. The power to execute, which provides no benefit to society in terms of cost or security, certainly falls in this category. The stakes are simply too high, the consequences of error too great, to justify the continued use of capital punishment.
As long as the death penalty remains in place, individuals like Troy Anthony Davis will find their lives unjustly put in jeopardy. Enough is enough.
Ben Jones is a graduate student in the Political Science Department. Contact him at benjamin.jones@yale.edu
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Guest Shot: John Maki for Johnny Lee Savory
My name is John Maki. I'm reaching out to all the innocent projects that I can find to spread the word about a website that I'm working on with Johnnie Lee Savory.
When Johnnie was 14 years old, he was falsely accused and unjustly convicted of a double homicide in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois. After spending 30 years in prison, Savory, with the help of Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions and many other groups, was granted clemency and released in December 2006. The Chicago Sun-Times recently did a great piece on Johnnie, which you can read here: http://www.suntimes.com/news/douglas/1109144,CST-EDT-douglas15.article
Though a free man today, Johnnie is still an ex-felon. That is why he is asking Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich for a full pardon based on his actual innocence and to order DNA testing of the evidence that was used to convict him.
Johnnie's website is called Justice for Savory -- Falsely Accused, Unjustly Convicted: A Child's Story. Our goal is to use the site and internet video both to raise awareness about Johnnie's case and other cases like his, but more importantly to get people to take action for him and the many other men, women, and children around the world who have been wrongly convicted. We also want to highlight the people who help the wrongfully convicted fight back.
That's why I am contacting all of you. We're trying to get as much exposure as possible. It would be great if you could link to Johnnie's blog or in someway publicize it on your website. And if you can think of any person or group who might be interested in the site, or could help us get the word out about it, please let me know.
Lastly, we'd also be thrilled to help you publicize/promote any internet outreach project on our site. Similarly, we'd love to collaborate if anyone is interested. Just let us know.
You can check out Justice for Savory here: http://justiceforsavory.windycitizen.com/
If you have any questions or comments about the site, or our videos, please email them to me
Thanks for your time,
John Maki
When Johnnie was 14 years old, he was falsely accused and unjustly convicted of a double homicide in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois. After spending 30 years in prison, Savory, with the help of Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions and many other groups, was granted clemency and released in December 2006. The Chicago Sun-Times recently did a great piece on Johnnie, which you can read here: http://www.suntimes.com/news/douglas/1109144,CST-EDT-douglas15.article
Though a free man today, Johnnie is still an ex-felon. That is why he is asking Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich for a full pardon based on his actual innocence and to order DNA testing of the evidence that was used to convict him.
Johnnie's website is called Justice for Savory -- Falsely Accused, Unjustly Convicted: A Child's Story. Our goal is to use the site and internet video both to raise awareness about Johnnie's case and other cases like his, but more importantly to get people to take action for him and the many other men, women, and children around the world who have been wrongly convicted. We also want to highlight the people who help the wrongfully convicted fight back.
That's why I am contacting all of you. We're trying to get as much exposure as possible. It would be great if you could link to Johnnie's blog or in someway publicize it on your website. And if you can think of any person or group who might be interested in the site, or could help us get the word out about it, please let me know.
Lastly, we'd also be thrilled to help you publicize/promote any internet outreach project on our site. Similarly, we'd love to collaborate if anyone is interested. Just let us know.
You can check out Justice for Savory here: http://justiceforsavory.windycitizen.com/
If you have any questions or comments about the site, or our videos, please email them to me
Thanks for your time,
John Maki
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Guest Shot: Philadelphia Inquirer on Wrongful Convictions
This editorial was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 10, 2008.
Editorial: Wrongful Convictions The case against the investigators
It happens too often. Innocent people are convicted and spend years in prison because of faulty eyewitness identification, sloppy or improper police work, and the lack of DNA testing. Take the case of Darrell Edwards. He was convicted of murder in a New Jersey state court in 1999 - after four trials and the acquittal of a co-defendant. Four bites at the apple is a good indication that prosecutors had a shaky case from the start.
Now, new evidence has emerged that raises the possibility that Evans was wrongfully convicted - or worse, may have been railroaded. Edwards' attorneys at the Innocence Project are seeking a fifth trial. He deserves it.
Edwards' attorneys claim DNA testing on the gun and on a sweatshirt believed to belong to the shooter excludes their client. His attorneys have also produced evidence that undermines a key witness, and say police ignored another lead that could have helped find the killer.
The issues raised by Edwards' attorneys are part of a broader pattern that routinely emerges in wrongful conviction cases.
Just last week, DNA helped exonerate a Dallas man who was convicted of 11 sex crimes and spent 25 years in prison.
Last month, the Alabama Supreme Court granted a last-minute reprieve to a man scheduled to be executed after another convicted murderer stepped forward with an affidavit claiming he was the killer.
In June, prosecutors in New York decided not to re-try a man who was released after spending 17 years in prison for the murder of his parents - following a disputed confession and new evidence.
Edwards was convicted of the 1995 execution-style shooting of a drug dealer in Newark. It took three years for the case to go to trial. The first two ended in mistrials, and the third ended with a hung jury that acquitted a co-defendant.
At his fourth trial, Edwards was convicted, due in large part to dubious eyewitness testimony.
The key witness fingered Edwards although she was sitting on her porch almost the length of a football field away from the murder scene. New scientific analysis offered by Edwards' attorneys argues that the witness couldn't clearly see the killer at night from her porch 271 feet away.
In addition, the witness wasn't wearing her prescription glasses at the time, and now says in an affidavit that on the night of the murder she had been drinking and was high on heroin.
More alarming, she added that when she identified Edwards in a photo lineup she was "just guessing." She says a police investigator pointed to Edwards, and said that another witness had picked him out - thus improperly influencing her decision.
Two other witnesses who were closer to the shooting both told police Edwards wasn't the shooter. At Edwards' third trial, the government produced an unsigned statement from one of the witnesses saying he wasn't sure that Edwards was the shooter. The witness now denies knowing about this statement and affirmed in an affidavit that Edwards wasn't involved in the shooting.
Edwards' attorneys say police also ignored evidence from a Drug Enforcement Administration informant who linked the murder to a drug trafficking ring out of Atlanta, which had no ties to Edwards.
At a minimum, Edwards deserves a new trial. And if he's found to have been wrongfully convicted, someone should investigate the investigators.
More broadly, all police and prosecutors need to enhance policies and procedures with an eye toward avoiding wrongful convictions.
Editorial: Wrongful Convictions The case against the investigators
It happens too often. Innocent people are convicted and spend years in prison because of faulty eyewitness identification, sloppy or improper police work, and the lack of DNA testing. Take the case of Darrell Edwards. He was convicted of murder in a New Jersey state court in 1999 - after four trials and the acquittal of a co-defendant. Four bites at the apple is a good indication that prosecutors had a shaky case from the start.
Now, new evidence has emerged that raises the possibility that Evans was wrongfully convicted - or worse, may have been railroaded. Edwards' attorneys at the Innocence Project are seeking a fifth trial. He deserves it.
Edwards' attorneys claim DNA testing on the gun and on a sweatshirt believed to belong to the shooter excludes their client. His attorneys have also produced evidence that undermines a key witness, and say police ignored another lead that could have helped find the killer.
The issues raised by Edwards' attorneys are part of a broader pattern that routinely emerges in wrongful conviction cases.
Just last week, DNA helped exonerate a Dallas man who was convicted of 11 sex crimes and spent 25 years in prison.
Last month, the Alabama Supreme Court granted a last-minute reprieve to a man scheduled to be executed after another convicted murderer stepped forward with an affidavit claiming he was the killer.
In June, prosecutors in New York decided not to re-try a man who was released after spending 17 years in prison for the murder of his parents - following a disputed confession and new evidence.
Edwards was convicted of the 1995 execution-style shooting of a drug dealer in Newark. It took three years for the case to go to trial. The first two ended in mistrials, and the third ended with a hung jury that acquitted a co-defendant.
At his fourth trial, Edwards was convicted, due in large part to dubious eyewitness testimony.
The key witness fingered Edwards although she was sitting on her porch almost the length of a football field away from the murder scene. New scientific analysis offered by Edwards' attorneys argues that the witness couldn't clearly see the killer at night from her porch 271 feet away.
In addition, the witness wasn't wearing her prescription glasses at the time, and now says in an affidavit that on the night of the murder she had been drinking and was high on heroin.
More alarming, she added that when she identified Edwards in a photo lineup she was "just guessing." She says a police investigator pointed to Edwards, and said that another witness had picked him out - thus improperly influencing her decision.
Two other witnesses who were closer to the shooting both told police Edwards wasn't the shooter. At Edwards' third trial, the government produced an unsigned statement from one of the witnesses saying he wasn't sure that Edwards was the shooter. The witness now denies knowing about this statement and affirmed in an affidavit that Edwards wasn't involved in the shooting.
Edwards' attorneys say police also ignored evidence from a Drug Enforcement Administration informant who linked the murder to a drug trafficking ring out of Atlanta, which had no ties to Edwards.
At a minimum, Edwards deserves a new trial. And if he's found to have been wrongfully convicted, someone should investigate the investigators.
More broadly, all police and prosecutors need to enhance policies and procedures with an eye toward avoiding wrongful convictions.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Guest Shot: Bad ‘News’
Reposted from National Review Online
August 05, 2008
Bad ‘News’
The media are happy to publicize innuendo and rumor, impoverishing our public life.
By Thomas Sowell
We have forgotten so much about the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that many people may not remember the deadly anthrax spores that were mailed to various prominent people in politics and in the media during that time.
None of the intended victims was killed by the anthrax but five other people were, including two postal workers, who apparently became victims because they handled the mail containing anthrax spores.
In the instant search for someone to blame, biologist Steven J. Hatfill was publicly named as “a person of interest” in the case by government officials. He became, in the media presentation, the villain du jour.
The government was eventually forced to issue a retraction and agreed to pay a settlement of more than $5 million. But retractions never catch up with the original charges, which will blight this man’s life the longest day he lives.
More recently, a federal investigation has focused on someone else who worked in the same scientific laboratory as Hatfill. This time the new suspect was about to be indicted, as distinguished from being tried in the media — and he committed suicide.
This may mark the end of the anthrax story but the reckless destruction of eople’s reputations and the disrupting and blighting of their lives in the media is continuing on.
There is much to be said for the British practice of limiting what can be reported in the media about someone on trial until that trial is over.
Once a charge has been made and publicized from coast to coast — if not internationally — later exoneration will never get the same publicity, so the damage cannot be undone. You cannot unring the bell.
A major part of what is reported in the media— especially the tabloid media, whether print or broadcast — consists of leaks, speculation, and innuendo— all repeated around the clock, day in and day out, whether or not anything is ever proved.
What someone thinks is going to happen is not news. After it happens it is news.
The 24-hour news cycle may require that somebody be saying something on the air all the time. But that is the media’s problem — and it should not be solved at the expense of ruining other people’s lives.
The loss is not solely that of the particular individuals singled out for accusation or innuendo.
If an informed citizenry is the foundation of democratic government, then a misinformed citizenry is a danger.
Individuals who have never been smeared can also be affected. Highly qualified people, whose knowledge and judgment are much needed in high places, may turn down judicial nominations, for example, or decline other high-profile positions in government, if that means risking having outstanding reputations for integrity that they have built up over a lifetime be dragged through the mud in televised confirmation hearings conducted like Roman circuses.
Such top-level people can always be replaced by warm bodies, as Judge Robert Bork was replaced by Judge Anthony Kennedy, after the smearing of Judge Bork by the Senate Judiciary Committee defeated his nomination.
But the whole country continues to this day to pay dearly for having Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, making intellectually foppish decisions.
One of the perennial crusades of the media has been to have more government business televised. Their self-interest in this is obvious. But the benefits of televising government proceedings — if there are any benefits — must be weighed against the enormous harm that this can do not only to individuals but to the country.
Television conveys false information as readily as it conveys the truth. Congressional hearings are not glimpses of truth. They are staged events to perpetuate some political spin.
Televising these political shows only impedes Congress’s ability to get serious work done in private instead of spending time playing to the peanut gallery.
Both individuals and the country deserve more protection from publicity abuse than they usually get.
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
August 05, 2008
Bad ‘News’
The media are happy to publicize innuendo and rumor, impoverishing our public life.
By Thomas Sowell
We have forgotten so much about the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that many people may not remember the deadly anthrax spores that were mailed to various prominent people in politics and in the media during that time.
None of the intended victims was killed by the anthrax but five other people were, including two postal workers, who apparently became victims because they handled the mail containing anthrax spores.
In the instant search for someone to blame, biologist Steven J. Hatfill was publicly named as “a person of interest” in the case by government officials. He became, in the media presentation, the villain du jour.
The government was eventually forced to issue a retraction and agreed to pay a settlement of more than $5 million. But retractions never catch up with the original charges, which will blight this man’s life the longest day he lives.
More recently, a federal investigation has focused on someone else who worked in the same scientific laboratory as Hatfill. This time the new suspect was about to be indicted, as distinguished from being tried in the media — and he committed suicide.
This may mark the end of the anthrax story but the reckless destruction of eople’s reputations and the disrupting and blighting of their lives in the media is continuing on.
There is much to be said for the British practice of limiting what can be reported in the media about someone on trial until that trial is over.
Once a charge has been made and publicized from coast to coast — if not internationally — later exoneration will never get the same publicity, so the damage cannot be undone. You cannot unring the bell.
A major part of what is reported in the media— especially the tabloid media, whether print or broadcast — consists of leaks, speculation, and innuendo— all repeated around the clock, day in and day out, whether or not anything is ever proved.
What someone thinks is going to happen is not news. After it happens it is news.
The 24-hour news cycle may require that somebody be saying something on the air all the time. But that is the media’s problem — and it should not be solved at the expense of ruining other people’s lives.
The loss is not solely that of the particular individuals singled out for accusation or innuendo.
If an informed citizenry is the foundation of democratic government, then a misinformed citizenry is a danger.
Individuals who have never been smeared can also be affected. Highly qualified people, whose knowledge and judgment are much needed in high places, may turn down judicial nominations, for example, or decline other high-profile positions in government, if that means risking having outstanding reputations for integrity that they have built up over a lifetime be dragged through the mud in televised confirmation hearings conducted like Roman circuses.
Such top-level people can always be replaced by warm bodies, as Judge Robert Bork was replaced by Judge Anthony Kennedy, after the smearing of Judge Bork by the Senate Judiciary Committee defeated his nomination.
But the whole country continues to this day to pay dearly for having Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, making intellectually foppish decisions.
One of the perennial crusades of the media has been to have more government business televised. Their self-interest in this is obvious. But the benefits of televising government proceedings — if there are any benefits — must be weighed against the enormous harm that this can do not only to individuals but to the country.
Television conveys false information as readily as it conveys the truth. Congressional hearings are not glimpses of truth. They are staged events to perpetuate some political spin.
Televising these political shows only impedes Congress’s ability to get serious work done in private instead of spending time playing to the peanut gallery.
Both individuals and the country deserve more protection from publicity abuse than they usually get.
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Guest Shot: Tennessee Innocence Project Raised From the Dead
from "Pith in the Wind," Caleb Hannan's column/blog in the Nashville Scene
Posted July 30, 2008 at 05:22:49 AM by Caleb Hannan
Good news for wrongfully convicted Tennesseans. The Tennessee Innocence Project (TIP), an offshoot of a national program designed to exonerate prisoners using DNA evidence, may be making a comeback.
The original TIP began in 2000 under the direction of Knoxville lawyer Ken Irvine. It was one of the few Innocence “franchises” without financial backing from a university, relying instead on a network of volunteer lawyers. But a lack of funds and infrastructure kept the project from ever getting off the ground. Irvine accepted a criminal court judgeship and TIP went on permanent hiatus in 2006.
Ben Barton, clinical director at the University of Tennessee’s College of Law, admitted today that the school is in talks with a faculty member to turn the Innocence Project into a separate clinical program.
That’d mean that rather than relying on the rag-tag crew that ran the previous incarnation, the new TIP would be fueled by the cheapest labor available north of Juarez: brainy grad students.
There’s just one problem. Nothing moves quickly in academia. Barton says that even if everything runs according to plan, the new program won’t be in place until next year’s fall semester.
Of course, even if TIP does get off the ground again, there’s no guarantee that DNA evidence will be enough to free the innocent in Tennessee. Just ask Paul House.
Posted July 30, 2008 at 05:22:49 AM by Caleb Hannan
Good news for wrongfully convicted Tennesseans. The Tennessee Innocence Project (TIP), an offshoot of a national program designed to exonerate prisoners using DNA evidence, may be making a comeback.
The original TIP began in 2000 under the direction of Knoxville lawyer Ken Irvine. It was one of the few Innocence “franchises” without financial backing from a university, relying instead on a network of volunteer lawyers. But a lack of funds and infrastructure kept the project from ever getting off the ground. Irvine accepted a criminal court judgeship and TIP went on permanent hiatus in 2006.
Ben Barton, clinical director at the University of Tennessee’s College of Law, admitted today that the school is in talks with a faculty member to turn the Innocence Project into a separate clinical program.
That’d mean that rather than relying on the rag-tag crew that ran the previous incarnation, the new TIP would be fueled by the cheapest labor available north of Juarez: brainy grad students.
There’s just one problem. Nothing moves quickly in academia. Barton says that even if everything runs according to plan, the new program won’t be in place until next year’s fall semester.
Of course, even if TIP does get off the ground again, there’s no guarantee that DNA evidence will be enough to free the innocent in Tennessee. Just ask Paul House.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Double Guest Shot - Albuquerque's Case Against Robert Gonzales
Robert Gonzales of Albuquerque, New Mexico is a lucky man. Robert, who is mentally retarded, was locked up for nearly three years, having confessed to raping and killing a young girl in 2005. Then came a cold hit on CODIS, identifying the rapist and killer -- Israel Diaz. When the cops and prosecutor could find no link between Robert and Diaz, the capital murder and rape charges were dismissed--with the prosecutor continuing to insist that Robert's confession is "credible" and they're keeping the door open to re-charging. So, yes, Robert is lucky. Without the CODIS cold hit, he would have been fast-tracked to Death Row.
Instead, a mirror has been held up to Albuquerque's criminal legal system. The local newspaper, the Albquerque Journal, and Jeff Buckels of the New Mexico Public Defender Department, are doing their parts to get everyone to take a long, uncomfortable look.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
APD, DA Must Answer Some Hard Question
It's a case ripped right from the pages of John Grisham's “An Innocent Man.” A mentally retarded young man confesses to the brutal Halloween rape and murder of a young girl. More than 60 pieces of evidence point to someone other than him. But cops and prosecutors charge ahead, and the guy with the IQ below 65 spends more than two years in jail, afraid and awaiting trial — until a national DNA database links another man to the crime.
It's sickening such an injustice was done to 22-year-old Robert Gonzales. It's terrifying he could have been wrongly convicted. It's maddening the man now tied to the crime by physical evidence might never have faced prosecution. But all are outweighed by Albuquerque police and prosecutors' apparent blind, nightmarish determination to stick to a script of least resistance rather than search for real justice.
The Albuquerque Police Department questioned Gonzales for more than two hours. They used the same interrogation techniques they would have used on a career criminal or a nuclear physicist. They ignored two of their own officers who said 11-year-old Victoria Sandoval wasn't even at a local pool on the day in 2005 where she reportedly met him.
The Bernalillo County District Attorney's Office prosecuted Gonzales for more than two years, despite a pile of physical evidence pointing to anyone but him, conflicting opinions on his competency to stand trial and his confession being thrown out as unconstitutional. In fact, District Attorney Kari Brandenburg says Gonzales could still be prosecuted: “We still believe there are many credible parts of that confession, but we can't find anything linking Gonzales to (Israel Diaz, a 20-year-old Mexican national who came up a match with DNA evidence from the murder scene). ... we're not closing the door 100 percent.”
Brandenburg may be right that early on it was “a situation where everyone was doing the best job they could with the information they had.” But that stopped being the case long before the 60th piece of evidence excluded Gonzales. Richard Leo, a University of San Francisco School of Law professor, reviewed the transcript of Gonzales' interrogations. “This was like leading a child, the person was so suggestible,” he says. “I had in my notes that it looked like he was ... easily led ... into accepting responsibility because he was eager to please.”
Jeff Buckels, Gonzales' lawyer and director of the capital crimes unit of the New Mexico Public Defender Office, says “sometimes people confess to things they didn't do. And people with vulnerabilities, like people with mental retardation, are more likely to.”
Steve Drizin, legal director of the Northwestern University Center on Wrongful Convictions, says juveniles and people with mental retardation are more highly suggestible and eager to please. “You have a classic double whammy in the case of Robert Gonzales. Police officers aren't trained to interrogate juveniles or people with mental retardation any differently from the rest of the population.”
That makes them easy pickin's for trained interrogators. And perhaps behind bars, as well, where Gonzales was from Nov. 1, 2005, until June 27, save for the time he was being evaluated at a psychiatric hospital. He remained in jail two weeks after Diaz was charged in Sandoval's death.
Thirty-two months is a long time for an innocent man — and he is presumed innocent until proven otherwise — to spend behind bars. This case cries out for review of how police interrogate suspects, especially the young and mentally retarded. The public must have confidence the system is searching for justice, not just churning out a story in which a vulnerable suspect becomes a vulnerable victim.
APD Must 'fess Up, Revise Interrogation Procedures
By Jeff Buckels
New Mexico Public Defender Department
Journal readers can't have missed Saturday's front-page story about how DNA evidence cleared my client Robert Gonzales of murder after two and a half years in jail. And you can't have missed that Robert confessed to the murder at the time.
It was a false confession, and it's not that rare. Nearly a fourth of 218 DNA exonerations documented by the national Innocence Project have involved false confessions.
Police use sophisticated techniques to get confessions. They start by putting the suspect off-guard with friendly chitchat, visiting about the suspect's school, family, favorite TV shows.
Having established that they are the suspect's pal, interrogators put the confession machinery in gear. They accuse the suspect of the crime and refuse to credit his denials. To make resistance seem pointless, they exaggerate or simply lie about the evidence they already have (“You were seen with the victim!”). In virtually every case of false confession involving compliant suspects, the interrogators minimize the suspect's blameworthiness (“I'd have done the same thing!”) and offer face-saving excuses which seem to promise leniency (“We know you were provoked!”). If the suspect still resists, they tell him that confessing is the only way to make the interrogation ordeal come to an end (“You've got to help us if you want to get this over with!”). If he still resists, the interrogators say he's wrong, and insist again and again that the only way to make the ordeal end is to get it right.
These techniques and others are mixed and repeated over and over, for hours if necessary. Every one was used on Robert Gonzales, who stopped resisting and confessed to a murder he didn't commit.
I expect this reaction from many readers: “If I were accused of a crime I didn't commit, nothing, except maybe torture, would make me confess.” I don't doubt it. But while you are enjoying your morning coffee and newspaper, consider whether you are not different from Robert Gonzales in at least two important ways.
First, you are not unusually vulnerable to manipulation and suggestion. Even persons of normal and high intelligence have succumbed to the interrogator's bag of tricks. Retarded and youthful suspects are like putty in a trained interrogator's hands.
Second, you have not been arrested, shackled and stuffed in the back seat of a police car. You are not surrounded by armed police in an interrogation room. Your mug shot will not be on the six o'clock news. You are not scared out of your wits. You are not easy pickings.
Robert Gonzales was. And it took a double-whammy of DNA evidence to stop what interrogation procedure and a false confession started.
More than two years ago, the police learned that scores of scientific tests — DNA evidence, fingerprints, hair samples, fiber evidence — had failed to place Robert at the scene of the crime or connect him to the victim in any way. The DNA pointed consistently to a single unknown person — not Robert. But in the teeth of the scientific evidence, the prosecution pushed on, relying on Robert's “confession” alone.
Two weeks ago, the other shoe fell. The DNA taken from the victim matched a prisoner at the federal lockdown outside Estancia. Then and only then did the prosecution throw in the towel.
I am not writing to vent or to celebrate (“All's well that ends well!”). I am writing to call attention to police policy and training — or rather the lack of it.
The two senior APD officers who interrogated Robert Gonzales knew they were dealing with a suspect who was young and probably retarded in some degree. He told them he was in special education classes in school. Yet they admitted in pretrial interviews and under oath at a hearing that they didn't even consider handling Robert's interrogation differently than any other. The fact is, APD had provided them with no training in interrogating developmentally disabled suspects.
Such training and policies exist and are in effect in other police departments. This specialized training helps officers recognize suspects who are retarded and requires them to make sure the suspects really do understand Miranda warnings. They are to curtail the usual tricks to elicit confessions, treat confessions skeptically, and do double duty corroborating such confessions before committing to prosecution.
Maybe if procedures like this had been in place at APD when Robert Gonzales was arrested, Robert wouldn't have given a false confession or maybe the police wouldn't have believed it. Failing that, maybe they would have gotten the message when the DNA evidence came in over two years ago and pointed to somebody else. This would have saved the prosecuting authorities, the court system and the taxpayers a lot of time, trouble and money.
And it would have saved a vulnerable young man from serving thirty-two months in jail for a horrific crime he did not commit.
Jeff Buckels is the supervising attorney of the Capital Crimes Unit of the Public Defender Department.
Instead, a mirror has been held up to Albuquerque's criminal legal system. The local newspaper, the Albquerque Journal, and Jeff Buckels of the New Mexico Public Defender Department, are doing their parts to get everyone to take a long, uncomfortable look.
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
APD, DA Must Answer Some Hard Question
It's a case ripped right from the pages of John Grisham's “An Innocent Man.” A mentally retarded young man confesses to the brutal Halloween rape and murder of a young girl. More than 60 pieces of evidence point to someone other than him. But cops and prosecutors charge ahead, and the guy with the IQ below 65 spends more than two years in jail, afraid and awaiting trial — until a national DNA database links another man to the crime.
It's sickening such an injustice was done to 22-year-old Robert Gonzales. It's terrifying he could have been wrongly convicted. It's maddening the man now tied to the crime by physical evidence might never have faced prosecution. But all are outweighed by Albuquerque police and prosecutors' apparent blind, nightmarish determination to stick to a script of least resistance rather than search for real justice.
The Albuquerque Police Department questioned Gonzales for more than two hours. They used the same interrogation techniques they would have used on a career criminal or a nuclear physicist. They ignored two of their own officers who said 11-year-old Victoria Sandoval wasn't even at a local pool on the day in 2005 where she reportedly met him.
The Bernalillo County District Attorney's Office prosecuted Gonzales for more than two years, despite a pile of physical evidence pointing to anyone but him, conflicting opinions on his competency to stand trial and his confession being thrown out as unconstitutional. In fact, District Attorney Kari Brandenburg says Gonzales could still be prosecuted: “We still believe there are many credible parts of that confession, but we can't find anything linking Gonzales to (Israel Diaz, a 20-year-old Mexican national who came up a match with DNA evidence from the murder scene). ... we're not closing the door 100 percent.”
Brandenburg may be right that early on it was “a situation where everyone was doing the best job they could with the information they had.” But that stopped being the case long before the 60th piece of evidence excluded Gonzales. Richard Leo, a University of San Francisco School of Law professor, reviewed the transcript of Gonzales' interrogations. “This was like leading a child, the person was so suggestible,” he says. “I had in my notes that it looked like he was ... easily led ... into accepting responsibility because he was eager to please.”
Jeff Buckels, Gonzales' lawyer and director of the capital crimes unit of the New Mexico Public Defender Office, says “sometimes people confess to things they didn't do. And people with vulnerabilities, like people with mental retardation, are more likely to.”
Steve Drizin, legal director of the Northwestern University Center on Wrongful Convictions, says juveniles and people with mental retardation are more highly suggestible and eager to please. “You have a classic double whammy in the case of Robert Gonzales. Police officers aren't trained to interrogate juveniles or people with mental retardation any differently from the rest of the population.”
That makes them easy pickin's for trained interrogators. And perhaps behind bars, as well, where Gonzales was from Nov. 1, 2005, until June 27, save for the time he was being evaluated at a psychiatric hospital. He remained in jail two weeks after Diaz was charged in Sandoval's death.
Thirty-two months is a long time for an innocent man — and he is presumed innocent until proven otherwise — to spend behind bars. This case cries out for review of how police interrogate suspects, especially the young and mentally retarded. The public must have confidence the system is searching for justice, not just churning out a story in which a vulnerable suspect becomes a vulnerable victim.
APD Must 'fess Up, Revise Interrogation Procedures
By Jeff Buckels
New Mexico Public Defender Department
Journal readers can't have missed Saturday's front-page story about how DNA evidence cleared my client Robert Gonzales of murder after two and a half years in jail. And you can't have missed that Robert confessed to the murder at the time.
It was a false confession, and it's not that rare. Nearly a fourth of 218 DNA exonerations documented by the national Innocence Project have involved false confessions.
Police use sophisticated techniques to get confessions. They start by putting the suspect off-guard with friendly chitchat, visiting about the suspect's school, family, favorite TV shows.
Having established that they are the suspect's pal, interrogators put the confession machinery in gear. They accuse the suspect of the crime and refuse to credit his denials. To make resistance seem pointless, they exaggerate or simply lie about the evidence they already have (“You were seen with the victim!”). In virtually every case of false confession involving compliant suspects, the interrogators minimize the suspect's blameworthiness (“I'd have done the same thing!”) and offer face-saving excuses which seem to promise leniency (“We know you were provoked!”). If the suspect still resists, they tell him that confessing is the only way to make the interrogation ordeal come to an end (“You've got to help us if you want to get this over with!”). If he still resists, the interrogators say he's wrong, and insist again and again that the only way to make the ordeal end is to get it right.
These techniques and others are mixed and repeated over and over, for hours if necessary. Every one was used on Robert Gonzales, who stopped resisting and confessed to a murder he didn't commit.
I expect this reaction from many readers: “If I were accused of a crime I didn't commit, nothing, except maybe torture, would make me confess.” I don't doubt it. But while you are enjoying your morning coffee and newspaper, consider whether you are not different from Robert Gonzales in at least two important ways.
First, you are not unusually vulnerable to manipulation and suggestion. Even persons of normal and high intelligence have succumbed to the interrogator's bag of tricks. Retarded and youthful suspects are like putty in a trained interrogator's hands.
Second, you have not been arrested, shackled and stuffed in the back seat of a police car. You are not surrounded by armed police in an interrogation room. Your mug shot will not be on the six o'clock news. You are not scared out of your wits. You are not easy pickings.
Robert Gonzales was. And it took a double-whammy of DNA evidence to stop what interrogation procedure and a false confession started.
More than two years ago, the police learned that scores of scientific tests — DNA evidence, fingerprints, hair samples, fiber evidence — had failed to place Robert at the scene of the crime or connect him to the victim in any way. The DNA pointed consistently to a single unknown person — not Robert. But in the teeth of the scientific evidence, the prosecution pushed on, relying on Robert's “confession” alone.
Two weeks ago, the other shoe fell. The DNA taken from the victim matched a prisoner at the federal lockdown outside Estancia. Then and only then did the prosecution throw in the towel.
I am not writing to vent or to celebrate (“All's well that ends well!”). I am writing to call attention to police policy and training — or rather the lack of it.
The two senior APD officers who interrogated Robert Gonzales knew they were dealing with a suspect who was young and probably retarded in some degree. He told them he was in special education classes in school. Yet they admitted in pretrial interviews and under oath at a hearing that they didn't even consider handling Robert's interrogation differently than any other. The fact is, APD had provided them with no training in interrogating developmentally disabled suspects.
Such training and policies exist and are in effect in other police departments. This specialized training helps officers recognize suspects who are retarded and requires them to make sure the suspects really do understand Miranda warnings. They are to curtail the usual tricks to elicit confessions, treat confessions skeptically, and do double duty corroborating such confessions before committing to prosecution.
Maybe if procedures like this had been in place at APD when Robert Gonzales was arrested, Robert wouldn't have given a false confession or maybe the police wouldn't have believed it. Failing that, maybe they would have gotten the message when the DNA evidence came in over two years ago and pointed to somebody else. This would have saved the prosecuting authorities, the court system and the taxpayers a lot of time, trouble and money.
And it would have saved a vulnerable young man from serving thirty-two months in jail for a horrific crime he did not commit.
Jeff Buckels is the supervising attorney of the Capital Crimes Unit of the Public Defender Department.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Guest Shot: Open Letter to Lansing State Journal
Open Letter to Lansing State Journal
by John W. Sawyer III
Isn’t this just precious ? You start off an article about the railroading of Claude McCullom by the prosecuting attorney with several remarks and quotes about what a straight arrow the lead Assistant PA is and how his colleagues can’t believe he would make such a ‘mistake.’
The record in your area certainly points to a history of such misconduct, almost a modus operandi, on the part of prosecutors and law enforcement agencies (notably the Michigan State Police), in obtaining convictions: fiber evidence, phony “confessions,” cover up of exculpatory evidence (what, no profiler?). So a self-described “reporter” should hardly express surprise upon hearing confirmation of such misconduct. So now, according to recent St. Journal articles, the ‘community,’ Project Innocence, and certain ‘reporters” are working to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Puhleeez.
Where was all this public indignation from you “reporters” BEFORE McCollum was convicted. I’ll bet you were there when the cops lead McCollum on the de rigueur ‘perp walk.’
Another such case, of which all of the abovementioned, including you, are aware, concerns Tom Sawyer, whose conviction in Hillsdale was reversed by the U.S. Appeals Court, when it was discovered that the PA and the Michigan State Police had lied under oath when they testified that semen stains found on the victim’s underwear had not been tested for DNA, when in fact they HAD tested the stains, finding that they did not match Tom Sawyer.
Now after17 years in prison, Tom awaits a decision from Judge Manderfield in Ingham on his remaining conviction. Granted a hearing date (June 6, 2006) by the Judge, only to have the hearing permanently revoked after suffering a heart attack, Tom was informed that he will have no chance to counter the PA’s (self-serving and grossly inaccurate) rebuttal arguments to his Appeal brief. If the notoriously lazy Judge Manderfield fails to invest the hours needed to review and understand the case, and simply takes the PA’s word for it, the decision will go against him.
By Law, the judge simply cannot take the PA’s word for it because the PA says that Tom’s arguments are specious, incorrect, or lack merit (as she did in her brief). Rather the PA MUST point out with facts WHERE and HOW the arguments are specious or incorrect or lack merit. Could it be that your remarks about the good work and character of the PA and your ignoring of the pre-trial exculpatory evidence in the McCullom case are indicators that you basically agree with the Judge Manderfields, the cops, and the Prosecuting Attorneys? “If the sheriff says he’s guilty, then by God he must be guilty.”
If that is the case, please do us all a favor and stop writing articles about preventing future injustices.
The most important fundamental right enumerated in the U. S. Constitution isn’t the precious “reproductive rights” to an abortion as the Left suggests, nor of the right to capital gains tax breaks for investments as the Right demands, but rather the concept of Habeas Corpus - the right of an innocent man to be heard after being wrongfully convicted. Thomas Jefferson wrote that if you don’t have ‘Justice’, you don’t have ‘Freedom.’
Cordially,
John W. Sawyer III
by John W. Sawyer III
Isn’t this just precious ? You start off an article about the railroading of Claude McCullom by the prosecuting attorney with several remarks and quotes about what a straight arrow the lead Assistant PA is and how his colleagues can’t believe he would make such a ‘mistake.’
The record in your area certainly points to a history of such misconduct, almost a modus operandi, on the part of prosecutors and law enforcement agencies (notably the Michigan State Police), in obtaining convictions: fiber evidence, phony “confessions,” cover up of exculpatory evidence (what, no profiler?). So a self-described “reporter” should hardly express surprise upon hearing confirmation of such misconduct. So now, according to recent St. Journal articles, the ‘community,’ Project Innocence, and certain ‘reporters” are working to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Puhleeez.
Where was all this public indignation from you “reporters” BEFORE McCollum was convicted. I’ll bet you were there when the cops lead McCollum on the de rigueur ‘perp walk.’
Another such case, of which all of the abovementioned, including you, are aware, concerns Tom Sawyer, whose conviction in Hillsdale was reversed by the U.S. Appeals Court, when it was discovered that the PA and the Michigan State Police had lied under oath when they testified that semen stains found on the victim’s underwear had not been tested for DNA, when in fact they HAD tested the stains, finding that they did not match Tom Sawyer.
Now after17 years in prison, Tom awaits a decision from Judge Manderfield in Ingham on his remaining conviction. Granted a hearing date (June 6, 2006) by the Judge, only to have the hearing permanently revoked after suffering a heart attack, Tom was informed that he will have no chance to counter the PA’s (self-serving and grossly inaccurate) rebuttal arguments to his Appeal brief. If the notoriously lazy Judge Manderfield fails to invest the hours needed to review and understand the case, and simply takes the PA’s word for it, the decision will go against him.
By Law, the judge simply cannot take the PA’s word for it because the PA says that Tom’s arguments are specious, incorrect, or lack merit (as she did in her brief). Rather the PA MUST point out with facts WHERE and HOW the arguments are specious or incorrect or lack merit. Could it be that your remarks about the good work and character of the PA and your ignoring of the pre-trial exculpatory evidence in the McCullom case are indicators that you basically agree with the Judge Manderfields, the cops, and the Prosecuting Attorneys? “If the sheriff says he’s guilty, then by God he must be guilty.”
If that is the case, please do us all a favor and stop writing articles about preventing future injustices.
The most important fundamental right enumerated in the U. S. Constitution isn’t the precious “reproductive rights” to an abortion as the Left suggests, nor of the right to capital gains tax breaks for investments as the Right demands, but rather the concept of Habeas Corpus - the right of an innocent man to be heard after being wrongfully convicted. Thomas Jefferson wrote that if you don’t have ‘Justice’, you don’t have ‘Freedom.’
Cordially,
John W. Sawyer III
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Guest Shot: The Wrong Man
The following editorial was published in the Charlotte (NC) News & Observer on April 4, 2008.
The wrong man
Glen Chapman is free, but his case points to the dangerous imperfections in North Carolina's use of the death penalty
Were it not for a couple of good appellate lawyers and Superior Court Judge Robert C. Ervin, Glen Chapman might have been killed by the state in Central Prison's death chamber. He had been on death row for nearly 14 years, following a conviction for the 1992 murders of two women in Hickory.
After years of appeals, Judge Ervin ruled in November that Chapman deserved another trial. The Catawba County District Attorney, James Gaither Jr., then dismissed the murder charges against him, saying there was not enough evidence for a retrial.
So on Wednesday (April 2, 2008), the 40-year-old Chapman was released -- from death row to freedom.
Ervin, who held six hearings over five years, found that an investigator in the case, Dennis Rhoney, lied in his testimony about Chapman's involvement in the murders.
The judge found that Rhoney had withheld evidence from prosecutors that would have bolstered Chapman's claim of innocence. He also found that Chapman's trial lawyers overlooked evidence in the deaths of Betty Jean Ramseur and Tenene Yvette Conley and didn't investigate thoroughly. (The appeals lawyers argued that Chapman's trial attorneys were "excessive users of alcohol.")
Human error
And Judge Ervin also said that a forensic pathologist's report suggested Conley might have died of a drug overdose instead of having been murdered.
This case is a tragedy on many levels. But one of Chapman's appellate attorneys, Jessica Leaven, had it right on the bottom line when she said, "Everything that you can possibly imagine going wrong in a capital case went wrong. It's a prime example why the death penalty should be abolished."
The justice system is run by imperfect humans, no different than all other humans. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they do things wrong. Sometimes they do wrong things. Some attorneys are more competent than others. Some district attorneys are tempted to put winning ahead of their duty as officers of the court to seek justice, first and foremost.
Tough guys
And all the time, politicians sing their "tough on crime" songs and stand by application of the one penalty in the system that cannot be reversed, or corrected in any way. Executions in North Carolina currently are on hold pending court action on whether the lethal injection used here and in other states is unconstitutional because it can amount to "cruel and unusual punishment."
Mistakes have been made in North Carolina. Prosecutors have been found to have not handled cases in a straight-up fashion. Add to all this the unreliability of some witnesses, and you have, particularly in death penalty cases, a tragic accident waiting to happen.
So is the state willing to say, in effect, well, if we kill the wrong person on occasion, we still should stick with the death penalty? If it is, that's disgraceful.
And let it not be forgotten, not that it equals the argument that a wrongful execution is unacceptable, but vast sums are spent on prosecuting death cases and through the appeals process. (One wonders if those who'd like to shorten the distance between conviction and execution are given any pause by the Chapman case.)
The system is imperfect. As long as that's so, the death penalty cannot be administered in any way that can be described as fair.
The wrong man
Glen Chapman is free, but his case points to the dangerous imperfections in North Carolina's use of the death penalty
Were it not for a couple of good appellate lawyers and Superior Court Judge Robert C. Ervin, Glen Chapman might have been killed by the state in Central Prison's death chamber. He had been on death row for nearly 14 years, following a conviction for the 1992 murders of two women in Hickory.
After years of appeals, Judge Ervin ruled in November that Chapman deserved another trial. The Catawba County District Attorney, James Gaither Jr., then dismissed the murder charges against him, saying there was not enough evidence for a retrial.
So on Wednesday (April 2, 2008), the 40-year-old Chapman was released -- from death row to freedom.
Ervin, who held six hearings over five years, found that an investigator in the case, Dennis Rhoney, lied in his testimony about Chapman's involvement in the murders.
The judge found that Rhoney had withheld evidence from prosecutors that would have bolstered Chapman's claim of innocence. He also found that Chapman's trial lawyers overlooked evidence in the deaths of Betty Jean Ramseur and Tenene Yvette Conley and didn't investigate thoroughly. (The appeals lawyers argued that Chapman's trial attorneys were "excessive users of alcohol.")
Human error
And Judge Ervin also said that a forensic pathologist's report suggested Conley might have died of a drug overdose instead of having been murdered.
This case is a tragedy on many levels. But one of Chapman's appellate attorneys, Jessica Leaven, had it right on the bottom line when she said, "Everything that you can possibly imagine going wrong in a capital case went wrong. It's a prime example why the death penalty should be abolished."
The justice system is run by imperfect humans, no different than all other humans. Sometimes they make mistakes. Sometimes they do things wrong. Sometimes they do wrong things. Some attorneys are more competent than others. Some district attorneys are tempted to put winning ahead of their duty as officers of the court to seek justice, first and foremost.
Tough guys
And all the time, politicians sing their "tough on crime" songs and stand by application of the one penalty in the system that cannot be reversed, or corrected in any way. Executions in North Carolina currently are on hold pending court action on whether the lethal injection used here and in other states is unconstitutional because it can amount to "cruel and unusual punishment."
Mistakes have been made in North Carolina. Prosecutors have been found to have not handled cases in a straight-up fashion. Add to all this the unreliability of some witnesses, and you have, particularly in death penalty cases, a tragic accident waiting to happen.
So is the state willing to say, in effect, well, if we kill the wrong person on occasion, we still should stick with the death penalty? If it is, that's disgraceful.
And let it not be forgotten, not that it equals the argument that a wrongful execution is unacceptable, but vast sums are spent on prosecuting death cases and through the appeals process. (One wonders if those who'd like to shorten the distance between conviction and execution are given any pause by the Chapman case.)
The system is imperfect. As long as that's so, the death penalty cannot be administered in any way that can be described as fair.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Guest Shot: The story of Barry Beach’s innocence
This op-ed article originally was published in the Helena, MT Independence Record on March 23, 2008.
The story of Barry Beach’s innocence
By DANIEL J. GENGLER - Your Turn - 03/23/08
I am fortunate to live in a nation that aspires to the rule of law and justice for all.
And we are fortunate that the system works as well as it does. It’s not perfect but 99 percent of the time the system works reasonably well. The story of Barry Beach’s innocence is about the other 1 percent of the time.
I first found about this case in 2006 when a good friend asked me to take a look at a set of files. He told me it was about an innocent Montana man in prison. Because I respect this friend, I agreed to read them, though I was skeptical. As I promised, I read the files, but I was looking for the flaws in the case for Beach’s innocence. Somewhere near the end of reading these files, I reached a turning point. To the extent that what I was reading was authoritatively verified, I saw good reason to question the validity of this man’s conviction. But my skepticism was still not completely satisfied. I still wanted to know what the other side had to say. What was I not being told?
So I attended the hearings before the Board of Pardons and Parole this past summer and read the state’s documents to get the rest of the story. But after reading several voluminous documents and sitting through three grueling days of testimony, I heard nothing from the state that made any sense which undermined the case for Barry Beach’s innocence. I almost wished I hadn’t taken the time and effort to expose myself to the truth because, at that point, I could no longer take refuge in a lack of awareness. Like the Samaritan man on the road who happens upon a stranger in need of help, I saw such a stranger in need. And though it would be far more convenient to walk on by assuring myself that the matter was not my concern, my faith compels me to stop and help.
I am not alone. Montanans for Justice is a group of Montanans from throughout the state who are concerned about this travesty in our justice system. We are deeply disturbed by the fact that we have an innocent man in prison serving an extremely harsh sentence of 100 years without parole for a crime he did not commit. We are current and former elected officials, professionals, businessmen and women — folks from all walks of life who, through various circumstances, have come to know about this case. After thorough and careful review, all of us have come to firmly believe Barry Beach is not guilty of this murder, leading to the inescapable conclusion that those responsible for the murder of Kim Nees have not been held accountable. Not only has Barry Beach been denied justice for his wrongful conviction, the Nees family and the community of Poplar have been denied the true justice they deserve. Barry Beach is being represented legally by Centurion Ministries, an organization based in Princeton, N.J., dedicated to freeing the wrongly convicted. Centurion Ministries spent seven years and very substantial resources investigating this case before ever agreeing to represent Mr. Beach. Montanans For Justice is a grassroots effort composed of Montanans. We have no stake in this matter other than a desire for the truth to prevail.
Barry Beach’s wrongful conviction is really only symptomatic of a much larger issue at hand. As one writer wrote on the www.MontanansForJustice.com blog: “I was born in 1979, and I’ve heard all the rumors on the rez because I was born and raised on Fort Peck. I’ve heard all my relatives talk about it, my great-grandmother told me Kim Nees’ spirit still walks because she went too young. My relatives all lived on the hill and my mother was sitting outside that night, she heard alot of them partying down there, which makes me question Barry’s confession in which he said he was alone with Kim down there, and if so, then how come my mother heard more than a couple people down there? Also, I’ve heard all the rumors about Sissy and Maude, but I don’t think justice will come too soon for Barry because people on the rez are too scared to come forward. Look at the Follete murders, or Lawrence Crowe, and Richard Red Dog, I could go on, but of course, the right people are never convicted. I pray that they will be caught though, Poplar is a scary place to live for our children nowadays. How do you raise children in a town where murderers reside?”
How do you raise children in a place where there is little faith in law enforcement and our criminal justice system? Exonerating Barry Beach would be a shining beacon of hope in a community desperate for faith in the rule of law and justice.
There are, quite understandably, powerful forces that would prefer to quietly sweep this whole affair under the rug. But what’s politically convenient is not necessarily what’s right. The system works reasonably well 99 percent of the time. The system works even better when it faces up to the mistakes made the other 1 percent of the time and makes it right.
Daniel J. Gengler lives in Helena, Montana.
The story of Barry Beach’s innocence
By DANIEL J. GENGLER - Your Turn - 03/23/08
I am fortunate to live in a nation that aspires to the rule of law and justice for all.
And we are fortunate that the system works as well as it does. It’s not perfect but 99 percent of the time the system works reasonably well. The story of Barry Beach’s innocence is about the other 1 percent of the time.
I first found about this case in 2006 when a good friend asked me to take a look at a set of files. He told me it was about an innocent Montana man in prison. Because I respect this friend, I agreed to read them, though I was skeptical. As I promised, I read the files, but I was looking for the flaws in the case for Beach’s innocence. Somewhere near the end of reading these files, I reached a turning point. To the extent that what I was reading was authoritatively verified, I saw good reason to question the validity of this man’s conviction. But my skepticism was still not completely satisfied. I still wanted to know what the other side had to say. What was I not being told?
So I attended the hearings before the Board of Pardons and Parole this past summer and read the state’s documents to get the rest of the story. But after reading several voluminous documents and sitting through three grueling days of testimony, I heard nothing from the state that made any sense which undermined the case for Barry Beach’s innocence. I almost wished I hadn’t taken the time and effort to expose myself to the truth because, at that point, I could no longer take refuge in a lack of awareness. Like the Samaritan man on the road who happens upon a stranger in need of help, I saw such a stranger in need. And though it would be far more convenient to walk on by assuring myself that the matter was not my concern, my faith compels me to stop and help.
I am not alone. Montanans for Justice is a group of Montanans from throughout the state who are concerned about this travesty in our justice system. We are deeply disturbed by the fact that we have an innocent man in prison serving an extremely harsh sentence of 100 years without parole for a crime he did not commit. We are current and former elected officials, professionals, businessmen and women — folks from all walks of life who, through various circumstances, have come to know about this case. After thorough and careful review, all of us have come to firmly believe Barry Beach is not guilty of this murder, leading to the inescapable conclusion that those responsible for the murder of Kim Nees have not been held accountable. Not only has Barry Beach been denied justice for his wrongful conviction, the Nees family and the community of Poplar have been denied the true justice they deserve. Barry Beach is being represented legally by Centurion Ministries, an organization based in Princeton, N.J., dedicated to freeing the wrongly convicted. Centurion Ministries spent seven years and very substantial resources investigating this case before ever agreeing to represent Mr. Beach. Montanans For Justice is a grassroots effort composed of Montanans. We have no stake in this matter other than a desire for the truth to prevail.
Barry Beach’s wrongful conviction is really only symptomatic of a much larger issue at hand. As one writer wrote on the www.MontanansForJustice.com blog: “I was born in 1979, and I’ve heard all the rumors on the rez because I was born and raised on Fort Peck. I’ve heard all my relatives talk about it, my great-grandmother told me Kim Nees’ spirit still walks because she went too young. My relatives all lived on the hill and my mother was sitting outside that night, she heard alot of them partying down there, which makes me question Barry’s confession in which he said he was alone with Kim down there, and if so, then how come my mother heard more than a couple people down there? Also, I’ve heard all the rumors about Sissy and Maude, but I don’t think justice will come too soon for Barry because people on the rez are too scared to come forward. Look at the Follete murders, or Lawrence Crowe, and Richard Red Dog, I could go on, but of course, the right people are never convicted. I pray that they will be caught though, Poplar is a scary place to live for our children nowadays. How do you raise children in a town where murderers reside?”
How do you raise children in a place where there is little faith in law enforcement and our criminal justice system? Exonerating Barry Beach would be a shining beacon of hope in a community desperate for faith in the rule of law and justice.
There are, quite understandably, powerful forces that would prefer to quietly sweep this whole affair under the rug. But what’s politically convenient is not necessarily what’s right. The system works reasonably well 99 percent of the time. The system works even better when it faces up to the mistakes made the other 1 percent of the time and makes it right.
Daniel J. Gengler lives in Helena, Montana.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Guest Shot: Wrongfully convicted dealt another blow
The following editorial was published on March 18, 2008 in the Miami Herald.
Wrongfully convicted dealt another blow
BY FRED GRIMM
No big-time lobbyist to fix their legislation. That was their second big mistake.
The first, of course, was embarrassing the state by getting themselves convicted for someone else's crime. That's no way to make friends in Tallahassee.
The wrongfully convicted just don't know how to work the Legislature. It's as obvious as those nasty little amendments that have been inserted into a misnomer of a bill called ``Victims of Wrongful Incarceration Compensation Act.''
The legislation supposedly would award this hapless bunch $50,000 for every year spent behind bars for crimes they didn't commit. House Bill 1025 also tosses in compensation for counseling, housing, health insurance and college tuition.
That 50 grand a year, if it was real, would add up to a decent sum for the nine guys who accumulated $7,650,000 worth of hard time in Florida prisons before they were cleared by DNA tests.
AN ARBITRARY SYSTEM
It's almost as if Florida wants to do right by all those ruined lives. The legislation would finally standardize an infamously arbitrary compensation system that requires the wrongfully convicted to come begging, year after year, until some sympathetic legislators take an interest. (Freddy Lee Pitts and Wilbert Lee were pardoned in 1975 after their shoddy 1963 murder conviction was unraveled by legendary Miami Herald reporter Gene Miller. Another 23 years passed before the Legislature was shamed into voting them $500,000 each for their lost years.)
But the intent of this session's amendment-riddled legislation has evolved into a kind of punishment for these impostor convicts for taking up the precious prison cells. Under the bill wending through the Legislature (key hearings are scheduled Tuesday in both the House and Senate), none of the nine men cleared by DNA testing in Florida would actually qualify for state compensation.
Larry Bostic, wrongly convicted of a Fort Lauderdale rape, did 19 years. Orlando Boquete, convicted of a rape and robbery in the Florida Keys, served 13. Alan Crotzer spent 24 years in prison for a rape and robbery he didn't commit. Cody Davis did six months before the crime lab in Palm Beach County checked the DNA on an armed robber's ski mask. Wilton Dedge did 22 years for a Brevard County rape conviction. Luis Diaz, the so-called Bird Road Rapist of Miami-Dade County who, as it turned out, wasn't, served 25 years. Chad Heins did a 13-year stretch for rape and murder. Frank Lee Smith died after 14 years on Death Row. Both Smith and another Fort Lauderdale man, Jerry Frank Townsend, who spent 22 years in prison, had been convicted of murders actually committed by serial killer Eddie Lee Mosley.
OUT OF THE MONEY
Of the nine, only Wilton Dedge has been able to wrangle compensation out of the state Legislature ($2 million in 2005). The rest, under HB 1025 (the Senate is expected to adopt similar language) would be out of the money.
A so-called ''clean hands'' amendment disqualifies any wrongfully convicted chump with a prior, unrelated felony conviction. Of course, when cops go looking for a quickie arrest, they aren't picking their patsies from the Rotary Club.
That nifty amendment's a big money saver. A legislative report on the fiscal impact of the bill calculates, with ''very few people eligible,'' the cost would be essentially zilch.
At least the legislation doesn't charge the wrongfully convicted room and board for all those years they mooched off the state penal system.
Not yet, anyway.
Wrongfully convicted dealt another blow
BY FRED GRIMM
No big-time lobbyist to fix their legislation. That was their second big mistake.
The first, of course, was embarrassing the state by getting themselves convicted for someone else's crime. That's no way to make friends in Tallahassee.
The wrongfully convicted just don't know how to work the Legislature. It's as obvious as those nasty little amendments that have been inserted into a misnomer of a bill called ``Victims of Wrongful Incarceration Compensation Act.''
The legislation supposedly would award this hapless bunch $50,000 for every year spent behind bars for crimes they didn't commit. House Bill 1025 also tosses in compensation for counseling, housing, health insurance and college tuition.
That 50 grand a year, if it was real, would add up to a decent sum for the nine guys who accumulated $7,650,000 worth of hard time in Florida prisons before they were cleared by DNA tests.
AN ARBITRARY SYSTEM
It's almost as if Florida wants to do right by all those ruined lives. The legislation would finally standardize an infamously arbitrary compensation system that requires the wrongfully convicted to come begging, year after year, until some sympathetic legislators take an interest. (Freddy Lee Pitts and Wilbert Lee were pardoned in 1975 after their shoddy 1963 murder conviction was unraveled by legendary Miami Herald reporter Gene Miller. Another 23 years passed before the Legislature was shamed into voting them $500,000 each for their lost years.)
But the intent of this session's amendment-riddled legislation has evolved into a kind of punishment for these impostor convicts for taking up the precious prison cells. Under the bill wending through the Legislature (key hearings are scheduled Tuesday in both the House and Senate), none of the nine men cleared by DNA testing in Florida would actually qualify for state compensation.
Larry Bostic, wrongly convicted of a Fort Lauderdale rape, did 19 years. Orlando Boquete, convicted of a rape and robbery in the Florida Keys, served 13. Alan Crotzer spent 24 years in prison for a rape and robbery he didn't commit. Cody Davis did six months before the crime lab in Palm Beach County checked the DNA on an armed robber's ski mask. Wilton Dedge did 22 years for a Brevard County rape conviction. Luis Diaz, the so-called Bird Road Rapist of Miami-Dade County who, as it turned out, wasn't, served 25 years. Chad Heins did a 13-year stretch for rape and murder. Frank Lee Smith died after 14 years on Death Row. Both Smith and another Fort Lauderdale man, Jerry Frank Townsend, who spent 22 years in prison, had been convicted of murders actually committed by serial killer Eddie Lee Mosley.
OUT OF THE MONEY
Of the nine, only Wilton Dedge has been able to wrangle compensation out of the state Legislature ($2 million in 2005). The rest, under HB 1025 (the Senate is expected to adopt similar language) would be out of the money.
A so-called ''clean hands'' amendment disqualifies any wrongfully convicted chump with a prior, unrelated felony conviction. Of course, when cops go looking for a quickie arrest, they aren't picking their patsies from the Rotary Club.
That nifty amendment's a big money saver. A legislative report on the fiscal impact of the bill calculates, with ''very few people eligible,'' the cost would be essentially zilch.
At least the legislation doesn't charge the wrongfully convicted room and board for all those years they mooched off the state penal system.
Not yet, anyway.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Guest Shot: The Larger Tragedy in an Unjust Accusation
by Ronald H. Uscinski, M.D.
This was originally published in the op-ed section of the Washington Post on March 9, 2008
In the 18th century, Sir William Blackstone articulated what is known today as the Blackstone ratio: "It is better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." This phrase expresses a cornerstone of both English common law and American jurisprudence, the principle of "innocent until proven guilty."
But this principle sadly seems to have been unheeded or even deliberately overturned in matters of suspected child abuse. The D.C. code itself reads: "Where the petition alleges a child is a neglected child by reason of abuse, evidence of illness or injury to a child who was in the custody of his or her parent, guardian, or custodian for which the parent, guardian or custodian can give no satisfactory explanation shall be sufficient to justify an inference of neglect." So the stage is set.
I am the neurosurgeon who testified in defense of Greg and Julianna Caplan, whose 8-month-old twin girls were removed from their home by the D.C. government in a case recounted by Metro columnist Marc Fisher ["A Case of a Family Services Job Well Done, or Overdone?" Feb. 24]. The issue of retinal hemorrhages as a marker of so-called shaken-baby syndrome will not be settled on the editorial page of any newspaper; suffice it to say that the validity of such a marker has always been under serious question, as is the hypothesis (yes, it is still a hypothesis) that children must have been shaken manually to suffer such injuries. I believe that a true understanding based on objective science, and not subjective conjecture, will eventually prevail.
But the erosion of a fundamental tenet of our judicial system is another matter altogether, and it has gone unchecked and even accelerated over more than three decades, to the extent that such travesties as befell the Caplans now happen all over our country, and even beyond. Child protection agencies in virtually every state in the union have powers similar to those wielded in this case by the District, and they have used these powers in a similar fashion.
What the Caplans have endured and still continue to struggle with is not limited by race, ethnicity or income level. No one is safe once suspicion is aroused within an entity that has too much authority and too little comprehension. I speak from first-hand experience, having testified in many such cases over the past decade as a subject-matter expert for the defense. (I have yet to be contacted by any prosecuting attorney to review such matters.)
This is not to say that child abuse does not exist. I have witnessed such cases, and have been deeply and painfully moved by the plight of innocents who have been injured or even killed. This is certainly not acceptable. And yet I am no less moved by the plight of the wrongfully accused (and even convicted), their families and their loved ones. This is particularly so when such accusations are based on impure science, a flawed legal foundation, and completely inadequate or inappropriate public policy.
This is the United States, a republic founded on legal, moral and ethical principles that have served us well. It is not wise to become complacent, or to be forgetful or ignorant of such principles. The words "chaos," perhaps even "tyranny," come to mind.
-- Ronald H. Uscinski
Great Falls, Virginia
The writer is on the faculties of Georgetown University Hospital and George Washington University Medical Center and is an adjunct fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Virginia.
This was originally published in the op-ed section of the Washington Post on March 9, 2008
In the 18th century, Sir William Blackstone articulated what is known today as the Blackstone ratio: "It is better that 10 guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." This phrase expresses a cornerstone of both English common law and American jurisprudence, the principle of "innocent until proven guilty."
But this principle sadly seems to have been unheeded or even deliberately overturned in matters of suspected child abuse. The D.C. code itself reads: "Where the petition alleges a child is a neglected child by reason of abuse, evidence of illness or injury to a child who was in the custody of his or her parent, guardian, or custodian for which the parent, guardian or custodian can give no satisfactory explanation shall be sufficient to justify an inference of neglect." So the stage is set.
I am the neurosurgeon who testified in defense of Greg and Julianna Caplan, whose 8-month-old twin girls were removed from their home by the D.C. government in a case recounted by Metro columnist Marc Fisher ["A Case of a Family Services Job Well Done, or Overdone?" Feb. 24]. The issue of retinal hemorrhages as a marker of so-called shaken-baby syndrome will not be settled on the editorial page of any newspaper; suffice it to say that the validity of such a marker has always been under serious question, as is the hypothesis (yes, it is still a hypothesis) that children must have been shaken manually to suffer such injuries. I believe that a true understanding based on objective science, and not subjective conjecture, will eventually prevail.
But the erosion of a fundamental tenet of our judicial system is another matter altogether, and it has gone unchecked and even accelerated over more than three decades, to the extent that such travesties as befell the Caplans now happen all over our country, and even beyond. Child protection agencies in virtually every state in the union have powers similar to those wielded in this case by the District, and they have used these powers in a similar fashion.
What the Caplans have endured and still continue to struggle with is not limited by race, ethnicity or income level. No one is safe once suspicion is aroused within an entity that has too much authority and too little comprehension. I speak from first-hand experience, having testified in many such cases over the past decade as a subject-matter expert for the defense. (I have yet to be contacted by any prosecuting attorney to review such matters.)
This is not to say that child abuse does not exist. I have witnessed such cases, and have been deeply and painfully moved by the plight of innocents who have been injured or even killed. This is certainly not acceptable. And yet I am no less moved by the plight of the wrongfully accused (and even convicted), their families and their loved ones. This is particularly so when such accusations are based on impure science, a flawed legal foundation, and completely inadequate or inappropriate public policy.
This is the United States, a republic founded on legal, moral and ethical principles that have served us well. It is not wise to become complacent, or to be forgetful or ignorant of such principles. The words "chaos," perhaps even "tyranny," come to mind.
-- Ronald H. Uscinski
Great Falls, Virginia
The writer is on the faculties of Georgetown University Hospital and George Washington University Medical Center and is an adjunct fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Virginia.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Outrageous
When we opined about events in Buffalo, NY on November 17, 2008 (Refusing to Admit Error - http://truthinjusticefiles.blogspot.com/2007/11/refusing-to-admit-error.html), Lynn DeJac's conviction for murdering her 13-year-old daughter, Crystallynn, had just been vacated, and DA Frank Clark was preparing to re-try her. Lynn's conviction was reversed when the DNA of her former boyfriend, Dennis Donohue, was found in Crystallynn's bed and in her vagina. Donohue was finally being investigated for two other strangulation murders, one of which occurred AFTER Crystallyn's death, which bore striking similarities to Crystallynn's murder. Lynn had said from the moment she discovered her daughter's body that Donohue killed the child, a claim that the judge who sentenced her called "a red herring."
DA Clark remained adamant, however, that Lynn murdered her daughter, and vowed to retry her. When police detectives Dennis Delano, Mary Gugliuzza and Charles Aronica said Lynn had neither the time nor the strength to subdue and kill her daughter, Clark went ballistic. "It’s absolutely inappropriate for them to express an opinion on the question of guilt or innocence, when a matter is still under litigation," he said.
Still, what had to be worrying Clark and everyone else who participated in Lynn's frame-up back in 1993, was the fact that they gave Dennis Donohue a free murder, and kept him on the streets to kill again. That's because the prosecutor gave him COMPLETE IMMUNITY against prosecution for Crystallynn's murder in exchange for testifying against Lynn. Just that is outrageous beyond words, but this gets even worse.
Even though a different prosecutor made the immunity deal, Clark knew he had been painted into a corner. The last thing he or any of the authorities involved in the case needed was a thorough airing at Lynn's retrial of all the prosecution's dirty dealing and lies that put her into prison in the first place. Enter the celebrity forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden who, conveniently, is chief forensic pathologist for the State of New York. That means Buffalo and Erie County didn't have to pay him $250,000, the fee he got to testify at Phil Spector's trial that Lara Clarkson committed suicide. Dr. Baden came through for Erie County the way he came through for Spector. He declared that Crystallynn died of an accidental overdose of cocaine, and that the head injury she suffered probably occurred when she was totally messed up from cocaine and fell. No murder. No retrial. No embarassing questions. Back to business as usual. There was even a bonus for the state with this resolution -- the "fault" for Lynn's conviction was laid at the feet of her defense lawyer, Andrew LoTiempo, for not retaining a forensic pathologist to contest cause of death.
These authorities weren't too worried about Lynn's objections to this 180 degree flip. She should just be grateful to be out of prison. Besides, she had been so smeared in the public mind over the past 13 years that she had no credibility left. What they didn't bank on was Det. Dennis Delano refusing to play the game. He released, among other things, the crime scene video, so the public got to see what Crystallynn's bedroom actually looked like. The video is posted at http://www.wgrz.com/sports/sports_article.aspx?storyid=55697&provider=gnews Det. Delano went to Washington, DC at his own expense to consult with experts regarding how Crystallynn died.
Now THIS was a REAL problem. Dennis Delano was a veteran police detective with a perfect record. He was CREDIBLE. So the police came down on him like a ton of bricks. They suspended him without pay, took his badge and certainly are going to go after his retirement, alleging that the crime scene video he released was from an open investigation, so such release was a violation of department policy. Open investigation? Don't they read their own press releases? They've done everything they can to slam the door shut to any investigation of Crystallynn's death, claiming it was an accident. Do they really think the public is stupid enough to buy into this? They've announced that Det. Delano's fellow officers do not support him. We know how this works. The brass tells every cop, every employee of the police department, that any and all contacts with the suspended officer must be reported. Anyone who reports a contact -- ran into him in the grocery store and mumbled "hello" in passing, for example -- gets a complete debriefing. There is no question one's job and pension are on the line, so no cop will lend any public or private support to Det. Delano.
The crimes here are ongoing. The police commissioner, the police chief and the district attorney -- plus a lot of others who facilitate them -- are engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Not only should they lose their jobs, they should be prosecuted. They are criminals.
DA Clark remained adamant, however, that Lynn murdered her daughter, and vowed to retry her. When police detectives Dennis Delano, Mary Gugliuzza and Charles Aronica said Lynn had neither the time nor the strength to subdue and kill her daughter, Clark went ballistic. "It’s absolutely inappropriate for them to express an opinion on the question of guilt or innocence, when a matter is still under litigation," he said.
Still, what had to be worrying Clark and everyone else who participated in Lynn's frame-up back in 1993, was the fact that they gave Dennis Donohue a free murder, and kept him on the streets to kill again. That's because the prosecutor gave him COMPLETE IMMUNITY against prosecution for Crystallynn's murder in exchange for testifying against Lynn. Just that is outrageous beyond words, but this gets even worse.
Even though a different prosecutor made the immunity deal, Clark knew he had been painted into a corner. The last thing he or any of the authorities involved in the case needed was a thorough airing at Lynn's retrial of all the prosecution's dirty dealing and lies that put her into prison in the first place. Enter the celebrity forensic pathologist, Dr. Michael Baden who, conveniently, is chief forensic pathologist for the State of New York. That means Buffalo and Erie County didn't have to pay him $250,000, the fee he got to testify at Phil Spector's trial that Lara Clarkson committed suicide. Dr. Baden came through for Erie County the way he came through for Spector. He declared that Crystallynn died of an accidental overdose of cocaine, and that the head injury she suffered probably occurred when she was totally messed up from cocaine and fell. No murder. No retrial. No embarassing questions. Back to business as usual. There was even a bonus for the state with this resolution -- the "fault" for Lynn's conviction was laid at the feet of her defense lawyer, Andrew LoTiempo, for not retaining a forensic pathologist to contest cause of death.
These authorities weren't too worried about Lynn's objections to this 180 degree flip. She should just be grateful to be out of prison. Besides, she had been so smeared in the public mind over the past 13 years that she had no credibility left. What they didn't bank on was Det. Dennis Delano refusing to play the game. He released, among other things, the crime scene video, so the public got to see what Crystallynn's bedroom actually looked like. The video is posted at http://www.wgrz.com/sports/sports_article.aspx?storyid=55697&provider=gnews Det. Delano went to Washington, DC at his own expense to consult with experts regarding how Crystallynn died.
Now THIS was a REAL problem. Dennis Delano was a veteran police detective with a perfect record. He was CREDIBLE. So the police came down on him like a ton of bricks. They suspended him without pay, took his badge and certainly are going to go after his retirement, alleging that the crime scene video he released was from an open investigation, so such release was a violation of department policy. Open investigation? Don't they read their own press releases? They've done everything they can to slam the door shut to any investigation of Crystallynn's death, claiming it was an accident. Do they really think the public is stupid enough to buy into this? They've announced that Det. Delano's fellow officers do not support him. We know how this works. The brass tells every cop, every employee of the police department, that any and all contacts with the suspended officer must be reported. Anyone who reports a contact -- ran into him in the grocery store and mumbled "hello" in passing, for example -- gets a complete debriefing. There is no question one's job and pension are on the line, so no cop will lend any public or private support to Det. Delano.
The crimes here are ongoing. The police commissioner, the police chief and the district attorney -- plus a lot of others who facilitate them -- are engaged in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. Not only should they lose their jobs, they should be prosecuted. They are criminals.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Guest Shot: Pathologists as cops in lab coats
The following originally appeared in the Toronto (Ontario, Canada) Sun at http://torontosun.com/News/TorontoAndGTA/2008/02/01/4805456-sun.html While it addresses the criminal legal system in Canada, the problems discussed are the same in the US.
If forensic pathologists become 'cops in lab coats' they may not be serving justice -- just the prosecution
By MARK BONOKOSKI
"An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until eventually he knows everything about nothing." -- Nicholas Murray Butler, President, Columbia University, 1902-1945
Dr. Charles Smith is one of those Butler-defined experts, all right -- an expert witness (supposedly) in forensic pathology who lied, invented, forgot, pretended, withheld, dismissed, neglected, guessed -- and, as a result, sent many people to jail for crimes that never happened.
Not to jail for murders they did not do, or for manslaughter cases in which they had no hand, but for murders and manslaughters that never occurred.
"Dr. Smith. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"
Uh, maybe.
Don't know. Can't say. Perhaps.
EXPERT WITNESS
Dr. Charles Smith, now described rightfully as "disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith," was so expert at being an expert that he routinely forgot he had no authoritative expertise, and so he gave lectures to colleagues on how to be an expert witness.
And he did this for years and years and years, with his true abilities falling tragically and intellectually short of his pay grade.
Toronto lawyer Daniel Brodsky, one of the founders of the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted, opined in one newspaper that police should consider laying perjury charges against Smith, all as the public inquiry into his shenanigans prepares to wrap up its proceedings today before the Goudge commission.
Then, when all is said and done, Mr. Justice Stephen Goudge will sit down and write his report on how Dr. Charles Smith was able to keep himself at the top rung of Ontario's forensic pathology ladder for approximately two decades, when his litany of autopsy misfindings and courtroom hyperbole were regularly getting innocent people charged with the murder of babies, particularly for shaken baby syndrome.
About which Dr. Smith once had this to say in a published article: "Defence counsel love to make mincemeat of witnesses, and some experts become paid mouths, so the challenge is to prove there is such a thing as shaken baby syndrome."
The "challenge" for Dr. Smith, however, at least in some of his cases, was to "prove" shaken baby syndrome even when it didn't exist.
The British call this "noble cause corruption."
And he was obviously successful in his embrace of the "noble cause" -- so much so that it caused the catalogued and court-documented ruination of more than just a few innocent lives.
Expert testimony, even when the expert is truly an expert, is often a mug's game. In a slide presentation on wrongful convictions delivered to the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy Convention in Toronto in July of 2006, Daniel Brodsky noted that the adversary court system is "probably the best tool we have in Canada for detecting over-confidence, self-deception and dishonesty.
"Ironically, though," said Brodsky, "(the adversary system) itself is responsible for one common defect -- namely the expert's temptation to overly identify with the cause of his 'side.'"
'JUNK SCIENCE'
According to Brodsky, this is exacerbated by the fact that science is becoming more complex; witnesses remain forever fallible; the run-of-the-mill lawyer, while seemingly affordable to his client, lacks the tools to evaluate and challenge; opinion may have a weight and authority that is undeserved (ie: Dr. Smith); the language of medicine and law are seldom the same; and, courts/juries often lack the skills to render a proper decision in complicated trials.
None of this is new, of course, but it is rarely debated outside the closed confines of the legal and academic community.
Then there is the phenomenon of what has been called "junk pathology" and/or "junk science" -- something that legal scholars claim is becoming a "scourge" of courtrooms.
Think, for example, of social-science scenarios that, prior to 1980, had never been heard of in the court system, and their impact on both criminal and civil litigation -- battered woman syndrome, shaken baby syndrome (see Dr. Charles Smith), post traumatic stress disorder, child sexual abuse accommodation (CSAA), post-partum psychosis, repressed memory syndrome, and hypnotically refreshed testimony, just to name a few of the headliners.
All are relatively new. But is their credence tried and true and immune to manipulation? The answer, of course, is hardly.
According to Brodsky, "junk pathology" and "junk science" have played a role in many wrongful convictions, and not just in the cases in which Dr. Smith was the lead pathologist.
"When junk pathology is introduced to a jury by a so-called expert, the jurors immediately have blinders put on," he said. "And once those blinders have them looking at junk pathology as fact, then the game is over for the defence.
"Using Dr. Smith's blinders, jurors were able to see homicide where no homicide existed. And how dangerous is that?"
From Brodsky's perspective, and from the perspective of the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted, if Mr. Justice Goudge's eventual report focuses solely on Dr. Smith, then it will be a huge opportunity lost in critiquing the system.
PROSECUTION TEAM
And it will be lost, too, if the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons fails to take reasonable steps to ensure that other forensic scientists do not see themselves purely as an integral part of the prosecution's collective team.
"In fact, if those issues are not dealt with, the inquiry will have been a total waste of time," said Brodsky. "Today Dr. Smith; tomorrow who? Dr. Jones?
"We must ask ourselves, are forensic pathologists the equipment of the prosecution, or of justice?
"Certainly, forensic pathologists are thought to be impartial, and therefore making use of scientific means of finding the truth. But the reality is that they work in a prosecutorial milieu.
"Closely tying the forensic scientist to the prosecutorial apparatus may increase the likelihood of junk or scandalous science," he said.
"Pathologists may feel that in order to get promoted they need to provide the evidence that makes a conviction," said Brodsky.
"And that, in the end, tends to morph them into what has been termed 'cops in lab coats.'"
If forensic pathologists become 'cops in lab coats' they may not be serving justice -- just the prosecution
By MARK BONOKOSKI
"An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until eventually he knows everything about nothing." -- Nicholas Murray Butler, President, Columbia University, 1902-1945
Dr. Charles Smith is one of those Butler-defined experts, all right -- an expert witness (supposedly) in forensic pathology who lied, invented, forgot, pretended, withheld, dismissed, neglected, guessed -- and, as a result, sent many people to jail for crimes that never happened.
Not to jail for murders they did not do, or for manslaughter cases in which they had no hand, but for murders and manslaughters that never occurred.
"Dr. Smith. Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"
Uh, maybe.
Don't know. Can't say. Perhaps.
EXPERT WITNESS
Dr. Charles Smith, now described rightfully as "disgraced pathologist Dr. Charles Smith," was so expert at being an expert that he routinely forgot he had no authoritative expertise, and so he gave lectures to colleagues on how to be an expert witness.
And he did this for years and years and years, with his true abilities falling tragically and intellectually short of his pay grade.
Toronto lawyer Daniel Brodsky, one of the founders of the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted, opined in one newspaper that police should consider laying perjury charges against Smith, all as the public inquiry into his shenanigans prepares to wrap up its proceedings today before the Goudge commission.
Then, when all is said and done, Mr. Justice Stephen Goudge will sit down and write his report on how Dr. Charles Smith was able to keep himself at the top rung of Ontario's forensic pathology ladder for approximately two decades, when his litany of autopsy misfindings and courtroom hyperbole were regularly getting innocent people charged with the murder of babies, particularly for shaken baby syndrome.
About which Dr. Smith once had this to say in a published article: "Defence counsel love to make mincemeat of witnesses, and some experts become paid mouths, so the challenge is to prove there is such a thing as shaken baby syndrome."
The "challenge" for Dr. Smith, however, at least in some of his cases, was to "prove" shaken baby syndrome even when it didn't exist.
The British call this "noble cause corruption."
And he was obviously successful in his embrace of the "noble cause" -- so much so that it caused the catalogued and court-documented ruination of more than just a few innocent lives.
Expert testimony, even when the expert is truly an expert, is often a mug's game. In a slide presentation on wrongful convictions delivered to the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy Convention in Toronto in July of 2006, Daniel Brodsky noted that the adversary court system is "probably the best tool we have in Canada for detecting over-confidence, self-deception and dishonesty.
"Ironically, though," said Brodsky, "(the adversary system) itself is responsible for one common defect -- namely the expert's temptation to overly identify with the cause of his 'side.'"
'JUNK SCIENCE'
According to Brodsky, this is exacerbated by the fact that science is becoming more complex; witnesses remain forever fallible; the run-of-the-mill lawyer, while seemingly affordable to his client, lacks the tools to evaluate and challenge; opinion may have a weight and authority that is undeserved (ie: Dr. Smith); the language of medicine and law are seldom the same; and, courts/juries often lack the skills to render a proper decision in complicated trials.
None of this is new, of course, but it is rarely debated outside the closed confines of the legal and academic community.
Then there is the phenomenon of what has been called "junk pathology" and/or "junk science" -- something that legal scholars claim is becoming a "scourge" of courtrooms.
Think, for example, of social-science scenarios that, prior to 1980, had never been heard of in the court system, and their impact on both criminal and civil litigation -- battered woman syndrome, shaken baby syndrome (see Dr. Charles Smith), post traumatic stress disorder, child sexual abuse accommodation (CSAA), post-partum psychosis, repressed memory syndrome, and hypnotically refreshed testimony, just to name a few of the headliners.
All are relatively new. But is their credence tried and true and immune to manipulation? The answer, of course, is hardly.
According to Brodsky, "junk pathology" and "junk science" have played a role in many wrongful convictions, and not just in the cases in which Dr. Smith was the lead pathologist.
"When junk pathology is introduced to a jury by a so-called expert, the jurors immediately have blinders put on," he said. "And once those blinders have them looking at junk pathology as fact, then the game is over for the defence.
"Using Dr. Smith's blinders, jurors were able to see homicide where no homicide existed. And how dangerous is that?"
From Brodsky's perspective, and from the perspective of the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted, if Mr. Justice Goudge's eventual report focuses solely on Dr. Smith, then it will be a huge opportunity lost in critiquing the system.
PROSECUTION TEAM
And it will be lost, too, if the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons fails to take reasonable steps to ensure that other forensic scientists do not see themselves purely as an integral part of the prosecution's collective team.
"In fact, if those issues are not dealt with, the inquiry will have been a total waste of time," said Brodsky. "Today Dr. Smith; tomorrow who? Dr. Jones?
"We must ask ourselves, are forensic pathologists the equipment of the prosecution, or of justice?
"Certainly, forensic pathologists are thought to be impartial, and therefore making use of scientific means of finding the truth. But the reality is that they work in a prosecutorial milieu.
"Closely tying the forensic scientist to the prosecutorial apparatus may increase the likelihood of junk or scandalous science," he said.
"Pathologists may feel that in order to get promoted they need to provide the evidence that makes a conviction," said Brodsky.
"And that, in the end, tends to morph them into what has been termed 'cops in lab coats.'"
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Guest Shot: Exoneration shows system's flaws, strengths
The following opinion was published in the Daily Camera on January 26, 2008.
Exoneration shows system's flaws, strengths
By H. Patrick Furman
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Blind Lady Justice can smile a little bit today. Twenty years after the murder of Peggy Hettrick and nearly nine years after the conviction of Timothy Masters for that conviction, the innocence of Mr. Masters was established through the use of cutting-edge DNA technology. The case provides us with a number of other very important lessons.
The case reminds us that lawyers who defend people charged with crimes -- criminal defense lawyers -- are critical to ensuring that justice is done. Mr. Masters' original attorneys were not given access to the information that the law and the Constitution required they be given. Handicapped, they were not able to provide Mr. Masters with a proper defense. Mr. Masters' current attorneys were eventually given this additional evidence and were able to use it to exonerate Mr. Masters.
The case reminds us that prosecutors and police have an extraordinary amount of power, and that they must be watched carefully to ensure that this power is not abused. The overwhelming majority of prosecutors and police act honorably and fairly, but these police and prosecutors -- with the notable exception of at least one Fort Collins officer who worked long and hard to exonerate Mr. Masters -- did not.
They withheld evidence from the defense and they destroyed other evidence, and they perverted justice. Lawsuits against the responsible parties may not succeed due to the rules relating to immunity for government employees, but any prosecutor who knowingly withheld exculpatory evidence should lose his or her license to practice law, and any cop who did so ought to be fired.
The case reminds us that "the system" does not always work. Apologists for the system will argue that Mr. Masters' exoneration is proof that the system works. A system that keeps an innocent man in prison for nine years because of cheating and lying police and prosecutors cannot, under any stretch of the imagination, be said to be working right. Hundreds of thousands of tax dollars were spent prosecuting, defending and ultimately exonerating Mr. Masters, and much of this money was wasted by prosecutors and police who were, at best misguided, and, at worst, dishonest.
The appeal system did not "work," either. When the Colorado Supreme Court allowed the prosecutors to use hundreds of pages of Mr. Masters' admittedly unusual, but irrelevant, notes and drawings, and then to use a self-serving, celebrity psychiatrist to interpret these notes and drawings as proof of Mr. Masters' guilt, it was wrong. The three justices who dissented characterized the decision as "a great injustice" to the rules of evidence, and pointed out, with great prescience, that "there exists a substantial risk that [Mr. Masters] was convicted not for what he did, but for who he is." The court should re-visit this opinion and acknowledge its error, and no trial court or prosecutor should ever use this decision as a basis for introducing evidence in a court of law.
And the system did not "work" in a more basic, yet often overlooked way: The misdeeds of the police and prosecution have allowed the murderer of Peggy Hettrick to remain at large. No one yet knows whether the DNA samples that exonerated Mr. Masters will lead to the murderer. Police and prosecutors are now interested in a former boyfriend as a possible suspect. Whether or not he is responsible for the murder remains to be seen, but someone is responsible, and the misdeeds of the police and prosecution have helped that murderer escape justice for two decades. We can only hope that the murder committed no other offenses while at large.
The case reminds us that the system sometimes does work. Mr. Masters' post-conviction team, led by Maria Liu and David Wymore, were appointed and paid (at about one-fifth of what they would normally charge) by a state agency with our tax dollars. Money well spent. The post-conviction prosecutors did their jobs and, when their own analysis confirmed what the defense attorneys had been saying all along, they acted quickly to free Mr. Masters.
In the end, of course, the case is about humans. Peggy Hettrick's family must again search for answer, and their grievous wounds have been re-opened. Timothy Masters will likely go free on Tuesday, but he has lost a decade of his life and the problems he will have re-integrating into society will be difficult and pervasive. We need to help all the victims of this terrible miscarriage of justice.
Finally, the case serves as a powerful reminder that we need to make sure that we carefully watch those with power and protect those without. it.
H. Patrick Furman is a clinical professor of law at the University of Colorado.
Truth in Justice Files Editor's Note: District Attorney Larry Abrahamson dismissed the charges against Tim Masters, but he specifically cautioned that Masters has NOT been exonerated by the DNA test results, and that this dismissal did not rule out re-charging Masters. He told the press, "Contrary to news reports, the DNA testing results only suggest that there may be others, along with Timothy Masters, who should be investigated. These test results do not provide us with enough information to completely exonerate anyone." This is a typical response by a prosecutor who refuses to accept responsibility for criminally abusing the power of his office.
Exoneration shows system's flaws, strengths
By H. Patrick Furman
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Blind Lady Justice can smile a little bit today. Twenty years after the murder of Peggy Hettrick and nearly nine years after the conviction of Timothy Masters for that conviction, the innocence of Mr. Masters was established through the use of cutting-edge DNA technology. The case provides us with a number of other very important lessons.
The case reminds us that lawyers who defend people charged with crimes -- criminal defense lawyers -- are critical to ensuring that justice is done. Mr. Masters' original attorneys were not given access to the information that the law and the Constitution required they be given. Handicapped, they were not able to provide Mr. Masters with a proper defense. Mr. Masters' current attorneys were eventually given this additional evidence and were able to use it to exonerate Mr. Masters.
The case reminds us that prosecutors and police have an extraordinary amount of power, and that they must be watched carefully to ensure that this power is not abused. The overwhelming majority of prosecutors and police act honorably and fairly, but these police and prosecutors -- with the notable exception of at least one Fort Collins officer who worked long and hard to exonerate Mr. Masters -- did not.
They withheld evidence from the defense and they destroyed other evidence, and they perverted justice. Lawsuits against the responsible parties may not succeed due to the rules relating to immunity for government employees, but any prosecutor who knowingly withheld exculpatory evidence should lose his or her license to practice law, and any cop who did so ought to be fired.
The case reminds us that "the system" does not always work. Apologists for the system will argue that Mr. Masters' exoneration is proof that the system works. A system that keeps an innocent man in prison for nine years because of cheating and lying police and prosecutors cannot, under any stretch of the imagination, be said to be working right. Hundreds of thousands of tax dollars were spent prosecuting, defending and ultimately exonerating Mr. Masters, and much of this money was wasted by prosecutors and police who were, at best misguided, and, at worst, dishonest.
The appeal system did not "work," either. When the Colorado Supreme Court allowed the prosecutors to use hundreds of pages of Mr. Masters' admittedly unusual, but irrelevant, notes and drawings, and then to use a self-serving, celebrity psychiatrist to interpret these notes and drawings as proof of Mr. Masters' guilt, it was wrong. The three justices who dissented characterized the decision as "a great injustice" to the rules of evidence, and pointed out, with great prescience, that "there exists a substantial risk that [Mr. Masters] was convicted not for what he did, but for who he is." The court should re-visit this opinion and acknowledge its error, and no trial court or prosecutor should ever use this decision as a basis for introducing evidence in a court of law.
And the system did not "work" in a more basic, yet often overlooked way: The misdeeds of the police and prosecution have allowed the murderer of Peggy Hettrick to remain at large. No one yet knows whether the DNA samples that exonerated Mr. Masters will lead to the murderer. Police and prosecutors are now interested in a former boyfriend as a possible suspect. Whether or not he is responsible for the murder remains to be seen, but someone is responsible, and the misdeeds of the police and prosecution have helped that murderer escape justice for two decades. We can only hope that the murder committed no other offenses while at large.
The case reminds us that the system sometimes does work. Mr. Masters' post-conviction team, led by Maria Liu and David Wymore, were appointed and paid (at about one-fifth of what they would normally charge) by a state agency with our tax dollars. Money well spent. The post-conviction prosecutors did their jobs and, when their own analysis confirmed what the defense attorneys had been saying all along, they acted quickly to free Mr. Masters.
In the end, of course, the case is about humans. Peggy Hettrick's family must again search for answer, and their grievous wounds have been re-opened. Timothy Masters will likely go free on Tuesday, but he has lost a decade of his life and the problems he will have re-integrating into society will be difficult and pervasive. We need to help all the victims of this terrible miscarriage of justice.
Finally, the case serves as a powerful reminder that we need to make sure that we carefully watch those with power and protect those without. it.
H. Patrick Furman is a clinical professor of law at the University of Colorado.
Truth in Justice Files Editor's Note: District Attorney Larry Abrahamson dismissed the charges against Tim Masters, but he specifically cautioned that Masters has NOT been exonerated by the DNA test results, and that this dismissal did not rule out re-charging Masters. He told the press, "Contrary to news reports, the DNA testing results only suggest that there may be others, along with Timothy Masters, who should be investigated. These test results do not provide us with enough information to completely exonerate anyone." This is a typical response by a prosecutor who refuses to accept responsibility for criminally abusing the power of his office.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Guest Shot: Clear the Norfolk Four
This editorial was originally published in the Washington Post on January 13, 2008
Clear the Norfolk 4
Gov. Kaine should intervene on behalf of the sailors falsely implicated in a rape and murder.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
RARE IS the case that unites prosecutors and defense lawyers, Republicans and Democrats. Rarer still is a case that finds such diverse parties calling for the pardon of multiple defendants convicted of rape and murder.
That's what has happened in the case of the so-called Norfolk 4. On Friday, Richard Cullen, a Republican, and Anthony F. Troy, a Democrat, stood before microphones in Richmond to plead for the pardon of four sailors who were convicted in connection with the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko in Norfolk. Mr. Cullen and Mr. Troy are former Virginia attorneys general; Mr. Cullen served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia during the first Bush administration. They were joined by E. Tazewell Ellett, a Republican past president of the Virginia Bar Association and now a partner at the Hogan & Hartson law firm. Several other well-respected lawyers and former judges also have rallied to the side of the Norfolk 4.
Why would celebrated members of the legal establishment risk their reputations for four sailors who are neither friends nor family? Because of overwhelming evidence that Derek E. Tice, Joseph Dick Jr., Danial J. Williams and Eric C. Wilson are innocent.
The four sailors found themselves behind bars after initially admitting to the crime, in large part because of coerced confessions and after being threatened with the death penalty if they did not cooperate. From the start, serious inconsistencies suggested the confessions were not legitimate. Their accounts did not mesh with the evidence. Their stories contradicted each other. Above all, police found no physical evidence tying the four defendants to the murder scene. Three of them -- Mr. Tice, Mr. Dick and Mr. Williams -- face the prospect of life imprisonment. Only Mr. Wilson, who was convicted only of rape, is free.
The evidence shows that Ms. Moore-Bosko was raped and killed by a single assailant, Omar Ballard. Mr. Ballard wrote to a friend about the crime and boasted, "Guess who did that. Me. HA HA." When approached after police learned of the letter, Mr. Ballard claimed sole responsibility for the crime and said that "them four people who opened their mouths is stupid." Mr. Ballard is the only suspect whose DNA was found at the crime scene. He is serving a life sentence.
The four sailors filed clemency petitions more than two years ago. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) said he would not rule on them until all legal avenues had been exhausted. That time has come. On Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court reversed a lower-court ruling and reinstated Mr. Tice's conviction. The court essentially rejected Mr. Tice's contention that he'd received ineffective assistance of counsel during his earlier proceedings. The court ruled on an important but narrow question of law; it did not rule on Mr. Tice's guilt or innocence or that of the others. Mr. Kaine should, and he should do it soon.
Clear the Norfolk 4
Gov. Kaine should intervene on behalf of the sailors falsely implicated in a rape and murder.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
RARE IS the case that unites prosecutors and defense lawyers, Republicans and Democrats. Rarer still is a case that finds such diverse parties calling for the pardon of multiple defendants convicted of rape and murder.
That's what has happened in the case of the so-called Norfolk 4. On Friday, Richard Cullen, a Republican, and Anthony F. Troy, a Democrat, stood before microphones in Richmond to plead for the pardon of four sailors who were convicted in connection with the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko in Norfolk. Mr. Cullen and Mr. Troy are former Virginia attorneys general; Mr. Cullen served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia during the first Bush administration. They were joined by E. Tazewell Ellett, a Republican past president of the Virginia Bar Association and now a partner at the Hogan & Hartson law firm. Several other well-respected lawyers and former judges also have rallied to the side of the Norfolk 4.
Why would celebrated members of the legal establishment risk their reputations for four sailors who are neither friends nor family? Because of overwhelming evidence that Derek E. Tice, Joseph Dick Jr., Danial J. Williams and Eric C. Wilson are innocent.
The four sailors found themselves behind bars after initially admitting to the crime, in large part because of coerced confessions and after being threatened with the death penalty if they did not cooperate. From the start, serious inconsistencies suggested the confessions were not legitimate. Their accounts did not mesh with the evidence. Their stories contradicted each other. Above all, police found no physical evidence tying the four defendants to the murder scene. Three of them -- Mr. Tice, Mr. Dick and Mr. Williams -- face the prospect of life imprisonment. Only Mr. Wilson, who was convicted only of rape, is free.
The evidence shows that Ms. Moore-Bosko was raped and killed by a single assailant, Omar Ballard. Mr. Ballard wrote to a friend about the crime and boasted, "Guess who did that. Me. HA HA." When approached after police learned of the letter, Mr. Ballard claimed sole responsibility for the crime and said that "them four people who opened their mouths is stupid." Mr. Ballard is the only suspect whose DNA was found at the crime scene. He is serving a life sentence.
The four sailors filed clemency petitions more than two years ago. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) said he would not rule on them until all legal avenues had been exhausted. That time has come. On Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court reversed a lower-court ruling and reinstated Mr. Tice's conviction. The court essentially rejected Mr. Tice's contention that he'd received ineffective assistance of counsel during his earlier proceedings. The court ruled on an important but narrow question of law; it did not rule on Mr. Tice's guilt or innocence or that of the others. Mr. Kaine should, and he should do it soon.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Guest Shot: That West Memphis Case -- Again
The following Op-Ed column was published in the Bentonville, Arkansas Morning News on December 15, 2007.
Truth in Justice notes that its directors believe Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley and Jason Baldwin are innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. If you want to understand why we have reached that conclusion, see http://www.wm3.org/. We present the following opinion to demonstrate that even those who attempt to cloak themselves in "objectivity" have reached the same conclusion.
That West Memphis Case -- Again
By John BrummettTHE MORNING NEWS
Look for a flurry of activity in the next few days from people supporting Damien Echols and those two other men from West Memphis who got sent to prison 14 years ago in part for being very weird, very eerie teenagers.
Most likely, though, this will remain for now a criminal justice matter insulated from any exercise of media and politics. There probably will be a costly and time-consuming legal process before Echols and the others might get freed.
But I predict their release, maybe full exoneration, even if not for years.
It is always possible, I guess, that Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley, clad in black and talking about witchcraft as they wandered around as misfit 18-year-olds, did in fact torture and kill those three little boys in West Memphis in 1993.
It's too uncertain, though.
The prosecution had no physical evidence and relied solely on sometimes imaginative circumstantial evidence. It extracted easy guilty verdicts from juries predisposed by fear and rage.
Now there are new DNA findings, produced by a sophisticated defense team funded by celebrities like Johnny Depp, who have rallied to Echols' cause. This evidence links none of the three men to the slain boys or the crime scene.
Maybe Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley did all that alleged sodomizing, ritualizing and blood-drinking without leaving a shred of physical evidence. The little boys' bodies were found in water; perhaps the DNA was washed away. Logically, though, I must side with the growing chorus deeming this to have been, at the least, an unsupported judgment driven by emotion stirred by the horror of the crime and the outcast oddness of Echols and the two others.
The police described this as the work of a satanic cult. But outcast kids -- adults, too -- can fancy themselves as witches without being Satanists.
Misskelley, with a low IQ, gave the police a confession laced with contradictions and errors.
He recanted hours later. But the police and prosecutors were on their way. Juries convicted all three, sentencing two to life in prison and giving Echols, the scariest-looking and scariest-acting, the death penalty.
These new findings by Echols' defense team make a case that those supposed ritualistic mutilations were actually the postmortem work of animals.
People will tell you that this was an uncommonly vexing case. Every new bit of police information would neither prove nor disprove the guilt of the three.
But convictions are supposed to rise beyond a reasonable doubt.
Anyway, things are starting to percolate anew.
From Death Row, Echols was to give a telephone interview Friday to Larry King. It was to be taped for airing Wednesday night on CNN.
That day, supporters who advocate exoneration and release for Echols and the others will rally at the state Capitol. They intend to make a presentation to Gov. Mike Beebe, or at least someone with his office. It will be of a massive banner made up of supportive postcards from around the world, stretching a city block. Natalie Maines, the Dixie Chick who is no stranger to controversy, is to be on hand.
The matter has been sent back to Crittenden County Circuit Court on pleadings either for vacated verdicts or new trials.
But the state law on new post-conviction DNA evidence allows vacated verdicts only if that evidence provides prima facie proof of innocence. In this case, what we've seen so far only makes it seems even more unlikely -- or at least unproved -- that the imprisoned men did these crimes. It doesn't prove conclusively or absolutely that they couldn't have.
Beebe is too much the cautious man to free these three until and unless the argument becomes even more compelling. But Beebe also is the kind of man who would do the right thing eventually. I cannot imagine that he would let Echols get put to death. Commuting the death sentence would seem to be the least, the very least, the state ought to do. Then we could argue about whether he and the others ought to be in jail at all.
About this columnist
John Brummett has been writing about Arkansas and national politics for three decades and as a regular columnist since 1986. Last year he won first place in commentary writing from the national Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors. This year he took second place in humorous commentary in an 11-state Southern competition sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists. Email Brummett at jbrummett@arkansasnews.com. Check out Brummett's blog for the latest in Arkansas political news.
Truth in Justice notes that its directors believe Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley and Jason Baldwin are innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. If you want to understand why we have reached that conclusion, see http://www.wm3.org/. We present the following opinion to demonstrate that even those who attempt to cloak themselves in "objectivity" have reached the same conclusion.
That West Memphis Case -- Again
By John BrummettTHE MORNING NEWS
Look for a flurry of activity in the next few days from people supporting Damien Echols and those two other men from West Memphis who got sent to prison 14 years ago in part for being very weird, very eerie teenagers.
Most likely, though, this will remain for now a criminal justice matter insulated from any exercise of media and politics. There probably will be a costly and time-consuming legal process before Echols and the others might get freed.
But I predict their release, maybe full exoneration, even if not for years.
It is always possible, I guess, that Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jesse Misskelley, clad in black and talking about witchcraft as they wandered around as misfit 18-year-olds, did in fact torture and kill those three little boys in West Memphis in 1993.
It's too uncertain, though.
The prosecution had no physical evidence and relied solely on sometimes imaginative circumstantial evidence. It extracted easy guilty verdicts from juries predisposed by fear and rage.
Now there are new DNA findings, produced by a sophisticated defense team funded by celebrities like Johnny Depp, who have rallied to Echols' cause. This evidence links none of the three men to the slain boys or the crime scene.
Maybe Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley did all that alleged sodomizing, ritualizing and blood-drinking without leaving a shred of physical evidence. The little boys' bodies were found in water; perhaps the DNA was washed away. Logically, though, I must side with the growing chorus deeming this to have been, at the least, an unsupported judgment driven by emotion stirred by the horror of the crime and the outcast oddness of Echols and the two others.
The police described this as the work of a satanic cult. But outcast kids -- adults, too -- can fancy themselves as witches without being Satanists.
Misskelley, with a low IQ, gave the police a confession laced with contradictions and errors.
He recanted hours later. But the police and prosecutors were on their way. Juries convicted all three, sentencing two to life in prison and giving Echols, the scariest-looking and scariest-acting, the death penalty.
These new findings by Echols' defense team make a case that those supposed ritualistic mutilations were actually the postmortem work of animals.
People will tell you that this was an uncommonly vexing case. Every new bit of police information would neither prove nor disprove the guilt of the three.
But convictions are supposed to rise beyond a reasonable doubt.
Anyway, things are starting to percolate anew.
From Death Row, Echols was to give a telephone interview Friday to Larry King. It was to be taped for airing Wednesday night on CNN.
That day, supporters who advocate exoneration and release for Echols and the others will rally at the state Capitol. They intend to make a presentation to Gov. Mike Beebe, or at least someone with his office. It will be of a massive banner made up of supportive postcards from around the world, stretching a city block. Natalie Maines, the Dixie Chick who is no stranger to controversy, is to be on hand.
The matter has been sent back to Crittenden County Circuit Court on pleadings either for vacated verdicts or new trials.
But the state law on new post-conviction DNA evidence allows vacated verdicts only if that evidence provides prima facie proof of innocence. In this case, what we've seen so far only makes it seems even more unlikely -- or at least unproved -- that the imprisoned men did these crimes. It doesn't prove conclusively or absolutely that they couldn't have.
Beebe is too much the cautious man to free these three until and unless the argument becomes even more compelling. But Beebe also is the kind of man who would do the right thing eventually. I cannot imagine that he would let Echols get put to death. Commuting the death sentence would seem to be the least, the very least, the state ought to do. Then we could argue about whether he and the others ought to be in jail at all.
About this columnist
John Brummett has been writing about Arkansas and national politics for three decades and as a regular columnist since 1986. Last year he won first place in commentary writing from the national Association of Capitol Reporters and Editors. This year he took second place in humorous commentary in an 11-state Southern competition sponsored by the Society of Professional Journalists. Email Brummett at jbrummett@arkansasnews.com. Check out Brummett's blog for the latest in Arkansas political news.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Acceptable Error Rates
On December 7, 2007, the Associated Press reported that Harris County, Texas is getting help in reviewing cases with questionable blood analysis work done by the Houston Police Department crime lab. The Innocence Project of Texas will assist in the review of 180 cases identified as having "major problems" related to shoddy serology work by the crime lab.
Three inmates have been released because of sloppy work and, potentially, forensic fraud by the Houston Police Department crime lab. The DNA section of the crime lab was so rife with problems that it was shut down in 2002 (although it has since been re-opened). Inaccuracies were also found in lab divisions that test firearms, body fluids and controlled substances. These issues are not included in the current review, which is limited to problems with blood analysis.
The AP report goes on to say that some of the 180 cases being reviewed go back to the 1980's and include death row prisoners. In October of 2007, Bob Wicoff, one of the defense attorneys leading the review, held video conferences with 160 of the inmates who are still in prison.
And then came the most chilling sentence: "Of the remaining 20 cases, half are inmates who have been executed and half have been freed from prison."
Let me translate the pertinent part into plain English: Ten of the inmates whose cases have "major problems" with the serology work that convicted them have been executed.
They are dead, killed by the State of Texas, the most efficient death machine in the nation. No apology can bring them back. But, then, we doubt any apology will be needed, because no matter what evidence of innocence is produced post-mortem, the Texas authorities will deny that it proves anything. Intractable denial is essential to the continued operation of the death machine. As long as the public wants blood – or, more appropriately these days, lethal injection – politicians, prosecutors and police will make sure they get it. Little has changed since Aztecs offered human sacrifice on the steps of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan "so that others may live."
Keep in mind that the ten executed inmates whose convictions were obtained by bogus blood work do not represent a statewide figure. This is just Harris County. There is another batch under review in Dallas. And neither of these groups include Gary Gilmore, Cameron Todd Willingham or Rubin Cantu. And, of course, similar cases in other states are not represented here, either.
Which brings us to the questions each person must answer for himself or herself: What is an acceptable error rate in death penalty cases? How many innocent people are you willing to execute in order to get the guilty ones? One per hundred? Two? Three? Ten? Do you really believe science makes the process error-free? Are you willing to be put to death yourself, or hand over your innocent spouse or parent or child in order to feed the death machine?
When you answer these questions, act accordingly.
Three inmates have been released because of sloppy work and, potentially, forensic fraud by the Houston Police Department crime lab. The DNA section of the crime lab was so rife with problems that it was shut down in 2002 (although it has since been re-opened). Inaccuracies were also found in lab divisions that test firearms, body fluids and controlled substances. These issues are not included in the current review, which is limited to problems with blood analysis.
The AP report goes on to say that some of the 180 cases being reviewed go back to the 1980's and include death row prisoners. In October of 2007, Bob Wicoff, one of the defense attorneys leading the review, held video conferences with 160 of the inmates who are still in prison.
And then came the most chilling sentence: "Of the remaining 20 cases, half are inmates who have been executed and half have been freed from prison."
Let me translate the pertinent part into plain English: Ten of the inmates whose cases have "major problems" with the serology work that convicted them have been executed.
They are dead, killed by the State of Texas, the most efficient death machine in the nation. No apology can bring them back. But, then, we doubt any apology will be needed, because no matter what evidence of innocence is produced post-mortem, the Texas authorities will deny that it proves anything. Intractable denial is essential to the continued operation of the death machine. As long as the public wants blood – or, more appropriately these days, lethal injection – politicians, prosecutors and police will make sure they get it. Little has changed since Aztecs offered human sacrifice on the steps of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan "so that others may live."
Keep in mind that the ten executed inmates whose convictions were obtained by bogus blood work do not represent a statewide figure. This is just Harris County. There is another batch under review in Dallas. And neither of these groups include Gary Gilmore, Cameron Todd Willingham or Rubin Cantu. And, of course, similar cases in other states are not represented here, either.
Which brings us to the questions each person must answer for himself or herself: What is an acceptable error rate in death penalty cases? How many innocent people are you willing to execute in order to get the guilty ones? One per hundred? Two? Three? Ten? Do you really believe science makes the process error-free? Are you willing to be put to death yourself, or hand over your innocent spouse or parent or child in order to feed the death machine?
When you answer these questions, act accordingly.
Monday, December 03, 2007
Guest Shot: Innocent Inmates – Legislation would benefit wrongly convicted
This editorial was published by the Salt Lake City (Utah) Tribune on December 3, 2007.
"Innocence is the weakest defense. Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over again, 'I didn't do it.' Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies." - LEONARD F. PELTIER, Prison Writings
The Greek philosopher Diogenes spent his days walking the streets of Athens with a lighted lantern, looking for an honest man. As the story goes, he never found one.
The lawyers at the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center are hoping they have better luck as they look for innocent men and women among prison inmates in three states. They won the release in 2004 of a man who had spent 19 years in prison for a Salt Lake City murder, but whose conviction was put in doubt by DNA testing. Three other cases are being reviewed. Nationwide, 208 inmates have been exonerated by DNA testing, and in 77 of those cases, the real perpetrator was found.
Along with its commendable work in exonerating innocent prisoners, the Rocky Mountain center is promoting legislation in Utah that would make restitution to innocent people who have had their lives derailed by wrongful convictions. It also would outline a way that inmates can be found innocent based on evidence other than DNA.
The legislation would provide an exonerated person $40,000 for each year spent in prison, and an additional $30,000 a year for death-row inmates, if they agreed this would be the "exclusive remedy." That means they would give up their right to sue the state for damages. Other compensation would be allowed in "exceptional circumstances"; for example, if an inmate were injured while in prison.
The Legislature should consider this proposal, which is supported by the Utah Attorney General's Office.
First, of course, is the moral imperative: In cases of wrongful conviction, the state may have taken years of a person's life, ruined a reputation and inflicted pain and suffering on friends and family members, all because of a miscarriage of justice. The state should do what it can to make it right.
In addition, the state would be wise to offer immediate cash compensation to avoid the possibility of having to pay a huge award if an exonerated person sued for damages. Nationwide, such awards have ranged from $300,000 to more than $10 million.
If convicted criminals owe a debt to society, does society owe a debt to the wrongly convicted?
We believe it does, and this legislation may be the answer.
"Innocence is the weakest defense. Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and over again, 'I didn't do it.' Guilt has a thousand voices, all of them lies." - LEONARD F. PELTIER, Prison Writings
The Greek philosopher Diogenes spent his days walking the streets of Athens with a lighted lantern, looking for an honest man. As the story goes, he never found one.
The lawyers at the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center are hoping they have better luck as they look for innocent men and women among prison inmates in three states. They won the release in 2004 of a man who had spent 19 years in prison for a Salt Lake City murder, but whose conviction was put in doubt by DNA testing. Three other cases are being reviewed. Nationwide, 208 inmates have been exonerated by DNA testing, and in 77 of those cases, the real perpetrator was found.
Along with its commendable work in exonerating innocent prisoners, the Rocky Mountain center is promoting legislation in Utah that would make restitution to innocent people who have had their lives derailed by wrongful convictions. It also would outline a way that inmates can be found innocent based on evidence other than DNA.
The legislation would provide an exonerated person $40,000 for each year spent in prison, and an additional $30,000 a year for death-row inmates, if they agreed this would be the "exclusive remedy." That means they would give up their right to sue the state for damages. Other compensation would be allowed in "exceptional circumstances"; for example, if an inmate were injured while in prison.
The Legislature should consider this proposal, which is supported by the Utah Attorney General's Office.
First, of course, is the moral imperative: In cases of wrongful conviction, the state may have taken years of a person's life, ruined a reputation and inflicted pain and suffering on friends and family members, all because of a miscarriage of justice. The state should do what it can to make it right.
In addition, the state would be wise to offer immediate cash compensation to avoid the possibility of having to pay a huge award if an exonerated person sued for damages. Nationwide, such awards have ranged from $300,000 to more than $10 million.
If convicted criminals owe a debt to society, does society owe a debt to the wrongly convicted?
We believe it does, and this legislation may be the answer.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Guest Shot: With Execution, Let's Make Certain
Editorial originally published November 28, 2007 in the Tuscaloosa (AL) Times at http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20071128/NEWS/711280302/1027/EDITORIAL
You would like to think that our government would take every step possible in advance of a legal execution to ensure that it was not taking the life of a person innocent of the crime.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court didn't see it that way. Instead, it refused Monday to reconsider DNA testing for Tommy Douglas Arthur, schedule to die Dec. 6 for a 1982 murder in Muscle Shoals.
Arthur's daughter said the court relied on a technicality in Alabama law that requires post-conviction challenges to be filed within a certain period of time. However, she points to the fact that Alabama does not provide attorneys for post-conviction appeals, leading Arthur to miss the window of opportunity to file a challenge based on lack of DNA testing.
Ah, the old Catch-22 of the death penalty in Alabama.
The state, needless to say, doesn't require DNA testing in murder cases.
Arthur may be guilty as charged, but his case poses enough questions to warrant a DNA test. Testimony of an eyewitness placed him 75 miles away from the murder. The victim's wife, who said she was raped, testified at first that Arthur was not the murderer. Later, she changed her story, claiming that Arthur killed her husband to let her collect on a $90,000 life policy.There was no physical evidence at his trial linking him directly to the crime.
With Arthur's execution pending, all of this is disturbing. Gov. Bob Riley, obviously bothered by the case, has asked a national organization, The Innocence Project, for information about DNA tests. The group is dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
Riley has the power to delay Arthur's execution while conclusive DNA tests are done. He should do so.
We hope the governor ultimately advocates for mandatory DNA tests in Alabama murder cases. The absence of such a requirement is one of many unconscionable loopholes in the state's capital code.
You would like to think that our government would take every step possible in advance of a legal execution to ensure that it was not taking the life of a person innocent of the crime.
Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court didn't see it that way. Instead, it refused Monday to reconsider DNA testing for Tommy Douglas Arthur, schedule to die Dec. 6 for a 1982 murder in Muscle Shoals.
Arthur's daughter said the court relied on a technicality in Alabama law that requires post-conviction challenges to be filed within a certain period of time. However, she points to the fact that Alabama does not provide attorneys for post-conviction appeals, leading Arthur to miss the window of opportunity to file a challenge based on lack of DNA testing.
Ah, the old Catch-22 of the death penalty in Alabama.
The state, needless to say, doesn't require DNA testing in murder cases.
Arthur may be guilty as charged, but his case poses enough questions to warrant a DNA test. Testimony of an eyewitness placed him 75 miles away from the murder. The victim's wife, who said she was raped, testified at first that Arthur was not the murderer. Later, she changed her story, claiming that Arthur killed her husband to let her collect on a $90,000 life policy.There was no physical evidence at his trial linking him directly to the crime.
With Arthur's execution pending, all of this is disturbing. Gov. Bob Riley, obviously bothered by the case, has asked a national organization, The Innocence Project, for information about DNA tests. The group is dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice.
Riley has the power to delay Arthur's execution while conclusive DNA tests are done. He should do so.
We hope the governor ultimately advocates for mandatory DNA tests in Alabama murder cases. The absence of such a requirement is one of many unconscionable loopholes in the state's capital code.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Updated Message from Sherrie Stone, Daughter of Thomas Arthur
My father Thomas Arthur, Alabama death row inmate is scheduled for execution December 06, 2007. In spite of the United States Supreme Court ruling on lethal injection and it's constitutionality next year. In spite of most states delaying executions until the United States Supreme Court rules. With all this going on, the state of Alabama has scheduled Thomas Arthur's execution for next week 12-06-2007.
The real issue in his case is the fact that crime scene evidence was collected and still exists that the State of Alabama refuses to DNA test. Evidence that includes hair, semen, blood, shell casings and many other items. DNA testing of these items can prove that Thomas Arthur is innocent and was never at the crime scene. He has sat on death row for over 20 years for a crime he is innocent of.
In November of 2007, this month, Alabama Governor Bob Riley requested post-conviction DNA testing guide lines from the Innocence Project based in New York, run by Barry Scheck & Peter Neufeld. The Innocence Project sent the requested information and highly recommended that the Governor allow DNA testing in this case. However, the Governor has taken no further steps since receiving the information.
I have a web site dedicated to my father that has a copy of the letter the Innocence Project sent to Governor Riley. The web sit also has in depth case information and links to all the legal documents. Amnesty International has intervened, the Innocence Project has intervened and thousands of others all over the world. All parties have been denied a meeting with the Governor, including myself and my fathers attorneys. Matter of fact, I recently received a letter from the Governor that he had no intentions of staying the execution. A copy of that letter is on the web site.
My father currently has two motions in the United States Supreme Court, one on the DNA testing, and another on the lethal injection constitutionality. His attorneys are filing stays today in the United States Supreme Court. The Alabama Supreme Court has denied all current motions. Links to all motions filed are found on the media page of the web site. If you truly care about justice, you can find all the information at http://www.thomasarthurfightforlife.com/
Click HERE for the letter the Innocence Project sent to Governor Riley on November 05, 2007.
The real issue in his case is the fact that crime scene evidence was collected and still exists that the State of Alabama refuses to DNA test. Evidence that includes hair, semen, blood, shell casings and many other items. DNA testing of these items can prove that Thomas Arthur is innocent and was never at the crime scene. He has sat on death row for over 20 years for a crime he is innocent of.
In November of 2007, this month, Alabama Governor Bob Riley requested post-conviction DNA testing guide lines from the Innocence Project based in New York, run by Barry Scheck & Peter Neufeld. The Innocence Project sent the requested information and highly recommended that the Governor allow DNA testing in this case. However, the Governor has taken no further steps since receiving the information.
I have a web site dedicated to my father that has a copy of the letter the Innocence Project sent to Governor Riley. The web sit also has in depth case information and links to all the legal documents. Amnesty International has intervened, the Innocence Project has intervened and thousands of others all over the world. All parties have been denied a meeting with the Governor, including myself and my fathers attorneys. Matter of fact, I recently received a letter from the Governor that he had no intentions of staying the execution. A copy of that letter is on the web site.
My father currently has two motions in the United States Supreme Court, one on the DNA testing, and another on the lethal injection constitutionality. His attorneys are filing stays today in the United States Supreme Court. The Alabama Supreme Court has denied all current motions. Links to all motions filed are found on the media page of the web site. If you truly care about justice, you can find all the information at http://www.thomasarthurfightforlife.com/
Click HERE for the letter the Innocence Project sent to Governor Riley on November 05, 2007.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Refusing to Admit Error
Psychologists tell us that cognitive dissonance occurs when we have two ideas that are irreconcilably opposed – ideas such as "the defendant is guilty" and "DNA shows the defendant is innocent." We want to believe we are honorable, competent people. Cognitive dissonance causes mental anguish because it suggests we are neither honorable nor competent. This, say the experts, is the most powerful cause of denial and self-justification, which prompt us to dig in our heels and justify our original position in the face of strong, even crushing evidence that we are wrong.
Nowhere is denial and justification seen as often as in the criminal justice system which, in turn, is the single greatest barrier to reforming the criminal justice system. When Roy Criner was excluded by DNA three times, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller claimed Criner must have used a condom, and said that the young girl who was raped and killed was promiscuous, in direct contradiction of all evidence in the case. Earl Washington was similarly excluded three times by DNA in a rape and murder in Virginia, yet a series of Virginia Attorneys General continued to claim he was "not innocent." This disingenuous ploy leads to only one conclusion: Earl Washington must have raped the victim with another man’s sperm.
We have recently been treated–for lack of a better term–to denial and self-justification by prosecutors in three wrongful conviction cases in widely separated parts of the country.
In Buffalo, NY, Erie County DA Frank J. Clark is opposing a new trial for Lynn DeJac, who was convicted of strangling her 13-year-old daughter Crystallynn fourteen years ago. Clark maintains that DeJac is guilty, despite the fact that Dennis Donohue–the man DeJac has said all along killed her child–has been arrested for two similar stranglings, and his DNA was found in blood spots on the bed and wall in the child’s bedroom and in vaginal swabs taken from her body. When three Buffalo detectives publicly stated they believe DeJac is innocent, Clark was incensed. "It’s absolutely inappropriate for them to express an opinion on the issue of guilt or innocence," Clark fumed. Clark says there is no way to know when Donohue’s semen got inside Crystallynn. He implies that there was a consensual sexual relationship between Donohue and Crystallynn, and that there’s nothing unusual or wrong about that.
Half a continent away, in Lansing, MI, Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings, III joined Claude McCollum’s defense attorney, Hugh Clarke, Jr., in asking that McCollum’s rape and murder conviction be set aside when a serial killer, Matthew Macon, confessed to the crime McCollum was convicted of committing. So far, so good. But this prompted a closer look at the prosecution of McCollum: his "confession" was not a confession, he was excluded by DNA but tried anyway, and the prosecution withheld evidence that proved McCollum was in another location when the crime occurred. Dunning deflected questions about his ethics and an investigation by the Michigan Attorney General by pointing his finger in every direction but his own. McCollum’s defense attorney should have been able to figure out that the video showing McCollum was in a different building on the campus of Lansing Community College when Prof. Kronenberg was killed in her classroom was recorded at the same time the murder occurred. The presiding judge could have dismissed the charge instead of sending it to the jury. Dunning even wrote an op-ed piece published in the Lansing State Journal on October 27, 2007 blaming everyone but himself, and ignoring the fact that Dunning pursued McCollum’s prosecution even though he knew all of the facts concealed from defense counsel and the judge.
In Big Sky Country, Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath and Yellowstone County officials have borrowed a page from Virginia’s playbook. In 2002, when Jimmy Bromgard was cleared by DNA of the rape of an 8-year-old girl in her Billings, MT home, McGrath admitted the state had imprisoned an innocent man. In 2005, Bromgard filed a lawsuit against Montana, Yellowstone County and others, alleging his civil rights had been violated. Pivoting 180 degrees on a dime, McGrath now propounds scenarios to explain who might have left the semen (including the child’s father) while keeping Bromgard in the loop as "not innocent." Yellowstone County has yet another theory to keep Bromgard in the "not innocent" category. Acknowledging that Bromgard is innocent of raping the child, the County now suggests he burglarized the girl’s home the night of the assault.
So are these folks all suffering from cognitive dissonance? Are they honorable, competent men struggling to make sense of the terrible mistakes they made, trying to do the right thing long after they did the wrong thing?
No. Not one of them. Their motives are crass and self-serving. Their actions are despicable, and fit the definition of obstruction of justice: interference, through words or actions, with the proper operations of a court or officers of the court. Let’s take a closer look at each of these nay-sayers to see what motivates them.
In Buffalo, NY, David Clark insists that, even with the new DNA evidence and the similarities between the murder of Lynn DeJac’s daughter and two other women killed by Dennis Donohue, there is not enough evidence to get Donohue indicted. The truth is, Donohue can’t be prosecuted for Crystallynn’s murder because Clark gave him complete immunity in exchange for his testimony against DeJac at her trial. When it sinks in with the voters of Erie County, NY that the DA made sure there can never be justice for a child who was brutally raped and killed in her own bed, one would hope that Clark will be turned out of office.
So far, Ingham County, MI residents have only demanded to know why Stuart Dunnings, III took the prosecution of Claude McCollum forward knowing–as he demonstrably did–that McCollum was excluded by DNA and that he was nowhere near the crime scene when it happened. Remember, it was the confession of Matthew Macon to the murder of Prof. Kronenberg that led, rapidly, to the disintegration of the case against McCollum. Macon is a serial killer. During the time McCollum was being prosecuted and then began serving a life sentence for someone else’s crime, Macon killed five more people. Dunnings is in denial because sooner or later, the people of Ingham County will start asking how many of those five people would not have been murdered if Dunnings had not fostered a false sense of security by prosecuting McCollum.
The impetus for Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath’s about-face is money. It’s one thing to acknowledge the obvious, that an innocent man spent 15 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, but it’s quite another to compensate him. Bromgard went to prison when he was 18 years old. For nearly half his life, he was a target for other inmates who wanted to beat up a child molester. Bromgard had a terrible, terrible time. While other young men his age went to college, got married and had careers, Bromgard was cutting license plates. No amount of money can repay him for the years stolen by his wrongful conviction. But McGrath–on behalf of the State of Montana–doesn’t want to give Bromgard any money. So he grasps at irrational straws to keep Jimmy Bromgard in the "not innocent" loop. And he tries to do it on the hush-hush. After the Chicago Tribune published McGrath’s "not innocent" theories given at deposition, lawyers for the state asked the court to seal all case documents and issue a gag order to squelch the bad publicity. The court refused those requests and the case remains open to the public. That means the people of Montana can see what their AG is up to, and they can act accordingly.
Clark, Dunnings and McGrath are not honorable men struggling to come to grips with the terrible consequences of a legal system that can and does crush the innocent. They have betrayed the trust placed in them, and they should be held accountable by the people they are supposed to be serving.
Nowhere is denial and justification seen as often as in the criminal justice system which, in turn, is the single greatest barrier to reforming the criminal justice system. When Roy Criner was excluded by DNA three times, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Presiding Judge Sharon Keller claimed Criner must have used a condom, and said that the young girl who was raped and killed was promiscuous, in direct contradiction of all evidence in the case. Earl Washington was similarly excluded three times by DNA in a rape and murder in Virginia, yet a series of Virginia Attorneys General continued to claim he was "not innocent." This disingenuous ploy leads to only one conclusion: Earl Washington must have raped the victim with another man’s sperm.
We have recently been treated–for lack of a better term–to denial and self-justification by prosecutors in three wrongful conviction cases in widely separated parts of the country.
In Buffalo, NY, Erie County DA Frank J. Clark is opposing a new trial for Lynn DeJac, who was convicted of strangling her 13-year-old daughter Crystallynn fourteen years ago. Clark maintains that DeJac is guilty, despite the fact that Dennis Donohue–the man DeJac has said all along killed her child–has been arrested for two similar stranglings, and his DNA was found in blood spots on the bed and wall in the child’s bedroom and in vaginal swabs taken from her body. When three Buffalo detectives publicly stated they believe DeJac is innocent, Clark was incensed. "It’s absolutely inappropriate for them to express an opinion on the issue of guilt or innocence," Clark fumed. Clark says there is no way to know when Donohue’s semen got inside Crystallynn. He implies that there was a consensual sexual relationship between Donohue and Crystallynn, and that there’s nothing unusual or wrong about that.
Half a continent away, in Lansing, MI, Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings, III joined Claude McCollum’s defense attorney, Hugh Clarke, Jr., in asking that McCollum’s rape and murder conviction be set aside when a serial killer, Matthew Macon, confessed to the crime McCollum was convicted of committing. So far, so good. But this prompted a closer look at the prosecution of McCollum: his "confession" was not a confession, he was excluded by DNA but tried anyway, and the prosecution withheld evidence that proved McCollum was in another location when the crime occurred. Dunning deflected questions about his ethics and an investigation by the Michigan Attorney General by pointing his finger in every direction but his own. McCollum’s defense attorney should have been able to figure out that the video showing McCollum was in a different building on the campus of Lansing Community College when Prof. Kronenberg was killed in her classroom was recorded at the same time the murder occurred. The presiding judge could have dismissed the charge instead of sending it to the jury. Dunning even wrote an op-ed piece published in the Lansing State Journal on October 27, 2007 blaming everyone but himself, and ignoring the fact that Dunning pursued McCollum’s prosecution even though he knew all of the facts concealed from defense counsel and the judge.
In Big Sky Country, Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath and Yellowstone County officials have borrowed a page from Virginia’s playbook. In 2002, when Jimmy Bromgard was cleared by DNA of the rape of an 8-year-old girl in her Billings, MT home, McGrath admitted the state had imprisoned an innocent man. In 2005, Bromgard filed a lawsuit against Montana, Yellowstone County and others, alleging his civil rights had been violated. Pivoting 180 degrees on a dime, McGrath now propounds scenarios to explain who might have left the semen (including the child’s father) while keeping Bromgard in the loop as "not innocent." Yellowstone County has yet another theory to keep Bromgard in the "not innocent" category. Acknowledging that Bromgard is innocent of raping the child, the County now suggests he burglarized the girl’s home the night of the assault.
So are these folks all suffering from cognitive dissonance? Are they honorable, competent men struggling to make sense of the terrible mistakes they made, trying to do the right thing long after they did the wrong thing?
No. Not one of them. Their motives are crass and self-serving. Their actions are despicable, and fit the definition of obstruction of justice: interference, through words or actions, with the proper operations of a court or officers of the court. Let’s take a closer look at each of these nay-sayers to see what motivates them.
In Buffalo, NY, David Clark insists that, even with the new DNA evidence and the similarities between the murder of Lynn DeJac’s daughter and two other women killed by Dennis Donohue, there is not enough evidence to get Donohue indicted. The truth is, Donohue can’t be prosecuted for Crystallynn’s murder because Clark gave him complete immunity in exchange for his testimony against DeJac at her trial. When it sinks in with the voters of Erie County, NY that the DA made sure there can never be justice for a child who was brutally raped and killed in her own bed, one would hope that Clark will be turned out of office.
So far, Ingham County, MI residents have only demanded to know why Stuart Dunnings, III took the prosecution of Claude McCollum forward knowing–as he demonstrably did–that McCollum was excluded by DNA and that he was nowhere near the crime scene when it happened. Remember, it was the confession of Matthew Macon to the murder of Prof. Kronenberg that led, rapidly, to the disintegration of the case against McCollum. Macon is a serial killer. During the time McCollum was being prosecuted and then began serving a life sentence for someone else’s crime, Macon killed five more people. Dunnings is in denial because sooner or later, the people of Ingham County will start asking how many of those five people would not have been murdered if Dunnings had not fostered a false sense of security by prosecuting McCollum.
The impetus for Montana Attorney General Mike McGrath’s about-face is money. It’s one thing to acknowledge the obvious, that an innocent man spent 15 years in prison for a crime he did not commit, but it’s quite another to compensate him. Bromgard went to prison when he was 18 years old. For nearly half his life, he was a target for other inmates who wanted to beat up a child molester. Bromgard had a terrible, terrible time. While other young men his age went to college, got married and had careers, Bromgard was cutting license plates. No amount of money can repay him for the years stolen by his wrongful conviction. But McGrath–on behalf of the State of Montana–doesn’t want to give Bromgard any money. So he grasps at irrational straws to keep Jimmy Bromgard in the "not innocent" loop. And he tries to do it on the hush-hush. After the Chicago Tribune published McGrath’s "not innocent" theories given at deposition, lawyers for the state asked the court to seal all case documents and issue a gag order to squelch the bad publicity. The court refused those requests and the case remains open to the public. That means the people of Montana can see what their AG is up to, and they can act accordingly.
Clark, Dunnings and McGrath are not honorable men struggling to come to grips with the terrible consequences of a legal system that can and does crush the innocent. They have betrayed the trust placed in them, and they should be held accountable by the people they are supposed to be serving.
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