"Justice delayed is justice denied."

From the blog of Jeff Gamso :

Commentary by an Ohio criminal defense lawyer

http://gamso-forthedefense.blogspot.com/2009/12/justice-denied.html

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Justice Denied
"Justice delayed is justice denied."

That's generally attributed to William Gladstone, though nobody seems to be able to find just where he might have said it. Regardless, it's an old idea, at least as old as Magna Carta. Back in 1215 King John was made to sign off on it.

To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.
The perhaps-Gladstonian phrase crossed the Atlantic at least by 1924 when the Ohio Supreme Court used it in Gohman v. City of St. Bernard (no free copy available, sorry) to describe a Nebraska case that kicked around the courts of that state for some ten years.

Whatever the idea's pedigree, nobody seems to have sent the memo to Florida.

His name is James Bain. He's a free man today, and it's about time.

Back in 1974, a 9-year-old boy was kidnapped and raped by a man he described as having bushy sideburns and a mustache. He picked Bain out of a lineup. Convicted. 35 years in prison. 35 years.

In 2001, Florida enacted a law permitting cases to be reopened for DNA testing.

Bain wrote a motion asking for the testing. Longhand. Denied.
Bain wrote another motion asking for the testing. Longhand. Denied.
Bain wrote another motion asking for the testing. Longhand. Denied.
Bain wrote another motion asking for the testing. Longhand. Denied.
Pepe Le Pew said, "You know, most men would get discouraged by now, fortunately for you, I am not most men." Fortunately for Bain, neither is he.

Bain wrote another motion asking for the testing. Longhand. Denied.

This time, he appealed. And he got the Florida Innocence Project involved. The court of appeals said he was entitled to a hearing. It turns out that there was something to test. And, oh, yeah. Bain is innocent. Wholly.

According to AP, Bain said.

"No, I'm not angry," he said. "Because I've got God."

That's OK. I've got enough anger for both of us. Not because he was convicted. That just makes me sad. Those 27 years Bain was in prison, doing life, because eyewitness identification is altogether unreliable but almost always believed, that's how it goes. It's awful and inexcusable, but in some sense understandable.

The last 8 years is something else. Bain spent those in prison because the courts and the prosecutors didn't give a damn. Why would they want actually to apply the law that was designed to check for miscarriages of justice. They know better. There are no miscarriages of justice. Kids don't lie or make mistakes and juries are never wrong (except when they acquit). Why double check? Why bother?

Because it matters. Because one request should be all it takes. Because, frankly, they ought to be checking on their own. Because even the lives of people in prison matter. Because the fantasy land of courts and prosecutors is a fantasy land. Because of James Bain.

Thanks to Sarah, at Preaching to the Choir, who wrote movingly about this.
Posted by Jeff Gamso at 3:02 PM

Another day, another exoneration

From the blog "Preaching to the choir" :


Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Another day, another exoneration

http://rantsofapublicdefender.blogspot.com/

Do you think that when the Florida legislature passed a statute authorizing the reopening of cases for DNA testing that they intended for courts to deny a guy's handwritten four times and dither for 8 years before finally getting around to the testing? Maybe the delay between this defendant's first motion and the eventual results only seems so outrageously long in this case because the test revealed the defendant wasn't a match.

In 1974, someone kidnapped a 9 year-old boy and raped him. Fortunately, the bad guy left the child alive. And he left behind a sample. Unfortunately, James Bain was wrongly picked out as the bad guy and languished in Florida prisons for 35 years. While they were all wrong, the last 8 seem particularly unnecessary. If a court had just treated his first motion with respect or his second or maybe even his third, he could have been released while still in his 40s (he's 54 now). But as it stands, he had to wait those extra 8 years. And now the court and the prosecutors are all working to make sure he's out in time for Christmas. Boy, then that judge and those prosecutors can feel all warm and fuzzy about doing justice. I wonder if they can totally shut out that nagging voice reminding them that by opposing and denying his earlier motions, they cost him an extra 8 Christmases behind bars.

Mr. Bain is actually lucky that he did prevail on his fifth motion. A successive motion like that could have been considered an abuse of process that should be sent straight to the circular file. Just like week, my state supreme court considered the question of when, if ever, a district court can simply ban a litigant from filing any further motions. Well, here we have evidence that sometimes defendants are persistent not because they're annoying but because they have a meritorious claim that the courts are ignoring. It's pretty hard to argue that Mr. Bain's motions were properly denied now that we know the results of the test.

I am very happy to know that James Bain will get to spend Christmas with his mother, who was beginning to worry she would die before her son ever got justice. But I wish I could have been offering him my well-wishes 8 years ago.

Boston Bar Association: Provide Access to DNA Tests

Innocence Blog
Boston Bar Association: Provide Access to DNA Tests

Posted: December 16, 2009 6:10 pm


A report released today by the Boston Bar Association lays out a sweeping strategy for improving the accuracy of the state’s criminal justice system and calls for the enactment of a law providing access to DNA testing in cases where it can prove innocence.

Massachusetts is one of just three states without a DNA access law, and the Innocence Project today called on state lawmakers to work to pass such a measure in the months ahead.

“Over the last several years, nearly every state in the nation has passed a law granting prisoners access to DNA testing that can prove innocence or confirm guilt. In just the last two years alone, Mississippi and South Carolina passed laws granting access to post-conviction DNA testing, but Massachusetts still hasn’t,” Innocence Project Policy Director Stephen Saloom said today. “This report makes a serious, well-reasoned, broadly supported case for finally passing legislation in Massachusetts to grant DNA testing to prisoners, and we hope the State Legislature and the Governor act on it.”

The Bar Association report was created by a task force chaired by two former prosecutors and including representatives of the law enforcement, defense and forensic communities.


Task force co-chairman David E. Meier told the Boston Globe that a broad group of experts was necessary to create the report because fixing the criminal justice system is in everyone’s interest.

“The wrongful conviction of an innocent defendant strikes at the foundation of the criminal justice system,’’ (Meier) said in an interview. “It impacts everyone: the defendant, the victim and the victim’s family, the integrity of the system, and, perhaps most importantly, the public’s confidence in our system of justice.’’

Boston Bar Association press release.
http://www.bostonbar.org/ebusiness/bbapublications/newsreleaseitem.aspx?ID=7

Download the full report. (PDF)

http://www.bostonbar.org/prs/reports/BBA-Getting_It_Right_12-16-09.pdf

The two other states that lack post-conviction DNA access are Alaska and Oklahoma, but some states offer extremely limited access to testing and need improvements. Visit our interactive map to learn about the details in your state.

Man exonerated, freed from prison after 35 years - VIDEO

Man exonerated, freed from prison after 35 years

December 17, 2009 12:16 p.m. EST December 17, 2009 12:16 p.m. EST

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/17/florida.dna.exoneration

DNA test frees man after 35 years

NEW: "You are a free man. Congratulations," judge tells James Bain
Bain imprisoned for 35 years in abduction and rape of a 9-year-old Florida boy
DNA testing excluded Bain from crime, authorities say
His case was reopened after his fifth request to use DNA evidence

Bartow, Florida (CNN) -- After more than three decades in prison, a Florida man was set free Thursday after a DNA test showed he did not kidnap and rape a 9-year-old boy in 1974.

"I'm not angry," James Bain, 54, told reporters after a brief hearing in Bartow, Florida.

Bain was 19 when he was convicted on charges of kidnapping, burglary and strong-arm rape. He received a life sentence. He's going home for the first time in 35 years.

"I got God in my head," said Bain, surrounded by supporters and wearing a T-shirt with "Not Guilty" across the front. "I knew one day he will reveal me."

Of the 245 people in the United States whom DNA testing has exonerated, none has spent more time behind bars than Bain, according to the Innocence Project, a national organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through such testing.

In 2001, Florida passed a statute allowing cases to be reopened for DNA testing. Bain submitted handwritten motions four times seeking such testing but was denied each time. His fifth attempt was successful after an appeals court ruled he was entitled to a hearing.

Bain initially was expected to be freed with some conditions as the state wanted a further review of DNA test results. But the review was completed ahead of Thursday's hearing.

Polk County State Attorney Jerry Hill told the judge that DNA testing had excluded Bain from the crime.

"He's just not connected with this particular incident," Hill said.

"Mr. Bain, I'm now signing the order, sir," the judge said, referring to an order vacating the judgment and sentence.

"You are a free man. Congratulations," he said, and the courtroom erupted into applause.

In 1974, the 9-year-old Lake Wales, Florida, victim had told police that his attacker had bushy sideburns and a mustache. After being shown five photos of potential suspects, the victim picked out one of Bain, the police report said.

The victim, now 44, lives in Florida and was made aware of Bain's situation, according to multiple sources.

Speaking to reporters Thursday, Bain said he was going home with family. "I'm going to see my mom," he said.

His mother, Sarah Reed, has been in and out of hospitals in recent years. She said she is putting her house and her car in her son's name. "I want him to have something by himself. He's suffered enough," she said.

Asked about prison, Bain said, "So many things can happen to you at any time." But now, "I guess I kind of feel like when they first landed on the moon. We have touchdown," he said, laughing.

DNA Exonerates Inmate After Serving 35 Years for Kidnapping, Rape

DNA Exonerates Inmate After Serving 35 Years for Kidnapping, Rape

Thursday, December 17, 2009

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,580468,00.html


BARTOW, Fla. — James Bain used a cell phone for the first time Thursday, calling his elderly mother to tell her he had been freed after 35 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

Mobile devices didn't exist in 1974, the year he was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping a 9-year-old boy and raping him in a nearby field.

Neither did the sophisticated DNA testing that officials more recently used to determine he could not have been the rapist.

"Nothing can replace the years Jamie has lost," said Seth Miller, a lawyer for the Florida Innocence Project, which helped Bain win freedom. "Today is a day of renewal."

Bain spent more time in prison than any of the 246 inmates previously exonerated by DNA evidence nationwide, according to the project. The longest-serving before him was James Lee Woodward of Dallas, who was released last year after spending more than 27 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.

As Bain walked out of the Polk County courthouse Thursday, wearing a black T-shirt that said "not guilty," he spoke of his deep faith and said he does not harbor any anger.


"No, I'm not angry," he said. "Because I've got God."

The 54-year-old said he looks forward to eating fried turkey and drinking Dr Pepper. He said he also hopes to go back to school.

Friends and family surrounded him as he left the courthouse after Judge James Yancey ordered him freed. His 77-year-old mother, who is in poor health, preferred to wait for him at home. With a broad smile, he said he looks forward to spending time with her and the rest of his family.

"That's the most important thing in my life right now, besides God," he said.

Earlier, the courtroom erupted in applause after Yancey ruled.

"Mr. Bain, I'm now signing the order," Yancey said. "You're a free man. Congratulations."

Thursday's hearing was delayed 40 minutes because prosecutors were on the phone with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. DNA tests were expedited at the department's lab and ultimately proved Bain innocent. Prosecutors filed a motion to vacate the conviction and the sentence.

"He's just not connected to this particular incident," State Attorney Jerry Hill told the judge.

Attorneys from the Innocence Project of Florida got involved in Bain's case earlier this year after he had filed several previous petitions asking for DNA testing, all of which were thrown out.

A judge finally ordered the tests and the results from a respected private lab in Cincinnati came in last week, setting the wheels in motion for Thursday's hearing. The Innocence Project had called for Bain's release by Christmas.

He was convicted largely on the strength of the victim's eyewitness identification, though testing available at the time did not definitively link him to the crime. The boy said his attacker had bushy sideburns and a mustache. The boy's uncle, a former assistant principal at a high school, said it sounded like Bain, a former student.

The boy picked Bain out of a photo lineup, although there are lingering questions about whether detectives steered him.

The jury rejected Bain's story that he was home watching TV with his twin sister when the crime was committed, an alibi she repeated at a news conference last week. He was 19 when he was sentenced.

Florida last year passed a law that automatically grants former inmates found innocent $50,000 for each year they spent in prison. No legislative approval is needed. That means Bain is entitled to $1.75 million.

Fla. man exonerated after 35 years behind bars

Fla. man exonerated after 35 years behind bars

By MITCH STACY (AP) – 29 minutes ago

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h-Io4q44R7xoFi78PEyLMe8G1qzQD9CL78R01

BARTOW, Fla. — James Bain used a cell phone for the first time Thursday, calling his elderly mother to tell her he had been freed after 35 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

Mobile devices didn't exist in 1974, the year he was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping a 9-year-old boy and raping him in a nearby field.

Neither did the sophisticated DNA testing that officials more recently used to determine he could not have been the rapist.

"Nothing can replace the years Jamie has lost," said Seth Miller, a lawyer for the Florida Innocence Project, which helped Bain win freedom. "Today is a day of renewal."

Bain spent more time in prison than any of the 246 inmates previously exonerated by DNA evidence nationwide, according to the project. The longest-serving before him was James Lee Woodward of Dallas, who was released last year after spending more than 27 years in prison for a murder he did not commit.

As Bain walked out of the Polk County courthouse Thursday, wearing a black T-shirt that said "not guilty," he spoke of his deep faith and said he does not harbor any anger.

"No, I'm not angry," he said. "Because I've got God."

The 54-year-old said he looks forward to eating fried turkey and drinking Dr Pepper. He said he also hopes to go back to school.

Friends and family surrounded him as he left the courthouse after Judge James Yancey ordered him freed. His 77-year-old mother, who is in poor health, preferred to wait for him at home. With a broad smile, he said he looks forward to spending time with her and the rest of his family.

"That's the most important thing in my life right now, besides God," he said.

Earlier, the courtroom erupted in applause after Yancey ruled.

"Mr. Bain, I'm now signing the order," Yancey said. "You're a free man. Congratulations."

Thursday's hearing was delayed 40 minutes because prosecutors were on the phone with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. DNA tests were expedited at the department's lab and ultimately proved Bain innocent. Prosecutors filed a motion to vacate the conviction and the sentence.

"He's just not connected to this particular incident," State Attorney Jerry Hill told the judge.

Attorneys from the Innocence Project of Florida got involved in Bain's case earlier this year after he had filed several previous petitions asking for DNA testing, all of which were thrown out.

A judge finally ordered the tests and the results from a respected private lab in Cincinnati came in last week, setting the wheels in motion for Thursday's hearing. The Innocence Project had called for Bain's release by Christmas.

He was convicted largely on the strength of the victim's eyewitness identification, though testing available at the time did not definitively link him to the crime. The boy said his attacker had bushy sideburns and a mustache. The boy's uncle, a former assistant principal at a high school, said it sounded like Bain, a former student.

The boy picked Bain out of a photo lineup, although there are lingering questions about whether detectives steered him.

The jury rejected Bain's story that he was home watching TV with his twin sister when the crime was committed, an alibi she repeated at a news conference last week. He was 19 when he was sentenced.

Judge orders release of inmate James Bain after 35 years

Judge orders release of inmate James Bain after 35 years

http://xml.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-james-bain-release-20091217,0,7580399.story

The Associated Press
10:21 a.m. EST, December 17, 2009


BARTOW, Fla. - A judge in Central Florida has ordered the release of a man who spent 35 years in prison before being exonerated by DNA evidence.

James Bain's release was ordered by Judge James Yancey at a Thursday morning court hearing in Bartow. Bain was expected to walk out of the Polk County jail later Thursday.

Bain was convicted in 1974 or kidnapping a 9-year-old boy and raping him in a nearby field in Lake Wales.

But results of DNA testing received last week showed that semen left in the victim's underwear could not have come from Bain.

The Florida Innocence Project says Bain has spent more time in prison than any of the 245 inmates around the country who previously have been exonerated by DNA evidence.

Bain hearing set Thursday

Bain hearing set Thursday

Stella Reeves, Bain’s mother, speaks at a press conference last week.

By TOM STAIK
Staff Writer
Published:
Wednesday, December 16, 2009 11:24 AM EST

Freedom from a lifetime behind bars may be less than 24 hours away for Lake Wales native James Bain. Acting on new DNA evidence that has seemingly exonerated Bain in the 1974 rape of a Lake Wales 9-year-old, state justice officials have scheduled a hearing before Judge James A. Yancey for Thursday morning at the Polk County Courthouse in Bartow.

“The motion will be to release (Bain) pending the conclusion of proceedings,” a senior official at the District X Office of the State Attorney told the Lake Wales News Tuesday afternoon.

The Polk County Courthouse confirmed a motion is scheduled to be heard before Judge Yancey at 9 a.m. Thursday. They would not confirm the nature of the motion.

Innocence Project of Florida (a public advocacy group that championed the DNA testing on behalf of Bain) said they are pleased with the timeliness of Thursday’s hearing. It comes just one week after the new DNA evidence was made public.


“We are very pleased that the state attorney has been so diligent in working closely with the public defender and the Innocence Project to get James Bain home as soon as possible,” said Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, by phone to the Lake Wales News on Tuesday.

Bain was convicted of taking a 9-year-old boy from bed – leaving the boy’s also sleeping brother and sister behind – and raping him in a field near his Lake Wales home on March 4, 1974. The boy woke and was raped after being ordered to take off his pants. He returned home wearing underwear, secured by law enforcement at the time, that contained semen.

The victim described his attacker as a young man between 17 or 18 with a mustache, beard, and sideburns.

According to Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project, the victim’s uncle, an assistant principal at Lake Wales High School, led the boy to believe the description sounded like Bain. Investigators too, Miller asserts, led the victim to identify Bain by asking him to pick out “Jimmie” Bain, not his attacker.

The Innocence Project was unsuccessful in its first four petitions to have DNA testing ordered on the semen in the victim’s underwear.

According to the advocacy group, witness misidentification and faulty forensics are two of the leading causes of wrongful convictions. Witness misidentification contributed to nearly 80 percent of the 245 wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA testing nationwide. If cleared, the Lake Wales man would have served longer than any of the other 245 persons nationwide who’ve seen their convictions overturned after DNA testing.

The local case may also be the catalyst for the state to create a special panel that could review such situations. That story can be found on page 17.

Discredited forensics may upend rulings

Discredited forensics may upend rulings

Meg Laughlin, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Saturday, December 13, 2008


In 1998, Panhandle high school teacher Jimmy Ates was convicted of murder for shooting his wife seven times in the couple's Okaloosa County home. There were conflicting witness accounts and a time line with wiggle room. But the testimony of an FBI expert was indisputable: The bullets that murdered Norma Jean Ates in the couple's bedroom came from Jimmy Ates' box of bullets.

Prosecutor Rod Smith hammered the point home to jurors: "Of all the millions and billions of bullets that are made by any given company in any given time frame, the bullets that killed Norma Jean were manufactured from the same batch that were found in the box in the back room."

But now, a decade later, another prosecutor has taken an unprecedented step and asked that the sentence be invalidated because "the fairness of the defendant's trial was severely jeopardized." The move could affect murder cases around the country, including a death row appeal in St. Petersburg.

The turnaround for Gainesville prosecutor Geoffrey Fleck came in late May, after he received a letter from the head of the FBI lab. The letter said that the FBI expert who testified at the Ates trial "did not provide sufficient information to the jury to allow them to understand how bullets are made," which meant the jury "could have misunderstood the probative value of the evidence."

The letter to the Gainesville State Attorney's Office was among hundreds of letters the FBI sent out in the past year in support of what FBI agents said in November 2007 on 60 Minutes — that FBI bullet lead analysis is now a "discredited forensic tool" because the distribution of metal alloys in a bullet is not linked to when and where the bullet was made.

"We are going the entire distance to ensure that justice is served," FBI assistant director John Miller said on 60 Minutes.

But Fleck is the first prosecutor to step forward and ask that a sentence be overturned because of the "FBI junk science."

This week, defense attorney Barry Scheck, director of the National Innocence Project, called Fleck's request "exemplary" and said he hoped it would be "the example other prosecutors would follow."

"Getting the murder convictions based on faulty ballistics overturned is a slow process, but it's working because of the FBI's commitment," said Scheck.

Last year in St. Petersburg, appellate attorney Martin McClain used the 60 Minutes information to ask Pinellas Circuit Judge Mark Shames to vacate the conviction of death row inmate Derrick Smith, convicted of killing cabdriver Jeffrey Songer in 1983. But prosecutors have argued against giving Smith a new trial, and, so far, the judge has agreed with them.

But several weeks ago, McClain made a new request asking the judge to reconsider "in light of Ates" saying that, as in the Ates case, the primary evidence — the bullet link to the defendant — was "fundamentally flawed" causing "the fairness of (Smith's) trial to be fundamentally jeopardized."

McClain is waiting for a decision.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Ates will attend a hearing in Okaloosa County, where, according to lawyers for the Innocence Project of Florida and Fleck, he is expected to be released on bail by the judge while prosecutors decide if he should be retried.

Louise Kortaba, Norma Jean Ates' mother, said for a few years after her daughter was shot in 1991 she thought her son-in-law was innocent. But she eventually changed her mind and "felt he was guilty." But now, she says, she's "not clear on what happened."

"If I've been wrong, I hope God and Jimmy will forgive me," said Kortaba.

Prosecutor Rod Smith, who became a state senator and is now a civil lawyer in Gainesville, has also rethought the conviction of Jimmy Ates.

"If we'd known then what we know now, we obviously wouldn't have put that FBI evidence in," said Smith. "But now we know what we know and the state has to meet its obligation."

In his motion asking the judge to vacate the sentence, Fleck also said that police investigators withheld suspicious fingerprint evidence in the house from the prosecutor and the defense.

"The jury was misled about important evidence at trial," he concluded.

Fleck concedes that his position as the first prosecutor in the country to ask that a murder sentence be vacated because of faulty FBI bullet testimony is not popular with everyone. But he says he's thankful his office is supporting him.

"While successful prosecutions are nice, justice is better," he said.

Contact Meg Laughlin at mlaughlin@sptimes.com.



To read the Times previous coverage of tainted bullet evidence go to links.tampabay.com.


[Last modified: Dec 18, 2008 12:06 PM]

DNA tests mean Bain could be released Thursday in 1974 Polk County rape case

DNA tests mean Bain could be released Thursday in 1974 Polk County rape case

By Meg Laughlin, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Wednesday, December 16, 2009

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/bain-could-be-released-thursday-in-1974-polk-county-rape-case/1059002

Attorneys for the Innocence Project of Florida said Tuesday that they will request the release of James Bain at a hearing Thursday.

Bain has spent 35 years in prison for the rape of a Polk County child that new DNA results show he did not commit.

"We're happy to report that we're working well with the public defender and the Innocence Project of Florida to do what's appropriate," said Polk County Assistant State Attorney Chip Thullbery.

Bain is being moved from the Okeechobee Correctional Institution to the Polk County Jail for the hearing.

"We are pleased that the state has acted so diligently in working with the public defender and the Innocence Project of Florida to make sure James Bain gets home before Christmas," said Innocence Project executive director Seth Miller.

If all goes as expected, Bain should be released with conditions by Thursday afternoon. The terms of Bain's possible release are still unclear.

In 1974 in Lake Wales, a 9-year-old boy was lifted out of his bed while sleeping. He was taken by a man he described as "17 or 18 ... with bushy sideburns who said his name was Jim" to a nearby baseball diamond where he was raped. When he returned home and described the rapist to his uncle, his uncle commented that it sounded like "Jimmy Bain."

Upon hearing of the DNA results and the upcoming hearing, Bain's 1974 prosecutor Ed Threadgill said this: "It appears a terrible injustice has been done. It's too bad we didn't have DNA testing back then. It would have saved a lot of people a lot of misery."

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this story.

Our views: Still seeking justice (Dec. 16)

Our views: Still seeking justice (Dec. 16)

Innocence panel welcome, but probe of Preston-era prosecutions still needed
December 16, 2009

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20091216/OPINION/91215024/1004/Our+views++Still+seeking+justice+(Dec.+16)

The story is far too familiar.


Friday, DNA tests proved the innocence of James Bain, a Lakes Wales man who has spent the last 35 years in prison for a 1974 rape he didn’t commit.


Last year, former Satellite Beach resident William Dillon was released from prison after tests proved his DNA was not on a T-shirt that was a key piece of evidence in his 1988 conviction for the slaying of James Dvorak.


In 2004, similar testing exonerated Wilton Dedge of Port St. John of a 1981 rape charge after he served 22 years behind bars.


In recent years, at least 11 convictions in Florida have been reversed through new DNA evidence, often after inmates sought the tests for years, but were unconscionably stonewalled by state prosecutors.


The sickening roster of injustice is why there’s no denying the need for scrutiny of the state’s justice system.


It has caused untold human suffering, piled costs for needless incarceration on taxpayers and left the real perpetrators of heinous crime free to possibly rape or murder again.


Friday, a group of lawyers led by former Florida State University President Sandy D’Alemberte proposed such a probe, petitioning the state Supreme Court to create an “actual innocence commission” to examine the facts in the slate of wrongful convictions.


The court should quickly authorize the panel, which would be modeled on one North Carolina created in 2002 that led to reforms to ensure more innocent persons weren’t locked away.


The Florida commission would be made up of judges, prosecutors, public defenders and law enforcement agents, and should also include victims’ advocates.


Panel members should cast the broadest possible net to find the flaws in the handling of criminal cases that lead to the erroneous verdicts.


And scrutiny of police procedures — such as the accuracy of eyewitness identification — should be a top priority for the group.


Misidentification of suspects by witnesses, as happened to Dedge and Dillon, is a factor in 74 percent of the 245 post-conviction exonerations based on DNA evidence in the U.S. since 1989, according to the Innocence Project.

(2 of 2)



It’s our hope the commission’s findings result in specific remedies and changes to state law to protect the innocent from gross travesties of justice in the future.


But its role will be advisory, without authority to hold accountable any prosecutors or law enforcement agents who may have broken the law in the Brevard-Seminole State Attorney’s Office during the 1980s.


In that era, officials used fraudulent dog handler John Preston and other sham tactics — such as tainted witnesses and jailhouse snitches who trade testimony in return for lesser sentences — to pin convictions on Dedge, Dillon and others.


Roger Dale Chapman, for example, apologized to Dillon in Tallahassee last month, saying he was told to lie by Brevard County Sheriff’s Office Detective Thom Fair. In exchange, he said, the state dropped sex charges against him.


That testimony spurred Sheriff Jack Parker to reopen the Dvorak homicide investigation, a warranted step to assure public safety as much as possible after such a long interval since the crime. But also not enough.


What’s still needed is this:


Gov. Charlie Crist or Attorney General Bill McCollum to order a grand jury investigation of repeated miscarriages of justice in the cases involving Preston.


They’ve ignored previous calls for a probe, but the issue isn’t going away.


We remind them again of their sworn responsibility to pursue justice.


That means determining whether individuals in the State Attorney’s Office did conspire to illegally win convictions and, if so, seeing they are prosecuted and punished.

It’s our hope the commission’s findings result in specific remedies and changes to state law to protect the innocent from gross travesties of justice in the future.


But its role will be advisory, without authority to hold accountable any prosecutors or law enforcement agents who may have broken the law in the Brevard-Seminole State Attorney’s Office during the 1980s.


In that era, officials used fraudulent dog handler John Preston and other sham tactics — such as tainted witnesses and jailhouse snitches who trade testimony in return for lesser sentences — to pin convictions on Dedge, Dillon and others.


Roger Dale Chapman, for example, apologized to Dillon in Tallahassee last month, saying he was told to lie by Brevard County Sheriff’s Office Detective Thom Fair. In exchange, he said, the state dropped sex charges against him.


That testimony spurred Sheriff Jack Parker to reopen the Dvorak homicide investigation, a warranted step to assure public safety as much as possible after such a long interval since the crime. But also not enough.


What’s still needed is this:


Gov. Charlie Crist or Attorney General Bill McCollum to order a grand jury investigation of repeated miscarriages of justice in the cases involving Preston.


They’ve ignored previous calls for a probe, but the issue isn’t going away.


We remind them again of their sworn responsibility to pursue justice.


That means determining whether individuals in the State Attorney’s Office

Wrongfully convicted man says he's far from alone

Wrongfully convicted man says he's far from alone

Staff photo by CHRIS URSO

"There’s more innocent people in prison,'' said Alan Crotzer, 48. "Without a shadow of a doubt.''

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/dec/14/wrongfully-convicted-man-says-hes-far-alone/

By RAY REYES The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 14, 2009

Related Links

Crotzer discusses his case
Former inmate gets $1.25 million
Photos of the case
Bain case reviews DNA

ST. PETERSBURG - Alan Crotzer knows what it is like to be innocent of a crime even when a jury decides otherwise.

Convicted of kidnapping, robbery and rape when he was 19, Crotzer grew old in prison and thought he was going to die there.

Then technology set him free.

DNA testing, which did not exist when Crotzer was convicted of kidnapping, robbery and rape in 1981, exonerated him of the charges in 2006. The same technology may help inmate James Bernard Bain, who was convicted of raping a Lake Wales boy in 1974.

DNA test results released Thursday showed Bain's DNA does not match any samples taken from the 9-year-old victim's underwear. The Tallahassee-based Innocence Project of Florida, which took on Crotzer's case, is now working to reunite Bain with his family by Christmas.

The Innocence Project screens and investigates cases with evidence — typically the DNA in biological evidence — that a person has been wrongly imprisoned.

"The technology is a godsend. Without it, we would've died in prison," Crotzer said Monday night before he took the stage for a roundtable discussion on wrongful imprisonment hosted by the Stetson University College of Law and The Studio@620 in St. Petersburg.

The discussions are held for the public about five times a year. It was coincidence that Bain's case made headlines a week before the Social Justice Roundtable was to present the issue of wrongful imprisonment, although that particular discussion was planned months in advance, coordinator Alizza Punzalan-Hall said.

"We're honored to have somebody like Alan who can really talk about second chances," Punzalan-Hall said.

But the second chances don't come easy and re-entering society can be harrowing, Crotzer said.

"When I got out, I didn't know what a cell phone was," Crotzer said. "To me, it was like a tri-corder on 'Star Trek.'"

Bain, who was 19 when he was convicted on rape charges, faces similar hurdles after 35 years behind bars, Crotzer said.

"It's going to be tough," Crotzer said. "The community needs to get behind him. The community was the reason I was able to function."

Crotzer said he is working with various agencies to establish a program that helps released inmates readjust to society. He said there may be hundreds of Florida inmates doing time for crimes they did not commit.

"There's more innocent people in prison," Crotzer, 48, said. "Without a shadow of a doubt."

In 2007, the state compensated Crotzer $1.25 million for his wrongful imprisonment. He now works with the state's department of juvenile justice, mentoring teens.

He said he feels no bitterness about what happened to him but has lost faith in the justice system. He said he hopes Bain will also receive compensation and gets the support he needs to find a job, a place to live and a purpose in his life.

"He's going to get a crash course," Crotzer said. "It's a brand new world."

Bain's attorneys are submitting motions for his post-conviction release. Meanwhile, the Polk County State Attorney's Office has received the DNA test results and is reviewing Bain's case.

The Innocence Project In Print - Winter 2009

The Innocence Project In Print - Winter 2009

http://innocenceproject.org/news/winter09.php

The Florida Actual Innocence Commission

From the blog Plain Error :

The Florida Actual Innocence Commission

Seth — December 15, 2009 @ 9:00 AM — Comments (0)

This sounds like something every state should have but most states, including Florida, do absolutely nothing to study the cases where someone is later freed based on DNA or other evidence of actual innocence. The innocent person gets out, there is lots of hoopla and it is a wonderful event for them, their family, and their supporters. But when the lights of the news cameras go out and the buzz from the exonerations fade, all we are left with is the same criminal justice system that wrongfully convicted these individuals in the first place.

IPF Board Member and former ABA president, Sandy D’Alemberte is aiming change all that. With the support of IPF and dozens of high-profile, esteemed Florida attorneys supporting him, Sandy has filed a petition with the Florida Supreme Court to create an Actual Innocence Commission that can study cases of wrongful conviction, find out how and why they happened, and make recommendations for reform based on those findings.

A St. Pete Times editorial states:

On Friday, a group of renowned attorneys that includes former Florida Supreme Court justices, former presidents of the American Bar Association and former Florida Bar leaders, petitioned Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince for the formation of an actual innocence commission. The request is modeled after a similar undertaking in North Carolina that brought together judges, police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, victims’ advocates and academics for a two-year review of procedures in the criminal justice system. The commission isolated factors that helped lead to wrongful convictions and recommended changes.

. . .

An innocence commission would comprehensively evaluate investigatory and court procedures, including those for eyewitness identification in cases like Bain’s, and suggest new safeguards. According to the Innocence Project of Florida, witness misidentification contributed to almost 80 percent of the 245 convictions later overturned by DNA testing nationwide.

We should not allow the canard that we have the best criminal justice system int he world to block efforts for reforming a system that is clearly broken. Wrongful convictions are proof that the system needs help. A truly healthy criminal justice system is one that recognizes its faults and endeavors to fix them.

This Innocence Commission is a wonderful idea that could pave the way to curing much that is wrong with Florida’s system and it is one we should all support.

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James Bain Round-up

From the blog Plain Error :

James Bain Round-up

Seth — December 14, 2009 @ 4:59 PM — Comments (0)

Well folks, we had a successful release of James Bain’s DNA test results which prove that he did not rape a little boy in 1974 and that he has been wrongfully incarcerated for over 35 years. Bain’s family was present and made some wonderful comments as well about how the wrongful incarceration has hurt them.

There has been a lot of press coverage and I wanted to point you all to some of it:

Lakeland Ledger (with video)
St. Pete Times
Tampa Tribune

Tampa Tribune again

AP Story in Miami Herald and dozens of other papers around the world
Fox TV in Tampa (with video)
ABC Action News Tampa (with two good videos)
Bay News 9 (with video)
Here is some video from the press conference courtesy of the Lakeland Ledger:


Related posts:
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FL Supreme Court Stays Execution of Paul Beasley Johnson Johnson was convicted for the 1981 murders of three individuals including a Lakeland deputy. Governor Crist recently signed Johnson’s death...
Tim Cole still awaiting pardon Earlier this year, Timothy Cole was exonerated of a rape in Texas – ten years after his death in prison....
Guilt Project? The ABA Journal Blog picked up the St. Pete Times about IPF which ran on Monday. We blogged about the...

‘I’ve been waiting ... for this miracle’

‘I’ve been waiting ... for this miracle’

http://www.lakewalesnews.com/articles/2009/12/12/news/local/doc4b22baf1358ad533402705.txt

BY TOM STAIK
Staff Writer

(Photo by Tom Staik) James Bain’s father, Kenneth Bain Sr., reads a published account of his son’s possible exoneration.

By TOM STAIK
Staff Writer
Published:
Saturday, December 12, 2009 10:07 AM EST

A computer must have seemed the work of science fiction to James Bain in 1974. Thirty-five years later it is a computer that may have given him back his life. Bain, 19 when he was imprisoned for the 1974 rape of a 9-year-old Lake Wales boy, has proclaimed his innocence ever since the conviction.

Modern science, it appears, agrees. Of the 245 people in the U.S. who have been exonerated by DNA testing, none has spent more time behind bars than James Bain.

A DNA test, ordered by Circuit Court Judge James A. Yancey in October of this year, has exonerated Bain in the rape, representatives of the Innocence Project of Florida announced Thursday afternoon on the steps of the Polk County Courthouse in Bartow. Attorneys for the Innocence Project said they plan to file a motion soon to throw out Bain's conviction and get him released. They called on prosecutors to drop the case quickly so Bain can be home for Christmas.

State attorney's office spokesman Chip Thullbery said prosecutors are reviewing the new evidence. He said he didn't know when a decision would be made about the next step.

"Our plans are to do the right thing, and we have to determine what that is," Thullbery said. "We will certainly try to do that as expeditiously as possible."

Bain, the advocacy group says, knew he would be exonerated.

"I always knew I was innocent," the advocacy group quoted Bain as saying when he was informed of the DNA results. "I've been waiting well over half my life for this miracle. I hope to be back with my family real soon."

Bain’s father is happy, too.

“I’m glad he’s getting out,” said his father Kenneth Bain Sr., 81, from his home on West Northside Drive in Lake Wales on Friday. “I thank the Lord for that. After 35 years it really was good news ... It’s a very long time to be locked up.”

“All the best of his life is gone. He don’t know what it is out here now. He never seen a computer,” he added.

Bain was convicted of taking a 9-year-old boy from bed – leaving the boy’s also sleeping brother and sister behind – and raping him in a field near his Lake Wales home on March 4, 1974. The boy woke and was raped after being ordered to take off his pants. He returned home wearing underwear, secured by law enforcement at the time, that contained semen.

The victim described his attacker as a young man between 17 or 18 with a mustache, beard, and sideburns.

According to Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project, the victim’s uncle, an assistant principal at Lake Wales High School, led the boy to believe the description sounded like Bain. Investigators too, Miller asserts, led the victim to identify Bain by asking him to pick out “Jimmie” Bain, not his attacker.

The Innocence Project was unsuccessful in its first four petitions to have DNA testing ordered on the semen in the victim’s underwear.

According to the advocacy group, witness misidentification and faulty forensics are two of the leading causes of wrongful convictions. Witness misidentification contributed to nearly 80 percent of the 245 wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA testing nationwide.

“Seems like it took a lot (of praying). Some people let out of prison killed three or four people walking around the streets,” Kenneth added. “Lord it’s funny. I never understood the law.”

Bain's 77-year-old mother, Sarah Reeves, attended Thursday’s press conference.

"I didn't think I was going to make this day," said Reeves, who is poor health. "And I'm praying to God to help get him out so I can still be here. He's a good son."

If Bain gets out of prison, his mother said, the family would "celebrate all night."

“We are going to have a party,” his father added. “All of the family will get together and have a shindig.”

Sister Jannie Jones – Bain’s twin and together with him the youngest of Bain brook – had always been confident that DNA testing would someday exonerate her brother.

"Thirty-five years of his life is gone," she said. "He'll never get that back. We're going to move on, and we'll be there for him."

The victim, now 45, lives in Central Florida, the St. Petersburg Times is reporting. A veteran of the Marine Corps, he has served time behind bars for several offenses. The newspaper quotes his father as saying he is “very upset” by the development.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

We need to know why innocent people are sent to prison

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/we-need-to-know-why-innocent-people-are-sent-to-prison/1058197

A Times Editorial

We need to know why innocent people are sent to prison

In Print: Sunday, December 13, 2009


It took 35 years for the criminal justice system to face the fact that it had wronged James Bain, a man convicted of the heinous crime of raping a 9-year-old boy in Lake Wales and sentenced to a lifetime behind bars. For nearly a decade Bain was denied requests for a DNA test on the evidence. It took a state attorney finally agreeing this year for the test to be done. The results ruled Bain out as the perpetrator.

Bain joins at least 11 other Floridians who were convicted of crimes and imprisoned only to be later found factually innocent of the offense in recent years. The revolution in DNA testing makes it possible to identify these miscarriages of justice with absolute certainty, but it doesn't say anything about how these errors occurred. Florida needs a commission to study these cases, breaking them down to see the system's flaws, just like the National Transportation Safety Board analyzes every plane crash.

On Friday, a group of renowned attorneys that includes former Florida Supreme Court justices, former presidents of the American Bar Association and former Florida Bar leaders, petitioned Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Peggy Quince for the formation of an actual innocence commission. The request is modeled after a similar undertaking in North Carolina that brought together judges, police, prosecutors, defense lawyers, victims' advocates and academics for a two-year review of procedures in the criminal justice system. The commission isolated factors that helped lead to wrongful convictions and recommended changes.

Bain was convicted largely on the strength of the victim's eyewitness testimony. That sort of account by eyewitnesses has incredible power to sway juries even though it is notoriously faulty. Bain's blood type didn't match the semen found on the victim's underpants. He also had an alibi: Bain and his sister had been at home watching television when the crime occurred. But a jury convicted him anyway. Bain was 19 years old at the time and had no prior criminal record.


An innocence commission would comprehensively evaluate investigatory and court procedures, including those for eyewitness identification in cases like Bain's, and suggest new safeguards. According to the Innocence Project of Florida, witness misidentification contributed to almost 80 percent of the 245 convictions later overturned by DNA testing nationwide. (The Innocence Project works to find and free innocent people imprisoned in Florida. An actual innocence commission would look at established cases of wrongful conviction to determine what went wrong within the criminal justice system.)

The timing of a commission is important. Florida needs to know why it sends innocent people to prison, whether through individual errors or systemic problems. With DNA testing leading to exonerations of the wrongly convicted with increasing frequency, this is an ideal moment for public acceptance of a commission and its findings.

Once these old cases of injustice proved through DNA testing are exhausted there won't be another opportunity to demonstrate actual innocence with the same level of certainty. But there are still plenty of crimes such as embezzlement, where wrongful convictions occur but DNA is typically not part of the proof. In order to prevent these kinds of injustices, the nuts and bolts of the criminal justice system need reform.

Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte, former Florida State University president and a former ABA president, is behind the push for a commission. He points out that the state high court has regularly investigated administration of justice issues. Earlier efforts include commissions looking into racial bias in Florida courts, the impact of cameras in state courts and whether attorneys should be required to report their pro bono hours. An innocence commission falls within the court's scope of duties, and its establishment was one of the lead recommendations of a 2006 report from the ABA Florida Death Penalty Assessment Team. It's time to get started.

When an innocent person goes to prison it is a tragedy for society as well as for the wrongfully convicted and his family. His life is ruined, taxpayers pay for his upkeep and the real criminal is still at large. Florida needs to know how and why these mistakes happen so another innocent person doesn't spend most of his adult life behind bars.

Petition calls for creation of Florida innocence review board

Posted on Saturday, 12.12.09

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/florida/story/1378371.html

FLORIDA COURTS

Petition calls for creation of Florida innocence review board
The Florida high court has been asked to launch an investigation into why several people have been wrongfully convicted in the state.

BY JOHN FRANK
Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

TALLAHASSEE -- Former Florida State University president Talbot ``Sandy'' D'Alemberte filed a petition with the state Supreme Court on Friday asking for a commission to investigate wrongful convictions.

``I think it's just strange to see all the recent exonerations and not try to learn something about the mistakes we've been making,'' said D'Alemberte, who also is a former state lawmaker and former president of the American Bar Association.

The 18-page petition, signed by nearly 70 lawyers including some former state Supreme Court justices, calls for creating the Florida Actual Innocence Commission modeled off a system in North Carolina by the same name.

Such an idea is not new, but D'Alemberte cites the recent cases of Alan Crotzer, Wilton Dedge and nine others who were exonerated after being imprisoned. It also came a day after the Florida Innocence Project announced it has new evidence to clear a Polk County man, James Bain.

D'Alemberte, a prominent Tallahassee attorney, had harsh words for the Florida Bar Association, who he feels needs to do more to police the lawyers involved in these cases.

``I am shocked the Bar hasn't opened ethical inquiries into these recent cases,'' he said. ``I'm surprised they haven't shown more interest in the way the criminal justice system works.''

Rules allow a group of 50 or more attorneys to petition the court for a rule-making procedure and D'Alemberte said this commission would mirror similar ones that looked at the issues of racial and gender bias in the court system.

At least eight other states have innocence commissions.

The one in North Carolina makes recommendations for addressing issues like mistaken witness identifications and false confessions to decrease the possibility of convicting innocent people.

D'Alemberte acknowledges that funding such an entity is a likely roadblock, given the recent budget cuts to the court system.

Florida lawyers push for commission to reduce wrongful convictions

Florida lawyers push for commission to reduce wrongful convictions

By Jim Ash • Florida Capital Bureau Chief • December 11, 2009


http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20091211/CAPITOLNEWS/91211013/Florida-lawyers-push-for-commission-to-reduce-wrongful-convictions

When an airline crash takes innocent lives, investigators swarm the scene.


When a court destroys innocent lives, there are no investigators and no black boxes, and no system for picking apart the reasons for a wrongful conviction, or recommending ways to fix the problems.

That could change if a group of Florida lawyers, led by former Florida State University President Sandy D’Alemberte, can convince the Florida Supreme Court to create a "Florida Actual Innocence Commission."

In a petition filed Friday, the group notes 11 high-profile convictions in Florida in recent years that were reversed through DNA testing.


"There never has been a comprehensive examination of the facts of these cases nor any official analysis of potential reforms in court procedures, improvements in attorney training, consideration of evidence rules, development of new ethical standards, or other steps to reduce the number of wrongful convictions," the petition states.


The group’s timing couldn’t be better.
Thursday, advocates released the results of a DNA test that they say proves the innocence of James Bain, a Central Florida man who has served the past 35 years in prison for the 1974 rape of a 9-year-old boy.


"It’s beyond comprehension what that means," said Mark Schlakman, senior program director for the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at FSU who is pushing for creation of the commission. "Thirty five years of your life for something that you didn’t do."


According to the Innocence Project, there have been 245 post-conviction exonerations based on DNA evidence in the United States since 1989. Of those, 17 were inmates serving time on death row. The average exoneree served 13 years in prison. Combined, they served more than 3,000 years.


Of the 245, 146 were African American.


The Florida cases have familiar names for their efforts to be compensated for their wrongful convictions. Alan Crotzer was released in February 2006 after serving 24 years for a 1981 rape, kidnapping and robbery in Tampa. Wilton Dedge was released in August, 2004, after serving 22 years of a life sentence for a sexual battery and robbery conviction in Brevard County.


Prosecutors in the Dedge case relied on a victim's identification, the testimony of a notorious jail-house informant and evidence provided by a dog handler who was later discredited.


"The Dedge case was just chock full of examples of how the system goes bad," D’Alemberte said. "When you get a conviction based on the nose of a dog, or jail-house snitch, you can pretty much be assured that there is something wrong."

Fla. panel sought to study wrongful convictions

By BILL KACZOR
Posted on Friday, 12.11.09
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1377187.html

Fla. panel sought to study wrongful convictions

Associated Press Writer
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Sixty-eight lawyers on Friday asked the state Supreme Court to set up a panel to determine why at least 11 innocent people have been wrongfully convicted of crimes including rape and murder in recent years and recommend ways to avoid that happening in the future.

Former Florida State University President Talbot "Sandy" D'Alemberte filed the petition that includes three former state Supreme Court justices a day after an advocacy group announced DNA testing had cleared James Bain for the rape of a 9-year-old boy near Lake Wales.

Bain spent 35 years in prison - the longest stretch behind bars of 245 people who've been exonerated by DNA nationally.

"Wrongful conviction harms society in a number of ways," D'Alemberte wrote. "The innocent citizen suffers loss of income, damage to reputation, stress on family members, and exposure to brutal prison conditions."

It also means innocent people are imprisoned at taxpayer expense while "the actual criminal goes free and remains a danger to society," D'Alemberte wrote.

The creation of such a panel was one of several recommendations in an 2006 American Bar Association study of capital punishment in Florida. The Supreme Court in October clarified standard jury instructions for death penalty cases in response to another recommendation in that study, which found widespread confusion among jurors.

Lawyers signing the petition included former Justices Harry Lee Anstead, Arthur England and Gerald Kogan and former American Bar Association President Martha Barnett.

D'Alemberte, also a former American Bar Association president, served on the National Advisory Board of the ABA project. It also examined the death penalty in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.

The proposal for a Florida Actual Innocence Commission is patterned after a similar panel in North Carolina, one of several states that have taken similar steps including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.

The North Carolina commission has made recommendations dealing with mistaken witness identification, improper collection, labeling and preservation of evidence, false confessions, inadequate defense and errors by police and prosecutors.

"The exonerations in Florida have shown that some of the same problems exist in this state's criminal justice system," D'Alemberte wrote.

Another incentive for avoiding such miscarriages of justice is to save the state from paying compensation to innocent people who have been wrongly convicted.

The Legislature in 2005 passed a claims bill that gave Wilton Dedge $2 million as compensation for 22 years he spent in prison for a Brevard County rape he didn't commit before he was freed in 2004 on the basis of DNA testing.

Since then a law has been passed that automatically provides $50,000 in compensation for every year an innocent person has spent in prison.

The law, though, exempts those who have had prior convictions. That includes Roger Dale Chapman, who was cleared by DNA testing after spending 27 years in prison for a wrongful murder conviction, also in Brevard.

D'Alemberte is representing Chapman in a pending request to the Legislature for a claims bill that would pay him more than $1 million.

DNA finding raises questions about how rape case was handled

DNA finding raises questions about how rape case was handled

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/dec/11/dna-finding-raises-questions-about-how-rape-case-w/

The Associated Press

Published: December 11, 2009

DNA may clear man
There are many questions surrounding the case of 54-year-old James Bernard Bain, the Polk County man who may be exonerated by new DNA evidence in his 1974 rape conviction.

How could an innocent 19-year-old be convicted of raping a 9-year-old boy? Why did the 9-year-old identify Bain as his attacker? Is the real rapist still out there?

The 1974 case centered around semen samples taken from the underwear of the victim. According to the Innocence Project of Florida, a group that fights to exonerate innocent prisoners, new DNA tests show those semen samples are not from James Bain.

Still, current State Attorney Jerry Hill says to put science aside for a second. The original trial didn't have the luxury of current technology and was handled appropriately.

"This case appeared to be tried, properly tried. He was well defended," Hill said.

Ed Threadgill was the original prosecutor on the case back in 1974. He's now 78 years old and living in Winter Haven. He says he doesn't recall many of the details of the 35-year-old case, but what he does remember is that the victim identified James Bain as the rapist.

What the Innocence Project and Bain's family wonders is whether investigators or one of the victim's family members planted the idea of Bain as the assailant in the victim's mind.

According to a deposition with the victim, which was taken in May 1974, one of Bain's defense lawyers asked the boy, "Do you know for sure whether or not it was Jamie Bain or did your uncle say 'It sounds like Jamie Bain'?"

The victim responds: "No. Did I say that? Because he didn't say that."

Later in the deposition the defense lawyer asks, "Did he tell you he was the one who did it?"

"No", the boy responds.

"Could you be mistaken?" asks the attorney.

"Yes, sir."

"You could be mistaken?"

"Yes, sir."

James Bain's family says he's always maintained his innocence, and now they want the system to quickly make things right.

"No sense in sitting back and standing back and saying, 'The DNA doesn't match, and I'm going to run it through another 400 times.' Thirty-five years I think is enough time," said Bain's brother-in-law, Harry Amos.

Jerry Hill says his office will not be combing through every detail of the original case. Their focus is on reviewing the new DNA evidence and determining if any more tests need to be done or if filing motions to release James Bain comes next.

"We're not in the business of trying to keep the wrong people behind bars," Hill said.

Innocence Project says test result should free James Bain from prison after 35 years.

Group: DNA Clears Lake Wales Man of 1974 Rape
Innocence Project says test result should free James Bain from prison after 35 years.

http://www.theledger.com/article/20091210/NEWS/912105087/-1/TRAVEL?Title=Group-DNA-Clears-Man-of-1974-Rape#

CALVIN KNIGHT THE LEDGER

Sarah Reed talks with reporters about the results of DNA testing that exonerates her son James Bain age 54 convicted in 1974 of taking a 9-year old boy from his bed and raping him in a field near his Lake Wales Fl. home. Attorneys from the Florida Innocence Project of Florida Inc and Bain's family held a press conference outside the Polk County Courthouse in Bartow Fl.

By Shoshana Walter
THE LEDGER


Published: Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 10:58 p.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 10:58 p.m.

BARTOW New DNA test results may soon free a Lake Wales man, 35 years after he went to prison on charges he kidnapped and raped a 9-year-old boy.


James Bain, 54, was just 19 years old when he was convicted in 1974. He's always maintained his innocence, and now the Innocence Project of Florida, a nonprofit organization that helped represent Bain and funded the DNA testing, says the results prove it.

The State Attorney's Office is reviewing the results and has sent the report, released Thursday, to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for review. Spokesman Chip Thullbery said prosecutors would decide next week whether the DNA, which came from a semen sample found on the boy's underwear, requires further testing. If not, they'd begin filing motions to set Bain free.

On Thursday, Bain's family and friends gathered outside the courthouse in Bartow, surrounded by lawyers, news reporters and passersby touched by the news.

"Everybody ready to go?" asked Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project, before the cameras began to roll. "Wait, you've been ready for 35 years, right?"

Since May 2001, Bain had asked the courts four times to test the DNA. With help from the Florida Innocence Project, he filed his fifth and final request in July. Circuit Judge James A. Yancey granted the motion in October, without objection from the State Attorney's Office, and allowed the test.

"We hope the State Attorney's Office will work with us to overturn the conviction, dismiss the charges and release Mr. Bain, hopefully by Christmas," Miller said.

On March 4, 1974, the 9-year-old victim was sleeping between his sister and brother when a man silently stole through his bedroom window and took him to a nearby baseball field.

According to court records, the boy awoke and his abductor - whom he later described as a young man of 17 or 18 with a mustache, beard and sideburns - ordered him to take off his pants and raped him. The young man ran away, and the boy returned home, wearing a white T-shirt and underwear, which contained semen.

The boy told authorities James Bain was the perpetrator. But Miller says the identification was a mistake. In the boy's mind, Bain had become the attacker. The boy's uncle, an assistant principal at Bain's school, told the boy his description sounded like Bain. And when authorities showed him photos of several young men, the boy said he was asked to pick out not his attacker but "Jimmie" Bain.

Miller asserts there were other problems with the case. During the trial, because DNA testing was not available, prosecutor Edward Threadgill used a comparison of blood types to implicate Bain in the evidence. But a witness called by the defense said the types did not match.

There was also Bain's alibi. Authorities found him at home, where he said he'd been watching television with his twin sister.

Jannie Jones recalled that night.

They'd been watching the family's color television - Bain's Christmas gift to his mother - when police knocked on their door.

They told the twins they wanted to take Bain to the police station to ask him some questions, so he left with police.

"I didn't even wake Mom. I just waited and waited," Jones recalled Thursday. When he still hadn't returned hours later, she went into her mother's bedroom.

"I woke my mom and told her what happened - that they brought him downtown and never brought him home," she said, crying.

Bain was convicted in the courtroom of judge Oliver Greene in 1974. He is held at Okeechobee Correctional Institution, where he meets with Innocence Project lawyer Melissa Montle and gets frequent visits from family and friends.

Lawyers for the organization say they'll file a motion soon to have the conviction vacated and Bain released. But both Bain and his lawyers say they expect complications.

Thullbery said prosecutors are working as quickly as possible.

"This was a very serious crime. Our role is to make sure that the public is protected and that the defendant's rights are protected," he said. "If in fact Mr. Bain is innocent, we don't want to have him spend any more time in prison."

The victim, now 45, lives in Central Florida but could not be reached for comment. The victim's father told the St. Petersburg Times that his son "is very upset by the news."

The victim served in the Marine Corps for five years in his 20s, but later fell apart, and told his father he "couldn't shake the rape." According to Florida Department of Corrections records, the victim has spent time behind bars for various offenses, including cocaine possession and grand theft.

"We don't know what to think, and we have nothing more to say. This whole thing is a tragedy all the way around," the father said.

Bain's family members say they are sad about the time lost but look forward to seeing him free.

"I didn't think I was going to see this day," said Bain's mother, Sarah Reeves, who was recently released from the hospital. The 77-year-old spoke from her wheelchair. "We're not gonna let him out of our sight."

[ Shoshana Walter can be reached at shoshana.walter@theledger.com or . ]

New DNA evidence might free man convicted in 1974 Polk rape

New DNA evidence might free man convicted in 1974 Polk rape

By Meg Laughlin, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Thursday, December 10, 2009

http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/article1057622.ece

Thirty-five years ago, a 9-year-old boy was raped in a field near his Lake Wales home. Five months later, a 19-year-old man was convicted of the rape and sent to prison for life.

Now, DNA tests show he was the wrong man.

"Thirty-five years is a lifetime. We hope the state won't prolong James Bain's incarceration," said Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida.

Of the 245 people in the United States exonerated by DNA evidence since 1989, not one has spent as much time in prison as James Bain.

The State Attorney's Office for the 10th Circuit received the DNA results Wednesday afternoon.

"We're looking at them to determine what to do next," Assistant State Attorney Chip Thullbery said. "We're asking how does this match up with the case. And we'll have to review the case and see. We're also asking do we want to run (the semen) through a different lab."

• • •

On March 4, 1974, the boy was sleeping in a queen-sized bed between his sisters, 10 and 11, when a man crawled through an open window and quietly

lifted him out of bed.

The boy didn't wake up when the man carried him out the door and through an orange grove to a baseball diamond in an open field. He didn't wake up till the man laid him in the dust and yelled at him to pull down his pants.

Later, the boy told police the man said he thought he was a girl, because his hair was pin-curled with bobby pins.

"He made me turn over," the boy said.

Within an hour the parents discovered their child missing and called police. Police searched the nearby orange grove and found nothing. The boy staggered home, dazed. He was wearing the white T-shirt and underpants he had worn to bed, his underwear now wet with semen. A medical examination showed a badly torn rectum.

That night, police said the child described the rapist this way: "Bushy sideburns … 17 or 18 … he said his name was Jim."

The boy's uncle, who was at the house, said the description pointed to Jimmy Bain.

Jimmy Bain, 18, who had been a student at the high school where the uncle was assistant principal. Jimmy Bain who had bushy sideburns and rode around town on a motorcycle. Jimmy Bain, whom the boy said he had seen before, though it was hard to describe him because he wore a helmet.

Police went to Bain's home and took his picture. They mixed it in with color Polaroids of four other young men. The boy picked Bain.

Later, in a deposition, the boy described how he identified his attacker to a police officer.

"He asked me can I pick out Jimmie Bains," the boy said. "And I picked him out."

He said it was the same man who took him out to the ball park.

At trial, an FBI analyst testified that the semen on the underpants came from a person with blood group B. Bain's blood group is AB, but the analyst said Bain could not be ruled out as the person who deposited the semen. A defense expert testified that because Bain's blood group was AB with a strong A factor it ruled him out as a suspect.

Bain, who had no previous criminal record, provided an alibi. He and his sister told police they were at home watching TV together at the time the boy disappeared. The jury convicted him anyway.

• • •

In 2001, Bain twice requested DNA testing of the boy's underwear. The requests were rejected. He asked again in 2003 and 2006 and was denied both times. In July of this year, Bain requested DNA testing again. This time a Polk County judge granted the motion.

From the DNA Diagnostics Center report dated Dec. 9:

"The partial DNA profile obtained from item 01.C.1s (section from underwear sperm fraction) is not consistent with the DNA profile from James Bain."

Innocence Project attorney Melissa Montle called Bain, 54, at Okeechobee Correctional Institution to tell him the news.

"I always knew I was innocent," Bain was quoted saying. "I've been waiting well over half my life for this miracle. I hope to be back with my family real soon."

Attorneys for the Innocence Project said they expect to file a motion soon to have Bain's conviction vacated and asking that he be released.

The victim, who is now 45 and lives in Central Florida, refused to talk to the St. Petersburg Times. But his father (who asked not to be identified to protect his son) said that his son "is very upset by the news."

Because he still believes Bain raped him, or because it appears the wrong man was convicted?

"Now, we can't be sure," said the father.

The victim was in the Marine Corps for over five years in his 20s. His father described him as "disciplined and upstanding until he fell apart."

Florida Department of Corrections records show that by his mid 30s the victim was going in and out of prison for cocaine possession and theft.

"Once, on the way to rehab, he told me he couldn't shake the rape," said the father.

In August 2006, prison records show that the victim and Bain were at the same prison. The victim requested and got a transfer.

Now, the father says: "We don't know what to think, and we have nothing more to say. This whole thing is a tragedy all the way around."

Meg Laughlin can be reached at mlaughlin@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8068 (727) 893-8068.



[Last modified: Dec 09, 2009 11:20 PM]

James Bain's mother, 77 years old Sarah Reed, speaks to the media at an afternoon press conference.

DNA evidence could free man in prison for 35 years

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2009/dec/10/101535/dna-could-exonerate-man-prison-35-years-rape-lake-/news-breaking

Staff photo by JENNIFER LEIGH

James Bain's mother, 77 years old Sarah Reed, speaks to the media at an afternoon press conference.

By RAY REYES The Tampa Tribune
Published: December 10, 2009

DDC report

Defense serologist deposition
Defense serology report
DNA test order
FBI serologist deposition
FBI serology report
Jury trial progress report
Preliminary hearing transcript
Supplemented motion for DNA test


James Bain
He was sentenced to life in prison in the rape of a Lake Wales boy, but James Bain always said he was innocent.

Now, 35 years later, new DNA evidence backs up the inmate's claim.

The results show that Bain's DNA does not match any samples on the victim's underwear, according to a report released Wednesday by the Ohio-based DNA Diagnostics Center.

"I always knew I was innocent," Bain, now 54, said in a news release. "I've been waiting well over half my life for this miracle. I hope to be back with my family real soon."

Attorneys for Bain, and the Innocence Project of Florida which took on the case, say they are working to free Bain from the Okeechobee Correctional Institution and reunite him with his family by Christmas.

A motion for a post-conviction release will be filed within the next couple of days, Bain's attorney, Bob Young, said.

The Innocence Project screens and investigates cases with strong evidence – typically biological evidence – that a person has been wrongly imprisoned, executive director Seth Miller said.

Bain was 19 years old when he was convicted of rape, kidnapping and breaking and entering.

"Thirty-five years of his life is gone and we'll never get that back," his sister, Jacqueline Bain, said at a news conference in Bartow this afternoon. "But we're here for him. He's going to be alright."

Polk County State Attorney's Office spokesman Chip Thullbery said his agency has received the DNA test results and is reviewing the facts of the case.

"We simply want to do the right thing," Thullbery said. "We're not going to rush to judgment."

Prosecutors may ask a different lab to run another test, he said.

Court records show that the victim, then 9, remembers falling asleep on a bed with his siblings on the night of March 4, 1974. The boy said he didn't recall being taken out of his mother's Lake Wales home but awoke to see a man dragging him by the arm.

The man took him past a baseball diamond and stopped on a dirt road, the boy said. The man slapped him, forced him to the ground and raped him.

The man ran off and the boy wandered back to his house wearing only a T-shirt and jockey underwear.

The boy said his attacker had bushy sideburns and a mustache. The victim's uncle, a former assistant principal, said the description sounded like Bain, whom the uncle knew when Bain was a student at the local high school, court records show.

Detectives showed the boy photographs of possible suspects, including Bain. Detectives did not ask the victim to identify the attacker and instead asked him if "I can pick out Jimmy Bain," the boy said in his deposition.

Court records show that police denied asking that question and said they simply showed the victim five photographs and that the boy pointed to Bain's.

Police went to Bain's home that night and arrested him. His sister Jannie Bain testified that she and her brother were watching television during the time the boy was raped.

At the trial, the jury heard conflicting testimony about blood samples taken into evidence and rejected Bain's alibi in favor of the boy's eyewitness identification, Young said.

Bain has filed motions for DNA testing since 2001 but was denied each time. The Polk state attorney's office agreed to the testing in October.

The key piece of evidence—the boy's underwear—had been stored for more than three decades at the Polk County Clerk of the Circuit Court yet the DNA samples had not degraded, Young said.

Since 2003, the Innocence Project has helped exonerate 245 inmates nationwide through DNA evidence. Out of that number, Bain has served his sentence the longest, Miller said.


Reporter Ray Reyes can be reached at (813) 259-7920 (813) 259-7920.

Bain has Served Over 35 Years for a Rape he Did Not Commit; Attorneys Call for Release by Christmas

Seth Miller and Juan Melendez

Innocence Project of Florida, Inc.
1100 East Park Avenue, Tallahassee, FL 32301
Telephone 850.561.6767 Fax 850.561.5077

PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
December 10, 2009

Contacts:
Seth Miller, Esq.: 202.341.2127
Melissa Montle, Esq.: 561.843.9304
Bob Young, Esq: 863.534.4258



DNA Testing Demonstrates James Bain is Innocent
Bain has Served Over 35 Years for a Rape he Did Not Commit; Attorneys Call for Release by Christmas

Tallahassee, Florida—On Thursday, December 9, 2009, DNA Diagnostics Center, a nationally recognized forensic laboratory in Fairfield, Ohio, issued a report in the case of State of Florida v. James Bain, which demonstrates Bain’s actual innocence of a 1974 kidnapping and rape of a nine-year-old boy in Lake Wales, Polk County, Florida.

The court ordered testing on DNA of sperm found on the child’s underwear worn during the rape only after the State Attorney agreed to the testing and to this nationally-recognized lab. The testing, announced today, excludes James Bain as the donor of the sperm, confirming that someone other than Bain raped the victim. “After over 35 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, this evidence of actual innocence should finally allow the State to do the right thing and release this innocent man before he spends his 36th Christmas locked up for a crime he didn’t have anything to do with,” said Bain’s local counsel, Bob Young, General Counsel in the office of J. Marion Moorman, Public Defender of the Tenth Judicial Circuit.

Bain was convicted when the jury rejected his alibi evidence (he was home with his sister) in favor of the eye-witness identification of the nine-year-old victim. The jury also heard conflicting testimony about ABO blood grouping, but believed the little boy to the exclusion of the other evidence. “Today’s DNA results demonstrate conclusively that the victim was mistaken about who raped him and the FBI’s testimony regarding whose semen was on the underwear was simply wrong,” said Melissa Montle, Staff Attorney with the Innocence Project of Florida (IPF).

According to the Innocence Project of Florida, witness misidentification and faulty forensics are two of the leading causes of wrongful convictions. Specifically, witness misidentification is the leading cause, contributing to almost 80% of the 245 wrongful convictions later overturned by DNA testing nationwide.

Bain tried numerous times to file his own requests for DNA testing since 2001. Until the agreement of this State Attorney in October 2009, he was rebuffed by the courts at every turn. “Jamie Bain has always known he was innocent and has been trying to get this DNA testing for almost a decade. Florida’s criminal justice system is just ill-equipped to give folks like Jamie a meaningful opportunity to prove their innocence. Commendably, the State agreed to the testing and I hope that after seeing these conclusive DNA test results, they will agree that Jamie should come home by Christmas,” said IPF’s Executive Director, Seth Miller.

When informed of the results, Bain said, “I always knew I was innocent. I’ve been waiting well over half my life for this miracle. I hope to be back with my family real soon.”

The Innocence Project of Florida (IPF) is a 501©(3) organization dedicated to finding and freeing innocent people in Florida prisons. IPF, along with Robert Young, General Counsel for the Tenth Judicial Circuit Public Defender, J. Marion Moorman, represents James Bain. IPF’s website is www.FloridaInnocence.org.

# # #

To view the exclusionary DNA test report, click here.

# # #

Statement of Facts: State of Florida v. James Bain

On August 23, 1974, James Bain was convicted of rape, breaking and entering and kidnapping, and was sentenced to life in prison by the Tenth Judicial Circuit Court in Polk County, Florida. Over 35 years later, on October 16, 2009, that same Court granted DNA testing of semen found in the crotch area of the nine-year-old victim’s underwear and on December 9, 2009 a report was issued revealing DNA results which demonstrate Bain’s actual innocence. Bain’s 35 years of wrongful incarceration is the longest time served by any of the 245 individuals exonerated by DNA evidence in our nation to date.

The DNA: Bain initially represented himself because people in his position are not entitled to a court-appointed attorney. Following the rules as best he could, he filed numerous motions requesting DNA testing beginning in 2001. All of his requests were denied by the circuit and appellate courts. DNA evidence that proves Bain’s innocence came as a result of a 2009 motion filed by Bain’s attorneys, Robert Young, of the Tenth Judicial Circuit Public Defender and the Innocence Project of Florida (“IPF”). The testing was paid for by IPF and performed at DNA Diagnostics Center, a private lab in Fairfield, Ohio. Only on this last attempt did the State Attorney for the Tenth Circuit agree to the testing. The State Attorney’s agreement set the stage for the DNA testing which has revealed that DNA from sperm on the nine-year-old victim’s underwear came from someone other than Bain, thus confirming that someone other than Bain committed the breaking and entering, kidnapping, and rape.

The Crime: Late on the night of March 4, 1974, the victim was taken from his bedroom through a window to a nearby field and raped by an unknown male. When the victim returned home, he was wearing only a white t-shirt and jockey underwear. The police collected his underwear and sent it to the FBI for serological testing.

Bain became a suspect after the victim described his assailant and the victim’s uncle stated that the man he was describing sounded like James Bain, who he knew as a student at the high school where he was assistant principal. After his uncle mentioned the name, the victim adopted Bain as the rapist. When the police arrived at Bain’s house around midnight on March 5, 1974, Bain was at home with his sister where he had been since around 10:30pm. Although James Bain had an alibi, never confessed to the crime, and always maintained his innocence, police arrested him.

The Trial: The State’s case was based largely on serology on the underwear performed by the FBI and the victim’s identification of Bain as his assailant. The underwear itself was admitted at trial as State’s Exhibit #1. Contrary to the FBI testimony, a defense expert testified at trial that the serological results revealed that Bain could not have been the depositor of the semen on the victim’s underwear. In addition, there was testimony regarding Bain’s alibi presented at trial and the eye-witness testimony of the nine-year-old.

(1) Victim’s Misidentification: The police had already arrived at the victim’s home when he returned after the assault. The victim gave the officers a physical description of his assailant, which included very prominent sideburns, and said he identified himself as “Jimmy.” The description was then given to the victim’s uncle who stated that he knew an individual named Jimmy Bain who fit the description. After the uncle stated Bain’s name, the victim adopted Bain as his assailant. At this point, the police took the victim to the police station (along with his father and uncle) and presented him with a photo lineup. Bain’s photo was included in the lineup, along with four or five other males, only one of which had sideburns. Rather than asking the victim to pick out the photo of his assailant, the police suggestively and improperly instructed him to pick out Bain’s photo, and he did. DNA results now prove the victim’s suggestive identification of Bain as his rapist to be a mistake.

(2) Fudged FBI Serology: Serology testing performed pre-trial by the FBI on the victim’s underwear verified that the rapist did deposit semen on the victim’s underwear and sperm heads were seen on the underwear by the FBI at that time. FBI analyst, William A. Gavin, testified that the semen on the underwear was blood group B, that Bain’s blood group was AB (with a weak A), and that Bain could not be excluded as the depositer of the semen. DNA results now prove this FBI testimony to be patently false.

(3) The Victim’s Underwear: the State’s Key Piece of Physical Evidence: At trial, the State’s theory of the case was clear: the perpetrator who raped the victim ejaculated and deposited his semen and sperm onto the victim’s underwear—and that person was James Bain. The underwear was admitted into evidence at trial by the State solely for this purpose. DNA results now prove that the State’s theory, along with the evidence used to prove its theory, was simply wrong.

(4) Defense’s Medical Expert on Serology: Dr. Richard Jones, a defense expert, testified at trial that Bain’s blood group was AB (with a strong A) leading to his conclusion, contrary to the FBI’s, that Bain could not have deposited the semen on the victim’s underwear. DNA results now prove Dr. Jones’ conclusion to be true.

(5) Bain’s Alibi: In addition to the expert testimony presented by Dr. Jones at trial that Bain could not have been the depositer of the semen on the victim’s underwear, Bain also had an alibi. He was out with friends earlier in the evening on March 4, 1974 and arrived home around 10:30 P.M. From 10:30 until the time police arrived at midnight, Bain watched TV and fell asleep in the living room with his sister. His whereabouts were accounted for during the time of the attack. DNA results now prove Bain’s alibi to be credible.

Conclusion: Because the certainty provided by today’s DNA results did not exist, this conviction was based on the disputed eyewitness identification of a nine-year-old and conflicting ABO blood grouping evidence. Unfortunately for Mr. Bain who has spent 35 Christmases in prison, DNA evidence did not exist at the time of his trial. Now that the key evidence has been reviewed by modern science DNA testing proves that sperm on the victim’s underwear that the State used as the lynchpin of its case linking Bain to the crime was actually powerful, affirmative evidence of his innocence.

Innocence Project of Florida
1100 East Park Ave
Tallahassee, Florida 32301
US

New Wrongful Conviction Press Conference in Bartow, FL

Innocence Project of Florida, Inc.
1100 East Park Avenue, Tallahassee, FL 32301
Telephone 850.561.6767 Fax 850.561.5077
PRESS ADVISORY

For Immediate Release
December 9, 2009

Contacts:
Seth Miller, Esq.: 202.341.2127
Melissa Montle, Esq.: 561.843.9304
Bob Young, Esq: 863.534.4258


New Wrongful Conviction Press Conference in Bartow, FL
New DNA Test Results Prove James Bain’s Innocence

This Thursday, December 10, 2009, James Bain’s attorneys will hold a press conference to release new DNA test results that demonstrate Mr. Bain’s innocence of a 1974 Lake Wales, Polk County, Florida kidnapping and rape of a young child. Bain’s 35 years of wrongful incarceration is the longest time served by any of the 245 DNA exonorees nationwide.

Attorneys from the Tenth Judicial Circuit Public Defender and the Innocence Project of Florida will discuss the results and take press questions regarding the case at this press conference. Members of Mr. Bain’s family will also be available for comment at this time.

The press conference will be held at 2:00 p.m. at the North Door of the Polk County Courthouse, 255 N Broadway Ave., Bartow, FL 33830.



The Innocence Project of Florida (IPF) is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to finding and freeing innocent people in Florida prisons. IPF, along with Robert Young, General Counsel for the Tenth Judicial Circuit Public Defender, J. Marion Moorman, represent James Bain. IPF’s website is www.FloridaInnocence.org.


Innocence Project of Florida
1100 East Park Ave
Tallahassee, Florida 32301
US

Death-Row Inmate Sues Prosecutor, Seeks DNA Test

December 07, 2009

By Mary Alice Robbins Texas Lawyer

A Texas death-row inmate facing execution next year has sued a Panhandle
prosecutor, alleging she is denying him access to DNA evidence that has never
been tested and could prove he is innocent of murdering three people in 1993.

Henry Watkins Skinner alleges in his original complaint in Skinner v. Switzer
that the refusal by Lynn Switzer, district attorney for the 31st and 223rd
Judicial Districts, to release the biological evidence for testing violates
Skinner's 14th Amendment right to due process and his Eighth Amendment right
to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Skinner sued Switzer on Nov. 27
in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Amarillo.

In the complaint, Skinner asks the court to declare that continued withholding
of the DNA evidence violates his constitutional rights. He seeks an injunction
requiring Switzer to release certain biological evidence to him - including
vaginal swabs and fingernail clippings from the female victim, any biological
material on two knives found at the murder scene, and blood and hairs on a
jacket found next to the female victim's body - so Skinner can test it at his
own expense.

University of Texas School of Law clinical professor Rob Owen, Skinner's lead
counsel, says Skinner needs to have the evidence tested to file a meaningful
application for clemency.

"I think if the testing is allowed, it will give rise to a new habeas claim in
the state courts," says Owen, co-director of the UT law school's capital
punishment clinic.

As an example, Owen points out that testing of the vaginal swabs from the
female victim's rape kit might show that another person besides Skinner had
sexual contact with her.

Switzer, DA since February 2005, did not return two telephone calls seeking
comment before presstime Dec. 3.
Request Denied

As alleged in the complaint, the following is the procedural background in
Skinner's case: A 31st District Court jury convicted Skinner of capital murder
in 1995 in connection with the deaths of his girlfriend Twila Busby and her
two sons, Elwin Caler and Randy Busby. In 1997 the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals upheld the conviction and death sentence in Skinner v. State. Skinner
initiated state habeas corpus proceedings in 1998, but his efforts to obtain
post-conviction relief were ultimately dismissed on procedural grounds.

In 1999, Skinner filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus with the U.S.
District Court in Amarillo. The federal court denied the petition in Skinner
v. Quarterman in 2007. In 2008, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted
Skinner a certificate of appealability on two issues relating to his claim
that he was denied effective assistance of counsel in the guilt phase of his
trial but, after receiving additional briefing, the 5th Circuit affirmed the
U.S. District Court's denial of the writ on July 14.

The 31st District Court entered an order on Oct. 20 setting Skinner's
execution date for Feb. 24, 2010.

On Nov. 25, Skinner filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the U.S.
Supreme Court. A ruling on that petition is pending.

Skinner alleges in his complaint that evidence presented at his 1995 trial
showed Twila Busby was strangled and beaten with an ax handle found at the
scene, her sons received multiple stab wounds and Skinner suffered a cut to
his hand around the time of the murders. While police found blood stains and
other biological evidence throughout the house where the murders occurred, the
state sought DNA testing on only four items prior to the trial. Skinner
alleges in the complaint that no evidence presented at trial proved
conclusively that he committed the murders and that his conviction was based
primarily on the fact that he was in the house at the time of the murders, had
two victims' blood on his clothes and supposedly told a neighbor that he might
have "kicked" Twila Busby to death.

In his complaint, Skinner alleges the following regarding his efforts to
obtain DNA testing: In 2000, John Mann, then-DA for the 31st and 223rd
Judicial Districts, had a private laboratory in Dallas test certain items
found at the crime scene but declined a request by Skinner's counsel to
participate in the testing on a joint basis. Richard Roach, Mann's successor,
also declined Skinner's request to participate in voluntary testing of the
evidence.

The lab submitted four reports to the district attorney on its results between
Aug. 24, 2000, and Feb. 6, 2001 - the fourth after Mann left office.

In 2001, the Texas Legislature amended Article 64 of the Texas Code of
Criminal Procedure to provide inmates a way to obtain post-conviction DNA
testing. Shortly after the statute took effect in October 2001, Skinner filed
a motion with the 31st District Court to request such testing, but the court
denied his motion. In December 2003's Skinner v. State , the CCA affirmed the
district court on the ground that Skinner failed to satisfy Code of Criminal
Procedure Article 64.03(a)(2)(A)'s requirement that a convict establish by a
preponderance of the evidence the reasonable probability that he would not
have been prosecuted or convicted if the DNA evidence had been tested. Skinner
also sought to obtain DNA testing in connection with his federal habeas corpus
writ petition, which the federal court denied in February 2007. In July 2007,
Skinner filed a second motion for DNA testing with the 31st District Court,
which again denied the motion.

On Sept. 23, according to the CCA's opinion that day, the CCA affirmed the
district court on the ground that Skinner failed to meet Code of Criminal
Procedure Article 64.01(b)(1)(B)'s requirement that a convicted person who
requests testing that was available at the time of trial show it was not his
fault the testing was not done. State and federal district courts have found
that "defense counsel had a reasonable trial strategy for not requesting
testing of the untested items," wrote CCA Presiding Judge Sharon Keller for
the majority. The CCA concluded that "in the unusual case, the interests of
justice do not require testing when defense counsel has already declined to
request testing as a matter of reasonable trial strategy."

Skinner alleges in his complaint that as a result of the CCA's decisions,
Switzer continues to refuse to make the DNA evidence available to him for
testing, "thereby preventing him from gaining access to exculpatory evidence
that could demonstrate he is not guilty of capital murder."

But First Assistant State Prosecuting Attorney Lisa McMinn, who is not
involved in Skinner v. Switzer ,says it is difficult for an inmate to say he
has a right to have DNA evidence tested if he cannot show it would be helpful
to him. If a court ruled that an inmate has such a right without showing the
evidence would help him, "it would be opening the floodgates to every inmate
who requests testing," McMinn says.

Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, who also is not involved in
Skinner v. Switzer , says the issue is whether a convicted person's request to
test DNA fits within the requirements that the Legislature set for allowing
such testing. Among other things, the statute requires a convicted person to
show he did not already make a decision to bypass testing.

Bradley says an individual cannot decide against testing prior to trial and
later request testing because he believes he might get lucky. "For obvious
reasons, we don't go back and redo things," he says.

Bloodsworth, prosecutor move on to new things

Dan Rodricks

5:09 PM EST, December 7, 2009


Kirk Bloodsworth, the first American death row inmate to be exonerated by DNA evidence, has lived to see something he never could have imagined -- an award named after him, and its first recipient a Democratic senator from Vermont.

Tuesday night, at a Washington gala, Sen. Patrick Leahy receives the Kirk Bloodsworth Justice for All Award as an "outstanding champion of justice" for his sponsorship of the 2004 Innocence Protection Act, which, among other things, provides states with funding for DNA testing in criminal cases to avoid, or undo, wrongful convictions.

The funds come through a program that Senator Leahy named the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program.

So, as you can see, the Dickensian name of Bloodsworth has gained association with things noble and progressive in the time since the ex-Marine from Maryland was convicted of the 1984 rape and murder of Dawn Hamilton, a little girl from Baltimore County. It seems like the whole world has changed since then.

Mr. Bloodsworth won his freedom in 1994, after having served more than nine years in prison. He now works for the Justice Project, which is putting on the "Justice For All Gala" at the Four Seasons in Washington tonight and honoring Mr. Leahy.

Still living on the Eastern Shore, Mr. Bloodsworth travels around the country telling his story and talking about DNA evidence. He's been the subject of a book, too. He's appeared on Oprah.

I caught up with him the other day after his name slipped back into the news again. Ann Brobst, the veteran prosecutor in Baltimore County who got two murder convictions against Mr. Bloodsworth -- the first was overturned by Maryland's Court of Appeals -- has been appointed as a judge of the Circuit Court by Gov. Martin O'Malley.

That's another thing Mr. Bloodsworth probably never could have imagined -- the woman who prosecuted him ascending to the bench.

Over a 30-year career, Ms. Brobst has presented the state's case against hundreds of defendants, many of them violent, but the Bloodsworth case might, unfortunately, be the most notable. Or is the word notorious?

On the phone Saturday, Mr. Bloodsworth, at first, seemed to want to express freely his feelings about Ms. Brobst becoming a judge. But he quickly changed his mind and refused to comment further. Instead, we talked about his friendship with Mr. Leahy -- the senator used the same term for their relationship during his advocacy of the Innocence Protection Act -- and his work with the Justice Project, a Washington-based organization that pushes for reforms in the criminal justice system to avoid wrongful convictions.

In 1993, new DNA testing proved Mr. Bloodsworth could not have killed Dawn Hamilton. In December of that year, then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer pardoned him, and a few months later the state gave Mr. Bloodsworth $300,000 in compensation.

Still, Mr. Bloodsworth lived under a cloud of suspicion. Sandra O'Connor, the Baltimore County state's attorney at the time, famously said, ``I believe that he is not guilty. I'm not prepared to say he's innocent."

Mr. Bloodsworth had trouble keeping a job. "He lived in a world where people questioned his innocence," Mr. Leahy told his colleagues in the Senate in 2003, "where rumors followed him everywhere he went, and where he was unable to find stable employment."

It was nearly 10 years before prosecutors checked DNA evidence from the crime against the state's database of convicted felons. That led to the real killer, a convicted sex offender who was charged with the heinous crime.

When that occurred, Ms. Brobst went to the Eastern Shore with two county detectives, met Mr. Bloodsworth at a fast-food restaurant in Cambridge, told him the news of the real killer's arrest and apologized for her role in his wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

That was the first time anyone from the Baltimore County State's Attorney's Office, which had twice prosecuted Mr. Bloodsworth, acknowledged his innocence.

Monday, Ms. Brobst said the encounter in 2004 with Mr. Bloodsworth and the apology were her idea. She also said she had a role in the push for post-conviction DNA testing of evidence in the case, despite being pressured not to.

A lot of people familiar with Ms. Brobst's work would say that, on balance, she has done far more good than bad over 30 years in the courts -- so the focus on Mr. Bloodsworth is unfair.

Monday, she spoke candidly about the case and about being identified in the press as "the Bloodsworth prosecutor." She accepts that, despite having smartly prosecuted so many other criminals who deserved to go to prison, Mr. Bloodsworth seems to be the case that sticks to her -- at least it did last week in reports of her appointment to the bench.

"Obviously, what happened to him should not have happened to anybody," Ms. Brobst said. "It's something I think about every day -- I mean that, every day. It certainly changed me ... It shook me."

I asked how.

For one thing, Ms. Brobst said, that a jury could be persuaded to convict the wrong man went from being an intellectual understanding to something real, with a name and a face. "It made me a better prosecutor," Ms. Brobst added, "and it's going to make me a better judge. We made a colossal mistake in a case I believed in -- and in which there was a lot of evidence -- and it has made me more mindful of how powerful the criminal justice system is and the harm it can cause."

So Ann Brobst, with all her years of experience and her lessons learned, prepares to become a judge. Kirk Bloodsworth, exonerated and a free man for 15 years, prepares for Tuesday's gala and the award ceremony and more speeches on the value of DNA testing. The real killer of the little girl sits somewhere in a Maryland prison. That all sounds something like justice.

Dan Rodricks' column appears Thursdays and Sundays in print and online, and Tuesdays online-only. He is host of the Midday talk show on WYPR-FM.

Mississippi to compensate 4 wrongfully convicted men

More than five years ago, Kennedy Brewer was sitting on Mississippi's death row, awaiting execution for a crime he didn't commit.

Freed in 2008, seven years after DNA testing cleared him, Brewer is planning for his wedding in April.

"Everything is going all right," Brewer said in a recent telephone interview from his home in Brooksville.

Brewer also is expecting to receive money from the state for his wrongful conviction. He is one of four people Mississippi has agreed to pay $500,000 for being wrongly convicted. The compensation law went into effect July 1.

A stipulation for accepting the money is that the wrongly convicted person can't sue the state.

Brewer said he filed his claim in Circuit Court in September but has yet to receive any money. The money comes from the budget of the state attorney general's office.

Jan Schaefer, public information officer for the state attorney general's office, said seven people, including Brewer, have filed claims. Four claims have been approved, and the remaining ones are being opposed, Schaefer said.

Jackson lawyer Rob McDuff, who assisted the Innocence Project in winning freedom for some of those wrongly convicted, said he expects those who have been approved to begin receiving their annual payments next year.

McDuff said it can be difficult for those who spent so many years incarcerated to readjust to society. But McDuff said the four who have met requirements for compensation are doing reasonably well.

McDuff said some of the former inmates have been able to get jobs. He said the money received will help them move forward.

"It certainly can't compensate for the years in prison for something they didn't do, but it can help them get their feet on the ground and move on after having such a horrible experience," McDuff said.

McDuff says it can be difficult for the ex-prisoners to find work after having been exonerated because employers might still have concerns about hiring a former inmate.

"We often look with suspicion on people coming out of prison, and sometimes the fact of exoneration doesn't completely erase that suspicion. Hopefully employers will realize these are good men who are good people and could be good workers," McDuff said.

Brewer's exoneration, the first in Mississippi through DNA testing, helped prompt the new law, which already existed in more than two dozen other states. He spent 15 years behind bars in connection with the 1992 rape and murder of his former girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter. DNA testing has linked the crime to another man.

Asked about spending all that time in prison, Brewer said, "It's over. I don't even think about it."

The other three former inmates whose claims the attorney general office agrees meet the statutory requirements for compensation are Levon Brooks, also of Noxubee County, Arthur Johnson and Cedric Willis. As in Brewer's case, DNA tests cleared all three.

Brooks served 18 years after he was convicted in the rape and murder of a 3-year-old girl. A judge released him on bond the same day in February 2008 when he dismissed Brewer's capital murder charge.

In 1993, Johnson was convicted in the rape of a Sunflower County woman at gunpoint. He was convicted and sentenced to 55 years in prison. He served 16 years before being exonerated in 2008.

Willis was 23 and facing murder and robbery charges in September 1997 when he looked into the eyes of Jackson resident Gloria White and said: "Ma'am, I did not cause harm to your husband nor your family members. I swear to God this is the whole truth and nothing but the truth."

Hinds County jury members, who heard Willis' plea, didn't believe him. Willis was found guilty in the shooting of Carl White Jr., a noncommissioned officer in the Mississippi National Guard, and sentenced to life plus 99 years in prison.

In March 2006, with the help of the New Orleans Innocence Project, DNA evidence proved Willis did not commit the crime. He had served 12 years.

Willis worked for Galloway United Methodist Church in downtown Jackson after being freed. He no longer works there.

Brewer said he has been working the past 16 months at Peco Foods processing plant in Brooksville.

Brewer said he met his future wife after leaving prison - through a program both were attending.

This Christmas, Brewer said he's simply looking forward to spending time with family. He has two children, an 18-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son, and a grandson.

A couple of other men haven't been as fortunate on the compensation end:

Roland Glen Anderson. The attorney general's office has filed a motion to dismiss his petition because the indictment has not been dismissed nor has prosecutors filed a motion not to prosecute the case.

In 1997, Anderson was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison in a Hinds County case involving the shooting of a woman in her Jackson home. But he remained free on an appeal bond before he began serving the sentence in 1999. He served about six years before he was finally released.

The U.S. District Court in Jackson threw out his conviction and ordered a retrial.

Larry Hymes. The attorney general's office has filed a motion to dismiss Hymes' petition because the indictment has not been dismissed, nor has a motion been filed not to prosecute.

Hymes was convicted in 1991 in Washington County of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. His conviction was later overturned.

Carl Hobbs. The attorney general's office has filed court papers to require Hobbs to establish by a "preponderance of the evidence that he did not commit the felony for which he was convicted."

Hobbs was convicted of grand larceny in 2004 in Washington County and sentenced to 10 years, with seven suspended. But in 2006, the Mississippi Court of Appeals threw out Hobbs' conviction, citing insufficient evidence to convict Hobbs.'

Source(www.clarionledger.com)

Exonerated Death Row Inmate Speaks Out-Flint Adam

Just hours after Cecil Johnson Jr. was put to death, another former death row inmate spoke out against capital punishment.

Ray Krone sat on Arizona's death row for five years until DNA evidence proved he was not a killer.

Now, he says the justice system can make mistakes, and that we're better off without executions.

Only hours after Tennessee executed its sixth death-row inmate since 1960, the nation's 100th exonerated death-row inmate took the podium at Belmont University and shared his story.

Ray Krone was convicted in the killing of a waitress in Arizona in late 1991.

Despite proclaiming his innocence, he was sentenced to death.

The Reverend Stacy Rector - an anti-death penalty advocate - says his story may be all too common among death-row inmates.

"It is not a perfect system - no human system system is - and we know mistakes get made, even with the best intentions," Rector says.

As it turns out, a mistake was made.

It took ten years, three months, and eight days, but DNA evidence finally proved Krone was not a killer.

As Krone told the audience at Belmont, the DNA, in fact, nailed someone else - a parolee who lived not far from the bar where the murder happened.

"I believe there's a lot more innocent people in there than there are the few of us that's been released," says Krone.

Since his release in 2002, Krone has made a living touring the country and speaking out against the death penalty.

"Hopefully, through education - through thoughtful process we can re-evaluate how we treat our crimes and our victims and make it better for all the families involved in this horribleness," Krone says.

139 death row inmates have been exonerated, nationally, since 1973.

39 of those exonerations have come in the seven years since Krone's release.

According to data from the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish State Killing -- that means there is approximately one exoneration for every nine executions in the U.S.

"We have to ask ourselves why we continue to take that kind of a risk," Rector says.

Rector and krone hope discussions like this can change the conversation.

Tennessee is home to two exonerated death row inmates.

In 2007, Michael McCormick was found not guilty in a new trial after spending 20 years on death row.

Paul House spent 22 years on death row before all charges against him were dropped this past May.

click on the heading to hear the interview.

Source(www.fox17.com)

Dillon won’t be paid for time spent in prison

From the blog Plain Error :

Dillon won’t be paid for time spent in prison

Ryan — June 2, 2009 @ 12:21 PM — Comments (2)

That is the title of this article from Florida Today that was just published. The gist of the article is this: because Flrodia’s Victims of Wrongful Incarceration statute, passed last year, has a “clean hands” provision, barring anyone with prior felonies from being awarded compensation, William Dillon will not be paid by the state for his 27 years of wrongful incarceration. If it sounds obviously unjust to you, that’s because it is.

What the state is in essence saying is that Dillon is not entitled to, or does not deserve, the money because of his prior felony conviction, which was a DUI and possession of a controlled substance in 1979.Dillon plead to that crime, did his time and paid the fine. He ought to stand redeemed in the eyes of the state vis-à-vis that crime.

“It’s a shame that a nonviolent drug conviction from when Mr. Dillon was 19 years old would bar him from being compensated under the new Victims of Wrongful Incarceration statute,” attorney Melissa Montle of the Innocence Project of Florida said. “He now has to file a claims bill during a recession in order to be rightfully compensated for the 27 years he spent in prison for a crime he did not commit.”

Several of the comments on the article make good points, albeit blunt and somewhat inelegant. Most are rightfully angry at the state for what is clearly an injustice. Most say things like, “The state made a mistake, time to pay up.” That’s a sentiment I can get behind 100%, mostly because it’s absolutely correct. I like this one from Augnoz especially, because it sounds like something I would exclaim when not speaking in an official capacity for this organization: “Dillon got the shaft, correct this travesty.”

But one comment is so dangerously false that it merits my correction. earthwateruser says, among other things, that “A compensation bill for wrongful imprisonment for 27 years shouldn’t be a difficult thing to accomplish [this legislative session],” and points to the number of compensation bills that get passed each year. This is simply not true.Out of Florida’s 10 DNA exonerees, only two have been compensated. Under this new bill, the Victims of Wrongful Incarceration statute, it is not clear that a single person has been awarded compensation. It is not easy. It is not common.

GenPop also chimes in and Courtney makes a good point when she asks, “Is [this] not then a continuation of the punishment for a minor drug offense 30 years after the fact?” It could easily be seen as a punishment in the philosophical sense, since it is an adverse treatment or harm – treatment that would not otherwise be acceptable – in light of some transgression. You might also think that, by letting his wrongful incarceration go unremedied, the state is refusing to admit wrongdoing, and letting it stand as an acceptable act of punishment against his previous offense.

Our views: Travesties of justice

Our views: Travesties of justice

Florida Today - Melbourne, Fla.
Date: Nov 3, 2009

Section: OPINION


Evidence keeps mounting that prosecutors likely conspired to fabricate evidence or use the fraudulent dog expert to convict an unknown number of possibly innocent men.

William Dillon testified before lawmakers in Tallahassee on Monday, asking for compensation for 27 years of wrongful imprisonment. The Satellite Beach native was sentenced to life in prison in 1981...

Gary Bennett asks for DNA testing to upend guilty verdict

Gary Bennett asks for DNA testing to upend guilty verdict

Florida Today - Melbourne, Fla.
Author: JOHN A TORRES
Date: Nov 2, 2009


FLORIDA TODAY

Lawyers for a Brevard County man convicted of murder in 1984 are asking a court to approve DNA testing they hope will overturn another Brevard conviction that relied partly on testimony from a fraudulent dog handler and jailhouse snitches

More About Snitch Testimony in Dillon

From the Blog Plain Error :

Roger Dale Chapman, who testified during William Dillon’s 1981 trial that Dillon made a jailhouse confession, attended Dillon’s compensation hearing on Monday to set the record straight. The news reports don’t really do this riveting moment justice. So I wanted to recount what occurred from my perspective at counsel’s table:

• While Dillon was on the stand, he was asked about his time in the county jail. He noted that while he in jail after arrest, he was in a large cell with upwards of 20 inmates and a story about the Dvorak murder came on the TV. Many people asked him about it and Bill stated that he told them “I had nothing to do with that there.”


• Dillon also stated that he did not know Roger Dale Chapman, and therefore didn’t know if he had ever spoken with him at the jail. The first time he found out about Chapman was when Chapman was on the stand testifying to the jailhouse confession at trial.


• Then Dillon was dismissed and counsel called Roger Dale Chapman to the astonishment of the hearing officers and just about everyone in the room.


• Chapman stated that he was in the county jail after being falsely accused of rape. A Sheriff’s Office Agent, Thom Fair, came to him in the jail and made him an agent of the State for the purposes of soliciting damaging admissions from Dillon. Fair threatened Chapman with jail time if he didn’t comply.


• Chapman then stated that he went into the “bullpen” where Dillon was being held with many other inmates and, when the story of the murder came on the TV with a picture of Dillon, he asked Dillon whether he did it and Dillon protested his innocence vehemently.


• Several days later, Fair came back to the jail to meet Chapman. At this point Fair already knew that medical testing came back which demonstrated that Chapman could not have committed rape. Yet, when Chapman stated that Dillon didn’t give him anything and maintained his innocence, Fair held out his hand and stated “I have your life in the palm of my hand and if you don’t give me something on Dillon, I can make that rape charge come back.”


• Fair also told Chapman that they had Dillon as their “fall guy.”


• Chapman then stated that he didn’t have anything to say so Fair decided to record a statement by Chapman which would implicate Dillon, only when Fair asked the questions about the specifics of the crime, another investigator held up the answers so Chapman could parrot them back for the recording and the eventual transcribed statement.


• Dillon’s counsel also entered into evidence secret handwritten notes from Dean Moxley, the Chief Assistant State Attorney, indicating that Chapman may have been made an agent of the State and that they already gave him a bond reduction and they should probably enter into a deal with him.


• Chapman then testified at trial that Dillon confessed to him in jail with detail about the crime. Chapman’s rape charge was dropped in exchange.


• After this testimony, Chapman apologized to Dillon for contributing to his wrongful conviction.

Obviously, none of this was turned over to the defense before trial and at trial, the State insisted that there was no deal.

This is the most pernicious kind of misconduct. Law enforcement had their mind made up and then just needed to fabricate the evidence to fit that preconceived notion. We call this tunnel vision.

This misconduct seems to have been the norm in Brevard County in the 1980s and the John Preston+snitch formula worked for the State in Dedge and Dillon, and we’ll find out whether it worked in the case of Gary Bennett.

Either way, this is the beginning of the pulling back of the curtain of the muck that regularly served to cause wrongful convictions in Brevard. I suspect it won’t be the last we hear.

Source(floridainnocence.org)

Hope for the Wrongfully Convicted

In a recent 79-page decision, a Manhattan judge could well have stopped after the first four sentences of his concluding paragraph and still conveyed his main point: that Fernando Bermudez was no longer guilty of murder.

Instead, the judge, Justice John Cataldo of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, tacked on a fifth sentence that ended with two powerful words: “actual innocence.”

By going further than merely finding that the murder conviction was wrongfully obtained — and by ruling unequivocally that Mr. Bermudez, of Washington Heights, did not commit the crime he had spent the past 18 years in prison for — Justice Cataldo injected hope into a movement.

To the layperson, the distinction might seem nuanced, if not trivial. But to advocates for the wrongfully convicted, Justice Cataldo’s decision, which was released Nov. 12, clawed toward what they viewed as a groundbreaking push to get New York State courts to focus more on the content of evidence, rather than procedural roadblocks.

“The Bermudez case, this dramatizes the need to ensure that actual innocence is established as a legitimate ground for a hearing,” State Senator Eric T. Schneiderman, a Manhattan Democrat, said.

Mr. Schneiderman is one of the sponsors of a bill introduced in the Senate last month that would add a provision to state law allowing judges to overlook procedural errors in a defendant’s case and overturn a conviction when the evidence before them “conclusively establishes” innocence.

State law generally allows wrongful-conviction appeals on two grounds. Either new evidence would have to have been discovered, or a defendant’s constitutional rights would have to have been violated at trial. The problem, experts say, is that these claims are shrouded in hefty procedural rules.

In a claim of newly discovered evidence, for instance, the defendant must show, among other things, that the evidence could not have been found during the trial. If a judge rules that it could have, then the judge can uphold the conviction, regardless of how compelling the evidence is.

An “actual innocence” statute, experts said, would give judges the leeway to excuse procedural violations, missed deadlines and other mistakes if the evidence is strong enough.

“It elevates substance over form,” said Glenn A. Garber, a Manhattan defense lawyer and founder of the Exoneration Initiative, an organization that focuses on innocence claims that lack DNA evidence. “If they know they’re required to engage in actual innocence analysis, it sends a message to courts that they have to do more when they’re confronted with compelling evidence of innocence.”

Opponents of the actual innocence doctrine, however, have stressed the importance of finality in the justice system and fear that these statutes could lead to myriad frivolous claims by desperate prisoners.

The statute would not apply to cases in which there is DNA evidence, as those are governed by their own laws, experts said. But most cases lack DNA evidence.

One of Mr. Garber’s cases could be the next litmus test for actual innocence claims in New York. On Monday, his client, William McCaffrey, is scheduled to appear in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on a claim that he is not guilty of the rape for which he has been imprisoned for the past four years. In addition to appeals based on DNA and newly discovered evidence, Mr. McCaffrey’s petition also includes an actual innocence claim.

Advocates of the actual innocence doctrine have been riding a swell of momentum over the past several months.

In July, a State Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn ruled that Jonathan Wheeler-Whichard was innocent of a murder he had been convicted of in 1996, and experts said they believed it was the first time a judge in the state had overturned a conviction based on an actual innocence petition.

In August, the United States Supreme Court made the rare move of ordering a federal trial court in Georgia to consider the case of Troy Davis, who is on death row in state prison for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer. Mr. Davis made a direct habeas corpus appeal to the Supreme Court on actual innocence grounds. Federal courts have been especially skeptical of actual innocence claims and do not recognize them as a ground for overturning a conviction.

“This court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is ‘actually’ innocent,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent to the Davis decision.

Although no New York appellate court has ever recognized actual innocence as a ground for an appeal, the judges in the Bermudez and Wheeler-Whichard cases spelled out what they believed it meant in their decisions.

“I am now prepared to rule that, at least under the circumstances of this case, such a claim of actual innocence may be brought and the standard of proof for determining it is ‘by clear and convincing evidence,’ ” Justice Joseph K. McKay of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn wrote in deciding the Wheeler-Whichard case.

In Mr. Bermudez’s case, Justice Cataldo found that there was newly discovered evidence as well as a constitutional violation that led him to overturn the conviction.

But Justice Cataldo did not stop at those findings.

“I find the due process clause of our state Constitution requires a procedural mechanism be provided for an incarcerated defendant to bring a post-conviction motion upon a claim of actual innocence,” the judge wrote.

And so he ruled that the new evidence established that Mr. Bermudez was innocent, a step that experts said was important because it prevented the prosecution — short of a reversal by an appellate court — from retrying him. It also helped Mr. Bermudez’s chances of collecting money from the state.

Mr. Bermudez had been petitioning since 1994 for a state court to grant him a hearing to consider the evidence of his innocence, according to Lesley Risinger, one of his lawyers. But procedural roadblocks prevented him from getting a hearing until this year.

As he left Sing Sing prison on Friday, Mr. Bermudez said he was hoping his release would stand for something more.

“This is a day,” he said, “for other people to have hope that justice is possible in this country.”

Source(www.nytimes.com)

Exonerations are vital for justice

The goal of the criminal justice system, as its name implies, is to achieve justice. It is not simply to rack up prosecutions and convictions.

Justice depends on making certain the right people are prosecuted and sentenced to appropriate punishments. Prosecutors sometimes forget that fact.

John Bradley, the new chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, who is also the Williamson County district attorney, expressed a disturbing disregard for justice in testimony last month before the Senate Criminal Justice committee. He disparagingly referred to the Innocence Project as a “New York nonprofit” dedicated to ending the death penalty.

In fact, the Innocence Project — while based in New York — has worked nationally to exonerate individuals improperly charged with serious crimes. Using DNA evidence, the project has overturned 245 wrongful convictions in 34 states and Washington, D.C., including 36 in Texas.

Exonerating the innocent and removing the wrongfully convicted from death row shouldn't discomfit anyone concerned with the impartial application of justice. In Cook County, Ill., however, it may become a prosecutable offense.

The Innocence Project at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism has helped exonerate 11 people since 1996, some for capital offenses. The Cook County state's attorney's office has issued subpoenas to a professor and students who investigated what they believe is a wrongful conviction in a murder case.

The state's attorney, Anita Alvarez, says she just wants to be sure the students didn't skew their findings to get a good grade, the Associated Press reported. With the subpoenas, she's seeking academic transcripts, the course syllabus and private e-mails.

That looks more like intimidation than a legitimate interest of government. The message is unmistakable — don't question our prosecutions.

A court will consider Alvarez's arguments at a hearing in January. It should quash a prosecutorial effort to badger those working in pursuit of justice.

Source(www.mysanantonio.com)

Exoneree from Carrollton is suing attorneys

FORT WORTH — A Carrollton man who spent a quarter-century in prison before being exonerated last year by DNA evidence is suing his former attorneys and an attorney associated with the Innocence Project of Texas, accusing them of operating a kickback scheme to collect 25 percent of money paid to exonerees.

But the lawyers say the work they did for Steven Phillips and a group of Dallas County former convicts was part of a strategy that was instrumental in persuading the Legislature to increase payments for exonerees this year.

And they say the lawsuit, filed this week, is part of a power grab by other attorneys trying to get a piece of the "innocence" movement.

"When there is a lot of cheese on the table, rats will come out and try to steal a piece of the cheese," said Kevin Glasheen of Lubbock, who was named in the suit and who has represented more than a dozen exonerees.

Phillips was in prison from 1982 to 2007 in connection with the rape of a north Dallas woman. DNA evidence eventually linked another man to the crime. Phillips was officially exonerated in 2008.

Under a law enacted this year, Phillips would be entitled to more than $4 million: a $2 million lump sum and $80,000 a year in annuities.

Alleged 'kickbacks’

When Phillips initially sued Glasheen, he said that he was being overcharged and, in subsequent court documents, that Glasheen did no legal work for him. Glasheen’s firm was not involved in the court case that led to Phillips being freed. It was handled by Barry Scheck’s New York-based Innocence Project.

But a few months after being released from prison, Phillips was stranded and broke in Missouri. A representative of Glasheen’s firm boarded a plane and met Phillips, gave him a $3,400 loan and lured him into a contingent-fee agreement, according to the lawsuit.

"When he got the invoice and saw these lawyers were trying to get $1 million out of the $2 million he was going to get, he didn’t think they did any legal work and that it was excessive," said Phillips’ new attorney, Randy Turner of Fort Worth.

The lawsuit that Turner filed for Phillips claims that Glasheen is billing him $965,095 for "lobbying" efforts and that Jeff Blackburn, an Amarillo attorney with the Innocence Project of Texas who was not contracted to represent him, was listed on a document as a "referring attorney" who would be paid $412,936.

Glasheen said a document in Phillips’ file listed Blackburn as sharing in legal fees because Blackburn was helping his work in Austin. But Glasheen said Phillips was never billed for his services.

The lawsuit claims that Blackburn’s ties to the Innocence Project of Texas allowed him to help Glasheen identify exonerees who were due state compensation. The suit also says Blackburn was paid "kickbacks" for his role.

Blackburn said Friday that he did not know how to respond to the allegations because he has not seen the lawsuit.

"I’m really shocked that this lawsuit is happening," he said. "I don’t have a contractual relationship with Mr. Phillips on this case."

Blackburn suggested that Phillips is "striking out any way he can to avoid paying his lawyer," and he praised Glasheen’s work on behalf of inmates who have made exoneration claims.

'Nasty hot air’

Glasheen called the lawsuit "a shotgun accusation that we’re evil."

"We moved this entire class of wrongful-conviction cases in Dallas, including" Phillips’, through the legal system, he said.

"It is true we didn’t move Steven’s individual case. But the strategy resulted in a higher payout. The bulk of legal work was part of the lobbying effort. I disagree that that work should not be compensated."

Glasheen went on to say that Blackburn’s work on the Dallas County cases was part of an "entire project."

"I don’t think there is anything wrong with lawyers sharing fees on a case," Glasheen said.

All the attorneys involved in the dispute agree that the allegations in Phillips’ lawsuit, if found to have any merit, have potentially serious legal repercussions for Glasheen and Blackburn.

"This whole thing is nasty for sure, but it’s nasty hot air. There’s no substance to it," Glasheen said.

He said the lawsuit is really about Turner and others in the Fort Worth area trying to start their own innocence project.

He said Turner’s wife, Patti, a Fort Worth attorney who served on the Innocence Project of Texas’ board, wanted to spread the exoneration cases out to attorneys other than Glasheen and Blackburn.

Turner said: "That’s what he wants everybody to think. Look, Glasheen sued me personally and my wife and professor [John] Stickels, claiming . . . essentially, that we encouraged [Phillips] to breach his contract with him."

Stickels, an attorney, oversees the Innocence Project at the University of Texas at Arlington.

State comptroller records show that Phillips is due $1.2 million, plus a reduced annuity payment because he was not cleared of six other felony convictions, including indecency with a child.

Turner says that Phillips was exonerated in the other cases and that he is submitting paperwork to the state to get his client the full $4.1 million.

I disagree that that work should not be compensated."

Kevin Glasheen of Lubbock,
a lawyer named in the suit

Source(www.star-telegram.com)

Chicago journalism students targeted for Innocence Project work

A journalism class at Northwestern University has become the target of an intimidation and smear campaign by the Cook County state attorney’s office in Chicago after they uncovered compelling evidence suggesting the wrongful conviction of an Illinois prisoner.

For 10 years, students at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism have been engaged in gathering evidence of wrongful convictions by Chicago’s Cook County court system as part of the national Innocence Project, which re-examines cases of the long-term incarcerated.

Since 2003, Medill students investigated the case of Anthony McKinney, who has served 31 years in prison after being convicted of murdering a security guard in 1978. Medill students collected new evidence that has won McKinney a new hearing, which could lead to his exoneration and release.

After the Medill investigation gained prominence this fall, the state attorney’s office accused the journalism students of bribing a witness in exchange for false testimony, and alleged that they were promised good grades in exchange for an exoneration.

The professor, David Protess, faces a hearing January 11 over a subpoena for personal and class material. According to the Chicago Tribune, Cook County state attorney Anita Alvarez “subpoenaed the students’ grades, notes and recordings of witness interviews, the class syllabus and even emails they sent to each other and to professor David Protess.”

The grounds for the subpoena, according to a statement from Alvarez’s office to National Public Radio, is that “There simply are no exemptions that allow a university to investigate a murder case and then withhold new information it generated at the resulting post-conviction hearing. The law imposes a duty on all citizens to reveal relevant information in criminal matters.”

In fact, the university had already turned over witness interviews and copies of video and audio materials related to the McKinney case.

On November 10, the attorney’s office accused students of paying off a witness, saying that an investigator working with the students overpaid a cab driver in 2004, with the intent to reward the witness for false testimony. The witness, Anthony Drake, told students that he was at the murder scene but that McKinney was not. Drake recanted this testimony later, and told Chicago prosecutors that he had used $20 left over from the cab fare paid on his behalf to buy crack cocaine.

The allegations are intimidation and smears intended to chill the Medill Innocence Project, which has focused scrutiny on the unjust, brutal practices of Chicago law enforcement over the past decade.

Moreover, the state attorney’s office is attempting to strip away a shield law that protects investigative journalism in the state. Presently, because of the Illinois Reporter’s Privilege Act, a prosecutor does not have the authority to subpoena confidential source materials of journalists. The prosecution has argued that because the Medill students were not publishing the material they had collected in the McKinney case as they acquired it, they should be treated like private investigators by the court system. This could set a chilling precedent for journalism in Illinois, particularly that focused on unearthing official misconduct.

The McKinney case exposes the corruption and abuses of prosecutorial power long exercised by the Cook County authorities.

Anthony McKinney was arrested in 1978 in Harvey, a southern Chicago suburb, at the age of 18. He was picked up by police on a street near where a security guard named Donald Lundahl had been shot and killed, but he professed his innocence and was released shortly thereafter for lack of evidence.

According to the Medill Innocence Project web site, “The authorities soon began questioning others about the crime, including another Harvey teenager, Wayne Phillips. Phillips eventually told police that he was an eyewitness to the murder, claiming that—from 50 yards away—he saw Anthony point the shotgun at Lundahl and declare, ‘Your money or your life.’ Anthony then was re-arrested, and, after a lengthy interrogation, signed a confession (typed by police) admitting the crime and saying the motive was robbery.”

In an interview with Medill students, “Phillips recanted his eyewitness testimony and claimed police beat him until he made up a story against Anthony McKinney.” Medill students also interviewed seven residents of Harvey who told them that “convicted killer Anthony Drake admitted to them almost thirty years ago that he was involved in the Lundahl murder, which he described as ‘an armed robbery gone bad,’ “ and that “Drake also said that Anthony McKinney had nothing to do with the crime.”

Since 1999, Protess has led Medill students in investigations that have resulted in the overturning of 11 convictions in Chicago, including those of five who were sitting on death row. In 1999, one innocent man, Anthony Porter, was exonerated just 50 hours away from his scheduled execution. The circumstance prompted then-Illinois Governor George Ryan to suspend the death penalty in the state.

In an interview published November 18 by the university’s newspaper, the Daily Northwestern, Protess stated that he would not comply with the attorney’s office’s demand for personal information on the students. “There are no circumstances under which I will reveal my students’ grades or emails—to do so would violate federal privacy law,” he said. “I will also refuse to comply with any demand to turn over unpublished information, because that would set a terrible precedent for other student journalists. We are picking up the slack because of the lack of resources nowadays to do investigative reporting.”

Source(www.wsws.org)

Improving the Practice and Use of Forensic Science

n Improving the Practice and Use of Forensic Science: A Policy Review (pdf), The Justice Project offers recommendations and solutions for improving the practices and standards of forensic science. The review includes information on current forensic practices, case studies, states that have enacted reforms in forensic analysis, and a model policy.

Carelessness, inadvertent bias, and misconduct in crime labs have lead to numerous wrongful convictions and demonstrate the need for reform and regulation in forensic science. Without proper safety measures in place, the criminal justice system risks introducing bad forensic analysis into the courtroom and more wrongful convictions.

Klick on the heading to read the report.

source(www.thejusticeproject.org)

Eyewitness Identification

Wrongfully convicted at age 25, Calvin Johnson received a life sentence for the rape of a
Georgia woman after four different women identified him. Exonerated in 1999,
he walked out of prison a 41-year old man. The true rapist has never been found.

Klick on the heading and read the report from The Justice Project.

Source (www.thejusticeproject.org)

Norwegian and UK man fail in death appeal in DR Congo

A Norwegian and a former British soldier sentenced to death for espionage and murder of a taxi driver in DR Congo have lost their appeal.

A military tribunal in Kisangani rejected the plea and ordered them to pay $500m in damages before facing the death sentence.

Joshua French, who holds joint British-Norwegian nationality, and Tjostolv Moland were also accused of spying.

Their only remaining option is to appeal before the military high court.

French, 27, and Moland, 28, were sentenced to death by firing squad for murder by a military tribunal on 8 September.

They were also charged with espionage and arms smuggling.

'Miscarriages of justice'

The ruling drew immediate international protests.

Norway condemned the verdict and said it would complain to the government of DR Congo.

"Norway is a fundamental opponent of the death penalty, and I will as soon as possible contact the DR Congo foreign minister to relay this message, " said Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere in a statement.

The human rights group Reprieve claims the two men have suffered a series of miscarriages of justice since their arrest, reported the Press Association news agency.

"Today, in the farce that substitutes for military justice in the DRC, the judge wanted to dispense with translators," said Reprieve director Clive Stafford Smith.

"Apparently Joshua French did not have to understand the process that led to his death sentence," said the director.

"The 'legal process' has so far included torturing Joshua, parading him around town in front of lynch mobs, and forcing him to sign statements under threat of death."

"Witnesses who testified against the pair received $5,000 each in compensation in a country where people earn about $3-4 a day."

Mr Stafford Smith ended with a plea to the British government to "redouble its efforts to end this nightmare."

British roots

French was born in Norway to a British father and Norwegian mother, and lived in Margate, Kent, as a child.

He moved back to Norway when his parents divorced, but returned to the UK aged 20 and served in the British Army.

Along with Moland, he has been detained since May this year after the pair's Congolese driver was found shot dead in the north-east of the country.

Both men deny murdering Abedi Kasongo, 47, maintaining that he was shot and killed when their car was ambushed by gunmen on the road near the city of Kisangani.

DRC won't execute Norwegians, says Oslo

Dec. 4


CONGO/NORWAY:

DRC won't execute Norwegians, says Oslo


Norway's government said on Friday that the Democratic Republic of Congo
had given its assurances that 2 Norwegians would not be executed despite a
court ruling upholding their death sentence for murder.

"DR Congo's Foreign Minister (Thambwe) Mwamba reiterated his assurance
that the death sentence would not be carried out," a statement from the
Norwegian foreign ministry said.

"He also reiterated that the Congolese government has adopted a moratorium
on the death penalty and that such sentences are no longer carried out in
the country."

DR Congo has not carried out a death sentence since the arrival in power
of President Joseph Kabila in 2001.

A military tribunal in the northern DRC rejected an appeal on Thursday by
Norwegians Tjostolv Moland, 28, and Joshua French, 27, who had been
sentenced to death for the May 5 murder of the driver of a vehicle they
rented in Kisangani in mineral-rich Orientale province.

The two, who were in Kisangani either as tourists or on business,
depending on varying reports, have said their driver was killed by
bandits. They have maintained their innocence.

They were also found guilty of spying, which they have also denied.

The pair, both former soldiers, and the Norwegian state were ordered to
pay $500 million (R3.7 billion) in reparations to the Congolese state, and
more than a million to the victim's family and work colleagues.

The Norwegian statement said Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere had spoken
to his Congolese counterpart after the court ruling.

"Concerning the part of the sentence about them conducting espionage for
the Norwegian state, I rejected this as completely baseless, as is the
demand for reparations against the state of Norway," Stoere said.

"I reiterated that the 2 have no connection to Norwegian authorities."

The court said Moland and French had been in possession of valid military
service ID cards when they were arrested, and as serving soldiers were
thus the responsibility of the state.

(source: Pretoria News)

DR Congo 'won't execute Norwegian convicts'

OSLO — The Democratic Republic of Congo has given its assurances that two Norwegians will not be executed despite a court ruling upholding their death sentence for murder, Norway's government said on Friday.

"DR Congo's Foreign Minister (Thambwe) Mwamba reiterated his assurance that the death sentence would not be carried out. He also reiterated that the Congolese government has adopted a moratorium on the death penalty and that such sentences are no longer carried out in the country," a statement from the foreign ministry said.

DR Congo has not carried out a death sentence since the arrival in power of President Joseph Kabila in 2001.

A military tribunal in the northern DR Congo rejected an appeal on Thursday by Norwegians Tjostolv Moland, 28, and Joshua French, 27, who had been sentenced to death for the May 5 murder of the driver of a vehicle they rented in Kisangani in mineral-rich Orientale province.

The two, who were in Kisangani either as tourists or on business depending on varying reports, have said their driver was killed by bandits. They have maintained their innocence.

The duo were also found guilty of spying, which they have also denied.

The pair, both former soldiers, and the Norwegian state were ordered to pay 500 million dollars in reparations to the Congolese state, and more than a million to the victim's family and work colleagues.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere spoke with his Congolese counterpart after the court ruling, the statement said.

"Concerning the part of the sentence about them conducting espionage for the Norwegian state, I rejected this as completely baseless, as is the demand for reparations against the state of Norway," Stoere said.

"I reiterated that the two have no connection to Norwegian authorities," he added.

The court said Moland and French were in possession of valid military service ID cards when they were arrested and as serving soldiers were thus the responsibility of the state.

Source(www.google.com)

Former British soldier faces death by firing squad in Congo

Tjostolv Moland (left) and Joshua French during their court appearance in Kisangani.

French, 27, who has dual British and Norwegian nationality, and his friend Tjostolv Moland, 28, a former Norwegian soldier, were convicted of killing a taxi driver and spying.

Both men deny the murder of Abedi Kasongo, 47, a taxi driver who was shot in the head outside Kisangani in May. They claim unknown gunmen ambushed them as they were being transported in the car through a dense rainforest.

A military appeal court also ordered both men to pay £300 million in compensation before their execution.

Human rights group Reprieve claims the two men have suffered a series of miscarriages of justice since their arrest, including beatings and mock executions.

It said that during the reading of yesterday's judgment, the judge complained the interpreter was too slow and asked him to stop translating.

It also sayd Mr Moland has been suffering from cerebral malaria and hallucinations and believes he has spiritual contact with a pygmy.

Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve director, said: "Today, in the farce that substitutes for military justice in the DRC, the judge wanted to dispense with translators.

"Apparently Joshua French did not have to understand the process that led to his death sentence.

"The 'legal process' has so far included torturing Joshua, parading him around town in front of lynch mobs, and forcing him to sign statements under threat of death."

French was born in Norway to a British father and Norwegian mother, but grew up in Margate, Kent. He moved back to Norway when his parents divorced, but returned to Britain aged 20 and served in the British Army. He also served in the Norwegian Army where he met Moland.

They both left the Norwegian Army in 2007 and worked as security guards in various places, including the Gulf of Aden where they guarded against pirates.

Source(www.telegraph.co.uk)

Nettmøte med Kerry Cook

Tidligere dødssdømte Kerry Cook svarer på dine spørsmål under nettmøte hos VG Nett kl 14.00 i dag. Og Norgesturnéen fortsetter.

Kerry Cook satt 22 år på dødscelle og ventet på å bli henrettet for et mord han ikke hadde begått. Det er nå ni år siden han slapp ut. Hvert ledige minutt av tiden i frihet bruker han til å fortelle historien sin og kjempe mot dødsstraff.
Kerry Cook har allerede besøkt Trondheim, han ble intervjuet på Skavlan på fredag og i kveld skal han åpne en utstilling om dødsstraff i Oslo. I morgen går turen til Stavanger og Bergen.

Dersom du ikke får mulighet til å treffe ham i løpet av den omfattende Norgeturnéen, får du sjansen til å stille Kerry spørsmål direkte på VGs nettmøte klokka 14.00 i dag.

Les deg opp på historien til Kerry i forkant av nettmøtet, i reportasjen Døden er grønn som dollaren fra siste utgave av AmnestyMagasinet, eller på Kerry Cooks egen nettside www.chasingjustice.com

Se resten av programmet i Oslo, Stavanger og Bergen.

------------------------------translated-----------
Former death row Kerry Cook answers your questions during your meeting with VG Nett at 14.00 today. And Norway tour continues.

Kerry Cook was 22 years on death row waiting to be executed for a murder he did not commit. It is now nine years since he dropped out. Every available minute of time in the freedom he uses to tell his story and the fight against the death penalty.
Kerry Cook has already visited Trondheim, he was interviewed on Skavlan on Friday, and tonight he will open an exhibition about the death penalty in Oslo. Tomorrow, the trip to Stavanger and Bergen.

If you do not get the chance to meet him during the extensive tour Norway, you get the chance to ask Kerry questions directly on the VG's online meeting at 14.00 today.

Read up on the history of Kerry ahead of this meeting, in the story "Death is green like the dollar from the last edition of the Amnesty magazine, or on Kerry Cook's own website www.chasingjustice.com

See the rest of the program in Oslo, Stavanger and Bergen.

Source(www.amnesty.no)

Prosecutors Try toTurn Tables on Professor Who Frees the Innocent

EVANSTON, Ill. -- David Protess says his life changed on the day in 1991 when David Dowaliby walked free.

"That's when I really found my life's calling," says the Northwestern University journalism professor, whose students' digging helped overturn Mr. Dowaliby's conviction for the murder of his 7-year-old stepdaughter.

Mr. Protess also found a career that has made him a media star, with a string of book and movie deals. He and his future students would go on to free 10 more convicted murderers and inspire former Illinois Gov. George Ryan to halt the death penalty in the state.

Now, state prosecutors in Chicago are trying to turn the legal and ethical tables on Mr. Protess and his students. Prosecutors have alleged the students paid informants and were acting as private investigators rather than journalists -- in a bid to strip them of protections under an Illinois shield law for reporters. At risk are the fates both of Mr. Protess's class and of Anthony McKinney, who was convicted of the 1978 murder of a security guard.

Mr. Protess, an alternately charming and pugnacious 63-year-old with a hint of a Brooklyn accent, said he has had good relations with prosecutors in the past. This time around, he said, they are engaged in a "smear campaign" motivated by "payback for previous embarrassments and pay-forward for cases my students are still investigating."

Cook County state's attorney Anita Alvarez, whose office has subpoenaed unpublished interviews, student grades and emails, says she just wants to get to the truth. "This is not writing for the newspaper, it's not writing a term paper," she says. "It's creating evidence for a criminal court."

Mr. Protess earned a doctorate in public policy from the University of Chicago in 1974, but he says he soon grew bored with pure academia.

"When I received my doctorate, the action was in journalism because of Watergate," he says. Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, whose reporting led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, "were my heroes."

Mr. Protess gravitated toward investigative reporting, eventually writing for Chicago Lawyer magazine and other publications, while teaching at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.

A turning point came in 1990, when he and a team of students took on Mr. Dowaliby's case. The group's work led a key government witness to admit he couldn't be sure Mr. Dowaliby was the man he had seen near a Dumpster where the girl's body was found. A subsequent book by Mr. Protess and journalist Rob Warden was turned into a made-for-TV movie starring Shannen Doherty.

The case set a pattern in which Mr. Protess trained his investigative-journalism students and sent them off on real-life assignments.

Mr. Protess says he has received 15,000 requests for help from convicts since he set up the Medill Innocence Project in 1999. His students have investigated about 50 of them.

"There has to be some compelling doubt," he says. Grades aren't influenced by the outcome, just the quality of the work, he added.

Diana Samuels, now a 23-year-old reporter for the Palo Alto, Calif., Daily News, found evidence of guilt, not innocence, when she was poring over the phone records of a man convicted of armed robbery and murder in the case she investigated in 2008. A call placed to a rental-car company led her to a car spotted at the crime scene.

"He was a good actor," she says of the convict, who confessed he had been lying to the students, but "we tried to keep an open mind." She says she received an A in the class.

Mr. Protess says the students also kept an open mind in the case of Anthony McKinney, 49, who was sentenced to life in prison for the 1978 murder of Donald Lundahl.

With no physical evidence linking Mr. McKinney to the murder, the students used the television log for a boxing match to prove that two witnesses who said they watched the fight couldn't also have been at the scene of the crime when it was committed.

And they tracked down seven people who said a convicted murderer, Tony Drake, had confessed to the crime. They also taped Mr. Drake saying he was at the scene and Mr. McKinney wasn't.

Mr. Protess blogged about the case and turned over the students' work to Northwestern lawyers, who filed a petition in Cook County Circuit Court last year, seeking to vacate Mr. McKinney's conviction or obtain a new trial.

In a filing two weeks ago, prosecutors said Mr. Drake had recanted his statement. They also said Mr. Drake alleged that he received $40 in cash from a cab driver who had been given $60 by a private investigator working with the students.

Evan Benn, now a 27-year-old reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, says he, not the investigator, paid the driver $60 based on where Mr. Drake said he wanted to go. Mr. Benn says he told the driver, " 'Don't let him out early. Don't give him any of the money. No funny business.' "

Mr. Protess vows to press the case even if it lands him in jail for refusing to turn over the records. "This is not a fight I picked, but it's one I've come to embrace," he says.

Source(online.wsj.com)

Former Death Row prisoner to speak at Vatican conference

The campaign to end the death penalty around the world, is the theme of a study conference in Rome, tomorrow, at the Pontifical Urban University. The initiative is being organized by the students of 'Omnes Gentes' of the Pontifical Urban University.

'The death penalty in the world today: the struggle for abolition, for a new culture of life' will be the subject of the talk given by Dr Charles Santoro, a member of the group 'No to the Death Penalty' of the Community of Sant'Egidio. This will be followed by Joaquin José Martinez, a former death-row prisoner in Florida, released in 2001, who will present 'A testimony from death row'.

The International Day 'Cities for Life - Cities Against the Death Penalty' recalls the first anniversary of the abolition of capital punishment from a European state, by the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in 1786. The approval, in the last two years, of two resolutions for a universal moratorium on capital punishment in the General Assembly of the United Nations confirm a change in sentiment in the world to a new and higher threshold, to respect for human rights.

According to Amnesty International's report: 'Death Sentences and Executions in 2008,' between January and December last year, at least 2,390 people in 25 countries were put to death and at least 8,864 death sentence have been issued in 52 countries. The student association Omnes Gentes (OG) is an organization that represents all students of the Pontifical Urban University. During the year, the OG organizes several initiatives for the comparison and enrichment of students, thanks to the great variety of traditions and cultures present in the university.

Source(www.indcatholicnews.com)

High court to hear scent evidence appeal

The Court of Criminal Appeals will hear a case from San Jacinto County calling into question the validity of dog scent lineups. Richard Winfrey was convicted of murder after being identified in one of Keith Pikett's dog scent lineups. The CCA previously affirmed that Deputy Pikett was an expert. Now they can correct th...at mistake by determining that scent lineups are unreliable and should not be used in a courtroom.

More information here :

http://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/2009/nov/05/lw_cca_scent_lineups_110609_72828/?news&police-courts

Source(Innocence Project of Texas)

Peter Shellem, Investigative Reporter Who Wrote About Wrongful Convictions, Dies at 49

Peter Shellem, whose relentless digging into dusty court records, erroneous crime-lab reports and coerced confessions during his 23 years as a reporter for The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Pa., led to the release of five wrongly convicted prisoners, died Oct. 24 at his home in Gardners, Pa. He was 49.

In one case, a man who was a teenager when he was convicted of killing a neighbor was released after 28 years in prison. In another, DNA evidence that Mr. Shellem recovered from a professor’s refrigerator in Leipzig, Germany, exonerated a retarded man of rape and murder.

Mr. Shellem committed suicide, his son Philip said, but the Cumberland County coroner, Michael Norris, would not confirm the cause of death.

Although Mr. Shellem’s investigative work was not widely known outside of central Pennsylvania, Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in New York, called him “a rare, one-man journalism innocence project.”

“He got into the nitty-gritty details of cases, and when he began to believe that somebody was wrongfully convicted he wouldn’t stop until he got justice,” Mr. Scheck said Monday. “Justice from the Fourth Estate has always been a great safety valve of our legal system, and Pete Shellem was that safety valve in Pennsylvania.”

In a profile in 2007, American Journalism Review wrote of Mr. Shellem, “No one keeps records on such things, but experts on journalism and the wrongly convicted cannot think of a present-day reporter who by himself has compiled a résumé of freed prisoners as thick as Shellem’s.”

Among them is Steven Crawford, who was arrested in 1970, when he was 14, after a friend was bludgeoned to death with a hammer. In 2001, Mr. Shellem learned that an old briefcase had been found in the attic of a deceased detective who had worked on the case. Notes in the briefcase suggested that a state police chemist had altered laboratory results to help convict Mr. Crawford. The Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office supported Mr. Crawford’s release after 28 years in prison.

In 1988, Barry Laughman, a man with an IQ of about 70, was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a distant relative, Edna Laughman. Fifteen years later, Mr. Shellem’s series in The Patriot-News pointed to flaws in the case, including a confession that appeared to have been coerced. He also tracked down microscope slides of semen recovered from the victim’s body that had been taken to Germany by a professor who had tried, but failed, to identify the DNA. DNA techniques that had improved since the trial showed that Mr. Laughman was not the killer. He was freed in 2003.

“In the Laughman case, Pete was beating his head against the wall for years and no one would listen to him,” Bill Moushey, director of the Innocence Institute of Point Park University in Pittsburgh, said Monday. “Some law enforcement people brought personal attacks against him, trying to debunk his work, but he stood strong and eventually that retarded kid walked out of prison.”

Among the other prisoners freed by Mr. Shellem’s investigations is David Gladden, who was convicted in 1995 of killing a 67-year-old woman, Geneva Long, and burning the body. Ten years later, Mr. Shellem discovered that a convicted serial killer had lived next door to Ms. Long; he had killed his known victims in the same way.

Mr. Shellem interviewed a witness who had testified that he was with Mr. Gladden at the time of the crime. The witness recanted, saying he had been coerced into confessing a role in the crime. Mr. Gladden walked out of prison on Feb. 16, 2007.

“I don’t start writing until I’m sure I’m right,” Mr. Shellem told The American Journalism Review, “and if people need to be embarrassed into doing the right thing, I’m happy to oblige them.”

Peter Joseph Shellem was born in Philadelphia on Oct. 6, 1960, one of five children of Harry and Josephine Shellem. Besides his son Philip, he is survived by his wife of 24 years, the former Joyce Elser; another son, Alek; a brother, Paul; and a sister, Karen Cain.

Mr. Shellem graduated from Temple University with a degree in journalism in 1983. While in college, he worked at The Delaware County Times. He was a reporter for The Mercury, in Pottstown, Pa., before being hired by The Patriot-News in 1986.

A bearded, barrel-chested man, Mr. Shellem could have been cast as a B-movie reporter. He knew the first names of many bartenders in Harrisburg. He would sit in a bar poring over court transcripts and interviewing sources.

“I don’t want to lead anyone to believe I go to bars only to get stories,” he once said, “although it would be nice if my editors did.”

Source(www.nytimes.com)

All Charges Dismissed Against Former Texas Death Row Inmate--139th Exoneration Nationally

On October 28, 2009, Travis County, Texas, prosecutors moved to dismiss all charges against Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen, who had been convicted in 2001 of the murder of four teens in an Austin yogurt shop in 1991. Springsteen had been sentenced to death and Scott was sentenced to life in prison. The convictions of both men were overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals because they had not been adequately allowed to cross examine each other. State District Judge Mike Lynch had released the defendants on bond in June, pending a possible retrial by the state. However, sophisticated DNA analysis of evidence from the crime scene did not match either defendant and the prosecution announced it was not prepared to go to trial. The judge accepted the state's motion to dismiss all charges. Prosecutors are still trying to match the DNA from crime with a new defendant.

"This has been a long time coming," said Scott, once charges were dropped, "and I'm happy to be here." Both Scott and Springsteen implicated themselves at the time of their arrest, 8 years after the crime. However, both claimed that their statements had been coerced by police. The police investigation had been compromised from the start because the building had been set on fire, and thousands of gallons of water were poured on the crime scene before an investigation was carried out. Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg issued a statement that said in part: "Make no mistake, this is a difficult decision and one I would rather not have to make."

(S. Kreytak, "Charges dismissed in yogurt shop case," Austin American-Statesman, October 28, 2009; see also J. Vertuno, "Murder counts tossed in Texas yogurt shop slayings," Associated Press, Oct. 29, 2009). See also Innocence. Robert Springsteen is the 139th person to be exonerated and freed from death row since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center's compilation of such cases. The criteria for inclusion on this list are:

Defendants must have been convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently either-

a) their conviction was overturned AND

i) they were acquitted at re-trial or

ii) all charges were dropped

b) they were given an absolute pardon by the governor based on new evidence of innocence.

Source(www.deathpenaltyinfo.org)

15 exonerees attend conference at UTA

ARLINGTON — During a prolonged standing ovation, the Texas exonerees were brought forward one by one. By the time the introductions were done, 14 men and one woman, each having served years in prison for crimes they did not commit, stood together on a stage at the University of Texas at Arlington.

"On this panel there is 200 years of incarceration," one of them, Anthony Robinson, told a large crowd of students, educators, relatives and government officials. "Two hundred years of suffering. Two hundred years of ignoring a problem that is screaming to be dealt with.

"You have a chance to make a phenomenal difference," said Robinson, who was wrongly convicted of rape. "This is a cause."

The emotional gathering of exonerees, one of the largest since wrongful convictions began making national headlines several years ago, headlined a daylong conference Friday sponsored by the UTA School of Social Work. Also on the program was the brother of Fort Worth’s Timothy Cole, who died in prison after being convicted of a rape he didn’t commit. A panel of criminal justice experts concluded the day.

But the event clearly belonged to the former prisoners. Conference organizer Jaimie Page, a UTA professor of social work, first heard a smaller group of exonerees speak at an Innocence Project event in Fort Worth a few years ago. Ever since, she has worked to help them make the transition into life in the free world.

"I’m not an emotional person, but I cried my eyes out," Page said Friday. "It was a life-changing moment, and I hope it will have the same effect on someone in the audience today so we can keep the movement going."

The exonerees greeted one another on stage with hugs and handshakes as they were introduced. Then, in eerily similar terms, they told of being wrongly convicted of crimes including rape and murder and spending up to 27 years behind bars before being freed. Most were exonerated through DNA testing.

"I was in the break room at work, and a woman said my voice sounded like the man who raped her," said Keith Turner, who was sentenced to 20 years for aggravated sexual assault in Dallas and forced to register as a sex offender when he was paroled.

Turner said he contacted a judge to try to clear his name after seeing a television program about DNA evidence.

James Waller, another Dallas resident exonerated in 2007, said he was convicted by a jury in 46 minutes for raping a 14-year-old boy.

"I was the only black man living in the apartments close to where he lived," Waller said. "They said [the assailant] was 5-8. I’m 6-4. They said I was light-complected, but all my people are from Africa.  . . .  If I was innocent, I know there are a whole lot more people like me."

That was a theme. Almost to a person, the exonerees said those liberated so far (245 by DNA testing in the United States since 1989) comprise a fraction of the wrongly convicted.

"Those voices cry out from behind the walls: Help me," said Dallas exoneree Eugene Henton, who was cleared two years ago.

They also praised Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins, whose office joined the Innocence Project to investigate innocence claims and expedite exonerations. More prisoners have been cleared in Dallas County than in any other U.S. county.

"Dallas has a head start on the rest of the country," said Robinson, who spent a decade in prison and became a lawyer after his exoneration. "Do not let his term pass away. Do not let the voice of reason and justice be silenced because they do not like to look at the faces they tried to throw away."

In the afternoon session, Cory Session dabbed away tears while remembering his older brother, Timothy Cole. Cole was wrongly convicted of raping a woman in Lubbock and died in prison a decade ago. His name was later cleared when another man admitted to the crime. This year, in the Tim Cole Act, the Texas Legislature passed a law boosting payments to the wrongly convicted from $50,000 to $80,000 for every year behind bars.

"Some say of the exonerees, they are millionaires," Session said, with many of the wrongly convicted sitting in the audience. "I say you are heirs to millions who have been wrongly convicted. Millions didn’t make it, but you are one of the lucky ones who did. But there had to be a sacrificial lamb who stepped up by the name of Tim Cole."

The conference came a week after the work of UTA student Natalie Ellis helped exonerate Claude Simmons and Christopher Scott in a Dallas County murder. On Friday, the men thanked Ellis from the stage. Several other exonerees spoke directly to students in the audience.

"Students did most of this," said Steven Phillips, who served 25 years in prison for rape before his exoneration in Dallas last year. "Things like that give us hope."

Source(www.star-telegram.com)

Free Tjostolv Moland and Joshua French

http://www.freefrenchandmoland.com/

Velkommen!

© Beskyttet av Lov om Åndsverk

Joshua French og Tjostolv Moland ble 8. september 2009 dømt til døden 5 ganger i en kongolesisk militærdomstol. De ble dømt kun på grunnlag av indisier og to vitner som slapp å avlegge ed. Vitnene ble omgjort til ”informanter” av retten, fordi de også krevde erstatning av de to drapsdømte nordmennene. Nordmennene hadde under store deler av rettsaken ingen tolk, og en gang i blant en svært dårlig tolk. De skjønte svært lite av hva som ble sagt. På grunn av dårlig tolkning, forhåndsdømming og tillatelse av uriktig bevisføring, valgte Joshua og Tjostolv å forholde seg tause under rettsaken, som de selv kalte ”en mock trial”.

De to nordmennene ble dømt til døden for:

*Spionasje for Norge,
*drap,
*drapsforsøk,
*dannelse av ett kriminelt forbund,
*væpnet ran.

I tillegg fikk Tjostolv 20 års fengsel for:

*Ulovlig besittelse av våpen.

Rettsaken foregikk over 4 uker, og var en farse. Beviser som ble fremvist var blant annet kart, kompass, turutstyr, ID-kort fra det norske forsvaret, ID-kort fra SIG, bilder av to kvinner, ett bilde av en norsk pressefotograf som peker på ett kart over Afrika, og diverse andre bilder. Også ett bilde hvor Tjostolv vasker blod ut av bilen skal være ett bevis på drap. Den døde sjåføren Abedi Kasongo ble aldri obdusert.

Tjostolv og Joshua har hele tiden forklart at de ble overfalt av røvere/milits den kvelden sjåføren Abedi Kasongo ble drept, og at de to kom seg unna. De ble senere arrestert. En ankesak skal etter planen starte opp den 13. oktober 2009.

Vi i familiene til guttene har ingen tiltro til at denne rettsaken skal bli noe bedre enn den første. Blant annet fordi det ikke er tillatt å komme med nye bevis, som kan vise at de er uskyldige.

Joshua French and Tjostolv Moland

http://www.freemolandandfrench.com/index.html

Joshua French and Tjostolv Moland received 5 death sentences each from a military tribunal in DR Congo on September 8. 2009.

They were convicted solely based on circumstational evidence and two witnesses who weren't expected to give their oath. Those witnesses were called "informants" by the military tribunal, simply because they would otherwise not be able to claim reinbursements from the two convicted Norwegians.

The Norwegians did not have any interpreterer for the most part of the trial, however, every now and then, they had an extremely incompetent interpreter.

The Norwegians understood little to nothing from what was being said in court. Because of incompetent interpretation, prejudice, and that the prosecution were allowed to present incorrect a and false evidence before the judges, Joshua French and Tjostolv Moland chose not to say anything at all during this trial, which they both called a "mock trial".

Rick Perry Can Run, But He Can't Hide: Pressure Builds to Admit Texas Executed An Innocent Man

As the corporate media picks up on the tragic story of Cameron Todd Willingham, Gov. Perry is going to desperate lengths to cover it up.

By now you've probably heard of Cameron Todd Willingham, the Texas man who was executed in 2004 for supposedly setting a fire that killed his three young daughters. His conviction was based on junk science, prejudice, and wild allegations about his homicidal tendencies based on his tattoos (really). The arson investigation that sent Willingham to the death chamber has been thoroughly debunked by no fewer than six arson experts, leading to one inevitable conclusion: Texas killed an innocent man.

Not surprisingly, Texas Governor Pick Perry, who signed off on Willingham's execution despite alarming proof of his innocence, has gone to great length to suppress this story. In the past two weeks, Perry fired four members of the state Forensic Science Commission -- including its chairman -- 48 hours before it was scheduled to hold a critical hearing on the Willingham case. He has appointed a new Commissioner, John Bradley, a district attorney and "one of the state's most notorious tough-on-crime advocates," according to the Texas Observer. The investigation is now stalled until further notice.

Perry's moves reek of desperation, particularly given his upcoming bid for re-election. His top challenger, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, has seized on the Willingham case, simultaneously using it to discredit her opponent while reaffirming her own pro-death penalty stance. (She accuses Perry of providing "liberals" with ammunition against capital punishment.)

CNN and MSNBC have now picked up on the Willingham case, echoing some of the questions being raised by the local press. "Only the governor knows whether his motives were political, but these recent episodes have produced a pungent smell of politicization," wrote the Fort Worth Star-Telegram this week. "And the odor is nauseating."

Most recently, Perry has gone beyond backroom machinations to publicly restate his own belief in Willingham's guilt. "Willingham was a monster," he told reporters this week. He claims that there is "clear and compelling, overwhelming evidence that he was in fact the murderer of his children," even if their was no proof that the fire that killed them was set on purpose. But as Bob Moser recently wrote, "That makes so sense. if there was no arson, there was no crime, and Willingham was, by definition, innocent."

Rick Perry is running scared. But he can't hide. After signing off on more than 200 executions during his term -- a figure that makes one wonder how he sleeps at night -- it looks like one of them will be coming back to haunt him.

To sign a petition demanding the truth from Texas, go here.

Source(www.alternet.org)

Death penalty foes emboldened by Willingham case

AUSTIN — Regardless of how it ultimately plays out, the roiling controversy over the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham is already energizing death penalty opponents into a renewed attack on capital punishment in Texas.

Gov. Rick Perry, depicting Willingham as a "monster" who murdered his children in a Christmastime house fire in 1991, says that opponents of the death penalty are using the case as "propaganda" to promote their cause. But advocacy groups that oppose capital punishment say the possibility that Texas may have put an innocent man to death underscores the need to end or seriously restrict the state’s executions.

"It has raised a lot of questions," says Scott Cobb, director of the Texas Moratorium Network. "No matter how things turn out, people are looking at the death penalty in a new light. They’re saying if it could have happened in the Willingham case, it could have happened in other cases."

Texas has a global reputation as the most prolific execution state in the country, having put 441 inmates to death since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

Willingham was No. 320, executed Feb. 17, 2004, after he was found guilty of setting his Corsicana home afire and killing his three daughters — a 1-year-old and 1-year-old twins. Willingham reasserted his claims of innocence in his final statement just before the sentence was carried out.

Perry, as well as investigators and prosecutors, say evidence overwhelmingly supported the jury’s decision, which was affirmed at each step of the appeals process. But several noted arson experts who re-examined the fire investigation say it relied on outmoded concepts and did not support a finding of arson. The Texas Forensic Science Commission opened a review of the arson investigation in 2008, but the inquiry stalled this month after Perry replaced four members of the panel.

Although Texans have traditionally strongly supported the death penalty — surveys generally show a breakdown of about 75 percent for and 25 percent against — Barry Scheck, co-founder of the New York-based Innocence Project, says that Texans are "beginning to think twice" about capital punishment.

Scheck’s organization has led the push for a re-examination of Willingham’s execution and features details of the case on its Web site, including a photograph of Willingham with one of his daughters perched on his shoulders. Scheck said questions raised by the investigation contribute to the "widespread perception that the process of trying these cases has broken down."

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, whose office has helped obtain exonerations for 20 wrongfully convicted defendants in Dallas County, says "it may be wise for all DAs throughout the state to implement a policy . . . to make sure mistakes weren’t made" in prosecuting capital cases.

In Fort Worth, Tarrant County District Attorney Joe Shannon says he supports the death penalty "in the proper case" but said prosecutors need to ensure that correct procedures are followed and that the evidence is sound. "If you’re going to have the death penalty," he said, "you need to do it right."

Other questionable cases

Cobb says concern over Willingham’s execution could also prompt a re-examination of several other executions in which questions have been raised, either by advocacy groups or newspaper investigations.

One case centers on Ruben Cantu, a teen-age offender who was executed in 1993 for shooting a San Antonio man during an attempted robbery. A two-part investigation by the Houston Chronicle in 2005 concluded that Cantu "was likely telling the truth" when he denied being involved. A key eyewitness who survived being shot in the robbery attempt at first identified Cantu as the assailant but recanted, the newspaper reported.

Questions have also been raised in the 1997 execution of David Spence, convicted of killing three teen-agers in a botched killing-for-hire scheme that became known as the Lake Waco murders. A convenience store manager was also charged and sentenced to death but was acquitted in a new trial. He said repeatedly that neither he nor Spence was connected to the killings. A homicide investigator involved in the case also expressed doubts about Spence’s guilt.

"The problem is that Texas goes so fast and executes so many people," Cobb said. "That creates the environment of making more mistakes."

The Willingham case is also likely to fuel efforts to find new safeguards against wrongful convictions.

The Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions began a yearlong effort last week to develop legislative remedies against false eyewitness identification, fraudulent testimony from snitches and other criminal justice flaws that could land the wrong person behind bars. The panel was created by the 2009 Legislature and named after Tim Cole, a wrongfully convicted inmate from Fort Worth who died in prison and was posthumously exonerated.

Austin battle brewing

Cobb said death penalty opponents are already gearing up for the next session of the Legislature in 2011 with plans to call for a moratorium and a study panel to examine Texas’ death penalty policies. "A lot is going to happen between now and then," he said. "I see radically increased support for a moratorium after the Willingham case."

But law enforcement groups, prosecutors and other death penalty supporters are also expected to marshal their forces to help keep the death penalty in place. Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who are battling for the Republican nomination in the 2010 governor’s race, are both ardent death penalty supporters.

"I think the people of Texas believe in the death penalty and believe it’s an appropriate sanction," said state Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, vice chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, which will hold hearings on the forensic commission next month. "But they also believe it should be administered with unerring accuracy."

Charley Wilkison, spokesman for the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas, said the 17,500-member organization will continue to make the case that capital punishment deters murder and helps protect police.

If the death penalty were repealed in Texas, he said, "It would be absolutely an open season on policemen by drug dealers, transnational gangs and other criminals if the consequences were only life in prison with a decent bed, a TV and three squares."

Source(www.star-telegram.com)

If you can't say anything nice...If you can't say anything nice...

Just this evening, the topic came up with my family of what, if anything, I would say about a case long after my representation of a client was over. I was asked to declare whether I believed a particular client had been guilty or innocent. With my own family, I was extremely cagey on some questions and flat-out refused to answer others. My obligation to hold my client's confidences goes to the grave. My grave, not his. And my continuing duty of loyalty, as we call it here in Kansas, goes just as far. I don't think I am prohibited from talking about cases in sort of general ways. But even long after a case is over, I am always mindful that I am that client's advocate above all else.

Then I saw this video. (Hat tip to Mark Bennett at Defending People for posting it first.)

This is the lawyer who represented Cameron Todd Willingham at trial and he's getting a little annoyed that we're all still talking about the doubt that has been cast on Willingham's guilt 5 years after he was executed. David Martin thinks it's "absurd" that we're wasting our time on this obviously guilty guy.

Clearly, David Martin does not come from the same school of criminal defense that I do. I don't care how much I disliked my client, how much I firmly believed in his guilt, or how much my representation was being attacked. I would never, NEVER talk about any of my former clients in this fashion. I would never talk about the (ridiculously simplistic) experiments I had conducted that helped convince me my client was guilty. I would never call efforts to exonerate my client after the fact absurd. I would never let anyone know what little respect I had for my client and our relationship. I would also never think that my job as a trial defense attorney was ONLY to challenge the state's evidence through vigorous cross-examination.

I have nothing nice to say about David Martin after watching this appalling performance, so perhaps I should not say anything at all. Except, I have no duty of loyalty to David Martin. But I do feel a duty of loyalty to my profession. I happen to think that defending people is one of the most noble things you can do. I can go on quite a tear about how we defenders of the constitution are the true patriots and the most noble actors of all in the criminal justice system. I take my job seriously. Very seriously. My clients trust me with their lives, just as Todd Willingham had to trust David Martin. As much as I rail against prosecutors and cops who bend the rules or cut corners, no one offends me more than the defense attorney who does not live up to my high ideals for the profession. From what I've seen in this video, David Martin is the kind of defense attorney I don't ever want to be.

Oh, and I don't think he helped persuade me that Willingham got such a fair trial. If that was the attitude of the guy assigned to defend Willingham, I have to wonder whether Willingham really got the sort of trial advocacy he deserved. Maybe a defense attorney who wasn't so sure the guy was guilty might have gone looking to find some experts who would counter the bad arson evidence that was produced by the state.

Source(rantsofapublicdefender.blogspot.com)

Never Smear Your Own Client, Not Even In Death

My initial reaction was "why?" Why would he do this? Why would he say this? Of the many things that have passed my consciousness over the years, few are as inexplicable as this. Like anyone else, it caused me to strain to find an answer, but nothing came.

I'm talking about the interview by Anderson Cooper of David Martin, the attorney who tried the Cameron Todd Willingham case, which Mark Bennett posted at Defending People. Given the intense pressure that arose from the overwhelming post mortem evidence that Willingham was innocent, coupled with the additional pressure arising from Texas Governor Rick Perry's scuttling of the his Forensic Science Commission's personnel on the eve of its hearings, there was certainly an abundance of interest in what happened at trial.

But as far as I've heard, no one has suggested that it was Martin's fault that Willingham was convicted and sentenced to death. Maybe I'm not close enough to the local scuttlebutt to know what's being whispered around the ranch, but no one has openly challenged Martin as a flaming incompetent, personally responsible for the death of a human being.

So why would Martin do this?

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Martin has no grossly improper motive, like he's been promised a judgeship by Perry if he does everything in his power to undermine the evidence of Willingham's innocence. If Martin truly believes what he's saying to be true, his statements are the most irresponsible, unethical, improper I have ever heard from the mouth of a criminal defense lawyer. Outrageously wrong. Utterly disgraceful.

He may not be tainted by the fact of Willingham's conviction, but he should be forever tainted by his overt effort to argue the guilt of his client. Worst still, if that's possible, is his apparent use of confidential information to bolster his claim. Willingham may be dead, but his privileged communications are buried with him. They aren't Martin's to reveal at his convenience.

Mom's old adage, if you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all, applies. Martin is under no duty to come forward to argue Willingham's innocence, especially if he doesn't believe it to be true. But under no circumstances should he come forward to argue Willingham's guilt. Don't want to argue innocence? Fine, then stay on the ranch and off TV. Keep your mouth shut and say nothing. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Bennett ponders whether Martin was enjoying his 15 minutes of fame, his opportunity to go on Anderson Cooper and be the Big Man. It's clear from the interview that Martin is inadept at television interviews, given his slow, long-winded, pedantic speech pattern, refusal to give the floor to the host and background muttering of "this is absurd." That would explain why Martin, with nothing good to say about his client, agreed to go on air, but it offers no explanation for his egregious breach of trust.

There is no ethical duty of perpetual loyalty to one's client. A lawyer need not argue the client's innocence after his representation has ended. But that doesn't mean that the alternative is to smear his client, to argue his guilt, to expose his confidences, either. If Martin so desperately wanted his moment in the sun, then his options were limited to speaking in his client's best interest or discussing issues surrounding the present circumstances. There was no option of exposing communications, investigations, thoughts that existed solely within the defense. Martin had no right to offer that up in exchange for the opportunity to go on TV in his Texas rancher hat and tout himself at the expense of his client.

If I was forced to explain Martin, the best I could offer is that he now fears that Willingham's death is on his shoulders for his failure as a lawyer to have adequately represented his client. Even though the fingers aren't point at him, he believes in the back of his mind that he failed miserably. Perhaps he anticipates that eventually the fingers will come around to him, point at him, blame him, for his incompetence. Perhaps he knows something we don't, that there's good reason for the fingers to point at him. Perhaps he is responsible for the death of Cameron Todd Willingham. This is merely his pre-emptive way of deflecting responsibility.

Even now, Martin's description of the "scientific method" the defense team used to determine the accuracy of the arson claim rings ridiculous. They bought lighter fluid, burned a carpet, and it looked just like the carpet in Willingham's home? That's what he claims is proof that his client was guilty? Now that's absurd.

While no one can make a criminal defense lawyer believe in the innocence of his client, or chose to argue it after his representation has ended, he can be taken to task for doing the unthinkable, the outrageous and the facially wrong. David Martin's comments are a disgrace of the lowest order. And, for good measure, just as criminal defense lawyers aren't expected to believe in the innocence of every client, they similarly aren't endowed with the superhuman ability to know when a person who professes innocence is in fact guilty.

I may lack an explanation for what drove David Martin to condemn his own client publicly, particularly in the face of overwhelming evidence of innocence, but I have no doubt that his statements on Anderson Cooper 360 are some of the most despicable I've ever heard from the mouth of a lawyer. Never, but never, smear your own client.

Source(blog.simplejustice.us)

A juror’s doubts

It all started in 1991 just days before Christmas in the small town of Corsicana, Texas.

Cameron Todd Willingham was home alone with his three little girls when the house caught on fire. All three children died and Willingham got out with just some minor burns. He was convicted of “arson homicide” and sentenced to death for setting the fire while his wife was out shopping for Christmas presents.

I’ve covered this case for years now for AC360° and there are still so many unanswered questions.

Top of the list: “Was an innocent man executed?” And now, is Texas Governor Rick Perry trying to cover up evidence that would show he was innocent? Willingham died by lethal injection February 17, 2004, after Texas Governor Rick Perry refused to grant him a stay even though new evidence had come to light that the fire was not arson! Mr. Perry is now in a heated re-election campaign.

Willingham’s stepmother, Eugena Willingham, told me she visited her son on death row every six weeks for 12 years. She always believed in her son’s innocence. I remember discussing the case over iced tea and homemade cookies in her Ardmore, Oklahoma home. She’s a sweet woman with a Texas-sized heart.

We sat in her kitchen a couple years ago, when I first interviewed her for a story on AC360°, and she showed me the family photo album. So many pictures of her son Todd and her granddaughters. She told me, “Todd called them his babies.” She spread his ashes over their graves.

For weeks, Governor Perry has been facing criticism for suddenly removing four members of a state commission which had set out to determine once and for all if Todd Willingham was innocent when he died.

This replacement of four members of the commission that had already been working on the case means the state’s work on the case is delayed, and maybe even derailed for good. The findings were supposed to be released just weeks before the Texas Republican Primary vote.

One person watching this case with eyes wide open now is Dorenda Lynn Brokofsky. She was on the jury in the Willingham arson trial back in 1992 and she told me today, she hasn’t slept very much since. All these years later, Brokofsky wonders if Willingham was innocent, even though she decided along with the others at the time that he was guilty.

We spoke by phone from her home in the midwest, where she moved after leaving Corsicana, where the fire took place. She dropped a couple of bombshells that left many of us here at AC360° shaking our heads.

She told me, “My dad was a fire marshall for eight years in Corsicana.” He wasn’t the fire marshall at the time of the Willingham fire, but she had a connection. And get this, she said her family was “good friends” with Douglas Fogg. Fogg was the deputy fire marshall and a key witness in the case. Fogg’s determination that the fire was arson really helped send Willingham to death row.

I interviewed Douglas Fogg years ago about this case and he told me he still stands by his findings and believes Willingham set the fire. I asked him if he’s at all concerned he may have sent an innocent man to his death? He said, simply, “No.”

But back to the juror who knew Investigator Fogg. How could prosecutors, the judge, and even the defense, let a woman on the jury who was “good friends” with a key witness for the prosecution and the deputy investigator? Wouldn’t that be a mistrial? Too late for Todd Willingham now, but the juror told me, “I told them I knew Mr. Fogg but they didn’t care.”

To this day, Brokofsky isn’t sure Willingham was guilty. “When you’re sitting there with all those facts, there was nothing else we could see. Now I don’t know. I can’t tell you he’s innocent, I can’t say 100 percent he’s guilty,” Dorenda said.

“I don’t sleep at night because of a lot of this,” she told me. “I have gone back and forth in my mind trying to think of anything that we missed. I don’t like the fact that years later someone is saying maybe we made a mistake. That the facts aren’t what they could’ve been.”

Brokofsky said, “I’ve got to stand in front of my God one day and explain what I did.”

To be fair, Todd Willingham wasn’t perfect. He had a history and was known around town for domestic disputes with his wife. Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has always said there was “overwhelming” evidence Willingham was guilty, just yesterday called him a “monster” and said he had tried to beat his wife into having an abortion, suggesting Willingham did not want the children. Willingham’s stepmother told me they did fight, but she “never saw any bruises on his wife.”

When I told the juror that arson science has changed over the years and that at least half a dozen arson experts now say the fire was not arson and not intentionally set, Brokofsky got so upset she had to get off the phone. She said she needed some time to “process this.”

Imagine, wondering all your life, if you sent an innocent man to the death chamber?

Source(ac360.blogs.cnn.com)

AC360 10/14/09 Keeping Them Honest

Death Penalty Coverup

See the video here :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZddHNu_j7o8&feature=related

Source(www.youtube.com)

AC360 10/15/09 Keeping Them Honest

Todd Willingham's Defense Lawyer Embarrasses Texas Justice System on National TV;

See the video from Anderson Cooper . Klick on the heading.

Source(www.youtube.com)

Pictures of Juan Melendez’s Visit to Tallahassee

Here are some pictures of Juan Melendez, the 99th death-row exoneree in the United States, when he returned to Florida last week for a screening of his documentary, Juan Melendez-6446:

The first two photos are during Juan’s riveting presentation after the film and the third is me presenting Juan with some tokens of our appreciation for him coming all the way in from New Mexico, on short notice, to show us his movie and discuss how he feels about the death penalty. Also, Florida Public Radio has a great piece on his visit that you can listen to here.

Source(floridainnocence.org)

MSNBC Rachel Maddow Show on Todd Willingham and Rick Perry's Cover Up

Click on the heading to see the video.










Source(www.youtube.com)

Gov. Rick Perry’s changes at forensic commission raise eyebrows

Gov. Rick Perry’s hatchet has fallen once again on what was a little-known state commission created to ensure the credibility of forensic science used in criminal investigations.

The governor has now replaced all four of his appointees, including the chairman, to the nine-member Texas Forensic Science Commission. His actions came as the commission was investigating its highest-profile case, involving the possibility that an innocent man was executed in 2004.

Because of the reshuffling of members, an Oct. 2 meeting of the commission, at which it planned to hear from an arson expert, was indefinitely postponed.

The out-of-state expert had prepared a report that said the forensic evidence in the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, accused of murdering his three daughters in a fire, was faulty and that the blaze that killed the children was not a result of arson.

Just two days before the scheduled meeting, the governor began his purge, informing three members that their services were no longer needed. Last week he dismissed his fourth appointee, leaving many to wonder if his sudden moves were politically motivated because he had signed off on the Willingham execution five years ago — and he has a tough primary race coming up in March.

Perry has said that all the dismissals were routine, as each member’s term had expired. Although he had been encouraged by others not to make changes at this juncture, the governor saw the need to move swiftly in replacing members.

The former chairman of the commission, Austin attorney Samuel Bassett, told the Chicago Tribune that top members of the governor’s legal staff had injected themselves into the commission’s work and had applied pressure regarding the Willingham investigation, which the governor’s office did not regard as a priority. He said the investigation’s cost and the fact that the expert was not from Texas were also issues.

Bassett said there was the implication that the commission’s funding was in jeopardy, and the general counsel’s office began sending a representative to all the commission meetings.

There was apparently some concern on the part of the governor’s aides that the Forensic Science Commission had overstepped its bounds in taking on the Willingham investigation. In a case where a man is put to death based largely on forensic evidence, one would think this is exactly the kind of issue that would be part of the commission’s purview.

The Senate Criminal Justice Committee, which includes three members who pushed for legislation to create the commission, has rightly set a hearing next month to explore the commission’s plans and processes.

The newly appointed commission chairman has been invited to appear, and the senators should make it irrefutably clear that the Willingham case must not be shelved or unduly delayed.

Only the governor knows whether his motives were political, but these recent episodes have produced a pungent smell of politicization.

And the odor is nauseating.

Source(www.star-telegram.com)

Man's conviction set aside in 1993 shooting death

Edwin Chandler wept while holding Maguerite Thomas' hand after Circuit Judge Fred Cowan told Chandler he was a free man after the judge vacated the manslaughter and robbery charges against him in a 1993 slaying and robbery case. Thomas is the director of the Kentucky Innocence Project. Chandler spent nine years in prison before being paroled. (By Matt Stone, The Courier-Journal) Oct. 13, 2009

For 16 years, Edwin Chandler faithfully believed the day would come when everyone would know he wasn't the man who shot Brenda Whitfield in the head during a 1993 robbery at the Chevron station where she worked.

That day finally arrived Tuesday, when Jefferson Circuit Judge Fred Cowan vacated the manslaughter and robbery charges against Chandler after prosecutors and police announced they had convicted the wrong man.

“All I can do at this point is apologize to you on behalf of the criminal justice system,” Cowan said. “You are a free man. God bless you, sir.”

Though they were the words Chandler always hoped for, to hear them out loud in a Louisville courtroom nearly overwhelmed him. He crumpled on the table next to his attorney, his body wracked with sobs of relief.

“This is like a big, old dream,” Chandler said in an interview later, as he prepared to celebrate his son's first birthday. “It's like I'm waking up from a dream.”

His conviction for manslaughter and robbery in Whitfield's death was vacated just hours after a Jefferson County grand jury indicted 45-year-old repeat offender Percy Phillips for her death. Phillips is already serving a 20-year sentence for assault.

Tuesday's news reopened an old wound for Whitfield's family, who had thought they had put the trial behind them long ago.

“Now I have to go through the whole thing again,” said Keith Whitfield, who had been married to the victim for three years before she was killed. The couple had a 2-year-old son, Keith Jr., and Brenda had a 4-year-old son, Cory, from a previous relationship.

Keith Whitfield met Chandler on Tuesday afternoon for the first time since Chandler's trial and spoke with him privately for an hour before talking with reporters.

“I'm sorry he had to go through it,” Whitfield said. “I'm just glad he's able to get his life back, whatever he can get back.”

Prosecutor surprised

When Steve Schroering prosecuted Chandler in 1995, he said he had no doubt that the right man went to prison.

“It was never a case I had second thoughts about until this morning” when Commonwealth's Attorney Dave Stengel called to tell him the conviction was being set aside.

After all, a store video camera captured the crime and an eyewitness tentatively identified Chandler. Fingerprints, a knit cap and sunglasses were found at the scene. And Chandler made a taped confession to detectives, admitting to the robbery and saying the shooting was accidental.

But the fingerprints didn't match Chandler's, the owner of the cap and sunglasses was uncertain, and Chandler said he falsely confessed, coerced by police scare tactics and coaching.

Chandler said then-Detective Mark Handy told Chandler he believed he was lying and threatened to charge his sister and girlfriend with harboring a fugitive if he didn't tell the truth.

“Having to explain yourself to someone who doesn't believe you, it's kind of like bumping your head against the wall,” Chandler said Tuesday. “I thought if I tell them what they want to know, they'll leave me alone.”

Handy, now with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department, said he was surprised that Chandler was exonerated.

“Having interviewed the guy … I just can't imagine that he was not involved,” said Handy, who defended his interrogation tactics. “It never crossed my mind that he didn't do it.”

Witness overlooked

Whitfield was shot in the head on Sept. 28, 1993, just 15 minutes before her shift was to end.

A man walked into the store, grabbed a bottle of beer from the cooler and walked up to check out. When Whitfield rang up the 99-cent bottle, the cash drawer opened and the man shot her in the head.

He grabbed $32 from the till and fled.

Chandler said he was a few blocks away, watching a movie with his girlfriend. He remembers seeing a swarm of police cars but didn't know what had happened.

Police focused on Chandler after a witness identified him near the scene, and he already was wanted on a jail-escape charge.

Even as his trial approached, Chandler believed that the evidence would show that he hadn't committed the crime.

But Chandler's jurors never heard some of the information that could have helped acquit him.

They never heard from John Gray, who was pumping gasoline when the shooting occurred. Gray left his name with a county officer at the scene, but it was never passed on to the city officers investigating the case.

Even after a jury convicted Chandler, Gray tried to tell police that they had the wrong man —calling the station and writing a letter to detectives.

In 1996, Gray was serving time in prison with Chandler and told him he saw the shooter and his name was Percy.

In 2002, Chandler approached the Kentucky Innocence Project, which investigates potentially wrongful convictions. They took up his case in 2004, even though he had already been paroled.

Marguerite Thomas, director of the Kentucky Innocence Project, said it was the first time the project has taken on a case in which a defendant had already been released from prison.

“It was so incredibly shocking that he was convicted at all,” she said.

Thomas said there were many roadblocks as they worked to exonerate Chandler. They struggled to get information from Louisville police. They were told physical evidence had disappeared.

But in October 2008, Sgt. Denny Butler, who works Louisville Metro Police's cold case homicides, took on the case and retested the fingerprint on the bottle of beer left on the counter. This time, the more advanced automated fingerprinting system matched the print to Phillips.

No new trial?

It's unclear whether Phillips will ever stand trial for Whitfield's murder.

Phillips, who made headlines recently after a courtroom outburst prompted deputies to user a Taser on him, was recently found not competent to stand trial. A judge ruled that Phillips was unlikely to become competent in the foreseeable future.

Jay Lambert, Phillips' attorney, said he has not received Tuesday's indictment and could not comment on the new charges. Phillips had a 2002 murder and robbery charge dismissed for lack of evidence.

Chandler said he wants to see the man who shot Whitfield prosecuted and held responsible for the crime that cost him nine years behind bars.

Still, Chandler doesn't want to waste time being bitter about the years he's lost.

“Even though I've been through a lot, I know I'm still blessed,” Chandler said. “I'd like for someone to miraculously go back, give me my nine years back. I can't get back what's been taken from me.”

Source(www.courier-journal.com)

Death penalty opponents tour Virginia

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - A man who spent 13 years on death row only to be exonerated hours before his scheduled execution is sharing his story.

Shabaka WaQlimi will speak against the death penalty in Virginia as part of a statewide tour this week. He was convicted of rape and murder based on the testimony of a man who later admitted he lied.

Members of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and Witness to Innocence are making stops in Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Harrisonburg, Arlington and Winchester.

Besides WaQlimi's story, Beth Panilaitis will discuss Virginia's death penalty laws. She is the executive director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty.

Both speakers will answer questions afterward.

The events are free and open to the public.

Source(www.wtkr.com)

Better late than never, DNA lets innocent people reclaim liberty

THERE have been 244 "exonerees" since the creation of the Innocence Project in the United States 17 years ago. Exoneree is an unwieldy but precise term invented within the Innocence Project to describe the prisoners it has helped to release not on ambiguous technical grounds of mistrial but because examination of the DNA evidence from the crime scene established that they didn't do it. They were innocent of the crimes they were jailed for.

Seventeen of the 244 had served time on death row. They would have been executed for crimes they did not commit. Most others had sentences measured in decades.

The Innocence Project was founded by Barry Scheck and co-director Peter Neufield. Scheck is best known in this country for his part in the 1995 OJ Simpson defence team and later as defence lawyer for the British nanny Louise Woodward.

Scheck and Neufield wanted to apply the still relatively new science of DNA profiling as its inventor, Professor Alex Jeffreys, originally envisaged – as proof of innocence. The assumption among the public and prosecutors of the world had quickly become that DNA evidence was a failsafe tool for securing convictions.

The first raft of cases on the Innocence Project books involved people – almost entirely men – whose convictions predated the arrival of DNA profiling.

But in their rather austere offices downtown on New York City's 5th Avenue, the banks of filing cabinets contain hundreds more active cases in which available DNA evidence was ignored, or wrongly analysed. Exoneree number 245 is likely to be one Ernest Sonnier, who was freed on bond in August after 23 years in Texas prisons for a rape he didn't commit. DNA testing eventually proved Sonnier's innocence of the attack on Christmas Eve 1985 and implicated two other men.

His conviction had preceded the invention of DNA profiling and had been based on identification from photographs by the victim and by evidence from the scientist who examined blood-group evidence and who gave testimony that implicated Sonnier, even though his own written report tended to exclude him as the assailant.

Stephen Saloom, policy director of the project, says misidentification is a factor in a high proportion of wrongful convictions and in particular rape and sexual assault cases. Although all participants in the criminal justice process agree that eye-witness testimony is the least reliable evidence, it remains so often the clinching moment in the theatre of a trial. A woman who was undoubtedly raped points to the accused in the dock and says it was him. How difficult it must be for a jury not to convict. But in dozens of the Innocence Project cases, she was wrong. Honest, but wrong.

Misidentification is most common when the victim and accused are from different races. In the project's most recent newsletter, Saloom lists the other common causes of wrongful conviction.

They include inadequate forensic scientific analysis. It is extraordinary to discover that, in the land of CSI, there are no basic general standards of validation for forensic examiners. The threshold in some counties is very low. In a number of wrongful conviction cases, forensic scientists have actively engaged in misconduct.

About a third of cases involved false confessions by young or mentally suggestible accused. Audio and DVD recording of police interviews is required throughout Scotland but is still patchy across the US.

About 16 per cent of cases involved "snitch testimony", in which other prisoners – and sometimes the actual perpetrator – had given statements that incriminated the accused in return for deals, special treatment or the dropping of charges.

In the meantime, how have the 244 exonerees fared after their campaign for release has at last succeeded and the prison doors have closed behind them? "Mixed," say Angela Amel and Karen Wolff, the two- person social work team charged with easing the transition back to life outside.

"There is very little in the way of support services for any ex-prisoner on release in most states," says Wolff. "Bizarrely, if you are released because you turned out to have been wrongly imprisoned then you may not be eligible for what little there is. That will be linked to parole conditions and our guys aren't on parole."

Wolff is a lawyer turned social worker. Amel is a career social worker, previously employed on a youth homelessness project in New York City. "There were more 'f*** yous' than 'thank yous' in that job compared to this," she says. "I guess our guys had to be perseverers in jail to stick with their campaign for release for year after year. So they understand they have to persevere again when they get out, usually with just the clothes they stand up in."

More than half the American states have no system of compensation for wrongful convictions. The others grind extremely slowly. "An exoneree needs support the day he gets out," says Wolff. "Three years later is too late."

Their first task is to give the exoneree an identity. "With no bank account or driving licence or credit record for 20 years, they are invisible to day-to-day society."

The Innocence Project now boasts a panel of celebrity supporters, and prolific author John Grisham is on the board of directors. His "faction", The Innocent Man, told the story from wrongful conviction to derelict death of exoneree No 59, Ron Williamson.

Optimists might have hoped the project would be beginning to run out of cases to investigate after 17 years.

Alas not, according to Scheck. "When we founded the project, our intention was to exonerate as many innocent people from prison as possible, identify the causes of those wrongful convictions, and use them to reform the criminal justice system.

"DNA exonerations are just the tip of the iceberg of issues within our system. Over the past two decades, the exonerations we have secured have led to sweeping reforms in how line-ups and interrogations are conducted, how evidence is collected, and how our system of justice handles claims of innocence.

"We still have a great deal of work to do, but we've made more progress already than anyone thought possible."

Source(news.scotsman.com)

Is Rick Perry Hiding Smoking Gun in Todd Willingham Case?

According to an article in today's Houston Chronicle, Texas Governor Rick Perry is refusing to release documents that could show whether or not he considered or even read the information sent to him on the day of the execution of Todd Willingham informing him that there was new evidence casting doubt on Willingham's guilt and raising the question of whether Texas was about to execute an innocent man.

• Scott Cobb's diary :: ::


• 
  

We must put pressure on Perry to release all information dealing with the Willingham execution. Rick Perry is continuing to hide information and cover up whether Texas executed an innocent person.

The same information that Perry is now refusing to release has been released before. In 2003, there was an article by Alan Berlow in The Atlantic ("Texas Clemency Memos") that discussed and contained copies of execution day memos sent to Governor George W Bush from his staff, including many written by his legal counsel Alberto Gonzales. According to Berlow:

Gonzales never intended his summaries to be made public. Almost all are marked CONFIDENTIAL and state, "The privileges claimed include, but are not limited to, claims of Attorney-Client Privilege, Attorney Work-Product Privilege, and the Internal Memorandum exception to the Texas Public Information Act." I obtained the summaries and related documents, which have never been published, after the Texas attorney general ruled that they were not exempt from the disclosure requirements of the Public Information Act.

Call Perry's office at 512 463 1782 and demand that he release all information.

Sent him an email through his website here.

Sign the petition to Governor Rick Perry and the State of Texas to acknowledge that the fire in the Cameron Todd Willingham case was not arson, therefore no crime was committed and on February 17, 2004, Texas executed an innocent man.

Excerpt from the Chronicle:

In a letter sent Feb. 14, three days before Willingham was scheduled to die, Perry had been asked to postpone the execution. The condemned man's attorney argued that the newly obtained expert evidence showed Willingham had not set the house fire that killed his daughters, 2-year-old Amber and 1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron, two days before Christmas in 1991.

On Feb. 17, the day of the execution, Perry's office got the five-page faxed report at 4:52 p.m., according to documents the Houston Chronicle obtained in response to a public records request.

But it's unclear from the records whether he read it that day. Perry's office has declined to release any of his or his staff's comments or analysis of the reprieve request.

A statement from Perry spokesman Chris Cutrone, sent to the Chronicle late Friday, said that “given the brevity of (the) report and the general counsel's familiarity with all the other facts in the case, there was ample time for the general counsel to read and analyze the report and to brief the governor on its content.”

A few minutes after 5 p.m., defense lawyer Walter M. Reaves Jr. said he received word that the governor would not intervene. At 6:20 p.m. Willingham was executed after declaring: “I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not commit.”

Summaries of gubernatorial reviews of execution cases previously were released as public records in Texas, most recently under former Gov. George W. Bush. Yet Perry's office has taken the position that any documents showing his own review and staff discussion of the Willingham case are not public — a claim the Chronicle disputes.

Plan to attend the 10th Annual March to Abolish the Death Penalty on October 24 in Austin at the Texas Capitol. We plan to deliver the petition that day. Members of Todd Willingham's family are expected to attend the march and rally.

Todd Willingham was executed for arson/murder on February 17, 2004. He professed his innocence from his arrest until he was strapped down on the execution gurney. Now, we know for certain that he was telling the truth. On August 25, 2009, Dr Craig Beyler, the investigator hired by the Texas Forensic Science Commission to review the Willingham case, released his report in which he found that “a finding of arson could not be sustained” by a scientific analysis (Read the report here). He concluded that the fire in the Willingham case was accidental and not arson. In fact, there was no arson, so there was no crime. Texas executed an innocent person. The proven execution of an innocent person should mean the end of the death penalty in the United States.

Send Perry an email by filling out the email form on his website.

You can also send Perry a letter in the postal mail to the mailing address:

Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, Texas 78711-2428

You can also call him on the phone and leave him a message:

Information and Referral Hotline [for Texas callers] :
(800) 843-5789

Citizen’s Opinion Hotline [for Texas callers] :
(800) 252-9600

Information and Referral and Opinion Hotline [for Austin, Texas and out-of-state callers] :
(512) 463-1782

Office of the Governor Main Switchboard [office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST] :
(512) 463-2000

Citizen’s Assistance Telecommunications Device
If you are using a telecommunication device for the deaf (TDD),
call 711 to reach Relay Texas

Office of the Governor Fax:
(512) 463-1849

Source(www.dailykos.com)

Ex-prosecutor Robert Carney draws scrutiny over disputed murder cases

Broward Circuit Judge Robert Carney looking through the window of the door to his courtrom. As a prosecutor, he has been involved in a number of case that have been overturned or put in question. (Mike Stocker, S-S / September 17, 2009)

For five years, Robert Carney, a Vietnam-era Marine, represented the people of Broward County in murder cases, a prosecutor's gravest responsibility. It was his duty to bring killers to account, to seek justice and the truth in cases where the defendant faced life in prison or the ultimate penalty — execution.

A brainy, aggressive prosecutor, Carney became known around the courthouse for his ability to look jurors in the eye and deliver his closing arguments without notes. He was later appointed to a judgeship, a position he announced in August he will retire from at the end of this year.

As Carney, 62, spends his final months in judicial robes, though, hard questions have arisen about his role in four murder cases from the 1980s.

Those cases were thrown out on appeal, disproved by DNA evidence or have become marred by serious doubt that justice was truly done.

"The public should absolutely be concerned any time you have one person involved in a single wrongful conviction," said Seth Miller, executive director of the Innocence Project of Florida, a Tallahassee-based organization that investigates claims of innocence.

"When someone has been involved with four wrongful convictions, it is something that deserves further scrutiny," Miller said.

As a homicide prosecutor, Carney played a major part in three Broward murder cases — against John Purvis, Anthony Caravella and Christopher Clugston — that were thrown out by appeals courts or in which the validity of the convictions has been greatly undermined. He also played a lesser role in one of Florida's most notorious wrongful convictions, that of Frank Lee Smith.

Carney declined to be interviewed by the Sun Sentinel in person or by phone for this story, but agreed to make some comments by e-mail. He declined to discuss details of the cases.

"It is easy to sit as a Monday morning quarterback and judge from a perspective 25 years later with information unknown at the time of prosecution," Carney wrote.

Two of the cases involve unconnected murders committed days apart in November 1983, in Miramar and Fort Lauderdale. Both were assigned to Carney, who won swift convictions of Purvis and Caravella.

One of those long-ago convictions is now back in the news. Caravella was released from prison Sept. 10 after DNA tests cast doubt on his guilt. More testing is being done that could lead to his exoneration.

Both prosecutions were built on the shaky foundations of incriminating confessions. Purvis was schizophrenic, with the mental capacity of an 8-year-old. Caravella was 15 and had an IQ of 67. In both instances, Carney sought the death penalty but jurors voted for life in prison.

Questions have arisen in the two cases about whether Carney should have turned over evidence to the defense that might have set off alarms about the reliability of the confessions and the strength of the state's case.

Purvis' conviction took nearly 10 years to fall apart; Caravella's may be unraveling 26 years later.

Carney said two juries were convinced of both men's guilt.

"Twelve people unanimously, in both cases attributable to me, found there was no reasonable doubt. That is how the system works," Carney wrote. "The 'new' evidence came to light long after trial and could not have been reasonably known before trial. In Caravella, the [DNA] science was not available in 1983," he wrote.

Prosecutors play a key role in the justice system, Carney said, but are not the only players. Judges monitored his conduct; each accused man had an attorney; juries indicted and later convicted both defendants; and appeals courts initially upheld the convictions, he said.

"Yet in spite of these safeguards, the system is not perfect and, on occasion, there is a bad result," Carney wrote. "When it happens it is a stark reminder to all of us of the gravity of what we do. If an innocent person serves time for a crime he or she did not commit, this is a terrible thing and is felt deeply by all who are involved in the process."

Some of the defense attorneys involved in the four murder cases said that they lay more of the blame for what has happened on police — who initially targeted the suspects and interrogated them — than on Carney.

Carolyn McCann, the prosecutor who is handling the Caravella appeal and is familiar with some of the other cases, said Carney is an honorable person.

Broward prosecutors have worked to correct any issues in cases he handled, as well as others, as soon as problems became known, she said.

"I don't believe any prosecutor, including Rob Carney, would ever want to convict an innocent person," McCann said. If Caravella is exonerated, Steven Drizin, a law professor with the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, said there should be an independent investigation of every aspect of the case.

"It's way too early to focus blame on a single [person in the justice system]," Drizin said. "Often these cases are a total system meltdown beginning with the police, moving on to the prosecutor and defense attorney and ultimately to the judiciary and the jury."

Drizin added: "What is striking to me is we're talking about a death penalty case against a 15-year-old. You'd think every effort would have been made to ensure it was being done right."

Carney was a Broward prosecutor for nine years and has spent 24 years on the bench. Once dubbed "the jumping judge" because of his love of sky diving, he is regarded as intelligent and organized. He was known as one of the county's top prosecutors, tough but persuasive, and with evident ambitions to earn a black robe. His record as a prosecutor is still being assessed.

Ed McGee, who was a prosecutor with Carney in the 1970s, later defended a homicide case Carney prosecuted, and has represented clients before him as a judge. He said Carney is a "straight shooter" and "takes his job very seriously and does it very, very, very well."

Source(www.sun-sentinel.com)

Perry's office quiet on expert's arson report

Just 88 minutes before the February 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, Gov. Rick Perry's office received by fax a crucial arson expert's opinion that later ignited a political firestorm over whether Texas, on Perry's watch, used botched forensic evidence to send a man to his death.

In a letter sent Feb. 14, three days before Willingham was scheduled to die, Perry had been asked to postpone the execution. The condemned man's attorney argued that the newly obtained expert evidence showed Willingham had not set the house fire that killed his daughters, 2-year-old Amber and 1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron, two days before Christmas in 1991.

On Feb. 17, the day of the execution, Perry's office got the five-page faxed report at 4:52 p.m., according to documents the Houston Chronicle obtained in response to a public records request.

But it's unclear from the records whether he read it that day. Perry's office has declined to release any of his or his staff's comments or analysis of the reprieve request.

A statement from Perry spokesman Chris Cutrone, sent to the Chronicle late Friday, said that “given the brevity of (the) report and the general counsel's familiarity with all the other facts in the case, there was ample time for the general counsel to read and analyze the report and to brief the governor on its content.”

A few minutes after 5 p.m., defense lawyer Walter M. Reaves Jr. said he received word that the governor would not intervene. At 6:20 p.m. Willingham was executed after declaring: “I am an innocent man, convicted of a crime I did not commit.”

Summaries of gubernatorial reviews of execution cases previously were released as public records in Texas, most recently under former Gov. George W. Bush. Yet Perry's office has taken the position that any documents showing his own review and staff discussion of the Willingham case are not public — a claim the Chronicle disputes.

Discredited techniques

Without those records, the question of how much — or how little — Perry considered the newly obtained evidence in his decision to proceed with execution will remain forever a state secret.

Perry has presided over more than 200 executions during his time as governor; Willingham was one of three people put to death in February 2004 alone.

Reaves first alerted Perry about the new arson analysis three days before the execution and requested more time to develop it.

“There is nothing more I would like than to be able to present you with evidence of actual innocence,” Reaves wrote Perry, according to a document released to the Chronicle. “I think we are close … The death penalty whether you agree with it or not, should be reserved for the most serious crimes. More importantly, it should be reserved for those crimes about which there is no doubt about the guilt of the person.”

By execution day, Perry was Willingham's last chance. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals had rejected a reprieve, calling the arson expert's report “no more than an opinion.”

Willingham, then a 23-year-old unemployed mechanic and father of three, claimed to have been asleep on the morning his house in Corsicana, just south of Dallas, caught fire on Dec. 23, 1991. Willingham escaped with burns, but his three tiny daughters died. A profane man with a history of minor offenses in his native Oklahoma, the grieving father quickly became the target of a capital murder investigation based on the finding of arson, a history of beating his wife even while pregnant and other bizarre behavior.

At trial, prosecutors argued that Willingham had deliberately trapped his children inside a burning house to free up time to play darts and drink beer. Willingham repeatedly professed his innocence and refused the offer of a life sentence.

His 2004 execution gained renewed prominence this year after the newly formed Texas Forensic Science Commission, created by the Legislature to explore and fix forensic flaws, released a report that criticized the arson evidence. Two days before the panel was to review that report, Perry abruptly replaced three members, including the chairman, and the meeting was canceled. The governor also attacked the report, according to other media reports.

Yet the 2009 report was only the latest in a string of expert opinions that suggested arson investigators had relied on outdated and discredited techniques in the Willingham case.

Similar flaws found

The five-page opinion faxed to Perry's office on Willingham's execution day in 2004 was the first. It said investigators made “major errors” and relied on discredited techniques akin to an “old wives tale.”

It was authored by Dr. Gerald Hurst, an Austin-based arson expert who holds a doctorate in chemistry from Cambridge University.

By 2004, Hurst already had received national media coverage for helping to obtain a string of high-profile exonerations by debunking arson evidence in other criminal cases. Hurst said in an interview that his previous analysis of flaws in another Texas arson-murder case had helped prompt the Board of Pardons and Paroles in 1998 to free a woman convicted of setting a fire that killed her infant son. She had served six years of a 99-year sentence.

Opposing lawyers concur

The dispute over the arson evidence in Willingham's case likely would have died with him. But six months after the execution, Hurst was hired to review the evidence in another death row arson case. By October 2004, Ernest Willis was freed after Hurst found flaws eerily similar to those he had previously found in Willingham's case.

Records released by the governor's office do not show whether Navarro County case prosecutor John Jackson, now a senior judge, was consulted about Willingham's reprieve. Jackson remains skeptical of the arson experts' criticism and convinced of Willingham's guilt, but had offered a life sentence and knew about Hurst's report at the time.

He told the Chronicle he doesn't recall getting a call: “I probably wouldn't have had any problem either way.”

In the days before the execution, members of the Board of Pardons and Paroles voted by fax against clemency, Reaves said. But Texas law gives governors the right to delay an execution for 30 days without board approval.

Both Jackson, the original prosecutor, and Reaves, the last defense attorney, called for the governor to release all information on his review.

“From a fairness and honesty and integrity standpoint, there are very few circumstances where these things should not be made public,” Jackson said, “and I see no reason why not in this case.”

Source(www.chron.com)

Texas Forensic Science Commission in the spotlight and facing legislative scrutiny

AUSTIN — A once-obscure commission formed to oversee the use of forensic science in Texas criminal investigations is under a glaring public spotlight after a shake-up by Gov. Rick Perry stalled an inquiry that could determine whether the state executed an innocent man.

The nine-member Texas Forensic Science Commission will be the focus of a hearing in November by the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee, which includes three senators who helped lead the push to create the oversight panel five years ago.

Until recently, the commission was all but invisible to most Texans, struggling to overcome a lack of funding and gain its operational footing.

But that changed after the panel launched a review of the arson investigation that helped convict Cameron Todd Willingham in the deaths of his three daughters, who were killed in a house fire two days before Christmas in 1991. Willingham, who insisted he was innocent, was executed in 2004.

"Most people had no idea there was a Forensic Science Commission, but they know about it now," said Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, who suggested that the panel’s name should be changed to "political science commission" after Perry dismissed three commission members. "It has a cloud over it now," said Ellis, a member of the Criminal Justice Committee. "Its credibility has been severely tainted."

Hearing planned

Perry said the dismissals were part of the normal process to replace members whose terms had expired. But the timing of his actions has prompted criticism that Perry was trying to gut the commission to avoid potentially embarrassing findings. The shake-up forced the cancellation of a meeting to hear fire expert Craig Beyler, who has denounced the arson investigation that led to Willingham’s execution.

Perry replaced Chairman Sam Bassett, an Austin defense attorney, with Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley of Georgetown. Also dismissed were Alan Levy, a top prosecutor in the Tarrant County district attorney’s office, and Aliece Watts of Burleson, a forensic scientist at a private laboratory in Euless.

Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, the committee chairman, said Bradley will be invited to the hearing to discuss his intentions for the commission. Whitmire said he will ask Bradley about his plans for the Willingham inquiry but stressed that the hearing will not be a full review of the case itself. He declined a request from another committee member, Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojoso, D-McAllen, to invite Beyler to testify.

"My intention is to give Bradley a chance to get in there and tell us where he’s going with the commission," Whitmire said. "We’ll get to the bottom of the process and where it should go."

Bradley told the Star-Telegram that he needs time bring himself up to speed on the workings of the commission and doesn’t have a timetable for resuming the inquiry into the Willingham case. He declined to preview what he plans to tell the Senate panel "out of respect for Sen. Whitmire and his committee."

"I look forward to working with him on educating the public on the mission of the Forensic Science Commission," he said.

Sen. Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, committee vice chairman, said he agrees that Bradley should have some time to "get his feet on the ground" but adds that there should not be a long delay in the Willingham inquiry.

"I would be surprised to see John Bradley delay things," Seliger said. "I think public sentiment would not favor that. There’s a lot of public attention on this, and it’s an important issue."

Make-up of the panel

The commission was created in 2005 through legislation pushed by Whitmire, Hinojoso and Ellis, largely to improve forensic work and to crack down on misconduct in crime labs. The governor appoints four of its nine members, the lieutenant governor three and the attorney general two.

Seven members are experts in forensic science or laboratory medicine, including several from designated universities. One is Dr. Arthur Jay Eisenberg, a molecular biologist who heads the DNA Identity Laboratory at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth and oversees the Texas Missing Persons Database, which the Legislature created in 2001. The law requires that the position be permanently represented on the commission.

The governor also appoints a prosecutor and a defense attorney, based on recommendations from two major legal associations, to the two remaining slots.

"I was the idiot on the commission in the sense that I’m on there with a bunch of scientists who really know what they’re doing," said Levy, who was on the panel for four years before his dismissal. "It’s a great commission, I thought. Whitmire and others should be applauded for doing it."

A sluggish start

But Perry and other state leaders have appeared unenthusiastic about the panel, some of its supporters say. It got off to a sluggish start and wasn’t fully funded until 2007, slowing its work in reviewing a backlog of complaints. Even now, it has only one full-time staff member and a $500,000 operating budget for the 2010-11 state budget cycle. Ellis said he heard rumors during the 2009 Legislature that Perry was trying to kill funding for the program, but Hinojoso and a top aide to Whitmire said they were unaware of such efforts. The governor’s office flatly dismisses the reports.

The commission agreed to look into the Willingham case in 2008 on a request by the New York-based Innocence Project and commissioned Beyler, a noted arson expert in Baltimore, to examine the procedures used by arson investigators.

In his report, Beyler said the arson investigators had a poor understanding of fire science and concluded that a finding of arson could not be sustained. Corsicana officials, in a 21-page response prepared for the commission, have disputed Beyler’s findings, saying he distorted facts and overlooked inconsistencies in Willingham’s testimony.

Online: Beyler’s report, tinyurl.com/ygjngdo

Source(www.star-telegram.com)

Death penalty 'utterly barbaric'

Since 2003, human rights and international advocacy groups, bar associations, and NGOs have earmarked October 10 as World Day Against the Death Penalty.

They have tried to raise awareness of the dangers of capital punishment and tried to mobilise public opinion against this practise.

Clive Stafford Smith is the founder and director of Reprieve, a UK-based legal charity, and has spent 25 years working on behalf of defendants facing the death penalty in the US.

He tells Al Jazeera why he believes capital punishment is a "horrific" act.

It is rather easy, looking back, to identify the beliefs that our ancestors clung to with a fervent faith.

No doubt, 400 years ago, those who burned witches at the stake thought they were righting evil in society.

Four centuries on, the history books are not kind to them. We know the "witches" were innocent, since no coven of witches actually existed. We now recognise that any trial that sent its victim to the stake was derived from a "witch hunt" that served no possible penal purpose.

It is more difficult, perhaps, to identify our modern "flat earth" beliefs - those present day certainties that will look very foolish when viewed from a globe that is self-evidently spherical.

However, I have absolutely no doubt that when the history books are written 100 years hence, the fact that we were killing our fellow human beings in the name of "just punishment" will be viewed with a mixture of bemusement and horror.

When we think of how our ideal society would behave, does anyone imagine it would include ritual executions?

Divergence of opinion

Amongst the large and ever-increasing body of people who oppose the death penalty, there is considerable divergence of opinion.

There are those who believe that it is state-sanctioned murder, pure and simple; those who oppose it on religious grounds (including the Pope); and those who think it is inevitably beset by racial or economic discrimination (how many millionaires does one encounter on Death Row?).

There are those who also recognise its non-existent deterrent value; those who believe that the diverse frailties of human beings guarantee that there will be mistakes; and doubtless many other variations besides.

When I held a purely theoretical opposition to execution, I used to indulge in all these arguments. When - 22 years ago now - I watched my first client being executed, it rather changed my perspective.

Edward Johnson was young, personable, black, and almost certainly innocent. I was a young lawyer then, and had taken on his case close to the end.

I had failed him. As the gas wafted up toward his lungs in the execution chamber at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, I was utterly disgusted.

How could anyone possibly think this a civilised way to deal with any problem? It was not just about how wrong it seemed - it was how utterly pointless and barbaric.

Mad or bad?

I have represented over 300 prisoners facing execution, and I am more interested in those who are not entirely innocent. Only someone who has never taken the time to meet these people can pretend that they are a distillation of the "pure evil" of society.

And only those who do not care to learn the truth can see these people as devoid of humanity. Just as each victim of murder is a unique human being, so is each person charged with the crime.

And each person tells a story.

Reprieve is currently trying to halt the imminent execution of a British man, Akmal Shaikh, in China. Mr Shaikh suffers from bi-polar disorder, just as my father did before him.

The Chinese court did not even know this when Akmal was sentenced to be shot in the back of the head for allegedly smuggling drugs.

He insists he is innocent, but let us assume he is not: only someone who has never had dealings with a floridly psychotic person could possibly believe he should be executed.

Akmal Shaikh is one of many. Mental illness is prevalent monist most prison populations, but is higher still monist those awaiting execution.

Just as our ancestors preferred to believe that strange happenings were caused by witches, so we do not like to accept the reality of mental illness. It is inexplicable, and we are more comfortable saying people are bad, rather than mad.

Great courage

Indeed, it takes great courage for the victims of crime to recognise that their own suffering has no rational basis.

In 1992, Ricky Langley was sentenced to death for killing six-year-old Jeremy Guillory. Before Ricky was born his parents were involved in a car crash. Two children died, including the six -year-old Oscar Lee.

The mother suffered horrific injuries and was in a full body cast when Ricky was conceived.

Her pregnancy went undetected for five months, during which time she and her foetus had been prescribed powerful drugs and bombarded with x-rays.

The doctors advised an abortion; her husband, a Catholic, strongly objected. Ricky was therefore born to almost inevitable mental illness.

His parents could neither understand nor accept it, and thought it merely odd when he announced at the age of 11 that he was not actually Ricky Langley, but his dead brother Oscar Lee.

Jeremy Guillory's mother, Lorilei, was desperate to understand why her child had been torn from her. In the end, she spent three hours with Ricky, and realised that he was truly insane.

She too was a Catholic, and opposed the death penalty. But gradually she came to believe what society tells us: that the insane should not be sent to prison, but rather to hospital.

Crying out for help

She testified on Ricky's behalf. I asked her whether she felt that the killer of her child had been mentally ill when he did it.

"I think that Ricky Langley has been crying out for help since the day he was born," she said, turning to the jurors. "And for whatever reason, his family, society, the legal system has never listened to him. And as I sit on this chair, I can hear the death cries of my own child, Jeremy; but I can still hear Ricky Langley crying out for help."

The prosecutor said she was an unfit mother for saying that. I said she was one of my heroes. We cannot expect everyone to invest as much compassion in such a tragedy, but we can tell the difference between our ideal society and the dark world that some would have us inhabit.

And Lorelei points the way toward our salvation. In 2008, around the world, 2,390 people were killed by the machinery of the state.

That is probably one person executed for every million crimes that were committed. Did this ritual sacrifice purify our world? Or did it merely prevent us from seeing as clearly as Lorilei Guillory?

Source(english.aljazeera.net)

Swiss Step Up Fight To End Death Penalty

With the current wind of change blowing through the United States, the death penalty will be abolished there in the next 20 years, says a former US death row inmate.

Joaquín José Martinez was in Switzerland on Friday as part of a series of initiatives for the World Day Against the Death Penalty, which takes place on Saturday.

Switzerland, which abolished capital punishment in 1942, is marking the event. It will host the fourth World Congress against the Death Penalty from February 24-26, 2010 in Geneva.

"I used to be a supporter of the death penalty, believing it was flawless and prevented crime, but neither is true," Martinez told journalists in Geneva.

He was sentenced to death in 1997 after being convicted of killing a drug dealer and his girlfriend, but the sentence was overturned in 2001 by the Florida Supreme Court because of irregularities in the trial.

Since his release he has been heavily involved in the fight against the death penalty.

"I was the 96th death row inmate to be released from the US and 30 more have been let out over the past eight years," said Martinez. "Something is happening there that needs to be changed."

But he believes that the death penalty could be abolished there in the next two decades.

"I believe that once the death penalty is abolished, and it won't take over 20 years, the US will become one of its strongest allies," he commented.

Constant battle

According to Amnesty International, at least 2,390 executions were carried out in 2008 in 25 countries. But the actual number worldwide is believed to be much higher.

Many of those affected are youngsters. Since 2007 24 minors have been executed in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen.

The human rights group says 93 per cent of known executions in 2008 took place in just five countries - China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the US. China carried out at least 1,718 executions, 72 per cent of the global total.

There are signs of a global shift away from the death penalty. A total of 139 countries have now abolished capital punishment in practice or in law, compared with 16 in 1976.

But achieving global abolition remains a constant battle. In countries that have abolished the law, like Mexico and the Philippines, pro-death penalty lobbies regularly talk about its reintroduction.

Figures from the end of December 2008 show that around 59 countries have capital punishment. The US is one of only five democracies to still carry out the practice.

Defenders of capital punishment argue that it is a national legal issue and should not be tampered with internationally.

"It remains a very entrenched issue politically," said Dante Martinelli, Switzerland's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.

Foreign policy priority

Switzerland itself has joined forces with the European Union to call for an end to capital punishment.

"The global abolition of the death penalty is one of our foreign policy priorities," explained Rudolf Knoblauch, in charge of human rights policy at the Swiss foreign ministry.

« It remains a very entrenched issue politically. » Dante Martinelli, Swiss ambassador

Switzerland actively takes part in debate against the death penalty in international organisations, including the UN, the Council of Europe, and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It also supports non-governmental organisations that are campaigning against it.

In December 2008 the UN General Assembly adopted an EU-backed resolution for a death penalty moratorium, on which Switzerland collaborated very closely.

"And the world congress is a concrete and tangible expression of Swiss foreign policy," said Knoblauch.

Around 1,000 government delegates, experts and civil society representatives will be converging on Geneva next year.

The meeting, which has taken place every three years since 2001, aims to improve synergies between organisations, raise awareness and maintain pressure on wavering states that retain the death penalty but do not use it.

"Countries like China and the US believe the death penalty helps fights crime but there are lots of others which still have it but risk becoming pariahs if they apply it," said Knoblauch.

"In Vietnam we see the government trying to limit the cases for which it can be applied. This is a clear sign that they want to abolish it."

Another aim of the conference is to encourage states to ratify the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a UN treaty aimed at abolishing the death penalty. Between 2001 and 2008, 22 new states signed up, taking the total number to 70.

"This is the only international legal instrument that prohibits the death penalty," said Knoblauch. "It's important that everyone joins it."

Source(www.turkishweekly.net)

Wilton Dedge’s Bike Blast

Annual Bike Blast will take place in Titusville, FL. This event is very special to us because it is coordinated by Wilton Dedge, who was exonerated in 2004 after DNA testing proved he did not commit the rape for which he was convicted and imprisoned.

Wilton owns a great biker bar in historic Titusville called the Southern Room (345 S Washington Ave) which will be the epicenter of the the event. They expect there to be as many as 5,000 bikes at this 2-day event.

The best part is that they will be having a Poker Run to raise money for the Innocence Project of Florida, which will assist our efforts to find and free the wrongfully convicted. You can view the Poker Run flier and register for the Poker Run. If you would like to be a vendor at the Bike Blast, you can see vendor information and fill out this vendor form.

Come to this great event and support Wilton and the Innocence Project of Florida. For more information, please refer to the Bike Blast flier.

Yo can pre-order a t-shirt that will bear the really cool image above for $15 (which includes shipping) by calling Tina Dedge at 321-208-4768, or by sending your payment to: Bike Blast T-Shirt Order, The Southern Room, 345 S Washington Ave., Titusville, FL 32796.

source(floridainnocence.org)

Rick Perry Continues Todd Willingham Cover Up: Removes Another Member of Texas Forensic Science Commission

AUSTIN -- More than a week after announcing a shake-up on the Texas Forensic Science Commission, Gov. Rick Perry on Friday removed another member and named two appointees to the oversight panel, including Fort Worth criminal defense attorney Lance Evans.

Evans, 45, was named to replace Sam Bassett, an Austin criminal defense attorney who had served as chairman of the nine-member commission. Perry also removed Sridhar Natarajan, a Lubbock medical examiner, and named Bexar County Medical Examiner Randall Frost of Boerne as his replacement.

The latest reshuffling comes nine days after Perry removed Bassett and two other commissioners -- Alan Levy, a prosecutor in the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office, and Aliece Watts, a forensic scientist who lives in Burleson.

The first wave of dismissals was announced as the commission was preparing to review expert findings challenging an arson investigation that led to the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham of Corsicana, who was convicted of capital murder for setting a house fire that killed his three daughters.

Perry has defended the commission changes, saying he is replacing members whose terms have expired. But critics have accused the Republican governor of attempting to gut the panel to avoid potentially embarrassing findings if the commission inquiry concludes that the state executed an innocent man.

Source(www.facebook.com)

U.S. Government to Fund Wrongful Conviction Representation and Training Efforts

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance, an office within the Department of Justice, announced recently that it will provide nearly $2.5 million in funding this year for 11 organizations working to represent defendants seeking to overturn wrongful convictions. The funding is dedicated to organizations that handle cases where DNA testing cannot help prove innocence. The BJA also announced that it will provide about $100,000 to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to facilitate training to help attorneys and organizations to improve the capacity to represent defendants seeking to prove their innocence in post-conviction appeals.

The organizations awarded grants are: the Idaho Innocence Project, the Innocence Project of Minnesota, the Kentucky Innocence Project, the Midwestern Innocence Project, the Northern California Innocence Project, the Alaska Innocence Project, the Cooley Innocence Project (at Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan), the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services, the Innocence Project of Florida, the Michigan State Appellate Defender’s Office and the Arizona Justice Project.

The Innocence Project is a separate non-profit organization from the organizations above, many of which are fellow members of the Innocence Network – an affiliation of organizations dedicated to overturning wrongful convictions. The Innocence Project only handles cases where DNA testing could prove innocence.

Read more in the BJA statement on the grants.

The Department of Justice also announced recently that it would fund DNA testing in cases of possible wrongful conviction in nine states under the Postconviction DNA Testing Assistance Program. The nine states receiving funds this year are California, Colorado, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Mexico and Wisconsin.

Source(www.innocenceproject.org)

EU says Texas, nation should end executions

WASHINGTON — The European Union renewed its call Friday for the abolition of the death penalty in the United States.

“For the EU, it’s a matter of principle,” said John Bruton, former Irish prime minister and the EU ambassador to the United States.

Bruton and Swedish Ambassador Jonas Hafstrom issued the call for abolition on the eve of World Day Against the Death Penalty, established in 2002.

“The EU believes that the elimination of the death penalty is fundamental to the enhancement of human dignity and to the progressive development of human rights,” Hafstrom said on behalf of the 27-member political union.

European countries have lobbied the federal and state governments in recent decades to end the death penalty.

Hafstrom said he raised concerns about executions in Texas with Gov. Rick Perry when he recently visited the state.

“Gov. Perry is well-informed about the EU position on the matter,” Hafstrom said.

Bruton and Hafstrom said recent death-row exonerations have shown that the risk of a wrongful execution remains possible.

Bruton cited the case of Michael Toney, a Texas native recently cleared of murder charges after prosecutors admitted they’d withheld key documents during his trial.

Toney was released just over a month ago after nearly a decade on death row, then died in a car wreck last week.

The EU said it was helping foes of capital punishment in the U.S. by filing friend-of-the-court briefs in appellate courts hearing death penalty appeals. The EU also has funded studies by the American Bar Association to investigate the fairness of specific death penalty cases.

The bar group also has called for a moratorium on the death penalty in the U.S.

Texas leads the U.S. in the number of executions with 441 since 1976 and about 370 prisoners still on death row. Virginia is second with 103 prisoners executed since 1976.

One hundred thirty-nine countries have abolished the death penalty, while 25 others carried out executions in 2008.

According to the human rights group Amnesty International, 93 percent of executions last year took place in five nations: China, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Source(www.mysanantonio.com)

A Path Forward on Forensic Reform

New reports proving that Texas executed an innocent man have underscored the critical need for forensic reform in the United States, and a hearing this month before Congress made it clear that bipartisan support exists for science-based federal forensic standards.

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on forensic reform September 9, and a central topic was the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, an innocent man executed in Texas in 2004. Read below for more on the Willingham case.

Senators also focused on the recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences to establish an independent, science-based entity to oversee forensic science research and standards. Senator Al Franken called the NAS report on forensics “damning" and "terrifying," and in a report following the hearing, NPR noted the bipartisan support for a federal role in stimulating research, training forensic analysts and setting standards.

Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld appeared before the panel, along with Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt, a law professor, a lab director and two prosecutors. Neufeld was joined by Roy Brown, who was convicted of a crime he didn’t commit in New York based in part on faulty forensic tests. Above is Neufeld, with Brown sitting behind him. Watch the complete Senate hearing here.

Visit the Just Science Coalition website here for more background on federal forensic reform proposals and to take action to support the creation of a federal forensic agency to oversee forensics.

DNA exoneration project gets $1.2 million

By Howard Pankratz
The Denver Post
POSTED: 10/01/2009 09:12:21 AM MDT
UPDATED: 10/01/2009 11:31:46 AM MDT

The newly-created Colorado Justice Review Project, which will review 5,000 rapes, murders and manslaughters to ascertain if defendants were wrongly convicted, has received $1.2 million in federal grant funds.

The DNA project will be administered by the Colorado Attorney General's Office and the Denver District Attorney's Office.

Under the program, some people previously convicted of felonies can apply to have DNA testing performed in their case, according to the Colorado Attorney General's Office.

"DNA is one of law enforcement's most effective tools for convicting the guilty and exonerating the innocent," Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said in a release. "These grant funds will allow us to use DNA to ensure that no Coloradan has been wrongly convicted."

Suthers said that in addition to working with the Denver District Attorney's Office, he will work with several other organizations, including the University of Denver College of Law, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Colorado Public Defender's Office.

The organizations will help run the program and select which cases will be reviewed.

The Attorney General's Office applied for the federal grant. In its proposal, the AG's office said that its goal is to test biological evidence in roughly one percent of the cases where DNA evidence could exonerate innocent inmates; request further judicial review in any case where post-conviction DNA analysis proves a conviction is questionable, document cases that result in exoneration and close any cases where post-conviction DNA analysis indicates the conviction was accurate.

CBI director Ron Sloan said in the release that he was convinced Colorado should undertake such a program after attending a U.S. Justice Department symposium last January that focused on post-conviction DNA casework.

"CBI is excited about being an active participant in this program," said Sloan. "We will provide technical investigative assistance and forensic expertise to the Attorney General, Denver District Attorney's Office and the state's public defender."

Added Sloan: "I am hopeful that CBI's expertise will be valuable in identifying wrongful convictions..."

Suthers said his office will also use the program's findings to help law enforcement change its investigative techniques to reduce or eliminate future wrongful convictions.

Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com

Northwestern LawLaunches Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth

Northwestern University School of Law has launched a new joint project between the Center for Wrongful Convictions and the Children and Family Justice Center. The Center for Wrongful Conviction of Youth (CWCY) will address the spe