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Truth in Justice
Newsletter
Wrongful Conviction News from April - May, 2007
RECENT CASES
Lawyers
say the case against Bob and Randy could be titled The Insider's
Guide to Prosecutorial Misconduct.
The trend of
prosecuting non-criminal conduct has spread from New York, where former
U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani initiated it, to the heartland. In
Wisconsin, Georgia Thompson was a civil
service employee when she was convicted of fraud, after being accused
of steering a state travel contract to a firm whose top officials were
major campaign contributors to Gov. Doyle. Never mind that she knew
nothing about the campaign contributions and was just trying to save
the state money. In a stunning and extremely rare move, a 3-judge
panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals acquitted Thompson at the
conclusion of oral arguments on April 5, 2007, and ordered her
immediate release from prison.
Not
a politically motivated prosecution? Not a thinly veiled attempt
by U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic to wound a sitting (Democrat) governor
in the heat of an election? If not, then why was Thompson
repeatedly offered deals, even after she was convicted, if she would
"talk about higher-ups." Of course it was. And an innocent
woman was Caught
in a Political Squeeze Play.
In
April 2005, an Indianapolis, Indiana judge exonerated Harold Buntin of
robbery and rape charges based on DNA test results, but the rest of the
justice system didn't find out about the decision for two more years.
Court officials found that a bailiff or clerk failed to properly enter
and distribute the order clearing Buntin. Instead, the order was
sent to storage. He spent an extra two years in prison for a
crime he didn't commit.
In
1998, Gilbert Amezquita was convicted of severely beating a woman whose
family owned the Houston, TX plumbing company where he worked.
But in November 2006, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals suggested
that the true attacker was Gilbert Guerrero and ordered that Amezquita
be retried or set free. In February 2007, Amezquita learned he
would not be retried. And in May 2007 comes more good news: the
Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles has recommended he be granted a
pardon on the basis of actual innocence.
A
judge in Oklahoma City has dismissed murder charges against Curtis
McCarty, who was sentenced to death three times in the 1982 slaying of
a teenager -- convictions that were based largely on testimony from a
police department chemist who was fired for fraud and misconduct in
2001. Curtis was prosecuted by Oklahoma County DA Robert H. Macy,
who sent 73 people to death row, more than any other prosecutor in the
U.S. Macy has publicly said that
he believes executing an innocent person is a sacrifice worth making in
order to keep the death penalty in the United States.
After
22 years behind bars for horrific crimes he didn't commit, Byron Halsey
of Plainfield, NJ walked out of jail on the fast track to
freedom. Halsey,
46, faced the death penalty after being convicted in 1988 of murdering
Tyrone and Tina Urquhart, the children of his girlfriend, with whom he
lived at a Plainfield rooming house. The
convictions were vacated after an advanced DNA test showed that a
neighbor was responsible for the crimes.
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DEATH PENALTY
Consider
the pitiful case of Cesar Fierro, who has been on death row since 1980
for the murder and robbery of El Paso taxi driver Nicholas
Castanon. Fierro,
who was not considered a suspect until months after the February 1979
murder, was convicted on the basis of two things: the shaky testimony
of an alleged co-conspirator and his own confession, which many now
conclude was coerced. Fierro,
whose landlord testified the accused was home on the night of the
killing, confessed to the crime because he was told his mother and
stepfather would be tortured by the police in a jail in Ciudad
Juárez, where they lived. After
his parents were released from the Juárez jail, Fierro recanted.
Without
that confession, Fierro would not be sitting on death row today.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled no harm had been caused by
the extorted confession.
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EYEWITNESS ID
In 1981, Jerry
Miller was pulled off the street in Chicago, IL and picked out of a
line up by a rape victim. At trial, Miller was convicted of rape,
robbery, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated battery. In 2007,
he became the 200th person to be exonerated by DNA. That same DNA
matched the DNA of an offender in the FBI's Codis DNA database, which
became operational in 1998. That means the real criminal not only
got away with the 1981 rape, but that he committed at least one more
crime that put him into the Codis database.
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Charles T.
"Ted" Dubbs was convicted of sexually assaulting two women in Dauphin
County, PA in 2000 and 2001. Both women identified him as their
attacker. Wilbur Cyrus Brown, II has been convicted of a series
of similar attacks, and has confessed to the two attacks Dubbs was
convicted of committing. Did the eyes deceive?
Dubbs in 1999
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Composite Sketch
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Brown in 2001
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JUNK SCIENCE
Are
Innocent Imprisoned Because of Fingerprint Errors? Florida officials
are reviewing hundreds of criminal cases because a fingerprint expert
at the Seminole County Sheriff's Office botched at least two cases,
including one involving a homicide. They
dropped a burglary case because the Florida Department of Law
Enforcement concluded that the expert, Donna Birks, was wrong to say a
fingerprint found on a stolen wallet belonged to the defendant. The
print was smudged and could not be adequately identified. n
the other case, FDLE said Birks misidentified a print found on a shell
casing at the scene of a 2006 Altamonte Springs homicide.
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California
Panel Calls for Standards for Scientific Analysis, Evidence. An
influential California commission on May 3, 2007 said that forensic
science errors are a major contributor to wrongful convictions and
called for better training, more monitoring and stronger standards in
the real world of "CSI." The
report cited the Innocence Project at New York's Cardozo Law School,
which identified forensic science testing errors in 63% of a set of
nationwide DNA exoneration cases analyzed. The
California commission also raised a red flag over the ability of the
criminal justice system to expose mistakes in scientific evidence.
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HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS
'Oops -- Clerical Error.
In
April 2005, an Indianapolis, Indiana judge exonerated Harold Buntin of
robbery and rape charges based on DNA test results, but the rest of the
justice system didn't find out about the decision for two more years.
Court officials found that a bailiff or clerk failed to properly enter
and distribute the order clearing Buntin. Instead, the order was
sent to storage. He spent an extra two years in prison for a
crime he didn't commit.
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False Allegations of Child Abuse
Victims
of Faulty Diagnoses by Dr. Charles Smith
Toronto, Ontario (Canada)
In
Toronto, Ontario (Canada), errors were found in 20 of 45 autopsies,
dating back as far as 1991, performed by former provincial pathologist
Dr. Charles Smith. Twelve of those cases
resulted in criminal convictions and one in a finding of not criminally
responsible.
The first to be exonerated was William
Mullins-Johnson, who spent 12 years in prison for the rape and
murder of his niece. A 2005 review of Dr. Charles Smith's autopsy
and diagnosis found the the child had not been raped or strangled, but
choked to death on her own vomit caused by a chronic stomach ailment.
Sherry
Sherrett, one of the 12, convicted of killing her own infant son,
is seeking a full public inquiry into Dr. Smith's work. The 2006
review shows her son was not
murdered.
Louise
Reynolds spent 2 years in jail awaiting trial after Dr. Smith said
she stabbed her 7-year-old daughter, Sharon, to death with
scissors. Charges were dropped after it was demonstrated little
Sharon was mauled by a pit bull.
In 1998, Dr. Smith accused Louise and Marco
Trotta of suffocating their 4-month-old son, Paulo. Louise
served 5 years in prison; Marco was sentenced to 15 years, and had
served 9 years when the review indicated little Paulo suffocated on his
bedding.
CBC In Depth takes a closer look at Dr. Charles Smith: The Man Behind the
Public Inquiry
RECOMMENDED READING
The
Dreams of Ada
by Robert Mayer
The true, bewildering case of Thomas Ward and Karl
Fontenot, the story of a young woman’s disappearance, the nightmare of
a small town obsessed with delivering justice, and the bizarre dream of
a poor, uneducated man accused of murder—a case that chillingly
parallels the one, occurring in the very same town, chronicled by John
Grisham in The Innocent Man.
Stunningly, the prosecution used the same snitch witness to obtain the
convictions of Thomas Ward and Karl Fontenot it used to convict Ron
Williamson and Dennis Fritz.
Click HERE to visit the
website of Thomas Ward and Karl Fontenot. |
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No
Smoke: The Shocking Truth About
British Justice by Sandra Lean
A life-long fascination with the workings of the
human
mind, and especially the workings of the "criminal mind," led Sandra
Lean, at the age of 32, through the doors of Napier University in
Edinburgh. A single parent of two young children, she studied
Psychology and Sociology to Honours Degree level. A Masters' Degree in
Forensic Psychology seemed like the most obvious next step, until a
local, high-profile murder hit the headlines. Behind the scenes, Sandra
Lean began sifting through the facts, only to discover that all was not
as it seemed. What she found led her to other, similar cases, and more
patient, methodical sifting, in an investigation that was to last
almost four years. The result was a shocking, but true, discovery.
Innocent people are being locked up in our prisons, convicted of the
most horrific crimes, on a regular basis. These are not one-off, tragic
mistakes, but rather, a routine, everyday occurrence. For every
high-profile miscarriage of justice that we hear about, there are
dozens more that never make the news. No Smoke examines just some of
these cases, highlighting the very human tragedy of wrongful
conviction, and pointing out the unthinkable: this could happen to any
one of us. |
| No
Smoke is only available in the UK. But click HERE to read about
the case that led Sandra to write this book. |
Last
Words from Death Row
by Norma Herrera
"I am innocent,
innocent, innocent. I am an innocent man, and something very wrong is
taking place tonight." -- Last words of Leonel Herrera before his
execution.
When Herrera, convicted of killing two police officers, tried to
present important and compelling evidence of his innocence, the 5th
Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that innocence is not a basis for
federal habeas corpus relief. Four months later, Herrera was put
to death. His sister, Norma, has kept her promise to him,
detailing the court events and press coverage of the ultimately
fruitless effort to save Leonel from the legal system itself.
Click HERE for
more information about this book. |
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INNOCENCE
PROJECTS
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Innocence
Projects provide representation and/or investigative assistance
to prison inmates who claim to be innocent of the crimes for which they
were
convicted. There is now at least one innocence project serving each
state.
Most of these innocence projects are new and overwhelmed with
applications,
so waiting time between application and acceptance is long. Wrongfully
convicted persons should not be dissuaded from applying to Innocence
Projects because of this, but should have realistic expectations
regarding acceptance and time
lags. Check the list for the innocence project in your area; we
update
it regularly.
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TRUTH IN
JUSTICE RADIO
As
part of its
educational outreach, Truth in Justice Radio is broadcast every Sunday
evening from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. Central/11 p.m. to midnight Eastern, on
WTKM, 104.9 FM, 1540 AM and streaming live on the internet at http://wtkm.com/ Your hosts,
Sheila
Berry and Ira Robins, discuss issues that play significant roles in
making, reversing and avoiding
wrongful convictions.
SLIDE PRESENTATION
Click HERE
for our slide presentation, "The Truth About Wrongful
Convictions."
LINKS
The links pages at Truth in Justice are frequently updated. Be
sure
to check them for resources, "must" reading, websites of inmates with
compelling
innocence claims and more. Start at
http://truthinjustice.org/links.htm
SITE SEARCH ENGINE
There are now over 1,300 pages at Truth in Justice. The site
search engine on the main page can make it faster and easier to find
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