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The Innocent Imprisoned |
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The Innocent Imprisoned |
| Some fears are
universal. Death. Disease. The loss of a child. Going to jail for
something you didn't do. The people listed here are living the
last one, their lives wasting away in prison for crimes they didn't
commit. Note: We add links to updates with the original news articles reporting developments in innocence cases, so be sure to scroll down to check for "new news". |
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Emerson is anything but a sympathetic figure. A
thief and forger, he told Pennsylvania police that he witnessed two men
rape a woman and throw her off a 44-foot-high Juniata
County bridge in 1977. He was looking for a break for himself by
making up lies to frame others, and it backfired. Emerson was
charged with the murder, and former star junk scientist, police chemist
Janice Roadcap, clinched the conviction when she testified that a
"uniquely shaped" hair on the victim's leg came from Emerson's
chest. But DNA has cleared Emerson, who appears to be what he has
said all along that he is -- innocent of murder. |
| Aquil K. Wiggins has spent nine years fighting what he says was a wrongful conviction in 1999 for a robbery and attempted carjacking outside a Hampton, VA Food Lion. Now Wiggins, 31, may have an opening that his lawyer said could lead to the case being reopened — and possibly Wiggins' exoneration — before his scheduled release in 2012. |
| A Waco, TX attorney has launched an innocence project at Baylor University, choosing one of the most gripping cases in McLennan County history as the group’s first assignment. Since February, Walter M. Reaves Jr. and three Baylor Law School students have been poring over evidence from the 1988 trial of Ed Graf. The Hewitt resident was convicted of killing his two stepsons by burning them alive in a storage shed behind their home. He is serving a life sentence in a Gatesville prison. Graf's conviction was based entirely on circumstantial evidence. Deciding someone’s guilt on such measures is not prudent, Reaves said. Once someone is painted as a criminal, almost any action they take can be construed to fit that theory, he said, even though there may be innocent explanations for it. |
| In 2004, Sebastian Burns and Atif Rafay were convicted in a Washington state court of the brutal bludgeoning of Atif's father, his mother and his autistic sister.They were also convicted in the court of public opinion. We believe that they are in prison for the remainder of their lives because the public and the jury were denied access to the truth. |
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This is a story about an innocent man who has been in
prison for
26 years while two attorneys who knew he was innocent stayed silent.
They did so because they felt they had no choice. Alton
Logan was convicted of killing a security guard at a
McDonald's in Chicago in 1982. Police arrested him after a tip and got
three eyewitnesses to identify him. Logan, his mother and brother all
testified he was at home asleep when the murder occurred. But a jury
found him guilty of first degree murder. New evidence reveals
that Logan did not commit that murder. What is worse, the
attorneys for the real killer, Andrew Wilson, knew Logan was innocent,
but could not violate lawyer-client confidentiality to expose him. |
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Don Siegelman, former Democratic Governor of Alabama, has
a lot in common with Georgia Thompson.
Both were prosecuted for acts that were not crimes, by politically
motivated U.S. Attorneys, at the behest of vengeful politicos highly
placed in the Bush administration. The Seventh Circuit Court of
Appeals tossed Thompson's conviction at the conclusion of oral
argument, ordering her immediate release from prison. It has
taken longer, but the foundation of lies and corruption underlying
Siegelman's conviction is starting to crumble. Clearly, Bush and
his cronies have turned the U.S. Department of Justice into a cadre of
political operatives. |
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In 1990, when he was charged with the murder of Myron
Hailey in Fayetteville, NC, Lamont McKoy turned down a plea deal that
would have had him out of jail in 7 months. He knew he was
innocent, and he believed a jury would see that. He was
wrong. With only speculation and innuendo as evidence, the state
convinced a jury of Lamont's guilt. He has been in prison ever
since. Now he's hoping the North Carolina Center on Actual
Innocence can help him clear his name and gain his freedom. |
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On March 21, 2000, Christopher Fuller of Hamilton, Ohio
told police his daughter Randi, almost 3 years old, choked on a glass
of water and held her breath. But after a grueling interrogation
that was not recorded, police claimed Fuller confessed to killing Randi
when she resisted his attempt to sexually assault her. He was
charged with capital murder, but the Hamilton authorities were
apparently worried about getting the death penalty, so they brought in
Dr. Death, Dr.
Charles Smith of Ontario, Canada. Smith was already under
investigation for finding crimes where none existed in the deaths of
children. He came through for the Ohio boys. The jury not
only convicted Fuller, they recommended death. Only Fuller's
previously clean record saved him from execution, but he still
languishes in prison, for the rest of his life. |
| THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG |
| Harold
Levy, author of The Charles Smith Blog, tells us: I recently
retired
from the Toronto Star where I have been reporting on Dr. Charles Randal
Smith - a former pediatric pathologist at the Hospital for Sick
Children - for the past six years. I intend, through this blog, to
periodically report developments relating to Dr. Smith in the context
of the on-going public inquiry, the on-going independent probe of cases
he worked on between 1981 and 1991, and cases which have been launched,
or will be launched in the civil courts. I am currently
researching a
book on Dr. Smith and would appreciate hearing from anyone who can
provide me with useful information. |
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Arthur Johnson of Sunflower, Mississippi is poised to
become the first inmate freed by DNA exoneration in that state's
history. Johnson is serving a 55-year sentence for a 1992 rape
conviction -- a rape that DNA tests show he did not commit. His
freedom, however, is no sure bet. Mississippi has no legal
procedures in place to deal with evidence preservation or
post-conviction DNA testing. One thing is certain, however: There
are a lot more Arthur Johnsons in Mississippi's prisons. UPDATE: 2/25/08 - Arthur Johnson was released on $25,000 bond and went home with his family for the first time in 15 years. Although he has been excluded by DNA, the Sunflower County DA will re-try Johnson in July, 2008. |
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Link:
 Multimedia
Investigative Report by Christine Young
New York Times-Herald
Record
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John Spirko is hard to like. He's
lived a life of crime that makes him virtually incredible. But he
says he's innocent of the murder of Betty Jane Mottinger, a crime that
put him on Ohio's death row. An investigation by the Cleveland Plain Dealer strongly supports
Spirko's claim that he did not commit this crime. Click HERE to read Bob Payne's full series about John Spirko at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. UPDATE: Ohio governor commutes Spirko death sentence to life without parole. |
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David Flores was told not to testify. So he sat in silence
in 1997 while prosecutors convinced a jury that he had murdered an
innocent woman caught in a gang-related gunbattle during rush-hour
traffic. Now, Flores and his new attorney claim
to have new evidence that he was not responsible for the shooting death
of Phyllis Davis. A national expert says the most
powerful revelation uncovered by
Flores' defense could set him free: A gang member told the FBI and Los
Angeles police before Flores' trial that another man, Raphael Robinson,
shot Davis. When Flores was sentenced, jury foreman Samuel McCrorey said he regretted the verdict: "I feel horrible that a young man is going to prison for life for a crime he didn't commit." McCrorey was lambasted by the trial judge for his honesty. Click HERE to read about the attack launched against Mr. McCrorey by Judge Richard Blane, II. |
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Lee Wayne Hunt of Smithfield, NC vividly remembers the day
21 years ago when an FBI scientist
walked into a North Carolina courthouse and told jurors that he was
able to match the lead content of bullets found at the crime scene to
that of bullets in a box connected to Hunt's co-defendant. The
testimony provided the sole forensic evidence to corroborate the
prosecution's circumstantial case.
In 2005, the bureau ended its bullet-lead-matching technique after
experts concluded that the very type of testimony given in Hunt's case
-- matching a crime-scene bullet to those in a suspect's box -- was
scientifically invalid. They threw out the science -- but haven't
lifted a finger to help the wrongly convicted put into prison by it. |
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“Max Soffar
has been on Texas’s death row for almost three decades for a crime he
did not commit,” David Dow, Head of the Texas Innocence Network and one
of Soffar’s attorneys, told the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. “We
urge the court to do the right thing and strike down Mr. Soffar’s
wrongful conviction. Too many innocent people have been executed as a
result of mistakes in the system. The risk of executing an innocent man
is unacceptable in a just society.” |
| A retrial could be in the works for two men convicted of murdering a woman outside a convenience store 11 years ago in West Texas. Judge Felix Klein found that the jury might have reached a different verdict in the cases of Alberto Sifuentes and Jesús Ramírez had it heard about an alibi witness who could place the men almost 35 miles from the crime scene minutes before the murder in Littlefield, and if defense attorneys had investigated two other suspects who matched descriptions given to police. |
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Frederick Freeman sits in a Michigan prison, sentenced to life, for a small-town murder 20 years ago. A team of advocates, from former FBI agents to a veteran TV newsman, says he was railroaded while the real killer remains free. In a remarkable series published in the Detroit Metro Times, Sandra Svoboda explores the first investigation, years of re-investigation, and the crucial role of eyewitness identification.
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The
Dallas County district attorney's office is looking into
whether Clay Chabot was unfairly convicted in the 1986 rape and murder
of a
Garland woman after a recent DNA test connected another man to the
crime. Gerald
Pabst was arrested on a capital murder charge on July 31, 2007,
two decades after he testified that Clay Chabot attacked Galua Crosby.
Mr. Chabot was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
DA Craig Watkins said
Mr. Chabot, 48, could get a new trial. DNA does not link him to the
crime. UPDATE: 10/19/07 - Both the prosecution and the defense joined in a motion for a new trial for Clay Chabot. Judge Lana Myers agreed with the requests, and now the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must approve her recommendation. |
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"He" is from West Hartford, Connecticut, short, clumsy and
mentally impaired,
with thick glasses and hearing aids in both ears, given to telling the
same stale jokes over and over. His nickname was Mr. Magoo. He once was
a dishwasher. He’s now a convict serving a life term for rape and
murder.
"They" are people who befriended him without knowing him: advocates for
the disabled, lawyers, writers, a detective, nurses, business people,
psychologists, teachers, perhaps 100 in all at different times, a core
group of perhaps 25. For years, many of them met every other Wednesday
at the Burger King in Wethersfield, Connecticut to plot strategy.
At last, they are taking his innocence claims back to court. UPDATE: Judge calls LaPointe's petition a waste of time. |
| Perhaps only Roger Dean Gillispie knows for sure whether he kidnapped and raped three Fairborn, Ohio area women in 1988. No physical evidence tied him to the crime. He was convicted on the basis of eyewitness identifications made two years after the crimes occurred. His case illustrates the tough road for inmates who insist they are innocent but cannot use DNA to prove it. |
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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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The conviction of David Thorne of Alliance, Ohio of murder
for hire is a textbook example of sloppy crime scene processing, lazy
investigation, unreliable and contradictory witnesses, unqualified
experts and incompetent defense lawyering. In fact, criminal
profiler Brent Turvey, M.S., uses it to teach investigators and lawyers
how not to handle a murder
case. |
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Defense attorneys for James A. Kulbicki offered a string
of
alibi witnesses, and he flat-out said he didn't do it. He was, after
all, a Baltimore police sergeant, and, he insisted, not a killer.
But a state police ballistics expert named Joseph
Kopera helped
convict the officer by saying that bullet fragments found in his truck
and in his mistress' head could have come from his gun - testimony that
is now being questioned. Kopera recently killed
himself after being confronted with evidence that he lied about his
credentials. Kublicki's attorneys challenged
Kopera's findings and assertions in
court papers filed a year earlier, arguing that the firearms examiner's
testimony did not match his notes. And that was before they discovered
that Kopera claimed to have degrees that he never earned. UPDATE: It's easy to understand why the Baltimore DA wanted to blindside James Kulbicki and his attorneys. They have to be steaming mad after Kulbicki's lawyers exposed the systematic forensic fraud committed by police ballistics expert Joseph Kopera. But their reach exceeded their grasp when they did DNA tests -- without court approval or notice to Kulbicki's lawyers -- on bone fragments that were contaminated 14 years ago when they were collected. Will One-Upsmanish Replace Law and Science? [Includes full texts of state and defense motions] A joint project by the Washington Post and 60 Minutes reviews the conviction of James Kulbicki, in which key testimony and the science behind it has been discredited. People around the world are learning how the U.S. legal system works based on James Kulbicki's case -- a web of lies woven around junk science and blatant prosecutorial misconduct, a politicized judiciary unwilling to correct injustice, and an apathetic public more interested in entertainment than in truth. As Ludwig De Braeckeleer capably demonstrates for South Korea's Oh My News, The Whole World is Watching. |
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Barry Allen Beach has maintained his innocence every
day since he confessed two decades ago to the brutal 1979 murder of
18-year-old Kimberly Nees outside Poplar, Montana. Centurion
Ministries believes Beach and hopes to
free him as the group has 40 others who were wrongly imprisoned across
the nation. They have good reason to believe Beach is innocent,
and that a trio of jealous females killed Kimberly. UPDATE: On August 23, 2007, the Montana Board of Pardons and Paroles rejected Barry Beach's innocence claim and his application for pardon. Montanans for Justice are outraged by their state government's claim that innocence is "procedurally barred." See their website for detailed information about this case and to find out how you can help. |
| Elizabeth Golebiewski was 23 in 1983 when a Lucas County (Ohio) Common Pleas Court jury convicted the North Toledo woman of using a toy gun to sexually assault her daughter and then killing her. A convicted thief testified at trial that Elizabeth had confessed to her during conversations in jail that she had killed the child, offering grisly details that authorities contend only investigators and the killer would have been aware of at the time. Elizabeth's request for DNA testing of the toy gun and other evidence has been granted. And, while it is a long shot, DNA tissue from someone other than the mother or child might just be enough to prompt a judge to review the 1983 conviction. |
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John
R. Myers, II [Link]
Jodie Myers of Bloomington, IN holds two beliefs about her
son. One is that he is innocent of murdering Indiana University
student Jill Behrman. The other is that, sooner or later, he will
be back home with his family. These are not "wishful thinking"
beliefs. No physical evidence connects John to the crime;
speculation, innuendo and words taken out of context formed the basis
of his conviction. And then there were the jurors, who spent more
time drinking alcohol, having food fights, painting their toenails and
wearing the bailiff's high-heeled shoes than they did deliberating.John Myers' website: JusticeforJohnSite.com |
| Dewayne Cunningham has spent 11 years of a life sentence in Alabama's Atmore prison for a rape he insists he did not commit. The evidence that might confirm his claim -- a condom wrapper recovered from the Flomaton park where the rape occurred and a pubic hair taken from the victim's body -- remains locked in a vault in the Escambia County circuit clerk's office. Alabama is one of nine states that has no law allowing for DNA testing after a conviction, and authorities have resisted Cunningham's requests for access to the evidence. So his last hope for exoneration rests in a federal lawsuit filed in Mobile by lawyers from the University of Wisconsin Law School's Innocence Project. |
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Audrey
Edmunds, a former Waunakee, WI baby sitter imprisoned for nearly 10
years
after being convicted in the shaken-baby death of a 7- month-old girl,
is seeking a new trial, arguing that the scientific evidence used to
convict her is no longer valid. "Since Audrey Edmunds' trial . . . a
large body of new scientific
evidence has emerged that supports her claim of innocence," according
to a brief seeking a new trial for Edmunds filed by attorneys and law
students for the Wisconsin Innocence Project. UPDATE: 1/26/07 - In a two-day hearing, six physicians challenged the medical validity of the evidence that convicted Audrey Edmunds in 1996. Among them was the forensic pathologist who testified against her at trial. No Confidence in SBS Diagnosis UPDATE: 2/22/07 - Audrey Edmunds says life would have crushed her by now, if not for her faith in God -- and her belief that she will soon be reunited with her daughters. The Human Toll of Flawed Science UPDATE: 2/23/07 - In tense, combative testimony, a medical witness for the state forcefully rejected recent studies that raise doubts about shaken baby syndrome. The combative testimony of Dr. Betty Spivack reflects the divide among physicians in shaken-baby cases. One camp believes certain signs and symptoms are proof of abuse, while the other side argues that such indicators also can be seen in children who've been sick or had minor accidents. Defending the Conviction UPDATE: 2/24/07- One of the physicians who cared for Natalie Beard at University (now UW) Hospital in the final hours of her life testified Friday he's certain that the 7-month-old was shaken to death and that the injury occurred shortly before she came to the hospital. "She died from inflicted traumatic brain injury -- that is, she was shaken," said Dr. William Perloff, retired head of pediatric intensive care for the hospital. "In her case, there was evidence of her head hitting a surface." UPDATE: 1/24/08: Twelve years after she was sent to prison on charges of shaking a baby to death, a former Waunakee day-care provider should get a new trial, a state appeals court has ruled. New evidence in the case "shows that there has been a shift in mainstream medical opinion since Edmunds' trial as to the cause of the types of injuries Natalie (Beard) suffered," the three-judge panel unanimously ruled. The Attorney General is mulling whether to appeal the ruling. |
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Nancy
Smith and Joseph Allen were convicted of sexually abusing young
children in August of 1994. Smith, a 37-year-old single mother
with four children, was a bus driver for the Lorain, Ohio Head Start.
The prosecution charged that after delivering the children to
school, she would sometimes keep three or four of them and take them to
a mysterious location, where she and a man known to the children only
as "Joseph" would commit various sexual acts with them, make
them drink urine, and poke them with needles and sticks. But an
examination of the police investigation leaves many disturbing
questions; questions about the children's testimony, questions about
whether Smith and Allen even knew each other -- questions about
whether, in fact, any crimes were committed at all. UPDATE: 2/22/07 - Nancy Smith’s bid for freedom Tuesday was rejected for a number of reasons, including a parole board official’s opinion that she hadn’t served enough time after being convicted of molesting children while she was a Head Start bus driver in the 1990s. They Want a Confession to Crimes She did not Commit |
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On the morning of Sept. 19, 1992, a man
named Leonard Aquino
stood with another man in front of a building in
Woodside, NY. He was approached by a couple of men who spoke briefly,
then
opened fire. Mr. Aquino was killed; another man, Paul Peralta, was
shot, but survived. Mr. Rivera's picture was
picked out of an array of photos by Mr. Peralta and
another witness, and in February 1993, five months after the shooting,
Mr. Rivera was charged with killing Mr. Aquino and shooting Mr.
Peralta. He was convicted in December 1995. The eyewitness now
says he did not see the killer long enough to identify him, and new
witnesses have come forward to assert that Mr. Rivera was not even
present at the scene of the crime. |
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In Chicago in
1997, June Siler mistakenly identified Robert Wilson as the man who
slashed her wish a razor blade, after viewing a suggestive photo line
up and being told he had confessed. This is a chilling reminder
of how easy it is for police and prosecutors to manipulate a witness'
testimony. Now, June wants to make things right for Robert. |
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When police
were summoned to the Bethlehem, NY home of Joan and Peter Porco in the
early hours of November 14, 2004, they found Peter hacked to death and
Joan terribly wounded. Det. Chris Bowdish felt he knew as soon as
he walked into the house that one of the two Porco sons, Jonathan or
Christopher, had to have been responsible. He asked Joan if
Jonathan had done it, and she shook her head "no." Then he asked
if Christopher did it, and he says she nodded "yes." There was
never any turning back after that; no other suspects were ever
considered, and the state built a single-minded case to convict
Christopher -- despite Joan's strong support of Christopher's innocence
and the irrelevance of a "head nod" as evidence of anything at all. Funny thing about Bethlehem, NY. In a span of 5 weeks during the fall of 2004, and within a radius of less than 3 miles, two college seniors with no connection to one another hacked people to death. That is the bill of goods sold to juries, first in Erick Westervelt's case, then in Christopher Porco's case. Det. Chris Bowdish and his partner, Det. Charles Rudolph, used classic Reid techniques over a 2-day period to extract what they said was Erick Westervelt's confession to the bludgeoning murder of Timothy Gray. No physical evidence connected Westervelt to Gray's killing, and Westervelt had a solid alibi. Instead of patting each other's backs, these crack detectives and prosecutors from Albany County, NY should be looking over their shoulders for a serial killer. |
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False Confessions: An
Important Series from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
and The Innocence Institute of Point Park University False Confessions: How and Why False Confession Cases: Tiffany Pritchett Da'Ron Cox Troy Joseph |
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Barry Beach of Poplar, Montana has been in prison for 22
years for the murder of a neighbor. His conviction was based on a
confession wrung from Beach by investigators in Louisiana, who prayed
with Beach, threatened him and described in detail death by Louisiana’s
electric chair. The best physical evidence at the scene, a bloody
handprint, did not belong to Beach and was never explained.
Beach's appeals have been exhausted, and Centurion Ministries has
undertaken his case in hope of gaining clemency. UPDATE: Barry Beach, imprisoned 22 years for a murder he and many others say he didn’t commit, has been granted a public hearing by the Montana Board of Pardons and Parole. A Long-Awaited Break. |
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What trumps
DNA excluding a suspect as the killer in a homicide case? In
Clark County, Nevada, a checkered past and a jailhouse snitch are more
believable than the gold standard of forensic science. |
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For
two years, police investigated the brutal 2001 Halloween night
slaying of newspaper editor Kent Heitholt in Columbia, Mo. They had no
viable suspects and the victim's family had come to terms this crime
might never be solved.
But then police heard that a young man told a friend that he had
dreamed he participated in the killing and also named an accomplice to
the murder: his good friend, Ryan Ferguson. Click HERE to view police spoon-feeding Chuck Erickson's "confession" to him. Click HERE to visit Free Ryan Ferguson. |
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Interrogated
for 10 hours, Jonathan Peskin, a dazed diabetic from
Vernon, CT confessed to child molestation. He has been in prison for 18
months awaiting trial. But he is the victim, author Donald Connery
writes. |
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Former FBI Agent
James Wedick, a superstar at the agency, is the latest casualty in the
war on terror. After viewing the interrogation tapes of Umer and Hamid
Hayat, Wedick, the G-man though and through, was stunned. He
immediately called the defense attorney and told him -- "it's the
sorriest interrogation, the sorriest confession, I've ever seen." As
hard as it was for him to criticize his former colleagues and his
beloved former employer, he felt compelled to testify for the defense,
the first such time he had ever opposed the agency. But, as Mark Araz
writes in his excellent story reposted here from the LA Times, the
judge refused to allow him to testify. Arax's story is not only a story
of two wrongful convictions
-- it is a powerful story of how the FBI has changed since 9/11.
Desperate to sniff out Al Qaeda cells, millions of dollars in taxpayer
money is being spent on investigations being led by rookie agents who
lack the expertise to lead them. Caution is being thrown to the wind,
procedures are being tossed out the window, civil liberties are being
trampled, all in the name of catching terrorists. UPDATE: Before any jury trial begins in the United States, prospective jurors are instructed that a defendant is presumed innocent. It’s up to prosecutors to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt,” and the potential jurors are asked if they can abide by that rule. Hamid Hayat’s terrorism trial last year was no exception, and the 12 jurors who heard the Lodi man’s case raised no objections to jury rules. But the foreman who led them to a guilty verdict later said publicly that it was better to risk convicting an innocent man than to acquit a guilty man. It's Okay to Make the Innocent Pay |
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On
Sept. 28, 2000, Kim Camm and her two children were victims of a triple
murder in New Albany, Ind. They were found shot to death at home in
their garage. But
just hours after the memorial service, police arrested their prime
suspect, David Camm, for murdering his wife and two children.
Camm, who claims his innocence, has a very good alibi. Eleven witnesses
say they were with him at the time of the murder. Nonetheless, he
was
convicted. His conviction was overturned in August, 2004 -- but
the
charges were reissued and Camm is facing retrial. UPDATE: On March 3, 2006, David Camm was again found guilty of murdering his family. UPDATE: Camm and Family Speak Out at Sentencing |
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Police
were convinced that Michelle Moore-Bosko, a young Navy wife, was raped
and murdered by eight men in her small Norfolk apartment in 1997 while
her husband was away at sea. And five of them confessed. But
Bosko's apartment showed no signs of mass attack, and the DNA left
behind matched only one man: Omar A. Ballard, a convicted sex offender,
who gave details of the killing and said he acted alone. The
four
others who confessed -- Danial
J. Williams,
Joseph J. Dick Jr., Derek E. Tice and Eric C. Wilson --
all Navy sailors, later recanted but were
convicted anyway, and three of them are serving life sentences. UPDATE: Derek Tice wins state habeas. Because of one mistake by his lawyers, one of the men convicted in the 1997 rape and murder of a young Navy wife could be set free, a judge has found. The state, of course, says it will appeal and wants Tice kept in prison while it does so. Click HERE to read the judge's decision. UPDATE: Unbelievable! On the same day four former Virginia attorneys general declared that the Norfolk Four are innocent of the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko, the Virginia Supreme Court flipped his habeas and reinstated his conviction. Alan Berlow, an independent free lance writer who has written frequently about wrongful convictions (an earlier article about the Chris Ochoa case for Salon magazine is a classic), has done it again. His piece "What Happened in Norfolk?" picks apart the case against the Norfolk Four, four Navy sailors stationed in Norfolk, Virginia who many believe were wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko, the wife of another seaman. Three of the men are still locked up despite the fact that DNA evidence found on the victim was linked to another man, Omar Ballard, who subsequently confessed to having committed the crime by himself.  Margaret
Edds, the author of one of the best
books on the Earl Washington wrongful conviction (“An Expendable Man”),
has turned her laser-like focus on the infamous Norfolk Four case in
this cover story from the Richmond Style Weekly. Anything You Say.Visit Norfolk Four: A Miscarriage of Justice |
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Microscopic
comparison of carpet fibers -- utterly junk science
--
convicted Wayne Williams of two of the Atlanta child murders that
terrorized
the city in 1981, and police blamed Williams for 27 other uncharged
killings.
The newly ensconced Dekalb County police chief who was never convinced
of
Wayne Williams' guilt has reopened five of the 1981 "Atlanta Child
Murder" cases. Families of many of the murdered children have
been unconvinced
all these years, too. Williams
says he is imprisoned with at least four relatives of his alleged
victims,
and that even they believe in his innocence. UPDATE: DNA Testing Sought. Lawyers for Wayne Williams, blamed for the murders of two dozen children and young men in the late 1970s and early '80s, have asked to perform DNA testing on dog hair, human hair and blood. |
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Here's a new
twist on SAID -- Sexual Assault Allegations in Divorce -- where one
spouse levels false sexual assault allegations against the other as a
ploy to obtain custody of the children. Usually the children are
the alleged victims, but in this case, the wife said she had been raped. The
allegation was made only after Mr. Coleman filed for divorce and sought
custody and after Mrs. Coleman retained a divorce lawyer. There
was no physical evidence because Mrs. Coleman said undergoing a rape
exam "wasn't a priority". Yet a jury in Waterbury, CT convicted
Mr. Coleman of rape. |
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In 1984, Mohamed El-Tabech of Lincoln, Nebraska went to
get ice cream. Upon his return home, he found his wife had been
murdered. He called 911 and responding police found him sitting
on the floor, rocking back and forth in grief. El-Tabech vowed to
kill his wife's murderer. Instead, he was convicted of killing
Lynn El-Tabech himself. His fight for DNA testing led to a new
law in Nebraska but the state continues to oppose testing in
El-Tabech's case. |
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In 2002,
Broward (Florida) U.S. District Judge Norman C. Roettger, who died in
2003, granted Kelley a new trial. State prosecutors said they could not
retry Kelley, clearing the way for his release from prison.
But a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in
Atlanta overturned Roettger's decision and reinstated Kelley's
conviction. Chief Justice Gerald Tjoflat wrote the opinion.
Now the only thing standing between Kelley, 62, and a lethal shot of
potassium chloride is the petition to the U.S. Supreme Court by Tribe
-- a legal giant who represented Al Gore in the recount battle after
the 2000 election. |
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Valentino Dixon
Torriano
Jackson died in a hail of gunfire from a machine gun one August night
in 1991 in Buffalo, New York. Today, two men sit in
prison: one convicted of that killing but denying his guilt, the other
insisting he is the killer. Who is telling the truth, who is
lying -- and why? Read The
Buffalo News series and see what you think.
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It
was one of the most terrifying crimes ever to hit Kaukauna, WI, a
community of 13,000. On
June 25, 2000, Shanna Van Dyn Hoven, a 19-year-old UW-Madison
student, was stabbed to death as she jogged by a quarry near her home
about 6 p.m. Prosecutors
said Hudson stabbed Van Dyn Hoven, a stranger, in a fit of misplaced
rage, and that they caught him red-handed, covered in her blood.
Newly
uncovered evidence, however, appears to support Hudson's contentions --
and raises more questions about the conduct of the police and the
prosecutor, Vince Biskupic. UPDATE: Ken Hudson's bid for a new trial crashed and burned. No surprise. His new lawyer dropped all the substantive issues, and the judge wouldn't let Hudson fire the attorney. New Trial Denied |
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Martin Soto-Fong and the
DA with Killer Instincts [pdf format]
Last
year, former Pima County, AZ DA Kenneth Peasley was disbarred for
intentionally presenting false evidence in death-penalty
cases—something that had never before happened to an American
prosecutor. In a 1992 triple-murder case, Peasley introduced testimony
that he knew to be false; three men were convicted and sentenced to
die. Peasley was convinced that the three were guilty, but he also
believed that the evidence needed a push. According to the Death
Penalty Information Center, since the
mid-nineteen-seventies a hundred and seventeen death-row inmates have
been released. Defense lawyers, often relying on DNA testing, have
shown repeatedly how shoddy crime-lab work, lying informants, and
mistaken eyewitness identifications, among other factors, led to unjust
convictions. But DNA tests don’t reveal how innocent people come to be
prosecuted in the first place. The career of Kenneth Peasley -- and the
case of Martin Soto-Fong -- do. |
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Katie Hamlin,
a 15-year-old Cherokee County, Georgia girl, met a terrible end.
In the early morning hours of July 2, 2002, she was raped, strangled
and then her body was set on fire. Roberto Rocha, the 20-year-old
mentally disabled son of a preacher, was charged with her murder --
police claim he confessed -- and although Rocha can prove he was in
Brazil when the crime occurred, Cherokee County DA Garry Moss refuses
to dismiss the charges. |
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Students at
the Texas Innocence Network have uncovered new evidence, never
presented at trial, that death row inmate Anthony Graves was not
involved in the 1992 slaying of six people. The
students believe Graves would be acquitted if he were retried.
But this is Texas, the state has what it wants -- a conviction -- and
despite grave prosecutorial misconduct, U. S. Magistrate Judge John
Froeschner thinks Anthony should keep his appointment with the
executioner. UPDATE: Anthony Graves' conviction and death sentence were vacated by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeals court in its decision accused Burleson County prosecutors of misconduct, including failure to disclose statements that could have helped Graves' defense. His retrial has not yet been scheduled, but when it occurs, Joan E. Scroggins a Burleson County assistant district attorney, will not be on the case. The state court trial judge has ordered her recused. Prosecutor Off Case. |
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In
the 1989 nationally syndicated television program on
the case, A Matter of Life and Death,
television journalist Ike Pappas noted: ``In 1975, Tommy Zeigler was
attempting to
clean up corruption right in his hometown of Winter Garden, Florida. He
was helpful in shutting down the old Edgewater Hotel, a center of
prostitution and drug dealing. But he was also trying to gather
information on other illegal activities such as gun running and, most
importantly, loan sharking. The loan sharks made a fortune letting
[black]
migrant workers buy
groceries on credit at an interest rate of 520 percent per year. And
Tommy Zeigler alleges that certain members of the Winter Garden police
force were in on the action.'' On Christmas Eve that year, there was a multiple murder at the Zeigler family furniture store. Zeigler was charged with the murders. Maurice Paul, who openly opposed Ziegler's efforts, was the trial judge who presided over Zeigler's fate. Paul overrode the jury's recommendation and sentenced Zeigler to death. Zeigler has maintained his innocence. Now DNA evidence offers Zeigler the hope of a very different future Christmas. |
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Rodwell
was convicted of the November 1978 fatal shooting of Louis Rose Jr.
outside a Somerville, MA bakery. The state's key witness against him
was
David P. Nagle, a law enforcement snitch who made a career out of
committing armed robberies to support his drug habit, according to
court documents. But prosecutors not only failed to disclose the
sweetheart deal Nagle got in exchange for his testimony -- 7 to 12
years for 10 armed robberies -- they actively concealed it. |
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Link: A special interactive report brought to you by journalnow.com A Special ReportThe Attack at the Silk Plant Forest JournalNow Edition * Winston-Salem, N.C. * November 21-25, 2004
On Dec.
9, 1995 Jill Marker was brutally beaten in the back of The Silk Plant
Forest, then located in the Silas Creek Shopping Center. Two years
later, Kalvin Michael Smith was arrested for the crime. This six month
re-examination of the case is based on hundreds of pages of police
reports and interviews with Marker, her family and others.
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Dennis Dechaine has been
in a Maine prison for 16 years, convicted of the abduction, sexual
torture and murder of a 12-year-old girl.
In a striking move for a state that has steadfastly defended its
handling
of the case, Maine Attorney General G. Steven Rowe has appointed a
three-member panel to review the 1988 killing of Sarah Cherry for any
evidence of misconduct by police or prosecutors. |
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Jane was
convicted of killing Bob Dorotik, her husband of 30 years, and
sentenced to 25 years to life in Chowchilla Women's Prison. Even
the judge has expressed doubts about her guilt. Now, in her own
words, Jane describes her life in prison and her continuing belief that
someday she will be free. |
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Suffolk County
(Boston), MA prosecutors have announced they will seek to vacate Angel
Toro's conviction for the 1981 murder of a motel desk clerk because a
police report that could have cleared him was withheld from the
defense, and two key witnesses have admitted they lied under police
pressure. He's not free yet, but if Toro walks out of prison, he
can thank his real Angel -- his wife, Debra. UPDATE: Judge vacates Toro's conviction. |
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Two More Wrongful
Convictions Courtesy of the Houston (TX) Police Crime Lab
The only evidence that tied Lawrence Napper to the 2001 kidnapping and molestation of a 6-year-old boy was DNA. Turns out it wasn't his DNA. Of course, he is still in prison. Lawrence Napper George Rodriguez was sentenced to 60 years in prison for aggravated rape and kidnapping, based primarily on HPD Crime Lab's serological [based on blood type only] identification of him. A panel of six scientists has reviewed the evidence in Rodriguez's case and reported the crime lab's conclusions were "scientifically unsound". Of course, he is still in prison, too. George Rodriguez UPDATE: George Rodriguez, exonerated by DNA, wonders "Why am I Still in Prison?" |
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David
Lemus and Olmado Hidalgo have spent 12 years in jail for the murder of
a New York City nightclub bouncer named Marcus Peterson and the
attempted murder of
another man on Nov. 23, 1990. A 2002 New Police Department
investigative report concluded Thomas Morales committed the murders,
but Morales is free while Lemus and Hidalgo remain in prison. |
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In 1995 in Hattiesburg, MS, Stephanie phoned surgeon Dr.
David Stephens' wife of 32 years, Karen, and disclosed that she and the
doctor had been having an affair for years. A few hours later,
Karen was rushed to the hospital with a self-inflicted gunshot wound;
she died three months later. Stephanie married Dr.
Stephens. She was crippled in a car accident the next year.
By the spring of 2001, Dr. Stephens, already a diabetic, was terminally
ill with liver disease. When he died, a drug used for anesthesia
was found in his blood. Stephanie was subsequently convicted of
her husband's murder. But was she convicted on the basis of sound
evidence, or because she was the "other woman"? |
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Michael
Roper's case has all the hallmarks of a wrongful conviction -- shaky
eyewitness identification, jailhouse "snitch" testimony and no physical
evidence connecting him to the murder of an Akron, Ohio convenience
store owner. At his 4th trial the jury convicted him, but they
didn't
know another suspect closely resembles Roper. |
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Nothing about the double homicide seemed
to
finger Tyrone Noling. Even the former sheriff doesn't believe he should
be on death row. UPDATE: Evidence withheld by the state comes to light. Get all the updates at TyroneNoling.com |
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There
was no confession, no blood evidence, no witnesses,
inconclusive balistics and inconclusive GSR testing, but with virtually
no defense, a jury convicted Robert Dana of killing his best friend
Gene Koller and Gene's girlfriend Elaine Matte. That was 28 years
ago. Robert has always maintained his innocence. Now
someone has come forward with information that could help Robert. |
| When 80-year-old Anna
Knaze was robbed and beaten to death in 1992 in Johnstown, PA, Det.
Richard Rok decided Ernest Simmons had done it. Problem was, he
had no evidence. Rok recruited Simmons' girlfriend to secretly
tape record conversations with him, but instead of confessing, Simmons
denied committing the crime 19 times. Finally, Rok was able to
convince another elderly robbery victim to identify Simmons as her
attacker and claim he threatened to give her "the same thing Anna Knaze
got". She lied -- she never saw her assailant's face. But
Rok got the conviction he wanted. Ernest
Simmons Got the Death Penalty And what about Det. Rok? Over the years he was accused of assaulting suspects, conducting searches without warrants and pushing a witness to make false identifications. He's in Federal Prison Now |
| Vidale
McDowell is serving a life sentence in Michigan for second degree
murder. When
McDowell
was
arrested, he had no police record. He was an 18-year-old senior at
Trombley Adultday High School in Detroit. The
primary
evidence
used
to convict McDowell consisted of a written statement from his
13-year-old friend, Antoine Morris, who almost immediately recanted the
accusation, saying that police forced it from him. Confessions and
Recantations |
| In May, 1988 Jason
Derrick was convicted of murdering grocer Rama Sharma in Pasco County,
Florida and sentenced to death. There were no eyewitnesses, no
weapon, no physical evidence whatsoever connecting Derrick to the crime
-- just the testimony of the original suspect and a jailhouse
snitch. Now another man has made statements implicating himself,
and Derrick will get a hearing in March, 2004. A Life Hangs in the
Balance |
| After
three indictments, two trials and a handful of appellate proceedings,
some of the best legal minds in Virginia still are trying to decide
whether Merry Pease was a domestic-violence victim or a cold-blooded
killer. It
is the
claim of prosecutorial misconduct -- which was one of the reasons the
case was overturned the first time around -- that is drawing new
attention to it. What Can Go Wrong,
Did Go Wrong UPDATE: On October 31, 2003, the Virginia Supreme Court affirmed Merry's conviction. Prosecutor Tim McAfee, whose egregious misconduct in Merry's first trial led to reversal of her conviction, has dodged the bullet of disbarment because in the eyes of the Virginia State Bar, in obtaining a second conviction against Merry, McAfee "cured" his misconduct. Click HERE to read the Virginia Supreme Court's rationalization. |
| Almost 30 years ago,
a snitch (who later recanted) fingered Maurice Carter for shooting an
off-duty Michigan police officer. No physical evidence connected
Carter to the crime, and the clerk who got the best look at the gunman
says it was "one hundred percent definitely not" Carter. Yet his
motion for a new trial and his petition for clemency languish.
Meanwhile, Carter has end-stage liver disease and will die without a
transplant -- which he cannot get as long as he is in prison. De Facto Death
Penalty for an Innocent Man |
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Michael
Roper's case has all the hallmarks of a wrongful conviction -- shaky
eyewitness identification, jailhouse "snitch" testimony and no physical
evidence connecting him to the murder of an Akron, Ohio convenience
store owner. At his 4th trial the jury convicted him, but they
didn't know another suspect closely resembles Roper. UPDATE: Michael Roper denied new trial despite prosecutor misconduct. |
| For half of his 42 years,
Nicholas J. Yarris has been on death row in
Pennsylvania prisons, emphatically telling anyone who would listen that
he didn't commit the 1981 abduction, rape and murder of a Delaware
County woman for which he was convicted. He now may have scientific
evidence that he has been telling the truth from behind bars for more
than two decades. Nick
Yarris Cleared by DNA Click HERE to visit Nick's weblog.
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In 1999, Alan
Yurko of Orlando, FL was convicted of shaking his 10-week-old son
to death and sentenced to life without parole. But the autopsy
performed by Dr. Stashio Gore doesn't come close to minimum standard of
care -- and Dr. Gore admits to all the bad science. |
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William Kelley
For nearly 19 years, William
Kelley, a thief, bartender, and stagehand from Boston, has lived on
Florida's death row, convicted of a hired hit on a millionaire citrus
grower in 1966. Now, he could be about to trade his near-total
isolation for the spare bedroom in his brother's Tewksbury split-level,
thanks to a federal judge's decision to throw out his conviction. Last
fall, US District Judge Norman C. Roettger ordered a new trial, based
on ''prosecutorial misconduct'' and the ''deficient'' representation of
Kelley's lawyers.
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Had the
North Carolina Supreme Court not been compelled to stay his execution,
Henry Lee Hunt's life would have ended before the N.C. Actual Innocence
Commission began. Neither the Governor nor the court, or for that
matter, the rest of the state, can rely on the validity of Hunt's
conviction. September
13, 2003: The State of North Carolina executed Henry Lee Hunt. |
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In
November, 2000, Marshall King, a Virginia State Trooper, and Bruno
Crutchfield, Brodnax, VA Police Chief, were convicted of conspiracy to
distribute cocaine. Those convictions, based on perjured
testimony by snitches, were vacated by U.S. District Court Judge Thomas
Payne, who observed, "This trial has a taint on it that stinks awful."
Crutchfield has been released on bond, but federal prosecutors have
trotted out yet another snitch to claim King did what they did --
suborned perjury -- to keep the former cop in prison while he awaits
retrial.
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Green Bay, WI The Issues:
Media Reinvestigation
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Recently
discovered DNA evidence
proves that House did not rape Carolyn Muncey immediately before she
was killed in 1985 in Union County, north of Knoxville, South Carolina.
Other
evidence has surfaced that might show that House did not rape or kill
Muncey. While South Carolina's judiciary argues over how many
jurors can dance on the head of a pin, Paul Gregory House remains on
death row. [pdf format - use Acrobat Reader]
Can we rely on
forensic science as the arbiter of truth in the courtroom? In his
latest investigation for Seed Magazine, writer
Simon Cooper exposes a case of corrupted science at the heart of our
justice system -- and the forensic failures that put a man on
Tennessee's death row.
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Ernest
Willis had the bad luck to survive a fatal fire. Cops didn't like
the way he acted afterward. They had no evidence to
support their suspicions: no fingerprints, no
bodily fluids, no flammable liquids in the house or on Willis' clothes
or body, no witnesses, no motive. They charged him anyway, kept
him drugged through his trial and got a conviction. Then the
appeals courts abandoned him. Now he waits on death row
while his final appeal before execution works its way through federal
court. |
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A dozen
forensic experts agree Judi Eftenoff died of an accidental overdose of
cocaine, and that she was neither beaten nor murdered. Like John
Maloney, Brian has been sentenced to life in prison for crimes that
never even happened. |
| Meet
Michael Kenneth McAlister of Richmond, VA. He's the victim of
mistaken identity by the victim of attempted rape. Even the
investigator and prosecutor who put him in prison doubt his
guilt. They went to the parole board in support of his release,
but this is Virginia so the parole board denied McAlister's bid.
He is Without
Hope Michael McAlister's cause has been taken to Virginia Governor Mark Warner. Petition for Pardon UPDATE: Michael McAlister, his petition for pardon inexplicably denied by Gov. Mark Warner, has been released on mandatory parole. Finally Free |
| When little
Donovan Wright of York County, PA died, it was a tragedy. The
tragedy was compounded by the testimony of a medical expert who claimed
he could reliably time Donovan's critical injury to a period when
the child was in the care of his father, Doug Wright. Doug
was convicted of killing his son. Now the doctor acknowledges
his testimony was faulty; he was wrong. But he is unconcerned
because he can't remember either Donovan or Doug. Forgotten by Justice UPDATE: 4/9/07- Old Report Brings New Hope for Doug Wright. A police accident report, withheld from the defense at the time of Doug's trial, proves that Donovan Wright was in a 99 mph car crash one month before his death. Donovan did not receive medical care immediately after the crash, and could have sustained his ultimately-fatal injuries in the wreck -- not at the hands of his father. In Dauphin County, PA, police and prosecutors are old hands at putting innocent people in prison and keeping them there. No effort was spared to convict 14-year-old Steven Crawford of murdering his friend John Eddie Mitchell. Crawford has spent the last 28 years in prison, even though authorities identified Mitchell's killers 25 years ago. One Life Lost ... Another Life Wasted
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A series of bomb blasts in tiny Louisa, Virginia sent shockwaves of fear through the community. Coleman Johnson, Jr.'s conviction for one of the bombings was purchased with perjured testimony. The bomber remains at large, and the community remains in danger. |
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David Munchinski has been in prison for over 15 years for murders he says he did not commit. But his daughter Raina has uncovered evidence that the star witness against him later admitted lying, prosecutors hid exculpatory evidence and Munchinski's co-defendant testified that another man committed the crimes with him. |
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How could he kill a priest in Houston, Texas when he was 200 miles away in Roswell, New Mexico? |
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Who assaulted Connie Young in Leesville, Louisiana in 1992? From WAFB-TV You Be the Judge |
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from the Austin Chronicle Robert Springsteen: Somebody Has to Die UPDATE Robert Springsteen's Conviction Overturned Co-defendant Michael Scott's conviction likely to fall on the same grounds UPDATE - 2/27/07 The
US Supreme Court refused to hear the state's |