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Truth in Justice
Newsletter - June, 2004
RECENT CASES
In 1986,
newlyweds Dyke and Karen Rhoads were stabbed to death in their Paris,
IL home. Randy
Steidl and Herb Whitlock were convicted of their muders on the
strength of perjured testimony that contrradicted the physical
evidence. Now Randy Steidl has been released.
Herb Whitlock remains in prison, convicted by the same perjured
testimony.
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DEATH PENALTY ISSUES
The Massachusetts
Plan for an Infallible Death Penalty
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POLICE/PROSECUTOR
MISCONDUCT
California:
Superior Court Judge William Danser of California's Santa Clara
County was found guilty on all counts in his obstruction of
justice trial. The judge was convicted of improperly
dismissing 20 traffic tickets for professional athletes and
acquaintances, and of transferring two DUI cases to himself so he could
hand out lenient sentences. Playing
Favorites
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Arizona: Twice named prosecutor of the year,
former Pima County prosecutor Kenneth Peasley has been disbarred by the
Arizona Supreme Court for knowingly eliciting perjured testimony in the
1993 capital murder trials of Andre Minnitt and Christopher McCrimmon,
and again in Minnitt's 1997 retrial. The
Price of Perjury
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JUNK
SCIENCE
Three separate FBI
examiners — Terry Green, Michael Wieners and
John T. Massey — identified a fingerprint linked to the Madrid train
bombing as that of Oregon attorney Brandon Mayfield. Even when
Spanish authorities disagreed, the FBI stood by their conclusion of a
"100 percent positive identification". They gave Mayfield the
"Richard Jewell/Wen Ho Lee" treatment -- smear his name, destroy his
law practice, throw him in jail. Oops. The FBI was Wrong.
Commentary:
Until now, many people in the field of fingerprinting have defensively
resisted calls for additional research and investigation of
fingerprinting. Because experts are permitted to testify about "100
percent positive" matches and to claim in court an error rate for the
technique of zero, they have little incentive to support any research.
No matter how accurate fingerprint identification turns out to be, it
cannot be as perfect as they claim. The Achilles' Heel of Fingerprints
Commentary: The
pseudoscience of fingerprint identification lacks
baseline standards. It is subjective, based on
"because-I-said-so" analysis. The result is that the government
can profess certainty and be Dead Wrong.
At the trial of
Martha
Stewart and her broker, Peter Bacanovic -- charged with lying to
federal investigators -- govenment document examiner Larry Stewart
testified that Bocanovic's worksheet notation to sell Martha's Imclone
stock "at 60" was written in a different ink than the other
notes. It was "absolutely critical" to the government's
case. And
It Was A Lie
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HOW THE SYSTEM
WORKS
A
comprehensive study of 328 criminal cases over the last 15 years in
which the convicted person was exonerated suggests that there are Thousands of
Innocent People in Prison.
Click
HERE
to read the University of Michigan Law School study
report.
(pdf format - use Acrobat Reader)
Plea Agreements:
Between 5% and 10% of those
convicted of felony crimes are factually innocent -- and 95% of them
pled guilty. Producer Ofra Bikel's documentary, premiering June
17, 2004 on PBS' Frontline,
examines the moral, judicial and constitutional implications of the
push to resolve cases by pressuring defendants into plea agreements --
guilty or not. The
Plea
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RECOMMENDED
READING
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Innocent: Inside
Wrongful Conviction Cases by Scott Christianson
Innocent
graphically documents
forty-two recent criminal cases to find evidence of shocking
miscarriages of justice, especially in murder cases. Based upon
interviews with more than 200 people and reviews of hundreds of
internal case files, court records, smoking-gun memoranda, and other
documents, Scott Christianson gets inside the legal cases and displays
them through documents and images of the people and evidence involved.
Some of the defendants in Innocent
are still in prison, trying to prove their innocence to the courts.
Others have had their convictions reversed and the charges against them
dismissed, and still others have been awarded civil damages after the
state conceded their innocence. The result is a powerful work that
recounts the human costs of a criminal justice system gone awry, and
shows us how wrongful convictions can — and do — happen everywhere.
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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 except Hawaii, North Dakota and
South Dakota. 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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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 900 pages at Truth in Justice. The site search
engine on the main page can make it faster and easier to find what you
seek.
And remember, YOU can make a difference!
Sheila and Doug Berry
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