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FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 24, 2007
11:29 AM
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CONTACT:
ACLU
/ Texas
Innocence Networkn
James Freedland, ACLU, (212) 519-7829; media@aclu.org
John Holdridge, ACLU Capital Punishment Project, (919) 433-8520
David Dow, Texas Innocence Network, (713) 743-2171
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ACLU
and Texas Innocence Network Appeal Innocent Man’s Death Sentence
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TEXAS
- October 24 - At a hearing today before the Texas Court of Criminal
Appeals, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Innocence
Network (TIN) argued that death row inmate Max Soffar was unfairly
prevented from proving his innocence at his second trial in 2006. The
groups hope to overturn Soffar’s conviction in the capital murder case
of four victims shot during an armed robbery in a Houston bowling alley
in 1980. In 1981, Soffar was convicted and sentenced to death, but a
federal court overturned his conviction in 2004 because his trial
lawyers failed to argue that Soffar’s confession contradicted the
account of the sole surviving witness and other reliable evidence in
the case. The state of Texas retried Soffar last year and he was again
convicted and sentenced to death.
“This
case is a textbook example of a miscarriage of justice,” said John
Holdridge, Director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project. “From a
false confession to two unfair trials and death sentences, the problems
with Max Soffar’s case are gravely troubling. We must not allow the
state of Texas to execute an innocent man.”
The ACLU and TIN argued that Soffar was denied the constitutional right
to defend himself because Soffar’s trial judge refused to admit
evidence that another man confessed to committing the murders. This
man, Paul Reid, formerly of Houston, also committed a series of highly
similar robbery-murders and now awaits execution on Tennessee’s death
row. A photograph of Reid, taken in Houston nine days after the bowling
alley incident, strongly resembles the police’s composite sketch based
on the description of the crime’s sole witness. The ACLU and TIN also
charged that Soffar was denied his constitutional rights when, during
his second trial, the court refused to allow him to show that media
reports of the crime contained all of the details in his false
confession. The prosecution claimed that these details—although
broadcast throughout Texas—could only be known by the person
responsible for the crime.
Soffar was known by the police in 1980 as an unreliable and
feeble-minded informant who often traded information for police
assistance or money. Shortly after the bowling alley crimes took place,
Soffar fingered his friend, Latt Bloomfied, as the perpetrator. Soffar
also told police that he and Bloomfield had burglarized the same
bowling alley the night before the incident – a crime the press
reported as potentially related to the robbery-murders. The police soon
learned that Soffar’s confession to the burglary was false and arrested
others for that crime; yet even after Soffar’s first false confession,
law enforcement continued to rely on another confession of his that
implicated Soffar and Bloomfield in the robbery-murders. After his
initial arrest, Bloomfield was quickly released and has never faced
charges for the crime.
“Max
Soffar has been on Texas’s death row for almost three decades for a
crime he did not commit,” said David Dow, Head of the Texas Innocence
Network and one of Soffar’s attorneys. “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.”
John
Holdridge added, “False confessions are far more common than the public
realizes. According to the Innocence Project, innocent defendants made
incriminating statements, delivered outright confessions or pleaded
guilty in more than 25% of DNA exoneration cases.”
More
information on Max Soffar’s case is available at: www.aclu.org/capital/innocence/29715res20070430.html
Lawyers on this case are Holdridge and Brian Stull of the ACLU Capital
Punishment Project and Dow and Jared Tyler of the Texas Innocence
Network. |
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