by TChris

Last October, TalkLeft spotlighted the incarceration of Gregory Dunagan for a murder he probably didn't commit. Dunagan's legal challenges to his conviction at that point had been unavailing.

Bob Ray Sanders at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that nothing has changed. Why?

You see, in Texas, once a defendant is found guilty by a jury, innocence really doesn't matter. Only the conviction counts.

Besides, who in any police department, district attorney's office or judge's chamber is ever willing to admit a mistake?

A North Carolina Senate committee, following the lead of the N.C. House, has passed a measure that would allow a 3 judge panel to hear inmate's claims of factual innocence and order them released if they find by clear and convincing evidence they are innocent.

The House approved last year the establishment of an eight-member N.C. Innocence Inquiry Commission that would conduct inquiries into "claims of factual innocence" based on new evidence that hadn't been presented in court.

If five of the eight members agree there is enough evidence, the case would be sent to a three-judge Superior Court panel. Charges would be dismissed if all three judges determine there "is clear and convincing evidence" that the defendant is innocent.

Alan Newton will leave a New York jail after being imprisoned for 22 years for a rape DNA has shown he didn't commit. What took so long? New York police kept insisting there was no DNA to test. The Innocence Project took up his case and got a DA to find the evidence the police insisted didn't exist:

The rape kit, it turned out, was in its original storage bin from 1984, Barrel No. 22, in the same police warehouse that the authorities said they had searched at least three times since Mr. Newton first asked in 1994.

The long-delayed DNA tests proved the innocence of Mr. Newton, who had refused to participate in a sex-offender treatment program in prison, ruining his chance for an earlier parole. He plans to come to court today dressed in one of the suits he wore to work half his lifetime ago.

17 more inmates in New York are facing the same dilemna. With viable claims of innocence, police say they can't find evidence to test.

Copyright 2006, Chicago Tribune.

Carlos de Luna was texecuted in December, 1989. A new investigation by ace Chicago Tribune reporters Maurice Possley and Steve Mills, in the three part series Did This Man Die for...This Man's Crime begins today and shows another man confessed to the murder and other evidence points to de Luna's innocence.

Part One of the series is here.

by TChris

The first entry in a two part series takes a look at the controversial convictions of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. This month marks the 40th anniversary of the killings that spawned Carter's convictions, as well as a Dylan song and a movie.

In his decision, [federal District Judge H. Lee] Sarokin uses a phrase that still rankles those on the law enforcement side of the case: "...the petitioners' convictions were predicated upon an appeal to racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure...."

by TChris

It seems as if a week rarely passes without news that another inmate has been cleared by DNA testing. Today's victim of an incorrect identification ("arrested after a woman identified him from a photo as the man who abducted her as she was getting into her car") is James Tillman, convicted of rape and kidnapping 18 years ago. He walked out of prison yesterday, thanks to the good work of the Connecticut Innocence Project and a prosecutor who agreed that Tillman deserved a new trial.

As the judge pointed out, eyewitness testimony can be "devastatingly inaccurate." Think of all the people behind bars who were convicted of crimes that don't involve DNA evidence. How many of them are innocent victims of a mistaken identification? With no hope of DNA testing to exonerate them, how many will serve their entire sentences for crimes they didn't commit?

by TChris

Update: Be sure to follow the links provided in the comments by readers Nicole Black and Peter G to learn more about this case and about false confessions.

original post:

It was easier for the Rochester, NY police to elicit Douglas Warney's confession than it would have been to track down the actual killer of William Beason.

Warney, who has a recorded IQ of 68 and a history of mental health issues, was convicted based almost entirely on a confession he gave police after hours of interrogation-even though the confession was riddled with inconsistencies, he had a history of making false reports to police and the physical evidence at the time failed to link him to the crime. Warney was initially charged with capital murder, though he was ultimately sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

In papers filed to vacate Warney's conviction and release him from prison, the Innocence Project said Rochester police officers provided key details of the murder to Warney during interrogations. Once Warney repeated those details-which were not publicly available-in a confession, police and prosecutors focused on no other suspects and secured his conviction by saying nobody but the perpetrator of the crime would know such details.

by TChris

Last year, TalkLeft discussed the inability of prosecutors to admit their error in convicting Larry Peterson, despite the mountain of new evidence (including DNA) that proved he wasn't the person who raped and murdered Jacqueline Harrison. Although Peterson was granted a new trial on the strength of the new evidence, the TalkLeft post predicted that prosecutors would drop the case in the face of overwhelming evidence of Peterson's innocence. Happily, that happened on Friday, but as this editorial opines, it took much too long.

After initially opposing Peterson's requests to conduct DNA tests, the prosecutor's office received clear scientific evidence in February 2005 that Peterson was wrongly convicted. Yet [prosecutor Robert] Bernardi effectively prevented Peterson from being released on bail for six more months.

Peterson remained charged, awaiting possible retrial, for 15 months after the DNA results were known. That's a disturbing application of the prosecutor's power. Once he possessed such urgent information, it shouldn't have taken an officer of the criminal justice system so long to conclude this case. Bernardi should have moved as swiftly as if it were his own brother behind bars.

Even more disturbing than the prosecution's refusal to concede its mistake is the role it played in obtaining Peterson's conviction.

by TChris

More than 175 people have been exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing. The Justice Project brings you the details of recent DNA exonerations in New York and Pennsylvania, along with the disturbing report of a Tennessee judge who has refused to permit DNA testing that might save an inmate from execution. Just as disturbing:

At this time, no state provides, as an absolute right, access to post-conviction DNA testing.

The Justice Project is trying to change that. Here's how you can help.

by TChris

After criticizing Haley Barbour for refusing to pardon Clyde Kennard, TalkLeft praised Judge Robert Helfrich for vacating Kennard's conviction. Kennard was wrongly accused of buying stolen chicken feed and sentenced to prison after he tried to enroll in an all-white university in Mississippi.

This happy ending is under attack by Richard Barrett. Sadly, Barrett is a lawyer. He's also the newspaper editor for the white supremacist organization the Nationalist Movement. He filed a petition asking Judge Helfrich to reverse his decision on the ground that Helfrich had no authority to act.

Barrett filed his petition on behalf of five "common folks" from Central Mississippi.

Barrett professes to be concerned that the correction of racial injustice might become a trend that will lead to the renaming of Forrest County, "because its namesake is Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest - founder of the Ku Klux Klan." And that would be a bad thing why?

by TChris

Orlando Bosquette didn't bust out of prison to chase after a one armed man, but he played the role of The Fugitive for about a decade after he was sentenced to serve 65 years for a rape he didn't commit. Bosquette was captured in 1995, ten years after his escape, but by that time, DNA technology had improved and (with the help of Nina Morrison of New York's Innocence Project) Bosquette was able to have the rape evidence tested. Based on the results, the chief prosecutor for the area that includes the Florida Keys agrees that Bosquette is innocent, and has moved to vacate Bosquette's conviction.

Unfortunately, Bosquette's freedom won't be easily restored. Bosquette borrowed a number of identities during his fugitive years and admitted to crimes that others had committed to protect his true identity. Immigration authorities are holding those admissions against Bosquette, and he faces possible deportation.

by TChris

As TalkLeft discussed here, Clyde Kennard was convicted and sentenced to 7 years in prison for buying stolen chicken feed in Mississippi, a crime he didn't commit. Kennard, an African American veteran of the Korean War, was set up for prosecution because he tried to enroll at an all-white university. He died in 1963, three years after he was framed for the chicken feed crime.

Interest in Kennard's case was recently renewed after a reporter obtained the recantation of a witness. Gov. Haley Barbour nonetheless refused a request to pardon Kennard, innocent or not, because Barbour doesn't believe in pardons. That position was widely criticized, which may explain Barbour's willingness to (belatedly) join a petition asking the circuit court to vacate Kennard's conviction.

Mississippi has no clear procedure to vacate convictions of deceased defendants, but Circuit Court Judge Robert Helfrich decided that justice required action.

"Because this matter did begin here, it should end here," Helfrich said from the bench. "To me, this is not a black and white issue - it's a right and wrong issue. To correct that wrong, I am compelled to do the right thing, and that is to declare Mr. Kennard innocent, and to declare that the conviction of Mr. Kennard is hereby null and void."