by TChris

The United States, of course, isn’t the only country with a criminal justice system that leads to wrongful convictions. When the system breaks down in France, at least the government has the good grace to apologize.

A French appeals court today overturned the conviction of six people accused of participating in a pedophilia ring in northern France five years ago, unraveling one of the most mismanaged cases in French judicial history and leaving the nation asking how the court system could have gone so awry.

"I apologize to the acquitted and their families," the French justice minister, Pascal Clément, said at a press conference after the appeal verdict was announced in Paris. He ordered investigations of the police, judiciary and social services involved in the case and asked for a report by February.

The apology comes too late for a seventh innocent man, who committed suicide in prison. The chief prosecutor asked the appellate court to acquit the six remaining defendants and demanded an investigation to determine responsibility for the wrongful convictions.

When is your DNA not your DNA? When you've had a bone marrow transplant.

IT SOUNDS like an open-and-shut case: a clear DNA match is made between semen from a serious sexual assault and a blood sample from a known criminal. Yet in a recent case from Alaska, the criminal in question was in jail when the assault took place. And forensic scientists had already matched the crime sample to the DNA profile of another person who was their prime suspect. It was only after careful detective work that the mystery was solved: the jailed man had received bone marrow from the suspect many years earlier.

by TChris

As a police detective, Jeffrey Hornoff helped send people to prison. Now he understands how easy it is for an innocent accused to end up behind bars -- it happened to him.

[Hornock] served six years, four months and 18 days for a murder he didn't commit. He was released in 2002 only after Todd Barry, a carpenter from Cranston, stepped forward and admitted to killing Victoria Cushman in August 1989.

Hornock has sued several Warwick, R.I. and state police detectives for his wrongful conviction, accusing them of "willfully mishandling and omitting evidence." The complaint alleges that State Police "ignored the possibility that Hornoff was innocent" and "failed to conduct a proper investigation," instead focusing all investigative efforts on Hornoff. The complaint also states that "beyond compensating Hornoff ... the lawsuit seeks to redress the unlawful municipal policies and practices."

by TChris

Somebody shot Barkat Ali, a convenience store owner, in front of his wife. Police developed no leads until two jailhouse snitches, hoping to get their time reduced, claimed they heard Gregory Dunagan bragging about the killing.

When Dunagan went on trial, Ali's wife was asked -- three times -- if she could identify the killer. Each time, she identified someone other than Dunagan. That fact didn't bother the Texas jury that convicted Dunagan, who is now serving a life sentence.

by TChris

A wrongful conviction may have cost William Nieves his life. Certainly, it robbed him of many productive years.

"I was 27 years old when I was convicted. At the time I went to jail, I had just enrolled in community college," Nieves told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a 2002 interview. "I would have had my degree. I would have had my feet in something I enjoy doing. I would have spent much more time with my daughter."

Nieves was convicted in 1994. Prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence, and he was eventually awarded a new trial. He was acquitted and released from custody in 2000, but he complained that the prison failed to treat his ailing liver. By the time he was released, it was too late. Nieves died Saturday at the age of 39.

Update: 5/27/2009: Since this post was written, the state of Missouri appealed the granting of the writ and got the order granting bail reversed. The 8th Circuit reinstated Dale's murder conviction and the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert. America's Most Wanted will feature Dales' case Saturday, May 30, 2009.

Update: 9/29/05 U.S. Magistrate Judge Richard Noce has granted Dale Helmig's habeas motion on the grounds that the jury was shown and utilized a map during deliberations that had not been introduced at trial. Details of the map were found by a student in the Illinois State University Innocence Project who interviewed jurors for a new documentary on the case. Dale's murder conviction and life sentence have been ordered vacated. He will be freed unless the state retries him within 90 days - or unless the State appeals. (The prosecutor says it will retry him within the time period unless it appeals.)

by TChris

Clarence Elkins has long wondered whether the person who murdered his mother-in-law and raped his niece was Earl Mann. Mann, a convicted rapist, had been a neighbor of Elkins' mother-in-law, and five days before the murder he fled from the halfway house where he'd been staying. But the niece identified Elkins as the rapist, and he's been in prison for seven years.

DNA tests later excluded Elkins from the crime scene, but the judge in his case said that wasn't enough to overcome the eyewitness identification. Fate was on Elkins' side, however, when Mann ended up doing time in the same prison. Elkins was able to give his lawyer cigarette butts that had been in Mann's mouth, and DNA tests made Mann a stronger suspect than Elkins.

To top it off, the niece has recanted. There is no longer any credible evidence that Elkins committed the crimes.

In the words of the Akron Beacon Journal: "Summit County prosecutors should respond by doing the right thing: moving quickly to free Elkins from prison."

by TChris

William Mullins-Johnson of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, spent 12 years in prison for raping and strangling his 4 year old niece. No forensic evidence connected him to the crime. His conviction rested on the testimony of a pathologist, Dr. Charles Smith, whose testimony in 40 cases of "suspicious" child deaths is now under review.

Two experts, including Ontario's chief pathologist, now say [the niece] was never sexually abused or strangled. They argue she in fact died of natural causes, possibly from choking on her own vomit caused by a chronic stomach ailment.

by TChris

Chicago police claimed that two boys, ages 7 and 8, confessed to the murder and sexual abuse of Ryan Harris in 1998. A month after they were arrested, DNA testing established that the kids didn't commit the crime. One of the Chicago detectives who extracted the confessions has a history of persuading children to confess to crimes they didn't commit.

As TalkLeft reported here, one of the kids settled his wrongful arrest lawsuit in January for $2 million. On Monday, several weeks after the start of a trial that wasn't going well for the City, the other boy settled for $6.2 million. Some of the settlement proceeds will be used to pay for the boy's therapy.

by TChris

The Innocence Project at Illinois State University hopes that a documentary will arouse interest in the 1993 murder conviction of Dale Helmig.

Missouri newspapers have begun to re-examine the case since the Innocence Project produced "A Matter of Innocence: The Story of Dale Helmig" that will be shown Tuesday at ISU.

There is ample reason to question Helmig's guilt. Helmig's supporters argue that police and prosecutors built a circumstantial case against Helmig while ignoring evidence pointing to two other suspects.

by TChris

John Schweer, a security guard and former police officer in Council Bluffs, Iowa, was killed with a shotgun in 1977. Two black teenagers were charged with his murder. Prosecutors failed to provide the defense with reports concerning a 47-year-old white man who carried a shotgun while walking his dogs in the area. The man seems like a good suspect:

The man had been a suspect in a 1963 slaying and had faced gun charges. The man failed a lie detector test when asked if he had shot John Schweer, a police report concluded.

Despite having alibis, the teens, Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee, were convicted on the testimony of individuals who have since recanted. Harrington and McGhee have sued Pottawattamie County Attorney Dave Richter, his assistant Joseph Hrvol, and Council Bluffs police detectives Daniel C. Larsen and Lyle W. Brown, alleging that the police and prosecutors framed them in a racially motivated conspiracy.

by TChris

The evidence against Alberto Sifuentes and Jesus Ramirez is skinny. Before she died, a store clerk told the police that she was robbed by "two Hispanic men between the ages of 18 and 20 and in a gold car." Sifuentes and Ramirez, driving home from a club, matched that vague description.

Court documents show there was no DNA, no blood, no gun or any other evidence that tied the two men to the crime. Still, Ramirez and Sifuentes were sentenced to life in prison in separate trials in 1998. Their convictions were upheld on appeal.

The Mexican consulate and a Dallas law firm will present new evidence to a Texas court, hoping to prove that Sifuentes and Ramirez are innocent. A diligent (if belated) investigation unearthed facts that refute the state's circumstantial case.