A Dallas Morning News investigation has produced a series of articles that every judge, lawyer, and citizen who might ever sit on a jury should read. The paper examined 19 wrongful convictions in Dallas County.

In every instance but one, a Dallas Morning News investigation found, police and prosecutors built their case on eyewitness accounts, even though they knew such testimony can be fatally flawed.

Eyewitness identification procedures often cause victims to believe with certainty that their mistaken identifications are correct.

In such cases, witnesses can give false testimony with complete confidence. And nothing convicts like a confident eyewitness.

Part I explains why the common practice of showing an array of suspect photographs to crime victims so often leads to misidentifications and wrongful convictions. [more ...]

From Arizona:

Arizona is getting a nearly $1.4 million federal grant to see if some people serving time in state prison have been wrongfully convicted.

From Texas:

Governing magazine has named Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins one of its public officials of the year. They call him a "courageous district attorney" in a press release for his focus on wrongful convictions.

Fernando Bermudez' conviction should leave you feeling a bit queasy. On the basis of eyewitness testimony, a jury found him guilty of shooting and killing a teenager in 1992.

Magistrate Judge Fox found that detectives allowed four of them to view mugshots together, during which time they accused Mr. Bermudez by consensus. Such "flawed" and "suggestive" identification procedures, according to [Bermudez'] brief, were not revealed at trial.

Mr. Bermudez was convicted on the basis of that eyewitness testimony, along with testimony by a fifth eyewitness. Six other witnesses who separately viewed the same series of mugshots failed to pick out Mr. Bermudez, according to the brief.

At trial, prosecutors presented no forensic evidence, no fingerprints, no motive, no blood or DNA evidence.

All five eyewitnesses have since recanted their testimony. [more ...]

Erick Daniels was 15 when a judge in Durham sent him to an adult prison for an armed robbery home invasion. Daniels should never have been convicted.

Identification procedures had been shaky. There had been no physical evidence tying Daniels to the crime, no testimony to corroborate the charges. The defendant's trial attorney later acknowledged that he had done an inferior job.

Juries, like the police, get it wrong on a regular basis. But here's the shocker:

Perhaps most troubling was prosecutors' failure to follow through when told that someone else -- a federal prison inmate who matched the victim's description of the suspect -- had confessed. The impression left by such lack of initiative is that for some authorities in Durham, once a conviction is obtained, there's no further obligation to make sure justice is done.

Seven years after Daniels went to prison, Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson set him free. The confession was such strong evidence of innocence that Judge Hudson didn't give the prosecution a second chance to prove Daniels' guilt. He ruled that no reasonable jury, hearing all the evidence, could find Daniels guilty. [more ...]

Johnnie Earl Lindsey, age 56, became the 20th Dallas, TX inmate to be cleared by DNA testing and today was freed from prison.

Lindsay served 25 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit. His letters over the years requesting DNA testing were ignored.

Then District Attorney Craig Watkins was elected.

Lindsey, his lawyers and the judge repeatedly praised Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who since taking office in January 2007 has examined wrongful convictions and not opposed attempts by prisoners seeking DNA testing. Mitchell said the job of a prosecutor is "not to convict but to see justice is done. We're fortunate to have a district attorney with the courage, dignity and honor to fulfill this duty."

Lindsey was at work when the crime was committed. At his trial, he produced his time cards and his employer testified for him. How did he get convicted? Erroneous eye-witness identification and faulty police lineup procedures. [More...]

Since this announcement in May that Dallas County had set a record with 17 exonerations of innocent prisoners due to new DNA testing, Dallas has broken its own record twice. TalkLeft reported exoneration 18 here. The next record-breaker could come tomorrow.

After nearly 26 years [in prison], the Dallas man [Johnnie Earl Lindsey] is one step closer to freedom this week after DNA test results showed that he was not the man who sexually assaulted the woman, said his attorney, Michelle Moore. ... "Hopefully he'll be released," said Ms. Moore, an assistant Dallas County public defender and a board member of the Innocence Project, a legal group that seeks to get wrongful convictions overturned.

Lindsey was convicted on the basis of a bad witness ID that probably resulted from showing the victim a suggestive photo array. [more...]

Bill Peterson, the former district attorney of Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, and two investigators who were involved with Peterson in the trial and conviction of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz, didn't like the way they were portrayed in John Grisham's book, "The Innocent Man." Williamson and Fritz were convicted of murdering cocktail waitress Debbie Sue Carter. Twelve years later, DNA evidence exonerated them.

Peterson and the investigators sued Grisham for libel. They also sued "Barry Scheck, founder of the New York-based Innocence Project and an attorney for one of the men falsely accused in the murder." U.S. District Judge Ronald White has wisely dismissed the lawsuit. [More...]

More than three years ago, TalkLeft asked whether Bruce Lisker, who was convicted of killing his mother, is innocent. Some of the jurors in his trial, having heard about new evidence in his case, were questioning his guilt, as was the prosecutor who tried the case.

Lisker was convicted a quarter of a century ago. Two years ago, a federal magistrate held a hearing, listened to evidence, and produced a 57 page report concluding that Lisker's evidence of actual innocence was so strong that he should be granted an exception to the one year period that inmates have to pursue federal habeas corpus after a state conviction becomes final. The magistrate decided that the evidence against Lisker was so weak that no reasonable jury, hearing all of it, would find Lisker guilty. The strongest evidence against him -- multiple confessions given by the frightened teenager during prolonged interrogations -- had little probative value. [more ...]

After losing 18 years of his life, Robert McClendon walked free yesterday. McClendon had been convicted of raping a 10 year old girl. A new DNA analysis of semen stains in the victim's underwear did not match McClendon's DNA profile.

TalkLeft called attention to Clarence Elkins's wrongful conviction in 2005, while he was still serving time for a rape and murder he didn't commit. Elkins was able to obtain cigarette butts from the man he believed to be the real killer, Earl Mann, after Mann joined Elkins in prison while serving a sentence for a different crime. DNA testing made Mann a strong suspect in the murder.

Since then, Elkins obtained his freedom as well as a million dollar award for the seven years he served for his wrongful conviction. Yesterday, Mann entered a guilty plea to the rape and murder in exchange for the state's agreement not to pursue a death sentence. As for Elkins:

"I'm just glad that I can call it over," Elkins said after the plea hearing.

Elkins was lucky that DNA evidence from the crime scene had been preserved, and that he was able to obtain Mann's DNA. Less fortunate is Alphonso James, who may be innocent but can't rely on DNA testing to prove it. [more ...]

Virginia's DNA Project was intended to serve the worthy goal of uncovering wrongful convictions.

Virginia's large-scale review was started in 2005 after the exonerations of five men who spent a total of 91 years in prison. Virginia's then-Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) ordered the testing, calling it the "only morally acceptable course."

The state crime lab began the project by combing through about 500,000 old files of investigations into violent crimes, such as rapes and homicides, to see whether evidence had been preserved. Any case where biological clues remained and a person was convicted was picked for testing. All results are sent to the police and prosecutor's office that handled the case years ago, said Peter M. Marone, director of the Virginia Department of Forensic Science.

What happens next is unclear. Police and prosecutors are getting the results, but they're resisting invitations to share them with defendants and defense attorneys. [more ...]

John Edwards has been much in the news recently, but a different Edwards -- Darrell -- is going through his own version of hell.

Edwards was convicted of the 1995 execution-style shooting of a drug dealer in Newark. It took three years for the case to go to trial. The first two ended in mistrials, and the third ended with a hung jury that acquitted a co-defendant. At his fourth trial, Edwards was convicted, due in large part to dubious eyewitness testimony.

An editorial in The Philadelphia Inquirer explains why Darrell Edwards deserves a new trial. [more ...]