As TalkLeft has pointed out repeatedly, exonerations of the innocent by new DNA testing represent only the tip of the wrongful conviction iceberg. Most prosecutions do not depend on DNA evidence. In cases where it's absent, it is extraordinarily difficult to free the innocent after a mistaken conviction. An article in USA Today reminds us that even when DNA testing might prove helpful, states don't always preserve the evidence from which DNA might be obtained.

Timothy Atkins' innocence was proved the old fashioned way: through a "dogged investigation" conducted by lawyers and law students. He was 14 years into a 32 year sentence.

[T]he files contained a tantalizing 1999 letter, allegedly written by a key witness against Atkins, Denise Powell. In the letter to Atkins' grandmother, Powell said she had lied to police, without specifics. In her interrogation and in court, she had said Atkins confessed to being an accomplice in the 1985 murder.

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This took way too long:

The Army formally apologized Saturday for the wrongful conviction of 28 black soldiers accused of rioting and lynching an Italian prisoner of war in Seattle more than six decades ago. ... In addition, the soldiers' convictions were set aside, their dishonorable discharges were changed to honorable discharges and they and their survivors were awarded back pay for their time in the brig.

A lot of good it does them now.

All but two of the soldiers are dead. One, Samuel Snow of Leesburg, Fla., planned to attend the ceremony but wound up in the hospital instead because of a problem with his pacemaker.

This is one of those rare cases in which a District Attorney's office has admitted a mistake without being forced to do so by DNA evidence or other conclusive proof of a defendant's innocence. For that Guy Randolph is grateful, even though he spent ten years in prison and another seven years as a registered sex offender after his release.

Randolph was cleared after prosecutors agreed that the case against him was weak from the beginning. There was no physical evidence tying him to the crime, and the victim initially had said he was not her attacker. During the grand jury investigation, she described her attacker in ways that did not match Randolph.

Randolph was indicted and pleaded guilty under the Alford plea, which allows a defendant to assert innocence while acknowledging that the state has enough evidence for a conviction.

Randolph suffers from schizophrenia, which might account for his decision to enter into an Alford plea. It is difficult to understand why his lawyer would have advised him to do so, if that's what happened, in light of the weak evidence.

Randolph is now seeking compensation from the State of Massachusetts for his wrongful conviction. Whether he will receive it is unclear, given that the burden rests on Randolph to prove his innocence, and the absence of DNA evidence to make his innocence conclusive.

Perhaps preoccupied with his own problems, Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois has neglected the stack of clemency petitions overflowing his IN basket. The day before a long holiday weekend is always a good day to grant pardons. The inevitable "soft on crime" criticism that follows from giving someone a break is softened when voters are too busy watching things explode to pay much attention to the news.

Of the 19 pardons Blagojevich granted yesterday, some are clearly overdue:

Gov. Rod Blagojevich has pardoned three men who were exonerated in 2002 after a federal investigation forced Chicago police to re-examine the 1997 kidnapping and murder that led to their convictions. The men spent years in jail before authorities determined they were not involved in the crimes, and have been awaiting the pardon decision for some time.

and

Blagojevich also pardoned a dead man who served more than a dozen years in prison for a rape and murder he didn't commit.

But the governor needs to get back to work. [more ...]

Part one of a three part series tells the story of a Texas Tech sophomore and of other women who were abducted and raped in Lubbock, and of a police investigation that focused on Timothy Brian Cole after he flirted with an undercover police detective. A victim identified Cole's picture in a photo array, then identified him in a lineup. Another victim identified a different suspect who had been arrested earlier. A search of Cole's property found nothing that incriminated Cole, and the forensic evidence was inconclusive.

The one identification was enough to convince the DA he had a good case:

"Is identification a bad way to prove a case?" District Attorney Jim Bob Darnell would ask the jury more than a year after the lineups. "If it is, 90 percent of the people that are in the penitentiary, you just let them go."

The innocent ones, anyway. Cole maintained his innocence, but he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years. Part 2 reveals that the true rapist, Jerry Wayne Johnson, kept silent as Cole went to prison. [more ...]

Patrick Waller was convicted of a 1992 kidnapping and robbery. Why?

Three of the four people abducted picked Waller in a photo lineup. The fourth later picked him out of a live lineup, [Mike] Ware said. Waller maintained his innocence and presented an alibi at trial but was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

This is another case of mistaken identification leading to a wrongful conviction. After more than 15 years in prison, new evidence proves Waller's innocence.

DNA testing conducted last year excluded Waller as the contributor of DNA found at the crime scene .... The DNA testing proved a match to another man who Ware said has confessed to the crime and implicated an accomplice, who also confessed.

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North Carolina might do something useful for the victims of wrongful convictions in that state. In addition to increasing compensation from $20,000 to $50,000 per year of incarceration, the legislative proposal would provide for tuition at a state university campus or community college, or for job training.

The bill is inspired by the recent exoneration of Dwayne Dail, who served almost 20 years before DNA showed he was innocent of the rape he was accused of committing.

Just five people since 2001 qualified for the money so it won't create a big strain on state budgets, but it could have a huge impact on the lives of those who spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit.

North Carolina should pass this bill and other states should follow its example. People who have been unfairly disadvantaged by state action deserve the state's help as they try to get their lives back together. Free health care, housing assistance, and therapy should also be part of the mix.

Michael Blair has been saved from a death sentence imposed for a murder he didn't commit.

The ruling comes less than a month after prosecutors acknowledged that DNA evidence does not implicate Blair and shows that another man, now deceased, is a plausible suspect in the girl's death.

That man, identified in court papers only as Suspect No. 4, learned where 7-year-old Ashley Estell was buried and bought a plot for himself as close as he could get to her grave. He's been dead at least 10 years, according to court documents that didn't make it clear whether he was actually buried in the plot he purchased. ... Blair, now 38, was convicted in 1994 of strangling and molesting Ashley in suburban Dallas.

Blair is serving three consecutive life sentences for child sexual assaults he actually committed and to which he confessed. He maintained his innocence regarding Ashley. [more ...]

Manhattan's District Attorney, Robert Morgenthau, took some heat in an election contest for apparently prosecuting the wrong men for the 1990 shooting of a bouncer outside the Palladium nightclub. He asssigned Daniel Bibb to reexamine the case. Bibb reported that "the two imprisoned men were not guilty, and that their convictions should be dropped." Yet Bibb was told to defend their convictions in the face of strong evidence that the men were innocent. Was Morgenthau unwilling to concede a serious mistake for fear that voters might punish him?

Remarkably, Bibb admits that he defied his bosses and threw the case when the defendants asked for a new trial.

He tracked down hard-to-find or reluctant witnesses who pointed to other suspects and prepared them to testify for the defense. He talked strategy with defense lawyers. And when they veered from his coaching, he cornered them in the hallway and corrected them. “I did the best I could,” he said. “To lose.”

Bibb got his wish, and both men are free today. Bibb resigned in 2006. [more ...]

Can you imagine spending a quarter century in prison for crimes you didn't commit?

DNA testing last year showed Steven Phillips was innocent of a 1982 sexual assault and burglary. In January, additional testing found that DNA evidence from the rape matched another man, Sidney Alvin Goodyear, who died in prison about a dozen years ago.

Can you imagine, after being convicted despite your innocence, having to decide whether to maintain your innocence on related crimes, a stance likely to result in life imprisonment, or to plead guilty just for the chance to die outside of prison walls? [more ...]

Last October, TalkLeft called attention to Ronald Taylor, one of the innocent victims of the Houston Police Department's faulty lab work. After serving 12 years for a rape he didn't commit, a judge released him on the strength of new DNA evidence. That happened eight months ago. Since then:

He moved to Atlanta in October and reunited with the woman who patiently had waited for him. In December, they married. ... Taylor secured a job with an Atlanta restaurateur. But this spring, he left it and borrowed thousands for equipment to start his own business. He knew it was risky but said he was determined.

TAylor started his own lawn care business. Even better, he's been given a full pardon and he's been offered $700,000 to settle his claim against the state. He's thinking about it.

The Des Moines Register has an update in the case of David Flores (discussed here).

[A]t least three people ... have independently come forward since Flores' appeals were exhausted in 2003 to say another man was likely responsible for Davis' death as a result of a gang-related fight. ... [Rob] Warden said he's never heard of an alleged wrongful conviction case in which three separate people came forward independently to name another suspect.

"There's an extremely high probability that he's innocent," said Warden, whose [Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law] has helped exonerate dozens of people. "The fact that you now have three people who don't have any connection to each other and no discernible motive to do anything but tell the truth is just extremely persuasive."

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