Tag: Wrongful Convictions (page 3)

At the Death House Door airs tonight at 9:00 pm ET on IFC, the Independent Film Channel: It is the story of a minister to death row inmates in Texas, who became convinced that the risk that even one innocent person will be executed justifies abandoning capital punishment.

One person who shares such a conviction is Carroll Pickett, minister to death row inmates at a penitentiary in Texas; for 15 years, Pickett had no reservations about presiding over executions, until that fateful day when his path crossed with that of a Hispanic man named Carlos de Luna, unjustly accused of homicide.

Shortly before this - his 96th official execution - was to occur, Pickett tape recorded much of his last day with de Luna. Listening to it, he became unshakably convinced of the man's innocence, and used his inner conviction as an impetus to team up with crime reporters from the Chicago Tribune and delve into the facts surrounding De Luna's highly questionable arraignment. With their documentary At the Death House Door, James and Gilbert both tell Pickett's heart-rending story and use it as a springboard into broader penetrative issues about capital punishment.

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Don't miss "60 Minutes" tonight. It features the work of the Innocence Project of Texas, where in Dallas alone, 17 men have been freed after DNA proved them innocent. It includes an interview with several freed inmates, concentrating on James Woodward, freed last week after serving 27 years for a rape and murder he did not commit. The Texas Senate will be holding a summit on the wrongfully convicted on May 8.

Update: This was one of the most moving segments "60 Minutes" has ever done. It ends by telling viewers another 250 cases in Dallas County alone are under investigation. Watch it online if you missed it on TV.

Levon "Bo" Jones leaves a North Carolina penitentiary today after serving 13 years on death row.

This is not a DNA reversal.

Levon "Bo" Jones of Duplin County spent 13 years on death row, convicted of robbing and shooting a well-liked bootlegger. In 2006, a federal judge ordered Jones off death row and overturned his conviction, declaring his attorney's performance so poor that his constitutional rights had been violated.

Today, Jones will become the eighth North Carolina man spared execution after charges against him were dropped. Judges turned the inmates loose after discovering a variety of problems in their cases, ranging from hidden evidence to inadequate defense attorneys.

Jones had been awaiting a retrial. The prosectuor intended to go for a life sentence this time around. Then, "his case collapsed" when a key witness recanted. [More...]

Dallas County just set two records. James Lee Woodard is the latest of 17 wrongfully convicted defendants in Dallas County who have been released as the result of new DNA analysis, the most DNA exonerations of any county. Dallas County also kept Woodard behind bars for more time than any other inmate who has been exonerated by DNA.

Mr. Woodard, 55, was sentenced to life in prison in 1981 for the strangulation and rape of his 21-year-old girlfriend, Beverly Ann Jones. But information that Ms. Jones was with three men – including two later convicted of unrelated sexual assaults – around the time of her death was not disclosed to the defense nor was it thoroughly investigated, said prosecutor Mike Ware, who oversees the Dallas County district attorney's office conviction integrity unit.

Rodney Ellis, a member of the Texas Senate, has been trying to get the state to fund an Innocence Commission. He's organized a forum to be held next week that will focus on the prevention of wrongful convictions. Jeralyn has more here.

James Lee Woodford was released from a Texas prison today after serving 27 years for a murder that DNA evidence now shows he didn't commit.

Woodward is the 18th Dallas County inmate, and the 31sth in Texas, to be exonerated by DNA testing.

Also today, State Senator Rodney Ellis announced that Texas will hold a summit on wrongful convictions on May 8 at the state capitol. [More...]

At a hearing in Texas today, Thomas McGowan will be freed from a Dallas prison after serving 23 years for a rape and burglary DNA has proven he didn't commit.

McGowan will be the 25th person in Texas to have been convicted of a crime based on faulty eyewitness testimony and later exonerated by DNA testing.

Thomas McGowan was in his mid-20s when he was arrested, and he’ll turn 50 later this year. He has lost nearly his entire adult life to a wrongful conviction that could have – and should have – been prevented,” said Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. “This is the 25th case in Texas where DNA proved that eyewitness identification was incorrect. How many more people need to lose years or decades of their lives before the state implements simple reforms that are proven to make eyewitness identification more accurate?”

The Innocence Project has much more on the case.

In Michigan, 29 year old Nathanial Hackett has been freed after serving 12 years for a rape DNA testing as shown he did not commit. His conviction was based in part upon a coerced false confession.

The Georgia Supreme Court today in a 4-3 opinion denied death row inmate Troy Davis an evidentiary hearing allow him to present evidence of his innocence. You can read the opinion here (pdf.) Some background here:

Troy Davis was sentenced to death for the murder of Police Officer Mark Allen McPhail at a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia; a murder he maintains he did not commit. There was no physical evidence against him and the weapon used in the crime was never found. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, all but two of the state's non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted or contradicted their testimony. Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis.

One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony is Sylvester "Red" Coles – the principle alternative suspect, according to the defense, against whom there is new evidence implicating him as the gunman. Nine individuals have signed affidavits implicating Sylvester Coles.

Amnesty International responds to today's decision:

Dr. Steven Hayne, Mississippi's medical examiner for hire, had his faulty forensic work exposed when two inmates, wrongfully convicted in separate child murders, were exonerated a few weeks ago after serving 15 years in prison. The Innocence Project has more on his background and on the two clients recently released.

There's more news today, as the Innocence Project has filed open records requests on Dr. Hayne.

The Innocence Project and the Mississippi Innocence Project today issued 23 formal Public Records Act requests that will show the extent to which discredited medical examiner Steven Hayne is using state facilities to conduct autopsies – and potentially using federally-funded crime labs for forensic work that is fraught with negligence and misconduct.

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Two men in Mississippi, wrongfully convicted of murdering a child, have been released from prison after a decade, thanks to the work of the Innocence Project and local lawyers.

The cause of these wrongful convictions: fraudulent evidence. Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project says:

"You have a local forensic dentist who fabricated evidence in both these cases to get two innocent men convicted."

Here's more from the Innocence Project on the clearing and release of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks.

Update: Radley Balko at Reason has an update on Mississippi's woeful forensics system.

Nick Yarris, released from jail four years ago after spending 22 years in prison having been sentenced to death for a murder he didn't commit, has settled his wrongful conviction case against Delaware County, PA for $4 million.

The settlement was the result of a malicious-prosecution lawsuit Yarris filed in 2004 against Delaware County and the law enforcement officials who investigated and prosecuted him, and it came as the case was moving closer to trial in U.S. District Court.

[His lawyer John] Beavers said county representatives agreed to inform the family of murder victim Linda Mae Craig that "no probable cause existed to believe Nick Yarris had anything to do with her death."

Yarris now lives in London where he is a stay at home dad to his 21 month old daughter.[More...]

Texas leads the nation in executions by a wide margin. It should therefore be concerning that Texas appears to lead the nation in wrongful convictions.

Since 2001, DNA tests have exonerated at least 30 wrongfully convicted inmates in Texas, the most of any state, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal clinic that seeks to uncover wrongful convictions.

Another victim of a bungled Texas prosecution, Charles Chatman, is expected to be released today after serving more than 26 years in prison for a rape that he has always denied committing. He was convicted after the complaining witness picked him from a photo array -- a notoriously unreliable identification procedure. DNA testing established his likely innocence.

The non-partisan Justice Project has a new policy paper (pdf) on jailhouse snitch testimony, one of the top causes of wrongful convictions. From the press release:

The use of jailhouse snitch testimony has been widely used throughout the American criminal justice system. Unfortunately jailhouse snitches are often utilized by prosecutors despite their testimony being widely regarded as the least reliable form of evidence in the criminal justice system. A 2005 study of 111 death row exonerees found that 51 were wrongly sentenced to death in part due to testimony of witnesses with incentive to lie.

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