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Innocents In Prison News & Views 2007 |
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Innocents In Prison News & Views 2007 |
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Innocents in Prison News & Views 2007 Click Headline for Full Story December 2007
Man convicted of killing parents 17 years ago is freed after court overturns verdict
12-28-07 --A man jailed 17 years ago for killing his parents has been released after a New York court overturned his conviction. . . . Martin Tankleff, 36, walked out of court a free man, days after an appeals court overturned his 1990 conviction and ordered a new trial because of new evidence. . . . "My arrest and conviction was a nightmare, and this is a dream come true," Tankleff told reporters. . . . In throwing out Tankleff's 1990 conviction last week, an appeals court said new evidence suggested someone else might have killed Seymour and Arlene Tankleff in their Long Island home.
Jury awards Foxes $15.5 million in damages
12-21-07 -- During the 243 days he spent in jail, Kevin Fox wrote of getting "revenge on Will County." . . . On Thursday, a jury gave Fox and his wife Melissa $15.5 million worth. . . . On June 6, 2004, 3-year-old Riley Fox disappeared from her Wilmington home. The girl's body was found later that day in nearby Forked Creek. . . . Fox was arrested and charged with her murder but was released after DNA on the girl's body was shown not to be his. Fox sued Will County and five detectives, accusing them of framing him for the crime. . . . After two full days of deliberation, the jury of five men and five women reached a verdict around 2 p.m. Thursday, the 26th day of the trial. . . . Defendants Edward Hayes, Scott Swearengen and Brad Wachtl sat in the courtroom as the clerk read the nine counts against them and defendants Mike Guilfoyle, who was absent, and John Ruettiger, who passed away in April. David Dobrowski and Mary Jane Pluth, who were defendants in the lawsuit until last week, sat in the front row as the verdict was read.
Judge exonerates San Jose man who spent five years in prison By Leslie Griffy, Mercury News 12-19-07 -- A Santa Clara County judge this afternoon exonerated Jeffrey Rodriguez, who had spent five years in prison before his conviction was overturned last year. . . . Judge Andrea Y. Bryan ruled Rodriguez is factually innocent, citing new evidence from an investigation by the District Attorney's Office and his former attorney. . . . Rodriguez was set free in February. . . . Rodriguez's case was one of those featured in the Mercury News series, "Tainted Trials, Stolen Justice," as an example of how questionable conduct by prosecutors, judges or defense attorneys can increase the small but significant risk of wrongful conviction. The case illustrated a recurring but unfortunate combination: Poor lawyering, coupled with a prosecution built on eyewitness identification, can often lead to wrongful convictions. . . . Dolores Carr, who became district attorney in January, has vowed to end the "win at all cost" culture in the office.
Sex case hinged on phony lab report S.J. Officer's Ruse Became Evidence
12-17-07 -- There was one major problem with the Santa Clara County crime lab report that implicated a San Jose man of sexual assault: . . . It wasn't true. . . . The document was a fake, created by a San Jose police detective. The crime lab analyst who purportedly prepared the document doesn't exist. The number used to identify it was false. . . . Even so, detective Matthew Christian testified as though the phony report were authentic. . . . The case unraveled when the defense attorney sought the résumé of the lab analyst, only to learn there was no such person. Christian then remembered that he had concocted the report in an attempt to trick the defendant, Michael Kerkeles, 54, into admitting that he had forced a developmentally disabled neighbor into sexual acts. It was an acceptable tactic. But Christian said that by the time he was called to testify, more than a year later, he had forgotten the ruse. . . . The case, which attracted no public attention when it was dismissed last December, has raised concerns both about how the charges were handled and about how police and prosecutors responded when the fabrication and false testimony was discovered.
Prosecutor drops charges against former death row inmate
12-12-07 -- A former death row inmate was cleared of first-degree murder and robbery charges Tuesday because prosecutors believed there wasn't enough evidence to retry the case. . . . Jonathan Hoffman, who was convicted in the 1995 shooting death of a Union County jeweler, spent seven years on death row before winning a new trial in April 2004. Hoffman has been held in a maximum-security prison in Raleigh ever since, and it wasn't immediately clear when he would be released. . . . Defense attorney Joseph Cheshire said Hoffman was in disbelief when told about the dropped charges. . . . "He just couldn't believe it," Cheshire said. "He was surprised something so dramatic in his life could happen in such a low-key way."
Man Convicted in Club Death Is Acquitted at Second Trial
12-7-07 -- A man who spent nearly 14 years behind bars for killing a bouncer at the Palladium nightclub in Manhattan was acquitted yesterday by a jury at a second trial, in a case in which he claimed that he and another man had been wrongly convicted while the real killers went free. . . . The jury’s verdict, after less than two days of deliberation, followed a three-week trial marked by conflicting eyewitness accounts of the shooting. The trial also featured closed-door testimony from a former drug-gang enforcer, Thomas Morales, who testified that he and an accomplice were the gunmen on the early morning of Nov. 23, 1990, not David Lemus and his co-defendant, Olmedo Hidalgo, at the first trial. . . . The jury’s decision was a sharp rebuff for Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, who was criticized during the last election campaign in 2005 for pursuing what a judge and a jury have now said were probably the wrong men in the Palladium killing, while failing to prosecute two men who have since confessed.
Famed attorney reviews criminal cases in Harris County KHOU.com staff report 12-7-07 -- The attorney who helped exonerate dozens of convicted drug dealers in Tulia is now getting involved in a review of criminal cases in Harris County. . . . Jeff Blackburn says he’ll enlist the help of law students to review about 160 convictions. . . . This all has to do with whether problems in the HPD Crime Lab led to false convictions. . . . Blackburn has met with some of those men in prison. . . . “I already met with several of these guys just to get a representative sampling are these good cases are they bad cases can we get anywhere with them or not and you know it’s all over the map,” said Jeff Blackburn with Innocent Project of Texas. . . . In the next few months, volunteer attorneys will decide which cases are strong enough to take before a judge.
Exonerated man says prosecutor, agent withheld evidence from trial
12-3-07 -- Attorneys for an exonerated man who spent nine years in prison said that the prosecution’s key witnesses were threatened with first-degree murder charges when they considered changing their stories. . . . In a recent court filing, attorneys for Alan Gell said that the murder case’s lead investigator and original prosecutor withheld the evidence from prosecutors who tried Gell in 1998. The information was recently discovered, the attorneys said, and is in addition to the withheld evidence that led to Gell’s acquittal in 2004. . . . Gell, 33, who spent half his prison time on death row, filed a federal lawsuit against several officials involved in the murder case, including the former police chief in the tiny town of Aulander, Gordon Godwin, and former state prosecutors David Hoke and Debra Graves.
Innocent inmatesLegislation would benefit wrongly convicted
12-3-07
-- Innocence is the weakest
defense. Innocence has a single voice that can only say over and
over again, 'I didn't do it.' Guilt has a thousand voices, all of
them lies." - LEONARD F.
PELTIER Prison Writings
Putting a Price on a Wrongful Conviction
12-2-07 -- William Gregory and David Pope were both convicted of rape. Mr. Gregory served seven years in a Kentucky prison and Mr. Pope was imprisoned by Texas for 15 years before being released because of new DNA evidence. . . . Mr. Gregory, 59, now lives at the edge of a golf course, in a five-bedroom house he bought with part of the $4.6 million he received in legal settlements. Mr. Pope, 46, received $385,000 from the State of Texas. . . . To the extent that they got money, they are among the lucky ones. Of the more than 200 people released from prison since 1989 on the basis of new DNA evidence, 38 percent have received nothing for the years they spent behind bars. . . . What are those lost years worth? . .. States have been wrestling with that question in recent years as the DNA revolution upended long-held notions about the reliability of evidence. And a new question has also emerged: Is money alone enough? . . . With more than 140 exonerated prisoners released since 2000, 22 states and the District of Columbia now compensate them using formulas ranging from lump sums to calculations of lost wages.
November 2007
Former N.C. Chief Justice Takes Up Prisoner's Case Retired Jurist May Argue Before Former Colleagues on Behalf of Man Convicted With Faulty Science
11-28-07 --A North Carolina man who was convicted of murder two decades ago with the help of now-discredited FBI scientific testimony took his quest for a new trial to the state's Supreme Court yesterday -- and enlisted the court's former chief justice to argue on his behalf. . . . Lee Wayne Hunt, who has been in prison for 22 years, was convicted in 1986 of the execution-style killings of a Fayetteville, N.C., couple. The sole physical evidence linking Hunt to the crime scene came from an FBI scientist, who testified that he used bullet-lead analysis -- a chemical technique that compares the lead makeup of bullets -- to match bullet fragments from the victims to a box of ammunition from Hunt's co-defendant, Jerry Cashwell. . . . I. Beverly Lake Jr. said yesterday that he decided to take Hunt's case after learning about the problems with the FBI technique, which were disclosed last week after a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes." . . . "The case had very scant evidence and was very problematic in several respects," said Lake, who retired from the court last December.
3rd family may get $hot at FBI in Whitey case
11-26-07 -- A judge has left open the door for family of a third alleged victim of fugitive gangland butcher James “Whitey” Bulger to financially exact revenge on the FBI without enduring the torment of a trial. . . . Sandra Castucci, widow of slain FBI informant Richard Castucci, will have her day in court Feb. 19 when U.S. District Court Judge Reginald C. Lindsay considers her motion for summary judgment. . . . Lindsay scheduled the hearing fresh off his rebuke of the U.S. Department of Justice last week. In a rare bombshell from the bench, he declared the feds liable for the 1982 murders of Edward Brian Halloran and Michael Donahue. . . . Bulger was allegedly gunning for Halloran because rogue Boston FBI Agent John “Zip” Connolly told him Halloran was going to implicate him in a murder. Donahue was an innocent bystander. . . . The DOJ has refused to comment on Lindsay’s stern suggestion that it settle a half-dozen wrongful-death suits spun off Bulger’s reign of terror in Boston.
Convicts unaware of flawed FBI tool
First of two parts 11-17-07 -- Hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that was discarded more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has yet to take steps to alert the affected defendants or courts, even as the window for appealing convictions is closing, a joint investigation by The Washington Post and "60 Minutes" found. . . . The science, comparative bullet-lead analysis, was first used after President Kennedy's assassination in 1963. The technique used chemistry to link crime-scene bullets to ones possessed by suspects on the theory that each batch of lead had a unique elemental makeup. . . . In 2004, however, the nation's most prestigious scientific body concluded that variations in the manufacturing process rendered the FBI's testimony about the science "unreliable and potentially misleading." Specifically, the National Academy of Sciences said that decades of FBI statements to jurors linking a particular bullet to those found in a suspect's gun or cartridge box were so overstated that such testimony should be considered "misleading under federal rules of evidence." . . . A year later, the bureau abandoned the analysis. . . . But the FBI lab has never gone back to determine how many times its scientists misled jurors. Internal memos show the bureau's managers were aware by 2004 that testimony had been overstated in a large number of trials. In a smaller number of cases, the experts had made false matches based on a faulty statistical analysis of the elements contained in different lead samples, documents show. Years later, conviction in doubt
Second of two parts 11-18-07 --Former Baltimore police Sgt. James A. Kulbicki stared silently from the defense table as the prosecutor held up his off-duty. 38-caliber revolver and assured jurors that science proved the gun had been used to kill Kulbicki's mistress. . . . "I wonder what it felt like, Mr. Kulbicki, to have taken this gun, pressed it to the skull of that young woman and pulled the trigger, that cold steel," the prosecutor said during closing arguments. . . . Prosecutors had linked the weapon to Kulbicki through forensic science. Maryland's top firearms expert said that the gun had been cleaned and that its bullets were consistent in size with the one that killed the victim. The state expert could not match the markings on the bullets to Kulbicki's gun. But an FBI expert took the stand to say that a science that matches bullets by their lead content had linked the fatal bullet to Kulbicki. . . . The jurors were convinced, and in 1995 Kulbicki was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of his 22-year-old girlfriend. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. . . . For a dozen years, Kulbicki sat in state prison, saddled with the image of the calculating killer portrayed in the 1996 made-for-TV movie "Double Jeopardy." . . . Then the scientific evidence unraveled. . . . Earlier this year, the state expert committed suicide, leaving a trail of false credentials, inaccurate testimony and lab notes that conflicted with what he had told jurors. Two years before, the FBI crime lab had discarded the bullet-matching science that it had used to link Kulbicki to the crime.
State Attorney General Says It's Time To Abolish Parole
11-14-07 -- No matter who you are, in jail everyone's the same: if you're found guilty of a crime, you live under the same prison roof and under the watch of the same prison guards as everyone else. . . . The procedures are basically the same for everyone, until it comes to getting out. State Attorney General Henry McMaster says it's time to change that. . . . “The Federal system did it in 1987,” he said. “We need to do it across the board, and that'll put certainty in the state system and give people confidence in the courts." . . . That will happen, says McMaster, when our state does away with the parole system. He wants every criminal offender to serve every bit of his or her sentence, with a possible 15% reduction in time for good behavior. . . . Until that change happens, he says people won't take the system seriously. . . . “The criminals don't respect it,” said McMaster, “and I'm telling you, they don't respect it now because there are too many crimes they can get away with with almost no sentence." . . . But defense attorney Joseph McCuloch says McMaster has it all wrong.
Doubts raised over 1999 murder conviction
11-9-07 -- (CNN) -- Tim Masters is no longer the slim, shaggy-haired 15-year-old he was when Peggy Hettrick was murdered, mutilated and dumped in a field near his home. . . . Goateed and bespectacled with a slightly receding hairline, Masters, now 36, sat quietly in court this week, occasionally flashing a boyish smile as his defense team worked to poke holes in his 1999 murder conviction. . . . The conviction followed a 12-year investigation that Masters' defense attorneys say is flawed because it focused on building a case against a suspect instead of solving a murder. . . . Attorneys David Wymore and Maria Liu want a judge to toss out Masters' murder conviction. . . . In hearings that began in September, the attorneys are drawing out evidence they hope will persuade Judge Joseph Weatherby to give their client another chance at justice.
Bar association urged to tackle wrongful convictions
Death Row Innocent Vouch For NC Moratorium
11-5-07 -- Gary Drinkard spent five years on Alabama’s death row for a robbery and murder he did not commit. . . . “You’re sacred to death every day,” Drinkard said. "If it had been up to the state of Alabama I'd be dead today." . . . Drinkard and 17 others exonerated from death row say there should be a moratorium on the death penalty in North Carolina. They visited Raleigh with the group “Witness to Innocence” to voice their opinion. . . . Freddie Lee Pitts was 19 years old when he was sentenced. He spent nine and a half years on Florida’s death row for the murder of two service station attendants, a crime he did not commit.
Correction officials apologize for wrongful imprisonment 11-5-07 – (AP) State court officials have apologized for a series of errors that led to the wrongful arrest and imprisonment of a New Britain woman. . . . Aracellie Delgado was subpoenaed to Hartford Family Court on Oct. 24 for a civil proceeding related to a visitation agreement with the father of her three children. Judicial Branch officials confirm that, due to a mistake, Delgado's name did not appear on the docket and she was not required to appear. . . . She filed papers to be notified of future court dates and left. However, the judge called for Delgado's appearance and when she did not appear, she was arrested at her home the next day. . . . "It was embarrassing to be led out of my own home," she said. . . . Officials took Delgado, 28, into custody without any time to make arrangements for her children, ages 1, 7 and 12, she said. The marshal allowed her to call her mother from his cell phone as she was taken to York Correctional Institution, the state's prison for women, she said. . . . "They just left my kids alone," Delgado said. . . . She was processed at the prison, ordered to shower using lye soap and dress in prison clothes. She remained incarcerated until the next morning, when she was brought to the Hartford Civil Court.
October 2007 Roots of False Confession: Spotlight Is Now on the F.B.I.
10-31-07 -- This month, Abdallah Higazy managed to crawl from the landslide of forgotten history on a slow-motion journey toward the truth. . . . Mr. Higazy, now 36, was briefly — and wrongly — known as a mysterious figure who fled a hotel room directly across Church Street from the World Trade Center on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, leaving behind a Koran, an Egyptian passport and an aviation radio that might have allowed him to communicate with the hijacked airliners that flew into the towers. A security guard reported the discovery of these items. . . . After first adamantly denying any knowledge of the aviation radio, and then sitting in solitary confinement for 10 days, Mr. Higazy finally conceded. It was his radio, he confessed. He was charged with making false statements. . . . One month after Mr. Higazy was locked up, the story took a sharp turn.
Lawyers file DNA motion in Ark. murders Attorneys seek to overturn the convictions of three young men who were found guilty of brutally killing three Cub Scouts in 1993.
Inmate wants guilty plea tossed in '93 homicide Questions raised in homicide case
10-29-07 -- Ten years ago, Charles Bogues confessed that his errant bullet struck and killed Louis D. Brown on a Dorchester Street as the 15-year-old was on his way to an after-school Christmas party for Teens Against Gang Violence. . . . Today, after a decade behind bars, Bogues is urging a state appeals court to toss out his guilty plea. And he has found an unlikely ally, Brown's mother, Tina Chery, who became a leading crusader against violence after her son's death and formed the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute in his honor. . . . "My fear is that he didn't do it," said Chery, who has forged a friendship with Bogues's mother, Doris, through a support group for the mothers of victims and killers. After reviewing evidence that she believes points toward other possible suspects, she said she has questions about whether Bogues, the son of a Boston police officer, killed her son.
Wrongly convicted man freed after 18 years sued for child support 10-25-07 -- A man who spent 18 years in a North Carolina prison for the rape of a child he never met now faces another trial: a lawsuit demanding that he pay 18 years of child support. . . . A judge ordered Dwayne Allen Dail released from prison in August after DNA showed he didn't assault the 12-year-old girl. Gov. Mike Easley pardoned him this month. . . . Dail hopes to receive $360,000 from the state, based on a law that allows him to collect $20,000 for every year he spent in prison. . . . His former girlfriend, Lori Michaels, filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in Wayne County District Court demanding that Dail pay support for their son, Chris, who was born after Dail began serving his jail sentence. . . . The lawsuit was served on Dail in Fort Myers, Fla., where he moved after his release -- and where his son now lives with him.
DNA Testing May Help in 1990 Case
10-24-07 -- Advances in DNA technology may shed new light on the 17-year-old case of a bouncer killed at a nightclub in Manhattan. . . . The killing of the bouncer, Marcus Peterson, 23, at the Palladium in November 1990 is not one of those cold cases in which detectives were stumped and never made an arrest. . . . Two men, David Lemus and Olmedo Hidalgo, were convicted of murder in 1992 and sentenced to up to life in prison in the case, but their convictions were overturned in 2005, based in part on a confession in 1994 by a member of a Bronx drug gang trying to make a deal with federal prosecutors in another case. He said he and an associate were responsible for the shooting. . . . Prosecutors continued to insist they had convicted the right men, even if others may also have been involved in the shooting. It took many years to persuade the Manhattan district attorney’s office that the evidence against Mr. Hidalgo was weak, and while prosecutors finally agreed to have his conviction thrown out, they decided to retry Mr. Lemus. His second trial is to begin soon.
Famed NY Lawyer, Founder of Innocence Project, Calls for Standards for Eyewitnesses
10-23-07 -- The founder of the Innocence Project on Monday called for standards governing eyewitness identification in Georgia criminal cases, warning that there is a greater risk of sending the wrong person to prison without them. . . . Famed O.J. Simpson lawyer Barry Scheck said that there is widespread agreement within law enforcement circles on "best practices" in conducting lineups, and that following them will reduce the chances of misidentifying a suspect, he said. . . . Scheck testified on Monday before a House study committee weighing whether to create statewide standards in Georgia, where six men were jailed for years on the strength of eyewitness IDs before being cleared through post-conviction DNA analysis. . . . Scheck's New York-based Innocence Project has helped exonerate 208 people across the country through DNA evidence.
Mich. bill would compensate people exonerated by DNA By Dawson Bell, Free Press Lansing Bureau 10-23-07 -- Michigan would join a growing number of states that offer compensation to wrongly convicted criminals who are freed on the basis of DNA testing, under legislation aired in a state House committee on Tuesday. . . . Leaders of the Innocence Project at Cooley Law School in Lansing told members of the House Judiciary Committee that under current law the wrongly convicted inmates receive far less assistance than other inmates when they are released from custody and that they are often ill-equipped to handle life on the streets. . . . The proposal calls for compensation of $50,000 for every year spent behind bars, plus repayment for expenses, lost wages and medical care. . . . The committee also heard testimony from two men, one who served eight years on death row, whose convictions were overturned based on DNA evidence that was tested after their original convictions.
Evidence of McCollum's innocence called 'powerful' Judge says Lansing man doesn't need tether while on bond
10-23-07 -- A judge on Monday said there is "powerful evidence" Claude McCollum was not involved in the 2005 rape and killing of a Lansing Community College professor. . . . At a hearing in Ingham County Circuit Court, Judge James Giddings ruled that McCollum does not have to wear an electronic monitoring device while he is free on bond. McCollum served more than a year of a life sentence for the 2005 rape and murder of a Lansing Community College professor he says he never even met. . . . "There is powerful evidence this defendant had nothing to do with (the crime)," Giddings said. . . . The Michigan Court of Appeals last month threw out McCollum's conviction at the request of Ingham County Prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III. Dunnings has reopened the investigation into the death of 60-year-old Carolyn Kronenberg. Innocence testing on back burner $8M targeted for DNA appeals gathering dust
10-12-07 -- Since 2006 the Justice Department has spent none of the $8 million set aside by Congress to test the DNA of convicts who claim they are innocent, but has spent $214 million to collect and record the DNA of convicts to add to national crimefighting database and improve crime labs. . . . "DNA evidence is such a powerful tool in proving guilt or innocence that it's inexcusable not to use it," says Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chief sponsor of a bill to provide more funding for what is known as innocence testing. . . . The $8 million could affect dozens of cases, says Barry Scheck, a defense lawyer who specializes in using DNA to overturn convictions. Exact costs for a DNA test vary from case to case. . . . Rules imposed by Congress have made it difficult for states to qualify for post-conviction DNA grants, says the department's National Institute of Justice, which administers the funds. Only Virginia, Connecticut and Arizona have applied. . . . The law requires a state's attorney general to certify that the state requires police departments to take "reasonable measures" to preserve biological evidence for possible future testing. . . . But attorneys general can't vouch for every police authority in their state, says John Morgan, the institute's assistant director. The rule has made it "next to impossible" for states to qualify, he says.
Easley pardons man wrongly convicted of rape
10-12-07 -- Gov. Mike Easley issued a pardon of innocence this afternoon to Dwayne Allen Dail, who spent 18 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit. . . . In 1989, a Wayne County jury convicted Dail, 38, of raping a 12-year-old girl two years before. He always swore his didn't do it and refused a plea deal which would have put him on probation for a misdemeanor offense. . . . Dail, 39, was freed in August after DNA extracted from a long-forgotten nightgown proved he was not the rapist. . . . The governor's pardon -- the fifth he's granted since taking office in 2001 -- clears the way for Dail to seek compensation for the years he paid for another man's crime. All told, Dail could collect $360,000 from the state.
Man cleared for rape granted $10 bond By Liz Austin Peterson Associated Press Writer 10-10-07 -- A man who spent a dozen years in prison for a rape he didn't commit was freed Tuesday and headed straight for City Hall to discuss shortcomings in the criminal justice system with local officials. . . . Wearing dark clothes and carrying a red mesh gym bag and a paper sack containing his belongings, Ronald Taylor greeted his family with warm embraces outside the Harris County Jail. . . . "It hasn't really sunk in. I'm just glad to see my family," said Taylor, the third Texas prison inmate to be released because of problems with the Houston Police Department's crime lab. . . . Although his plans included eating shrimp, a delicacy he missed during the 12 years he spent in a state prison, and moving to Atlanta to marry Jeannette Brown, the fiancee who has waited for him since the mid-1990s, his first stop was City Hall. . .. After receiving a standing ovation from the audience, Taylor quietly urged City Council to prevent other innocent prisoners from rotting behind bars. . . . "They don't have the finances, they don't have nobody to help them," said Taylor, 47. "I think something needs to be done about that." . . . Taylor was convicted in 1995 of raping a woman two years earlier. He was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
Editorial: Justice not denied, but certainly delayed Sherman Townsend's 10 years are not all that was lost. 10-5-07 -- Sherman Townsend walked out of Hennepin County jail this week after serving 10 years of a 20-year sentence for burglary, but it was not a time for celebration. Not for Townsend, who lost 10 years of freedom, and not for those of us who expect the criminal justice system to do better. . . . Townsend, 57, was convicted of first-degree burglary in 1998. Key to the conviction was the testimony of David Jones. Big problem: Neither the prosecutors nor Townsend's attorney were aware that Jones had criminal convictions in Illinois that could have been used to impeach his testimony. . . . The case finally unraveled in May, when Jones ran into Townsend in the food line at Moose Lake Correctional Facility and confessed to the very burglary of which Townsend had been convicted. That confession led Townsend to the Innocence Project, the organization that represents people it believes were wrongfully convicted of crimes.
Exoneration Using DNA Brings Change in Legal System
10-1-07 -- State lawmakers across the country are adopting broad changes to criminal justice procedures as a response to the exoneration of more than 200 convicts through the use of DNA evidence. . . . Dwayne Allen Dail, right, leaving a North Carolina court after DNA evidence led to the overturning of his child-rape conviction. . . . All but eight states now give inmates varying degrees of access to DNA evidence that might not have been available at the time of their convictions. Many states are also overhauling the way witnesses identify suspects, crime labs handle evidence and informants are used. . . . At least six states have created commissions to expedite cases of those wrongfully convicted or to consider changes to criminal justice procedures. One of them, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, will hold a hearing this month on remedies for people who have been wrongfully convicted. . . . Laws in several states, including Illinois, New Jersey and North Carolina, have bipartisan backing, with many Democrats supportive on civil rights grounds and Republicans generally hoping that tighter procedures will lead to fewer challenges of convictions.
Falsely imprisoned East Palo Alto man to get $2.75 million settlement
Special Report Tainted Trials, Stolen Justice 10-1-07 -- Rick Walker, the East Palo Alto man who was cleared of murder charges after serving 12 years in prison, will receive $2.75 million to settle a wrongful imprisonment lawsuit that he filed against Santa Clara County and other agencies involved in his case. . . . Attorneys for Walker and the county confirmed that the settlement received final approval from the county's insurance company today. . . . Walker, who has worked as an auto mechanic since his release from prison in 2003, said he won't consider the case settled until the money is deposited to his bank account. But he also said he hopes the settlement will be "like a pebble thrown in the water" that has a "ripple effect" in preventing future abuses by law enforcement authorities. . . . "There's a lot more people like me that are not as fortunate as I am, that are still in prison for things they didn't do," Walker said. "So ultimately, if this pebble in the water makes the county change what they are doing, that's a good thing." . . . Walker added that he has no plans to quit his job, explaining that he enjoys his work and wants to set a good example for his nieces and nephews. . . . He has also received $421,000 from the state under a law that provides compensation to those wrongfully imprisoned.
DNA test clears man, but not completely, in Dallas case
10-1-07 -- The word "bizarre" peppered news accounts of the 1982 crime spree at issue in Dallas County's most recent DNA exoneration case. . . . In a single Saturday afternoon that May, a man in a hooded gray sweat shirt that was pulled up to cover his face went to three suburban Elaine Powers Figure Salons, brandished a handgun and forced groups of women to disrobe. At one, the gunman ordered his terrified captives to climb onto the salon's vibrating exercise belts while he exposed and touched himself. . . . A day earlier, a similarly disguised man confronted 10 women in five North Dallas apartment complexes and condos. All were forced to strip at gunpoint, one was molested and one was raped while her 2-year-old son played on the other side of the bedroom door. . . . Juries in two separate trials convicted roofer Steven Charles Phillips, then 24, of burglary and aggravated rape, sentencing him to 30 years in prison. . . . Two weeks ago, Dallas prosecutors announced that a DNA test of a biological sample from the rape victim taken 25 years ago supports Phillips' long-standing claim of innocence. He likely will become the 14th man from Dallas County to be exonerated through post-conviction genetic testing. . . . Because of another twist, however, the Phillips matter is far from settled. Push for innocence panel is renewed
10-1-07 -- A state lawmaker is making a renewed push for a Texas Innocence Commission to investigate cases of wrongful conviction after the 14th exoneration of a prison inmate by the Dallas | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
