Innocents In Prison News & Views

By Joel Rubin and Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
5-6-08 -- A Nevada man sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting a young girl should be freed or given a new trial because a prosecution expert exaggerated the strength of the DNA evidence against him, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday. . . . The ruling is thought to be one of the first of its kind in the country, experts said. . . . In 1994, Troy Don Brown, 36, was found guilty of sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl in her family's trailer home in Carlin, Nev. The prosecution's case hinged almost entirely on semen samples collected at the scene that a DNA expert from the local sheriff's crime lab testified had a "99.99967% chance" of being Brown's, according to the appellate court's decision. . . . Brown was convicted. After unsuccessful appeals in state courts, he filed a petition in 2004 in federal court to be freed. Brown's lawyers argued that the state's DNA expert greatly inflated the mathematical probability that the DNA sample belonged to Brown.

NORTH CAROLINA

When Law Prevents Righting a Wrong

The Nation -- By Adam Liptak

5-4-08 -- STAPLES HUGHES, a North Carolina lawyer, was on the witness stand and about to disclose a secret he believed would free an innocent man from prison. But the judge told Mr. Hughes to stop. . . . “If you testify,” Judge Jack A. Thompson said at a hearing last year on the prisoner’s request for a new trial, “I will be compelled to report you to the state bar. Do you understand that?” . . . But Mr. Hughes continued. Twenty-two years before, he said, a client, now dead, confessed that he had acted alone in committing a double murder for which another man was also serving life. After his own imprisoned client died, Mr. Hughes recalled last week, “it seemed to me at that point ethically permissible and morally imperative that I spill the beans.” . . . Judge Thompson, of the Cumberland County Superior Court in Fayetteville, did not see it that way, and some experts in legal ethics agree with him. The obligation to keep a client’s secrets is so important, they say, that it survives death and may not be violated even to cure a grave injustice — for example, the imprisonment for 26 years of another man, in Illinois, who was freed just last month. . . . A lawyer’s broad duty to keep clients’ confidences is the bedrock on which the justice system is built, they argue. If clients did not feel free to speak candidly, their lawyers could not represent them effectively. And making exceptions risks eroding the trust between clients and their lawyers in future cases. Experts in legal ethics are quick to point out that the various players in the adversary system have assigned roles and that lawyers generally must tend to a limited one. . . . “Lawyers are not undercover informants,” said Stephen Gillers, who teaches legal ethics at New York University. Indeed, said Steven Lubet, who teaches legal ethics at Northwestern, few clients would confess to their lawyers if they knew the lawyers might some day choose to disclose that information.

OHIO

DNA: Halfway to justice

Tests that clear those who have been wrongfully convicted often are not followed by tests to find the criminal

By Geoff Dutton and Mike Wagner, The Columbus Dispatch

5-4-08 -- DNA testing shone a spotlight on the injustice suffered by Walter D. Smith, proving the Columbus man's innocence in 1996 and releasing him from a 78-year prison sentence for two rapes that he didn't commit. . . . But the public never heard about the devastating collateral damage, the violent chain reaction set off by sending the wrong man to prison and leaving the real attacker roaming free. . . . In that sense, Smith's exoneration is like others sweeping the nation, a miscarriage of justice that ravaged more lives than most people realize -- and needlessly left disturbing questions unanswered. . .. The wrongfully convicted are victims, certainly, but not the only ones and maybe not even the most tragic. . . . Smith was in jail less than a month, awaiting trial, when the man later identified by prosecutors as the real rapist struck again. That man continued to terrorize women and girls, primarily on the Northeast Side.

TEXAS

Dallas County district attorney wants unethical prosecutors punished

By Jennifer Emily & Steve McGonigle / The Dallas Morning News

5-4-08 -- The Dallas County district attorney who has built a national reputation on freeing the wrongfully convicted says prosecutors who intentionally withhold evidence should themselves face harsh sanctions – possibly even jail time. . . . "Something should be done," said Craig Watkins, whose jurisdiction leads the nation in the number of DNA exonerations. "If the harm is a great harm, yes, it should be criminalized." . . . Wrongful convictions, nearly half of them involving prosecutorial misconduct, have cost Texas taxpayers $8.6 million in compensation since 2001, according to state comptroller records obtained by The Dallas Morning News. Dallas County accounts for about one-third of that. . . . Mr. Watkins said that he was still pondering what kind of punishment unethical prosecutors deserve but that the worst offenders might deserve prison time. He said he also was considering the launch of a campaign to mandate disbarment for any prosecutor found to have intentionally withheld evidence from the defense.

MASSACHUSETTS

Exonerated, 17 years late

Convicted of a sex crime he didn't commit, a Mattapan man imprisoned and long shunned has his innocence proclaimed

By Maria Cramer, Globe Staff

5-2-08 -- For the past seven years, a photo of Guy Randolph has been posted at Boston police stations, labeling him the most dangerous type of sex offender. Neighbors who knew of his criminal record and the 10 years he spent in prison insulted him when they saw him on the streets. Police ordered him away from schools and playgrounds if he walked too close. . . . But yesterday, in a hearing that took less than 10 minutes, a Suffolk Superior Court judge said the wrong man had been convicted. More than 17 years after he was first arrested in the sexual assault on a 6-year-old girl, Randolph was exonerated of all charges and declared innocent. . . . Afterward, Randolph, a shy, small 50-year-old man who has struggled for years with schizophrenia and alcoholism, crumpled into the arms of his godmother, who pulled him into her tight embrace. . . . Randolph said little, but offered this: "Justice has been served." . . . "It's over," said his mother, Ruth Johns, as she stood with him in the courtroom. "He's free. He's free."

NORTH CAROLINA

Former death-row inmate set free

5-2-08 -- A man who spent 13 years on death row in North Carolina was released from prison Friday after prosecutors decided to drop the charges against him. . . . Levon "Bo" Jones was sentenced to death in 1993 for the slaying of Leamon Grady, a bootlegger who was robbed and shot in his home in 1987. . . . "I'm innocent, that's what I've got to say," Jones told reporters as he walked out of the Duplin County Jail Friday afternoon. . .. After meeting his grandson for the first time, he said he was "a little bit angry" about being on death row so long, but he just wanted to go home. . . . "It's wonderful that he's out. He's innocent, and I'm glad he's free," said his daughter, Evette Jones. . . . A federal judge overturned the conviction in 2006, declaring poor attorney performance had violated Jones' rights. Duplin County District Attorney Dewey Hudson planned to retry Jones on May 12, but decided to drop charges after a key witness recanted her story. . . . Lovely Lorden, Jones' former girlfriend, was the only witness accusing Jones of the murder, but she admitted in an affidavit filed last month that she “was certain that Bo did not have anything to do with Mr. Grady’s murder” and that she did not know what happened the night Grady was murdered.

April 2008

TEXAS

DNA frees Texas man imprisoned for 27 years

(Reuters) - 4-30-08 -- A man walked out of a Dallas court on Tuesday after DNA testing overturned his conviction over 27 years ago for the murder and rape of his girlfriend, local media reported. . . . James Woodward, 55, spent more time in prison than any other wrongfully convicted inmate in U.S. history who was subsequently freed by DNA testing, local media reported. . . . He was also the eighteenth person freed in Dallas County based on a post-conviction DNA analysis, according to the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal center that specializes in righting grave miscarriages of justice. . . . That is more than any other U.S. county, highlighting problems in the local justice system that include what critics have said is a history of racism and racial profiling. . . . Woodward is a black male -- the typical profile of those wrongfully sent to prison in Dallas and elsewhere in the United States.

Exonerated Ex-Inmates Struggle to Shed Stigma

By Peter Slevin and Kari Lydersen, Washington Post Staff Writers

4-28-08 -- Tabitha Pollock was asleep when her boyfriend killed her 3-year-old daughter. Charged with first-degree murder because prosecutors believed she should have known of the danger, Pollock spent more than six years in prison before the Illinois Supreme Court threw out the conviction. . . . "Should have known," the high court ruled, was not nearly enough to keep Pollock behind bars. . . . Five years later, Pollock remains in limbo, freed from prison but not free from the snags of a wrongful conviction that upended her life. With a felony record, she cannot become a teacher, as she wants. She cannot collect damages from the Illinois government. On a trip to Australia, where customs officials questioned her when she arrived, she learned that the murder conviction always follows her. . . . To fully clear her name, Pollock -- as well as a dozen or so other former Illinois inmates who have been exonerated -- needs an official pardon, which only the governor can give. She applied in 2002 but has received no word.

CALIFORNIA

Lawyer Disbarred for Letting Innocent Client Sit in Jail for Months

New York Lawyer, By The Associated Press

4-23-08 -- The State Bar has charged a San Bernardino County criminal defense lawyer with taking thousands of dollars from clients, then abandoning them. William Gebbie surrendered his law license after filing of the 28-count complaint, which accused him of allowing a client to sit in jail for months even though he had evidence to clear the man. . . . The Rancho Cucamonga-based attorney, who practiced for 38 years in San Bernardino, Riverside and Los Angeles counties, declined comment on Tuesday. . . . The State Bar says Gebbie improperly withdrew from cases, failed to return unearned fees and collected "unconscionable" fees, among other things. . . . The most serious accusation involved Gebbie's handling of a case against Donald Stephens, whose wife paid the lawyer a $10,000 advance to handle a felony sex case. Stephens sat in jail even though Gebbie had evidence clearing him.

WEST VIRGINIA

Man wants officers, lawyer to compensate him for wrongful imprisonment

By Steve Korris -Cabell Bureau

4-18-08 -- John David Mooney, who endured five years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, believes that officers who arrested him and the lawyer who represented him should compensate him for all he lost. . . . Mooney sued federal agent Todd Willard, attorney Michael Frazier of Huntington, the firm of Frazier and Oxley, and Huntington police officers Jeff Sexton, Scott Hudson and Chris Jackson in U. S. district court at Huntington on April 10. . . . Mooney's attorney, Nicholas Preservati of Charleston, claims economic loss, physical injury, mental anguish, compensatory damages and punitive damages. . . . "During his incarceration, the plaintiff's father passed away. Plaintiff was not allowed to attend his father's funeral," Preservati wrote. . . . "During his incarceration, the plaintiff's mother also passed away," he wrote. "Again, the plaintiff was not allowed to attend his mother's funeral."

NORTH CAROLINA

Editorial: Injustice reigns

By Staff Rocky Mount Telegram

4-15-08 -- The slow turning of justice's wheels give plenty of folks something to complain about. . . . Why do death penalty cases take so long to wind through the appeals process? Where's the justice for victims? . . . All valid points, but in the case of Glen Edward Chapman, 14 years of sitting in prison was too long for the wrongful conviction that put him there. . .. A judge last week released Chapman, and all charges against him were dropped. A jury convicted him in 1994 of murdering Betty Jean Ramseur and Tenene Yvette Conley. His release, tragically, means those murders are now officially unsolved. What's worse is no one can say for sure that Chapman didn't have anything to do with their deaths. . . . But that makes the miscarriage of justice against Chapman even more disturbing. Witnesses in his original trial say they felt pressured by police and prosecutors to testify against him. . . . Evidence that would have cast doubt on his guilt was suppressed by the prosecution. A lead investigator may even have lied in court.

MICHIGAN

Prisoner freed after DNA exoneration

Edward L. Cardenas / The Detroit News

4-14-08 -- A 29-year-old man convicted in 1996 for carjacking, kidnapping, robbing and raping a Macomb County woman was freed on Monday after Macomb County prosecutors decided not to oppose a motion for a new trial and dropped all charges against him. . . . The Innocence Project at Cooley Law School in Lansing was seeking a new trial for Nathaniel Hatchett, who they allege was imprisoned due to bad DNA evidence. Hatchett was serving 25-40 years at the St. Louis correctional facility in Gratiot County. . . . He showed little emotion when the judge dropped the charges. . . . "I feel great," said his older sister, Tomikann Hatchett, 30, of Detroit. "I am glad we finally got justice. This is what America does when you have no money."

ALABAMA

A case of prosecutorial abuse by the Justice Department

By Bob Martin, Editor &Publisher

4-13-08 -- In a case reeking with prosecutorial abuse and misconduct the United States Department of Justice has been ordered by a federal judge in Birmingham to pay a Huntsville businessman about a half million dollars in restitution for a wrongful prosecution and seizure of his property. . . . The award to Alex Latifi of Huntsville was ordered by U. S. District Judge Inge Johnson under federal law which gives business owners innocent of any wrongdoing the right to recover their property after illegal government seizures. Including the cost of the four-year investigation, it is estimated that the total cost to taxpayers will be several million dollars.

CALIFORNIA

Lawsuit challenges prosecutors' immunity

Al Seib, Associated Press

FREED: Goldstein was implicated by an inmate who lied about a prosecutor deal. . . . The Supreme Court has been asked to rule where responsibility lies in instances of wrongful convictions.

By David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

4-13-08 -- Prosecutors have long been shielded from lawsuits brought by people who were wrongly convicted. Even if a defendant is later shown to be entirely innocent, the prosecutor who brought the charges cannot be held liable for the mistake. . . . The Supreme Court has ruled that "absolute immunity" is needed so that prosecutors -- and judges -- can do their jobs without fear of legal retaliation. . . . But a California case that the high court is considering taking could open a back door for such lawsuits. Prosecutors in Los Angeles are urging the court to block a suit from a man who was wrongly convicted of murder because, they say, it will allow "a potential flood" of similar claims across the nation. . . . Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals set off alarms among prosecutors in the West when it ruled that supervising prosecutors could be sued for alleged management failures that led to a wrongful conviction. Its ruling cleared the way for Thomas L. Goldstein to sue former Los Angeles Dist. Atty. John K. Van de Kamp.

MISSISSIPPI

Attorneys Go After Pathologist's License

By Shelia Byrd, Associated Press

4-9-2008 -- A nonprofit group of attorneys that helps inmates believed to be wrongfully convicted has filed a formal complaint against a pathologist whose work has come under scrutiny. . . . Innocence Project attorneys said Tuesday they've asked a Mississippi board to revoke the medical license of Dr. Steven Hayne, who has worked as the state pathologist for several years. . . . Hayne came under scrutiny after DNA and other evidence cleared two men convicted in separate murder cases. The two men were cleared of the charges earlier this year after a third man allegedly confessed to both murders. . . . "Steven Hayne's long history of misconduct, incompetence and fraud has truly sent innocent people to death row or to prison for life. This is precisely why regulations are in place to revoke medical licenses," said Innocence Project co-founder Peter Neufeld.

NORTH CAROLINA

Slow justice spares man’s life

Greensboro News Record

04-05-08 -- People who urge swifter justice on death row should think about Glen Edward Chapman. . . . He could have been executed long before spending 14 years on death row, but that wouldn’t have been justice. Just the opposite. . . . Chapman, 41, was released this week when all charges against him were dropped. Last year, a judge ruled he deserved new trials for the two 1992 murders in Hickory police and prosecutors said he committed; Wednesday, the Catawba County district attorney said there wasn’t enough evidence to try Chapman again. . . . The case against Chapman was badly flawed. Evidence that would have cast doubt on his guilt was withheld, and a lead investigator might have lied in court. Prosecution witnesses later recanted their testimony: "If anyone asked me at trial, I would have testified that police pressured me into testifying and that I did not believe Edward killed anyone," one said in an affidavit. . . . These aren’t technicalities but significant issues that were recognized in Superior Court Judge Robert Ervin’s 182-page order for new trials. It was the state that employed "technicalities," arguing against Chapman’s motion on the questionable grounds that his contentions should have been raised in earlier appeals.

NORTH CAROLINA

The wrong man

Glen Chapman is free, but his case points to the dangerous imperfections in North Carolina's use of the death penalty

News & Observer Editorial:

04-04-08 -- Were it not for a couple of good appellate lawyers and Superior Court Judge Robert C. Ervin, Glen Chapman might have been killed by the state in Central Prison's death chamber. He had been on death row for nearly 14 years, following a conviction for the 1992 murders of two women in Hickory. . . . After years of appeals, Judge Ervin ruled in November that Chapman deserved another trial. The Catawba County District Attorney, James Gaither Jr., then dismissed the murder charges against him, saying there was not enough evidence for a retrial. . . . So on Wednesday, the 40-year-old Chapman was released -- from death row to freedom. . . . Ervin, who held six hearings over five years, found that an investigator in the case, Dennis Rhoney, lied in his testimony about Chapman's involvement in the murders. . . . The judge found that Rhoney had withheld evidence from prosecutors that would have bolstered Chapman's claim of innocence. He also found that Chapman's trial lawyers overlooked evidence in the deaths of Betty Jean Ramseur and Tenene Yvette Conley and didn't investigate thoroughly. (The appeals lawyers argued that Chapman's trial attorneys were "excessive users of alcohol.")

INDIANA

"Mario's Story:" A tale of justice deferred

IU Law graduate to introduce documentary about California man's struggle for justice

04-02-08 -- Mario Rocha spent 10 years in California prisons after weak legal representation caused him to be convicted of murder for an incident that took place when he was 16. . . . He is now a free man, thanks to the efforts of a Roman Catholic nun and a legal team headed by a graduate of the Indiana University School of Law--Bloomington. . . . The attorney, Bob Long, will return to IU on Wednesday, April 9, to introduce and show Mario's Story, a documentary film that tells the story of Rocha's fight for justice. Directed by Jeff Werner and Susan Koch, Mario's Story won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival. . . . "It tells a great story about the importance of making sure the system works right," said Long, who earned an undergraduate degree from IU Bloomington in 1968 and a law degree in 1971. "And it tells an important story for law students -- that what you do makes a difference."

NORTH CAROLINA

Lawyer: N.C. inmate on death row for 14 years to be freed
Associated Press

04-02-08 -- The lawyer for a man who has spent the past 14 years on death row in North Carolina says his client will soon be freed. . . . The attorney says prosecutors have dropped murder charges against Glen Chapman. His convictions were thrown out last year because investigators withheld evidence. . . . A judge ruled in November that Chapman was offered ineffective assistance from his original attorneys and that evidence was lost, destroyed or withheld. He also said the lead detective in the case withheld evidence.

TEXAS

Inmate not likely to get district attorney's backing in 1987 murder case

Prosecutor says office stands by eyewitness accounts in '87 slaying

By Jennifer Emily / The Dallas Morning News

04-02-08 -- The Dallas County district attorney's office is likely to object to a judge's opinion that a man convicted in a fatal aggravated robbery is actually innocent, a high-ranking prosecutor said this week. . . . Judge Rick Magnis said Friday in a 42-page written opinion that new evidence shows Ben Spencer did not rob and murder Dallas businessman Jeffrey Young in 1987. Mr. Spencer was convicted based mainly on eyewitness testimony, which is notoriously unreliable. . . . But First Assistant District Attorney Terri Moore said the district attorney's office stands by the witnesses' original identifications of Mr. Spencer. She also said standing by the witnesses did not contradict questioning eyewitness testimony in other cases. . . . "There are three witnesses that knew him well, not as a casual acquaintance," Ms. Moore said. "Three different people had three different vantage points. We don't have your typical stranger identification or cross-cultural identification."

March 2008

MONTANA

New effort launched to free Barry Beach
By Tristan Scott of the Missoulian

03-31-08 -- With renewed legal and grass-roots efforts under way to free convicted murderer Barry Beach - whose claims of innocence have persisted throughout his 25-year imprisonment - the inmate’s potential path to freedom is getting more attention, advocates say. . . . "We hope to one day meet him on the other side of those gates," said former Yellowstone County commissioner James "Ziggy" Ziegler, who met Beach 24 years ago through a prison ministry and recently helped organize a media campaign to free the 46-year-old convict. . . . Beach was convicted at the age of 22 on the basis of a detailed confession he and his defense team say was coerced by detectives in Louisiana, where Beach was arrested for an unrelated crime and interrogated under duress. . . . In January, a New Jersey-based innocence group called Centurion Ministries filed a petition seeking a new trial for Beach, basing its legal argument on so-called new evidence - namely, testimony that implicates a group of young girls in the 1979 killing of 17-year-old Kimberly Nees in Poplar. . . . Then in February, a Helena-based group called Montanans for Justice - the most recent joist in Beach’s support network of lawyers, elected officials and business professionals - launched a Web site advocating his release.

MICHIGAN

Legislation would allow compensation for wrongfully convicted

By Tim Martin, The Associated Press

03-30-08 -- (AP) — Ken Wyniemko spent nearly nine years in prison for a rape he didn't commit. . . . The Rochester Hills man says people wrongfully convicted and put behind bars should be compensated for the time they were denied freedom. He supports legislation pending in the state House that would allow the exonerated to sue the state for at least $50,000 for each year they spent locked up. . . . The amount of compensation could go higher depending on the amount of lost wages and other costs associated with the imprisonment. The bill also would provide the wrongfully convicted with up to 10 years of physical and mental health care through the state employee system. . . . Wyniemko, 56, received a $3.7 million settlement from Macomb County's Clinton Township and police after being released from prison in 2003. He was set free after a DNA test cleared him of raping a Clinton Township woman.

CONNECTICUT

Limit Wrongful Convictions

Hartford Courant Editorial

03-17-08 -- Two bills that would make police lineups and confessions more dependable are under consideration by the General Assembly. They should be approved. . . . The first measure requires that police officers conducting photo and live lineups not know which person in the lineup is the suspect. That would avoid the possibility that the witness is influenced or coerced. The bill also demands that all people and photographs in a lineup be viewed one at a time rather than simultaneously. Eyewitnesses would be advised that the suspect might not be in the lineup and that they should not feel compelled to make an identification. . . . Under the second measure, all interrogations of people in police custody for allegedly committing capital, Class A or Class B felonies would be videotaped. Unrecorded statements would be inadmissible as evidence in a criminal proceeding. . . . The proposed procedures for lineups and confessions should help assure that the right people go to prison.

KENTUCKY

Wrongful conviction reform needed

Steven E Bogus

03-17-08 -- In 2002, through the work of the Kentucky Innocence Project, DNA proved that Herman May was not guilty of the rape for which he had spent 13 torturous years in prison. Mr. May is among many in Kentucky who have been wrongfully convicted, including Jefferson County resident William Gregory. . . . A man of few words, Herman spoke at a conference on wrongful convictions at the University of Louisville recently. After telling the audience that he was better at answering questions than making speeches, he described how tough things had been since his release, and how despite finally securing decent employment, he still struggles to provide for his wife and three young children. His youngest was born three months ago.

CALIFORNIA

Judge voids conviction in '83 killing

Case against Willie Earl Green is overturned after key witness recants testimony. Prosecutors weigh a retrial.

By Jack Leonard, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
03-11-08 -- A Los Angeles judge on Monday overturned the conviction of a man who has spent the last quarter-century in prison for a murder he insists he did not commit, concluding that the prosecution's star witness lied. . . . The ruling comes after the witness recently recanted his testimony and could lead to freedom for Willie Earl Green, a former chauffeur who was sentenced to 33 years to life in a 1983 execution-style slaying at a South Los Angeles crack house. . . . Los Angeles County prosecutors must decide whether to appeal the decision, retry Green or free him. Considering the judge's conclusion that the star witness was unreliable, prosecutors would probably have a difficult task if they chose to retry the case. . . . Legal experts say that the case underscores the perils of relying heavily upon eyewitness identification in criminal trials. Researchers have found that faulty identifications are the biggest factor in wrongful convictions. Yet judges rarely overturn convictions based on allegations of improper identifications.

CONNECTICUT

Better Ways To Avoid Wrongful Convictions

Stephen Saloom

03-10-08 -- James Tillman spent 16 years in Connecticut prisons for a crime he didn't commit. For 16 years — more than 5,800 nights in prison — he held onto the truth that he was innocent and the hope that he could someday prove it. The DNA testing that finally proved his innocence also proved that the state's criminal justice system needs to be more fair and accurate. . . . Gov. M. Jodi Rell has said that a top priority for her administration is to enhance the criminal justice system's ability to identify and convict the guilty while protecting the innocent. To do this, she has proposed expanding the state's database of DNA profiles to include people who are arrested for crimes but not yet convicted. . . . "It increases the possibility that we will identify people who have committed crimes in the past and improves the chances of catching anyone who commits another offense in the future," she said. "And of course it increases the chances that truly innocent people can be cleared."

ILLINOIS

Long road to freedom

Posthumous confession seems to exonerate prisoner after 26 years

By Kevin Roy

03-10-08 -- (WLS) -- Alton Logan appeared in court Monday hoping the hearing was the beginning of the end to his nightmare. Logan has spent the last 26 years in prison for a crime he says he didn't commit. . . . Imagine the pain of being in prison for 26 years for a crime you didn't commit. Imagine having information that would clear such a person, but not being able to share it for all those years. Attorneys say it was agonizing holding onto the truth about Alton Logan that long -- but they felt they were bound to silence by attorney-client privilege. . . . Alton Logan has sat in prison for 26 years, always maintaining his innocence in the 1982 shooting death of a security guard at a South Side McDonald's. And for most of that time attorney Jamie Kunz had information that Logan was indeed innocent. . . . "It bothered us, the way it bothers any citizen, to think an innocent person is in prison, except we had first-hand knowledge," said Jamie Kunz, defense attorney. . . . First-hand knowledge from his client, Andrew Wilson, who was convicted of killing two Chicago police officers. When Kunz and his legal partner were told by another attorney that Wilson had actually killed the security guard, they asked Wilson about it in prison. . . . "We said is it true, that you were the one with the shotgun? He said yep, that was me," said Kunz. . . . But Kunz says he was bound to keep it a secret -- bound by his word and attorney-client privilege.

ILLINOIS

Psst, Judge: I've Got a Secret

Two public defenders announced that their client, now deceased, killed a man nearly thirty years ago, but that attorney-client privilege kept them from telling the world -- and allowing the wrongfully convicted suspect, Alton Logan, to go free.

Conor Friedersdorf Atlantic Online

03-10-08 -- It's tempting to say that the public defenders should have come forward, accepted disbarment, and spared Alton Logan twenty-six years of wrongful imprisonment. Perhaps they could have sprung Logan without appreciably weakening clients' trust in their attorneys. Disbarment is a severe sanction, and after all, this case is an extreme one. Besides, what comes first -- lawyerly obligations, or human ones? . . . Better still, though, would be for the legal system to establish ways for lawyers to reveal certain secrets without damaging their clients' interests. One possibility is an "Innocence Panel" -- a closed courtroom of appeals court judges who could grant immunity from prosecution for confessions that (1) are demonstrably true; (2) could free an already convicted man from prison; and (3) reveal information that wouldn't have come to light otherwise. . . . Other approaches are bubbling up as law school students and legal bloggers debate this case. Meanwhile, Alton Logan remains in an Illinois prison, waiting to argue a motion for a new trial. A former Illinois governor once commuted 156 death sentences, fretting that one of the convicts might be innocent. Surely Governor Rod R. Blagojevich can grant a single speedy pardon for one irrevocably wronged man?

ILLINOIS

26-Year Secret Kept Innocent Man In Prison

Lawyers Tell 60 Minutes They Were Legally Bound From Revealing Secret

03-07-08 -- (CBS) Alton Logan doesn't understand why two lawyers with proof he didn't commit murder were legally prevented from helping him. They had their reasons: To save Logan, they would have had to break the cardinal rule of attorney-client privilege to reveal their own client had committed the crime. But Logan had 26 years in prison to try to understand why he was convicted for a crime he didn't commit. . . . Logan, still in jail, speaks to 60 Minutes correspondent Bob Simon in his first interview for a report that also includes the lawyers which will be broadcast this Sunday, March 9, at 7 p.m. ET/PT. . . . "Yes. Sympathize with [the lawyers’ dilemma], yes. Understand it, no," Logan tells Simon. "If you know this is an innocent person, why would you allow this person to be prosecuted, convicted, sent to prison for all these years?" asks the 54-year-old inmate. . . . Lawyers Jamie Kunz and Dale Coventry were public defenders when their client, Andrew Wilson, admitted to them he had shot-gunned a security guard to death in a 1982 robbery. When a tip led to Logan's arrest and he went to trial for the crime, the two lawyers were in a bind. They wanted to help Logan but legally couldn't. . . . "The rules of conduct for attorneys, it's very, very clear…. We're in a position to where we have to maintain client confidentiality, just as a priest would or a doctor would. It's just a requirement of the law. The system wouldn’t work without it," says Coventry.

February 2008

MINNESOTA

Judge dismisses case against man jailed for 16 months

Judge Burke dismisses defendant from indictment after 16 months in jail. Burke said mere presence at a crime is not criminal.

By Rochelle Olson, Star Tribune

02-29-08 -- A Hennepin County judge dismissed an indictment against a Minneapolis man who spent 16 months in jail, saying he should not have been charged with murder because he was merely a passenger, not a player in the killing of Carlos Hernandez Perez. . . . "To put it bluntly, this was not the criminal justice system's finest hour," District Court Judge Kevin Burke wrote in his four-page order released late Thursday. . . . Jose Manuel Saldivar-Alvillar was one of five people charged in the gang-related killing of 17-year-old Perez in Bloomington on April 30, 2006. The other four have been found guilty or pleaded guilty. . . . Saldivar-Alvillar's lawyer died shortly before the trial was to begin, so he got a new lawyer, James Austad, who made the motion for dismissal. . . . Austad was heading into court on another matter and not immediately able to comment on the case. . . . In his order, Burke noted that the prosecutors never sought to indict Saldivar-Alvillar, but the decision was made by the grand jury. He said the grand jury likely was confused about the degree of evidence necessary to support an indictment against Saldivar-Alvillar.

NEW YORK

NY Mom Cleared in Death After 15 Years

By Carolyn Thompson

02-29-08 -- (AP) — A mother who spent 13 years in prison for her teenage daughter's murder was formally cleared of charges Thursday following a startling reversal by prosecutors over how the girl died. . .. "I'm just very grateful that the charges have been dropped against me and I'm looking forward to getting on with my life with my children," Lynn DeJac said after a state Supreme Court judge dismissed her case. . . . DeJac, 44, was awaiting retrial on charges she strangled 13-year-old Crystallynn Girard in 1993 when Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark recently announced that a review by forensics experts showed Crystallynn actually died of a cocaine overdose. . . . "There are now three forensic pathologists ... who have ruled out strangulation as the cause of death of Crystallynn Girard," Assistant District Attorney Thomas Finnerty told the judge. . . . Finnerty said prosecutors, in preparing for the retrial, asked two independent forensics experts to examine the 1993 autopsy findings and photos to try to better pinpoint the time of death. Instead, both experts volunteered a different cause of death, to the shock of prosecutors. . . . "This opinion was neither sought nor expected," Finnerty said.

PENNSYLVANIA

Judge Denies New Trial For Man Whose Family Says Brother 'Did It'

02-29-08 -- A judge denied a petition for a new trial for a man whose family says he was wrongly accused. . . . Family members of Kevin Brinkley vented their anger outside the criminal justice center in Philadelphia Friday. . . . Brinkley was convicted of a robbery and murder that happened in December 1977 in Strawberry Mansion. . . . But for 30 years his family members have said his brother, Ronald, was the triggerman and not Kevin. . . . Although several witnesses who implicated Kevin at his trial have recanted, his conviction, so far, has been upheld. . . . On Friday, a judge dismissed the petition saying the witnesses provided by the defendant were not credible. . . . Family members were outraged.

MASSACHUSETTS

Exonerated man gets life back on track

Tara Lachapelle

02-27-08 -- Dennis Maher's red hooded sweatshirt was anything but lucky. He was wearing it the day a 23-year-old woman was sexually assaulted - and so was her attacker. Eyewitness misidentification landed Maher in prison, where he served 19 years of his life for crimes he did not commit. . . . On Thursday, Feb. 14, Maher, 47, shared his story with Suffolk in the C. Walsh Theatre. His lecture, sponsored by the Performing Arts Office in conjunction with their performance of "The Exonerated," captured the audience, all whilst wearing a t-shirt, jeans and a scruffy, graying beard. . . . One fall night in 1983, Maher, an average Joe from Lowell, Mass., was stopped by police and didn't know why. "I gave them my driver's license and they ran my name," said Maher. "Then they searched me and arrested me for possession of marijuana." But when Maher arrived at the Lowell police station, he learned the real reason for his arrest. He recalls the officer saying, "We're questioning you about a rape that happened last night and a rape that happened earlier today." . . . On Nov. 16, 1983, a 28-year-old woman from Lowell, Mass. was taking her usual walk home from work when she was attacked. The man that accosted her had tried to engage her in conversation before forcing her into a nearby yard and sexually assaulting her. The next day, a 23-year-old woman was attacked less than 100 yards from the site of the first assault. The second victim, who was able to escape her attacker after a struggle, described him as wearing a red hooded sweatshirt, a khaki military-style jacket and wielding a knife. . . . Maher, who had no prior criminal record and was a sergeant in the United States Army at the time, did not fit the vague description given by the victim but was dressed in similar attire.

MICHIGAN

2 get millions in false prosecution case

Jury agrees they were innocent in phone store robbery

By Naomi R. Patton & David Ashenfelter • Free Press Staff Writers