Texas Summit on Wrongful Convictions starts an important conversation

Posted: May 9, 2008 3:47 pm

More than 100 key leaders from Texas’ criminal justice system came together yesterday in Austin to discuss the causes of wrongful convictions and changes necessary to free the innocent, improve forensic testing and prevent future injustice. Texas leads the nation in wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing – with 31 people exonerated from 10 counties across the state. The first Summit on Wrongful Convictions in the nation, yesterday’s meeting was called by Texas State Sen. Rodney Ellis to advance the state’s dialogue on wrongful convictions. Nine people freed by DNA testing in Texas attended the event, each standing up to tell their stories.

One by one, nine wrongly convicted men stood up on the floor of the Texas Senate on Thursday to explain how innocent men ended up in prison and how to prevent it from happening again.

"I'm here to tell you I lost everything. I am still hurting. I am still broken," said James Giles, who spent 10 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. "We can do better in the justice system. The system failed all of us."

…The applause was loudest when Giles tore up his sex offender registration card, something he had to carry for 15 years while he was on parole before getting exonerated. He ripped it up, he said, because he had a new card to carry: a voter registration card.

Read the full story here. (Associated Press, 05/08/08)

Watch a new Innocence Project video featuring interviews with three Texas exonerees: Brandon Moon, Chris Ochoa and Ronnie Taylor.

Tags: Texas, James Giles, Christopher Ochoa, James Waller, Innocence Commissions

 

Massachusetts man marks eight years of freedom

Posted: May 9, 2008 3:32 pm

Neil Miller spent almost the entire 1990s in Massachusetts prison for a rape he didn’t commit before DNA testing proved his innocence and led to his exoneration on May 10, 2000. Tomorrow, he marks the eighth anniversary of his release.

Miller is one of more than 160 exonerees whose wrongful convictions were caused, at least in part, by eyewitness misidentification. The victim in Miller’s case identified him in a book of mug shots, and again at trial. He claimed his innocence throughout the ordeal but was convicted and sentenced to 26-45 years.

Read more about Miller’s case here.

Other exoneration anniversaries this week:


Sunday: Glen Woodall, West Virginia (Served 4.5 years, Exonerated 05/04/92)

Wednesday: Jeffrey Pierce, Oklahoma (Served 14.5 years, Exonerated 05/07/01)

Tags: Neil Miller, Jeffrey Pierce, Glen Woodall

 

Friday links

Posted: May 9, 2008 3:10 pm

More stories from across the country this week on wrongful convictions, forensics and criminal justice reforms.

Dallas Morning News editorial: Bad prosecutors should face prison

NPR Morning Edition: Dallas man exonerated after 27 years in prison

Fingerprint error leads to wrongful arrest in Georgia case

American Bar Association Journal: Bite-Mark Evidence Loses Teeth

Innocence Project files for testing in Pennsylvania case (Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, 05/08/08)

Lack of funds stalls Virgina DNA testing project (Associated Press, 05/08/08)

Texas exoneree Brandon Moon blogged this week about spending Cinco de Mayo in Texas prisons, and his trip to Texas for the Summit on Wrongful Convictions.

Tags: Brandon Moon

 

Live webcast - Texas Summit on Wrongful Convictions at 2 pm EST

Posted: May 8, 2008 12:59 pm

Texas has seen more wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing than any other state. Today, key leaders from across the state will gather in Austin for a Summit on Wrongful Convictions to address the causes of these wrongful convictions. Judges, lawmakers, defense attorneys, prosecutors, exonerees, professors and many others are expected to attend the event – which begins at 2 p.m. EST and is open to the public. State Sen. Rodney Ellis is spearheading the event, and Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck will also attend.

Watch the event live on the web at 2 pm EST (1 pm CST).

“We’ve reached a tipping point on wrongful convictions in Texas. Nobody can seriously doubt that there’s a problem, and next week leaders from across our criminal justice system will come together to start solving it,” Ellis said. “We will bring a wide range of leaders, experts and exonerees together for a full day to develop concrete, common-sense remedies to make our system of justice more fair and accurate. We won’t solve these serious problems in one day, but we will make historic strides toward restoring confidence in our criminal justice system.”

New Innocence Project video: Three Texan exonerees tell their stories [video: 04:24]

Tags: Innocence Commissions

 

As executions resume in U.S., so does the risk of executing the innocent

Posted: May 7, 2008 3:15 pm

Last night, Georgia ended a seven-month national moratorium on executions when William Lynd was executed by lethal injection. The de-facto moratorium came about while the U.S. Supreme Court was considering the constitutionality of lethal injections. The court ruled last month that lethal injections could continue.

Meanwhile, Levon Jones was released from death row last week in North Carolina after his lawyers revealed new evidence of his innocence and showed that he received an inadequate defense at trial. Several death row inmates across the country are seeking to prove this innocence in the courts – including Innocence Project client Tommy Arthur, who has been seeking DNA testing from death row for years, and Georgia inmate Troy Davis.

Innocence Project client Paul House is still waiting in legal limbo for a decision after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that the jury in House’s case may have acquitted him. House has been in prison for 22 years – much of it on death row – for a murder he says he didn’t commit. Prosecutors in his case said this week they would retry House, who remains in jail awaiting a new trial or his release. Read the full story here. (Tennessean, 05/07/08)

An article in today’s New York Times considers the state of legal representation for indigent Americans charged with capital crimes.

Georgia’s new public defender system came under attack by politicians and was recently forced to cut more than 40 positions.

That system, established after a series of lawsuits, was patterned after one North Carolina put in place in 2001, which was considered a national model. But not many other states have followed suit, said Robin Maher, director of the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Representation Project.

“I wish I could say that things have gotten a lot better, but in fact I can say with confidence that things have changed not much at all,” Ms. Maher said. “We are seeing the same kinds of egregiously bad lawyering that we saw 10 or 15 years ago, for a variety of reasons, including inadequate funding.”

Of the 36 states that allow the death penalty, only about 10 have statewide capital-defense systems, one of the practices recommended by the Bar Association.

 Read the full story here. (New York Times, 05/07/08)

And CBS reported on Monday that 14 executions are scheduled across the U.S. in the next six months and five states are considering expansions to the death penalty – allowing them to execute people for crimes other than murder. Meanwhile, five states are seriously considering repealing the death penalty. Watch the CBS News video here, featuring an interview with Kirk Bloodsworth, who spent 8 years on death row before DNA proved his innocence of a Maryland murder.

 

Tags: North Carolina, Kirk Bloodsworth, Death Penalty

 

New pressure on Mississippi medical examiner

Posted: May 7, 2008 3:12 pm

For months, Mississippi medical examiner Steven Hayne has come under fire for years of false forensic testimony, unethical methods, nepotism and potential illegal activities. His flawed autopsies led two innocent men to spend a combined three decades in prison before they were exonerated earlier this year. He claims to work 110 hours a week and conduct 1,500 autopsies a year – earning him more than a million dollars annually.

The Innocence Project has formally asked for his medical license to be revoked, and this week the Hattiesburg American asked why Mississippi district attorneys are still supporting – and hiring—Hayne. Three DA’s told the newspaper that they had no problem with Hayne’s work. An editorial criticized these comments as ignorant:

This strikes as three ostriches putting their heads in the sand. How can these DA's be at all confident in Hayne's work given the information that has come out about the pathologist?

The DA's have been asked by the Innocence Project to turn over any documents pertaining to Hayne, including official reports on autopsies.

We hope they are complying. They must, if they believe in justice.

Meanwhile, the Legislature has funded $500,000 this year for a state medical examiner. The state has been without one since 1994 and if more of Hayne's work is found to be faulty, the state will have no one but itself to blame.

Read the full editorial here. (Hattiesburg American, 05/04/08)

Read more about Hayne’s activities and the exonerations of Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks.

Tags: Mississippi, Kennedy Brewer

 

New suspect in North Carolina rape

Posted: May 6, 2008 4:10 pm

A North Carolina man was indicted yesterday in the 1987 rape for which Dwayne Dail spent nearly two decades in prison. Dail was wrongfully convicted of raping a 12-year-old in Goldsboro, North Carolina, in 1989 and freed last year when DNA testing proved that semen recovered from the victim’s nightgown did not match Dail’s DNA profile. Dail had been told for years that the evidence was lost before his lawyers at the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence found the evidence in a police station closet.

Yesterday, prosecutors charged William Neal with committing the 1987 crime, saying the semen recovered from the victim’s nightgown matched Neal’s DNA profile. Neal is serving time in prison for another conviction.

Read the full story here. (News-Observer, 05/05/08)

Watch a new Innocence Project video interview with Dwayne Dail.

Tags: Dwayne Dail

 

“60 Minutes” on James Woodard’s release in Dallas

Posted: May 5, 2008 10:29 am

CBS News’ “60 Minutes” has been following James Lee Woodard’s case for over a year, since he was first granted the DNA testing that eventually proved his innocence. Last week, he was released after serving 27 years for a rape he didn’t commit, and “60 Minutes” cameras were in the courtroom.

The “60 Minutes” story features interviews with Woodard, his attorneys at the Innocence Project of Texas and several other men exonerated in Dallas after serving years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.

"Unfortunately, Mr. Woodard you're not getting justice today,” Dallas Judge Mark Stoltz tells Woodard. “You're just getting the end of injustice.”
Watch the full story online. (60 Minutes, 05/04/08)

Read more about James Lee Woodard and other proven innocent by DNA testing in Dallas County.

Tags: James Giles, Eugene Henton, Billy James Smith, James Waller, Gregory Wallis

 

Friday links

Posted: May 2, 2008 5:28 pm

There is so much news every week about wrongful convictions, crime labs, criminal justice reform and other related topics that all of it doesn’t make it onto the Innocence Blog. In this new weekly post, we’ll share some links each Friday to stories we find interesting and relevant. If you have links you’d like to see next week, email them to info@innocenceproject.org

Exoneree Curtis McCarty talks about spending 18 years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit (KOKH, Oklahoma City)

Kansas City man seeks DNA testing after spending 20 years in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit (Kansas City Star, 04/29/08)

Ballistic results cast doubt on Detroit crime lab (Detroit Free Press, 04/26/08)

New Oklahoma crime lab opens doors (Edmond Sun, 05/01/08)

Missouri lawmakers approve crime lab funding, but less than requested (Springfield News-Leader, 05/02/08)

Tags: Curtis McCarty

 

Six years ago today: Clark McMillan exonerated in Tennessee

Posted: May 2, 2008 5:11 pm

On May 2, 2002, Innocence Project client Clark McMillan became the 108th person exonerated in the United States by DNA evidence. He served 22 years in Tennessee prison for a rape and robbery he didn’t commit before his release.

The crime happened in 1979, when a 16-year-old girl and her boyfriend were attacked in Memphis. Both were robbed and the girl was raped by the perpetrator. The two victims were first shown a photo lineup including McMillan – the girl selected no one and the boyfriend pointed to someone else. Police then showed the victims a live lineup. This time the girl identified McMillan, but the boyfriend selected a “filler” – a non-suspect inserted in the lineup as a control. At trial, both identified McMillan as the perpetrator. Additionally, neither victim mentioned during the investigation that the perpetrator walked with a limp, which McMillan did. At trial, however, the female victim added the limp to her description of the perpetrator.

McMillan’s case illustrates how unreliable eyewitness identifications can be. Learn more about his case here, and read about other eyewitness misidentifications here.

The first DNA exoneration in the United States was in 1989. McMillan was the 108th exoneree in 2002 – it took 13 years for the first 108 people to be exonerated by DNA evidence. But in the last six years, another 108 people have been cleared by DNA testing – bringing today’s total to 216 people exonerated by DNA evidence. How many more will be cleared in the next six years? View a chart of exonerations by year since 1989.

Other exoneration anniversaries this week

Thursday: Drew Whitley, Pennsylvania (Served 16.5 Years, Exonerated 5/1/06)

Saturday: Danny Brown, Ohio (Served 18.5 Years, Exonerated 5/3/01)

Tags: Danny Brown, Clark McMillan, Drew Whitley