Friday Roundup: Two Freed in New York

Posted: November 20, 2009 5:50 pm

It was a big week for freedom in the face of injustice, but the fight against wrongful conviction and unreliable forensics goes on. Here are few stories we didn’t get to on the Innocence Blog this week:

Fernando Bermudez, who served 18 years in New York prisons for a murder evidence shows he didn’t commit, was freed just after 2 p.m. today, pumping his fist in the air before embracing his wife. We posted on the case last week, when his conviction was tossed out. Yesterday in New York City, Lebrew Jones was freed on parole, ending 22 years in prison for a murder he has long said he didn’t commit. The Innocence Project consulted on the case with Jones’ pro bono lawyers at David Polk and Wardwell. Watch a video of his release and read more about his case. The Innocence Network filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case of an Ohio man convicted of murder in 1996 based on gunshot residue evidence, which has been shown to be unreliable. Derrick Wheat is seeking a new trial to present evidence that the gunshot residue findings used against him were questionable.

New York Times columnist David Carr covered the ongoing dispute between prosecutors and the Medill Innocence Project over student records, and the Daily Northwestern posted an exclusive interview with Professor David Protess. The Ohio Public Defender’s Office launched a new project to review and appeal cases of possible wrongful conviction that don’t involve DNA evidence.

Two Innocence Network member organizations posted new videos this week. The Center on Wrongful Convictions posted a video about the wrongful conviction of Alan Beaman and the Michigan Innocence Clinic posted a video about the release release of Dwayne Provience. Reason Magazine also covered the Provience case.

Two men freed after a combined 35 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit spoke at Arizona State University. The BBC featured the case of John Thompson, who served 14 years on Louisiana’s death row before he was set free.

Iowa State University Psychologist Gary Wells, a leading expert on eyewitness identification, spoke recently about two new eyewitness studies he’s conducting.

 

Leo Waters, Six Years Free

Posted: November 20, 2009 4:40 pm

Today marks the six-year anniversary of the day Leo Waters was exonerated in North Carolina after serving 21 years for a crime he didn’t commit.

In 1982, Waters was convicted of a rape and robbery based in part on an eyewitness identification.  On November 20, 2003, after DNA tests had proved he was not the perpetrator of the attack, the state dismissed all charges against Waters.  In 2005, another man was charged with the rape based on the same DNA evidence.

The conviction stemmed from a rape and robbery of a woman in March 1981 in Jacksonville, North Carolina. A lone perpetrator had come to her house claiming interest in a waterbed for sale. He threatened her with a gun, taped her hands behind her back and put tape over her eyes. He then raped her and fled the scene, stealing jewelry as he went.

The victim gave police a description and viewed a number of photo lineups. In April, she was hypnotized, in an apparent attempt to jog her memory of the crime. In August of the same year, she was shown a photograph of Waters, who she identified as the perpetrator. At Waters’ trial a lab analyst testified that sperm cells had been identified on swabs from the victim’s body, and that the sperm came from a person with a blood type matching that of Waters — and 35 percent of white men. Waters was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Waters applied for post-conviction DNA testing on his own, but it was not until attorney Mark Raynor took on the Waters case in February 2002 that testing was secured.  In 2003, Waters was excluded as a potential contributor of the sperm cells from the rape kit. His conviction was tossed and he was freed. In October 2003, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation Laboratory also conducted DNA testing and again confirmed that Waters could not have been the rapist. On November 20, 2003, all charges against him were dropped, making his exoneration official.

In August 2005, North Carolina Gov. Michael Easley granted Waters a full pardon. In 2007, North Carolina lawmakers passed a package of bills that reformed the state's criminal justice system based on the lessons learned from wrongful convictions - particularly those based on eyewitness misidentification.

Other exoneration anniversaries this week:

Billy Wardell, Illinois (Served 9.5 Years, Exonerated 11/16/97)

Donald Reynolds, Illinois (Served 9.5 Years, Exonerated 11/16/97)

Donald Wayne Good, Texas (Served 13.5 Years, Exonerated 11/17/04)

Ben Salazar, Texas (Served 5 Years, Exonerated 11/20/97)

Tags: Leo Waters

 

The Innocent on Death Row

Posted: November 19, 2009 4:35 pm

The case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas in 2004, had drawn headlines around the world recently. The case starkly underscores the risk of overlooking clear signs of wrongful conviction and allowing innocent people to be executed. A decision in Texas yesterday demonstrates that this issue is extremely timely and could have life-or-death consequences.

Texas’ highest criminal court yesterday rejected the appeal of a Max Soffar, a mentally ill prisoner on the state’s death row for a crime he has long said he didn’t commit.

Soffar was convicted of a 1980 murder based in part on a confession that he later said was false. His attorneys, at the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Innocence Network, say he has been denied the chance to present evidence demonstrating that his confession was false.

"This case represents a textbook example of a miscarriage of justice," said David Dow of TIN. "From a false confession to two unfair trials and death sentences, the problems with Max Soffar's case show the grave failures of the criminal justice system. With the court's ruling today, Texas comes closer to executing another innocent man."

Read more about Soffar’s case here.

The Innocence Project is not involved in Soffar’s case, but our work has demonstrated that false confessions are indeed a common cause of wrongful conviction. More than 25 percent of the wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing involved false confessions. False confessions played a role in the cases of 12 of the 17 people exonerated through DNA after time on death row.

This conversation has continued across the country, and especially in the 35 states with the death penalty. A column in Florida Today argues that exonerations prove that the death penalty is unreliable and that the possibility of executing an innocent person is very real. The Innocence Project advocates for a moratorium on executions while the causes of wrongful convictions are fully identified and remedied. Read more about our position on the death penalty here.

 

CSI: Texas

Posted: November 18, 2009 11:40 am

The controversy over the work of the Texas Forensic Science Commission is continuing after the panel's new chairman testified before a state Senate committee last week, and a new editorial in the Houston Chronicle calls on the commission to prioritize facts over politics.

John Bradley, who was appointed by Gov. Rick Perry as the panel's new chairman two days before the group was set to hear from an arson expert in the case, told Senators last week that the commission's review of the Cameron Todd Willingham arson case might stretch into 2011 or beyond. In his testimony, he questioned the motives of the Innocence Project and others in focusing on faulty forensics in the state.

At a press conference after the hearing, Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck said the Innocence Project wants to ensure that faulty forensics aren't contributing to injustice in the state. "We brought this allegation for one reason," Scheck said. "We are concerned that there may be innocent people in prison in Texas based on unreliable science."

An editorial in the Houston Chronicle questions whether Perry and Bradley are stalling the commission's work for political reasons and attacking the Innocence Project and individuals involved in the process to divert attention from the task at hand:

It doesn't take a crack CSI sleuth like the characters played by Laurence Fishburne and Marg Helgenberger to smell some foul politics emanating from the governor's office and the new leadership at the Texas Forensic Science Commission. By attacking the very people and groups that have devoted their efforts to spotlighting wrongful convictions and freeing the innocent, Chairman Bradley has certainly not allayed suspicions that his first priority in his new post is protecting the man who appointed him rather than those unjustly convicted of crimes.

Read the full editorial here. (Houston Chronicle, 11/17/09)

Read more about the Cameron Todd Willingham in our Resource Center.

Tags: Cameron Todd Willingham

 

Lab Backlogs and Untested Evidence

Posted: November 17, 2009 5:18 pm

Last week, a U.S. Senate committee examined the effectiveness of a 2004 law in supporting crime labs across the country. Experts testified that while some progress has been made, significant hurdles remain to helping the nation’s forensic system function more effectively.

One goal of the federal 2004 Innocence Protection Act was to provide funding to allow crime labs to conduct post-conviction DNA tests that can exonerate the innocent and to reduce backlogs of untested evidence. When evidence from cold and unsolved cases goes without testing, perpetrators of crime sometimes manage to avoid capture.

Pat Lykos, the district attorney for Harris County, Texas (which includes Houston), testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Houston Police Department Crime Lab has more than 5,000 untested rape kits in its backlog.

"Felons go undetected and undeterred because reliable forensic capabilities are either scarce or unavailable to the criminal justice system," Lykos said.

And this problem doesn’t only affect Houston. A report published by CBS News last week found thousands of rape kits untested in jurisdictions across the country.  Fourteen percent of open murder cases and 18 percent of open rape cases have forensic evidence that has not been sent to crime labs for testing, according to a report prepared for the U.S. Office of Justice Programs.

Proposed improvements to the 2004 law would increase the number of lab technicians across the country and require labs to report their backlogs to the federal government. A New York Times editorial last week urged Congress to strengthen the law, calling untested evidence “a huge insult to rape victims.”Backlogs and untested evidence can also lead to wrongful convictions – when a piece of evidence that could potentially determine the identity of a perpetrator isn’t tested, the chances of an innocent person being implicated are higher. Backlogs and cutbacks can also stand in the way of tests on evidence that can free the innocent from prison.

Wisconsin Innocence Project Co-Director Keith Findley, who is the President of the Innocence Network, testified before the Senate panel that funds earmarked in 2004 for DNA testing in post-conviction appeals didn’t start flowing to states until last year. Better procedures are needed to fund and expedite post-conviction DNA testing, Findley said, and law enforcement agencies should be encouraged to preserve biological evidence collected in criminal cases. Fewer than half of police departments nationwide (43 percent) have computerized systems to track inventory of forensic evidence.

Watch video of the Senate hearing, and learn more about the Innocence Project’s work to expand access to post-conviction DNA testing.

Tags: Access to DNA Testing, Crime Lab Backlogs

 

Tomorrow on Tom Joyner: My Dad Was Exonerated

Posted: November 16, 2009 5:35 pm

La’Keisha Butts, the daughter of Louisiana exoneree Rickie Johnson, will join the Tom Joyner radio show Tuesday morning to discuss the issues surrounding wrongful conviction and the experience of seeing her father freed after decades of wrongful conviction.

Tune in online here at 9 a.m. EST Tuesday to hear Jacque Reid interview Butts for the “Inside Her Story” segment.

Johnson served 25 years in Louisiana’s Angola State Penitentiary for a rape he didn’t commit before DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project set him free. This year on Father’s Day, La’Keisha wrote to Innocence Project email subscribers about her dad:

My father is my hero and an inspiration to so many people he met over the years. Not only did he survive a quarter-century in prison, he did it with a positive outlook on life. When he would tell me years ago that he was sure he’d be free someday, I would admire his optimism but take it with a grain of my own realism, knowing the odds were against him. Now I know that the truth can overcome the odds any time. Whenever I feel down about anything, I think about my dad’s strength and his triumph.

Listen online here Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. EST.

Read more about Johnson’s case here.

Tags: Rickey Johnson

 

Friday Roundup: An Arson Case Keeps the Spotlight

Posted: November 13, 2009 5:32 pm

On Tuesday, Texas Senators questioned John Bradley, the new chairman of the state Forensic Science Commission. We reported on the hearing here. Bradley said the commission would eventually continue its investigation into the arson science used to convict Willingham, who was executed in 2004, but warned that the investigation could stretch into 2011. One state Senator said the commission could emerge stronger from the attention it has received through this process.

A column by Rick Casey in the Chronicle questioned whether Bradley, a prosecutor, is the right person to lead an inquiry into scientific practices.

In an editorial yesterday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram criticized Gov. Rick Perry for refusing to hand over the clemency report in Willingham’s case in response to a Houston Chronicle request. The Chronicle is suing the state for access to the document.

In other news, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled this week that Greg Wilhoit, who spent four years on Oklahoma’s death row before he was acquitted on retrial, has a viable legal claim against the state for his wrongful conviction.

An op-ed in the San Jose Mercury News by Kathleen Ridolfi and Maurice Possley of the Northern California Innocence Project points to prosecutorial misconduct’s high cost to taxpayers.

Brian Dugan was sentenced to death in Illinois this week for the murder of a 10-year-old girl in 1983 — a crime for which two innocent men — Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez — spent 12 years each on death row. Read more and watch a video interview with Cruz.

Lawyers in Wisconsin are seeking a new trial for Reynold Moore, who was convicted in 1995 with five other men for allegedly committing a 1992 murder. A new book about the case — “The Monfils Conspiracy” is available here.

Death row exoneree Kirk Bloodsworth spoke this week at the University of Sioux Falls in South Dakota.

North Carolina exoneree Ronald Cotton and crime victim Jennifer Thompson-Cannino will speak November 18 at Vanderbilt University.

A new searchable Supreme Court database offers information and analysis on the court’s rulings since 1953.

Tags: Cameron Todd Willingham

 

Nine Years After Exoneration, Practicing Law Across Borders

Posted: November 13, 2009 3:45 pm

Anthony Robinson spent ten years in prison for a rape he didn't commit and 13 years fighting for the DNA testing that would finally exonerate him. Today, he is a successful attorney practicing in China and Texas and Saturday marks the ninth anniversary of his exoneration.

An eyewitness misidentification played a key role in Robinson’s wrongful conviction. On the day of the crime, he was picking up a car for a friend at the University of Houston. University police blocked his car and accused him of raping a woman. According to the victim, her attacker was a black man wearing a jacket. Although the victim said the perpetrator had a mustache and Robinson didn’t, he was brought in for questioning. No physical evidence linked him to the crime. Based almost entirely on the victim’s testimony, Robinson was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

He would later reflect on the feeling of being wrongfully accused: “It was not so much the fear of imprisonment. It wasn’t so much the fear of what was going to happen. Everything that I had lived for, everything that I had done had been boiled down to — we think you’re a rapist with no evidence whatsoever other than your skin and someone saying you did this.”

After serving ten years of his sentence, he was paroled and began raising funds to obtain DNA testing on the evidence used in his trial. He worked a variety of temporary jobs to raise the funds for DNA testing. Although he was a college graduate and a former Army officer, his status as a registered sex offender excluded him from higher paying jobs. Robinson hired an attorney, Randy Schaffer, and obtained access to DNA testing on evidence in his case. The results proved what he had known all along – another man had committed the crime.

On November 14, 2000, Governor George W. Bush pardoned Robinson. Since his exoneration, Robinson has spoken actively about the issue of wrongful conviction to lawmakers and the media and played a key role in the passage of a law in Texas compensating the wrongfully convicted after their release.

After Robinson was cleared, Texas State Senator Rodney Ellis and other Houston attorneys helped raise funds for him to attend law school. He graduated from the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University in 2004, and currently works in international law. He is also a member of the Innocence Project of Texas Board of Directors and the Texas Exoneree Council.

Other exoneration anniversaries this week:

Bruce Dallas Goodman, Utah (Served 19 Years, Exonerated 11/9/04)

Joseph White, Nebraska (Served 19 Years, Exonerated 11/10/08)

David Brian Sutherlin, Minnesota (Exonerated 11/13/02)

Paula Gray, Illinois (Served 9 years, Exonerated 2002)

Tags: Anthony Robinson

 

18 Years Later, Judge Tosses Case Against NY Man

Posted: November 12, 2009 5:45 pm

Saying he had proved his “actual innocence,” a judge today tossed out the conviction and charges of Fernando Bermudez, a New York man who served 18 years in prison for a crime he has always said he didn’t commit.

"This court wishes to express its profound regret over the past 18 years. I hope for you a better future,” New York Supreme Court Justice John Cataldo said in dismissing the case against Bermudez.

Bermudez was convicted in 1992 of shooting teenager outside a New York City nightclub in 1991. He was convicted based in part on questionable eyewitness testimony. The Innocence Project, in partnership with the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in Bermudez’s appeal, arguing that the eyewitness identification procedures used in the case were suggestive and could have contributed to a misidentification. The eyewitnesses recanted after Bermudez was convicted.

Bermudez remains in prison because he has an unrelated drug conviction, but his attorneys are seeking to have the case resentenced as time served.

"This is too long, but justice is ours today," his tearful wife, Crystal, said outside court. "He's a good man. He didn't deserve to have this happen to him."

Read more. (Associated Press, 11/12/09)

 

Veterans and Wrongful Conviction

Posted: November 11, 2009 1:54 pm

On this Veterans' Day, our thoughts are with the hundreds of thousands of men and women who have served the United States over the years in the military and those serving right now.

We’re also thinking about the many exonerees who served the country in the Armed Forces before suffering the unimaginable injustice of a wrongful conviction. Among the exonerees who served in the military is Larry Fuller, a decorated Vietnam veteran who served nearly two decades in prison in Texas for a sexual assault he didn’t commit.

Other DNA exonerees who served in the military include Brandon Moon, Jerry Miller, Kevin Green, Tim Cole, Eddie Lowery and several others.

Wrongful convictions can happen to anyone, unless we act to address the underlying causes. Read more about the reform measures supported by the Innocence Project to prevent wrongful convictions from happening.