"Ought To Be Free" &" The Innocence Project"

[Whisper]

Ought To Be Free

I have been reading and keeping up on Tommy Silverstien,locked up in solitary 27 yrs now.I by no means condone what he did,but have been checking out other prisoners proclaiming they are innocent.I actually never met a prisoner that didnt say he was wrongly convicted or a prisoner that hasnt found "God" in prison they all find god!! But I decided to look into it further and came acoss 12 on Tommys site.
In this country, there is no justice for the poor," words of a WI activist. We have been working with prisoners for 10 years now and have learned first hand about our assembly-line justice. Here Are some of the stories. Please contact FFUP or contact the prisoners themselves if you have questions or would like to see documentation. Email us at swansol@mwt.net or send mail to FFUP PO Box 285, Richland Center, WI 53581 Bryant Johnson http://i45.tinypic.com/295y0sz.jpg
In Search of Pro Bono Representation
My name is Bryant Johnson I'm a lifer and I am in dire need of representation that is competent, loyal and dedicated in bringing forth the truth. I've been locked down going on 18 years for a crime I had absolutely nothing to do with and my plight to clear myself has lead me down many dark alleys of ignorance due to my lack of knowledge of the Law. And it has become painfully apparent to me that I can not fight against the powerful forces of the state without help from a trained professional attorney.
I would articulate the circumstances surrounding my incarceration to the lawyer / paralegal who decides to assist me in my request. But I will say this I am an innocent man and my innocence has been undermined by over zealous officials whose priorities were a conviction. There was No DNA evidence to even slightly connect me to the crimes for which I was convicted of; it is a known fact that the DNA evidence pointed to someone else, and I am willing to take ANY HIGH TECH TEST they got out there to prove that I speak the truth when I say I AM TRULY AN INNOCENT MAN
In closing I pray that I would get the assistance I am in search offer meaningful assistance is imperative at this critical stage.
Sincerely,
Bryant Johnson #130677
WSPF
Po Box 9900
Boscobel, WI 53805 http://oughttobefree.blogspot.com/2008/04/bryant-johnson.html Reginald Clytus
My name is Reginald but everybody calls mr Reggie. I'm 20 years old. I'm Milwaukee, Wisconsin born and raised in the North Lawn housing projects in the north side I'm the youngest of three boys, well men now. I'm from single parent raised by my mother in a two bedroom unit. As you can probably imagine, I had a tough upbringing-gang, sex, drugs, violence, and crime- I seen it all . My mother tried her best to keep me and my brother out of the street life. But as it is well known, fast money, cars, and girls is always going to look better that the hard work. My mother was determined not to lets us fall through the cracks and become victims of the streets or "another number in the system " To make a long story short, both my older brothers have graduated high school, one is in college now and the other is managing a small business. As for me, I was a friend with the wrong people. My name come up in some investigation in some gang stuff that I am not even part of or know alot about, and as a result of that I got locked up my senior year of high school with 7 months left till graduation. Kind of funny when you think about it, huh? I been trying to build up my spirits and find my self since the day the handcuffs locked on my wrist. But I can't help but see the lost souls that are around me and the people that just gave up on their life. This is the hell I encounter on a day to day, basics: outside of small food portions, two showers a week, and the heating on here only 6 hours a day on segregation. This isn't for me- this life behind bars, never seeing family, never choosing when I want to eat or what I want to do with my days.
I tried out these so called jailhouse lawyers and was scammed out of my money. Turns out crime doesn't stop when you go to prison. I stayed to myself and have been trying to put legal cases and things together ever since and I'm not very good at it. I was forced into signing a statement, my rights were violated and I was railroaded every step of the way. The first so called lawyer never told me when I had a hearing coming up, never talked to my people about where I was at the time of the crime. He advised me not to testify on my behalf at the Miranda good child hearing because it would hurt me at trial. He did everything in his power to destroy me and I paid for him. I got on to what he was doing so I wrote the bar association and fired him. Well, the next lawyer took over my case and said she could get none of those hearings back and we would have to go to trial like that. A month later she came to me with a plea from the DA and said I was getting 10 years in prison and 5 years out. At first I didn't want to take the deal because I know you hear this alot but I didn't do it, I wasn't there. But she said because of the statement I can't get my hearing back I took the so called deal. That was anything but what I received- 25 years in prison and 20 years out under the truth in sentencing law. I didn't know about capped deals , appeals , motions, or anything like that . I don't know the justice system because I don't break the law.. Well, I speed and don't wear my seat belt all the time and have driven with a broken tail light. But come on, because of who I know and the side of the town I live on makes me another worthless kid from the ghetto. Not true. http://oughttobefree.blogspot.com/2007/04/reginald-clytus.html Diane Borchardt, innocent
Diane Borchardt#298089
Taychedah Correctional Institiution
Fond du Lac, Wi 54936

My name is Diane Borchardt . I was born at St Mary's Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin on August 8, 1949. My case number is 94cf313. My appeal attorney filed an appeal on my behalf on April 23, 1998. It was denied with extensive media.

Thus now I'm in my eleventh year here, twelfth year of being wrongly convicted. I received a 40 year sentence for a crime that I was never a part of, did not conspire to, nor want in any way shape or form. Yes, my husband was divorcing me after 15 years. No, I was not unhappy nor fighting it. With the household equally split-the dining room floor to ceiling, my husband beats me up April 2nd upon arriving in town. I decide to report it to the sheriff (It is Saturday, my divorce attorney is not in). While recording it, my thirteen year old comes over to let me know that daddy is on his way to the store. Since I owned Mrs B's silk Screen , Ruben, my husband was to be on the property (due to a lot of BS done by him and his divorce attorney)without me present. The sheriff comes with me, they talk to Ruben, then they advise me not to return to our home that night. "Give him some time to cool off. "

Thus from this my husband is found shot in the basement of our rural Jefferson home at 3:45 am. With no DNA taken, no GSR testing on my son(16, the only person in our home), they concluded that I had done this. Upon locating me in Wautoma "noon" April 3rd, the next day the newspaper reported "Husband found shot in rural Jefferson , it looks like a murder for hire by wife. "

Please, no one will help me as I have no money. I was declared dead in civil court, thus disinheriting everything. http://oughttobefree.blogspot.com/2006/10/diane-borchardt-innocent.html I. But then I see so many being freed from The Innocence Project.Innocence Project Case Profiles
There have been 251 post-conviction DNA exonerations in United States history. These stories are becoming more familiar as more innocent people gain their freedom through postconviction testing. They are not proof, however, that our system is righting itself.

The common themes that run through these cases — from global problems like poverty and racial issues to criminal justice issues like eyewitness misidentification, invalid or improper forensic science, overzealous police and prosecutors and inept defense counsel — cannot be ignored and continue to plague our criminal justice system.

•Seventeen people had been sentenced to death before DNA proved their innocence and led to their release.
•The average sentence served by DNA exonerees has been 13 years.
•About 70 percent of those exonerated by DNA testing are members of minority groups.
•In almost 40 percent of the cases profiled here, the actual perpetrator has been identified by DNA testing.
•Exonerations have been won in 34 states and Washington, D.C.http://www.innocenceproject.org/
Browse some profiles,,http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/Browse-Profiles.php Search for a profile by defendant name, crime, location, year, conviction or contributing causehttp://www.innocenceproject.org/know/Search-Profiles.phpm View a national map of exoneration cases to get a geographical perspective of the issues http://www.innocenceproject.org/know/National-View.php I just wonder what everyone thinks of The Innocence Project<? Or maybe you know someone exonerated.

[Lizard]

What do I think about The Innocence Project? I fucking love it. L. O. V. E. it. I have expectations for the society in which I live, and those expectations don't include killing people for crimes they didn't commit. And if that means more money must be spent to ensure that adequate evidence of guilt exists before a person is put to death? Yeah, I can live with that.

Especially when you consider it's cheaper to imprison someone for life than to put them on Death Row.

[Whisper]

TY me too, to many have been cleared lately for courts to not take a second look at some cases.

[Whisper]

Canada's wrongful convictionsCases where the courts got it wrong --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


They languished behind bars for years, wrongfully jailed for crimes they did not commit.

But the high-profile ordeals of Donald Marshall Jr., David Milgaard and others have put a spotlight on what has been called the fallibility of Canadian justice.
These cases are not unique and certainly not isolated to Canada, although estimates of the actual number of wrongful convictions vary widely.

Each miscarriage of justice, however, deals a blow to a society's confidence in the legal system, experts say.

"Wrongful convictions undermine the two prongs of the criminal justice system’s legitimacy," states a 1992 report prepared by the Library of Parliament. "If someone is wrongfully convicted, that person is punished for an offence he or she did not commit and the actual perpetrator of the crime goes free."

To make it worse, advocates say many who were ultimately exonerated watched their applications stall for years in the federal review board process.

In 2000, federal Justice Minister Anne McLellan announced plans to try to prevent such cases from happening again. The changes, since enacted in the Criminal Code of Canada, enable the justice minister to use his or her discretion to respond to persons who believe they have been wrongfully convicted.

Groups such as the Association in Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted have also advocated on behalf of those they say have been jailed unfairly.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/06/f-wrongfully-convicted.html High-profile cases
James Driskell
Anthony Hanemaayer
Donald Marshall Jr.
Simon Marshall
David Milgaard
Guy Paul Morin
William Mullins-Johnson
Romeo Phillion
Thomas Sophonow
Steven Truscott
Kyle Unger
Erin Walsh
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/06/f-wrongfully-convicted.html#ixzz0go0W0DLH
http://i45.tinypic.com/2s1r4ig.jpg <Joyce Milgaard makes a phone call after the release of a Saskatchewan report into the wrongful conviction of her son, David Milgaard, in September 2008. The report praised her 'epic struggle' in seeking David's release during his more than 22 years behind bars.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/06/f-wrongfully-convicted.html#ixzz0go0itcCn

[Whisper]

DALLAS, Texas (CNN) --
The family of Timothy Cole, a Texas man who died in prison nearly a decade ago while serving a sentence for a rape he swore he did not commit, is hoping a court will issue the state's first posthumous exoneration.
Cole was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the 1985 rape of 20-year-old Michele Mallin. He maintained his innocence, but it was not confirmed by DNA until years after his 1999 death, when another inmate confessed to the rape.
"Everybody thinks he died a felon, a hardened criminal," Cole's brother, Cory Session, told CNN. "That's what hurts."

The court hearing on the exoneration began Thursday afternoon, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

Mallin, who has spoken publicly about the case, will join Cole's family in the Austin, Texas, courtroom. They want a judge to clear Cole's name, according to the Innocence Project of Texas, a nonprofit organization that seeks to help the wrongfully convicted.

Among those expected to testify are Mallin and Jerry Wayne Johnson, her confessed rapist. Watch Cole's mother make emotional plea »

Then a student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Mallin was walking to her car, intending to move it to another parking lot, when a man approached her asking about jumper cables, she told CNN. In a matter of seconds, he put her in a chokehold, a knife to her neck. He forced himself into her car and drove her to the outskirts of town, where he raped her.

The next day, police investigators showed Mallin pictures of possible suspects. She chose a picture of Cole and said he was her attacker. She later identified him in a physical lineup, according to the Innocence Project of Texas.

"I was positive," she told CNN. "I really thought it was him."

But there was one detail: Mallin told police her attacker was a smoker. "He was smoking the entire time."

And Cole, who suffered from severe asthma, "was never a smoker," Session said. "He took daily medications (for asthma) when he was younger."

"He was the sacrificial lamb. To them, my brother was the Tech rapist, there was no backtracking. It was the trial of the decade for Lubbock."

The "Tech rapist" attacked four women other than Mallin -- abducting them in parking lots near campus and driving them to a vacant location, where he would rape them and flee on foot, according to the Innocence Project of Texas. The rapist "terrorized" the Texas Tech campus in the mid-1980s, the organization said.

Cole, like Mallin, was a student at Texas Tech. He had finished two years of college previously and was returning to school after spending two years in the Army, his brother said.

But his dreams of getting married and having children never materialized. He was arrested and charged with Mallin's rape, declining a plea bargain offer that would have put him on probation. A jury convicted him and imposed a 25-year sentence.

That night, "he hugged my mother, and he said, 'Mother, why these people lie on me? Why they do this to me?' " Cole's brother Reggie Session recounted for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, which published a three-part series on the case in June.

"He said, 'They know I ain't done nothing to that girl. I don't even know that girl. Why they do this to me, mother?' ... He cried in my mother's arms on the floor."

Later, while in prison, Cole rejected an offer of parole that would have required him to admit his guilt. "His greatest wish was to be exonerated and completely vindicated," his mother, Ruby Session, told CNN affiliate News 8 Austin.

But the asthma that plagued Cole throughout his life brought about his death on December 2, 1999. The cause was determined to be heart complications due to his asthmatic condition. He was 39.

It was 2007 when a letter addressed to Cole arrived at his family's home, written by Johnson. Read the letter »

"You may recall my name from your 1986 rape trial in Lubbock," says the letter, dated May 11, 2007. "Your Lubbock attorney, Mike Brown, tried to show I committed the rape.

"I have been trying to locate you since 1995 to tell you I wish to confess I did in fact commit the rape Lubbock wrongly convicted you of. It is very possible that through a written confession from me and DNA testing, you can finally have your name cleared of the rape ... if this letter reaches you, please contact me by writing so that we can arrange to take the steps to get the process started. Whatever it takes, I will do it."

Johnson did not know Cole had died. In fact, according to the Avalanche-Journal, he had been writing to court officials for years to confess to the rape, but got nowhere.

Upon finding out that Cole was dead, Johnson wrote he "cried and felt double guilty, even though I know the system's at fault," according to the Avalanche-Journal.

"A day later, I am still bothered, terribly, by the death revelation. Because, not knowing Mr. Cole at all, I wonder if the wrongful incarceration contributed to his death."

Johnson has been in prison since 1985 on two convictions for aggravated sexual assault, according to the Texas Department of Corrections. He was given a life sentence for the rape of a 15-year-old girl, and a jury later tacked on a 99-year sentence for another rape, according to the Avalanche-Journal. He cannot be charged with the Mallin case, as the statute of limitations has expired.

The Innocence Project became involved after Cole's family received Johnson's letter. DNA tests confirmed that Johnson was Mallin's attacker. Now, Cole's family hopes the court hearing will be the final step in clearing his name.

Mallin is helping them. "I was very traumatized," she told CNN. "I was scared for my life. I tried my hardest to remember what he looked like.

"I'm trying to get his name cleared. It's the right thing to do."

Cory Session said, "We don't blame Michele. She's very gracious."http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/02/05/texas.exoneration/index.html http://i48.tinypic.com/2iibr50.jpg <
Timothy Cole died in prison while serving a sentence for a rape DNA tests show he did not commit.

[Whisper]

Innocent Man Released from Death Row
INNOCENT MAN PUT ON DEATH ROW BY LYING POLICE OFFICER FINALLY SET FREE

NEWTON, NC –
Today Glen Edward Chapman, who spent 15 years on North Carolina’s death row for crimes he did not commit, is walking out of prison a free man.

Chapman was sentenced to death for the 1992 murders of Betty Jean Ramseur and Tenene Yvette Conley in Hickory. Last November Superior Court Judge Robert C. Ervin ordered a new trial for Chapman, citing withheld evidence, “lost, misplaced or destroyed” documents, the use of weak, circumstantial evidence, false testimony by the lead investigator, and ineffective assistance of defense counsel. Ervin also cited evidence that Ms. Conley may not have been murdered, but instead died of a drug overdose.

Catawba County District Attorney James Gaither, Jr. dismissed the charges against Chapman today.

Chapman’s lawyers, Frank Goldsmith and Jessica Leaven, are very pleased with their client’s release for which they fought long and hard. “Edward has always maintained, and we have always believed in, his innocence,” said Goldsmith. “Justice has not been served for the families of Ms. Ramseur and Ms. Conley, and we hope their deaths will be reinvestigated.” Goldsmith added, “We are extremely grateful to Judge Ervin and to Mr. Gaither for doing the right thing.”

Judge Ervin found that each of the lead detectives assigned to the cases by the Hickory Police Department had covered up exculpatory evidence that pointed to Chapman’s innocence and that was inconsistent with the State’s theory of his guilt. In addition, Judge Ervin found that Hickory Police Department Detective Dennis Rhoney had perjured himself at Chapman’s original trial, and that his testimony at the hearings conducted by Judge Ervin was “not credible.”

In his order, Judge Ervin also cited evidence presented by a forensic pathologist, Donald Jason, who found the cause of Conley’s death “undetermined.” Dr. Jason found no life-threatening injuries and suggested a possible cocaine overdose. Judge Ervin wrote that Dr. Jason’s report “strongly indicates that Terene Conley’s death was not a murder. The notion that a defendant can be put to death when no crime in fact occurred is troubling at best.”

Additionally, Judge Ervin found ineffective assistance of counsel by Chapman’s trial attorneys, Robert Adams and Thomas Portwood, for failing to adequately investigate the facts. Adams has been disciplined by the North Carolina State Bar and Portwood died of an alcohol-related illness. Portwood represented Ronnie Frye in his death penalty trial less than a year before Chapman’s trial started. Portwood admitted that he was drinking 12 shots of rum nightly during Frye’s trial. Frye was executed in 2001. Portwood was later removed from another death penalty case and entered alcohol detoxification treatment.

For more information, contact:
Frank Goldsmith (828) 230-6977 or (828) 652-3000
Jessica Leaven (919) 942-5200 or (919) 428-1924

Congratulations to Mr. Chapman and his attorneys. A victory hard-fought and long deserved.http://deathwatch.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/breaking-innocent-man-released-from-death-row/

[Whisper]

I gotta quit b/c there are so many,and many executed then found innocent,just way to many id end up writing a book

[Lizard]

I gotta quit b/c there are so many,and many executed then found innocent,just way to many id end up writing a book

No, whisp, but maybe we should change the thread title or talk to Morbid about setting up another subforum: "Believed Guilty but Found Innocent"?

[Whisper]

No, whisp, but maybe we should change the thread title or talk to Morbid about setting up another subforum: "Believed Guilty but Found Innocent"?
Sounds good to me,I was shocked looking through all the diff States/Provinces,just name after name after name.

[Lizard]

Sounds good to me,I was shocked looking through all the diff States/Provinces,just name after name after name.

Okay, I'll ask The M. about setting up a subforum (or whatever he thinks will be best--I'd like to have a place to put these cases together).

[Whisper]

cool just let me know I book marked a shitload,,

[Whisper]

DPIC's Death Penalty Quiz,click on link and take the test and get your score
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/dpics-death-penalty-quiz

Question 1:TrueFalse The death penalty saves taxpayers money because it is cheaper to execute someone than to keep them in prison for the rest of their life.

Question 2:TrueFalse Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, more black people have been executed than white people.

Question 3:TrueFalse After the Supreme Court allowed the death penalty to resume in 1976, the first person to be executed was Gary Gilmore in Utah by a firing squad.

Question 4:TrueFalse Since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S., very few people have been released from death row because they were innocent.

Question 5:TrueFalse In most states with the death penalty, you can be executed even if you suffer from mental illness.

Question 6:TrueFalse There are some states in the U.S. where you cannot receive the death penalty for any crime.

Question 7:TrueFalse Hanging has not been used as a method of execution in the United States for over 30 years.

Question 8:TrueFalse When the police chiefs of the U.S. were polled on their views about ways to lower the crime rate, only 1% named the death penalty as their top priority in reducing violent crime.

Question 9:TrueFalse No woman has been executed in the U.S. for over 25 years.

Question 10:TrueFalse Those who commit a crime when they are under 18 years of age are ineligible for the death penalty in the U.S. Executed But Possibly InnocentPosted:


There is no way to tell how many of the over 1,000 people executed since 1976 may also have been innocent. Courts do not generally entertain claims of innocence when the defendant is dead. Defense attorneys move on to other cases where clients' lives can still be saved. Some cases with strong evidence of innocence include:

Carlos DeLuna Texas Conviction: 1983, Executed: 1989
Ruben Cantu Texas Convicted: 1985, Executed: 1993
Larry Griffin Missouri Conviction: 1981, Executed: 1995
Joseph O'Dell Virginia Conviction: 1986, Executed: 1997
David Spence Texas Conviction: 1984, Executed: 1997
Leo Jones Florida Convicted: 1981, Executed: 1998
Gary Graham Texas Convicted: 1981, Executed: 2000
Cameron Willingham Texas Convicted: 1992, Executed: 2004http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executed-possibly-innocent < click on link to view each profile seperately. This a link to 139 exonerated."
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-list-those-freed-death-row This site has EVERYTHING you may want to know about DP, its crazy packed with millions of links and they make it so easy to use it and navigate it.

[Whisper]

A Trial of Fire: Executed

Capital punishment has become a controversial issue. The case of Cameron Todd Willingham has only added fuel to the fire when discussing the death penalty. In 1991, Willingham was accused of killing his three young daughters by arson. He was executed for these crimes on Feb. 17, 2004. An arson expert had a report that brought serious questioning about the quality of the arson investigation which convicted Willingham. This report was sent to Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, but he refused to issue a 30-day reprieve for Willingham.

Since the execution, other fire experts have reviewed the evidence in the Willingham case and came to the same conclusion. The fire was a accident. Perry, acting like a criminal, released the chairman and two members of the State Forensic Science Commission. It just so happens that they were to begin holding hearings on the evidence in the case. Seems there is something to hide. Perry will not comment on why they did not issue a reprieve, when requested in the Willingham case. His only responses have been that Willingham is a "monster", he was less than an admirable father and husband. Are those grounds to execute any man? If you can execute a man for being deficient in those departments, then, the divorce and child support courts would not be so over-whelmed with cases.

Perry does a questionable job as Governor. Now he is calling any scientist who refutes the evidence in the Willingham case, " supposed experts". He is the Governor, but, when did being the Governor make you a forensic science expert? The same Governor who turned down stimulus money for the state.( That's another story in itself. )

Gerald Hurst, is a arson expert. His findings have exonerated more than 10 people. Hurst, got Willingham's friend, Ernest Willis exonerated for a similar arson charge. Willis was set free and the attorney general was quoted saying, " I don't turn Killers loose. If Willis was guilty, I'd be trying him right now. And I'd use Hurst as my witness. He is a brilliant scientist." So, It has to make you think, did the Governor feel that he gave them one, now, give him one. As far fetch as that may seem, it is possible. That has always been the rumor amongst those involved in the legal battle.

The Evidence in the End

Experts have reviewed the evidence against Willingham. " The conclusion is unescapable, Willingham was innocent. There can no longer be any doubt that a innocent man has been executed." With mistakes like this, can we continue to use the death penalty? One wrongful death is one too many. The investigations was not efficient. Willingham's trial took two days. Only two days to convict a man of killing his babies by arson. Death by Lethal Injection was his punishment. A man who turned down a plea deal, that would lower his sentence to life in prison. After 13 years of being accused and convicted of killing his daughters, was a 30 day reprieve to much to ask for. If there was any evidence that could probably prove that Willingham was not the "monster" he was made out to be, 30 days should have at least been allowed. Instead we are left with the sour end of the deal, a man executed for being accused of being, " a monster ", " a less than admirable father and husband".

The Final Conclusion

The state of Texas has executed 441 inmates since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. From the year of 1990 to the present, there have been 424 executions in Texas. How many of those executed, were innocent? No, we can't change the past, but, in order to change the "future", we must reflect on the past mistakes. " How do you know where you are going, if you don't know where you have been."

The death penalty is a touchy subject for some. For some it means justice, peace, closure and even payback. Those who have been allowed to witness the executions of someone who have committed a horrible crime against their family have said that it doesn't bring closure. It doesn' satisfy that void that has been left in their life.

One thing is for sure, if the death penalty is going to continue to be used as punishment for "horrible" crimes. Then the sytems needs to be checked, double checked and triple checked, before we start that "lethal drip" down an IV, into the blood stream of a possibly innocent man or woman.http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Death-Penalty-Wrongfully-Executed

[Whisper]

Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice
Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment, the "death penalty." Cases of wrongful execution are cited as an argument by the opponents of capital punishment.[1]
A number of people are claimed to have been innocent victims of the death penalty.
Newly-available DNA evidence has allowed the exoneration and release of more than 15 death row inmates since 1992 in the United States,[4] but DNA evidence is available in only a fraction of capital cases. Others have been released due to weak cases against them, sometimes involving prosecutorial misconduct, resulting in acquittal at retrial, charges dropped, or innocence-based pardons. The Death Penalty Information Center (U.S.) has published a list of 8 inmates "executed but possibly innocent", although none of them has yet had his innocence recognized by any court. At least 39 executions are claimed to have been carried out in the U.S. in the face of evidence of innocence or serious doubt about guilt.
In the U.K., reviews prompted by the Criminal Cases Review Commission have resulted in one pardon and three exonerations for people executed between 1950 and 1953[citation needed] (when the execution rate in England and Wales averaged 17 per year), with compensation being paid.Specific examples

Of the American cases, one often quoted is the execution of Jesse Tafero in Florida. Tafero was convicted along with an accomplice, Sonia Jacobs, of murdering two police officers in 1976 while the two were fleeing drug charges; each was sentenced to death based partially on the testimony of a third person, Walter Rhodes, a prison acquaintance of Tafero's who was an accessory to the crime and who testified against the pair in exchange for a lighter sentence. Jacobs's death sentence was commuted in 1981. In 1982, Rhodes recanted his testimony and claimed full responsibility for the crime. Despite Rhodes's admission, Tafero was executed in 1990. In 1992 the conviction against Jacobs was quashed and the state subsequently did not have enough evidence to retry her. She then entered an Alford plea and was sentenced to time served. It has been presumed that, as the same evidence was used against Tafero as against Jacobs, Tafero would have been released as well had he still been alive.
Wayne Felker,
a convicted rapist, is also claimed by some observers to have been an innocent victim of execution. Felker was a suspect in the disappearance of a Georgia (US) woman in 1981 and was under police surveillance for two weeks prior to the woman's body being found. The autopsy was conducted by an unqualified technician, and the results were changed to show the death occurring before the surveillance had begun. After Felker's conviction, his lawyers presented testimony by forensics experts that the body could not have been dead more than three days when found; a stack of evidence was found hidden by the prosecution that hadn't been presented in court, including DNA evidence that might have exonerated Felker or cast doubt on his guilt. There was also a signed confession by another suspect in the paperwork, but despite all this, Felker was executed in 1996. In 2000, his case was reopened in an attempt to make him the first executed person in the US to have DNA testing used to prove his innocence after his execution. This attempt failed, as the DNA tests were ruled inconclusive as to innocence or guilt.

Cameron Willingham
was executed in Texas in 2004 for an arson fire in 1991 which took the lives of his three small daughters. Subsequently, doubt has been cast on the forensic evidence which underlay the conviction, particularly whether evidence existed of an accelerant having been used to start the blaze.[quote]Thomas Griffin and Meeks Griffen were executed in 1915 for the murder of a man involved in an interracial affair two years before but were pardoned 94 years after execution. It is thought that they were arrested and charged because they were wealthy enough to hire competant legal counsel and get an acquittal.

In the United Kingdom, Timothy Evans was tried and executed in 1950
for the murder of his baby daughter Geraldine. An official inquiry conducted 16 years later determined that it was Evans's fellow tenant, serial killer John Reginald Halliday Christie, who was responsible for the murder. Evans was pardoned posthumously following this, in 1966.Derek Bentley
was a mentally retarded young man who was executed in 1953, also in the United Kingdom. He was convicted of the murder of a police officer during an attempted robbery despite the fact that it was his accomplice who fired the gun, and Bentley was under arrest at the time of the shooting.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Totally lost me when I saw Diane Borchardt. Never thought she was innocent. Still don't. She can whine all she wants but shes nothing more than another prisoner declaring her innocence... like most in prison.

[Whisper]

Im not saying shes innocent,she was on the opening article of the persons that are being used as examples in the "Ought To Be Free" project. I dont know who she is or what she has done.What I have been finding and book marking are the ones that have been "executed then proven innocent" That was an article I found and asked Liz to check out while I was emailing Tommy Silverstien about a drawing I want to buy.

[Athena]

One of the biggest issues here in the U.S. (and maybe Canada, too, I'm not sure) is the fact that most prisoners do not have access to DNA testing for any number of reasons:

1.) The evidence was destroyed upon conviction or was mishandled resulting in loss.
2.) The judge denies a prisoner's appeal to gain access (common).
3.) The state requires the inmate to pay for testing (common).

In order for us to have even a shot at objective justice, these wrongs must be corrected. Inmates MUST have access to DNA evidence that has the potential to clear them, and states MUST be required to re-test in cases where the test method or lab was deemed unreliable.

God only knows how many innocent men have and will take their last breath behind bars. And, until we can start holding [url=http://www.theagitator.com/2009/10/26/no-accountability-3/]over-zealous[/quote] prosecutors accountable, this problem will only continue. We pit prosecutors with every resource available to them, whose goal is to convict (as opposed to find justice) against convicts with no resources whatsoever, and we don't think there's room for improvement?

[Whisper]

Actually it is the same here,if DNA had been tested and not taken almost 3 yrs in Toronto here Paul Bernardo wouldve been in prison for being the Scarbourough Rapist.Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffey wouldnt be dead.They took all that time to test it.Yet I can do a home test for 89.00 and have overnight results(which I have thats only way I know)

[Dakota Valkyrie]

The Innocence Project shouldn't be needed - but is. Hopefully, they will put themselves out of business. By that I mean enough changes will be made that the need for their services will cease. Never going to happen... just my wishful thinking.

Much of what they have done involves cases where technology advanced after the case OR where laws didn't keep up with technology.

We will always have cases where there is just no way to prove things other than circumstantial evidence. And that will forever lay things open to claims of innocence. In those cases, who do we trust if not the jury? Is there ever a way to 100% guarantee that the right person is in jail?

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Yet I can do a home test for 89.00 and have overnight results(which I have thats only way I know)
I would not bet my life on an $89 home test kit. It takes so long because only certain labs can do tests for legal purposes. They get backed up because almost every case seems to have/want/demand DNA these days.

Also, testing technology when Bernardo and Homolka were active can't realistically be compared to what is available today. It's come a long way... with more to go.

[Whisper]

Well I wouldnt bet my home on it either but I am saying they have millions out there now.That was a very basic DNA test to find out if our friend was the father of a child he was being sued to support b/c he didnt think it was.Turned out he wasnt the dad after paying support 10 yrs and the test stood up in court.That test was through a website of men that have paid support some for over 20 yrs only to find out they werent the daddy. I have also seen DNA Home Tests now which I havent6 got a clue how they would work but have seen advertised.

[Athena]

We will always have cases where there is just no way to prove things other than circumstantial evidence. And that will forever lay things open to claims of innocence. In those cases, who do we trust if not the jury? Is there ever a way to 100% guarantee that the right person is in jail?

Well, sure. We will never have a 100% error-free justice system. But that should remain our perpetual goal. As it stands currently, there are glaring contradictions to this goal - contradictions that can be corrected.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Well, sure. We will never have a 100% error-free justice system. But that should remain our perpetual goal. As it stands currently, there are glaring contradictions to this goal - contradictions that can be corrected.
That is what I was pointing out. Exactly why the Innocence Project or organizations with similar goals will always be around and needed. There is little chance of those changes without a concerted effort of many.

As they accomplish those goals, the type of cases we see showcased will become fewer and fewer (hopefully).

[MichaelJCheaney]

Diane Borchardt proclaiming she is innocent? Why am I not surprised?

The Borchardts were neighbors of my cousins and in fact my oldest cousin was/still is best friends with Ruben.

Diane should rot in hell for what she did! Hell I can't believe that some activist organization even thinks she might be innocent......

[Dakota Valkyrie]

Well I wouldnt bet my home on it either but I am saying they have millions out there now.That was a very basic DNA test to find out if our friend was the father of a child he was being sued to support b/c he didnt think it was.Turned out he wasnt the dad after paying support 10 yrs and the test stood up in court.That test was through a website of men that have paid support some for over 20 yrs only to find out they werent the daddy. I have also seen DNA Home Tests now which I havent6 got a clue how they would work but have seen advertised.
All I was pointing out is that the testing requirements for legal means is vastly different than what you need for quickie tests. There is chain of custody issues to be held to and and all sorts of legal protocol involved in proving a criminal complaint. Defense attorneys will rip apart any test that is not followed to the exact letter of the law and accepted science and even then they will call it into question (as they should).

I sat through a trial that the jury hung and the second trial where they convicted. It hinged greatly on the DNA evidence. The defense picked on every little tiny bit of it and the process. Had I been a juror, I would not have convicted on the basis of the first trial (despite my personal belief that he did it). The prosecution did a better job the second time around and I was much more comfortable that the right man was sentenced to life. (He also went on to be convicted of one of the most heinous rapes in local history and other sex crimes... all that occurred before the murder)

Only the advancements in technology have enabled the home tests, but those advances have also allowed for faster/better testing in criminal cases. And because of that more tests are needed/used in criminal cases.

The law and laws now need to catch up to that and grow as the technology grows to avoid the very things that some convicted people are facing.

[Athena]

Incidentally, North Carolina is the only state with a state-run innocence commission (http://www.theagitator.com/2010/02/19/this-week-in-innocence-11/)... and they recently exonerated their first convict.

[Whisper]

This was the case that caught my attention b.c I saw him on so many programs and so many were going nuts to get this guys DNA tested and protesting all over the States .Then turns out even in his final words proclaiming innocence and when they finally tested,he was guilty. DNA Testing Could Exonerate Executed ManJan 11, 2006
As early as today, the nation may know if the state of Virginia put an innocent man to death in the electric chair 13 years ago.

Since Roger Coleman's execution for the 1981 rape and murder of Wanda McCoy, there has been intense debate about the quality of the evidence against him.

Today a Toronto laboratory is completing DNA tests at the request of Gov. Mark Warner, who is trying to resolve the matter once and for all.

"There'll be three results," Warner said last week. "Either confirm the guilt. It may demonstrate and there's a high probability that it will remain inconclusive. Or it may to some degree exonerate him. "

The governor's decision comes as public support for capital punishment has fallen in the last decade after a number of death row inmates have been exonerated.


Maintaining Innocence
Coleman went to the electric chair maintaining he did not kill his sister-in-law.

"I didn't commit the murder," Coleman said in a jailhouse interview. "I didn't commit the rape. I was not at fault ... I'm innocent. What else is there for me to say?"

Prosecutors and McCoy's family members say Coleman is guilty and should have been executed. The evidence, they say, is overwhelming.

His blood type was consistent with that found on the victim, and Coleman had been convicted earlier of trying to rape another woman in the same area.

Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries has worked for more than a decade trying to prove otherwise.

"I have no doubt," said McCloskey. "I believe 100 percent Roger Coleman is innocent."

If Coleman is innocent, there could be a sea change in the debate about capital punishment. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/LegalCenter/story?id=1494435

DNA Tests Confirm Guilt of Executed ManFriday, January 13, 2006


Modern DNA tests have confirmed the guilt of a Virginia man who had proclaimed he was innocent of murder and rape even as he was strapped into the electric chair and executed more than a decade ago, the governor announced yesterday.

The results stunned and disappointed those who have fought a 25-year crusade to prove that Roger K. Coleman was innocent. They also dashed hopes among death penalty foes that the case would catalyze opposition to capital punishment across the country.

Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) yesterday said genetic analysis conducted in recent weeks proves that Coleman, who was executed in 1992 for the slaying of his 19-year-old sister-in-law, was a rapist and killer. The tests show there is a one in 19 million chance that semen found on the victim's body belonged to someone else.

"We have sought the truth using DNA technology not available at the time the commonwealth carried out the ultimate criminal sanction," Warner said in a statement. "The confirmation that Roger Coleman's DNA was present reaffirms the verdict and the sanction."

Coleman's case had become a focal point in the debate over capital punishment, with opponents insisting that DNA tests would prove that an innocent man was put to death and proponents saying that justice was served. Coleman had maintained his innocence in a series of television and newspaper interviews that generated attention around the world, and his backers tried for years to get the courts or politicians to order the tests. Warner, in his last weeks in office, agreed to allow the analysis and became the nation's first governor to allow post-execution testing.

Legal scholars said the test results denied death penalty opponents a long-sought opportunity to put a human face on one of their most compelling arguments: that the U.S. justice system makes mistakes that result in the executions of innocent men.

"The opportunity to bring new people into the abolitionist movement has been lost," said Phyllis Goldfarb, a professor at Boston College's law school.

But Goldfarb said that though the exoneration of an executed inmate could have profoundly eroded support for the death penalty, confirmation of Coleman's guilt won't change many opinions. "Supporters of the death penalty will be confirmed in their skepticism of claims of innocence," she said. "Opponents still have reason to oppose. The risk of executing innocents still exists."

Coleman, a coal miner from the small Appalachian town of Grundy, Va., was convicted and sentenced to death in the 1981 rape and stabbing of Wanda McCoy.

Coleman's assertions of innocence and questions over the strength of the evidence prompted Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey charity that investigates wrongful convictions, to investigate the case. Media organizations, including The Washington Post, joined Centurion in an unsuccessful court fight to have the DNA tests conducted years ago.

Yesterday, James C. McCloskey, Centurion's executive director, said he felt betrayed by the man whose last words included the statement, "An innocent man is going to be murdered tonight."

"How can somebody, with such equanimity, such dignity, such quiet confidence, make those his final words even though he is guilty?" McCloskey said. Had the evidence shown him to be innocent . . . that would have had a tremendous effect on the anti-death-penalty movement in terms of perhaps encouraging moratoriums and even abolition," McCloskey said. "Those are not the set of facts we have in this instance. That will not happen, at least as the result of this case."

But he and his attorney, who battled without pay for six years to have Coleman's DNA tested, insisted that Coleman's case will serve as a model to encourage other politicians and prosecutors to allow testing of DNA before and after someone is convicted. "The results in this case don't end the debate over the death penalty," said Paul Enzinna, a lawyer with the Washington firm of Baker, Botts.

Tom Scott, a criminal defense lawyer from Grundy who helped prosecute Coleman, said he remained convinced all along that the right man was tried, convicted and executed.

"I never had any doubt about his guilt, never," Scott said. "All the evidence always pointed to Coleman."

During Coleman's trial, authorities said evidence included hair on McCoy's body that was similar to Coleman's and the account of a jailhouse informant. Coleman also had been convicted of attempted rape a few years earlier.

Coleman said he had an alibi and would not have had time to commit the killing. Defense attorneys also gathered affidavits from people who said another man admitted to killing McCoy.

The testing in Coleman's case marks only the second time nationwide that DNA tests have been performed after an execution. In 2000, tests ordered by a Georgia judge in the case of Ellis W. Felker, who was executed in 1996, were inconclusive.

Genetic tests exonerated Florida inmate Frank L. Smith in 2000, several months after he died of natural causes while awaiting execution.

After the results of the testing in Coleman's case were made public, the death penalty debate continued.

"Today's finding is a further demonstration that Virginians' trust in our criminal justice system is well founded," said Robert F. McDonnell (R), who will become Virginia's attorney general tomorrow. "Today is further proof that this is exactly the manner in which the death penalty has been, and will continue to be, employed in the commonwealth."

Joshua K. Marquis, vice president of the National District Attorneys Association and an Oregon prosecutor, was more vehement. "This is not at all unexpected and puts to a lie the myth that wrongful convictions are epidemic," he said. "Coleman was not just a rapist and a murderer but a liar as well."

But Peter Neufeld, co-director of the New York-based Innocence Project, which has helped exonerate more than 170 inmates, said that there may have been mistakes in other cases and that similar investigations should continue.

"Today we got just one answer, and one man cannot speak for the correctness of the verdicts in a thousand other capital cases," Neufeld said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/12/AR2006011201210.html

[Whisper]

I added a spoiler here b/c these are 3 execution photos of Allen Lee Davis.After his execution they enclosed these pics to The Supreme Courts to get Electric Chair Replaced by Lethal Injection .So very graphic photos I hope I did it right. "]http://i45.tinypic.com/2yknxqw.jpg http://i50.tinypic.com/15pq0yr.jpg http://i49.tinypic.com/35d0tnt.jpg

[Dakota Valkyrie]

I'm confused... what's this thread about? LOL

Wrongfully convicted? Convicted but claiming innocent? Executions gone wrong?

I really don't mind that some fat ass murderer got a nosebleed. Death is rarely pretty. I'm sure Davis looks better than his victims.

Allen Lee Davis (July 20, 1944 – July 8, 1999) was a convicted murderer executed for the May 11, 1982 Jacksonville, Florida murder of Nancy Weiler, who was three months pregnant at the time. According to reports, Nancy Weiler was "beaten almost beyond recognition" by Davis with a .357 Magnum, and hit over 25 times in the face and head.

He was also convicted of killing Nancy Weiler's two daughters, Kristina (9, shot twice in the face) and Katherine (5, shot as she was trying to run away). Davis was on parole for armed robbery at the time of the murders. He was executed on July 8, 1999.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Lee_Davis

[Whisper]

I was just pointing out the case that drew me to checking into executed people that later have been cleared.Roger Colemen wasnt cleared but he snowed alot of people me included.I normally dont fall for such moronic things but he had me convinced they executed a innocent person.Then when they finally tested the DNA all those yrs later he was guilty!!And as for the pics I just came across them as I was searching and knowing how some here like to browse stuff like that decided to add them and they kinda fit with the DP.

[Whisper]

Really good site and video with Mike Farrell (Trapper on MASH).Hes an advocate for executed prisoners that were later proven innocent.He also fights against DP,but Im not going there.E1 has their opinion on DP and Im first to admit after starting to search all of this few yrs ago I cant say I believe in it or I dont.On one hand I dont b/c so many have been cleared BUT as a mom I know if my child was murdered Id be screaming blue murder for DP if they had enough evidence.So Ill leave it there.How many convicted people were found innocent after they were executed? http://www.videojug.com/expertanswer/arguments-against-the-death-penalty-2/how-many-convicted-people-were-found-innocent-after-they-were-executed

[Whisper]

Governor issues posthumous pardon for man who died in prison Governor Rick Perry Monday posthumously pardoned a man who died in prison after he was wrongly convicted of rape.

Tim Cole died in 1999 of asthma complications. He was 39. Cole had been convicted of raping a Texas Tech University student in 1985.

DNA showed another man committed the rape, but the statute of limitations had already expired when Jerry Wayne Johnson confessed to the crime in 1995.

In 2009, a state district judge in Austin formally cleared Cole of the crime, who had always maintained his innocence. The victim also supported his exoneration.

Cole’s family asked the governor for a pardon, but in 2009 Perry said he did not believe he was legally allowed to issue one.

Later, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott issued an opinion on posthumous pardons that cleared the way for the governor to issue one.

In February 2010, Cole’s family again asked the governor for a pardon, and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended one.

http://www.kvue.com/news/local/Gover...-85844272.html
__________________

[Whisper]

Maybe Im Jaded But Id Want Blood Not A Piece Of Paper!!
Texas gov. gives copy of pardon to man's family
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) —
The family of a Texas man who died while imprisoned for a rape he didn't commit gathered at his graveside Friday with a framed copy of the state's first posthumous pardon — a document that finally proves his innocence.

Gov. Rick Perry granted Timothy Cole's pardon nearly three weeks ago. He gave Cole's relatives the pardon document earlier Friday at a Fort Worth hotel, completing their long-fought ordeal.

"This is a solemn occasion but it's also a joyful occasion," Perry said. "It's solemn because we're very mindful of the loss that was suffered by the Cole family, and we're joyful because we've restored Timothy's good name."

Cole was cleared by DNA testing in 2008, nine years after he died in prison at age 39 of asthma complications. He had spent more than 13 years behind bars, steadfastly maintaining his innocence of the rape of a Texas Tech University student in Lubbock.

Despite urgings for the pardon from Cole's family, Perry had said he lacked the authority to grant a posthumous pardon. But he granted it earlier this month after the state attorney general clarified the law in January. The Innocence Project of Texas then submitted a formal pardon request to the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

"Our family would like to thank those who worked so diligently to make this day come to pass," said Cole's mother, Ruby Session. She thanked her son, Timothy, too, "for his contributions, even though he's not here, towards affecting change and improvement in the criminal justice system."

Texas leads the United States in inmate exonerations. More than 40 Texas inmates have been released after being cleared — most exonerated by DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project of Texas. Four of those men attended the presentation at the hotel.

Cole's brother, Cory Session, urged inmates who are innocent to keep fighting to clear their names and not to "surrender or languish in their cells."

At the grave site, under a tree near a pond at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Fort Worth, Cory Session said his family considered the pardon "a sacred document" and would place it in his mother's home on the mantle.

"Nearly 25 years ago this week, the American dream that Timothy was pursuing turned into an American nightmare," he said, referring to his brother's 1985 arrest in the woman's rape. He said his brother's name now stands for "innocent men and women convicted on lousy evidence."
[...]http://www.wwltv.com/news/national/88704082.html
http://i39.tinypic.com/lxw28.jpg
Tim Cole

[Whisper]

In Texas, Seeking the Truth About an Executed Man
other executions to wait for new DNA tests, but Jones had spectacularly bad timing. His petition came in the middle of the Florida recount fight after the 2000 presidential election. Bush's legal team sent him a brief on the case, but it neglected to even mention the possibility of a new DNA test, and Jones became the 152nd — and final — inmate executed during Bush's tenure.

The hair, however, survived, and that's why Jones is actually the perfect client for the Innocence Project and its co-director Barry Scheck. A courthouse clerk had somehow neglected to destroy it in the years since the execution. Sealed in a plastic bag and forgotten in the evidence room, the hair became even more important after Jordan, the prosecution's star witness, recanted his testimony in 2004. He had received just 10 years for robbery, while Danny Dixon, who didn't cooperate, received a life sentence for aggravated robbery and is still in prison. "I took a deal because I was scared," Jordan said in an affidavit, "and I testified as to what they told me to say."

Now the 1-in. (2.5 cm) hair has become the subject of a three-year-long legal battle pitting rural San Jacinto County against Scheck's Innocence Project and the Texas Observer magazine, both of whom are suing to have the evidence tested on the grounds that the public has a right to know the truth. Waiting in the wings with a separate lawsuit is the executed man's adult son Duane Jones, who says he wants the truth and that as next of kin, the hair belongs to him. San Jacinto County district attorney Bill Burnett, a former probation officer whose lawyer describes him as "a very capable prosecutor but a simple guy in his philosophy of things," says that under Texas law, only the defendant himself can ask for a new DNA test. "Once the defendant has been executed, I can do nothing more in the case," he said in a deposition. He plans to destroy the hair as soon as he's legally permitted to, closing the book on the only death sentence his small county has ever handed down. Both sides expect a ruling soon.
[...]
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1990809,00.html
More at link pretty long article but worth the read

[Whisper]

Ruling Could Uncover the Truth in a Texas Execution
In the months since I first met Duane Jones at his lawyer's office in downtown Houston, we've talked quite a bit on the phone. We've talked about the book he's writing (a memoir of his violence-plagued and seemingly star-crossed life). We've talked some about politics, about the oil spill. But mostly we've talked about the legal battle surrounding his deceased father and about why it was taking so long to get a ruling in the case.
Last night he called me, asked if I was sitting down and told me, "You won't believe this, but they finally ruled. And it's in our favor."
After nearly eight months of deliberation, Judge Paul Murphy ruled on June 11 that Jones' father Claude, executed in 2000 for the murder of a Point Blank, Texas, liquor-store owner, should have another day in court. Specifically, that the only physical evidence linking Jones to the crime — a one-inch piece of hair that somehow survived a destruction order years ago — had to be preserved, against the wishes of San Jacinto County, and transferred to an independent forensics laboratory for DNA testing that wasn't available during the original trial.
(See Thornburgh's original story about seeking the truth about an executed man.)

Barry Scheck, the co-director of the Innocence Project, which sued (along with the Texas Observer magazine) to have the hair tested, said, "We undertook this litigation for two reasons: to find the truth and to vindicate the public's right to know. We're glad the judge agreed with us." William Knull, the Houston lawyer who represented Scheck and the others, called it a "victory for the idea that the public has a right of access to the facts."
Sara Forlano, part of the legal team that was defending San Jacinto County district attorney Bill Burnett in the case, said by e-mail that her office was "disappointed" by the ruling, but that there have been no decisions made about possible appeals yet. According to Knull, San Jacinto County has 30 days to file a Notice of Appeal against the order.

There has been another unfortunate death in the middle of this murder case. District attorney Burnett was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on May 26th and died less than a week later. He was at the very center of the case from the beginning, first as an assistant prosecutor in the original trial, then later as the DA who steadfastly refused to have the hair retested. A former probation officer who worked his way up to become a top lawman and leading figure in the county, he never sat down for an interview with TIME about the case, but a deposition revealed him to be cordial but unyielding on his assertion that, under Texas law, only the inmate could request additional DNA testing. And since the inmate in this case was deceased, he was under no obligation to do anything but destroy the evidence. "Once the defendant has been executed, I can do nothing more in the case," he said.

According to a local paper, the Eastex Advocate, Pastor Preston Baker's sermon at Burnett's funeral in Coldspring, Texas, mentioned TIME's article about the Jones case and Burnett's willingness to take on the Innocence Project. The Advocate quoted Baker as saying Burnett "took a stand against some powerful people, people who believed that just because of their power and influence they could demand something."
[...]
The mitochondrial DNA test, if and when it takes place, would have three possible outcomes. If the DNA profile matches Jones', then Jones was likely the killer. If the hair doesn't match anyone, then the Jones verdict would still be very flawed — a "legal nullity," as Scheck put it — because Jones' earlier appeals were denied on the basis of that hair (in 2004, the prosecution's star witness said that prosecutors pressured him into lying about Jones' alleged confession). If the DNA profile matches Danny Dixon's, a co-defendant who was supposedly waiting outside the liquor store, then it was Dixon, not Jones, who entered the store and pulled the trigger. Either one of the latter outcomes would be "extremely important" to Texas, said Scheck. "I think people will be disturbed."

It would certainly offer the most conclusive biological proof to date that the state of Texas executed a man for a crime he didn't commit. And that kind of vindication, Duane Jones told me, is worth waiting for.

[...]http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1996809,00.html?hpt=T2http://i49.tinypic.com/10zuwr9.jpg
Claude Jones, with his mother, about two years before he was executed by the state of Texas in 2000

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1996809,00.html?hpt=T2#ixzz0r50bGZk9

[Whisper]

Ten stories of men who languished in prison for crimes they didn't commit until the Innocence Project and DNA technology helped win their freedom

The Crime: In December 1983, a white, armed male broke into the Brooklyn, N.Y., home of a police officer and his wife. The man raped the woman and forced her to perform lewd acts on her husband. After the woman identified Fappiano from a photo lineup as the perpetrator, he was tried in 1985 and convicted of rape, sodomy, burglary and sexual abuse and sentenced to 20-50 years in prison.

The Exoneration: Although the Innocence Project began representing Fappiano in 2003, it took two years for the evidence from the case to turn up — including a pair of sweatpants worn by the woman during the crime. Multiple rounds of DNA testing on the sweatpants, which contained DNA from both a female and male, matched the victim, but not Fappiano or the victim's husband. Fappiano's convictions were vacated in October 2006 after he served 21 years. "
[...]http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1627368_1627366,00.html

Theres 9 more pics and stories at link

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1627368_1627366,00.html

[Angelinfl]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/us/17exonerate.html?th&emc=th
30 Years Later, Freedom in a Case With Tragedy for All Involved


By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
Published: September 16, 2010
HATTIESBURG, Miss. — A little after 10 o’clock on Thursday morning, it was all up to Phillip Bivens. Just like that. The judge adjourned the hearing and Mr. Bivens, standing in a red jumpsuit in the corner of the courtroom, could all of a sudden do anything he wanted. After 30 years in prison, he was not sure what that was.

Phillip Bivens, one of three men who confessed to a rape and murder, after his and another conviction were undone in Mississippi on Thursday.
“Take it easy, I guess,” he said. “Try to ease my mind.”

Mr. Bivens, 59, and Bobby Ray Dixon, 53, two men who were serving life sentences, were exonerated by a judge on Thursday morning, their guilty pleas to the charge of murder erased. The judge said it was likely that another man, Larry Ruffin, would soon be cleared for the same murder.

There was no special hurry in his case. Mr. Ruffin died in prison eight years ago.

The expected ruling would be one of only a handful of posthumous exonerations nationwide, and taken with Thursday’s events, a rare triple exoneration.

Nonetheless, said Emily Maw, the director of the Innocence Project of New Orleans, the law center that pressed for the men’s release, the case has been nothing but a series of tragedies.

On a warm night in early May 1979, a man broke into the home of Eva Gail Patterson, raped her and cut her throat in front of her 4-year-old son. Ms. Patterson, whose 2-year-old was sleeping in the next room and whose husband was working offshore on an oil platform, stumbled to her neighbor’s carport, where she collapsed and died. The 4-year-old, Luke, told the police that a single man, “a bad boy,” had killed his mother.

Larry Ruffin, 19 at the time, was picked up a few days later. The night of the murder he had been on leave from a halfway house, where he was sent after stealing some beer from a store. Over the next few weeks, he gave several statements, contradictory on many points but all conforming to the same basic storyline: He had raped and killed Ms. Patterson, and he had acted alone.

Mr. Ruffin soon recanted, however, saying that he had been physically coerced by law enforcement officials into confessing, and maintained his innocence. Over a year later, just before Mr. Ruffin’s trial was set to begin, the police interviewed Mr. Dixon, who had been with Mr. Ruffin at the halfway house at the same time. Mr. Dixon told them that Mr. Ruffin had killed Ms. Patterson, but said that he had been with him that night. Mr. Dixon, who pleaded guilty to murder, apparently said Mr. Bivens was with them as well, though no records exist of that first interview.

Mr. Bivens, who had returned to his home in California several months earlier, was arrested by police officers who showed up at his door one night.

“I’d never been on a airplane before,” he said on a car ride out of Mississippi after the hearing. “I thought they were going to kill me. I thought they were going to get me up there and push me out.”

Back in Hattiesburg, he was told he could be facing the death penalty unless he pleaded guilty. Law enforcement officials showed him pictures of the crime scene and asked what he remembered, he said. He had never met Mr. Dixon before, he said, but, fearing for his life, he backed up Mr. Dixon’s account.

“All of these things, it’s hard to push them out of my mind,” he said on the car ride, staring out the window. “I don’t like to think about it. I feel like I should have been stronger than that.”

The trial, in the winter of 1980, was based almost exclusively on the three statements.

On the stand, Mr. Dixon, who described himself as a “hard learner” who could barely read, began to contradict his own testimony. Finally, he said that he had not been with the other two that night and that he did not even know what Ms. Patterson looked like. He said that he had been kicked in the head by a horse as a child and ever since had suffered seizures.

“I don’t have the right mind,” he said on the witness stand. “My mind comes and goes, and I don’t like to see nobody took away for nothing they ain’t done.”

Mr. Ruffin was convicted, though a hung jury prevented a death sentence. He was sentenced to life in prison and died of a heart attack in 2002.

Mr. Dixon, whose seizures were so frequent in prison that guards gave him a baseball batting helmet, developed lung cancer last year, which has since spread to his brain.

A couple of years earlier, lawyers for the Innocence Project had received an application for help from Mr. Dixon through a corrections officer. The lawyers, pointing to studies that show the frequency of false confessions, requested a DNA test of the evidence from the rape kit.

In July, the results came back. They implicated a man named Andrew Harris, who had lived just up the road from Ms. Patterson. In 1982, he was convicted of a rape outside Hattiesburg and is now serving a life sentence.

Law enforcement officials are now investigating his connection to the Patterson case.

Mr. Dixon was granted medical parole after the test results came in and has been out of prison since. Only Mr. Bivens remained.

The courtroom on Thursday was full of people who last came together 30 years ago. Mr. Ruffin’s family members wore “Free at Last” T-shirts, maintaining that freedom is a state that can be still achieved by the dead.

Mr. Dixon was there, smiling and leaning on a cane carved by his brother. The Patterson family, including Luke, now in his 30s, was sitting the front row. The district attorney, the same man who had been in the post in 1979, represented the state.

After the hearing, Mr. Dixon was taken by his brother a few dozen miles out of town to a sun-dappled clearing among pine trees, the site of Mr. Ruffin’s grave. The Ruffin family prayed, sang hymns and released balloons, and Mr. Dixon broke into sobs.

Earlier, Mr. Bivens stood across the street from the courthouse, in brand-new clothes still bearing the creases of the display shelf. He carried his belongings in a pillowcase: two Bibles, a pair of flip-flops, some shampoo, some socks. The lawyers took him to lunch and then drove him to New Orleans.

He was planning to stay in housing there that was set up especially for exonerated prisoners. Maybe, he said, he could find a job gardening. And he was thinking about looking up his old girlfriend, the one he was about to marry before the police arrived at his door that night.

It is important to have people around you, he said. They keep you from thinking about things too much. And they serve as an alibi, just in case.

[Whisper]

Hair was Only Piece of Physical Evidence Linking Claude Jones to Crime; DNA Analysis Found Hair May Have been Murder Victim's

) A DNA test on a single hair has cast doubt on the guilt of a Texas man who was put to death 10 years ago for a liquor-store murder — an execution that went forward after then-Gov. George W. Bush's staff failed to tell him the condemned man was asking for genetic analysis of the strand.

The hair had been the only piece of physical evidence linking Claude Jones to the crime scene. But the recently completed DNA analysis found it did not belong to Jones and instead may have come from the murder victim.

Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, a New York legal center that uses DNA to exonerate inmates and worked on Jones' case, acknowledged that the hair doesn't prove an innocent man was put to death. But he said the findings mean the evidence was insufficient under Texas law to convict Jones.

Jones, a career criminal who steadfastly denied killing the liquor store owner, was executed by injection on Dec. 7, 2000, in the closing weeks of Bush's term as governor and in middle of the turbulent recount dispute in Florida that ended with Bush elected president.

As the execution drew near, Jones was pressing the governor's office for permission to do a DNA test on the hair. But the briefing papers Bush was given by his staff didn't include the request for the testing, and Bush denied a reprieve, according to state documents obtained by the Innocence Project.

Scheck said he believes "to a moral certainty" that Bush would have granted a 30-day reprieve had he known Jones was seeking DNA testing.

"It is absolutely outrageous that no one told him that Claude Jones was asking for a DNA test," Scheck said. "If you can't rely on the governor's staff to inform him, something is really wrong with the system."

Bush had previously shown a willingness to test DNA evidence that could prove guilt or innocence in death penalty cases. Earlier in 2000, he had granted a reprieve to a death row inmate so that Scheck and other attorneys could have evidence tested. The test confirmed the man's guilt and he was executed.

[...]
The other primary evidence against Jones came from one of two alleged accomplices: Timothy Jordan, who did not enter the liquor store but was believed to have planned the robbery and provided the gun. Jordan testified that Jones told him he was the triggerman. However, under Texas law, accomplice testimony isn't enough to convict someone and must be supported by other evidence. That other evidence was the hair.

"There was not enough evidence to convict, and he shouldn't have been executed," Scheck said.

Scheck, a death-penalty opponent, said the case shows that the risk of a tragic mistake by the legal system is just too high. "Reasonable people can disagree about the moral appropriateness of the death penalty. The issue that has arisen is the risk of executing the wrong person," he said.

San Jacinto County District Attorney Bill Burnett, who prosecuted the case, died earlier this year.

"I still think he was guilty," Joe Hilzendager, the murder victim's brother, said Thursday. "I think they executed the right man."

Former San Jacinto County Sheriff Lacy Rogers also said he is convinced Jones committed the crime — "without a doubt in my mind."

In the nearly 35 years since capital punishment was reinstated in the U.S., there has never been a case in which someone was definitively proven innocent after being executed. That would be an explosive finding, since it would corroborate what opponents of the death penalty have long argued: that the legal system is flawed and that capital punishment could result in a grave and irreversible error.

Jones was condemned to die for the 1989 killing of liquor store owner Allen Hilzendager, who was shot three times outside the town of Point Blank, population 559. Authorities said his getaway driver was Danny Dixon, previously convicted of shooting a girl between the eyes and burying her in a cemetery.

During the trial, a forensic expert testified that he examined the hair under a microscope and concluded that it could have come from Jones but not from Dixon or the store owner. No DNA test was performed for the trial.

Prosecutors also hammered on Jones' brutal past. While serving a 21-year prison sentence in Kansas, he poured a flammable liquid on his cellmate and set him on fire, killing him.

Jones was executed at age 60, the last person put to death during Bush's time as governor. In his final statement, Jones did not acknowledge guilt but told the Hilzendager family he hoped his death "can bring some closure to y'all. I am sorry for your loss and hey, I love all y'all. Let's go."

More than three years after the execution, Jordan recanted his claim that Jones admitted to being the triggerman. In an affidavit, Jordan said he was scared, and "I testified to what they told me to say."

Texas is far and away the No. 1 death penalty state, having executed 464 people over the past three decades.

The Jones case is second time this year that the guilt of an executed Texas inmate was thrown into doubt. Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in 2004 after being convicted of setting the 1991 fire that killed his three daughters. But several renowned experts said earlier this year that the investigation of the fire was so flawed that the arson finding can't be supported.

The hair in the Jones case was tested 10 years after the execution at the request of his son Duane, along with the Innocence Project, other groups and The Texas Observer magazine. Prosecutors agreed to the testing.

"At the very least, if they had tested his DNA before he was executed, he could have gotten a new trial or his sentence overturned or changed," Duane Jones said Thursday. He said his father "told me that he had robbed banks, that he was a thief. But he wasn't a person who would go out and murder someone on the street." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/11/national/main7046726.shtml
http://i52.tinypic.com/2a6p1jn.jpg
This undated file photo Claude Howard Jones. A judge ordered DNA testing on a strand of hair that helped prosecutors convict Jones of capital murder in the 1989 shooting death of a liquor store owner. Jones, who maintained his innocence, was executed in 2000. DNA analysis found the hair did not belong to Jones and instead may have come from the murder victim.

[Aslan]

By JEFF CARLTON, Associated Press Jeff Carlton, Associated Press – 21 mins ago

DALLAS – A DNA test on a single hair has cast doubt on the guilt of a Texas man who was put to death 10 years ago for a liquor-store murder — an execution that went forward after then-Gov. George W. Bush's staff failed to tell him the condemned man was asking for genetic analysis of the strand.

The hair had been the only piece of physical evidence linking Claude Jones to the crime scene. But the recently completed DNA analysis found it did not belong to Jones and instead may have come from the murder victim.

Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, a New York legal center that uses DNA to exonerate inmates and worked on Jones' case, acknowledged that the hair doesn't prove an innocent man was put to death. But he said the findings mean the evidence was insufficient under Texas law to convict Jones.

Jones, a career criminal who steadfastly denied killing the liquor store owner, was executed by injection on Dec. 7, 2000, in the closing weeks of Bush's term as governor and in middle of the turbulent recount dispute in Florida that ended with Bush elected president.

As the execution drew near, Jones was pressing the governor's office for permission to do a DNA test on the hair. But the briefing papers Bush was given by his staff didn't include the request for the testing, and Bush denied a reprieve, according to state documents obtained by the Innocence Project.

Scheck said he believes "to a moral certainty" that Bush would have granted a 30-day reprieve had he known Jones was seeking DNA testing.

"It is absolutely outrageous that no one told him that Claude Jones was asking for a DNA test," Scheck said. "If you can't rely on the governor's staff to inform him, something is really wrong with the system."

Bush had previously shown a willingness to test DNA evidence that could prove guilt or innocence in death penalty cases. Earlier in 2000, he had granted a reprieve to a death row inmate so that Scheck and other attorneys could have evidence tested. The test confirmed the man's guilt and he was executed.


The other primary evidence against Jones came from one of two alleged accomplices: Timothy Jordan, who did not enter the liquor store but was believed to have planned the robbery and provided the gun. Jordan testified that Jones told him he was the triggerman. However, under Texas law, accomplice testimony isn't enough to convict someone and must be supported by other evidence. That other evidence was the hair.

"There was not enough evidence to convict, and he shouldn't have been executed," Scheck said.

Scheck, a death-penalty opponent, said the case shows that the risk of a tragic mistake by the legal system is just too high. "Reasonable people can disagree about the moral appropriateness of the death penalty. The issue that has arisen is the risk of executing the wrong person," he said.

San Jacinto County District Attorney Bill Burnett, who prosecuted the case, died earlier this year.

"I still think he was guilty," Joe Hilzendager, the murder victim's brother, said Thursday. "I think they executed the right man."

Former San Jacinto County Sheriff Lacy Rogers also said he is convinced Jones committed the crime — "without a doubt in my mind."

In the nearly 35 years since capital punishment was reinstated in the U.S., there has never been a case in which someone was definitively proven innocent after being executed. That would be an explosive finding, since it would corroborate what opponents of the death penalty have long argued: that the legal system is flawed and that capital punishment could result in a grave and irreversible error.

Jones was condemned to die for the 1989 killing of liquor store owner Allen Hilzendager, who was shot three times outside the town of Point Blank, population 559. Authorities said his getaway driver was Danny Dixon, previously convicted of shooting a girl between the eyes and burying her in a cemetery.

During the trial, a forensic expert testified that he examined the hair under a microscope and concluded that it could have come from Jones but not from Dixon or the store owner. No DNA test was performed for the trial.

Prosecutors also hammered on Jones' brutal past. While serving a 21-year prison sentence in Kansas, he poured a flammable liquid on his cellmate and set him on fire, killing him.

Jones was executed at age 60, the last person put to death during Bush's time as governor. In his final statement, Jones did not acknowledge guilt but told the Hilzendager family he hoped his death "can bring some closure to y'all. I am sorry for your loss and hey, I love all y'all. Let's go."

More than three years after the execution, Jordan recanted his claim that Jones admitted to being the triggerman. In an affidavit, Jordan said he was scared, and "I testified to what they told me to say."

Texas is far and away the No. 1 death penalty state, having executed 464 people over the past three decades.

The Jones case is second time this year that the guilt of an executed Texas inmate was thrown into doubt. Cameron Todd Willingham was put to death in 2004 after being convicted of setting the 1991 fire that killed his three daughters. But several renowned experts said earlier this year that the investigation of the fire was so flawed that the arson finding can't be supported.

The hair in the Jones case was tested 10 years after the execution at the request of his son Duane, along with the Innocence Project, other groups and The Texas Observer magazine. Prosecutors agreed to the testing.

"At the very least, if they had tested his DNA before he was executed, he could have gotten a new trial or his sentence overturned or changed," Duane Jones said Thursday. He said his father "told me that he had robbed banks, that he was a thief. But he wasn't a person who would go out and murder someone on the street."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101112/ap_on_re_us/us_texas_execution_dna

Okay, first of all I HIGHLY doubt this supposed innocent piece of pure as the driven snow dude was convicted based on a single hair. Hell, I just got home from dinner with friends, a fierce game of UNO and looking at a new apartment. Positive I have all sorts of hairs that are not mine on my person (hugged some friends, leaned over a couple of shoulders to cheat at UNO and was jumped by cats at new apartment)
Second, I just love the way it was phrased. Get this, when you're on death row you are literally grasping at straws. You appeal on any and every single thing to at the least stay your execution. Polly Pure here wasn't doing the DNA thing because he 'just knew' it would exonerate him, he did it because he was running out of options. Odd how the media leaves out every.single.point. that proved his guilt to a jury (hair excluded). Sheesh, someone shoots you, odds are they aren't going to be close enough to shed on you.

Here's a taste

In November 1989, Jones entered Zell's liquor store in Point Blank and asked the owner, Allen Hilzendager, to retrieve a bottle for him. As Hilzendager turned to get the bottle, Jones shot him three times with a .357 Magnum revolver. Jones took $900 from the cash register and fled in a getaway vehicle waiting outside. Waiting in the car were Jones' two accomplices, Kerry Daniel Dixon Jr. and Timothy Mark Jordan.

Three days later, the trio robbed a bank in Humble, Texas, obtaining $14,000 in loot. ... About three weeks after the liquor store robbery, Jones was arrested in Florida for bank robbery.

Jones ... had eleven prior convictions in Texas for crimes including murder, armed robbery, assault, and burglary. ... In 1976, he was convicted of murder, robbery, and assault in Kansas and received a life sentence. While in Kansas prison, Jones killed another inmate. He was paroled in 1984.

Kerry Dixon also had a lengthy prior record that included murder and two prison terms.

The evidence at Jones' trial was conclusive. A number of witnesses placed Jones at the scene of the crime, including Leon Goodson, who heard the shots and watched Jones leave the liquor store. A strand of Jones' hair was found at the murder scene. Also, Timothy Jordan testified against his partners in crime.

Jones was convicted of capital murder and received the death sentence. Dixon was convicted of murder and received a 60-year prison term. Jordan received a 10-year prison term.
http://www.skepticaljuror.com/2010/06/surprising-case-of-despicable-claude.html

[Whisper]

Innocent man’s release shows dangers of death penalty

A few days ago, Anthony Graves called his mother and asked what she was cooking for dinner. She asked why he wanted to know. He said, “Because I’m coming home.”

maybe it sounds like an unremarkable exchange. But Anthony Graves had spent 18 years behind bars, 12 of them on death row, for the 1992 murder of an entire family, including four young children, in the Texas town of Somerville. It wasn’t until that day, Oct. 27, that the district attorney’s office finally accepted what he’d been saying for almost two decades: He is innocent.
So the news that Graves would be home for dinner was the very antithesis of unremarkable. His mother, he told a news conference the next day, couldn’t believe it. “I couldn’t believe I was saying it.”

Graves’ release came after his story appeared in Texas Monthly magazine (www.texasmonthly.com). The article detailed how he was convicted even though no physical evidence tied him to the crime, even though he had no motive to kill six strangers, even though three witnesses testified he was home at the time of the slaughter.
The case against Graves rested entirely upon jail house denizens who claimed they’d heard him confess and upon one Robert Carter, who admitted committing the crime, but initially blamed Graves.

Carter, executed in 2000, recanted that claim repeatedly, most notably to District Attorney Charles Sebesta the day before Sebesta put him on the stand to testify against Graves. Defense attorneys say Sebesta never shared that exculpatory tidbit with them, even though he was required to do so.
Colloff’s story drew outraged media attention, including from yours truly. But the attention that mattered was that of the current DA, Bill Parham, who undertook his own investigation. He was unequivocal in explaining his decision to drop the charges. “There’s not a single thing that says Anthony Graves was involved in this case,” he said. “There is nothing.”

One hopes people who love the death penalty are taking note. So often, their arguments in favor of that barbarous frontier relic seem to take place in some alternate universe where cops never fabricate evidence and judges never make mistakes, where lawyers are never inept and witnesses never commit perjury.
I would not have convicted Anthony Graves of a traffic violation on the sort of evidence Sebesta offered. Yet somehow, a jury in Texas convicted him of murder and sent him off to die. When you pin them on it, people who love the death penalty often retreat into sophistic nonsense.
[..]

Those who propose to tinker with the death penalty until it is foolproof remind me of the addict attempting to negotiate with his addiction, desperately proffering minor concessions that will allow him to continue indulging in this thing that is killing him. But there comes a day when you simply have to kick the habit.

As a nation, we are stubbornly addicted to the death penalty, strung out on exacting retribution and calling it justice. Even though we know innocent men and women have surely died as a result.

Or, like Anthony Graves, been robbed of irreplaceable years. He was 26 when he was arrested. He is 45 now. When he made that call home to his mother, he borrowed his lawyer’s cell phone.
The lawyer had to show him how to use it.http://theoaklandpress.com/articles/2010/11/12/opinion/doc4cde084f22d6b316910078.txt?viewmode=2

[Pete Bondurant]

Innocent man’s release shows dangers of death penalty



He may be innocent of that particular crime, but he is not altogether innocent. I say, put him back in on general principles.

[Whisper]

Man freed from death row after 18 years
Anthony Graves: 'It was hell'

PFLUGERVILLE, Texas (KXAN) - Dressed in a white sweater vest and black slacks, Anthony Graves , 45, received a $3,000 check from the president of the Texas Moratorium Networ k at a family member's home in Pflugerville this afternoon to help him get assimilated back into society.
Graves spent the last 18 years, almost half of his life, sitting on death row for six murders he did not commit.

"Whatever you think hell is to you, that's what it is," said Graves of his time on death row. "That was my experience. It's just hell."
In 1992, a grandmother, her daughter and four grandchildren were killed. Their Somerville, Texas, home was set on fire to cover up the crime.
Robert Earl Carter, the father of one of the children killed, was convicted of capital murder and given the death penalty.
Carter told authorities he did not act alone and implicated Graves as his accomplice. He later testified against Graves at trial.

Graves went to prison - he was 26 years old. All the while, he maintained his innocence.
Prior to his execution in 2000, Carter recanted and said Graves had nothing to do with the murders.
An appeals court overturned Graves' conviction in 2006, when they found prosecutors obtained false information from witnesses at trial.
[...]
Citing a lack of evidence, it took until last month for prosecutors to decide not to retry Graves.
He was freed from prison.
Now, Graves says he is not bitter and wants to use his experience to fix what he calls a 'broken' criminal justice system.

"I just want to go out and make a difference. I want to be a part of a solution," Graves explained.
Anthony is looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with his family - then tackling a world that he says has changed so much since he has been gone.

"I am having a hard time with technology just a cell phone. A cell phone just does so much now," Graves said.
Graves also hope to return to school and obtain a degree in communications.

He will put the $3,000 he received today towards clothing, medical care and other basic necessities. Graves, however, is now be eligible to get more than a million dollars from the state because of his wrongful imprisonment.
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/crime/man-freed-from-death-row-after-18-years
http://i55.tinypic.com/25rntq1.jpg
Anthony Graves, 45, spent half of his life behind bars for six murders he didn't commit.

[VXIII]

I know some dont like others to comment on older threads but Ill take a chance here, why should this be a fight every step of the way? Shouldnt the Prosecutors want to know if they are convicting the wrong person? Remember when computers first came out and they trained lots of our mothers to be solderers and chip makers? Shouldnt they do this with DNA, train people to test it? Maybe its too new yet and cant be done but eventually this will become a right to every person on trial with evidence, I just feel sorry for the ones who are innocent where there is no evidence... not all crimes leave evidence... but its still better than it used to be, at least they dont hang your ass before you even get to a trial now and at least even 30 - 40 years later after petitioning the courts for 15- 20 years to test some DNA they let you out to live a few little years before you die... sad fucking shit for the ones who didnt do it...

[walkingeagle]

Great post to bring back to the front VXIII . There was talk in the last day or so about taking someones wedding tackle that falls in this same category. There is too much power, too little discretion on how that power is used, and no real way to hold them responsible even when they knowingly do this shit!

I have to give Texas a little credit at least for being on the ball with these exonerations, but Rick Perry gets absolutely no credit in my mind! Fuck that POS and his posthumous and post conviction reliefs. The system is totally FUCKED UP and full of political hacks!

[walkingeagle]

There is a TV judge, who's intro to her show says that she never lost a case as a DA. Can you name that hack in 3 notes or less?

[VXIII]

Who? Sorry title to hold... means she didnt give a fuck and just wanted convictions...

[walkingeagle]

I'm thinking it's Pirro, but I havent seen any of that courTV stuff in so long it may be wrong!

[walkingeagle]

Who? Sorry title to hold... means she didnt give a fuck and just wanted convictions... That could come across in 3 ways. She may have avoided any iffy cases or she only took on the for sure types or she railroaded people behind those bars. I'd bet on the last one myself!

[Aena]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101112/ap_on_re_us/us_texas_execution_dna

Okay, first of all I HIGHLY doubt this supposed innocent piece of pure as the driven snow dude was convicted based on a single hair. Hell, I just got home from dinner with friends, a fierce game of UNO and looking at a new apartment. Positive I have all sorts of hairs that are not mine on my person (hugged some friends, leaned over a couple of shoulders to cheat at UNO and was jumped by cats at new apartment)
Second, I just love the way it was phrased. Get this, when you're on death row you are literally grasping at straws. You appeal on any and every single thing to at the least stay your execution. Polly Pure here wasn't doing the DNA thing because he 'just knew' it would exonerate him, he did it because he was running out of options. Odd how the media leaves out every.single.point. that proved his guilt to a jury (hair excluded). Sheesh, someone shoots you, odds are they aren't going to be close enough to shed on you.

Here's a taste

http://www.skepticaljuror.com/2010/06/surprising-case-of-despicable-claude.html

This is the problem with it, not that they may have executed an innocent man per se even, but under their own state law without that hair they didn't even have enough to convict him. That's how much evidence they didn't have against him.

Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, a New York legal center that uses DNA to exonerate inmates and worked on Jones' case, acknowledged that the hair doesn't prove an innocent man was put to death. But he said the findings mean the evidence was insufficient under Texas law to convict Jones.

[Rockin Ma]

I know some dont like others to comment on older threads but Ill take a chance here, why should this be a fight every step of the way? Shouldnt the Prosecutors want to know if they are convicting the wrong person? Remember when computers first came out and they trained lots of our mothers to be solderers and chip makers? Shouldnt they do this with DNA, train people to test it? Maybe its too new yet and cant be done but eventually this will become a right to every person on trial with evidence, I just feel sorry for the ones who are innocent where there is no evidence... not all crimes leave evidence... but its still better than it used to be, at least they dont hang your ass before you even get to a trial now and at least even 30 - 40 years later after petitioning the courts for 15- 20 years to test some DNA they let you out to live a few little years before you die... sad fucking shit for the ones who didnt do it...

I think because if it was easy to say someone was wrongfully convicted and re-do every case when that people start yelling innocent! innocent!, that would be undermining our whole criminal justice system. There's a huge back up of current cases as it is, what if everyone was given the opportunity for a do-over for the last 100 years on top of it?

[Hellsbells]

Larry Ruffin exonerated by DNA


The late Larry Ruffin has become the second person in the U.S. to be formally exonerated posthumously, thanks to DNA testing.

"It's wonderful," said Ruffin's daughter, Nikki Ruffin Smith, who was less than a year old when her father was arrested in the case. "It can't bring him back, but justice is served. So is the truth."
On Friday, Circuit Judge Robert Helfrich filed an order throwing out Ruffin's capital murder conviction for the 1979 the rape and murder of Eva Gail Patterson of Eatonville.

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011102220335

[carolinablue]

that would be undermining our whole criminal justice system

No, sending innocent people to prison or executing them undermines our justice system. The Innocence Project only handles cases where DNA evidence is available; I don't think there's any chance of a mass call for investigations. The cases they have handled are those in which DNA exists, but the science for testing it had not yet been developed.

[walkingeagle]

Our criminal system has been undermined by the very people that staff it! The old saying was "it's better that 10 guilty go free than to convict 1 innocent person". That is not what we have now! Nifong is but one example of what is wrong with it. The cash for kids is another. That whole immunity is a problem!

[VXIII]

Whaat happened with Nifong? I tried looking it up but found facebook people named Nifong...

[walkingeagle]

Whaat happened with Nifong? I tried looking it up but found facebook people named Nifong... He was put in jail for 1 night and IIRC, disbarred. Not that it will stop him from protesting it. The POS should face the sentence that he was willing to give those boys. And have ALL of his assets seized, sold and divided amongst those families that were tainted by his actions! I DESPISE this FUCKING scumbag for pushing that when he knew for a fact that these kids were innocent! And I'm not willing to spare the judge on that case either!

[Whisper]

DNA Evidence Clears Dallas Man After 27 Years

DALLAS, Texas — He said he didn’t commit the crime, and DNA proof set him free.
Johnny Pinchback was released from prison after 27 years. He’s the 22nd person cleared by DNA in Dallas County.
With a roar of applause from friends and family, Johnny Pinchback is a free man. But his story starts 27 years ago, on Illinois Street in Oak Cliff.

Two girls were adbucted and raped. Because the girls picked Pinchback out of a photo line-up, he was put away for 99 years.
But Pinchback won’t complete that sentence. Thanks to DNA evidence, he was cleared of the crime, and with the simple words from the judge he can start to get his life back to normal.

“Mr. Pinchback, you’re free to go,” said Judge Don Adams.
“I’m feeling love. I feel good,” said Pinchback.
In 2007, the Innocence Project of Texas received a letter from Pinchback claiming he didn’t do the crime.

“He went on our waiting list, just like every other individual that applies to our organization,” said Natalie Roetzel, Chief Staff Attorney.
here were over 1,000 people on that waiting list ahead of him, and two years later, the project launched a formal investigation.

“We finally got to it, we realized it was perfect for DNA testing,” said Roetzel.

There was little evidence in the case and there was a possibility the DNA testing wouldn’t even clear his name. But Pinchback never gave up, especially when he witnessed other prisoners being released for crimes they didn’t commit.
[...]
The original suspect was never found and Pinchback has no hard feelings for the victims who put him in prison for 27 years.

“I don’t have any hatred, animosity, anything in my heart toward them,” said Pinchback.
Pinchback will now do some celebrating, including a big steak dinner with his mother and wife.

His case will be used in the future to further DNA testing processes and also get the awareness out regarding mistaken eyewitness identification.http://www.the33tv.com/news/kdaf-dna-evidence-clears-dallas-man-after-27-years-20110512,0,4954131.story?
Video at link

[walkingeagle]

Maybe I'm just not seeing this elsewhere, but why does texas seem to be the leader in clearing these cases in this way?

[Whisper]

actually I try and follow as many of these as I can and I seem to see all through the south its really picking up
I just wish there was more money for the program to speed it up then maybe there wouldnt be any innocent put to death Like Todd Cameron and Anthony Graves and many more

[walkingeagle]

In most of these cases, I think eveyone who put that innocent person in jail should have to serve the sentence that they were served originally! Sieze all of their stuff to pay that person back!

[SweetOne03]

I just came across this... http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=93777916962&v=info

http://caseblog.wronglyaccusedperson.org.uk/justice4jordan/ his second website

A 16 yr old boy accused of murder that he didnt commit


A life sentence is a harsh punishment for someone who didn’t commit the crime, yet despite the evidence in court and the judge deeming that “it was clear that you Jordan did not take part in the killing”, a guilty verdict on a murder charge was returned.

This group is in no way meant to see either Curtis or Hawks released, or to raise their profile. But it is intended to raise awareness to the biggest miscarriage of justice in Sunderland in recent years, which saw, albeit a foolish 16 year old Jordan in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people.

Although mischievous, this boy is not a murderer, and despite an unsuccessful appeal all who love him remains confident this charge will be over turned. Jordan will have served 4 years in prison on the 22nd of this month for a crime he did not commit, he will have 9 years left before he can sit in front of the parole board.

[Aeon]

If someone is not guilty of the crime, they are not guilty of the crime.
Errors in justice are not corrected by being pig headed and bureaucratic about it.

There are times when appeals make no sense, and pleas of innocence are ridiculous. If you have mulitple human heads in your freezer, "not guilty" isn't applicable to you.

[Whisper]

These cases are why I am skeptical about the DP unless theres 1 million percent positive they did it
This guys lucky this wasnt a capital case,he'd be dead

Michael Morton Freed After DNA Clears Him In Wife's Slaying 25 Years Ago
GEORGETOWN, Texas — A Texas grocery store employee who spent nearly 25 years in prison in his wife's beating death walked free Tuesday after DNA tests showed another man was responsible. His attorneys say prosecutors and investigators kept evidence from the defense that would have helped acquit him at trial.

Michael Morton, 57, was convicted on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to life in prison for the August 1986 killing of his wife, Christine. Morton said he left her and the couple's 3-year-old son to head to work early the morning of the slaying, and maintained through the years that an intruder must have killed her.

Prosecutors had claimed Morton killed his wife in a fit of rage after she wouldn't have sex with him following a dinner celebrating his 32nd birthday.

Wearing a simple button-down shirt and a nervous smile, Morton hugged each of his half-dozen defense attorneys, then hugged his parents after District Judge Sid Harle said he was a free man.

"You do have my sympathies," Harle said. "You have my apologies. . . . We do not have a perfect system of justice, but we have the best system of justice in the world."

Addressing reporters moments later, Morton struggled to hold back tears.

"I thank God this wasn't a capital case. That I only had life because it gave these saints here at the Innocence Projects time to do this," he said.

Texas has executed more prisoners than any other state. The New York-based Innocence Project, which helped Morton secure his release, specializes in using DNA testing to overturn wrongful convictions.

This summer, using techniques that weren't available during Morton's 1987 trial, authorities detected Christine Morton's DNA on a bloody bandana discovered near the Morton home soon after her death, along with that of a convicted felon whose name has not been released.

"Colors seem real bright to me now. Women are real good looking," Morton said with a smile. He then headed to a celebratory dinner with his family and lawyers.

The case in Williamson County, north of Austin, will likely raise more questions about the district attorney, John Bradley, a Gov. Rick Perry appointee whose tenure on the Texas Forensic Science Commission was controversial. Bradley criticized the commission's investigation of the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 after being convicted of arson in the deaths of his three children. Some experts have since concluded the forensic science in the case was faulty.

Bradley did not try the original case against Morton. But the Innocence Project has accused him of suppressing evidence that would have helped clear Morton sooner. That evidence — including a transcript of a police interview indicating that Morton's son said the attacker was not his father and that his wife's credit card and personal checks were used after she was killed — was ultimately obtained through a Texas Public Information Act request.

Bradley agreed Morton should be freed after the other man's DNA was tied to a similar slaying in January 1988 — after Morton was already in prison.

Harle signed an agreement Monday recommending that Morton's conviction be overturned. It was passed on to the state Court of Criminal Appeals, which will make the final ruling that could make Morton eligible for state compensation of $80,000 per year he was wrongfully imprisoned — about $2 million total.

Morton is not allowed to leave Texas until the Court of Criminal Appeals rules. Innocence Project co-founder Barry Sheck said that process usually takes at least a month but could take two or three.

Asked if he ever thought he would be released, Morton said, "I prayed for it, and I had faith it would arise."

[...]
Morton's defense attorney, John Raley, said his client was told a few years ago that if he showed remorse for the crime, he likely would have been paroled.

"I don't know what I would respond after the system had let me down the way it had and I'd been in prison 23, 24 years," Raley said. "But this man told them, 'All I have left is my actual innocence. And if I have to spend the rest of my life in prison I'm not giving that up.'"

Morton's release could become an issue for Perry, who is vying for the Republican presidential nomination. Perry appointed Bradley to the forensic commission in 2009, but the Texas Senate refused to confirm him after he told reporters Willingham was a "guilty monster."
A report indicating that the science in the Willingham case might have been flawed was submitted to Perry's office as part of the appeals Willingham's lawyers filed before his execution.http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/texan-freed-after-dna-1194146.html
http://i55.tinypic.com/r9lbad.jpg
Michael Morton, right, reacts after leaving the Williamson County courthouse in Taylor, Texas with John W. Raley, Jr. on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011. Morton was freed from a life sentence after recent DNA tests linked Christine Morton's murder to a felon identified only as John Doe in court records because he is not in custody.

http://i54.tinypic.com/se6ao9.jpg

Michael Morton, center embraces his parents, Bill and Pat Morton, after Michael gained his freedom at the Williamson County Justice Center in Georgetown, Texas, on Tuesday Oct. 4, 2011. Morton spent 25 years on prison after being wrongly convicted of murdering his wife.

[Whisper]

Exonerated Inmates Fight Lawyer’s Lobbying Fees
The Lubbock lawyer teamed up with Innocent Project lawyer Jeff Blackburn to see the state compensation for exonerees raised. Now both men are under fire from their clients.


http://i44.tinypic.com/2cr5yld.jpg
Kevin Glasheen is being sued for his billing in wrongful conviction cases. http://i40.tinypic.com/5uh79c.jpg
Kevin Glasheen has billed Steven C. Phillips, above, for more than $1 million of his payments in a wrongful conviction case.

DALLAS — If you are a wrongly convicted inmate in Texas and are exonerated, you stand to receive a very rewarding apology from the state. Steven C. Phillips, 53, who was proved innocent of rape by DNA tests in 2008 after serving nearly 25 years, got a $2 million lump-sum payment, with substantial annual payments to come.
But then came a legal bill: $1,024,166.67.
The tab did not come from the lawyer who helped free him. Instead, it came from the lawyer he hired afterward to sue the City of Dallas and the state for his wrongful imprisonment, with an agreed contingency fee of 25 percent of any award.
But no suit was filed on Mr. Phillips’s behalf. Instead, the lawyer, Kevin Glasheen, lobbied the Legislature to pass a bill that in 2009 increased the payout to exonerated prisoners. What had been a simple payment of $50,000 for every year served became $80,000 for every year behind bars; the bill also called for paying freed inmates an additional $80,000 a year. Those who had been exonerated still had the option of suing, but the richer terms for settling outright significantly shifted the balance of the decision.
It was on that basis, as a successful lobbyist, that Mr. Glasheen claimed a share of Mr. Phillips’s compensation for himself and another lawyer.
Mr. Phillips was astonished.
“I was trembling,” he said. He called his mother and said, “I’m not fixing to give those dudes a million bucks.” So he sued Mr. Glasheen.
So did Patrick Waller, another exonerated inmate billed by Mr. Glasheen who had served nearly 16 years after a false conviction for aggravated robbery and kidnapping. And now so has the state bar association, which asserts that the fees are “prohibited by law” and “unconscionable.”
The disputes have bitterly divided the community of lawyers and advocates who struggle to help the falsely accused, and they have brought an uncomfortable spotlight to the practices of some within the Innocence Project of Texas, whose co-founder and chief counsel, Jeff Blackburn, is in line to collect $413,000 of the Glasheen fee for referring the Phillips civil case to him.
To Mr. Glasheen, the cases are “a simple fee dispute” and not unusual. “When the money came in, they didn’t want to pay us,” he said.
Mr. Glasheen predicted that the lawsuits from his former clients would be dismissed, and that the bar’s petition to the court would evaporate. “Meanwhile,” he said, “I’ve got drug behind the pickup truck.”
Mr. Phillips’s lawyer in the suit against Mr. Glasheen, Randy Turner, called Mr. Glasheen’s actions “obscene.” The Innocence Project “does great work,” he said, but argued that Mr. Glasheen — who in turn sued Mr. Turner for pursuing the case — “wants a million dollars for being a lobbyist when he wasn’t hired to be a lobbyist.”
n fact, the word “lobbying” does not appear in the contracts, and perhaps with good reason. Much of the legal world operates on contingency fees, allowing people with no money to get to court. The lawyer takes on the financial risk and, if successful, reaps a healthy chunk of the reward. But in Texas it is a felony to lobby the Legislature on a contingent-fee basis, because it can skew the incentives underlying public policy.
Mr. Glasheen did not even file the one-page state compensation forms for Mr. Phillips and Mr. Waller, who filled them out themselves. The state bar suit notes that the form can be completed by “a lay person with no legal skill.”
Mr. Turner also disputed Mr. Glasheen’s accounting of the money owed to him, which includes a portion of a lifetime’s worth of annual $80,000 payments. Under the 2009 law, those payments end when the former inmate dies, or if he is convicted of another felony
Glasheen is attempting to charge Steven 25 percent of the amount that Steven Phillips might, someday, recover if all goes well and he lives to a ripe old age,” he said. The exoneration bill that Mr. Glasheen helped to pass expressly prohibits “assignment” or “encumbrance” of anticipated annuity money.
Charles Silver, a professor at the University of Texas law school, said that whenever a contract is vague, “the fact of the matter is the law tends to favor the clients.” He said he doubted that any court would allow a contingency fee for lobbying, despite Mr. Glasheen’s contention that he operated under a narrow judicial exception to the law. “The Legislature has declared it against public policy,” Professor Silver said.
Mr. Glasheen said all of his clients understood that the contracts covered fees for the lobbying effort — especially Mr. Phillips, whom he called “a sociopath” conditioned by the prison system to lie to survive. In a letter to fellow lawyers, Mr. Glasheen said his firm “spent thousands of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars advancing this group of wrongful conviction cases.”
n an affidavit he filed in the case, Mr. Glasheen stated, “The contingency nature of the fee as well as the amount is reasonable and not unconscionable.”
In an interview, Mr. Glasheen noted that he had a dozen exonerated clients who had paid $5 million in fees, and that he pursued the lobbying effort as an alternative to litigation, and one that greatly benefited his clients. He said that he could have opted for the bar complaint to be heard quietly by a local panel, but demanded a public hearing because it would allow him to put on evidence. He contends that the bar is essentially passing on the complaints of Mr. Phillips and Mr. Waller without “any meaningful review.”
Maureen Ray of the State Bar of Texas disagreed with Mr. Glasheen’s characterization of its procedures. “A degree of investigation does go on,” she said.
Mr. Blackburn, the Innocence Project lawyer, defended his decision to bring Mr. Glasheen into exoneree cases as a way to get the biggest state payment for the clients. Disparaging the concerns of “do-gooder civil rights lawyers,” he said, “when you’re trying to get the most money, you’ve got to find the guy who’s best at doing that.” Getting paid is the reward of success, he argued. “If you can’t afford to practice this kind of law, nothing is going to happen.”
State Representative Rafael Anchia, who sponsored the Texas measure that increased the payments to exonerated prisoners, introduced a new bill in the Legislature’s current session that would expressly prohibit the kind of contract that Mr. Glasheen is defending and allow only a simple hourly fee for helping to file the forms. “I’m closing the door on that,” Mr. Anchia said.
[...]http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/10exonerate.html

Kevin Glasheen Fought to See Innocent Prisoners Compensated, Then Fought To Take Millions For Himself
Aug 11 2011

http://i40.tinypic.com/2lbz9ch.jpg

Steven Phillips is suing his attorney, Kevin Glasheen, over legal fees.


Steven Phillips was about to boil over. This, the attorneys in the room must have known, wasn't good for anyone.
At 51, Phillips had a delicate drawl, but the rest of him was all rangy wildcat sinew. He was a bit of a genetic oddity. He didn't lift weights, yet his neck was thick, tapered upward from a large pair of muscles that sat like small hillocks on his shoulders. He was a native Texan, born in Abilene, but he'd grown up in the Arkansas Ozarks and had, until just recently, handled himself just fine for 25 years in a couple of Texas prisons, including the Coffield Unit, populated by violent felons.
[...]

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2011-08-11/news/kevin-glasheen-fought-to-see-innocent-prisnors-compensated-mdash-then-fought-to-take-millions-for-himself/

http://i42.tinypic.com/vh6mh0.jpg
Jeff Blackburn, the Innocence Project of Texas' chief legal counsel, has come under fire for fees he took from exonerated prisoners.
http://i40.tinypic.com/zmee82.jpg
Exonerated prisoners like Steven Phillips have been paid millions by the state. But no one's made more than their lawyers.



And now his ex wife wants some of the money
Exoneree's Ex-Wife Takes Him to Court For a Piece of the Millions He Got From the State
Dec. 12 2011

Steven Phillips spent 25 years in prison as an innocent man for a string of rapes he didn't commit. He was exonerated in 2008 based on DNA evidence. He has always said life is much more complicated outside prison walls. Better, sure, but complicated. Add around $4 million dollars in tax-free compensation from the state for his wrongful imprisonment, and he wound up a free man with a fresh start -- and a couple of heretofore unknown and completely novel legal troubles.

Seems like no sooner had he he settled with his former attorney after a prolonged and acrimonious fight over legal bills than he was due back in court again. This week, ex-wife Traci Tucker will ask a jury for a portion of Phillips's millions. It's what legal experts call a "case of first impression." There is exactly zero case law regarding what, if anything, a former spouse is owed if an innocent man gets convicted and the state compensates him handsomely for his troubles. The two were married for 10 years, almost all of it during his imprisonment. Phillips says he didn't see much of his wife after the first three years on the inside. They divorced in 1991. "She's been with a guy for 20, 25 years," Phillips tells Unfair Park. "They're married and have a child now. She didn't do that time. She didn't visit me down in prison or take care of me."

Tucker, on the other hand, said in an affidavit that Phillips became "bitter," confessed "bizarre and disgusting things" about his troubled sexual history as a Peeping Tom and serial genital exposer, and finally pushed her away completely. It was Phillips, she says, who asked for the divorce.

The couple has a child together -- a son, born the year after Phillips went to jail. Tucker has since been compensated under the Tim Cole Act for the unpaid child support.

An email from a spokesperson for Houston attorney Jerry Patchen, who is representing Tucker, says Phillips's compensation amounts, in part, to lost wages, which Tucker would have been entitled to under a divorce settlement as "community property."

Phillips's attorney, Tom McKenzie, says there is no language in the Tim Cole Act indicating that the compensation is for lost wages -- it's more like "winning the lottery 20 years after a divorce." Besides, he points out, Phillips was a roofer before he went to prison and the compensation provides $160,000 a year for each year of wrongful imprisonment, split into a lump sum and an annuity.

"The overall issue," McKenzie says, "is when people come into money, everybody comes out of the walls."
[,,,]http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2011/12/exonerees_ex-wife_takes_him_to.php

[Whisper]

FORT WORTH (AP) — Hundreds gathered to unveil a historical marker at the grave of a man who died in prison but was later cleared by DNA testing of the crime that sent him there. U.S. Army veteran and Texas Tech University student Tim Cole was convicted of the 1985 rape of a fellow student. He always maintained his innocence, even though admitting to the crime could have earned him parole. In 1999, at 39, Cole died in prison of asthma complications.[...]http://www.ktbb.com/?SPSID=106680&DB_OEM_ID=27300

[Apostle of Chaos]

Exonerated Inmates Fight Lawyer’s Lobbying Fees
The Lubbock lawyer teamed up with Innocent Project lawyer Jeff Blackburn to see the state compensation for exonerees raised. Now both men are under fire from their clients.


http://i44.tinypic.com/2cr5yld.jpg
Kevin Glasheen is being sued for his billing in wrongful conviction cases. http://i40.tinypic.com/5uh79c.jpg
Kevin Glasheen has billed Steven C. Phillips, above, for more than $1 million of his payments in a wrongful conviction case.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/10/us/10exonerate.html

Kevin Glasheen Fought to See Innocent Prisoners Compensated, Then Fought To Take Millions For Himself
Aug 11 2011

http://i40.tinypic.com/2lbz9ch.jpg

Steven Phillips is suing his attorney, Kevin Glasheen, over legal fees.


http://www.dallasobserver.com/2011-08-11/news/kevin-glasheen-fought-to-see-innocent-prisnors-compensated-mdash-then-fought-to-take-millions-for-himself/

http://i42.tinypic.com/vh6mh0.jpg
Jeff Blackburn, the Innocence Project of Texas' chief legal counsel, has come under fire for fees he took from exonerated prisoners.
http://i40.tinypic.com/zmee82.jpg
Exonerated prisoners like Steven Phillips have been paid millions by the state. But no one's made more than their lawyers.



And now his ex wife wants some of the money
Exoneree's Ex-Wife Takes Him to Court For a Piece of the Millions He Got From the State
Dec. 12 2011
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2011/12/exonerees_ex-wife_takes_him_to.php

What a bunch of greedy bitches. Specially the wife. :mad2:

[Whisper]

http://i40.tinypic.com/huj62p.jpg

Larry Smith hugs his mother, Sherry Miller, outside the Marshall County Sheriff's Office on Friday.


A Marshall County man was released from jail Friday after serving more than 17 years in prison. He was even on Alabama’s death row for capital murder.

Larry Randell Smith hugged his mother, Sherry Miller, as soon as he walked out of the Marshall County Sheriff’s Office. Other friends waited to greet him.

Smith was convicted in August 1996 of the September 1994 robbery and shooting death of his friend, Dennis Harris.

He appealed, and his conviction and death sentence was upheld by the Alabama Supreme Court in 1999.

Smith continued to appeal, and in 2010, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously ruled that he had an ineffective attorney defending him.

On Friday, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit armed robbery in the first degree.

District Attorney Steve Marshall said prosecutors are comfortable with the resolution because the victim’s mother, Diane Maier, believes it is appropriate.

“The mother of the victim, who sat through the original trial as well as the [capital punishment hearing], firmly believed that Larry Smith did not pull the trigger and kill her son,” Marshall said.

“She believed he was involved, but also believes that Larry Smith can help that family determine who else was involved in the murder of her son. She felt it was very important that that be part of what happened.”

Maier is in poor health and was not present for this court appearance, but affirmed her support for Smith during a phone call with prosecutors Friday morning.

The district attorney said the plea agreement was also due to a lack of evidence.

“This is a murder case that’s almost 20 years old,” said Marshall. “For us to be able to go back and retry it was next to impossible.”

“I think any time you have delay in the prosecution of cases, it is to the disadvantage of the prosecution,” Marshall added. “It was a significant disadvantage in this case to have the facts presented to us almost 20 years later to have to deal with it.”

Prosecutors said some witnesses do not recall the circumstances of of their trial testimony before, and there are witnesses who have changed their testimony from what they initially told law enforcement.

Marshall said the investigation into the murder of Dennis Harris will continue, and as part of the plea agreement, Larry Smith will be interviewed further by investigators.

“One of the things that was important to [Harris' mother] is that Mr. Smith be released to be able to cooperate with law enforcement,” Marshall said.

“Mr. Smith’s lawyers have had an investigator working on this case for several years. They have information that otherwise law enforcement did not have available to them previously that they have been willing to provide and are obligated to provide.”

Larry Smith said he is ready to move forward with life after serving 17 years and 5 months in prison, much of it on death row.

“I’m just glad it’s over and I’m ready to go home,” he said.

Smith’s mother said she is ready to fix her son a home-cooked meal for the first time in nearly two decades.

“I’m on top of the world, I thank God for this, for his freedom,” Smith’s mother said.

“It’s been miserable. I can’t say the words of what I’ve been through. It’s been so depressing.

“I knew all these years my son was innocent. Something he did not do.”

Miller said her relationship with the victim’s mother has helped her through it.


“We’ve been good friends through all these years, she’s been wonderful support,” Miller said about Diane Maier.

“She knows that my son was innocent. She never had no doubts. From day one she knew he was innocent.”
[...]http://whnt.com/2012/04/06/marshall-county-man-to-go-free-was-once-on-death-row/?hpt=ju_bn4

http://i44.tinypic.com/iyo0g7.jpg
Larry Smith leaves the Marshall County Courthouse in handcuffs for the last time, as he prepares for his discharge
http://i41.tinypic.com/24oayrd.jpg
Larry Smith walks out of the Marshall County Jail

[CbabyRKO]

I absolutely adore Craig Watkins the Dallas DA who basically spent his first term in office clearing wrongfully convicted prisoners. He caught a lot of flack at first becoz no one wants to believe that an innocent man could be found guilty of a crime he didn't commit, but it happens.

[Whisper]

Conn. Abolishes Death Penalty

CNN) -- Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy has signed a bill into law that abolishes the death penalty, making his state the 17th in the nation to abandon capital punishment.
The law is effective immediately, though prospective in nature, meaning that it would not apply to those already sentenced to death. It replaces the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of release [...]http://www.wtae.com/news/30955037/detail.html#ixzz1t52uB2eo