Innocence Project Bournemouth

posted by Justice on Mar 16

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood opposes a House bill that would require people performing autopsies in the state to be nationally board certified . Tucker Carrington, director of the Innocence Project at the University of Mississippi School of Law, said: “If I mess up some guy’s case, there has to be some organization that can take my license.

Friday Roundup: Opposition in Mississippi and Updates on Exonerees
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood opposes a House bill that would require people performing autopsies in the state to be nationally board certified. Tucker Carrington, director of the Innocence Project at the University of Mississippi School of Law, said: “If I mess up some guy’s case, there has to be some organization that can take my license. How can a bill be any less controversial? It is just asking that people be licensed.”

Two former Duke lacrosse players who were cleared of sexual assault accusations almost three years ago have moved on with their lives. Collin Finnerty resumed college at Loyola in the fall of 2008 and played lacrosse for the past two seasons. He is being considered for the Tewaaraton Trophy, awarded to the nation’s top lacrosse player each year. Reade Seligmann also resumed college in the fall 2008, enrolling at Brown and continuing to play lacrosse. He also became involved in the Innocence Project, most recently working to organize a symposium of experts on eyewitness identification.

Joshua Kezer, who spent 16 years in prison for a murder he did not commit before being exonerated in 2009, will be featured on CBS’s “48 Hours Mystery” this Saturday, March 13, at 9 p.m. Kezer was accused of murdering a 19-year-old woman he had never met in 1994.

On Thursday, Innocence Project client Jeffrey Deskovic testified at a Connecticut Judiciary Committee hearing against a bill that would limit appeals for people sentenced to death. Since his exoneration in 2006, Deskovic has advocated against the death penalty, noting that if he hadn’t been a minor when he was wrongfully convicted he might have been sentenced to death.

Tags: legal aid, Barrister, Layla D’monte

posted by Justice on Mar 16

In an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News, Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck joined others in calling on Texas Gov. Rick Perry to order a stay in Skinner’s case so that DNA testing can proceed

Texas Man Set to Be Executed Despite Untested DNA
In an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News, Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck joined others in calling on Texas Gov. Rick Perry to order a stay in Skinner’s case so that DNA testing can proceed. Skinner’s attorneys made a similar request in a letter to Perry last week.

Scheck was joined in the op-ed by Cory Session, whose brother Timothy Cole was exonerated posthumously in Texas last year, and Rodney Ellis, a Texas state senator and the chairman of the Innocence Project Board of Directors. They wrote:

In Tim Cole’s case, solid science came too late. Perry was right to pardon him, but he would do well to learn from this case and make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

One such person might be Hank Skinner, who is set to be executed March 24. Skinner has requested DNA testing for 10 years, and there is no good reason for state officials to continue blocking these efforts.

We don’t know whether Hank Skinner is guilty or innocent. But we know the governor has the power to step in and delay the execution so DNA testing can be done to resolve this case once and for all – before Skinner is executed.

Read the full op-ed here.

Last week, former Texas prosecutor Sam Millsap wrote in the Houston Chronicle that Texas should conduct testing in Skinner’s case in order to avoid the possible “horror of executing an innocent man.”

Calls for testing in Skinner’s case come after months of worldwide attention to the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas in 2004 despite evidence of his innocence. Since Willingham’s execution, several independent scientific studies have determined that the forensic analysis used to convict him was wrong. A 16,000-word story in the New Yorker magazine last year went on to discredit all of the evidence used against Willingham, including the forensic analysis, the informant’s testimony, other witness testimony and additional circumstantial evidence.

Learn more about Hank Skinner’s case.

Learn more about Willingham’s case.

Seventeen people have been proven innocent and exonerated by DNA testing in the United States after serving time on death row. Learn about their cases here.

Tags: pro bono, injustice, Barrister

posted by Justice on Feb 26

Eight years ago this week, Arvin McGee was exonerated through DNA testing after spending more than 12 years in Oklahoma prisons for a crime he didn’t commit.

Eight Years of Freedom
Eight years ago this week, Arvin McGee was exonerated through DNA testing after spending more than 12 years in Oklahoma prisons for a crime he didn’t commit. After his release, he would fight the city of Tulsa in court for years before settling a civil suit. One city councilman would later write that his case was “flubbed from beginning to end” at an enormous cost to McGee and to taxpayers.

McGee was charged with the 1987 rape despite inconsistencies in the evidence against him. The victim’s description of the perpetrator differed significantly from McGee’s appearance, and she picked a different man in the first photographic lineup. At a second lineup almost four months after the crime, she took almost 15 minutes to identify McGee.

Significantly, McGee was suffering from an injury that rendered him physically unable to commit the crime. The victim had been carried over the perpetrator’s shoulder, but McGee was awaiting surgery for a hernia operation, and it was extremely unlikely that he would have been able to carry the victim. Eyewitness misidentification is the single most common cause of wrongful convictions.

Despite these issues, McGee was charged with the crime, based mainly on the second identification. He would be tried three times before he was ultimately convicted of rape, kidnapping and forcible sodomy and sentenced to over 200 years in prison. The first trial ended in a mistrial, and the second in a hung jury.

McGee spent almost 13 years in prison before the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System took his case and arranged for DNA testing on the remaining biological evidence. These tests excluded McGee. A second round of testing ordered by Tulsa County prosecutors on the rape kit recovered from the victim produced the same results, which implicated another Oklahoma prisoner. The other man was charged with the crime, but his case was dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired.

Due to the conclusive evidence of McGee’s innocence, Tulsa prosecutors joined with his attorneys in seeking his release. McGee, who was 27 years old when he was wrongfully convicted, was 39 on the day he was freed in February 2002.

Read more about McGee’s case and the role of eyewitness misidentification in causing wrongful convictions.

Other Exoneree Anniversaries This Week:

Charles Chatman, Texas (Served 26.5 years, Exonerated: 2/26/08)

Tags: pro bono, injustice, law

posted by Justice on Feb 26

In 1985, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were sentenced to death in Illinois for the murder of a ten-year-old girl. They were convicted based mainly on admissions they allegedly gave to police. Biological evidence didn’t play a role in their trials

The Many Faces of Forensic Science
In 1985, Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez were sentenced to death in Illinois for the murder of a ten-year-old girl. They were convicted based mainly on admissions they allegedly gave to police. Biological evidence didn’t play a role in their trials. The case was far from over, however, and science would play a central role in the years ahead.

Ten years later, DNA testing helped set the two free. Cruz and Hernandez were exonerated when DNA evidence uncovered by the Medill Innocence Project and the Center on Wrongful Convictions implicated another man, since identified as Brian Dugan, in the crime.

In November of last year, Dugan was convicted of the murder and sentenced to die. A column in today’s Daily Herald examines the case’s 27-year history and considers the number of victims it has left in its wake. The case has also left a fascinating trail of forensic science, from DNA to the emerging practice of functional magnetic resonance imaging brain scans (fMRI, which examines brain activity.

In considering Dugan’s punishment, jurors heard testimony on his mental condition from psychologists and from a neuroscientist who works with fMRI. As Michael Haederle writes in Miller-McCune magazine this week, neuroscientist Kent Kiehl testified that magnetic scans of Dugan’s brain showed the impact of his mental illness and suggested that he didn’t feel emotion like others, possibly disqualifying him for the death penalty. It may have been the first time fMRI was used in a capital sentencing hearing.

Other supporters of fMRI suggest that someday the technique could be used in court as a sort of lie detector. This case and others have spawned questions about whether fMRI should be admitted in a courtroom before the practice has been vetted by an independent agency.

The history of wrongful convictions in the United States is replete with new forms of science, and further research is needed to validate existing and new forensic techniques. A groundbreaking report from the National Academy of Sciences last year found that no forensic discipline other than DNA analysis has been subjected to the kind of rigorous scientific evaluation needed to develop reliable information. Unvalidated and improper forensic testimony can have a devastating impact on a criminal case, misleading jurors and contributing to injustice.

Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld is speaking about the impact of the NAS report and the need for a federal forensic entity this week at the annual meeting of the American Association of Forensic Scientists’ in Seattle.

Learn more about forensic oversight and call on Congress to create a federal oversight agency.

Tags: legal aid, , Miscarriage of Justice

posted by Justice on Dec 28

Just weeks after a new Innocence Project report revealed devastating gaps in the support states provide to people exonerated after serving years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, New Jersey’s Star Ledger ran an editorial this weekend about the serious need for the state to improve compensation laws immediately. The Star Ledger writes: Under New Jersey's current unjust conviction law, a prisoner who is exonerated can receive up to $20,000 for each year spent in prison, or twice what the person earned in the year before imprisonment, whichever is greater.

Compensating the Exonerated in New Jersey

Just weeks after a new Innocence Project report revealed devastating gaps in the support states provide to people exonerated after serving years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, New Jersey’s Star Ledger ran an editorial this weekend about the serious need for the state to improve compensation laws immediately.

The Star Ledger writes:

Under New Jersey's current unjust conviction law, a prisoner who is exonerated can receive up to $20,000 for each year spent in prison, or twice what the person earned in the year before imprisonment, whichever is greater.

A bill proposed by Senate President Richard Codey would raise the limit to $50,000, which is the federal standard. After five years the amount would be adjusted for inflation. The bill also would allow a court to order other services, such as vocational training, counseling and assistance with tuition, housing or health insurance “as appropriate.”…

Clearly, the current law is inadequate. Offering fair compensation to an innocent person who was wrongly imprisoned is simply the right thing to do.

To date, in New Jersey, there have been five people wrongfully convicted, incarcerated and eventually released since 1995. All five men were released based on DNA evidence and all five men filed civil suits to recover additional damages. The proposed statute would apply to the pending cases.

Even though New Jersey is one of the 27 states to compensate the wrongfully convicted, it still falls short. There is still a lot of room for improvement with financial support and social services which is why it’s necessary for New Jersey to pass the proposed bill.

Read the full editorial here.

Read more about the need for compensation and existing shortcomings in legislation here.

Tags: Barrister, legal, pro bono

posted by Justice on Dec 28

Phillip Scott Cannon was released from an Oregon jail on Friday after prosecutors in his case said he had been convicted based on unreliable forensics and couldn’t be retried because evidence in his case had been destroyed. He had served 10 years behind bars. Cannon, 43, was convicted of a 1998 triple murder based in part on comparative bullet lead analysis, a forensic procedure used by the FBI for three decades before it quietly ended the practice in 2005.

Oregon Man Freed After 10 Years

Phillip Scott Cannon was released from an Oregon jail on Friday after prosecutors in his case said he had been convicted based on unreliable forensics and couldn’t be retried because evidence in his case had been destroyed. He had served 10 years behind bars.

Cannon, 43, was convicted of a 1998 triple murder based in part on comparative bullet lead analysis, a forensic procedure used by the FBI for three decades before it quietly ended the practice in 2005. A 2007 investigation by CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and the Washington Post revealed that thousands of convictions had been secured based on the unreliable tests.

Cannon has maintained his innocence throughout his ordeal, but prosecutors said they were dropping charges because evidence in the case wasn’t available for a retrial. A relative of one of the victims the Oregonian that the lost evidence meant justice wouldn’t be served for either the victims of Cannon.

“There’s no closure for our family,” said Thomas Osborne, the father of one of the victims. Suzan Renee Osborne was found shot in the head at a mobile home with Jason Roger Kinser and Celesta Joy Graves. “There’s no closure for his (family) either. It’s just a bad deal all around.”

The case demonstrates the importance of two critical reforms supported by the Innocence Project — oversight of forensic sciences to avoid reliance on unproved tests and the preservation of evidence.

Via A public defender

Tags: pro bono, legal aid, law

posted by Justice on Dec 20

A report released today by the Innocence Network delves into the cases of the 27 people exonerated this year through the work of the network’s 54 member organizations. The 27 exonerees served a total of 421 years behind bars. Yesterday, James Bain was freed from prison in Florida after serving 35 years for a crime he didn’t commit.

Friday Roundup: The Innocence Network Recaps a Successful 2009

A report released today by the Innocence Network delves into the cases of the 27 people exonerated this year through the work of the network’s 54 member organizations. The 27 exonerees served a total of 421 years behind bars.

Yesterday, James Bain was freed from prison in Florida after serving 35 years for a crime he didn’t commit. He served more time in prison than any other DNA exoneree in American history, and his case was featured on CBS Evening News last night.

University of Central Florida researchers set four one-bedroom apartments on fire yesterday as they tested methods of detecting arson. The forensic science behind arson investigations has come under fire recently amid controversy over the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas.

A trial is set to begin in March in Connecticut in the case of Duane Foster, the man accused of committing the sexual assault for which James Tillman served more than 16 years in prison. Tillman was freed in 2006 after DNA testing proved his innocence and implicated Foster.

The Houston Chronicle ran an editorial on the recent report revealing fingerprint errors in the Houston Police Department crime lab, writing that “Houston still needs to move forensic investigations out of its police department.”

A new article in the Marquette Law Review examines the legal system’s blindness to eyewitness identification problems. While some police in Kansas City said they would study new lineup procedures but local departments are reluctant to change. “At this juncture I’d be somewhat reluctant to make a bunch of sweeping changes just because it’s the vogue thing to do on the East Coast,” Liberty Police Lt. Mark Balzer told the Kansas City Star.

Four Maryland crime labs will receive $1.2 million in federal stimulus funds to clear DNA testing backlogs.

An editorial in the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana called for sweeping changes to prevent wrongful convictions in the state.

Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of the day Clyde Charles was exonerated in Louisiana after serving 17 years in prison. Sadly, Charles passed away on January 7 of this year at age 55. This week also marks the exoneration anniversaries of Kerry Kotler, McKinley Cromedy, Phillip Leon Thurman, Clarence Elkins, Frank Lee Smith, Antron McCray, Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam and Raymond Santana.

Tags: law, legal aid, injustice

posted by Justice on Oct 26

The innocent continue to walk out of prisons across the country, and Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins thinks today's exoneration of two men might be the “biggest yet” for his office. Claude Simmons Jr

Two Men Freed in Dallas, Another Seeks Justice in New York

The innocent continue to walk out of prisons across the country, and Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins thinks today's exoneration of two men might be the “biggest yet” for his office.

Claude Simmons Jr. and Christopher Scott were freed today in Dallas after spending 12 years in prison for a murder that evidence now shows they didn't commit.

Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins, whose county has seen more DNA exonerations than any other in the country, said today's non-DNA exonerations may inspire other prosecutors' offices and police departments around the country to reopen questionable old convictions for investigation. “I expect this case will get a lot of attention, and I expect you'll see other police departments get involved in cases like this. We're going to lead the way in how to dispense justice,” he told the Dallas Observer.

Meanwhile, a New York man has been granted a new trial in a 1977 murder that evidence shows he didn't commit. Dewey Bozella has been in prison for more than 25 years, and said he was overjoyed at the news of his new trial. “It was like a miracle had happened,” he said. Bozella is represented by pro-bono attorneys at the firm WilmerHale. The Innocence Project represented Bozella until it was clear that evidence did not exist for DNA testing, at which point the organization reached out to WilmerHale to take on the case. Over the last two years, WilmerHale attorneys have uncovered substantial evidence that Bozella is innocent and that another man actually committed the crime.

Kenneth Ireland has been free for two months, since DNA testing proved him innocent of a 1986 Connecticut murder he didn't commit. Ireland, who was 18 when he was arrested and 39 when he was freed, spoke with Fox this week about adjusting to life outside of prison.

A man was exonerated and compensated after spending 27 years in a Chinese prison for a rape he says he didn't commit. He was retried and acquitted this year in Henan Province, and a court has now awarded him 1.02 million yuan (about $146,000) in compensation.

The Cameron Todd Willingham case continued to draw coverage and discussion this week. We posted yesterday on the letter from 400+ Texans to forensic commission chairman John Bradley. JR posted today at Daily Kos on the letter and other developments in the case. Randi Kaye covered the story this week for CNN's Anderson Cooper 360. Her latest report from Texas is set for tonight at 10 p.m. ET.

An L.A. Times editorial today said Gov. Rick Perry's decision to reconfigure the Forensic Science Commission “looks highly suspicious.” Innocence Project Online Communications Manager Matt Kelley wrote about the case — and the outlook for the Forensic Science Commission — today on the American Constitution Society blog.

We reported earlier this week on the case of prosecutors subpoenaing student information from the Medill Innocence Project. The case continues to make news, with a report yesterday in Time magazine.

And, finally, the most offbeat DNA story the week: An Australian man was charged with a robbery after blood recovered from a leech found at the crime scene matched his profile.

Tags: legal aid, Miscarriage of Justice, Innocence Project

posted by Justice on Sep 21

ABC News' “Nightline” focused on the wrongful execution of Cameron Todd Willingham last night, interviewing the original arson investigator and prosecutor, who both say they are comfortable with their role in the case despite clear new evidence that Willingham was innocent. Willingham was convicted of setting a fire in his own house that killed his three daughters.

Texas Prosecutor Untroubled by Willingham Evidence
ABC News' “Nightline” focused on the wrongful execution of Cameron Todd Willingham last night, interviewing the original arson investigator and prosecutor, who both say they are comfortable with their role in the case despite clear new evidence that Willingham was innocent.

Willingham was convicted of setting a fire in his own house that killed his three daughters. An exhaustive report in the September 7 issue of the New Yorker deconstructs the evidence against Willingham, proving that the fire was an accident and the other evidence used against Willingham was false.

John Jackson, who was the prosecutor in the case and is now a senior judge, tells ABC News reporter Terry Moran that the unanimous findings of arson experts in recent years that the fire was an accident have cast strong doubt on the forensics used against Willingham at trial. He admits that “without question” the scientific evidence was not valid. Asked if this new evidence gives him pause about sending a man to death, however, Jackson says “not a man like Todd.”

Jackson goes on to claim that because Willingham liked the band Iron Maiden, he was likely to be a devil worshipper. He also says it's likely that the fire burned in a pentagram pattern on the floor, further showing “an obsession with Satan” that he says makes it “more likely” that Willingham intentionally set the fire – even though there is no evidence that the fire was anything more than a tragic accident

Watch the Nightline segment here.

Post the Nightline segment to Twitter or Facebook.

Read background on the Willingham case and download documents and media coverage.

Tags: law, Innocence Project, injustice

posted by Justice on Aug 25

Long-time Innocence Project client Ralph Armstrong was cleared in Wisconsin this week after almost three decades in prison. His case is one of the worst examples of prosecutorial misconduct the Innocence Project has ever seen. Here’s more on Armstrong and a roundup of some other news from the week: Several people discussed the implications of misconduct – and prosecutorial immunity – on Facebook and Twitter after the Armstrong case broke

Friday Roundup: Uncovering Misconduct

Long-time Innocence Project client Ralph Armstrong was cleared in Wisconsin this week after almost three decades in prison. His case is one of the worst examples of prosecutorial misconduct the Innocence Project has ever seen. Here’s more on Armstrong and a roundup of some other news from the week:

Several people discussed the implications of misconduct – and prosecutorial immunity – on Facebook and Twitter after the Armstrong case broke. Join the conversation on facebook and twitter.

CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360″ continues its series on forensic science tonight at 10 p.m. EST with a report on Dr. Steven Hayne in Mississippi, who has been accused of reaching conclusions that go beyond science to fit what prosecutors need to secure convictions (this story was pushed back by breaking news last night). Read the AC360 blog here.

Reason Magazine reported on the release of Bernard Baran in Massachusetts and asked why the prosecutor in the case has never been investigated or disciplined for his role in the case.

We reported here on the U.S. Supreme Court’s groundbreaking decision in the case of Troy Davis, and Innocence Project Staff Attorney Ezekiel Edwards spoke about the case with DemocracyNow!

The Guardian focused on eyewitness misidentification and the case of William Mills.

Connecticut Innocence Project client Kenneth Ireland was fully cleared this week – he told the Associated Press being freed is like “waking from a coma.”

Two Chicago men freed last month were officially cleared Wednesday when they received certificates of innocence, which entitle them to collect compensation under the state law (about $192,000 after serving 21 years in prison).

Virginia lawmakers voted to compensate Arthur Lee Whitefield and Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland said he supports a bill that would expand prisoner access to DNA testing that can prove innocence.

Tags: injustice, pro bono, Layla D’monte