June 23: A Day of Action for Criminal Justice Reform
Mark your calendar and get ready to speak up for criminal justice reform next Wednesday, June 23.

The Innocence Project will be asking supporters to call Senate leaders on Wednesday, urging them to support the creation of a national criminal justice reform commission.

A bill pending in the U.S. Senate would form a National Criminal Justice Commission to review and evaluate the country’s sprawling criminal justice system and make recommendations for reform. The bill is sponsored by Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, with more than three dozen co-sponsors from both parties.

The 254 DNA exonerations to date have revealed troubling flaws in our criminal justice system, and the proposed blue-ribbon panel could consider the causes of wrongful convictions and recommend federal measures to address them. And the issues seen in wrongful conviction cases extend throughout the system. From forensic oversight to indigent defense, the commission’s work could lead to reforms that improve public safety and confront the causes of injustice.

Phone numbers and more will be posted here on the morning of June 23 – but sign up for Innocence Project email updates here to get the action alert in your inbox on Wednesday morning.

Let your friends know about next week’s day of action by posting on Facebook and Twitter today.

And read more about the proposed commission below:

Open Congress: S. 714 National Criminal Justice Act

Sen. Jim Webb: National Criminal Justice Commission Act

Tags: injustice, law, Miscarriage of Justice

Friday Roundup: Defending Their Innocence
It took an Illinois man two decades to prove through DNA tests that he was wrongfully convicted of raping his neighbor, and authorities now say DNA has linked another man to the 1987 crime.

A New Orleans state judge ruled against releasing George Toca, who has been in prison for nearly three decades for a shooting murder he says he did not commit. Innocence Project New Orleans, which represents Toca, says he was convicted based on misidentifications by two witnesses, who described the shooter as taller and heavier than Toca. The group will continue to appeal the decision.

Lawyers and students at the Wisconsin Innocence Project have discovered new evidence of innocence in the case of a man who has been in prison for 20 years for a murder he says he didn’t commit. A judge heard evidence this week in his motion for a new trial.
“After Innocence,” the award-winning documentary film about life after exoneration, inspired author Cammie McGovern to write a new novel titled, “Neighborhood Watch” about a librarian who has been exonerated from prison through post-conviction DNA evidence 12 years after the conviction.

A Houston Chronicle investigation found that the city’s police department misidentified a suspect in 1996 based on faulty fingerprint analysis. The Houston City Council is deciding whether to renew its contract with a private firm that operates the city’s fingerprint lab.

Prosecutors in New York’s Erie County are reviewing 42 sexual assault investigations or prosecutions that involved the testimony of a discredited forensic nurse whose findings have been questioned by national experts.

Get more forensic news from the last week on the Just Science Coalition website.

Tags: Barrister, legal aid, legal

Georgia Man Freed After 2008 Conviction Is Overturned

Yesterday, Michael Marshall was freed in Georgia after spending more than two years behind bars for a crime DNA proves he didn’t commit.

He is the 247th person exonerated through DNA testing in the United States, and his case is a troubling example of the failure of many jurisdictions across the country to address the causes of wrongful conviction. Marshall was convicted based in part in part on an unreliable eyewitness identification procedure, and although DNA testing could have been conducted before his conviction, it was not.

Marshall was homeless in 2007 when a police officer decided he resembled a composite sketch of a perpetrator in a truck theft case. He was identified by a man who saw the perpetrator steal the truck and would eventually plead guilty, receiving a four-year sentence.

Yesterday, Michael Marshall was freed in Georgia after spending more than two years behind bars for a crime DNA proves he didn’t commit.

He is the 247th person exonerated through DNA testing in the United States, and his case is a troubling example of the failure of many jurisdictions across the country to address the causes of wrongful conviction. Marshall was convicted based in part in part on an unreliable eyewitness identification procedure, and although DNA testing could have been conducted before his conviction, it was not.

Marshall was homeless in 2007 when a police officer decided he resembled a composite sketch of a perpetrator in a truck theft case. He was identified by a man who saw the perpetrator steal the truck and would eventually plead guilty, receiving a four-year sentence.

Moments after the crime happened, police officers pursued a man driving the stolen truck. The perpetrator escaped capture, but officers noted that he dropped a T-shirt, cell phone and cell phone case during his flight. These items were collected, and testing obtained this year by the Georgia Innocence Project found the DNA profile of another man on all three items, proving that Marshall was not the perpetrator. A check of the national DNA database found a match to another man, whose name has not been revealed.

Lawyers at the Georgia Innocence Project point to two troubling aspects of Marshall’s conviction. First, the identification procedure was deeply flawed. Marshall was identified in a highly suggestive “show-up” procedure ten days after the crime, in which a victim who witnessed the crime was brought to the location of Marshall’s arrest.

The second issue is the lack of DNA testing before Marshall’s conviction. Although DNA testing was available and widely used in 2007, there is no record that the shirt, phone or phone case were subjected to DNA testing before Marshall’s conviction.

Watch video of Marshall’s release here. (Fox 5 Atlanta)

Read more about Marshall’s case on the Georgia Innocence Project website.

Above, Marshall enjoys his first moments of freedom with Georgia Innocence Project intern Christina Rupp.

Tags: Barrister, pro bono, legal aid

Supreme Court Reviews Miranda Warnings
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday in a case challenging the wording of the Miranda rights that law enforcement officers read to suspects before questioning. Miranda rights, established in a 1966 Supreme Court decision, alert suspects to their rights before and during an interrogation, including the right to remain silent and to speak with an attorney. At issue in Monday’s case was the wording about the right to have an attorney present throughout an interrogation.

These details are critical to preventing wrongful convictions, because 25% of the wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing involved false confessions, many of which were made by suspects who were interrogated by police without a lawyer present.

Monday’s case, Florida v. Powell, involved a Tampa, Florida, case where the defendant, Kevin DeWayne Powell, signed a statement that included the language: “You have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of our questions. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed for you without cost and before any questioning. You have the right to use any of these rights at any time you want during this interview.''

Powell’s attorneys challenged the Tampa version of the rights, saying they didn’t meet the Miranda standard, which includes a clause informing suspects that an attorney can be with them during questioning, as opposed to before. The Florida Supreme Court agreed, tossing his conviction because the rights were too vague. According to SCOTUSblog, some of the U.S. Supreme Court Justices suggested at oral arguments that narrowing the required rights could be dangerous, while Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the court had established a standard set of rights that did not include a warning about the continued presence of a lawyer.

Read the full analysis at SCOTUSblog.

Read more coverage of oral arguments in the Miami Herald.

Learn more about the role of false confessions in wrongful convictions.

Tags: Miscarriage of Justice, injustice, legal

DNA Backlogs Build Across the U.S.

DNA testing has been suspended for over a month in New Mexico’s State Police crime lab after the state’s forensic accreditation lapsed at the end of October, and a backlog is building up. Officials reported recently that the lab is 124 cases behind and that at least two cases will have passed court deadlines before accreditation can be renewed, which could happen as soon as this week.

“This could be a blow to every district attorney's office across New Mexico, as well as law enforcement,” Lemuel Martinez, a district attorney in New Mexico, told the Albuquerque Journal. “To not have that service readily available will really be terrible for the entire criminal justice system. I just hope no cases fall through the cracks.”

We’ve reported in recent weeks that backups in labs across the country have left critical evidence, including rape kits, untested nationwide in thousands of cases.

And budget shortfalls mean that some departments rule out testing in entire categories of crimes. Although DNA testing has been used increasingly in burglary cases in recent years, Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt told the Houston Chronicle on Friday that he can’t get funding to expand the use of DNA tests in burglary investigations. Burglaries are up 4.4 percent in Houston this year, with 21,212 break-ins through September.

It would cost $8 million to upgrade the current HPD crime lab to process DNA evidence from non-violent offenses in addition to violent crimes, Hurtt estimated….

“I'm so frustrated with this whole process,” Hurtt said Friday. “We find a problem, we find a solution, and … everybody says, ‘This is important. We have to do it.' However, it doesn't seem to be a priority. And we're not going to be able to do this for free.”

Even when testing is eventually conducted, lab backlogs can delay arrests for violent crimes and delay the slow investigations that eventually clear innocent suspects.

A Massachusetts man recently spent five months in jail before DNA tests proved he didn’t commit the crime he had been charged with — and he was freed. Another man was recently charged with a 2003 sexual assault based on evidence collected in 2005, but not tested until this year.

Despite this, Massachusetts officials announced last week that are not focused on eliminating the state’s backlog of 16,000 cases.

Tags: Miscarriage of Justice, legal aid, law

A Canadian Mother Is Cleared in Her Son’s Death
In 1999, facing devastating testimony from a man considered at the time to be one of the world’s leading pediatric pathologists and a possible life sentence, Sherry Sherret-Robinson pled guilty to suffocating her four-month-old son, something she had always said she didn’t do.

Yesterday, she was cleared. A panel of three Ontario judges set aside her conviction, saying she had been wrongfully convicted. The work of Dr. Charles Smith, the pathologist who testified that Sherret-Robinson’s son had been asphyxiated, has been discredited in recent years. Sherret-Robinson is the second person cleared of a conviction based on faulty testimony from Smith, and nearly 30 additional cases are under review.

The wrongful conviction has taken a toll on her life, reports the Toronto Star. She served a year in prison before being released, and also lost custody of her eldest son. She has struggled to find work due to her criminal record and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Read the full story – and more on the other pending Smith cases. (Toronto Star, 12/08/09)

Unvalidated or improper forensics, including faulty testimony from medical examiners, has been a factor in at least half of the wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing to date. Learn more about forensics as a cause of wrongful conviction here.

Tags: , Layla D’monte, Innocence Project

DNA Evidence Points to Florida Man’s Innocence

James Bain was 19 years old when he was convicted of kidnapping and raping a young boy in Florida and sentenced to life in prison. Now, 35 years later, his attorneys say new DNA tests prove he is innocent of the crime.

The Innocence Project of Florida, working with local public defenders, requested DNA tests in July and received the results yesterday. They show that biological evidence from the perpetrator did not come from Bain. The results were sent to the State’s Attorney’s office today, and Bain’s attorneys are requesting that his conviction be overturned immediately, “before he spends his 36th Christmas locked up for a crime he didn't have anything to do with.”

An assistant state’s attorney told the St. Petersburg Times that his office is reviewing the DNA results and considering what steps to take next. Bain was denied DNA tests in 2001, 2003 and 2006 before they were finally granted this year.

The victim identified Bains in a photo lineup before trial. The St. Petersburg Times has more background:

Police said the child described the rapist this way: “Bushy sideburns … 17 or 18 … he said his name was Jim.”

The boy's uncle, who was at the house, said the description pointed to Jimmy Bain.

Jimmy Bain, 18, who had been a student at the high school where the uncle was assistant principal. Jimmy Bain who had bushy sideburns and rode around town on a motorcycle. Jimmy Bain, whom the boy said he had seen before, though it was hard to describe him because he wore a helmet.

Police went to Bain's home and took his picture. They mixed it in with color Polaroids of four other young men. The boy picked Bain.

Later, in a deposition, the boy described how he identified his attacker to a police officer.

“He asked me can I pick out Jimmie Bains,” the boy said. “And I picked him out.”

Read the full story here. (St. Petersburg Times, 12/09/09)

Visit the Innocence Project of Florida website.

Tags: Innocence Project, injustice,