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posted by Justice on Aug 23

The Ohio Parole Board announced yesterday that it has voted 8-0 against recommending clemency for death row prisoner Kevin Keith, who is scheduled to be executed September 15 for a triple murder he says he didn’t commit. The parole board’s recommendation is non-binding – Gov

Governor Is Last Hope for Ohio Death Row Prisoner
The Ohio Parole Board announced yesterday that it has voted 8-0 against recommending clemency for death row prisoner Kevin Keith, who is scheduled to be executed September 15 for a triple murder he says he didn’t commit.

The parole board’s recommendation is non-binding – Gov. Ted Strickland has the final decision on whether Keith will be executed. Strickland has said he finds the facts of Keith’s case “troubling.”

The Innocence Network has joined with several key experts and officials along with other legal groups and thousands of Americans in calling on Gov. Strickland to commute Keith’s execution based on strong evidence of Keith’s innocence. Keith was convicted based in large part on questionable eyewitness identifications — the leading factor of wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing.

In a letter to Strickland and the parole board earlier this month, Innocence Network President Keith Findley wrote: “We believe the newly discovered evidence, which was withheld by the state at the time of (Keith’s) trial, provides compelling evidence of his innocence.”

Join Keith’s supporters in urging Strickland to grant clemency based on the substantial doubts about his guilt.

For a roundup of press coverage of the parole board decision, visit Stand Down Texas.

Tags: Barrister, Layla D’monte,

posted by Justice on Aug 23

Recent blood tests have confirmed that a Louisiana man serving life behind bars for a 1988 rape and armed robbery is actually innocent. Innocence Project client Booker Diggins, who was convicted of the crimes, has been behind bars for 22 years for a crime he didn’t commit. Diggins was convicted based on the eyewitness testimony of the victim, who picked him out of a photo line-up as the man who raped her.

Louisiana Man Proves His Innocence But Remains Behind Bars
Recent blood tests have confirmed that a Louisiana man serving life behind bars for a 1988 rape and armed robbery is actually innocent. Innocence Project client Booker Diggins, who was convicted of the crimes, has been behind bars for 22 years for a crime he didn’t commit.

Diggins was convicted based on the eyewitness testimony of the victim, who picked him out of a photo line-up as the man who raped her. Prosecutors knew that semen was recovered from the rape kit, but never shared this information with defense attorneys, so Diggins’ blood typed was never tested, and therefore compared to the semen from the perpetrator.

More than two decades after the conviction, Diggins managed to purchase a copy of his case file for $209, where he discovered that the biological evidence had been withheld. DNA testing can’t be conducted because the evidence has been missing since Hurricane Katrina, but the Innocence Project filed an appeal earlier this month seeking a hearing on the blood-type evidence.

“This is bulletproof scientific evidence that he is not the guy,” said attorney Barry Scheck. “He wasn’t the rapist and they could have known that in 1988.”

Read more in today’s Times-Picayune article.

Download the Innocence Project’s motion on Diggins’ behalf.

Tags: Innocence Project, legal aid, law

posted by Justice on Aug 19

A new investigative series in the Raleigh News & Observer reveals a troubling pattern of forensic error and misconduct in North Carolina’s state crime lab. The four-part series highlights biased and unscientific work at the State Bureau of Investigation, and officials have responded by calling for sweeping changes.

Report Finds Serious Flaws in NC Crime Labs
A new investigative series in the Raleigh News & Observer reveals a troubling pattern of forensic error and misconduct in North Carolina’s state crime lab. The four-part series highlights biased and unscientific work at the State Bureau of Investigation, and officials have responded by calling for sweeping changes.

According to the News & Observer, SBI agents distorted the rules to yield the desired test results of the prosecution more than a dozen times when the truth threatened to undermine their cases.

“The documented policies and practices of our state lab support the long-held concern that North Carolina’s lab is the prosecution’s lab, not the justice system’s lab,” said Christine Mumma, executive director of the N.C. Center on Actual Innocence, which works to free wrongly convicted prisoners. “Public confidence, judicial confidence and the lives of innocent citizens have been destroyed. It is past time for change.”

North Carolina is among 38 states whose crime labs are controlled by a law enforcement agency where tests aren’t administered in an independent scientific setting. A 2009 report on forensics from the National Academy of Sciences finds that law enforcement labs are often not the most scientific environments.

“The best science is conducted in a scientific setting as opposed to a law enforcement setting,” said the NAS report to Congress. “Forensic science serves more than just law enforcement; and when it does serve law enforcement, it must be equally available to law enforcement officers, prosecutors and defendants in the criminal justice system.”

The News & Observer series also found that SBI agents have concealed test results and ignored key evidence of innocence. As a result, defense attorneys in North Carolina often hire their own experts to examine evidence.

Since the series was published, Attorney General Roy Cooper removed the SBI director, hired an outside auditor and suspended all bloodstain pattern analysis work. A state legislator is calling for the creation of an independent crime lab.

“Everybody ought to understand that this is something that needs to be fixed,” said State Rep. Mickey Michaux, a Durham Democrat who heads the powerful budget committee.

To date, seven people have been exonerated in North Carolina through post-conviction DNA testing.

Read the four-part series here.

Read the Innocence Project’s recommendations for forensic oversight and independent forensic labs.

Tags: pro bono, injustice, Layla D’monte

posted by Justice on Jul 2

Fifteen years ago today, Ronald Cotton walked out of a North Carolina prison a free man for the first time in a decade. Since his release, he has turned his injustice into a teaching moment — traveling around the country telling his story and urging policymakers to enact safeguards to prevent wrongful convictions. The lives of Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson were changed forever on the night of July 20, 1984.

An Extraordinary Man and a Common Injustice
Fifteen years ago today, Ronald Cotton walked out of a North Carolina prison a free man for the first time in a decade. Since his release, he has turned his injustice into a teaching moment — traveling around the country telling his story and urging policymakers to enact safeguards to prevent wrongful convictions.

The lives of Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson were changed forever on the night of July 20, 1984. A man broke into Thompson’s home and raped her at knifepoint. During the attack, Thompson said she tried to concentrate on the man’s appearance. During the police investigation, she viewed a photo lineup including Ronald Cotton and identified him as her attacker. Based mainly on Thompson’s identification, Cotton was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Cotton served 10 years in prison before DNA testing proved that another man had committed the crime. On June 30, 1995, he was finally freed.

Cotton immediately began to rebuild his life, and his life since his exoneration has been an extraordinary one. He got two jobs, married, and had a daughter. He worked hard to move forward, but presented with the opportunity to address his past, he embraced it, meeting face to face with Thompson, the victim in his case who was committed to addressing the issues that led to Cotton’s wrongful conviction for the attack she suffered.
Today, united in their joint opposition to injustice, Cotton and Thompson are close friends, speaking together, advocating for reform and working to expose and remedy the causes of wrongful conviction. The two friends authored a book, “Picking Cotton,” a best-selling memoir about their individual experiences and the issue of eyewitness misidentification.

Since leaving prison, Ronald Cotton has led an exceptional life. The narrative of his friendship with Thompson is an exceptional story. But the facts of Cotton’s case: his age, the length of time he spent in prison, and the reason Cotton was sent to jail for a decade -eyewitness misidentification – are unfortunately all unexceptional. The average length of time served by exonerees is 13 years, and the average age of exonerees at the time of their wrongful convictions is 27 (Cotton was 22). Also, eyewitness misidentification was a factor in 75 percent of DNA exonerations.

Thompson and Cotton refuse to accept a system where wrongful convictions are too common, and they’re working to change it. Learn more about their stories by reading the first chapter of “Picking Cotton” here.

Watch a special report from CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on Cotton and Thompson.

Read Cotton’s case profile on our site.

Other Exoneree Anniversaries This Week:

Kenneth Adams, Illinois (Served 17.5 Years, Exonerated 7/2/96)

Willie Rainge, Illinois (Served 17.5 Years, Exonerated 7/2/96)

Dennis Williams, Illinois (Served 17.5 Years, Exonerated 7/2/96)

Kirk Bloodsworth, Maryland (Served 8 Years, Exonerated 6/28/93)

Tags: Miscarriage of Justice, law, Innocence Project

posted by Justice on Jun 21

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.

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

posted by Justice on Jun 21

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

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: legal aid, legal, Barrister

posted by Justice on Apr 9

Last night, the Innocence Project received the national leader for justice award from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in acknowledgement of the organization’s commitment to freeing wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. Acclaimed actress and activist Mia Farrow presented the award to Innocence Project co-founders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld at the ceremony held at the College’s Gerald W

Innocence Project Honored by John Jay College of Criminal Justice
Last night, the Innocence Project received the national leader for justice award from John Jay College of Criminal Justice in acknowledgement of the organization’s commitment to freeing wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. Acclaimed actress and activist Mia Farrow presented the award to Innocence Project co-founders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld at the ceremony held at the College’s Gerald W. Lynch Theatre.

Other honors went to Leymah Gbowee and the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. Gbowee received the global leader for justice award for her devotion to rally women to stop the civil war in Liberia. The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project received the community leader for justice award for its dedication to representing indigent people apprehended in Arizona for immigration removal proceedings.

Full details here.

Tags: Barrister, , Miscarriage of Justice

posted by Justice on Apr 9

One year ago this week, Timothy Brian Cole was officially exonerated for a 1985 Texas rape he did not commit. Cole’s exoneration, while welcomed by family and friends who had fought on his behalf, came too late for Cole himself. He died of an asthma attack in 1999 while still in prison at the age of 39.

A Posthumous Exoneration, One Year Later
One year ago this week, Timothy Brian Cole was officially exonerated for a 1985 Texas rape he did not commit. Cole’s exoneration, while welcomed by family and friends who had fought on his behalf, came too late for Cole himself. He died of an asthma attack in 1999 while still in prison at the age of 39. Cole’s story is tragic even in the annals of Texas, which leads the country with 40 wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing.

In 1985, Cole was a 26-year-old Army veteran studying business at Texas Tech in Lubbock, when another student, Michele Mallin, was raped and robbed at knife-point while parking her car across the street from her dormitory. Mallin described her attacker as a young black male who chain smoked cigarettes. Cole lived in the area, and a detective took a Polaroid of Cole and showed it to Mallin along with five other photographs. Cole’s picture stood out from the others, as it was the only color Polaroid among five black-and-white photos. Mallin identified him as the perpetrator and confirmed her identification of Cole at a live lineup the following day.
At trial, Cole’s brother and friend both testified that they played cards while Cole studied at home the night of the attack. Cole also presented evidence of his severe asthma, which prevented him from smoking cigarettes. Cole’s attorney also tried to introduce evidence of similar rapes before and after Cole’s arrest, which he could not have committed. This evidence was disallowed by the trial judge, and after six hours of jury deliberation, Cole was convicted of rape and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

In 1995, Jerry Wayne Johnson, a Texas prisoner serving a life sentence, wrote a letter to prosecutors confessing to the rape for which Cole had been convicted. This letter was ignored, and Cole passed away without ever learning of Johnson’s admission. In 2000, Johnson again wrote a letter confessing to the rape, but was still ignored. Eventually, the Innocence Project and Cole’s family learned of the confession. The Innocence Project joined with the Innocence Project of Texas as co-counsel and sought DNA testing on serological evidence from the crime scene. The results conclusively excluded Cole and implicated Johnson. Finally, at an April 7, 2009 hearing, a Texas judge officially exonerated Cole.

Fortunately, Cole’s posthumous exoneration has spurred calls for reform in Texas. In 2009, the legislature passed the Timothy Cole Act, increasing compensation paid to exonerees to $80,000 a year. The state also created the Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions to study ways to prevent similar injustice across the state. Mallin also speaks out against faulty eyewitness identification procedures. In a 2009 op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, she urged Texas to adopt the recommendations of the National Academy of Science 2009 Report.

Watch a video of Mallin telling her story at Georgetown University Law Center here.

On March 1, 2010, Governor Rick Perry granted Cole a full posthumous pardon after the unanimous recommendation of the Texas Board of Pardon and Paroles. Cole’s 73-year-old mother, Ruby Session, while ecstatic, still realizes that there is much work to be done. Because of her son’s sacrifice, she said, “we’re on the forefront of a new day in the criminal justice system.”

Other Exoneree Anniversaries This Week:

Brandon Moon, Texas (Served 17 years, Exonerated 4/6/05)

Harold Buntin, Indiana (Served 13 years, Exonerated 5/20/05, Released 4/4/07)

Terry Chalmers, New York (Served 7.5 years, Exonerated 4/5/95)

Tags: pro bono, , legal

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: Barrister, Layla D’monte, legal aid

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: Barrister, injustice, pro bono