Innocence Project Bournemouth

posted by Justice on Nov 15

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

Nine Years After Exoneration, Practicing Law Across Borders

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other exoneration anniversaries this week:

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

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

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

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

Tags: , Miscarriage of Justice, law

posted by Justice on May 16

Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld testified before Congress this week on the need for federal research, support and oversight to ensure that forensics are based on solid science.

Friday Roundup: Fixing Forensics to Fight Injustice
Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld testified before Congress this week on the need for federal research, support and oversight to ensure that forensics are based on solid science. Watch a video of the committee hearing or download Neufeld’s testimony here.

Your voice can help bring about forensic reform in the U.S. – sign the new petition calling for the creation of a National Institute of Forensic Science and explore the new Just Science Coalition website.

A new story from Reason Magazine examines the role of unreliable bite mark evidence in the wrongful conviction of Ray Krone in Arizona and reports on a failed “proficiency test” by Mississippi bite mark examiner Michael West.

An op-ed in the Dallas Morning News this week gave us a glimpse into the thoughts of former prosecutor James Fry as he considers his role in the wrongful conviction of Charles Chatman. The experience of seeing Chatman freed, Fry writes, has left him with a resolve to see the system fixed before more innocent people are wrongfully convicted.

A TV news report in Pittsburgh investigated the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence by joining a Duquesne University class for an unusual experiment.

And a British production company announced this week that it is beginning work on a documentary film about the wrongful conviction and exoneration of Nick Yarris, who served 21.5 years on Pennsylvania's death row before DNA proved him innocent.

Tags: Innocence Project, Miscarriage of Justice, law

posted by Justice on May 16

Three years ago tomorrow, Doug Warney was freed from a New York prison after serving nine years for a murder he didn’t commit. Warney, who has a history of mental health issues, was convicted based in part on a false confession he allegedly made after 12 hours of questioning. About 25% of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing nationwide have involved false confessions or admissions.

Three Years of Freedom
Three years ago tomorrow, Doug Warney was freed from a New York prison after serving nine years for a murder he didn’t commit. Warney, who has a history of mental health issues, was convicted based in part on a false confession he allegedly made after 12 hours of questioning. About 25% of wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing nationwide have involved false confessions or admissions.

At the time of Warney’s exoneration in 2006, Innocence Project Co-Director Peter Neufeld said it should lead law enforcement agencies across the state to begin recording interrogations. Three years later, although many individual agencies in the state have begun to record interrogations, New York is still one of 36 states with no law requiring recordings.

“These DNA results don’t just show that Doug Warney is innocent – they reveal criminal conduct on the part of at least two Rochester police officers, and they demonstrate tunnel vision on the part of police and prosecutors who ignored compelling evidence that the confession was bogus,” said Peter Neufeld, Co-Director of the Innocence Project. “This case should be a clarion call for every law enforcement agency in the state to begin recording police interrogations for serious crimes.”

Earlier this month, the chief judge of New York’s highest court said he would create a new permanent task force to examine causes of wrongful convictions – like false confessions – and recommend reforms to prevent wrongful convictions like Warney’s.

Neufeld said this task force could be a driving force to finally bring about changes like recorded interrogations in New York, but that it is also critical that the state legislature take action.

“While this is a major step forward, it is one piece of the whole. There are major systemic weaknesses demanding immediate action, and we will continue working with the Governor, Attorney General and Legislature to advance critical reforms in this legislative session that can prevent wrongful convictions. The task force Judge Lippman is creating does not supplant other efforts – it complements them and makes them even more critical.”

Other Exoneration Anniversaries This Week:

Sunday: Neil Miller, Massachusetts (Served 9.5 Years, Exonerated 5/1/0/2000)

Monday: Curtis McCarty, Oklahoma (Served 21 Years, Exonerated 5/11/2007)

Thursday: Josiah Sutton, Texas (Served 4.5 Years, Exonerated 5/14/04)

Tags: Barrister, legal aid, Miscarriage of Justice

posted by Justice on Mar 22

It was another busy week in the innocence movement – with testimony on forensics before the Senate Judiciary Committee and Mississippi adopting DNA access and evidence preservation laws.

Friday Roundup: Seeking A Clean Slate
It was another busy week in the innocence movement – with testimony on forensics before the Senate Judiciary Committee and Mississippi adopting DNA access and evidence preservation laws. Here are some more stories on wrongful convictions and forensic evidence from around the world in the last few days:

Sean Hodgson was freed this week in England after serving 27 years in prison for a rape and murder DNA now proves he didn’t commit. He petitioned for DNA testing more than a decade ago but was told – falsely – that evidence in his case had been destroyed. Testing on that evidence finally proved his innocence this year.

Two Illinois men who were pardoned in the 1990s after serving years in prison were dealt a setback in court this week. Stanley Howard and Dana Holland were seeking to expunge their records of wrongful convictions, but the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that gubernatorial pardons based on innocence do not automatically clear criminal records. Holland was exonerated by DNA testing in 2003 after serving more than 10 years. Howard was sentenced to death based on a confession he says was coerced through torture. He was cleared based on non-DNA evidence.

The Georgia House of Representatives approved a bill today that would compensate John Jerome White with more than $700,000 for the years he spent in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. The bill still needs to be approved by the Senate and signed by the Governor before White is compensated. Georgia is one of 25 states without a statewide compensation law; but the legislature has passed bills in recent years compensating individuals.

A story on National Public Radio’s Day to Day this week explored the fallibility of eyewitness identification evidence. In a guest post on the Innocence Blog yesterday from Erin Torneo explored the story behind the new book “Picking Cotton” and the ripples of injustice still felt 11 years after a wrongful conviction.

And the Los Angeles Times considers questions raised about fingerprint evidence by the recent National Academy of Sciences report on forensics.

Tags: Miscarriage of Justice, legal aid, law