Innocence Project Bournemouth

posted by Justice on Jul 14

A story on the front page of yesterday’s Chicago Tribune reviews two possible false confession cases in Illinois – and explores a troubling trend nationwide of prosecutions based on confessions or admissions, even when evidence contradicts the statements. Jerry Hobbs has been in jail for five years in north suburban Chicago, awaiting trial for the murder of his daughter and her friend.

"An Overdependence on Confessions"
A story on the front page of yesterday’s Chicago Tribune reviews two possible false confession cases in Illinois – and explores a troubling trend nationwide of prosecutions based on confessions or admissions, even when evidence contradicts the statements.

Jerry Hobbs has been in jail for five years in north suburban Chicago, awaiting trial for the murder of his daughter and her friend. He gave a videotaped confession after nearly 20 hours of interrogation. Now, DNA evidence has implicated another man in the crime and prosecutors have reopened the investigation.

Considering Hobbs’ case and a similar case from a town south of Chicago, the Tribune examines wrongful convictions and what Stanford Law School Professor Larry Marshall calls “an overdependence on confessions.”

“The interrogation itself is stressful enough to get innocent people to confess,” said Saul Kassin, a psychology professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “But add to that a layer of grief and shock and perhaps even some guilt – ‘I should have been there’ – and then that the parent is trying like hell to be cooperative because they want the murder of their child solved.”

About 25 percent of wrongful convictions overturned through DNA testing have involved false confessions or admissions. Rob Warden, the Executive Director of Northwestern University’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, told the Tribune that it’s often hard for juries to grasp why someone would confess to a crime they didn’t commit.

“You can’t imagine you’d ever confess to something you didn’t do,” said Warden. “But at some point people simply lose their will to resist. That’s the danger of prolonged interrogation.”

Read more about false confessions and wrongful convictions.

Tags: law, Innocence Project, injustice

posted by Justice on Jul 14

A Florida judge ruled today that an expert in the science of human memory and eyewitness identifications can offer limited testimony at the trial of a man charged with killing three people in 2007.

Experts and Identification
A Florida judge ruled today that an expert in the science of human memory and eyewitness identifications can offer limited testimony at the trial of a man charged with killing three people in 2007. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case and say they plan to rely heavily on eyewitness identification.

For now, (the judge) is allowing the testimony, but is placing limitations on what the expert, John Brigham, can discuss. Brigham can express opinion on general issues, including the length of time an eyewitness observes an event or the impact of stress on eyewitness identification, but can’t discuss how that relates to specific witnesses in this case.

He’s also precluded from addressing the number of defendants who were convicted largely through eyewitness testimony, and were later exonerated through DNA evidence.

Rules vary nationwide on whether courts will allow expert testimony on the science of eyewitness identification, but sometimes experts are admitted and only allowed to offer limited testimony. The Innocence Project strongly supports the admission of eyewitness experts, for both prosecution and defense, to provide background for judges and juries on variables that affect the reliability of identifications.

A major ruling last month from a New Jersey judge could lead to critical changes in the way that state – and others – handle eyewitness identification evidence in court, including the admission of experts.

And an editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer last week calls on Pennsylvania lawmakers to follow New Jersey’s footsteps in proactively addressing unreliable eyewitness evidence. Pennsylvania is one of a few states that prohibit all expert testimony on the science of human memory and eyewitness identification.

Tags: Miscarriage of Justice, law, Innocence Project

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: law, Innocence Project, Miscarriage of Justice

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: Layla D’monte, legal aid, 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: law, injustice, pro bono

posted by Justice on Jan 16

“The Wronged Man,” a moving new Lifetime film, tells the story of Calvin Willis’ wrongful conviction in Louisiana and the fight to free him. The movie premieres on Lifetime Movie Network Sunday night at 8 p.m

Sunday on Lifetime: "The Wronged Man"

“The Wronged Man,” a moving new Lifetime film, tells the story of Calvin Willis’ wrongful conviction in Louisiana and the fight to free him. The movie premieres on Lifetime Movie Network Sunday night at 8 p.m. ET.

Watch a trailer here and find Lifetime Movie Network in your local listings.

Calvin Willis served more than 21 years in Louisiana prisons for a child rape he didn’t commit before DNA testing obtained by the Innocence Project proved his innocence and led to his exoneration. For 15 years, a paralegal named Janet “Prissy” Gregory advocated on Willis’ behalf, filing appeals for a new trial and raising money to pay for DNA testing. Gregory is played in the film by Julia Ormond. Willis is played by Mahershalalhashbaz Ali. Pictured above is a scene from the film with Ormond (left), Tonea Stewart (playing Momma Newton, the grandmother who raised Calvin) and Ali.

Learn more about Willis’ case. Watch an Innocence Project video of Willis' reunion with long-time friend and fellow exoneree Rickie Johnson.

Airing with the film is a new Public Service Announcement featuring Julia Ormond on wrongful convictions and the work of the Innocence Project. Watch the PSA here.

Tags: legal, pro bono, Innocence Project

posted by Justice on Dec 10

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 .

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, law, legal aid

posted by Justice on Dec 7

Ten years ago this week, Timothy Cole died in a Texas prison while serving a 25-year sentence for a crime DNA now proves he didn’t commit. In an op-ed this week in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Cole’s brother Cory D. Session, Sr., writes that his brother deserves a posthumous pardon, fully clearing his name

Ten Years Later, a Texas Family Seeks a Posthumous Pardon

Ten years ago this week, Timothy Cole died in a Texas prison while serving a 25-year sentence for a crime DNA now proves he didn’t commit. In an op-ed this week in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Cole’s brother Cory D. Session, Sr., writes that his brother deserves a posthumous pardon, fully clearing his name. Session writes:

This year, (Cole) became the first person to be posthumously exonerated, thanks to state District Judge Charlie Baird.

In many of the letters Tim wrote from prison after being convicted of a rape he didn’t commit, he mentioned three things that he longed for – vindication, exoneration and a full pardon from the governor.

The quest for the pardon continues.

On July 1, 2009, Tim’s 49th birthday, Gov. Rick Perry said that he does not have the power to pardon the dead. Perry said he needed a constitutional amendment because of a several-decades-old opinion from former state Attorney General Waggoner Carr that prevents him from doing so. We await a modern opinion from the current attorney general, Greg Abbott.

Read the full op-ed here. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12/1/09)

Also marking the anniversary of his death this week, the Texas Tech University School of Law yesterday announced a scholarship in Cole’s name that will support the studies of aspiring law students. Cole was a Texas Tech student in 1985 when he was arrested for a rape he didn’t commit.

The scholarship fund was started with a $100,000 endowment, which included funds donated by Lubbock attorney Kevin Glasheen and Innocence Project of Texas Chief Counsel Jeff Blackburn.

Read more. (KCBD, 12/2/09)

Tags: Layla D’monte, Miscarriage of Justice, legal

posted by Justice on Dec 2

In 2004, Kentucky improved its evidence preservation law, requiring that law enforcement agencies save evidence from most major crimes. But an Associated Press report this weekend shows that evidence is missing in several key cases across the state and casts doubt on preservation policies in practice

Missing Evidence Presents a Problem in Kentucky

In 2004, Kentucky improved its evidence preservation law, requiring that law enforcement agencies save evidence from most major crimes. But an Associated Press report this weekend shows that evidence is missing in several key cases across the state and casts doubt on preservation policies in practice.

Defense attorneys say evidence has gone missing in Kentucky, resulting in problems for six capital cases and possibly hundreds of other prosecutions, including rapes and robberies.

All the cases predate DNA testing, which can now be used to determine guilt.

“It's really becoming an issue,” said Kentucky Innocence Project chief Ted Shouse, whose office is reviewing more than 4,000 old cases. “This is going to be a huge problem.”

… “Clearly, the number of exonerations from DNA in this country should be a wake up call to preserve evidence,” Shouse said.

The catch is making sure the law is followed by all parties – clerks, court reporters, law enforcement, said Rebecca Brown, a policy advocate for The Innocence Project, a New York-based national organization that seeks to free those wrongly convicted.

“There's sometimes a disconnect between what's on the books and actual practice,” Brown said. “A mandate doesn't necessarily make it down to all the people charged with retaining that evidence.”

Read the full story here. (Associated Press, 11/26/09)

Procedures mandating proper collection, cataloguing and storage of crime scene evidence are crucial to a fair justice system — preserving evidence doesn’t only help free the innocent, it also helps law enforcement agencies solve cold cases.

View a map of evidence preservation policies nationwide.

Learn more about the Innocence Project’s recommended policies for evidence preservation.

Tags: Miscarriage of Justice, , pro bono

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, Miscarriage of Justice, legal aid