Texas officials to review possible wrongful execution

Mississippi medical examiner fired

Freeing the innocent and identifying true perpetrators

Why I Give: A Donor Profile

News from the innocence movement around the United States




Evidence supposedly lost in death row case

Thousands of Innocence Project supporters have sent emails this month to Alabama Gov. Bob Riley urging him to order DNA testing in the case of Tommy Arthur, who has spent a quarter-century on death row for a murder he says he didn’t commit. Arthur came within hours of execution for the third time before the state Supreme Court granted him a stay on July 30.

Shortly after the stay was issued, state officials claimed that the key biological evidence they had been refusing to test is actually lost. This announcement raised further questions about executing Arthur without complete testing, and about the state’s lack of an evidence preservation law. The Innocence Project is pressing Alabama officials to conduct a thorough search for the evidence and grant DNA testing that could help prove Arthur’s innocence.

Read more.

Steven Phillips cleared after 25 years

A Texas judge ruled this month that Steven Phillips should be cleared of 11 sexual assault convictions after DNA testing and extensive investigation by the Innocence Project and the Dallas District Attorney’s Office showed that another man committed the crimes. The case now moves to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which can order Phillips’ official exoneration.

Watch a video of Phillips’ day in court here.

Improvements to exoneree compensation

Gov. Mike Easley this month signed a bill greatly improving exoneree compensation in the state and providing services such as education and job training to the wrongfully convicted upon their release. The bill provides $50,000 per year of wrongful incarceration, bringing the state in line with the federal standard.

North Carolina is one of 25 states in the U.S. with exoneree compensation laws. What's your state's law? Find out here.

Innocence Project client gets DNA tests

Steven Barnes, who was convicted in 1989 of killing his 16-year-old classmate in upstate New York, could finally get DNA testing to prove his innocence or guilt. Barnes has always maintained his innocence and for years has sought DNA testing on semen recovered from the crime scene. Several tests in the 1990s were inconclusive, but the Innocence Project recently worked with prosecutors to secure further testing of evidence using more sensitive and modern methods. Tests are ongoing.

Read more here.

Robert McClendon freed

After 18 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit, Robert McClendon was freed from an Ohio prison earlier this month after DNA testing proved his innocence. McClendon’s case is the first with completed test results from a joint project between the Ohio Innocence Project and the Columbus Dispatch, in which 30 inmates were granted DNA testing that could prove their guilt or innocence. Yesterday, a judge dismissed the charges against McClendon, officially exonerating him.

Watch video of McClendon’s first day of freedom here.

Texas officials to review possible wrongful execution   

Above: Cameron Todd Willingham with his daughter Amber.

Texas is set to become the first state in U.S. history to officially investigate a possible wrongful execution.

At the request of the Innocence Project, the Texas Forensic Science Commission decided this month that it would launch an investigation into the possible wrongful execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was convicted and executed for allegedly setting a fire that killed his three small children. A panel of leading arson experts later found that the fire was not arson and that forensic experts at the time of Willingham’s trial should have known that the fire was an accident, not arson.

The panel will investigate faulty forensic analysis used in the convictions of Willingham and another man, Ernest Ray Willis. The two men were sentenced to death for arson murder based on similar “scientific” evidence, but their cases took very different paths. Willingham was executed in 2004. Willis was freed later the same year after a state judge heard evidence of his innocence tossed his conviction. He wasn’t retried. An independent panel of the country’s leading arson experts issued a report on the two cases in 2006 stating that neither of the two deadly fires was arson. The panel found that “each and every one" of the forensic interpretations that state experts made in both men’s trials was invalid.

Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck said the state commission’s decision to fully investigate the case is a “huge development” that could impact other cases. "These two cases in Texas are just the tip of the iceberg," Scheck said. "Across Texas and around the country, people are convicted of arson based on junk science that has been completely discredited for years."

The Texas Forensic Science Commission, one of just a few of its kind nationwide, was created in 2005 to investigate specific cases of forensic misconduct or negligence, as well as systemic forensics problems in the state. The nine-member group was funded for the first time in 2007 and is comprised of leading attorneys and forensic experts. The Innocence Project supports the creation of state groups to improve oversight and standardization of forensic testing.

Read more about the Willis and Willingham cases here.

Fired Mississippi medical examiner scrambles to finish 600 pending reports

Mississippi officials severed all ties this month with Dr. Steven Hayne, whose autopsy misconduct has contributed to at least two wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing. Public Safety Commissioner Steve Simpson gave Hayne 90 days to turn over autopsy reports in hundreds of outstanding cases, and Hayne’s attorney admitted last week that the discredited pathologist is still holding 600 pending reports. Hayne initially claimed that the staggering backlog was the result of toxicology testing at the state crime lab, but lab officials said last week that fewer than one-sixth of those cases are awaiting lab analysis; Hayne has not explained why the other 500 autopsy reports are not complete. Hayne has claimed in the past to conduct as many as 1,800 autopsies a year, more than six times the annual limit recommended by mainstream professional organizations.

Hayne’s shoddy work came under public scrutiny earlier this year when the Innocence Project revealed that his  misconduct and improper testimony led to the wrongful convictions of clients Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks, who spent a combined 30 years in prison (Brewer, pictured above, was on death row) for child murders they didn’t commit.

The Innocence Project and the Mississippi Innocence Project have challenged Hayne’s work for months, calling on the state to fill the long-vacant State Medical Examiner position and also filing a formal allegation with the Mississippi State Board of Medical Licensure to revoke Hayne’s license to practice medicine. The Innocence Project is currently reviewing hundreds of cases in which Hayne testified.

Read last week’s news on the investigation into Hayne’s misconduct and listen to the press conference announcing that the state is finally severing ties with Hayne.

Freeing the innocent and identifying true perpetrators

Over the last two decades, DNA testing has evolved into the criminal justice system’s “truth machine" — an invaluable tool to prove innocence or guilt in thousands of criminal investigations, trials and appeals. When the Innocence Project files for DNA testing on behalf of a client seeking to prove his or her innocence, there is always the possibility that the testing will not only prove the client’s innocence, but also help identify the real perpetrator of the crime. DNA testing has exonerated 220 people, and in nearly 40% of those cases the actual perpetrator of the crime was subsequently identified.

Just last week, prosecutors in Michigan announced that a DNA match had helped them identify the real perpetrator of a 1994 rape for which Kenneth Wyniemko (above, left) was wrongfully convicted and served more than eight years in prison. Also last week, in Ohio, a convicted felon pled guilty to committing the murder and assault for which Clarence Elkins (above, right) spent more than six years behind bars.

The Innocence Project works closely with several victims’ rights organizations, which support our work because victims are not served if an innocent person sits in prison and the real perpetrator continues to commit crimes. The exonerated have also spoken up after DNA tests identify the true perpetrator in their case. Thomas McGowan (above, center) wrote on the Innocence Blog earlier this month that he’s glad the real perpetrator had been identified in his case.

“DNA is the truth. In my case, we also have a man that confessed that he did the crime. You can’t get the truth any better than that,” McGowan wrote. Read McGowan’s full blog post here.

Why I Give: Jeff Rose
Internet Marketing Specialist
Tampa, Florida

I first heard about the Innocence Project last year when I was reading about an exoneration and linked back to the website, where I learned about more than 200 people freed by DNA testing and the policy reforms supported by the Innocence Project. I was particularly interested to learn that 17 innocent people who served time on death row have been exonerated by DNA testing. The fact that these innocent people were nearly executed in our country is unconscionable and unacceptable.

I live in Florida, and I have seen how willing people are to overlook the criminal justice system’s mistakes. “Tough on crime” has come to mean convictions at any cost instead of convicting the guilty and protecting the innocent. The media sensationalizes crime and turns prison into a reality show, and people don’t think of the plight of an innocent person who actually goes through this system. People assume that when they see a conviction, justice is being served. Suspects are viewed as guilty and they are forgotten.

The Innocence Project represents these forgotten defendants and brings a level of reliability to the system. It’s fantastic that a non-profit has managed to free innocent Americans from prison and prevent wrongful executions, but there should be standards in our criminal justice system so we don’t have to rely on outside groups to correct our mistakes. If a prisoner is requesting DNA testing and their case has merit, they should absolutely be granted state-funded tests. It costs the state less to pay for testing now than to incarcerate an innocent person for the rest of their life. This should be standard practice in all cases where DNA testing can prove innocence or guilt. Once an innocent person is released, I believe we should support them as they reenter society. For this reason, the Innocence Project Exoneree Fund fills a vital need as well.

I became a monthly contributor to the Innocence Project on the day I learned that the group existed. I support a half-dozen non-profits that I care deeply about, and I give monthly so the organizations know they can rely on me. I support the Innocence Project because I want to help build a better criminal justice system.

Set up your own monthly or quarterly contribution today.