Innocence Blog

Colorado Exoneree Struggles to Make Ends Meet

Posted: March 14, 2013 12:23 pm

As Innocence Project client Robert Dewey approaches the one-year anniversary of his DNA exoneration last April, he has still not been compensated and struggles financially. Colorado, where Dewey lives, is one of 23 states that lacks a compensation statute, though the recent passage of a compensation bill though the state’s house judiciary committee has given him hope that he will eventually receive restitution. Without it, Dewey may live in poverty for the rest of his life. He is 52 years old, suffers from a back injury that was aggravated by his stay in prison, and lacks job skills or experience from 18 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit.

The New York Times featured Dewey for an article exploring what the wrongfully convicted are entitled to receive for their lost years in prison.

“We have a responsibility to make this injustice a justice,” said Representative Angela Williams, a Democrat from Denver who is championing the measure. “You lose everything. You’re starting from scratch. How do you save money? How do you invest?”

A spokesman for Colorado’s governor, John W. Hickenlooper, said he had not decided whether to support the bill. But Mr. Dewey, now jobless, is betting everything on its passage.

“I’m just seeing dollars roll down the sink,” he said. “I have no credit. I asked my bank for a loan of $250 — they wouldn’t do it. It’s hard out here.”

The Innocence Project has provided some assistance through our social work team and the Exoneree Fund, which provides immediate financial assistance for critical needs like housing, transportation and clothing.

Donate to the Exoneree Fund.

Read another recent blog about this issue.

Read more about compensation for the wrongfully convicted.

Kentucky Poised to Adopt Improved Post-Conviction DNA Access Law

Posted: March 13, 2013 3:06 pm

By unanimous vote today, the Kentucky House voted for final passage of a bill to improve the state’s post-conviction DNA testing law. The legislation, which also passed unanimously through the Senate last week, will soon make its way to Governor Steve Beshear’s desk.

Under Kentucky’s current law, only those serving time on death row have a statutory right to access post-conviction DNA testing. Of the 49 states with post-conviction DNA testing laws, only Kentucky and Alabama restrict access in this way. With the Governor’s signature, HB 41 will allow most Kentuckians convicted of violent crimes access to DNA testing if such testing can provide probative evidence of innocence.

HB 41 was sponsored by Representative Johnny Bell (D-Glasgow), who has long advocated for reform of Kentucky’s DNA testing laws. Though Representative Bell introduced similar pieces of legislation during previous sessions, the bills ultimately never progressed. This year’s efforts gained momentum with the support of Senator John Schickel (R-Union), who championed a similar post-conviction DNA testing bill (SB 23) in the Senate.

Prior to the bill’s passage, wrongfully convicted Kentuckians in non-capital cases were forced to rely on judges and prosecutors to grant access to DNA testing, meaning testing was often granted in an inconsistent manner. Although HB 41 is a major improvement over current law, the final bill was amended to exclude those who pled guilty from accessing testing. In 28 of the 303 DNA exoneration cases, an innocent defendant pled guilty.

Read the press release.

Find out about your state’s DNA access law.

Polygraph Tests Contribute to False Confessions in Chicago

Posted: March 13, 2013 1:46 pm

A recent Chicago Tribune investigation discovered that Chicago police have long been conducting polygraph exams, or “lie detector tests,” without adherence to standards, though the tests have contributed to wrongful convictions that have cost Chicago millions in damages.

Chicago Police polygraph examiners do not have their work reviewed by anyone else, and only a small percentage of the tests are recorded. Further, the examiners do not follow the nationally established protocols for conducting the tests.

Juan Rivera, Kevin Fox, Nicole Harris and Gary Gauger were all wrongfully convicted based, in part, on the false confessions they gave after officials misled them into believing that they had failed their polygraphs. Donny McGee faced a trial for murder after a member of the Chicago polygraph unit falsely testified that McGee confessed in the polygraph room, before he could even take the test. McGee was found not guilty and DNA evidence later excluded him.

Polygraphs have been implicated in multiple other cases of wrongful convictions nationwide. The Chicago Tribune reports:

But in the cases in which Chicago murder suspects went on to be cleared — some after spending years locked up — police polygraph examiners were accused of making up a confession, using “trickery” to get an admission and telling a suspect he failed a polygraph that an outside expert would later deem too poorly administered to determine its result.

In five of the six cases, suspects were taken to [polygraph examiner Robert] Bartik. Suspects said they were drawn in by the promise of the polygraph — which they believed was a scientific test that would prove their protestations of innocence were true. Instead, they allege in court documents and interviews, Bartik obtained confessions from them by berating them, threatening them and lying to them.

Read the full article.

Read another Chicago Tribune article on the same topic.

Read more about Chicago area false confession cases here and here.

Virginia Man Exonerated by DNA Evidence

Posted: March 12, 2013 4:35 pm

A Virginia man who was convicted of a 1976 abduction of a woman and her two children was exonerated Friday when his writ of actual innocence was granted by the Virginia Supreme Court after DNA testing excluded him from evidence found on the woman’s clothing.

The DNA evidence that proved Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project client Garry Diamond’s innocence was uncovered by the Virginia Department of Forensic Science’s ongoing review of old case files that contain biological evidence, reported the Associated Press.

“It’s another DNA exoneration out of Virginia, which goes to show that unfortunately there have been far more errors than people realize,” said Diamond’s lawyer, Shawn Armbrust of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project.

According to Armbrust, the state’s review of old cases has now led to eight overturned convictions. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli office supported Diamond’s petition for a writ of actual innocence.

Read the full article.

Read more about Virginia DNA exonerations.

Tags: Virginia

California Man Exonerated by DNA Evidence after 14 Years in Prison

Posted: March 12, 2013 4:10 pm

Johnny Williams with his attorney, Melissa Dague O’Connell

A California man who was convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl in 1998 was exonerated Friday after new DNA testing secured by the Northern California Innocence Project and the California DNA Project proved his innocence.

A previously undetected DNA sample on a T-shirt the girl was wearing at the time of the assault excluded Johnny Williams who was paroled in January after serving 14 years behind bars, reported the Oakland Tribune. In light of the new evidence, the District Attorney’s Office agreed to drop charges against Williams, and the Alameda County Superior Court Judge agreed to overturn the conviction. During the investigation, both the Oakland Police Department and the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office were unable to pull DNA samples from the girl’s clothing.

Williams was convicted largely based on the victim’s identification which was made at the suggestion of her mother. The victim said her attacker was named Johnny and Williams was the only Johnny she knew from the neighborhood. Following his conviction, Williams wrote a letter to the Northern California Innocence Project seeking assistance, and in 2000, the project began an investigation through its sister organization, the California DNA Project.

“This little girl, just as me, too, we are both victims of this very serious crime, and we both need the person who committed this crime to be brought and placed in prison,” Williams said. “If I could, I would help the Oakland Police Department find this person.”

Read the full article.

Read more about eyewitness misidentification.

Tags: California, Eyewitness Misidentification

Texas Exoneree Michael Morton Weds, Asks Guests to Donate to the Innocence Project

Posted: March 11, 2013 5:00 pm

Texas exoneree and Innocence Project client Michael Morton was married on Saturday in Kilgore, Texas. Morton was released from prison in October 2011 after spending nearly 25 years in prison for the murder of his wife and moved to Kilgore to be near his parents. He met his new wife, Cynthia May Chessman, one night in January 2012 at First Baptist Church Liberty City, where he had been attending with his parents since his release.

A few days later, Chessman decided she would take Morton up on an offer he made to the congregation about going for coffee to talk more about his experience behind bars.

“I’d been locked up for a good while, and even in my previous life I’d never been asked out on a date,” he said. “Coffee dates are kind of a new phenomenon. I literally kind of scratched my head when she asked. I said, ‘Well, O.K.’ ”

*****

“We have a very unusual relationship in that most people get to know each other slowly,” Mr. Morton said. “What’s your middle name, what’s your favorite color, all that kind of weird thing. And later on you talk about the dark stuff in your past. We started out the exact opposite. My life has been front-page news. Everybody knows everything about me. I don’t have any secrets. So that was our first-date sort of stuff, and then down the road a couple weeks later, it was like, what’s your middle name? It’s really kind of backward.”

A few days before the one-year anniversary of their first coffee date, Morton proposed. They were married Saturday at the same church where they met. In lieu of gifts, the couple asked invited guests to make donations to the Innocence Project.

Read the full article.

Learn more about Morton’s case.

Read about a documentary featuring Morton’s case.

Tags: Texas, Michael Morton

Compensating Colorado’s Wrongfully Convicted

Posted: March 11, 2013 4:05 pm

Legislation that would award Colorado’s wrongfully convicted $70,000 for each year of incarceration was unanimously passed by the House Judiciary Committee Thursday and now moves to the House Appropriations Committee, where it faces a vote that could bring it before the House floor.

One proponent of the compensation bill, HB 1230, is Timothy Masters, whose wrongful conviction cost him nearly a decade of his life and left him broke upon his release. Masters would not personally benefit from the bill. The Coloradoan reports:

“To me it’s a no-brainer,” Masters said. “If we as a society lock somebody up for years for something they didn’t do, we’ve got to do something for them when they get out of prison.”

Masters was convicted in 1999 of the 1987 murder of a 37-year-old woman in Fort Collins, Colorado. He was 15 when the crime was committed. He was released in 2008 with only the money he earned working for minimum wage in the saddle shop at Buena Vista Correctional Facility and no state assistance. Two years later, Masters received a $10 million settlement from the city of Fort Collins and Larimer County. However, most exonerees are not able to win a lawsuit because of the challenges of proving that their wrongful conviction resulted from intentional misconduct.

The bill, proposed by Reps. Angela Williams and Dan Pabon, both Denver Democrats, would entitle death row prisoners to an additional $50,000 for each year served, and wrongfully convicted people would be eligible for $25,000 for each year they were on parole. Those wrongfully imprisoned for at least three years would be eligible for college tuition, compensation for child support they were unable to pay while incarcerated, attorney fees and fines and other costs associated with their court cases. About half of the states have a compensation law on the books, though the awards vary greatly and are often insufficient for rebuilding a life. If HB 1230 becomes law, it would rank among the nation’s best.

Colorado Attorney General John Suthers testified in support of the bill. And although Masters was unable to attend the committee hearing, Innocence Project client Robert Dewey, who was exonerated of murder in Colorado last year after serving 17 years in prison, was on hand to give testimony about the challenges faced once released.

“Best job you can get is cleaning toilets,” he said Thursday during testimony that left lawmakers wiping tears from their eyes.

Read the full article.

See if your state has a compensation law.

Read more about Robert Dewey’s case.

Tags: Colorado

Book Review: It Happened to Audrey

Posted: March 8, 2013 5:30 pm

In honor of International Women’s Day, the Innocence Blog reviews a new book by Audrey Edmunds about her wrongful conviction, It Happened to Audrey: A Terrifying Journey from Loving Mom to Accused Baby Killer
, which was co-written by Jill Wellington.

Women, often the primary caregivers of both the young and old, are especially vulnerable to false accusations of abuse. A common pattern in women’s wrongful conviction cases begins with the accidental death of a child or family member and ends with a murder conviction.

For Audrey Edmunds, such an accusation cost her 11 years of her life in prison—for which she may never be compensated—the chance to raise her three daughters, her marriage, and her livelihood as a family care provider to young children. Her nightmare began when seven-month-old Natalie Beard inexplicably fell unconscious one morning while in her care, making Edmunds the victim of a cultural phenomenon—a rash of “shaken baby syndrome” convictions. It Happened to Audrey, which Edmunds started writing while she was still behind bars, is the first account of its kind to convey the personal struggle and loss of an “accused baby killer.”

She writes: These feelings were deep and impossible for another person to understand, yet I clung to the hope that someone would grasp how shocked and horrified I was with the entire situation—because I was innocent!

The terminology that medical experts have used to describe the force of the shaking—similar to a fall from a three-story building or the impact of a car crash—has helped to enable guilty verdicts in these cases with almost no corroborating evidence. Edmunds had dozens of supporters who testified to her loving care of children; she had no history of violence and no criminal history, yet she was convicted and sentenced to serve 18 years in prison.

Natalie, though she had no external injuries and no bone fractures, was deemed “shaken” because she had the classic triage of symptoms: subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhage and cerebral edema. Medical experts are now converging around a more holistic approach to diagnosing shaken baby syndrome that includes a closer examination of the child’s medical history and other factors.

Edmunds was finally exonerated in 2008, one of a wave of similar convictions that are being overturned due to growing doubts within the medical community about the over-diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. She is one of 72 women who have been exonerated nationwide since 1989 after years or decades of wrongful imprisonment.

Today, she lives in Wisconsin near her three daughters, is recently remarried, and has become a strong advocate for criminal justice reform. Her book, It Happened to Audrey, drives home the point that no one is safe from injustice and provides a heartbreaking glimpse into the experience of wrongful imprisonment for a woman and a mother.

For a list of other books about wrongful conviction, see our reading list.

Purchase a copy of the book.

Michael Morton Documentary Premieres at SXSW Festival

Posted: March 8, 2013 3:15 pm

On Monday, March 11th, An Unreal Dream, a documentary about the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton will have its premiere at the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, at 7 p.m. at the Topfer Theatre at Zach Scott.

Morton served 25 years in prison for the murder of his wife, Christine, before he was finally exonerated by DNA evidence in 2011. His Innocence Project lawyers discovered that the prosecution failed to turn over numerous pieces of evidence pointing to his innocence, including statements from Morton’s three-year-old son who witnessed the murder and said that his father wasn’t the attacker. After a week-long hearing earlier this year, a Texas court is deciding whether criminal charges should be filed against the prosecutor Ken Anderson for withholding the evidence.

The documentary details Morton’s nightmare of trying to grieve his wife’s death while also being accused of and ultimately wrongly convicted for her murder. The film also examines his six-year legal battle to get access to the DNA evidence that ultimately proved his innocence and pointed to the real perpetrator (who will soon face trial for the murder).

Additional screenings will be held on March 13 at 6:30 p.m. at Alamo Village and on March 16 at 4:00 p.m. at the Topfer Theatre. Tickets are available at the box offices.

Learn more about Morton’s case.

Watch a trailer for the film.

Read more about the film.

Tags: Texas, Michael Morton

Science Thursday - March 7, 2013

Posted: March 7, 2013 11:50 am

The St. Paul crime lab faces more controversy, two federal agencies release a guidebook for preservation of biological evidence, and forensic experts discuss the limitations of certain forensic techniques in the Austin-American Statesman. Here’s this week’s round up of forensic news:

Though consultants to the troubled St. Paul crime lab have recommended that civilian scientists be hired to run the lab, the St. Paul Police Federation opposes this change, arguing that it clashes with the union’s terms and conditions of employment.

In Washington, D.C., the lab director of a new, independent crime lab faced questions from his critics at his first ever annual oversight hearing.

After several years of meetings, a working group co-sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) will release “The Biological Evidence Preservation Handbook: Best Practices for Evidence Handlers.” It will be a definitive guide for how law enforcement agencies should handle and store biological evidence.

The Ohio Department of Health warned hospitals that some sexual assault evidence kits might be contaminated with DNA by those who assembled the kits. When the provider first started assembling kits, small traces of DNA from handling could not be detected, though advances in DNA technology now make this is possible.

In a recent Austin American-Statesman article, Cliff Spiegelman and William Tobin discuss how certain forensic techniques that might be useful during investigations are problematic in court. These techniques, which include firearm and tool mark analysis and facial reconstruction, involve subjectivity and do not have strong validation studies.

Tags: District of Columbia, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas, Science Thursday