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Connecticut legislature awards $5 million to exoneree
Posted: May 21, 2007
James Tillman served 18 years in Connecticut prisons before DNA testing proved his innocence. Last week, the state legislature approved a bill awarding him $5 million in compensation for the injustice he suffered. The bill now goes to Governor Jodi Rell, who has said she will sign it.
An editorial in today’s Hartford Courant calls on lawmakers to create a formula to compensate future exonerees in a similar way.
They should set a policy for fair compensation based on the Tillman precedent. His award was calculated roughly on what other states have done in similar situations. He was compensated for loss of liberty and enjoyment of life, loss of income, loss of future earnings because he will be starting from scratch, for physical and psychological injury and loss of familial relationships. In exchange, he agreed not to press claims against the state.And Slate.com examined compensation policies nationwide on Friday.
Let's put that formula in writing. There's only one James Calvin Tillman. But all who are wronged in this egregious manner deserve fair and equal treatment.
Read the full editorial. (Hartford Courant, 5/21/07)
Read more about Tillman’s case and about compensation policies nationwide.
Tags: Connecticut, James Tillman, Exoneree Compensation
Alan Newton’s first year of freedom
Posted: July 9, 2007 1:52 pm
When Alan Newton was exonerated a year ago after serving 22 years in prison for a rape he didn’t commit, he “hit the ground running.” An article in yesterday’s New York Post visits Newton on the one year anniversary of his freedom, and he is smiling.
The determined Newton is intent on overcoming the indignity he's had to live with for 22 years. He's enrolled in school and will graduate with a B.S. in business administration from Medgar Evers College next June. Law school, he says, is next.More coverage: Freed after 20 years, he's rebuilding his life. (New York Daily News, 07/08/07)
He works as a youth mentor, goes on dates, surfs the Internet, and has just returned from a vacation in St. Croix, in the Caribbean, where he water-skied.
"Every day is like a celebration," Newton said. "I walk around with a smile on my face."
Read the full story here. (NY Post, 07/08/07)
Other exonerees celebrating anniversaries of their exonerations this week:
James Tillman, Connecticut. (1 Year; Exonerated 7/11/06)
Lafonso Rollins, Illinois (3 Years, Exonerated 7/12/04)
Tags: Alan Newton, Lafonso Rollins, James Tillman
Connecticut exoneree visits the prison where he spent 16 years
Posted: July 27, 2007 2:02 pm
For countless hours over 16 years, James Tillman left his prison cell to study law at the Cheshire Correctional Institution library. His efforts paid off in 2006, when he was exonerated after DNA testing proved that he did not commit the rape for which he had been convicted in 1989.
Yesterday, he returned to the prison library to join a discussion with inmates of Harper Lee’s book "To Kill A Mockingbird."
After the group broke up, Tillman approached the prison librarian, Mark Sosnowski, and they hugged across the librarian's desk.Read more about James Tillman here.
"Thank you for all of my copies and getting me to the Innocence Project," Tillman said.
The project, chaired in Connecticut by two of the state's public defenders, works toward the exoneration of wrongly convicted inmates through DNA testing and advocacy.
Tillman was the first inmate at Cheshire to work with the Innocence Project. "It was like `Oh my God it works,'" Sosnowski said.
Minutes later, Tillman exited the prison and drove away.
Read the full story here.
Tags: James Tillman
Connecticut exoneree addresses Yale students
Posted: October 10, 2007 12:42 pm
James Tillman, who was exonerated by DNA testing in 2006 after serving nearly 17 years in Connecticut prison for a rape he didn’t commit, spoke at a Yale Law School panel discussion yesterday about his wrongful conviction and his life after exoneration.
From the very beginning of the trial, Tillman said he sensed the jury’s bias against him, accepting his accuser’s eyewitness testimony as fact. He said the jury included no blacks and did not represent a cross-section of society. When he later appealed his conviction on those grounds, he was denied.Read more about James Tillman’s case here.
Despite the unfairness of his trial, Tillman said he remained committed to establishing his innocence, ignoring recommendations for a plea bargain that would allow him to serve only five years.
“I could not see myself with a charge on me like that [for] something I didn’t do,” Tillman said.
Read the full story here. (Yale Daily News, 10/10/07)
Tags: James Tillman
Connecticut exoneree tells students his story
Posted: October 31, 2007 6:10 pm
James Tillman told a packed auditorium at Qunnipiac University last week that he just wanted to clear his name before he died.
“I just always wanted to say I’m not a rapist,” Tillman told the audience, as he recounted his wrongful rape conviction and his 16 years in Connecticut prison before he was exonerated by DNA evidence in 2006.
The jury, according to Tillman, was made up of upper middle class whites. Besides his mother, he said, he was the only African American in the court room."There were no blacks in my jury," Tillman said. "I felt that I should've had a cross section, but it didn't happen."Read more about James Tillman’s case here.
Read the full story here. (Quinnipiac Chronicle, 10/31/07)
Tags: James Tillman
DNA leads to suspect in Connecticut exoneration case
Posted: February 1, 2008 10:22 am
Police announced yesterday that DNA has identified a suspect in the 1988 rape for which James Tillman spent more than 16 years in prison. Hartford Police and the State’s Attorney’s Cold Case Unit announced that a DNA profile from evidence at the crime scene has matched Duane Foster, who is currently serving time in a Virginia prison for unrelated crimes.
Foster previously lived in Hartford, where the 1988 crime happened, and Tillman’s attorney said the two served time in the same prison at one point. Officials have a warrant for Foster’s arrest on a first-degree kidnapping charge in the 1988 case, as the statute of limitations on sexual assault has expired. It was unclear Thursday if and when he would be extradited to Connecticut.
Read the full story here. (Hartford Courant, 02/01/08)
Tillman was released from prison on July 11, 2006 after serving more than 16 years for the 1988 rape. DNA testing proved that he did not commit the crime. Read more about his case here.
In 81 of the 212 DNA exonerations nationwide, DNA didn’t just exonerate people who were wrongfully convicted – it helped identify the true perpetrators who evaded justice for years or decades. The policy reforms the Innocence Project pursues nationwide are proven to protect the innocent and help apprehend the guilty. Learn more about these reforms here.
Tags: Connecticut, James Tillman
Events this week in Connecticut and Florida
Posted: June 19, 2008 4:30 pm
A new production of the award-winning play “The Exonerated” opens tonight in Middletown, Connecticut, and tonight’s show will end with a panel discussion featuring exoneree James Tillman and his attorneys. The play, which tells the stories of six wrongfully convicted people, runs through June 29. The June 26th performance will also feature a discussion with Tillman’s lawyers. More info is available here.
Tomorrow night, the Innocence Project of Florida will host a fundraiser concert and silent auction in Talahassee, Florida. More information is available here.
Have an event to share with us? Send it to info [at] innocenceproject.org. Want to host your own event? Start planning today with our events guide.
Tags: James Tillman
NYC man marks second exoneration anniversary as a college grad
Posted: July 7, 2008 3:18 pm
Innocence Project client Alan Newton spent over a decade searching for the physical evidence from his case. When it was finally found— right where it was supposed to be all along — Newton had spent 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was finally exonerated two years ago yesterday.
Thanks to the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund and the support of Moët Hennessy USA, Newton is able to celebrate the second anniversary of his exoneration as a college graduate. He graduated with honors from Medgar Evers College with a degree in Business this June. Now, he plans on going to law school to give back to his community.
Watch a four-minute interview with Newton on the Innocence Project’s YouTube page.
Newton’s case is among many where adequate preservation of evidence could have freed an innocent person much earlier – if at all. To date, 27 states across the country have no laws or statues requiring evidence preservation — including New York, Newton’s home state. Even states that have statutes are not without their problems. Some states require preservation only for certain crimes. Others do nothing to sanction those responsible for destroying or discarding evidence.
Learn more about evidence preservation here.
Other exoneration anniversaries this week:
Wednesday: Keith Brown, North Carolina (Served 4 years, Exonerated 7/09/99)
Byron Halsey, New Jersey (Served 19 years, Exonerated 7/09/07)
Friday: James C. Tillman, Connecticut (Served 16.5 years, Exonerated 7/11/06)
Saturday: Lafonso Rollins, Illinois (Served 10 years, Exonerated 7/12/04)
Tags: Keith Brown, Alan Newton, Lafonso Rollins, James Tillman
Twenty Years Later, Man Faces Charges in Rape Case
Posted: November 13, 2008 4:42 pm
Duane Foster is expected to be arrainged tomorrow in Connecticut for a kidnapping and rape he allegedly committed in 1988. It took 20 years for him to face these charges because another man – James Calvin Tillman – was in prison for the crime.
Tillman served over 16 years for the crime before DNA testing finally proved his innocence and led to his exoneration in 2006. Prosecutors say the same DNA profile that proved Tillman’s innocence points to Foster as the perpetrator.
Read the full story here. (Newsday, 11/13/08)
Read more about James Tillman’s wrongful conviction.
In 88 of the DNA exoneration cases, DNA tests have led to the identity of the real perpetrator. These perpetrators committed at least 74 additional violent crimes after an innocent person was convicted of their earlier crime.
Tags: James Tillman
Two Connecticut Men Seek New Trial Based on DNA and Other Evidence
Posted: January 7, 2009
Ronald Taylor and George Gould are currently serving 80 years for the 1993 murder of a local shop owner. Both men have always maintained that they did not commit the crime, and new DNA evidence secured by an unlikely source may help them get a new trial.
Taylor and Gould were both found guilty of murdering Eugenio Vega DeLeon 15 years ago. They were convicted largely based on eyewitness testimony and other circumstantial evidence. The men are currently waiting for a judge to decide whether they should get a new trial.
A private investigator hired by the public defender's office says that DNA found on an electrical cord used to tie the victim's hands together matches neither Taylor nor Gould. Despite the fact that this testing was done in 2006, New Haven State's Attorney Michael Dearington's office has yet to run the DNA profile from the cord in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) databank – which could identify who actually committed the murder. In nearly 40% of DNA exoneration cases nationwide, the actual perpetrator was later identified, often through DNA database searches.
The man who helped secure the DNA testing on the cord, Gerald O'Donnell, is a former Cheshire police officer who previously did work for Dearington's office. Over the course of three years, O'Donnell has compiled a thorough report that supports Taylor's and Gould's case; among his findings:
Gould and Taylor served time on the same cellblock as Miguel Roman, who was released from prison a couple of weeks ago when DNA testing supported his claim of innocence.
- fingerprints found on the door handle of a safe in the victim’s store (where he was killed) are not Gould’s or Taylor’s, and police are now either unable or unwilling to locate the fingerprints for new analysis,
- the state's main witness now admits in a taped interview that she lied at trial because police were threatening to send her to jail, and
- another witness recanted her testimony, now saying that she was pressured by police to say she saw two black men in the victim's store.
Read the full story here. (Hartford Courant, 1/4/09)
Read more about Miguel Roman’s case.
Read more about James Tillman, who was exonerated through DNA testing in Connecticut in 2006.
Tags: Connecticut, James Tillman, Eyewitness Misidentification, DNA Databases, Fingerprints
Friday Roundup: News from Connecticut, Texas, Maryland and More
Posted: January 30, 2009 6:05 pm
Connecticut exoneree James Tillman, who served 16 years in Connecticut prison for a rape he didn’t commit, told members of a Greenwich church this week that he is “blessed to be alive.”
Also in Connecticut, Pedro Miranda pled not guilty on Tuesday to three murders between 1986 and 1988. Investigators say DNA from the crime scene of at least one of these murders matches Miranda’s profile. Another man, Miguel Roman, served 20 years in Connecticut prison before he was freed based on the same DNA tests. Roman is still awaiting a final decision in his case.
Two arson cases made news this week. Texas officials are investigating whether the state executed Cameron Todd Willingham based on flawed arson science. And investigators in Maryland were able to conduct DNA testing for the first time on evidence left behind at the scene of an arson fire.
With several states considering abolishing the death penalty – and the issue of wrongful convictions a factor in each – Amnesty International considered the question of innocence and the death penalty.
And the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case in which an undercover informant allegedly heard incriminating statements from his cellmate.
Tags: James Tillman
Race and Wrongful Conviction in Connecticut
Posted: April 9, 2009 2:45 pm
When Miguel Roman was arrested in 1988 for the murder of a 17-year-old Connecticut woman, he was interrogated mostly in English – a language he didn’t speak. His trial proceeded in English, and despite Roman’s continuous claims of innocence, he was convicted. He would serve two decades in prison before DNA proved his innocence and implicated another man in the crime.
A column by Helen Urbiñas in today’s Hartford Courant argues that a language and cultural barrier may have contributed to Roman’s wrongful conviction. She goes on to say that society’s lukewarm welcome for Roman’s exoneration may also be colored by his limited command of the language.
When I spoke some months ago to a juror who had served on Roman's case, he recalled Roman's demeanor, how disconnected he seemed from it all, how difficult it was to read him. I asked the juror then if he thought that Roman's inability to speak English well had anything to do with it. Maybe, he said.This argument has been raised before – even in Roman’s case. In 1992, the Connecticut Supreme Court denied an appeal from Roman argued that his conviction had been unconstitutional. One justice – Robert Berdon – dissented. He wrote:
It's a question that underscores the importance of what the Innocence Project is trying to do — using DNA, science, to offset some of the biases that creep into our courts. Of the 235 convicts exonerated through DNA testing in the U.S, nearly three-quarters were people of color.
When the defendant’s primary language is Spanish, and the police officers insist on conducting the interrogations in English, the entire process smacks of unfairness that will results in the perception by the Hispanic community that the criminal justice system is titled against them….In order for the public to have confidence in our criminal justice system, it is important not only that we do justice but also that all racial and ethnic segments of our population perceive that justice is done.In his dissent, Berdon went on to quote another of his recent dissents in 1992, in the case of James Calvin Tillman:
In our system of justice, not only must the accused be afforded a fair trial, but equally important there must be a perception of fairness by the community and the accused. Anything less not only undermines the credibility of this branch of government but also threatens the very fabric of our democracy.As many readers of this blog know, Tillman was exonerated by DNA evidence in 2006. Although signs of unfairness were evident in the cases of both Tillman and Roman in 1992, it would be more than 14 years before either attained justice.
Tags: Connecticut, Miguel Roman, James Tillman