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Dallas DA joins Innocence Project in push to clear James Curtis Giles
Posted: February 23, 2007
Conclusive evidence has proven that James Curtis Giles was wrongly convicted of a 1982 rape in Dallas, and prosecutors said Thursday that they would not oppose the Innocence Project’s motion to overturn Giles’ sentence. He served 10 years in Texas prisons before he was paroled.
Evidence has since shown that another man, named James Earl Giles, participated in the crime. Evidence leading to James Earl Giles was collected by Dallas Police before James Curtis Giles was convicted, but never handed over the defense attorneys. The jury foreman in James Earl Giles’ case has said that the prosecutor visited the jury during deliberations and told them to put away a dangerous man, according to news reports.
"There has been no interest in getting to the truth of his case, even though the truth has been sitting there all along," she said. "The true perpetrator was across the street. So literally the truth of the case has been staring everyone in the face for the last 20 years." ...
Read the full story. (Dallas Morning News, 02/23/07)Giles is the 13th man proven innocent by DNA testing in Dallas County, and a court hearing is expected in the next two weeks.
New Dallas DA Craig Watkins made the groundbreaking announcement last week that his office would work with the Innocence Project of Texas to review 354 cases for possible post-conviction DNA testing.
Read more about the other 12 men proven innocent by DNA testing in Dallas County.
Tags: James Giles
James Giles is expected to be cleared of 1982 rape on Monday
Posted: April 6, 2007
In a hearing Monday in Dallas, Innocence Project attorney Vanessa Potkin and attorneys from the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office will present evidence that proves James Curtis Giles didn’t participate in the 1982 gang rape for which he served 10 years in prison. Giles, 53, has been on parole as a registered as a sex offender for 14 years.
The crime was committed by three men who were acquaintances, and police were told that one was named James Giles. The victim identified James Curtis Giles in a lineup, even though he did not match her initial description of the perpetrator. DNA evidence now links two other men to the crime – and shows that they were both closely associated with another man, James Earl Giles, who lived near the crime scene and fits the victim’s initial description. New evidence shows that information linking the three true perpetrators to the crime – James Earl Giles and the two other men – was available to police and prosecutors before James Curtis Giles was convicted, but was illegally withheld from his defense attorneys.
Giles has fought for nearly two decades to prove his innocence. The Innocence Project began investigating his case in 2000, and the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office began reinvestigating it earlier this year after the Innocence Project filed initial legal papers to vacate the conviction. New evidence from both investigations will be presented in court Monday. He will still not be officially exonerated, however, until he is granted a writ of habeas corpus from Texas’ highest criminal court or a pardon from the governor.
On Tuesday, Giles will join Texas exonerees James Waller, Chris Ochoa and Brandon Moon, Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck and legislators in Austin for a press conference and legislative hearing on bills to improve the criminal justice system in Texas.
Read more on this case in today’s news:
Rape victim is for exoneration: She ID'd man, now backs DA's bid to clear him in '82 case (Dallas Morning News, 4/6/07)
Hearing set for man who claims innocence in 1982 rape (Houston Chronicle, 4/5/07)
For more information on attending the hearings and press conferences Monday and Tuesday, email us at info@innocenceproject.org
Tags: James Giles, Government Misconduct, Eyewitness Misidentification
Law student played key role in Giles case
Posted: April 9, 2007
Lauren Kaeseberg, a third-year law student at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, has worked closely with Innocence Project Staff Attorney Vanessa Potkin on James Giles’s case for more than a year. She was standing in court this morning with Giles, Potkin and Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck as the Innocence Project joined Dallas prosecutors in presenting evidence that clears James Giles of the 1982 rape for which he was wrongly convicted.
A story in today’s Dallas Observer blog highlights Kaeseberg’s role in the case.
Last summer Kaeseberg came to Dallas with Vanessa Potkin, one of the lawyers involved with the Innocence Project. “It was a great experience for me as a law student,” she says. “We found and interviewed witnesses and prepared affidavits. It was a really interesting hands-on experience that doesn’t come along too often for a law student.”Kaeseberg is a teaching assistant in the Innocence Project clinic, where 20 Cardozo law students work with staff attorneys on cases in which defendants are seeking DNA testing to prove their innocence. Kaeseberg is planning to work for the Innocence Project of New Orleans when she graduates in May.
Read the full story here. (Dallas Observer Unfair Park Blog, 4/9/07)
Tags: James Giles
News coverage of Monday’s hearing clearing James Giles
Posted: April 10, 2007
Yesterday, James Giles appeared with his Innocence Project attorneys in a Dallas courtroom, where evidence was presented proving that another man with the same name committed the rape for which Giles served 10 years in prison and 14 years on parole. Below, read and watch media coverage of yesterday’s event.
Dallas Morning News: Judge backs man's exoneration in '82 rape case
Video interview with comments from Giles, Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck and Dallas DA Craig Watkins
Video: CBS11 – Dallas-Fort Worth: Judge Says Dallas Man Should Be Exonerated Of Rape
Fort-Worth Star-Telegram: Nearing exoneration, but paying heavy price
Today, Giles is with Innocence Project attorneys and three other exonerees in Austin to testify before a Texas Senate committee about the need for criminal justice reforms statewide. For more on Giles’s case, read the Innocence Project press release.
Tags: James Giles
James Giles Exonerated
Posted: June 21, 2007 3:00 pm
Two months ago in Dallas, the Innocence Project joined with prosecutors in filing motions to clear James Giles of a 1982 rape for which he served 10 years in prison and 14 years as a registered sex offender on parole. The judge approved the motions, but there was one final step on Giles’ journey to exoneration. Texas rules require that the state’s highest criminal court review all exoneration before they become official. Yesterday, Giles was officially exonerated when the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted his writ of habeas corpus. He became the 204th person exonerated by DNA testing in the United States and the 13th in Dallas County.
The Innocence Project began investigating Giles’ case in 2000, and DNA testing has since proven that he was not one of three men who raped a Dallas woman in her home in 1982. The crime was committed by three men, and police were told that one was named James Giles. The victim identified James Curtis Giles in a lineup, even though he did not match her initial description of the perpetrator. DNA evidence now links two other men to the crime – and shows that they were both closely associated with another man, James Earl Giles, who lived near the crime scene and fits the victim’s initial description. New evidence shows that information linking the three true perpetrators to the crime – James Earl Giles and the two other men – was available to police and prosecutors before James Curtis Giles was convicted, but was illegally withheld from his defense attorneys.
With 13, Dallas has had more convictions overturned by DNA testing than any other county nationwide. Read more about the other 12 cases here.
The Dallas District Attorney’s Office recently began working with the Innocence Project of Texas to review more than 350 cases in which defendants claim innocence and were denied DNA testing. Officials have said that this review could lead to more Dallas exonerations. Read more about the ongoing review here.
Tags: Texas, James Giles
Giles finally exonerated
Posted: June 22, 2007 12:30 pm
Yesterday, James Giles of Texas became the nation’s 204th person cleared by DNA testing when the state’s highest criminal court made his exoneration official.
Read media coverage of the exoneration below, or click here for more information on Giles and the other 12 people exonerated in Dallas County in the last six years.
Houston Chronicle: Court clears man convicted in gang rape. (6/22/07)
Tags: Texas, James Giles
Dispatch from Dallas: Eugene Henton is freed
Posted: October 26, 2007 3:40 pm
By Vanessa Potkin, Innocence Project Staff Attorney
I’m writing from Dallas, where I spent the morning in court with two men who are already free after being exonerated through DNA testing and two wrongfully convicted men who had hearings seeking their release from custody.
Eugene Ivory Henton walked out of the courtroom today a free man for the first time in more than a decade. Mr. Henton served nearly two years in prison in the 1980s for a sexual assault DNA now proves he didn’t commit and was later imprisoned again for unrelated charges and given harsh sentences reserved for repeat offenders.
After Mr. Henton and his attorneys secured the DNA testing that cleared him of the wrongful sexual assault conviction last year, he filed for the sentences on unrelated charges to be reconsidered in light of the fact that his contact with the criminal justice system was forever marred by the wrongful conviction. The Texas court system did the right thing by throwing out those harsh sentences – and today a judge resentenced Mr. Henton to time served. He walked out of the courtroom into the arms of his family. Technically, he was exonerated in 2006 (and is one of 13 Dallas County men exonerated by DNA testing since 2001), but today he is finally free.
In the courtroom with me this morning were Texas exonerees James Waller and James Giles. Mr. Waller and Mr. Giles were exonerated by DNA testing this year. The two of them knew each other while wrongfully incarcerated at the massive Coffield state prison and have rallied around others joining their “family of exonerees.”
In Mr. Chabot’s case we agree with the Dallas District Attorney’s office and the judge that his conviction should be overturned, and we’re waiting for Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, to rule on that request. Meanwhile, a hearing on bail in his case has been continued until next week. We will keep you updated here on the Innocence Blog as there are developments in the case.
Learn more:
Read about Clay Chabot’s case here.
Read about Eugene Ivory Henton’s case:
Dallas Morning News: Judge orders release of prisoner exonerated by DNA
Eugene Ivory Henton’s Innocence Project case profile
Tags: James Giles, Eugene Henton, James Waller, Clay Chabot
"60 Minutes" on James Woodard's release in Dallas
Posted: May 5, 2008 10:29 am
CBS News’ “60 Minutes” has been following James Lee Woodard’s case for over a year, since he was first granted the DNA testing that eventually proved his innocence. Last week, he was released after serving 27 years for a rape he didn’t commit, and “60 Minutes” cameras were in the courtroom.
The “60 Minutes” story features interviews with Woodard, his attorneys at the Innocence Project of Texas and several other men exonerated in Dallas after serving years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.
"Unfortunately, Mr. Woodard you're not getting justice today,” Dallas Judge Mark Stoltz tells Woodard. “You're just getting the end of injustice.”Read more about James Lee Woodard and other proven innocent by DNA testing in Dallas County.
Watch the full story online. (60 Minutes, 05/04/08)
Tags: James Giles, Eugene Henton, Billy James Smith, James Waller, Gregory Wallis
Texas Summit on Wrongful Convictions starts an important conversation
Posted: May 9, 2008 3:47 pm
More than 100 key leaders from Texas’ criminal justice system came together yesterday in Austin to discuss the causes of wrongful convictions and changes necessary to free the innocent, improve forensic testing and prevent future injustice. Texas leads the nation in wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing – with 31 people exonerated from 10 counties across the state. The first Summit on Wrongful Convictions in the nation, yesterday’s meeting was called by Texas State Sen. Rodney Ellis to advance the state’s dialogue on wrongful convictions. Nine people freed by DNA testing in Texas attended the event, each standing up to tell their stories.
One by one, nine wrongly convicted men stood up on the floor of the Texas Senate on Thursday to explain how innocent men ended up in prison and how to prevent it from happening again.Watch a new Innocence Project video featuring interviews with three Texas exonerees: Brandon Moon, Chris Ochoa and Ronnie Taylor.
"I'm here to tell you I lost everything. I am still hurting. I am still broken," said James Giles, who spent 10 years in prison for a rape he did not commit. "We can do better in the justice system. The system failed all of us."
…The applause was loudest when Giles tore up his sex offender registration card, something he had to carry for 15 years while he was on parole before getting exonerated. He ripped it up, he said, because he had a new card to carry: a voter registration card.
Read the full story here. (Associated Press, 05/08/08)
Tags: Texas, James Giles, Christopher Ochoa, James Waller, Innocence Commissions
Texas prosecutors reflect on their role in wrongful convictions
Posted: June 9, 2008 12:05 pm
A groundbreaking article in this week’s issue of Texas Lawyer tells of a dozen Dallas exonerations through the eyes of the trial prosecutors. Their reflections on these cases represent a range of perspectives, but common themes emerge. There is consensus that eyewitness identification is unreliable on its own and that cases resting on a single eyewitness are a recipe for wrongful conviction. Prosecutors agree that forensic science has improved the quality of justice in American courtrooms. Many prosecutors remembered every detail of these convictions years later, and worked for the defendant’s release soon after learning of new DNA evidence proving innocence.
Prosecutors call these wrongful convictions “tragic” and one says that hindsight is 20-20.
"I don't fault anyone for doing what they're doing," Prosecutor Douglas Fletcher says. "But you can look back on any profession. Doctors can look back at doctors 30 years ago and say . . . "Why were they treating cancer that way?'"Another prosecutor, James Fry, says the unreliable nature of eyewitness identifications has been exposed by these exonerations.
… "In the criminal justice system, people are being convicted on one-witness cases. And what this says to me is we've got an inherent problem about how many of these cases we're getting wrong. And it's still going on today," says James Fry, a former Dallas prosecutor who helped send a man to prison for 27 years for a crime he didn't commit. "My question to everybody involved in this across the state and across the nation is what are we going to do about this? I don't know."Read the full story here. (Texas Lawyer, 06/06/08)
Tags: Charles Chatman, Wiley Fountain, Larry Fuller, James Giles, Donald Wayne Good, Andrew Gossett, Billy Wayne Miller, David Shawn Pope, James Waller, Gregory Wallis, Eyewitness Identification, Eyewitness Misidentification
Nine years of freedom for Atlanta man
Posted: June 16, 2008 3:54 pm
Nine years ago, Calvin Johnson was freed from a Georgia prison after serving more than 15 years for a crime he didn’t commit. Today, he has a wife and daughter, he serves on the boards of the Innocence Project and the Georgia Innocence Project, he has published a memoir, “Exit to Freedom,” and he works as a supervisor for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. Last year he received the Innocence Project’s first Freedom & Justice Award, and spoke at the ceremony about the suffering he endured while wrongfully incarcerated and the slow process of rebuilding a life after release. Watch his speech here.
Today, Johnson says he is proud to be a leader in the innocence movement and a mentor to newly released exonerees. But he also wants to see more states – including his own – pass laws to support exonerees as they face the hard road of building a new life after years, or decades, away from society. While three states (Connecticut, Florida and Utah) have enacted new compensation laws in the last two months, Johnson’s home state of Georgia is still one of the 25 states without a law compensating the exonerated upon their release. And among the 25 states with compensation laws, many are woefully outdated and inadequate.
Other exoneration anniversaries this week:
Sunday: Jerry Townsend, Florida (Served 21.5 years, Exonerated 6/15/01)
Tuesday: Kenneth Wyniemko, Michigan (Served 8.5 Years, Exonerated 6/17/03)
Friday: Kevin Green, California (Served 15.5 years, Exonerated 6/20/96)
Saturday: James Giles, Texas (Served 10 years, Exonerated 6/21/07)
Armand Villasana, Missouri (Served 7 months, Exonerated 6/21/00)
Tags: James Giles, Kevin Green, Calvin Johnson, Armand Villasana, Kenneth Wyniemko
The Texas Exonerated
Posted: October 27, 2008 4:05 pm
A feature in this month’s Texas Monthly profiles 37 people cleared with DNA testing after serving a combined 525 years in prison.
The first thing you notice is the eyes—they all have the same look in them, the look of men accustomed to waking up every morning in a prison cell. These 37 men spent years, and in some cases decades, staring through bars at a world that believed they were guilty of terrible crimes. But they weren’t. Each was convicted of doing something he did not do. It’s hard to characterize the look in their eyes. There’s anger, obviously, and pride at having survived hell, but there’s also hurt, and a question: “Why me?”Visit the Texas Monthly website for video of a photoshoot with 21 exonerees and audio slideshows telling the stories of more than a dozen.
The short answer is simple: People make mistakes. Most of these cases share a common story line: A woman, usually a traumatized rape victim, wrongly identifies her attacker. Sometimes her testimony is backed by rudimentary serology tests. Sometimes the cases are pushed too hard by aggressive police officers or prosecutors.
Tags: James Giles, Entre Nax Karage, Carlos Lavernia, Brandon Moon, Christopher Ochoa, Anthony Robinson, Ronald Taylor, Patrick Waller, James Waller, Gregory Wallis
Ernest Sonnier’s First Days of Freedom
Posted: August 10, 2009 12:30 pm
Ernest Sonnier spent the weekend with his family for the first time in 23 years after he was freed from prison Friday based on evidence of his innocence. The Innocence Project will continue working to fully clear Sonnier’s name, as DNA testing has implicated the two real perpetrators of the crime for which Sonnier was convicted. The facts of the case are here.
More than 17 relatives – encompassing five generations and ranging in age from 18 months to 94 years – joined Sonnier at the Harris County Courthouse Friday as he was freed on bond pending further proceedings. Two other men proven innocent by DNA testing – James Giles and James Waller – were also on hand to congratulate and support Sonnier and his family.
Hundreds of Innocence Project supporters sent personal messages to Sonnier this weekend welcoming him home. Send yours here.
Here’s a sampling of media coverage of Sonnier’s release over the weekend:
Houston Chronicle: A Time for Hugs and Happiness (with video)
KHOU: Man Who Spent 23 Years in Jail Released on Bond After DNA Testing (with video)
KBMT: Man Freed After 23 Years in Prison Due to DNA Evidence (with video)
New York Times: Man Held for 23 Years Is Set Free by DNA Tests
AFP: DNA Tests Clear US Man After 23 Years in Prison
Associated Press: Texas Man Convicted of Rape Freed After DNA Tests
Grits for Breakfast: 'Nuther Exoneration Implicates Houston PD Crime Lab
Talk Left: DNA Frees Another TX Man – This One After 23 Years
Washington Post: Photo of James Giles and Ernest Sonnier
Tags: James Giles, James Waller, Ernest Sonnier
Thankful for Freedom
Posted: November 24, 2009 5:55 pm
We have a lot to be thankful for this year at the Innocence Project – from the joy of seeing our clients walk out of prison to rejoin their families after decades behind bars to successful policy reforms across the country to prevent wrongful convictions. We’re also thankful for our dedicated – and growing – network of supporters, who worked tirelessly this year to help free the innocent from prison and raise awareness of wrongful convictions and the causes of injustice.
We asked five of our clients what they’re thankful for this week, and we found their answers pretty inspiring. Here’s what they said:
 | JOHN RESTIVO, Florida "I’m grateful to the Innocence Project and all of its supporters this Thanksgiving. I'm grateful for the hope they gave me when they first took my case, and I'm grateful to be spending Thanksgiving with my family this year, instead of in prison." |
 | JAMES GILES, Texas "I feel blessed this Thanksgiving. It's amazing that sometimes we forget all of the things that God makes possible. I’m so happy to be free and to able to share my blessings with friends and family this Thanksgiving." |
 | BYRON HALSEY, New Jersey "I’m thankful to be home for Thanksgiving. I now have a choice of what to do with my life — in prison you have no choices. Even though life can be hard these days, I wouldn’t trade what I have for anything." |
 | BARRY GIBBS, New York "I’m thankful that I’m free and alive. I’m surrounded by good people and I’ve got my health. I can travel and live my life and I’m lucky to have a great support network." |
 | RICKIE JOHNSON, Louisiana "I'm thankful to be free this Thanksgiving and to have my family back in my life after so many years." |
Tags: James Giles, Byron Halsey, Rickey Johnson, John Restivo