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Focus on reforms as 200th exoneration nears
Posted: April 13, 2007
198 people have been exonerated through DNA evidence nationwide since 1989. The 200th DNA exoneration is expected to occur later this month – an important milestone in the criminal justice system. As we approach this moment, critical reforms are taking hold around the country.
An article in yesterday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer points to the need for reform and discusses an ongoing Cleveland case, in which DNA testing has proved that a forensic expert gave false testimony that led to the conviction of Innocence Project client Thomas Siller of a 1997 Cleveland murder.
Read the full story here. (Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4/12/07)
A column in today's Plain Dealer calls for an Ohio innocence commission. Read the full column here.
Tags: Innocence Commissions, False Confessions, Eyewitness Misidentification
Massachusetts DNA database chief is fired
Posted: April 16, 2007
Robert Pino, the DNA database administrator for the Massachusetts State Police crime lab, has been fired, three months after he was suspended for allegedly mishandling DNA evidence. Officials have said that Pino allowed the collection of samples not permitted by law, reported incomplete results to police and reported database matches to prosecutors after the statute of limitations had run out. Pino has worked at the lab for 23 years, and his union is disputing his firing.
Pino’s firing is among continuing problems at the Massachusetts lab. Last month, the lab’s director resigned under pressure after his job performance received an unfavorable review. A top-to-bottom audit of the lab is currently underway.
Read the full story here. (Boston Globe, 4/16/07)
NYPD forensic labs under scrutiny after falsified test results
Posted: April 20, 2007
The former chief of the New York Police Department’s forensic unit has been transferred from the department by superiors after results of lab proficiency tests revealed that technicians had reported false test results. Deputy Chief Denis McCarthy, who was recently transferred to a patrol division, is a 27-year veteran of the department and was in charge in 2002 when routine tests caught lab technicians “dry-labbing” – or reporting results when no testing had been performed.
A spokesman for the Police Department, Paul J. Browne, said the falsified test results in 2002 had no bearing on actual court cases, since they were revealed in a routine procedure of “blind proficiency tests” designed as internal checks on the integrity and competence of civilian criminalists, 100 of whom are now employed by the crime laboratory.Crime lab misconduct and lax standards are a major cause of wrongful convictions. Read more in our Understand the Causes section.
But some critics are not convinced that it is an isolated incident. Peter Neufeld, a lawyer and co-founder of the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal group that uses DNA evidence to represent people it believes have been wrongly convicted, said it was unclear how many cases were affected in New York and elsewhere by such falsified lab work.Read the full story here. (New York Times, 4/20/07)
Las Vegas Sun calls for funding to end DNA backlogs
Posted: May 1, 2007
DNA testing has now exonerated 200 wrongfully convicted individuals, but it is still not available for every piece of evidence in every case going to trial today. Labs in many states – and the federal government’s FBI lab – are severely backlogged and can’t test all of the evidence sent by police departments. A Florida official recently suggested that the state lab only test five pieces of evidence from any given case – limiting the amount of resources the police have for a thorough investigation. In addition to delaying and limiting results, backlogs create a hurried atmosphere in some labs that can lead to mistakes or misconduct.
In an editorial today, the Las Vegas Sun calls for federal funding to end these backlogs today so every defendant is afforded the right to proper forensic testing.
The larger lesson of the Innocence Project is that our system of justice is fallible, and that DNA testing should be readily available for all applicable cases.Read more on crime lab backlogs and lab oversight in our “Fix the System” section.
Yet a sizable backlog still faces many of the nation's crime labs when it comes to cases of violent crime in which a suspect could be positively identified through DNA testing.
Based on what the Innocence Project has proven, we believe there should be more state and federal funding made available to reduce backlogs to almost zero.
Read the full editorial. (Las Vegas Sun, 05/01/07)
Editorials and columns on the causes of wrongful conviction are appearing all over the country this month, as the nation’s attention is focused on this injustice. Read a selection of national media in our special web section: “200 Exonerated”
Fingerprint errors found in Florida crime lab
Posted: May 9, 2007
Florida officials have found mistakes in fingerprint comparison by an expert at the Seminole County Sheriff’s crime lab that may have led to the conviction of innocent people, and the state lab is reviewing hundreds of cases in which the expert’s testimony was the sole evidence against a defendant.
"There could be the possibility of someone being imprisoned wrongly," said Chris White, head of the State Attorney's Office in Seminole.Backlogs have plagued Florida’s state labs in recent months, read more.
Read the full story here. (Orlando Sentinel, 5/4/07)
Tags: Florida
Oklahoma man exonerated from death row
Posted: May 11, 2007
Innocence Project client Curtis McCarty was freed this morning after more than 21 years of wrongful incarceration – including 16 on death row – when a judge dismissed the charges that would have led to his third trial for a 1982 murder. McCarty had been convicted twice but both convictions had been thrown out by appeals courts. DNA testing has now shown that semen and hairs recovered from the crime scene do not match McCarty.
McCarty was released this morning after judge Twyla Mason Gray dismissed his indictment, saying the misconduct committed in McCarty’s case was inexcusable. District Attorney Robert H. Macy and lab analyst Joyce Gilchrist both committed serious and repeated misconduct to secure McCarty’s conviction. Gilchrist was fired in 2001 due to fraud she committed in McCarty’s case and others; she was involved in at least two other convictions later overturned by DNA testing.
"I want to know, where is Joyce Gilchrist and why isn’t she in prison?" Gray said at this morning’s hearing, according to the Oklahoma Gazette.
Macy, who was the Oklahoma County District Attorney for 21 years, prosecuted McCarty in both of his trials. Macy sent 73 people to death row – more than any other prosecutor in the nation – and 20 of them have been executed. Macy has said publicly that he believes executing an innocent person is a sacrifice worth making in order to keep the death penalty in the United States.
"This is by far one of the worst cases of law enforcement misconduct in the history of the American criminal justice system," said Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. "Bob Macy has said that executing an innocent person is a risk worth taking – and he came very close to doing just that with Curtis McCarty."
McCarty is the 201st person exonerated by DNA evidence in the United States and the ninth in Oklahoma. Fifteen of the 201 exonerees spent time on death row.
Read the full Innocence Project press release here.
Tags: Oklahoma, Curtis McCarty, Government Misconduct
Oklahoma man exonerated – more media coverage
Posted: May 14, 2007
After 21 years behind bars – including 16 on death row – Curtis McCarty was freed on Friday when an Oklahoma City judge dismissed charges that would have led to his third trial for a 1982 murder he didn’t commit. DNA testing in recent years has proven that someone else committed the crime.
Read more about McCarty’s case in the Innocence Project press release, and view media coverage of the exoneration below.
Los Angeles Times: Judge frees oklahoma man facing execution
Oklahoma Gazette: Judge releases McCarty; rips former chemist
The Oklahoman / News 9: Ex-death row inmate freed (with video)
Tags: Oklahoma, Curtis McCarty, Government Misconduct
NYTimes: The DNA 200
Posted: May 21, 2007
In Sunday’s Week In Review, the New York Times examined the first 200 DNA exonerations and the patterns that have caused many more injustices nationwide. A special graphic examined “the time they lost.”
In the 200 cases, often more than one factor led to the initial convictions, the analysis showed. Three-quarters were marked by inaccurate eyewitness identification, and in two-thirds, there were mistakes or other problems with the forensic science. Fifteen percent featured testimony by informants at odds with the later evidence. There were confessions or admissions in about 25 percent of the cases. In about 4 percent, the people had pleaded guilty.Read the full article here. (New York Times, 5/20/07)
As these cases have captured the public’s attention, various states and law enforcement agencies have made reforms, including improving the standards for eyewitness identifications, recording interrogations and upgrading their forensic labs and staffs. Several states have appointed commissions to re-examine cases in which inmates were exonerated by DNA. Some states are reconsidering their death penalty statutes.
Innocence Project Web Feature: “200 Exonerated, Too Many Wrongfully Convicted”
Tags: Innocence Commissions, False Confessions, Informants/Snitches, Eyewitness Misidentification
Independent labs mean fair testing
Posted: June 19, 2007 11:01 am
A two-year audit of the Houston Police Department’s crime lab came to a close last week, with the final report including troubling revelations about lab work that led to hundreds of criminal convictions. A column in the Houston Chronicle details two major causes of forensic mistakes and misconduct: underfunding and a close relationship with law enforcement. When labs are part of a police department, Ellen Marrus writes, they view themselves as a tool of the prosecution and not an independent scientific body.
As the screws are tightened on the HPD crime lab, law enforcement officials will look for ways to ensure the problems will not be repeated in the future. Our system of justice depends on clear and concise presentations of credible evidence, and we need to take the necessary steps to ensure that our crime labs can provide it.Read previous blog posts on the Houston lab audit, download the full report, read more about crime lab backlogs and crime lab oversight.
Read the full article here. (Houston Chronicle, 06/16/07)
Tags: Texas
Problems persist at Houston crime lab
Posted: November 16, 2007 2:46 pm
Despite completion of a major audit this summer at the troubled Houston Police Department crime lab, along with the October release of Innocence Project client Ronnie Taylor and the ongoing review of past convictions based on questionable forensic tests, news reports yesterday allege that forensic misconduct continues at the lab.
"I see this slide back toward silence,” is what an analyst, who is on the job in the lab now, had to say. "Abuse of power, people being threatened, people afraid to stand up. Watching the morale dip to levels lower than ever before. Even before the last time."And a leading national DNA expert said this week that the lab should be shuttered again while officials review procedures.
"The fact that there are so many of these problems raises real concerns about the reliability of the evidence coming out of the crime lab once again,” said Dr. Bill Thompson, a nationally renowned DNA expert.Innocence Project client Ronnie Taylor was released last month after DNA tests proved that he didn’t commit the rape for which he had served 12 years in prison. His conviction was based partly on faulty tests conducted at the Houston Police Department Crime Lab.
His work was pivotal five years ago in exposing the evidence of errors at the crime lab.
He says the huge increase in problems -- seven of the issues in a six-week period and four in seven days back in August -- is trouble.
“You would want to shut down the lab and review the procedures,” Thompson said. “That is a pretty bad week.”
Read the full story and watch video here. (KHOU, Houston, 11/14/2007)
Read more about Taylor’s release.
DNA evidence clears two men in Mississippi and uncovers serious misconduct
Posted: February 8, 2008 4:25 pm
Innocence Project client Kennedy Brewer has waited more than 15 years – much of it on death row – for this day to come. DNA evidence proves that Brewer didn’t commit the heinous murder of a three-year-old girl for which he was sentenced to die in 1995, and he is expected to be exonerated at a hearing on Thursday (February 14).
The DNA evidence and other evidence uncovered by the Innocence Project and its partners also point to the identity of the real perpetrator of the murder, Justin Albert Johnson, who has confessed that he alone killed the little girl.
Johnson also confessed this week to killing another three-year-old girl in the same small Mississippi town eighteen months before the murder for which Brewer was convicted. The man convicted of this eerily similar crime, Levon Brooks, is also an Innocence Project client and is still in prison. The Innocence Project filed papers today seeking Brooks’ release. It’s possible that Brooks will also appear at Thursday’s hearing, where his conviction would be thrown out and he may be released.
These pending exonerations reveal startling misconduct in the Mississippi justice system, and the Innocence Project called for a review of the way evidence in the state is collected, analyzed and presented in court.
Read more in today’s Innocence Project press release.
Press coverage of Brewer’s and Brooks’ cases:
New York Times: New suspect is arrested in two Mississippi killings (02/08/08)
Associated Press: New suspect charged in 1982 Miss. Murder (02/08/08)
Picayune Item: Future unclear for death row inmate after another charged with crime (02/08/08)
Tags: Mississippi, Kennedy Brewer, Government Misconduct, Death Penalty
Why Mississippi needs a new medical examiner
Posted: June 16, 2008 5:05 pm
For 13 years, Mississippi hasn’t had a state medical examiner to oversee autopsies, and a discredited pathologist is still conducting more than 1,500 autopsies a year – more than 80 percent of those conducted in the entire state. Steven Hayne’s fraudulent testimony led to the wrongful convictions of Innocence Project clients Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks in the early 1980s, and he has testified in hundreds of cases since. Brewer and Brooks, both Innocence Project clients, were exonerated earlier this year after DNA testing proved that Hayne testified falsely in their trials. The Mississippi Innocence Project is conducting a review of at least 70 cases in which Hayne’s testimony could have caused a wrongful conviction.
A leading Mississippi doctor said recently that the state’s medical investigations are in a “state of rigor mortis” and called for the immediate hiring of a state M.E.
"It is unthinkable that Mississippi has regressed in the medico-legal investigation of death into a veritable state of rigor mortis during the past 13 years," (said Dr. Dwalia South, the immediate past president of the Mississippi State Medical Association "We live in a world that now expects CSI efficiency, and we are giving them the wild West and Gunsmoke. For most of the past 34 years, no one has bothered to ponder its flaws until things have been grossly and irreparably botched."Earlier this year, Mississippi lawmakers allocated funds to the vacant medical examiner’s office, and a new Public Safety Commissioner said hiring a state M.E. was a high priority. No one has been appointed yet. The Innocence Project has led calls for a new state medical examiner, and we have also formally requested that Hayne be stripped of his medical license. Read more about our efforts in Mississippi here.
Read the full story here. (Jackson Clarion-Ledger, 06/16/08)
Tags: Kennedy Brewer
Discredited Mississippi pathologist faces tough questions in murder trial
Posted: June 26, 2008 11:52 am
A defense attorney in a Mississippi capital murder trial Tuesday disputed the credentials of medical examiner Steven Hayne, whose false testimony in the past has contributed to at least two wrongful convictions overturned by DNA testing.
Hayne took the stand in the murder trial of Christopher Logan, who is accused of causing the death of his girlfriend’s 14-month-old son. Hayne conducted an autopsy on the child and decided it was a homicide based on the pattern of bruising.
Hayne testified Tuesday that he performs between 1,500 and 1,600 autopsies a year. He said a suggested professional standard is 250 autopsies a year.The Innnocence Project has led calls for officials to revoke Hayne’s medical license based on his forensic misconduct, and has also called for the appointment of a state medical examiner to oversee autopsies in Mississippi. Read more here.
"About how many hours a day do you think you work?" Polk-Payton asked.
"I usually start work at about 8:15 in the morning," Hayne answered. "Last night I got to bed at actually 2:30 this morning."
Hayne testified that he only sleeps 3 1/2 to four hours a night, as a result of his work schedule.
"I don't like to sleep. That's the way I am, some people need sleep, some don't - I don't need it," Hayne, 66, said.
Asked if he'd ever misdiagnosed a case, Hayne replied: "Can I make mistakes? Of course I can. I'm sure I have, I'm a human being."
Read the full story here. (Hattiesburg American, 06/25/08)
Mississippi medical examiner fired
Posted: August 5, 2008 12:01 pm
Steven Hayne, who has conducted 80% of criminal autopsies in Mississippi for more than two decades, was fired on Friday by the state of Mississippi, news reports say. Hayne has come under fire for his misconduct in the wrongful convictions of Innocence Project clients Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, and hundreds of additional cases he worked on are being investigated.
Mississippi officials are expected to announce details of Hayne's dismissal at a press conference at 1:30 p.m. CT today.
Read more and watch video here.
Tags: Mississippi
Three years later: Restivo, Halstead and Kogut
Posted: January 2, 2009 6:00 pm
In 1986, three New York men were arrested and convicted in New York on charges of abduction, rape and murder based on a false convention and faulty scientific testimony at trial. It wasn’t until 2005, 17 years after they were first convicted, that John Restivo, Dennis Halstead and John Kogut were rightfully exonerated.
Restivo, Halstead and Kogut were loosely connected before their convictions. Both Halstead and Restivo had been interrogated by police as part of their investigation and Restivo would sometimes hire Kogut to help with his family’s moving business. However, after the police gave Kogut a polygraph exam and subsequently interrogated him for 12 hours, all the while telling him that he, Restivo and Halstead were responsible for the victim’s rape and death, that Kogut signed a confession provided to him and written by a police officer. By the time Kogut signed the confession, he had, given five other versions of the crime. In this sixth account of events, Restivo, Kogut, and Halstead were in Restivo’s van when they came across the 16-year-old girl, who they would later supposedly rape and strangle near a local cemetery.
Because of Kogut’s confession, Restivo’s van was searched and police would soon find two hairs that were deemed microscopically similar to those of the victim. The prosecution relied heavily on testimony from hair comparison expert Dr. Peter DeForest, who testified that the hairs could not have been deposited in the vehicle while she was alive. According to Dr. DeForest, the hairs found in Restivo’s van displayed “advanced banding,” a condition caused by bacteria eating away at the interior of the hair shaft.
After his confession, Kogut was tried separately in March 1986. Restivo and Halstead were tried together in November 1986 on the grounds that the two hairs corroborated Kogut’s confession. All three were convicted of rape and murder.
It wasn’t until 2003 that attorneys for the three men obtained property records from the police department that would eventually lead to the discovery of an intact vaginal swab from the original rape kit that had never been tested. The Innocence Project represented Restivo and worked closely with attorneys for Halstead and Kogut. Test results of the swab excluded all three men as perpetrators. In addition, after years of research of the hair bonding technology, the state’s expert witness at the time of the original convictions provided the defense with an affidavit declaring that the hairs could not have been shed by the victim during the time that she would have allegedly been in the van.
In light of these revelations, John Restivo, Dennis Halstead and John Kogut had their convictions vacated in June 2003. Prosecutors retried Kogut two years later, and he was found not guilty on December. 21, 2005. Little more than a week later, the Nassau County District Attorney’s office, having declared that it could not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, dismissed all charges against Dennis Halstead and John Restivo on December. 29, 2005.
Other Exoneree Anniversaries Last Week
Leonard McSherry, California (Served 13 Years, Exonerated, 2001)
Tags: New York, Dennis Halstead, John Kogut, John Restivo, False Confessions
Alabama Man Still Pursuing Evidence for DNA Testing
Posted: January 6, 2009
The Tuscaloosa News reports that Thomas Arthur's attorneys are still pursuing DNA tests to prove his innocence in a 1982 murder in Alabama.
Arthur, who faces execution for the murder of Troy Wicker, has been on Alabama’s death row for a quarter century. Last September, the Alabama Supreme Court delayed Arthur’s execution and said the state must wait for the Jefferson County Court to rule on the DNA testing claim before it can set an execution date. Last fall, the state claimed that evidence in the case is missing – the first time the state has made such a claim, even though Arthur has been requesting DNA testing on the evidence for years. Arthur's attorneys are requesting a thorough, state-wide search for the evidence, which has not been conducted.
Although there was no DNA evidence used in the original, largely circumstantial prosecution, Arthur's attorneys are asking the state for a rape kit of the victim's wife, Judy Wicker, which was collected after the murder.
“The invaluable role of DNA testing in this case cannot be seriously disputed,” [attorney Jordan] Razza wrote. “This court should therefore direct the state to undertake a thorough search, and to the extent that it is still unable to find the rape kit, Mr. Arthur requests discovery relating to this issue.”
Attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell represent Arthur; the Innocence Project is assisting in the case. Arthur's attorneys also want the court to listen to a confession made by inmate Bobby Ray Gilbert, who confessed to the murder of Troy Wicker. He also said he had sex with Judy Wicker on the day of the crime.
Judy Wicker initially told police that a man broke into her home, raped her and killed her husband. Police did not believe her, and she was convicted of killing her husband. Only then, in a deal for a reduced prison sentence, did she change her story and claim that Arthur committed the crime. DNA testing could show that her initial story was true, or it could show that Gilbert’s confession is accurate.
Read the full story here. (Tuscaloosa News, 1/5/09)
To see what kind of access inmates have to DNA testing in your state, visit our interactive map.
Tags: Alabama, Evidence Preservation, Access to DNA Testing, Eyewitness Misidentification, Death Penalty, Tommy Arthur
Arizona State University to Host Forensic Science Conference
Posted: January 7, 2009 4:00 pm
Some of the world's leading scholars and experts in evidence, forensic science and criminalistics will gather to discuss the future of forensic science in the criminal justice system in April. The Center for the Study of Law, Science, & Technology at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University announced this week that it is hosting "Forensic Science for the 21st Century: The National Academy of Sciences Report and Beyond" April 3 and 4.
Organizers said the conference is being held “in light of the highly anticipated report of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences on Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Sciences Community” that is expected to be released within the next couple of months. Harry T. Edwards, Chief Judge Emeritus of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Co-chair of the NAS Forensic Science Committee, is scheduled to deliver the Center's annual Willard H. Pedrick Lecture, titled "Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward."
The event will also feature discussions about the NAS report, an unprecedented examination of forensic science nationwide that will outline findings and recommendations for how to ensure that the criminal justice system relies on sound science.
In addition to experts from major research institutions such as the University of California, Berkeley, Harvard Law School, the University of Michigan Law School, the University of California, Irvine, the University of Virginia and ASU, among others, participants will include state and federal judges, the co-chairmen of the National Academy of Sciences Forensic Science Committee, the president of the American Association of Forensic Sciences. The directors of the FBI Crime Laboratory and the Innocence Project, and prosecutors, defense attorneys, forensic scientists, and criminalists also will be involved.Visit the conference's website for more information, including registration and scheduled events.
Tags: Arizona, Reforms, Forensic Oversight, Evidence Preservation, Access to DNA Testing