Innocence Blog

Friday Roundup: False Confessions, Investigating Wrongful Convictions

Posted: February 3, 2012 4:30 pm

A Detroit man serving time for eight murders may own up to four more in an effort to clear a teenager whose confession was given to satisfy police
 
Florida exoneree Alan Crotzer describes the effects of being wrongfully convicted.
 
A Maryland Gazette editorial reminds jurors to consider the perils of false confessions and the statistics of juveniles signing confessions to end the interrogation process.
 
A California man who was wrongfully convicted of murder filed a lawsuit against San Francisco for building a case around the testimony of a witness who was compensated.
 
The Atlantic reports on a death row case “even weaker than the one against Troy Davis.”

Tags: California, Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Ohio, Alan Crotzer

 

Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office Opens Conviction Integrity Unit

Posted: February 3, 2012 12:45 pm

Select prosecutors nationwide, from Craig Watkins in Dallas County to Cyrus Vance in New York, have established units to investigate possible wrongful convictions cases and ensure that justice has been served in their communities. Yesterday, Anita Alvarez of Chicago’s Cook County joined that trend. Alvarez recently came under fire for her office’s reluctance to exonerate nine men wrongfully convicted as teenagers in two separate murder cases. Over 70,000 people nationwide signed a petition calling on Alvarez to join in seeking to overturn the convictions. Five of the men were finally exonerated in late 2011, with the other four following in early 2012. 
 
The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

The creation of the unit marks a “shift in philosophy,” in which the office intends to “increase our focus and our openness about these cases,” Alvarez said at a City Club of Chicago luncheon.
 
“In my view, my job is not just about racking up convictions, it’s about always seeking justice, even if that measure of justice means that we must acknowledge mistakes of the past,” she said
 
The Conviction Integrity Unit, which has been operating for the last month, consists of three prosecutors, two investigators and one victim-witness specialist, Alvarez said.

Read the full article.
 
Read background on the Chicago-area cases.

Tags: Illinois

 

Science Thursday

Posted: February 2, 2012 3:00 pm

New medical evidence challenges a Texas murder conviction,  doubts about an arson conviction may lead to a reversal. and analysts from the Arkansas State Crime Lab may not be testifying as much as their travel suggests. Here’s a roundup of this week’s forensics news:
 
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals vacated Ernie Lopez’ 2003 conviction of the sexual assault and death of a baby. Lopez’ case is one of a growing number of child death cases in which medical evidence has been called into question post-conviction. The prosecution must decide whether to release Lopez or retry the case.
 
A federal magistrate is expected to rule on whether the triple murder arson convictions of George Souliotes were based on faulty arson evidence. Souliotes is represented by the Northern California Innocence Project.
 
The Ohio state parole board unanimously rejected a death row inmate’s plea for mercy based on recent developments in arson science that suggest he may have been wrongly convicted.
 
Analysts from the Arkansas State Crime Lab logged more than 1,000 hours and 31,000 miles last year for court appearances at which they never testified.

Tags: Arkansas, California, Ohio, Texas

 

New York’s DNA Database Bill Falls Short

Posted: February 1, 2012 12:00 pm

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed off on a bill Tuesday to expand the state’s DNA databank to include criminals convicted of misdemeanors, upsetting Democrats in the State Assembly who think the bill falls short. Previous efforts to expand the database were tied to wrongful conviction reforms that would improve police identification procedures and reduce false confessions. 

Last year, similar legislation died after the Assembly and Senate couldn’t reach a compromise. Now, Democrats are willing to accept the proposal if it includes provisions that would make it easier for the wrongfully convicted to gain access to other evidence, including the DNA database.

Innocence Project Co-founder Barry Scheck told The New York Times that supporters of the expanded DNA database should promote additional reforms to improve New York’s criminal justice system.

“Less than 10 percent of serious felony cases have any biological evidence in them, which can identify the real perpetrator with a DNA test,” Mr. Scheck said. “And most of the serious offenders are already in the DNA database. This isn’t the No. 1 priority.”

Read the full article.

Read about the criminal justice reforms we advocate for New York State.

Tags: New York

 

Washington Legislators Consider Abolishing the Death Penalty

Posted: January 31, 2012 6:00 pm

Lawmakers and others who oppose Washington State’s death penalty law convened in Olympia last week.  Sen. Debbie Regala, D-Tacoma, who introduced the bill, is herself the relative of a murder victim.  From the Seattle Times:

Regala knows what it’s like to want justice for a violent crime. The Tacoma Democrat said her brother-in-law was killed in 1980 and his body dumped in a Seattle park. The killer was never found, she said.
 
“It’s still painful and hard for me to talk about because the hurt never goes away,” Regala said, “but executing that person doesn’t solve that problem for me.”

Washington State has executed only five people since the present death penalty law was passed in 1981.
 
Seventeen people have been proven innocent and exonerated by DNA testing in the United States after serving time on death row. They were convicted in 11 states and served a combined 209 years in prison – including 187 years on death row – for crimes they didn’t commit.
 
TAKE ACTION! »  If you live in Washington, use our action form to tell your state legislators that you want them to support these bills to end capital punishment in your state!
 
Read the Seattle Times article. 
 
Read about The Innocence Project’s Position on the Death Penalty. 
 
The Innocent and the Death Penalty. 

Tags: Washington

 

Wrongful Conviction Overturned for Missouri Man

Posted: January 31, 2012 3:30 pm

The Midwest Innocence Project celebrated the overturned conviction of Clayton Price last Thursday when his sentence for sexual assault was vacated. Price was convicted seven years ago of sexually abusing his fiancé’s six-year-old daughter – claims that he has denied. The allegations originated from the little girl’s paternal grandmother, who was seeking full custody of the child.
 
The state has appealed the ruling and Price remains behind bars.
 
Read more from the News-Leader.

Tags: Missouri, Clayton Price

 

Weekly Roundup: Honoring the Exonerated and Reviewing the Justice System

Posted: January 30, 2012 10:30 am

North Carolina exoneree Darryl Hunt will receive an honorary degree from Duke University in the institution’s springtime commencement.
 
Two years after the exoneration of Donald Gates in Washington, D.C., sparked further examination of similar cases, a review by the U.S. Attorney’s Office claims that none of 229 cases that were reviewed had a viable claim of actual innocence.
 
The Innocence Network UK has called for an overhaul of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), the independent entity set up to investigate possible miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. 
 
For more innocence news and updates, follow the Innocence Project on Facebook and Twitter.

Tags: North Carolina, Donald Gates, Darryl Hunt

 

True Story of Clarence Elkins Premieres on Documentary Channel

Posted: January 28, 2012 7:30 pm

Sunday, January 29, at 8 p.m. the Documentary Channel will air “Conviction: The True Story of Clarence Elkins” about a man who was wrongfully convicted of murdering his mother in law and proven innocent through DNA testing. His wife, and the daughter of the victim, helped find the real perpetrator and win Elkins’ release. Elkins was represented by the Ohio Innocence Project. Watch the trailer.
 
Learn more.
 
Read background on Clarence Elkins’ incredible fight for justice.

 

Innocence Project Policy Advocate on Justice and the Death Penalty

Posted: January 27, 2012 11:20 am

Senior Policy Advocate for State Affairs Rebecca Brown, left, shares her insights on justice in America, the death penalty, and the risk of executing an innocent person. (Originally posted on the Safe California blog)
 
On Monday, Joe D’Ambrosio became the 140th person to be exonerated from death row since 1973 in the United States, and the sixth from Ohio. I’d like to share some insights with you on that number from my perspective as an advocate with the Innocence Project.
 
17: There are seventeen cases where innocent men received the death penalty in the United States. We know this because they were subsequently exonerated by DNA testing.
 
18: A prisoner sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole is entitled to only one tax-payer funded appeal, a process that is usually completed within eighteen months after conviction.
 
23: When Joe D’Ambrosio learned about the Supreme Court ruling on his case he said, “Today was twenty-three years in the making.” California courts are backlogged and slow. Justice can take decades to prevail.    
 
25: In California, the average timeline for a death penalty case is twenty-five years. Death penalty appeals are extensive, prolonged and costly because innocent people have been sentenced to death. The U.S. Supreme Court and the Constitution require these extra protections; they are not required for those sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
 
720:  Although death sentences are at a historic low across the nation, California has the largest death row in the country, with seven hundred twenty inmates. Given what we know about the criminal justice system’s capacity for error, however, one would expect that we would be at the forefront of reform efforts to prevent wrongful conviction. The opposite is true.
 
0: In 2006, two years after pulling together a panel of stakeholders from all corners of the criminal justice community in the state, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice (CCFAJ) made a series of recommendations to prevent wrongful conviction, including the recording of interrogations and eyewitness identification reform. Not one of the recommendations was implemented.
 
Death cannot be undone. California has a troubled history when it comes to implementing innocence protection and yet the state has yet to systematically address any of the root causes of wrongful conviction, including misidentification, false confessions, un-validated or improper forensic science, government misconduct and poor lawyering, to name a few.
 
Over the past 30 years, California has enacted numerous “fixes” to the death penalty. They have all failed to streamline the system, and instead have cost taxpayers more money. The CCFAJ itself noted that any reform to increase the pace of review of death penalty cases without decreasing the quality of justice would mean an estimated $95 million more a year.
 
California has failed to implement nearly every scientifically-supported innocence protection. The range of potential errors is unacceptable and the appeals process does not provide the needed protections to detect them in every case. Given this grim backdrop, the risk of executing an innocent person is too great, and cannot be tolerated.

Tags: California

 

Science Thursday: Congress Slow to Adopt Forensic Science Reforms

Posted: January 26, 2012 3:00 pm

Three years ago this February, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released its groundbreaking report, “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward.” The report revealed the alarming potential for forensic science errors to contribute to wrongful convictions. The report also called for stricter standards in forensic science oversight and recommended the creation of an independent, science-based federal entity to establish forensic standards and oversee their application.  These recommendations can build a scientific framework for the forensic science system and help prevent wrongful convictions.
 
However, as the third anniversary of its release approaches, ProPublica reports that not much has changed. Although Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy has introduced a bill, and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller is also considering legislation, Congress as a whole has not taken action.
 
One point of contention is whether to involve the Department of Justice. Members of the NAS report’s committee have argued that the Department of Justice is not the right location for a forensic oversight agency. Co-chair Harry Edwards explains that law enforcement officials “serve different roles than scientists who are charged with assessing forensic evidence.” 

DOJ involvement doesn’t have to be an either-or decision, said Peter Neufeld, a founder and director of the Innocence Project [8], a national organization that works to exonerate innocent prisoners and reform the criminal justice system. Neufeld said a national agency of forensic science should be a collective undertaking.

A scientific entity could set national standards and the DOJ could be charged with accreditation and certification.
 
Read the full article.
 
Read background on the NAS report.