The StandDown Texas Project

Continued Coverage of the National Registry of Exonerations

The National Registry of Exonerations is beginning to garner editorials, and continuing to get focused attention.

"Hard truths about injustice," is the Dallas Morning News editorial.

Call it a graduate course on what can go wrong in the criminal justice system.

There are 891 case studies at present, and climbing.

That’s the number of individual cases listed so far in a new national project on cataloging and dissecting proven miscarriages of justice.

Called the National Registry of Exonerations, the project aims to build the first comprehensive listing of wrongful convictions in America so the public and professionals can learn the hard lesson of failure, then build a better system.

As with a similar, DNA-centered exoneration database maintained by the Innocence Project of New York, this one figures to be a good teacher. And Texas once again has an embarrassingly prominent presence.

So be it. This state needs to have its dirty laundry laid out as often as possible if that’s what it takes to overcome skepticism that things have been just fine the way they are inside Texas’ halls of justice. We know that’s not the case.

"A new National Registry on Exonerations casts doubt on the accuracy of our criminal justice system," is the title of a Birmingham News editorial.

How many people wrongfully convicted of a crime are we willing to accept? Especially those who are sentenced to Death Row?

A report released Monday by the National Registry on Exonerations raises those questions and more. The registry, a joint project of the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law, profiles 873 exonerations from January 1989 through February 2012. The report discusses including at least 1,170 other defendants whose convictions were dismissed after more than a dozen major police scandals. Most of those scandals involved the massive planting of drugs and guns on innocent defendants, which led to "group exonerations."

And:

Of the 16 state exonerations in Alabama, six were men sentenced to death. It does not require a vivid imagination to wonder whether a wrongly convicted person awaits execution on Alabama's Death Row or, worse, whether the state has killed an innocent person in our names.

If someone goes to prison for a crime he or she did not commit, it is an injustice. That is especially true in capital murder cases, where a life is at stake. We would like to have as much confidence in Alabama's criminal justice system as Strange professes, but the report on the national registry casts enough doubt to cause grave concern.

The Week magazine bundles, "25 years of wrongful convictions: By the numbers."

891 - Specific wrongful conviction cases detailed in the National Registry of Exonerations

93 - Percent of the exonerated convicts who are men

50 - Percent who are black

10.7 - Average time, in years, from conviction to exoneration

10,000 - Combined time, in years, the 891 exonerated prisoners spent behind bars

2.3 million - People incarcerated in the U.S. 

1,170 - Convicted defendants cleared in 13 "group exonerations" since 1995, following large police-corruption scandals, usually involving planted drugs or guns

416 - People exonerated of wrongful homicide convictions

UMichigan Law prof Sam Gross, co-founder of the Registry, is interviewed on NPR's All Things Considered, "Exoneration List Shows Patterns In False Convictions."  It's conducted by NPR's Audie Cornish.

And, to start, Professor Gross, this registry contains information about, I guess, 2,000 exonerations since 1989, but do you know if that's really a comprehensive list?

SAMUEL GROSS: No, it's not. It's incomplete in two senses. It doesn't include all the exonerations that occurred. It includes those we've been able to get information on. And, second, and really more important, even if we could get information on all the exonerations that have occurred in the United States in the past 20-some years, that would only be a small fraction of the people who were innocent but convicted of serious crimes, despite their innocence.

CORNISH: So, of these 2,000 cases that you talk about, you have almost 900 cases, roughly, that you have the most detail about. And one thing I found interesting is that it wasn't DNA, necessarily, that exonerated all of these people.

GROSS: That's right. If you ask somebody on the street about exonerations, the next word out of their mouth will almost certainly be DNA and that's because DNA exonerations, which started in 1989, have gotten a lot of attention and for good reason. They've taught us a lot about the criminal justice system and they provide a type of scientific evidence of innocence that is very powerful.

But DNA exonerations have always been a minority of the exonerations that occur and the more we learn about exonerations that don't get as much attention, the more non-DNA exonerations we find out about.

Exoneree Franky Carrillo and Sam Gross were guests on MSNBC Politics Nation with Al Sharpton.  Carrillo spoke about his own experience with wrongful conviction and exonerations.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

At Huffington Post David Protess posts, "Meet the Exonerated."  He's president of the Chicago Innocence Project.

Other findings were more nuanced. Notably, exonerations were spread across 43 states, but were most prevalent by far in three states: Illinois, New York and Texas. These states together accounted for one-third of the country's exonerations. Cook County and Dallas County led the way with 114 exonerations between them.

But why? While the knee-jerk reaction is to shout "corruption," the reality is good news more than bad. As the researchers indicate, these areas have been at the forefront of the national innocence movement, with dedicated lawyers, investigators, journalists and even college students engaged in exposing wrongful convictions since the 1990s. In the last five years, the D.A. of Dallas County has remedied injustice in 19 cases, some in collaboration with the local innocence project.

It is reasonable to conclude that if the loosely affiliated public interest groups were to bring their model to populated counties like San Bernardino (Calif.), Fairfax (Va.) and Bergen (N.J.) -- none with an exoneration since 1989 -- the problem of wrongful convictions would suddenly surface.

Another relevant issue is the death penalty. Seven of the 10 states with the most exonerations also had among the highest death row populations. Although fewer than 0.1 percent of prisoners are sentenced to death, 12 percent of exonerees had been condemned. Once again, the death penalty has been a priority of the innocence movement, and many dramatic exonerations have helped to change the conversation about capital punishment in America.

Earlier coverage of the National Registry of Exonerations begins at the link.

Getting It Right

That's the title of a new widget from the Innocence Project and University of Virginia Law prof Brandon Garrett, author of the recently published, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong.

Here's what the IP has to say in announcing the widget:

The Innocence Project today launched a new multimedia resource on the central causes of wrongful convictions and proven reforms to prevent injustice. The new interactive widget, “Getting it Right,” is embeddable on any website and features videos, case studies and in-depth research on forensics, false confessions, eyewitness identification, informant testimony, defense representation and conduct by police and prosecutors.

The widget was produced in partnership with University of Virginia Law School Professor Brandon Garrett, whose 2011 book, “Convicting the Innocent,” has earned rave reviews and provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the causes of wrongful convictions later overturned through DNA testing.

I'll add a link to the site in the left-column webroll, "Innocence Projects & Resources."

Earlier coverage of Brandon Garrett and his book, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong, begins at this link.

New California Law on Corroboration

"Law requires corroboration of cellmate's testimony," is the title of Bob Egelko's report in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Testimony by jailhouse informants will no longer be enough to convict criminal defendants in California under hotly contested legislation signed Monday by Gov. Jerry Brown.

SB 687 by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, applies to cases in which an inmate, often in exchange for leniency, testifies that a cellmate confessed to a crime. The bill, effective next year, will require prosecutors to corroborate that testimony.

Similar laws are in effect in 17 other states. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the same proposal twice at the urging of the California District Attorneys Association, which also opposed Leno's bill.

The prosecutors' group argued that there was no need for such a law, since judges already tell juries to consider an informant's testimony with caution. The association also said a ban on uncorroborated informant testimony would make jailhouse crimes harder to prosecute.

But Leno said informant testimony is often self-serving and unreliable and can lead to convictions of the innocent. Defense lawyers and civil-liberties advocates who supported SB687 were joined by the district attorneys of San Francisco and Los Angeles, who say a requirement of corroboration, already in effect in their offices, actually leads to stronger prosecutions.

Leno praised Brown's action, saying, "Without the safeguards created in this legislation, the potential for the miscarriage of justice when informant testimony is involved is just too high."

The informant measure was one of several proposed by a statewide commission, headed by former Attorney General John Van de Kamp, that the state Senate established in 2004 to look into the causes of wrongful convictions.

More on SB 687, via the California State Legislature website.

Alexandra Natapoff posts, "California passes jailhouse informant corroboration law," at Snitching Blog.

Governor Brown just signed important new legislation requiring corroboration before a jailhouse informant can testify. SF Chronicle story here: Law requires corroboration of cellmate's testimony. California joins Texas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Idaho, and several other states that require safeguards to counteract the well-documented unreliability of jailhouse snitch testimony. Here is part of the bill:

A jury or judge may not convict a defendant, find a special circumstance true, or use a fact in aggravation based on the uncorroborated testimony of an in-custody informant.

I'm adding Snitching Blog to the More Criminal Justice Web Resources webroll in the left-column.  It's a fantastic resource.  Thanks to Saor Stetler for forwarding.

Related posts are in the informant / snitch testimony index.

Agreement in Tarrant County Resentencing

"Death sentence will likely change for woman in Mansfield slayings," is the title of Melody McDonald's report in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Six years ago, convicted killer Chelsea Richardson became the first woman in Tarrant County to be sentenced to death.

But in all likelihood, Richardson, 27, will soon be leaving Death Row.

After nearly four years of legal battling, Richardson's appellate attorney and the Tarrant County district attorney's office agreed that the former prosecutor on her case withheld evidence and that she should get a new punishment hearing -- and a life sentence.

The agreement marks the second time in three years that the district attorney's office has agreed to change the outcome of a death penalty case handled by ex-prosecutor Mike Parrish. In both cases, Parrish -- who retired in 2008 amid the controversy -- committed prosecutorial misconduct by withholding evidence that could have been useful to the defense.

"This office will not be a party to the infliction of death as a punishment when there is even an appearance of impropriety on the part of a prosecutor who formerly worked in this office," District Attorney Joe Shannon said. "If the death penalty is to be used, it must be obtained legally, fairly and honestly and without the hint of a possible injustice."

And:

This week, Richardson's attorney, Bob Ford, and Assistant District Attorneys Chuck Mallin and Steve Conder submitted a legal document with their agreement to state District Judge Steven Herod of Eastland County, who was appointed to hear the appeal. If Herod agrees with their conclusions, he will make a recommendation to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the only entity that can order a new punishment hearing.

If the appellate court agrees to the new punishment hearing, both sides then plan to enter into an agreement, and Richardson will receive a life sentence -- a deal that will finally bring the case to a close.

In May 2005, Richardson received a death sentence after she was convicted of capital murder in the slayings of her boyfriend's parents, Rick and Suzanna Wamsley of Mansfield. Authorities said Richardson; her boyfriend, Andrew Wamsley; and friend Susana Toledano killed the couple in 2003 so Andrew Wamsley could inherit his parents' $1.56 million estate.

Toledano -- who did most of the shooting and stabbing -- struck a deal with prosecutors and received a life sentence in exchange for pleading guilty to murder and testifying against Wamsley and Richardson. Wamsley went to trial, was convicted of capital murder and received a life sentence. Richardson, portrayed by prosecutors as the mastermind, also took her chances with a jury, who convicted her of capital murder and sentenced her to death.

And:

Ford's argument centered on the credibility of Parrish, whom he called a "weasel" and a "certified cheat." Ford argued that Parrish failed to give notes by psychologist Randy Price to Richardson's defense team. Price's notes could have suggested that Toledano, not Richardson, was the mastermind.

To bolster his argument, Ford reminded Herod about Parrish's misconduct in another case, which prompted the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2008 to overturn the conviction of Death Row inmate Michael Toney, who had been convicted for a 1995 bombing that killed three people. In that case, the district attorney's office also agreed that Parrish committed prosecutorial misconduct when he failed to turn over to the defense 14 documents containing exculpatory or impeaching evidence.

Toney was released from prison but died in a car wreck before prosecutors decided whether to retry him. Parrish, meanwhile, received a private reprimand by the State Bar of Texas for his conduct in Toney's case.

Coverage of Michael Toney's case begins at the link.  The responsibility of the state to provide exculpatory evidence to the defense was articulated in the 1963 Supreme Court ruling in Brady v. Maryland; more via Oyez.

Related posts are in the prosecutorial misconduct index.

The Delma Banks Hearing

"Second Death Penalty Fight Begins in Banks Case," is the title of Brandi Grissom's Texas Tribune post.

Delma Banks Jr. sat attentively in his yellow jumpsuit in the courtroom inside the Bi-State Justice Building on Monday as lawyers and experts debated how to make his second face-off with the death penalty a fairer fight than his first.

Thirty years after Banks was first sent to death row, his hair is gray and his face is rounder than when he first sat before a jury as a 21-year-old. Across the courtroom sat prosecutor James Elliott, his long-time antagonist, now white-haired after three decades of fighting to keep Banks on death row. At 52, Banks is facing the same Bowie County district's attorney office that sent him to death row in 1980 for the shooting death of 16-year-old Richard Whitehead. The same office that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2004 committed misconduct when it tried Banks, suppressing evidence and intentionally hiding its mistakes. Banks’ sentence was overturned, and now he and Elliott, one of the original prosecutors, are once again in the same courtroom fighting for their own versions of justice.

A new trial to decide whether Banks should be executed for the 1980 murder is scheduled for October. At a pre-trial hearing on Monday, lawyers for Banks asked Judge Nathan E. White to consider a slew of motions that they argued are crucial to ensure that Banks gets a fair trial, including disqualifying Bowie County prosecutors from representing the state. They also asked the judge to remove the death penalty as an option in Banks’ case and to order a new trial to determine whether he committed the murder. White did not rule on the motions Monday, but the court heard arguments from the lawyers on both sides and from defense experts, setting the stage for the court battles to come.

And:

George Kendall, a New York-based attorney now representing Banks, told the court that Elliott’s comments to the news media, along with the original misconduct, should disqualify him and the entire Bowie County district attorney’s office from the Banks case. “Mr. Banks has been treated very shabbily,” he said. “The prosecution can be a vigorous advocate for the state’s case, but it can’t transcend and not comply with ethical standards and rules of law.”

In court Monday, Elliott refused to take the witness stand as requested by Banks’ lawyers. “I have no intention of testifying,” Elliott told the judge. “I don’t believe it’s proper.”Arguing against the motion, Elliott said that during the original trial he had not known that Farr was a paid informant or that Cook’s testimony had been coached. He said he “didn’t go hunting the press” to talk about Banks’ case but was defending himself against accusations he had prosecuted an innocent man. And finally, Elliott said, he should not be removed from the case because he promised Whitehead’s father he would see it through. “I intend to keep my promise to that dead boy’s father,” Elliott said. “I have lived with this case since its inception. I would respectfully ask the court let me see it through.”

Banks’ lawyers also asked the court to stop the state from seeking the death penalty because so much time has elapsed since the crime. Defense lawyers are required to present mitigating evidence during the punishment phase of a capital trial to help jurors decide whether the convicted person ought to get life or death. That evidence typically includes family, friends, acquaintances, teachers and others who can help the jury understand what the convicted person’s life was like and what might have led up to the crime at hand. Mitigation expert Danalynn Recer, founder of the Gulf Region Advocacy Center in Houston, told the court that finding people and records to tell the story of Banks’ pre-prison life would be nearly impossible given the passage of time.  

“There’s very little that’s been left after all these years,” Recer said, explaining that 82 of Banks’ family members have died since he went to prison in 1980. More than 80 of his neighbors from the tiny town of Nash have died. Most of his teachers and principals are dead, and so are many of his classmates. “Those are the folks who are able to give the jury reasons to choose life,” she said.

Also:

Judge White made no ruling on the motions Monday, but he said the only issue he had questions about was the motion calling for a new guilt-innocence trial. He indicated he was not inclined to disqualify Elliott or the Bowie County district attorneys office from the case.

The article notes that another hearing is scheduled for next month.

Earlier coverage of the Delma Banks case is at the link.  Related posts are in the prosecutorial misconduct index.

More on the U.S. Supreme Court's 2004 ruling in Banks v. Dretke, is via Oyez.

The Case of Delma Banks

Texas Tribune journalist Brandi Grissom writes, "30-Year-Old Capital Case Returns to Court, With Defense Alleging Bias." for the New York Times

For the second time in three decades, a Texas court is preparing to decide whether Delma Banks Jr. should be executed for the 1980 shooting death of 16-year-old Richard Whitehead.

The United States Supreme Court overturned Mr. Banks’s death sentence in 2004, finding that the Bowie County prosecutors who tried the case suppressed evidence and deliberately covered their mistakes for decades.

“It’s really a remarkable tale of misconduct — just about every kind of thing the prosecution could do that was improper,” said Robert C. Owen, co-director of the Capital Punishment Center at the University of Texas School of Law, who was one of Mr. Banks’s appellate lawyers.

Now, the same district attorney’s office — including one of the same prosecutors who was involved in the original trial — is again seeking the death penalty for Mr. Banks. Despite the Supreme Court’s rebuke, James Elliott, who has been a prosecutor on the case for more than 30 years, has maintained that he will pursue Mr. Banks until he “gets what he deserves.”

At a hearing Monday in a Bowie County state district court, Mr. Banks’s lawyers will ask Judge Nathan E. White to disqualify Mr. Elliott and the local district attorney’s office from the case and to assign different lawyers to represent the state.

“Mr. Elliott’s misbehavior proves that he cannot serve as a disinterested prosecutor and is laboring under a conflict of interest that will prevent Mr. Banks from receiving a fair trial,” lawyers wrote in court documents.

Mr. Banks, who is black and was 21 when the crime was committed, was convicted of killing Mr. Whitehead, who was white, so he could take off with his car. The police found Mr. Whitehead’s body in a park near Texarkana and soon discovered that Mr. Banks had been with him on the last night he was seen alive.

There were no witnesses to the killing and no physical evidence linking Mr. Banks to it. The prosecution’s case relied largely on the testimony of Robert Farr and Charles Cook, both admitted drug users; Mr. Cook also had convictions for robbery by assault and forgery.

And:

In 1999 — almost 20 years after the trial — a federal judge forced Bowie County to open its case records, and Mr. Banks’s lawyers discovered a transcript showing that Mr. Cook’s testimony had been extensively rehearsed and coached. They also learned that the police had paid Mr. Farr, an informant who had an unreliable record, $200 for his role in the investigation.

Mr. Farr, in an affidavit, said he was afraid that the police would arrest him on drug charges. In exchange for the money, and to avoid jail, he agreed to set up Mr. Banks, he said, persuading him to drive to Dallas to get a gun.

Prosecutors allowed Mr. Cook and Mr. Farr to lie in court and never told jurors that their information was false, the Supreme Court found. Mr. Cook denied on the stand that anyone had helped him with his testimony, and Mr. Farr said he had not been paid for his help in the case. During closing arguments, Mr. Elliott told jurors that they should believe Mr. Cook and Mr. Farr.

In arguments before the Supreme Court, state lawyers did not dispute that Mr. Cook had been coached and that Mr. Farr was paid for his help. But they said Mr. Banks’s lawyers were at fault for not uncovering the information sooner.

The Supreme Court ruled that without the testimony of Mr. Cook and Mr. Farr, Mr. Banks might not have been sentenced to death. “It has long been established that the prosecution’s ‘deliberate deception of a court and jurors by the presentation of known false evidence is incompatible with rudimentary demands of justice,’ ” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in the court’s majority opinion.

Mr. Elliott declined to comment last week about the case. “We’re in litigation,” he said. “The newspaper is the wrong place to be trying cases — it just is. So I can’t give any comment.”

A slightly different version, "Death Row Inmate Faces Same Prosecutors Who Committed Misconduct," at posted at the Tribune.

Banks’ lawyers are also asking the court to throw out the guilty verdict and order a new trial. They contend that the perjured testimony of Cook and Farr and the prosecutors’ withholding of facts also affected their client's ability to defend himself. “Because of the state’s purposeful suppression and misconduct, Mr. Banks was surely denied the full defense available to him,” his lawyers argue in court pleadings.

Owen, of the Capital Punishment Center, said police and prosecutorial errors raised serious questions about whether Banks had actually committed the murder. “In a case where the evidence of guilt is so very thin, and the misconduct by the prosecution is so far-reaching and well-documented,” he said, “there’s no reason for any court to have any confidence the conviction is solid.”

Related posts are in the prosecutorial misconduct index.

More on the U.S. Supreme Court's 2004 ruling in Banks v. Dretke, is via Oyez.

48 Hours on Anthony Graves' Exoneration

"Students help free wrongfully convicted man," is the title of the CBS News program, "48 Hours Mystery" segemtn on Anthony Graves.  Richard Schlesinger reports; the segment is produced by Lourdes Aguiar, Jenna Jackson and Jennifer Simpson Ashmawy.  In addition to the video, you can also read the transcript of the report.

Here's the beginning:

Before the early morning hours of Aug. 18, 1992, the police in Somerville, Texas found six bodies in the burned rubble of what used to be the Davis home.

"This was such a horrific event in that town and continues to be an event that really haunts the people of Somerville..." Texas Monthly reporter Pam Colloff told "48 Hours Mystery." "This was a family that almost everyone in town knew, liked, respected."

The victims: A grandmother, her daughter, and four grandchildren who were staying with them.

Colloff is still moved by the fact that the family never had a chance.

"There was Bobbie Davis, the grandmother to the four children who was bludgeoned and then stabbed to death," Colloff explained. "There was 16-year-old Nicole, her daughter, who was a high school student and athlete, who was bludgeoned and shot. And then there were the four grandchildren. They were 9-year-old Denitra, 6-year-old Brittany, 5-year-old Lea'Erin and 4-year-old Jason."

Glenda Rutledge is Lea'Erin and Brittany's mother.

"And my daughters, "Rutledge sighed, "were exotically beautiful. Beautiful...They were my legacy..." she continued in tears. "I was so looking forward to the chance to get it right... You know, to raise strong, sure, confident, successful women. You know, I wanted to do that so bad."

Rutledge's ex-husband, Keith Davis, lost almost his entire family that night.

"I mean these were little babies, and - and my mother, who... you know, who we adored, who was the center of our life," he said.

He was convinced it was a random crime.

"I just couldn't imagine someone from that area harming anyone in my family, 'cause we had never...we didn't have any enemies, we hadn't been in any trouble," said Davis.

Roy Rueter lived and worked not from the murders. Five days after the crimes, he remembers hearing there was a break in the case.

"I could hear the radio and the news would always come up..." he recalled. "And - it was early in the morning and they came up and they said, you know, arrest had been made...and they said uh - Anthony Charles Graves, age 27."

Anthony Graves was one of Rueter's best friends. Graves had worked for him for a while at his machine shop and the two became so close that Graves had even been in Rueter's wedding party.

"And it just it just freaked me out," he told "48 Hours Mystery" correspondent Richard Schlesinger. "But my immediate thing was, yeah, right. No way. And what - you know, what - what could possibly be going on here, you know?"

"You didn't believe it?" Schlesinger asked Rueter.

"Well of course not. Absolutely not."

Rueter knew Anthony Graves as a gentle man, a father of three. He was now hearing his friend was a murderer - of women and children.

"In my heart, my convictions were that's impossible," he said. "Anthony would never do that. Anthony would never - hurt or raise a hand to a woman. And especially not a child, especially the way he loved his children."

And when Graves was arrested, he seemed equally stunned.

Earlier coverage begins with a preview of the 48 Hours report.  All coverage is in the Anthony Graves index.

Claude Jones - Looking Backwards, Looking Forward

"The DNA non-redemption," is the title of a Los Angeles Times editorial.  It appeared in the Saturday edition.

In 1990, a Texas jury convicted Claude Jones, a career criminal, of murdering Allen Hilzendager.

Jones and another ex-convict, Danny Dixon, had stopped their truck at Hilzendager's liquor store in Point Blank, Texas. One of the men got out, entered the store and shot Hilzendager. Jones blamed Dixon and Dixon blamed Jones, but Jones was eventually convicted of pulling the trigger on the basis of one person's testimony (subsequently recanted) and on one piece of physical evidence: a strand of hair found inside the store and identified as Jones' by a crime lab expert. That hair tipped the balance between life and death, because Texas law requires corroborating physical evidence in a capital case. Dixon is serving a life sentence; Jones was put to death in 2000.

This month, however, a DNA test determined that the hair did not belong to Jones after all; it belonged to the victim. With no physical evidence, there is now no legal basis for Jones' death sentence.

Some may argue that this miscarriage of justice was an aberration. But Texas' rapid pace of executions, coupled with its abysmal standards for effective representation for defendants, have long made the likelihood of wrongful executions exceedingly high. The state offers a prime example of why the death penalty, which requires 100% accuracy, is so difficult to mete out fairly.

Innocence Project Co-Founder Barry Scheck wrote the OpEd, "Capital Punishment and Human Fallibility," for the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal.

On Friday, Dec. 7, 2000, as the world waited for a decision from the Florida Supreme Court on whether the recount of that state's presidential ballot should continue, Texas Governor and soon-to-be President George W. Bush was provided with a final memo from his Counsel's Office on the fate of death-row inmate Claude Jones.

He was advised to reject Jones's application for a 30-day reprieve because there was "no doubt about guilt." Jones had received "full and fair process" in the courts, and "Jones' hair matched a hair found at the crime scene."

Incredibly, Mr. Bush was not told that lawyers for Jones had requested the 30-day reprieve so that a mitochondrial DNA test could be performed on this hair, the key piece of evidence in the case and the only piece of physical evidence tying him to the crime scene. Jones was executed by lethal injection that day.

Earlier this month, after six years of litigation, that hair was finally tested. On Nov. 11, Mitotyping Technologies, a private lab in State College, Pa., found that it did not come from Claude Jones, but from the victim of the crime. If this DNA test had been done in December 2000, Claude Jones would not have been executed, and his conviction would likely have been reversed.

The case might have been dismissed altogether because the hair "match" was the key evidence cited in a 3-to-2 decision of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to meet a requirement of Texas law that the accomplice testimony used to convict Jones be corroborated.

And:

There is growing bipartisan recognition that there are a set of reforms that can make the criminal-justice bureaucracy more accurate, accountable and cost-effective. We can learn from our mistakes, including those made in the hours before Claude Jones's execution. Sen. Jim Webb (D., Va.), along with 39 co-sponsors including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) and Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), is sponsoring a bill already approved by the House to establish a National Criminal Justice Reform Commission.

The Webb bill would lay out a blueprint of best practices that have proven effective, including ways to reduce prison populations without endangering public safety and investigative procedures that protect the innocent while enhancing the capability of law enforcement to apprehend the guilty. And it would also help prevent wrongful convictions, including in death-penalty cases, by evaluating past procedures and recommending improvements and guidelines. But if the bill is not passed in this brief lame-duck session, it will almost certainly perish, another casualty of partisan gridlock.

Earlier coverage of the Claude Jones case begins with the post, "Why the Claude Jones Case Matters."

Leonard Pitts Revisits the Anthony Graves Exoneration

"Death Row backers blind to injustice," is the title of the award-winning columnist's latest.  His syndicated column is via the Miami Herald, his home paper.  In this excerpt, Pitts is referring to Pamela Colloff's Texas Monthly examination of the case, published last month.

Colloff’s story drew outraged media attention, including from yours truly. But the attention that mattered was that of the current DA, Bill Parham, who undertook his own investigation. He was unequivocal in explaining his decision to drop charges. ‘‘There’s not a single thing that says Anthony Graves was involved in this case,” he said. “There is nothing.”

One hopes people who love the death penalty are taking note. So often, their arguments in favor of that barbarous frontier relic seem to take place in some alternate universe where cops never fabricate evidence and judges never make mistakes, where lawyers are never inept and witnesses never commit perjury. So often, they behave as if in this one critical endeavor, unlike in every other endeavor, human beings somehow get it right every time.

I would not have convicted Anthony Graves of a traffic violation on the sort of evidence Sebesta offered. Yet somehow, a jury in Texas convicted him of murder and sent him to die.

When you pin them on it, people who love the death penalty often retreat into sophistic nonsense. Don’t end the death penalty, someone told me, just enact safeguards to ensure the innocent are never sentenced. Yeah, right. Show me the safeguard that guarantees perfection.

Those who propose to tinker with the death penalty until it is foolproof remind me of the addict attempting to negotiate with his addiction, desperately proffering minor concessions that will allow him to continue indulging in this thing that is killing him. But there comes a day when you simply have to kick the habit.

Earlier coverage of Anthony Graves' exoneration is a the link.  Pamela Colloff's October 2010 Texas Monthly profile is "Innocence Lost."  Pitts' earlier column is noted at the link.

Innocence Case to Get Evidentiary Hearing in Virginia

"Hearing set in Norfolk for Va. death row inmate," is the AP report by Dena Potter.  It's via the Virginian Pilot.

A Virginia death row inmate who claims he was wrongly convicted in the murder-for-hire of his marijuana supplier will try to convince a Norfolk federal judge this week that he is innocent.

An evidentiary hearing for Justin Michael Wolfe is scheduled to begin today to consider another man's claim that he alone killed 21-year-old Daniel Petrole Jr. in 2001. The judge also will consider sworn statements from others who say shooter Owen Barber IV told them he acted alone in killing Petrole.

Barber was the key witness in Wolfe's 2002 trial, which exposed a high-end marijuana distribution ring in the wealthy suburbs of Northern Virginia. Barber agreed to plead guilty to first-degree murder and testify against Wolfe in exchange for a life sentence.

Barber recanted his testimony in 2005, but then changed his story again five months later and insisted his testimony at Wolfe's trial had been truthful.

U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson in Norfolk granted the evidentiary hearing in February, saying there was enough evidence "to raise doubt in a reasonable juror's mind about the circumstances of the night of the murder."

An earlier mention of Wolfe relates to prison conditions in Virginia.

The Anthony Graves Exoneration - More Coverage

Sunday's Houston Chronicle featured two news articles.  First, "A mother always knows," by Cindy George.

Doris Curry often points to a framed poster in her front room of footprints in the sand, an illustration that shows how a believer can be carried by God through trying times.

It's her quickest explanation for how she found the strength to endure her first-born's 18 years locked up on a wrongful conviction, some of which was spent on Texas death row.

What's even harder to understand is how she faced life in a small town like Brenham, where almost everyone knew that her son, Anthony Graves, was a convicted murderer believed to be involved in the slayings of six people. On Wednesday, her 45-year-old son was released and declared innocent by special prosecutors. His family enjoyed a celebratory feast at home on Saturday.

"I have faith and hope, and that's how I fought that war," said Curry, now 62, who always believed her son was innocent.

It's a journey that cost Graves his freedom and required incredible sacrifice from his family — particularly his mother.

And:

Curry has spent most of her life taking care of people. She had Anthony Graves at 17 and by 19 was supporting two children with a job at Dairy Queen. A workforce program allowed her to get hired as a caretaker at the Brenham State School. By her mid-20s, she had five children and later took in her ill sister's four kids.

The wrongful charges against her son weren't the first time she experienced injustice. Curry's brother was killed in 1970, and her estranged husband was murdered in the early 1980s.

She quit her job in November 1992 to cash in her retirement savings for Graves' legal defense. One administrator "thought they shouldn't hire me back because I could be threatening to the people who work there ­­- like I did something," Curry remembered.

At work, she wondered about the suspicious looks. Some people would question her about her son's case - and not in a supportive way.

"One secretary asked me: 'If your son didn't do it, how come he's not out?' And some people whispered, thinking that he was guilty. I could tell people were talking about me, and it made me uncomfortable."

Dr. Vineeth John, associate professor of psychiatry at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, said the concept of shame becomes "even more painful" when relatives are convinced of their loved one's innocence.

"Many people are not prepared to tackle an event of such magnitude that brings so much social ostracism," John said. "This is a woman with a resilient mind-set surrounded by a loving family who helped her retain a sense of hope."

Safiya Ravat writes, "Slain victims' relatives looking for peace."

After almost two decades of attending trials, hearing intricate details of how his mother, two daughters, sister, niece and nephew were stabbed, killed and set ablaze in 1992, Keith Davis and his family hope to find peace after the exoneration of Anthony Graves, the only remaining suspect convicted in the murders.

Graves, 45, who spent the last 18 years in prison for the murders of Davis' six family members, was released Wednesday after prosecutors in a retrial filed a motion to dismiss charges against Graves due to lack of substantial evidence.

The exoneration brought a mix of emotions to relatives of the victims, some of who spoke out for the first time Saturday.

A few were outraged, believing Graves to be a guilty man set free. Others, like Davis, stood by the justice system's verdict.

"If Anthony Graves is innocent, then he very well should be released," Davis said. He, along with his brother and sister, believe that Graves' exoneration was appropriate due to the lack of evidence.

Davis admits that though there was no physical evidence against Graves from the very beginning, he did believe him to be guilty for many years.

"For 18 years it was embedded in us to believe that he was guilty," Davis said.

But after sitting through numerous trials against both Graves and co-defendant Robert Carter, who was executed in 2000 for the murders, Davis began to notice patterns that cast doubt into his mind about Graves' involvement.

Next, let me return to Friday's coverage.  It starts with a Dallas Morning News editorial, "Death-row case underscores fallibility."

Let us recount the grave injustices inflicted upon Anthony Graves. He has spent the last 18 years behind bars, including 12 on death row, for a murder he did not commit. Prosecutors never established a plausible motive linking him to the 1992 deaths of six people who were shot, bludgeoned and stabbed to death in Sommerville, Texas, near Bryan. And prosecutors hid crucial exculpatory evidence that would have helped exonerate Graves.

On Wednesday, Burleson County District Attorney Bill Parham conceded that Graves "is an innocent man" and obtained his release. "There is nothing that connects Anthony Graves to this crime," he said after completing a five-month investigation of his predecessor's seriously flawed handiwork. "I did what I did because that's the right thing to do."

Graves is, no doubt, overjoyed today as he relishes his first hours of freedom and the ability to hug his mother whenever he wants. But if Graves harbors resentment and outrage over former District Attorney Charles Sebasta's egregious behavior in this case, he is absolutely justified. Graves owes his freedom in no small part to the work of University of St. Thomas journalism students, the Texas Innocence Project and Texas Monthly magazine.

Nothing excuses what prosecutors and investigators did in a blind pursuit of a conviction, an expansive account of which appeared in Texas Monthly's October issue.

The other Friday news coverage includes, "Team overturning Graves case blasts ex-DA," by Brian Rogers for the Houston Chronicle, and, "An army of believers," by Jeannie Kever.

Earlier coverage begins with this post.

Anthony Graves Exoneration - Additional Coverage

This morning's Houston Chronicle has expanded coverage in, "Prisoner ordered free from Texas' death row," by Brian Rogers.

After 18 years of incarceration and countless protestations of innocence, Anthony Graves finally got a nod of approval from the one person who mattered Wednesday and at last returned home — free from charges that he participated in the butchery of a family in Somerville he did not know and free of the possibility that he would have to answer for them with his life.

The district attorney for Washington and Burleson counties, Bill Parham, gave Graves his release. The prosecutor filed a motion to dismiss charges that had sent Graves to Texas' death row for most of his adult life. Graves returned to his mother's home in Brenham no longer the "cold-blooded killer," so characterized by the prosecutor who first tried him, but as another exonerated inmate who even in the joy of redemption will face the daunting prospect of reassembling the pieces of a shattered life.

"He's an innocent man," Parham said, noting that his office investigated the case for five months. "There is nothing that connects Anthony Graves to this crime. I did what I did because that's the right thing to do."

An attorney for Graves, Jimmy Phillips Jr., said his client was released from Burleson County Jail, where he had been awaiting a retrial, at about 5:30 p.m.

Graves immediately went to see his mother in Brenham and reportedly spent the night near Austin. "The first place he wanted to go is to go hug his mama," Phillips said. "He is a free man, and he's home."

Graves called his mother to tell her he was coming home. Doris Curry left the house to pick up her youngest son, and by the time she returned home, Graves was already there, surrounded by family and friends.

"I hugged him and I hugged him and I cried and we both cried and we hugged and we cried," Curry said. "He said: 'Mama, it's over. Mama, 18 years we've fought this fight a long time. It's over. Justice has been done for me.' "

And:

Graves' appellate attorneys, Jay Burnett and Roy Greenwood, knew it was far less. They soon were convinced their client had no knowledge of or participation in the crime, just as he had claimed since the moment of his arrest.

Over the years, there was increasing evidence raised to doubt the validity of the conviction. Students in a University of St. Thomas journalism class worked with The Innocence Project at the University of Houston to review the Graves case in detail.

Nicole Casarez, the journalism professor who taught the class, and one of her students interviewed Carter's brother, whose affidavit along with other evidence they gathered helped persuade the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to order a hearing, which eventually led to the new trial.

"I think the dismissal motion filed this morning says it best: There is no credible evidence to inculpate this defendant," Casarez said Wednesday night. "I’m just thrilled that it has finally come to this. I think it was a lot of people working very hard, perhaps even divine intervention, so that it all worked out today."

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Graves’ conviction in 2006. A three-judge panel said he deserved a new trial after ruling that prosecutors elicited false statements from two witnesses and withheld two statements that could have changed the minds of jurors.

Graves eventually was returned to county jail with a bond set at $1 million, and Parham began to reassemble the case and review the evidence. He hired former Harris County assistant district attorney Kelly Siegler as a special prosecutor. Siegler soon saw that making a case against Graves was all but impossible.

Jordan Smith posts, "Anthony Graves Freed," at the Austin Chronicle.

And finally, on Wednesday, after nearly two decades behind bars, Graves was released from jail and all charges against him in connection with the Somerville murders were dropped. Importantly, prosecutors declared Graves actually innocent of the crime – a declaration that should help him collect some compensation for all the years of wrongful incarceration.

Finally.

The state's case against Anthony Graves was tenuous at best. For starters, there was no evidence to suggest he had anything to do with the crime – and there was ample evidence that he wasn't anywhere near the Somerville home the night the family was murdered. But the state ignored every single sign that their case was crap – even after the Fifth Circuit told them it was. Instead, prosecutors decided to retry Graves – intimating at one point that they were willing to use now discredited junk science in order to railroad the man.

Interestingly, although the case was fraught with problems, it never received the kind of media attention it deserved. We've written about it a number of times in the Chronicle, but it wasn't until last month, when Texas Monthly writer Pamela Colloff's story on the case was published that the entire tale was laid out in one place.

It's hard to imagine that the Colloff story didn't have some impact on the decision to finally free Graves. Regardless of the reasons behind the release, it was a move that was long, long overdue.

The list of stories on the case from our archives is here.

Earlier coverage begins with the preceding post from last night.  Pamela Colloff's October 2010 Texas Monthly profile is "Innocence Lost."

Leonard Pitts Looks at the Anthony Graves Case

The Pulitizer Prize-winning syndicated columist writes, "Justice, delayed and denied."  It's via the Miami Herald, Pitts' home paper.

It was once a staple plot of TV westerns: There's been a vicious killing. Everybody knows who did it -- or thinks they know -- and the posse wants to string the varmint up. No need for the bother of a trial. The crime was outrageous, people are furious. So get the rope, find a tree.

Watching, you'd be glad we've moved beyond frontier justice, glad the howling of the mob can no longer stampede us into condemning an innocent man.

Anthony Graves would beg to differ. In 1992, he was arrested for a multiple murder that roiled the tiny Texas town of Somerville. A 45-year-old woman, her 16-year-old daughter and four children, all younger than 10, had been beaten, stabbed and shot to death and their home torched.

No physical evidence linked Graves to the crime. He had no motive to butcher six strangers. Three witnesses placed him at home at the time of the murders.

And in the end, it didn't matter. Graves was convicted and sentenced to die solely on the word of one Robert Carter, father of one of the murdered children.

And:

The tale is recounted in the new issue of Texas Monthly magazine. To read Pamela Colloff's report is to be sobered by the degree to which public outrage still drives death penalty decisions.

It was an awful crime, and people needed to see someone punished for it. Indeed, Somerville mayor Tanya Roush told the Austin American Statesman her town was impatient with the idea of a trial. ``They're saying, `Bring back the hangin' tree, and save the taxpayers' money.' ''

``There was a lot of pressure in this community to get convictions,'' says Colloff. ``No one stopped along the way and said, `Hey, wait a minute. Does this case make any sense?' It just kept moving forward.''

And because it did, Anthony Graves -- 26 when he was arrested, 45 now -- has lost years he can never get back. He may yet lose his life. What has happened and is happening to him is obscene.

Earlier coverage of the Anthony Graves' case begins here.  Colloff's magnificent article, "Innocence Lost," in the current issue of Texas Monthly is noted here.

Dallas Morning News on the Anthony Graves Case

"Murder conviction chock full of holes," is the title of an editorial in today's Dallas Morning News.

For anyone with an interest in prosecutorial misconduct and capital punishment, the October issue of Texas Monthly contains required reading – a chilling account alleging deceit and abuse in pursuit of a murder conviction. The article, available today, should make even ardent supporters of the death penalty shudder to consider how an egregiously flimsy and unproven case nearly ended the life of Anthony Graves before a federal appeals court intervened and ended his 18-year residence on death row.

Even more troubling is that Graves, 45, still sits in jail awaiting a new trial in a 1992 murder case in which six people, including a teenager and four children, were shot, bludgeoned and stabbed to death and their house set afire in Sommerville, near Bryan. Robert Carter, absentee father of one of the victims, emerged as a key suspect after he appeared at their funeral with bandages covering burns on his face. Various investigative blunders led to Graves' identification as a second suspect, though he had no association with the victims and no motive. No evidence linked him to the slayings, while substantial evidence and motives pointed to Carter's guilt.

And:

This newspaper has examined numerous questionable cases over the years, and evidence of prosecutorial malfeasance, among other important factors, convinces us that this state's use of the death penalty is too error-prone, and the result too permanent, to be justifiable.

Anthony Graves defied the odds and had an ill-gotten conviction thrown out, but his ongoing ordeal reminds us how extremely fallible our justice system can be.

Coverage of the must-read TM article is here.

Innocence Lost

That's the title of Pamela Colloff's 14,000 word examination of the case of Anthony Graves, noted yesterday. 

It's subtitled, "Since August 23, 1992, Anthony Graves has been behind bars for the gruesome murder of a family in Somerville. There was no clear motive, no physical evidence connecting him to the crime, and the only witness against him recanted, declaring again and again before his death, in 2000, that Graves didn’t do it. If he didn’t, the truth will come out. Won’t it?" 

Here's a small excerpt from this must-read:

Graves, who had moved back to Brenham from Austin that spring after getting laid off from an assembly line job at Dell, was picked up before noon at his mother’s apartment and brought to the Brenham police station in handcuffs. In the station’s booking room, a surveillance camera captured the half hour that passed as the 26-year-old—who was never told why he was being detained—waited, bewildered. He repeatedly asked an officer who busied himself with paperwork what he was being held for, but he was informed that he would have to wait until a magistrate arrived to read him the charges. Graves turned his attention to another officer, who he hoped would be more forthcoming, but the man feigned ignorance. “You don’t know neither?” Graves said, sighing. “I wish somebody would tell me what’s going on.” When the justice of the peace finally appeared, Graves jumped to his feet, eager for information.

“You’re Anthony Charles Graves?” asked the justice of the peace, glancing up from the warrant that she held before her. She was flanked by two police officers.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Anthony, this is going to be your warning of rights,” she said. Her delivery was matter-of-fact: “You’re charged with the offense of capital murder.”

“Who?” he said, dumbfounded. He stared back at her blankly.

“An affidavit charging you for this offense has been filed in court,” she continued. As she read him his Miranda rights, he watched her in disbelief. “At this time, no bond has been set,” she said. “Do you understand what I’ve told you, Anthony?”

Graves held up his hands in protest. “Capital murder?” he said, incredulous. “Me? Wh-wh-who murdered? I mean—”

A man wearing a white Western hat interrupted him. “You’ll have a chance to talk to the officers who are actually working the case,” he said.

“This is a big mistake,” Graves said, his voice rising. “Capital murder?” Dubious, he turned to the police officer who had brought him down to the station. “This is a joke,” he said, breaking into a grin, as if he were suddenly on to the elaborate prank that he seemed certain was being played on him. “Somebody’s messing with me, right?” The officer, who did not smile back, ordered him to have a seat.

Graves studied the copy of the arrest warrant that the judge had handed to him, trying to make sense of it. He repeated the words “capital murder” eighteen times, enunciating each syllable as if doing so would help him better grasp their meaning. “This is a big mistake,” he repeated. “This has got to be straightened out today.” Finally, before he was led down the hall to talk to the Rangers, he slapped the side of his head and cried out, “Am I dreaming?”

And:

On September 6, 2006, Graves walked off of death row. But there was no celebration beyond the floodlights and the coils of concertina wire, no crush of television reporters shouting questions, no tearful embrace with his mother, whom he had been allowed to touch just once during his fourteen years of incarceration. Instead, Graves walked out of his six-by-ten-foot concrete cell and into the arms of Burleson County sheriff’s deputies, who transported him back to the county jail in Caldwell, where he would await retrial. The Fifth Circuit’s ruling had not exonerated him, and he still faced the original criminal charges that had been filed against him in 1992. In the eyes of Burleson County, he remained a murderer, and a child killer at that. Judge Towslee’s successor—his daughter, Judge Reva Towslee-Corbett—set his bail at $1 million.

The article notes that his new trial is currently scheduled for February 2011.

Earlier coverage begins here.

Texas Monthly to Spotlight Anthony Graves' Case

The October issue should be available online tomorrow.

"Texas Monthly to feature Graves case," is the post today at the Brenham Banner.

The murder conviction of Anthony Graves is being featured in the October issue of Texas Monthly magazine.

The 20-page article, called “Innocence Lost,” details the arrest and conviction of Graves, a Brenham native, for the brutal murders of six Somerville residents in 1992.

Graves was found guilty of murder by a jury in Brazoria County in 1994 and was sentenced to death.

The 14,000-word story was written by Pamela Colloff, who spent months researching the case and talking to people involved, including Graves, who remains in the Burleson County jail awaiting a new trial.

“It was definitely the most complicated story I have ever written in 15 years of writing crime stories,” Colloff said.

And:

The article says: “Since August 23, 1992, Anthony Graves has been behind bars for the gruesome murder of a family in Somerville. There was no clear motive, no physical evidence connecting him to the crime, and the only witness against him recanted, declaring again and again before his death, in 2000, that Graves didn’t do it.

“If he didn’t, the truth will come out, won’t it?’

Robert Carter, who was also convicted in the murders and was put to death by lethal injection May 31, 2000, originally implicated Graves but later recanted, including a statement in the execution chamber that “it was me and me alone. Anthony Graves had nothing to do with it. I lied on him in court.”

San Antonio Express-News columnist Cary Clack writes, "A matter of life and death in Texas."

Texas is a state known not only for its high volume of death-row inmates but for questions about the guilt of some of those condemned.

The most well-known of these inmates is Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the arson deaths of his three daughters in Corsicana in 1991. Considerable evidence suggests that the fire was accidental and Willingham innocent. In July, the Texas Forensic Science Commission said in a preliminary report that the arson investigators used flawed science. On Friday, the commission will meet in Dallas to address the case.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the execution of Henry Skinner for the 1993 murder of three people in Pampa until crucial DNA testing can be conducted.

There are reasons to believe that Willingham and Skinner may not have committed the crimes they were convicted of, but there's also evidence that lends credence to their convictions. In the most controversial of death-row cases, reasonable people can look at the evidence and come to different conclusions about guilt or innocence.

Then there's the case of Anthony Graves. In 1994, Graves was convicted and sentenced to die for six horrific murders in the Central Texas town of Somerville. The victims were Bobbie Davis, her teenage daughter and four grandchildren, ages 9, 6, 5 and 4.

The only thing that incriminated Graves - the only thing - was the word of the man who was eventually executed for the murders and who, until the final moments of his life, insisted that he'd lied about Graves' involvement.

In the October issue of Texas Monthly, which will be on newsstands Thursday, Pamela Colloff has written a masterfully reported and exhaustively detailed 14,000 word story about the Graves case.

I've read dozens of accounts of death-row inmates who claim to have been falsely convicted and may have intriguing evidence to support their claims. After reading Colloff's story - the magazine's second longest in 30 years - Graves' case is the only one in which I'm left 100 percent certain of the innocence of the convicted.

There was no physical evidence connecting Graves to the crime. He didn't know the victims, unlike Robert Carter, the man who was executed for the crimes and who was the father of the youngest child, yet who initially claimed that he was only in the car while Graves stabbed, shot and bludgeoned the victims. At least three people can attest to where Graves was while the murders were being committed.

The night before Carter testified against Graves, he was taking sole responsibility for the crimes, but he still incriminated him in court the next day. For years, in letters, conversations and sworn testimony, Carter insisted that Graves was innocent. While lying on the gurney as he was about to be executed in 2000, his last words, after apologizing to the victims' family, was, "It was me and me alone. Anthony Graves had nothing to do with it. I lied on him in court."

Earlier coverage of Anthony Graves begins with this post.

The Latest on Kevin Keith

Supporters of Kevin Keith have started a petition urging clemency in his case.  I've embedded an action box in the right column for those who would like to sign.  You can also sign the petition at this LINK.

Kevin Keith is scheduled for execution on September 15 despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence. More information about Kevin's case, including a case summary and supporting briefs that have been filed by the National Innocence Network and eyewitness experts, can be found at KevinKeith.org

Earlier this month the U.S. Supreme Court refused to examine Kevin Keith's case; coverage begins with this post.

At the Supreme Court

The Court today rejected petitions to examine two death penalty cases.  In the Kevin Keith case from Ohio, the AP reports, "Court won't hear inmate's claim of innocence," via Google News.

The Supreme Court won't hear an Ohio man's arguments that he will be wrongfully executed for fatally shooting three people.

The high court on Tuesday refused to hear Kevin Keith's appeal. Keith is scheduled to be executed in September.

Keith's lawyers wanted justices to review the evidence in the killing of three people in a 1994 shooting in northern Ohio.

They say courts have never heard evidence that could exonerate him. That includes an alternate suspect who boasted he was going to carry out the killings, an enlarged photo of Keith used during a picture lineup and witnesses who say Keith was elsewhere.

Keith's attorneys have issued the following statement:

"We are disappointed that the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Mr. Keith's appeal.   However, the Court's denial is not an indication of how strong the facts are supporting Mr. Keith's innocence claim involving faulty eyewitness identification and an alternative suspect.   Less than 1% of all petitions are accepted, and as the Supreme Court rules state, a petition is rarely granted when the problem is that the lower court decided the facts wrong.  Indeed, no court has ever had the entirety of the new evidence of Mr. Keith's innocence before it, nor has it ever been presented to a jury. Since Mr. Keith's execution is scheduled for this September 15th, his fate may rest in the hands of the Ohio Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Strickland, who we trust will do everything they can to ensure that an innocent person is not executed in our State."

Earlier coverage of the Kevin Keith case begins with this post.

The Court also refused to review a federal death sentence.  The AP report is, "High Court Turns Down Appeal In Rogue Juror Case," via WJZ-TV

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected an appeal from a federal death row inmate who said his death sentence should have been thrown out because of a juror's misconduct.

The justices did not comment in turning down Brandon Basham, who was sentenced to death for kidnapping and killing 44-year-old Alice Donovan in 2002. The foreman on Basham's jury was held in contempt of court by the trial judge after it was learned that she called five news organizations and made 71 other calls to two fellow jurors, despite repeated warnings from the judge to refrain from discussing the case with anyone.

In the case from South Carolina, U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Anderson Jr. found that the behavior of juror Cynthia Wilson, was so outrageous that he held her in contempt of court, ordering her to return $2,500 of her juror's pay and perform 120 hours of community service. Anderson said he would have put Wilson in jail for six months if she did not have four children at home.

But when Basham asked for his death sentence to be thrown out as a result of Wilson's conduct, Anderson refused, and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., backed him up.

The case had attracted some attention lately because Solicitor General Elena Kagan -- now the nominee to replace Justice John Paul Stevens -- opposed Supreme Court review.  An earlier AP report was titled, "Kagan: No need for court review of rogue juror," via Google News.

And when Basham took his plea to the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Elena Kagan agreed that the judge had made the correct call. The high court, to which Kagan has since been nominated, could say as early as Tuesday whether it will hear Basham's case.

It is no surprise that the government is seeking to preserve what it already has won, especially after the time and expense of a capital punishment trial.

Basham's guilt in a brutal, senseless crime is not in dispute, as even his lawyers concede. Basham was convicted by a jury and Chadrick Fulks pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing 44-year-old Alice Donovan during a two-week crime spree after the pair escaped from a Hopkins County, Ky., jail in 2002. Fulks also has been sentenced to death.

They also have pleaded guilty to killing 19-year-old Marshall University student Samantha Burns in West Virginia.

The claim that Basham is raising at the Supreme Court deals only with the actions of juror Wilson, a nurse from Lyman, S.C., in the penalty phase of his trial.

The court has previously ruled that the presence of a biased juror is so serious that it requires a verdict to be thrown out.

Basham and the government disagree over whether Wilson actually was biased and tried improperly to sway other jurors who might not have favored a death sentence.

Wilson testified that her calls to the media were intended to spur stories that women shopping alone should be careful, since Donovan was abducted from a Wal-Mart parking lot and Burns from a mall in Huntington, W.Va.

But Basham said the testimony from Wilson, her husband and a television news producer Wilson called suggested that she was interested in publicity for herself and was also worried that some jurors might not vote for a death sentence.

More on the Kevin Keith Case

"Evidence of innocence: Kevin Keith sits on Ohio's death row as the eyewitness case against him continues to erode," is the title of an editorial in Akron Beacon Journal.  It appeared in Friday's edition.

The successful prosecution of Kevin Keith relied heavily on the account of an eyewitness. Richard Warren testified in the Crawford County Common Pleas Court that Keith sprayed gunfire in a Bucyrus apartment, killing three people and wounding three others (including Warren). No forensic evidence conclusively linked Keith to the crime. He even had an alibi. So the Warren testimony proved critical in sending Keith to death row 16 years ago.

Now that testimony has begun to fall apart, new attorneys for Keith uncovering fresh evidence since they joined the case three years ago. The attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court for relief, Keith facing an execution date in September. On Tuesday, they also filed a motion in Crawford County for a new trial. They have discovered new information in an unrelated lawsuit that concerns the Bucyrus Police Department destroying tape recordings of the station's incoming telephone calls.

Questions long have been raised about the way Warren arrived at identifying Keith. Warren initially insisted that he didn't know the shooter. He explained that the shooter wore a mask. Yet he eventually pointed to Keith. Why? Police officers said a nurse attending Warren in the hospital called the station to say that Warren had identified the attacker as ''Kevin.'' The police then put together a photo lineup of ''Kevins,'' from which Warren selected Keith.

Put aside that the lineup was biased, the photo of Keith larger and darker than the others. The police testified that a nurse ''Amy Gimmets'' made the call to the station. Yet Gimmets never testified at the trial. Another nurse, John Foor, took the stand, telling the court that he called the police to relay that Warren wrote down the name of ''Kevin'' as the attacker.

And:

What is evident is that the police had Kevin Keith in their sights from the start. Did they maneuver to plant the thought with Warren? The new attorneys for Keith have uncovered strong information about a far more likely suspect. All this explains why the Ohio Innocence Project has taken up Keith's cause, why he deserves relief from the Supreme Court and a new trial in Crawford County.

Earlier coverage of the case begins here.

The Justice Project on Snitch Testimony

The Justice Project's John Terzano posts, "Jailhouse Snitches Sabotage Justice with Unreliable Evidence," at Fire Dog Lake.

Jailhouse "snitch" and informant witnesses often provide incriminating testimony during criminal proceedings in exchange for reduced sentences or other benefits. This practice provides powerful incentives for witnesses to lie, and makes their testimony notoriously unreliable. Despite this fact, police and prosecutors often use this highly unreliable form of evidence to secure convictions. The danger of this kind of testimony is not theoretical: in-custody informant testimony is a leading cause of documented wrongful convictions and a factor in over fifteen percent of the DNA exoneration cases nationally.

Because snitch testimony is so risky, it is imperative that such evidence be subjected to careful scrutiny and safeguards. Illinois has led the way by requiring pretrial reliability hearings in homicide cases, in which the state must demonstrate that a jailhouse snitch’s proffered testimony is credible before it can be presented to the jury. Other important safeguards include mandatory, automatic pretrial disclosures of information related to jailhouse snitch testimony, including witness compensation arrangements and other information bearing on witness credibility. States should also require corroboration of statements made by jailhouse snitches. The Justice Project’s common-sense reforms designed to protect the system from unreliable snitch testimony can be found in In-custody Informant Testimony: A Policy Review.

There is an emerging consensus among criminal justice experts on the need for reform. Alexandra Natapoff, a leading national expert on the issue, recently published a new book, Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice, which extensively details the threat that snitch testimony poses to the criminal justice system. Natapoff also outlines the need for new safeguards to prevent snitches from undermining justice.