"Texas hasn't ruled out retrying freed Death Row inmate in Lake Worth bombing," is Alex Branch's report in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
State authorities say they have not ruled out retrying Michael Toney in the 1985 bombing of a Lake Worth trailer despite the dismissal of the murder case against him.
The Texas attorney general’s office dropped the case Wednesday because it did not have time to review all the evidence or conduct more forensic tests before the November trial date, according to the motion for dismissal.
In its decision, the state reserved the right to prosecute Toney later, and there is no statute of limitations for murder. The attorney general’s office got the case in January after the Tarrant County district attorney’s office recused itself.
"The office of the attorney general’s independent review of this case necessitates a thorough reexamination of the existing evidence prior to proceeding to trial," the motion says.
Toney’s abrupt release from jail Wednesday night was the culmination of a stunning turn of events for a man who less than a year ago was still awaiting execution by lethal injection.
For almost a decade on Death Row, Toney relentlessly protested his 1999 conviction for one of Tarrant County’s most notorious crimes, which killed three people.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Toney’s conviction in December because prosecutors withheld evidence favorable to his defense during his trial, a fact that led to the recusal.
On Thursday, Toney, who for years sent correspondence about his case to journalists, prosecutors and others, declined an interview request. He instead issued this statement through his attorneys:
"I have said all along that I was innocent of these charges and I know that when the Attorney General reviews the evidence, it will show that I am indeed innocent," he said.
Toney was released one day before the state was supposed to announce whether it would seek the death penalty. That hearing had been set for Thursday in state District Judge Everett Young’s courtroom.
Instead, the state filed the motion Wednesday to dismiss the case without prejudice, a procedure that allows the prosecution to pursue it at a later date.
And:
A retrial would likely encounter several obstacles.
A prisoner who was the first to implicate Toney in the bombing has recanted. He now says that he and Toney concocted the story in a successful scheme to get the prisoner out of jail.
Questions have also been raised about the reliability of trial testimony from Toney’s ex-wife, Kim Toney, and his former best friend, Chris Meeks. Because no physical evidence connected Toney to the crime, their testimony that they saw Toney plant the bomb was critical to the prosecution’s case.
Evidence suggesting that investigators could have crafted Meeks’ and Kim Toney’s accounts was among the 14 documents prosecutors withheld from Toney’s lawyers during his trial.
Experts say there are also challenges to prosecuting a case so long after the crime occurred — 24 years in this case.
Meg Penrose, a professor at Texas Wesleyan Law School, said a common problem is stale evidence. Scientific advances that make it easier to preserve evidence were not available years ago.
Also, many jurors tend to be skeptical of eyewitness testimony of events that occurred years ago, she said.
"Memories don’t necessarily evaporate, but they are certainly likely to diminish over time," she said. "I think jurors can often sense that. And other witnesses may have moved away or even died."
The AP report by Jeff Carlton is, "Ex-Texas death row inmate freed; AG drops charges," via Google News.
An inmate once on death row in Texas was a free man Thursday, nine months after his conviction was overturned in the 1985 bombing deaths of three people on Thanksgiving.
The Texas attorney general's office dropped the charges against Michael Roy Toney, 43, on Wednesday and that night he was released from the Tarrant County Jail in Fort Worth, officials said. His release came a day before the attorney general had to declare whether the state would again seek the death penalty in the case.
State prosecutor Adrienne McFarland said in a dismissal motion that there was not enough time to complete an independent investigation before the Thursday deadline. The state can refile charges against Toney in the killings if the investigation warrants it.
And
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled in December that the lead prosecutor withheld evidence that could have helped Toney during his 1999 trial, an assertion that the district attorney's office never disputed.
In January, the District Attorney's office recused itself from the case "to avoid the appearance of impropriety," said District Attorney Joe Shannon.
The attorney general's office then took over and reopened an investigation.
Toney remained in jail until Wednesday because charges were still pending. He also had to post $25,000 bail on an unrelated charge out of Polk County because he allegedly had a cell phone on death row.
Toney's attorney Colleen Kennedy said in a statement that her client is "grateful ... that while the investigation is under way, the Attorney General's office has agreed to grant Mr. Toney his freedom."
"The extensive post-conviction investigations undertaken by Mr. Toney's defense team have produced overwhelming evidence that he was both wrongfully convicted and wrongly sentenced to death in this case," Kennedy said.
Earlier coverage begins here.
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