by TChris

David Wayne Boyce is asking the Virginia Supreme Court to rule that DNA tests prove he wasn't present when Timothy Askew was killed in May 1990.

"I am wrongly incarcerated for 14 years for a crime I did not commit," Boyce wrote in the 37-page petition. "Please end this horrible living nightmare of gross injustice and set me free."

Boyce had been sharing a motel room with Askew, but Askew rented a second room on the night of his death. Askew was killed in that room. Recent DNA tests on crime scene evidence, including hair, blood, and seminal fluid, found no DNA from Boyce, although they indicated the presence of DNA from someone other than Askew.

As is customary, the prosecution refuses to admit the possibility that it prosecuted an innocent man. It deems the DNA evidence "inconclusive." Maybe, but no physical evidence ever linked Boyce to the crime, and the prosecution based its case on an alleged confession given to a jailhouse informant -- evidence that is notoriously unreliable. Even if the court doesn't accept Boyce's plea to be set free, it should give him a new trial. His jury didn't hear all the evidence that, thanks to advances in DNA testing, now casts a dark shadow of doubt on Boyce's guilt.

by TChris

Josiah Sutton, who served 4-1/2 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit, has been pardoned by Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The pardon saves Sutton the anguish of having to live as a registered sex offender while waiting for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to decide his fate. Look here and here for prior coverage of Sutton's case.

by TChris

Even before they met John Thompson, the kids in an eighth grade class in Philadelphia understood that it's easy to be falsely accused of a crime.

His message sunk in with students at the school in North Philadelphia's Olney section, who said they had seen neighbors questioned for crimes they did not commit, who themselves have been targeted as thieves just for picking up a jar in a grocery store.

That's what happened to 14-year-old Stacey Scott. The owner of the market threw her out, humiliating her in front of other customers. "I felt like, why would she do that to me? Did I look different?" Scott said. "I didn't really know how to feel."

Thompson talked to the kids about his 18 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit. His message: "I never gave up." Thompson's lawyer, Michael Banks, also had a lesson for the kids.

"You can make a difference in someone's life if you put your mind to it," he told the students. "Despite John's near-execution, our system has the potential to work if all of us work with it."

Awesome series this week in the Boston Herald on the wrongfully convicted and the need to establish an Innocence Commission. Please go read some of the stories of these innocent men who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to long prison terms for crimes they did not commit.

In a three part series, the Boston Herald and Fox 25 are probing the wrongful convictions of defendants in Massachusetts, raising troubling questions about how and why 22 men were imprisoned for crimes they never committed. The series highlights the work of a top Boston homicide detective whose tactics have been slammed by defense lawyers as over the line.

Since 1997 alone, nine innocent black men convicted in Suffolk County have been freed after serving anywhere from four to 30 years behind bars. Throughout the country, 143 innocent suspects have been freed since 1990, but experts say the number of Suffolk County's wrongful convictions is second only to Chicago, which has sent the largest number of innocent men to jail. "Unfortunately, Massachusetts in general has a big problem with wrongful convictions,'' said Aliza B. Kaplan, an Innocence Project attorney. `

To his credit, Boston Mayor Thomas Merino is trying to fast-track a statewide ``compensation fund'' for people wrongfully convicted of major crimes.

This is the state that thinks it can restore the death penalty in a way that will be fair and protect the innocent? We don't think so.

Update: 2/20/05: Hunter Thompson died tonight. Our tribute to him is here.

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Original Post

We've been writing about Hunter Thompson covering Lisl Auman's unjust felony murder conviction for a few years--as well as covering Lisl's case on our own. Lisl was in police custody at the time of the crime, yet under the felony-murder rule she was sentenced to life in prison without parole. As Hunter wrote:

It is no small trick to get a "Convicted cop-killer" out of prison -- but it will be a little easier in this case, because Lisl no more killed a cop than I did. She was handcuffed in the backseat of a Denver Police car when the cop was murdered in cold blood by a vicious skinhead who then shot himself in the head & left the D.A. with nobody to punish for the murder -- except Lisl.

Go out and get the June issue of Vanity Fair. Our's came today. Hunter has written a huge article on Lisl in which he demonizes the Denver Police Department for their conduct in the case. He spares no one. Unfortunately, Vanity Fair articles are not on line.

Meanwhile, Lisl's case will be decided this summer by the Colorado Supreme Court which will decide whether Lisl's arrest by police precluded her liability for felony murder. For more information, and ways to help, go to her website, Lisl.com.

by TChris

Improperly suggestive questioning of young children can easily lead to false accusations of sexual abuse. (A state-of-the-art reference on the subject of interviewing children is Investigative Interviews of Children by Debra Poole and Michael Lamb.) John Stoll, a victim of false accusations of sexual abuse prompted by improper questioning of children, will soon be freed after twenty years of confinement.

Four of Stoll's accusers, now adults, testified in January they were manipulated by investigators who dogged them for hours until they fabricated the stories. A fifth witness testified that he has no memories from that part of his childhood.

Stoll was represented by lawyers from the California Innocence Project. They deserve to be congratulated for their excellent work.

Another man who may have been victimized by false accusations -- Gerald "Tooky" Amirault, who ran a daycare center near Boston with his sister and mother, all of whom were convicted of child molestation -- was released on parole today after spending 18 years in prison.

A new study from the University of Michigan, to be presented Friday at a defense lawyer conference in Austin, TX, has examined 328 cases of wrongful conviction, and concluded that there are thousands falsely imprisoned today in America's jails:

A comprehensive study of 328 criminal cases over the past 15 years in which the convicted person was exonerated suggests that there are thousands of innocent people in prison today. Almost all the exonerations were in murder and rape cases, and that implies, according to the study, that many innocent people have been convicted of less serious crimes. But the study says they benefited from neither the scrutiny that murder cases receive nor from the DNA evidence that can categorically establish the innocence of people convicted of rape.

Here are the numbers:

A year after his release from jail, Josiah Sutton finally receives some justice. Sutton served 4/12 years of a 25 year sentence for rape before DNA tests proved he could not be the culprit. A Houston judge has recommended his conviction be overturned. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will make the final decision.

State District Judge Joan Huffman's recommendation was the latest court victory for Josiah Sutton, 22, who was freed from prison more than a year ago after new DNA tests discredited the original analysis performed by the Houston Police Department crime lab. Huffman said "inaccurate scientific evidence was admitted during the trial" and there was "clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable juror would have convicted him in light of the new evidence." Huffman's ruling will be sent to the state Court of Criminal Appeals, which will decide what to do with Sutton's conviction.

Sutton's justice is not complete, however. The Judge refused to find prosecutorial misconduct based upon Sutton's claim that the prosecution withheld evidence at his trial.

by TChris

As TalkLeft discussed here and here, Darryl Hunt won his freedom after DNA tests and the true perpetrator's confession established that he didn't commit the 1985 rape and murder that sent him to prison. Hunt's lawyers recently presented North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley with a request for a "pardon of innocence." Granting the pardon would open the door to Hunt's ability to recover $360,000 in compensation for the 18 years of wrongful incarceration that he endured.

Hunt's lawyer, Reuben Young, thinks a pardon would be just.

"I don't know what the argument would be against pardoning him. He's innocent. And if he's innocent, the state stole 18 years of his life."

Gov. Easley has only granted one pardon of innocence, but in that case (as in Hunt's) DNA proved the defendant's innocence. If Gov. Easley uses that case to guide his decision in this one, Darryl Hunt may eventually get some of the help he'll need to rebuild his life.

by TChris

Telling a lie to a police officer investigating a crime will often result in a charge of obstructing justice. But if the officer lies to a suspect, that's just part of the job. And when an officer uses trickery and deceit to obtain a confession, he may be praised for a job well done.

Suffolk County homicide detective James McCready bragged about the way he tricked 17 year old Martin Tankleff into confessing to the murder of Tankleff's parents. McCready immediately focused on Martin's guilt, finding it suspicious that Martin slept undisturbed while his parents were attacked in a different part of the house. After hours of interrogation, McCready told Martin that his father had come out of a coma and had identified Martin as his assailant. McCready lied: Martin's father died without regaining consciousness. But the lie did its job:

Under duress, suggestive questioning and badgering, he says, he wondered aloud if he was deluded or had a dual personality and could have committed the killings and blocked the memory. Prodded, he said, he imagined how he might have done it.

Martin's description of the possible ways he committed the crime became the only significant evidence against him.

But Mr. Tankleff promptly disavowed the confession, refusing to sign it, and the physical evidence did not implicate him. Yet he was convicted in 1990, based on the statement extracted by Detective McCready and his testimony as the star prosecution witness at the trial.

Martin is serving a sentence of 50 to life after losing appeals in sharply divided courts. He insists he's innocent, and there is strong evidence that he's telling the truth.

This is Thomas Lee Goldstein then:

This is him now:

Mr. Goldstein was freed from prison today after serving 24 years for a murder he did not commit. The cause of his wrongful conviction: an unreliable jailhouse snitch and an eyewitness, both of whom subsequently recanted.

In recent years, five federal judges all agreed that Goldstein's constitutional rights had been violated by the Los Angeles County district attorney's office....

Goldstein, who has always maintained his innocence — and reiterated it today — looked numb as his 24 years in custody came to an end after a two-minute hearing. His defense lawyers, Dale Rubin and Charles Lindner, briefly embraced him as Goldstein, dressed in an orange jail jump suit, left the courtroom.....Reached by phone in Kansas, Goldstein's 78-year-old mother Geri was jubilant.

There's more to the story. Notwithstanding the findings of five federal judges, the LA District Attorney's office refused to free Goldstein and recharged him with the murder after the conviction was set aside: