Ohio Man Exonerated After Ten Years in Prison

September 13th, 2011

David Ayers was released from prison Monday after spending over ten years behind bars for a murder he did not commit. Ayers has been in jail since 2000 for the robbery and murder of 76 year old Dorothy Brown. At the time of the murder, Ayers was a resident and security guard in Ms. Brown’s building.

Ayers’ conviction was based on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch, Donald Hutchinson. Before Ayer’s trial, Hutchinson told police that Ayers had confessed to the murder when the two men shared a cell. Police urged Hutchinson to get more information out of Ayers. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that this collaboration between the police and Mr. Hutchinson was unconstitutional because it violated Ayers’ Fifth Amendment right to counsel.

Despite testing before trial, which showed that hairs left on the victim did not belong to Ayers, he was convicted by a jury and sentenced to life in prison. The Ohio Innocence Project, which was involved in Ayers’ case, fought vigorously for DNA testing of all the biological evidence in the case, including the hairs. The DNA tests revealed that Ayers was definitively excluded as the source of all the evidence.

Although the testimony of Mr. Hutchinson has been excluded and it has been proven that none of the physical evidence in the case matches Ayers, Assistant Cuyahoga County Prosecutor, Kevin Filiatraut, claims that Ayers is still a suspect in the murder and his office reserves the right to bring new charges against him. This will be a difficult task with virtually no remaining evidence against Ayers.

Ayers walked out of jail and into the arms of his family in an emotional reunion that can be seen here.

Dorothy Brown’s killer is still at large.

Harry Miller Found Factually Innocent Under Utah’s New Exoneration Statute

September 13th, 2011

On Sept 12, 2011, a Utah judge issued an order of factual innocence for Harry Miller, the second person exonerated under Utah’s exoneration statute, passed in 2009. Miller was convicted in 2003 of a robbery that had been committed three years earlier. At the time of the robbery, the victim stated that her attacker was 18 to 21 years old and fit. Miller was 47 years old and had medical and employment records proving that he was in Louisiana recovering from a stroke both two weeks before and the week after the robbery. Miller served three and a half years in prison before he was released in 2007.  Because Utah did not have an exoneration statute at that time, upon his release, Miller was given no assistance from the state. He was destitute and could not afford to return home to Louisiana.

Under Utah’s exoneration statute, a person determined to be factually innocent of the offense for which he or she was convicted is entitled to state compensation.  Miller will receive $124,000.

Miller is currently living in Utah, doing landscaping work for Salt Lake County. Now that he has been exonerated, he hopes to return to Louisiana, where he plans to live “like an old man, enjoying [his] grandkids.” Congratulations to Mr. Miller and to the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center, which helped secure his exoneration.

Read more here.

Troy Davis’ Fourth Execution Date Set for September 21st

September 12, 2011

Troy Davis, a Georgia man convicted of the 1989 murder of a police officer, is scheduled to be executed nine days from today. His conviction rests entirely on the testimony of nine witnesses, seven of whom have since recanted, claiming they were coerced by the police. Of the two holdout witnesses, one, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, was originally a suspect in the case. Troy Davis maintains that he is innocent and a victim of false identification.

Numerous high-profile organizations and celebrities believe that Davis should not be executed, including Amnesty International, Pope Benedict XVI, the ACLU, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles will hold a clemency hearing for Davis on September 19th. Amnesty International has organized a rally in Atlanta on September 16th and has declared the days between now and the hearing “Days of Solidarity with Troy.”  The ACLU is urging  people to contact the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles and tell them to stay the execution. Troy’s family has also drafted a petition to stay the execution which will be presented at the hearing.  If enough people sign the petition, Davis’ death sentence will hopefully be commuted to life in prison without parole.

To sign the petition in support of staying Davis’ execution, please click here.

For more information regarding Davis’ case, please visit the following websites:
ACLU
Amnesty USA

NEIP Exoneree Dennis Maher Profiled by the Boston Globe

September 7th, 2011

On Sunday, September 4, 2011, the Boston Globe profiled NEIP exoneree Dennis Maher. Maher was convicted of two separate attacks on women in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1984 and another in Ayer, Massachusetts. He received a life sentence for the attacks and was convinced he would spend the rest of his life in prison. While he was in prison, he had to participate in a treatment program for sex offenders at the Massachusetts Treatment Center. Part of the treatment program was to create a “release plan,” a hypothetical plan that details how the inmate would re-integrate into society after release. Maher’s plan was to get released from prison on the basis of DNA evidence, take two months to readjust to society, meet a woman, get married, have children and buy a house.

Today, Maher is living his dream. He was exonerated 8 years ago through DNA evidence. He is happily married with two children. Despite the dearth of programs and services available to exonerees after their release from prison, Maher has thrived since his exoneration. He routinely speaks about the factors contributing to wrongful convictions and shares his own story. Perhaps most amazing is his ability to move on with his life and not become paralyzed with anger. As Maher puts it, “I got over losing the 19 years of my life. I don’t try and make up for it because I can’t. The best that I can do is just go forward. Don’t hold the anger. I can’t be an angry miserable person around [my kids].” Dennis has a six-year-old son, Joshua, and a five-year-old daughter, Aliza, who is named after the attorney who worked on his case and helped set him free.

Read the article here.

Read more about Dennis here.

Law Enforcement Procedures May Evolve as Eyewitness Identification is Re-Examined in Court

August 31st, 2011

NEIP Board Member Stanley Fisher, a professor at Boston University School of Law, was quoted in an August 28th New York Times article discussing the fallibility of eyewitness identification. Since the Supreme Court last examined the issue of eyewitness identification in 1977, more than 2,000 studies relating to the fragility of memory have been published. Brandon Garrett’s recent book entitled “Convicting the Innocent” also examined all 250 DNA exonerations (as of publication) and found that eyewitness misidentification was a factor in 75% of wrongful convictions.

A recent New Jersey Supreme Court ruling endorsed the decades of scientific research on the shortcomings of memory, and an anticipated ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in November could lead to federally mandated changes to how police departments nationwide conduct lineups. Currently there are no federal rules regrarding identification procedures, although the National Institute of Justice issued Guidelines in 1999 that were sent to all police departments in the United States. New Jersey and North Carolina are the only states that have implemented statewide policies aimed to reduce eyewitness error. These standards include administering blind identification procedures, where the officer conducting the line up or photo array is not connected to the case and does not know the identity of the suspect, in an effort to reduce inadvertent cues to the witness, and administering photos sequentially rather than presenting photos to a witness all at once.

While some police departments have been resistant to implement such changes, many departments that have changed their procedures have found that the new standards have been effective in their cases. As court rulings regarding eyewitness identification continue to be issued , they may provide the impetus for implementing these changes at the national level.

Landmark Decision Mandating Major Changes in the Way Courts Handle Identification Procedures was issued today by the New Jersey Supreme Court

August 24th, 2011

Relying on Scientific Research on Memory and Identification, Court Says
Standard Set by U.S. Supreme Court 30 Years Ago Must Be Revised

(Trenton, NJ – August 24, 2011) — Today the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a landmark decision requiring major changes in the way courts are required to evaluate identification evidence at trial and how they should instruct juries. The new changes, designed to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions by taking into account more than 30 years of scientific research on eyewitness identification and memory, require courts to greatly expand the factors that courts and juries should consider in assessing the risk of misidentification.

To provide courts with these more enhanced jury instructions, the court gave the Criminal Practice Committee and the Committee on Model Criminal Jury Charges 90 days to submit proposed revisions to the current jury instructions on eyewitness identification, specifically directing them to consider the model jury instructions submitted by the Innocence Project.

The court’s decision stems from the 2004 conviction of Larry Henderson, a Camden man who received an 11-year prison sentence for reckless manslaughter and weapons possession related to a fatal shooting in January 2003. He appealed the photo lineup procedure because officers failed to follow the New Jersey Attorney General’s Guidelines, issued in 2001, for conducting identification procedures. The appeals court agreed and ordered a new hearing on the admissibility of the photographic identification of Henderson. Before that could occur, the state appealed, and the New Jersey Supreme Court decided that an extensive inquiry into witness identification procedures currently used by law enforcement was necessary.

The New Jersey Supreme Court appointed a Special Master to review the legal standard for the admissibility of eyewitness testimony known as the “Manson test,” established by the United States Supreme Court in 1977 and fully embraced by 48 out of 50 states, including New Jersey in 1988 in State v. Madison. In addition to the parties to the litigation, the court invited the Innocence Project and the Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey to participate in an inquiry by the Special Master who considered over 200 scientific studies and heard from some of the nation’s most respected experts on eyewitness identification before issuing findings to the court in June 2010.

The court remanded the Henderson case back to the trial court for further review in accordance with the decision. The decision will apply to all future cases, but will not be applied retroactively with the exception of the companion case, State v. Chen, in which the court held that suggestive identification procedures that resulted from private actors would also be subject to court scrutiny to ensure the reliability of the identification.

Read the NYT article about the decision here.

Eyewitness misidentification is the single greatest cause of wrongful convictions nationwide, playing a role in more than 75% of the 273 convictions overturned through DNA testing. Additional information about eyewitness misidentification is available here.

Supreme Court to Re-visit the Role of Eyewitness Identification

August 24th, 2011

For the first time since 1977, the Supreme Court will re-visit the issue of eyewitness identification this November in the case of Perry v. New Hampshire. Barion Perry was convicted of theft and while two eyewitnesses placed him in the parking lot where the theft occurred, neither saw him actually commit the act. He admits to being at the scene and holding the stolen property, but claims he found it on the ground. Commentators suspect that the judges will issue a ruling “about which kinds of eyewitness identifications warrant a closer look from judges — just those made after the police used improperly suggestive procedures or all problematic ones?” This ruling will not address the broader conflict between the due process clause of the Constitution, which requires unreliable eyewitness identification evidence to be excluded, and the current instructions given to judges to use a two-step analysis, which allows them to look at other issues and almost always results in the eyewitness evidence being shown to the jury.

There has been extensive research since 1977 about eyewitness identification and the fallibility of human memory. Over 2,000 studies published in professional journals in that time show that memory does not function as a videotape and is fragile and subject to contamination. Furthermore, eyewitness testimony is very powerful in convincing a jury of a suspect’s guilt. Eyewitness identification has played a role in 75% of wrongful conviction cases according to Brandon Garrett who researched the first 250 DNA exonerations in his new book, “Convicting the Innocent.” These studies show that the time is ripe to re-assess the role of eyewitness identification in the courtroom.

Read a NYT article about the issue here.

Read more about eyewitness misidentification and watch a video of double-blind administration of line-ups here.

West Memphis Three Released Last Friday

August 22nd, 2011

The high profile case of the West Memphis Three took a surprising turn last week when Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., who were convicted of the murders of three boys in 1993, entered Alford guilty pleas which allowed them to maintain their innocence while conceding that the state had enough evidence to convict them. In a horrific crime, three 8-year-old boys from West Memphis, Arkansas were found dead with their hands bound behind their backs to their feet. The gruesome nature of the crime made police suspect that the murders were part of a satanic ritual. Suspicion soon turned to local teenager Damien Echols, who was a gifted yet troubled 18-year-old at the time.

Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were convicted in 1994 based on Misskelley’s coerced confession after a 12-hour police interview, during which he implicated Baldwin, Echols and himself. Misskelley, who has an IQ of 72 and is considered borderline retarded, later recanted his statement which contradicted facts police knew to be true, such as the time of the murder. Police determined that Echols was the ringleader, and he was sentenced to death. Baldwin and Misskelley were sentenced to life in prison. After recent DNA testing failed to tie any of the three men to the crime scene, and with the possibility of a new trial on the horizon, defense attorneys and prosecutors worked out the Alford plea deal last week. All three proclaimed their innocence but pled guilty to first- and second-degree murder. The three men then walked free for the first time in 18 years and were greeted by their supporters, including such high profile names as singer Eddie Vedder and members of the Dixie Chicks. While they have no immediate plans, defense attorneys say that all three will continue to try to clear their names once and for all.

Read the NYT article here.

Nine Years After Exoneration, Antoine Day Receives Certificate of Innocence

August 10th, 2011

After spending 10 years in prison for a murder that he did not commit, then waiting 9 more after his exoneration, Life After Innocence exoneree Antoine Day was granted a Certificate of Innocence this week from Judge Paul Biebel. The certificate will help Antoine receive funds to compensate him for the time he spent behind bars for another’s crime and will also help to officially expunge his record. Day was exonerated on appeal after retiring real estate attorney Howard Joseph took his case.

A musician before his arrest, Day continues to play music and served as the drummer in an exoneree band that performed at the annual Innocence Network Conference last April in Cincinnati, Ohio. Currently, Day is the Outreach Coordinator of Prison Reentry at the Howard Area Community Center Employment Resource Center, implementing programs to help the community.After spending 10 years in prison for a murder that he did not commit, then waiting 9 more after his exoneration, Life After Innocence exoneree Antoine Day was granted a Certificate of Innocence this week from Judge Paul Biebel. The certificate will help Antoine receive funds to compensate him for the time he spent behind bars for another’s crime and will also help to officially expunge his record. Day was exonerated on appeal after retiring real estate attorney Howard Joseph took his case.

A musician before his arrest, Day continues to play music and served as the drummer in an exoneree band that performed at the annual Innocence Network Conference last April in Cincinnati, Ohio. Currently, Day is the Outreach Coordinator of Prison Reentry at the Howard Area Community Center Employment Resource Center, implementing programs to help the community.

Justice for Anthony Powell

July 29th, 2011

Yesterday afternoon Jerry Dixon pled guilty to three rapes, including a brutal Roxbury rape for which Anthony Powell was wrongly convicted. Powell was 12 years into his 20-year sentence when he was exonerated with help from the New England Innocence Project. Powell was present during yesterday’s plea hearing at Suffolk Superior Court but declined to talk to reporters. In an earlier statement given to the Boston Globe on July 20, Powell explained, “If you think that an innocent person cannot be convicted of a crime in Massachusetts, you are fooling yourself. It happened to me. There are innocent people in prison in Massachusetts right now.” Dixon was sentenced to10 years and one day for each of the three rape counts, totaling 30 years in prison.

Read the Boston Globe article here.

Massachusetts Senate to Debate DNA Access Bill

July 28th, 2011

This afternoon the Massachusetts State Senate will consider Senate Bill 1987 allowing inmates access to DNA testing. The formal session starts at 1pm. Betty Anne Waters and NEIP Executive Director Gretchen Bennett will be recognized by Senator Cynthia Stone Creem from the floor of the senate for their work in support of DNA testing that could prove innocence. If the bill receives a favorable vote in the Senate, it will then be discussed in the House of Representatives at a later date.

Justice After 20 Years

July 14th, 2011

In 1992, a teenage girl was kidnapped at knifepoint as she waited for a bus. The assailant raped her and then demanded that she come to a nearby skating rink the following night with $100. The next night, a suspect was picked up from the skating rink, positively identified by the young woman, and charged with the crime.

That suspect was Anthony Powell, who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Mr. Powell was convicted of the rape and kidnapping and spent 12 years in prison. In 2004 DNA testing exonerated Mr. Powell. The DNA was run through a national database and correctly identified the actual assailant, Jerry Dixon. Mr. Dixon will plead guilty to the crime, along with two other rapes, on July 20, 2011.

Currently, Massachusetts is one of only two states that does not have a law mandating postconviction access to DNA testing. A public hearing was held on June 8th at the Massachusetts State House regarding the Postconviction DNA Access Bill, which is currently headed to the Massachusetts House and Senate for debate. Cases like Mr. Powell’s show why such a law is imperative–not only to free the innocent, but to find the guilty.

Powell really puts it in perspective: “If you think that an innocent person cannot be convicted of a crime in Massachusetts, you are fooling yourself. It happened to me. There are innocent people in prison in Massachusetts right now.”

Read the Boston Globe article about Powell’s story.

FRONTLINE Investigates How Emerging Science Threatens the Validity of Convictions Based on Shaken Baby Syndrome

July 6th, 2011

FRONTLINE, ProPublica and NPR recently teamed up to examine cases of child deaths ruled to be murders. In the half hour segment that aired on FRONTLINE, investigators looked into more than two dozen cases where caregivers were initially suspected of murder, only to later have their convictions overturned. One of the main causes leading to these wrongful convictions in suspected child abuse cases is the science behind the conviction. Particularly in cases involving Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), emerging science presents alternative explanations for some of the classic symptoms associated with SBS and other forms of abuse. For example, certain blood disorders can lead to the type of bruising that is often considered a result of child abuse. Additionally, in cases involving children, emotions can run very high and there is often a rush to find those responsible, leading to misplaced blame. The episode interviews Ernie Lopez, a Texas man sentenced to 60 years in prison for shaking his neighbor’s daughter to death, but who has always maintained his innocence.

Watch the clip here.

NEIP Hosts Innocence Litigation Training

June 24th, 2011

Last Friday the New England Innocence Project held a successful Innocence Litigation Training at the Goodwin Procter Conference Center. This event was attended by over 130 attorneys as well as law enforcement and crime lab personnel from across New England. Panelists covered the NAS Report, advances in DNA testing, fact and fiction in arson science, eyewitness misidentification and practical steps for post-conviction litigation. NEIP has received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback regarding the training.

NEIP would like to extend its thanks to Massachusetts Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (MACDL) who co-sponsored the event and generously provided lunch.

Please e-mail intake@newenglandinnocence.org if you were unable to attend and would like a video copy of the training.

NEIP Exoneree James Hebshie Cleared on all Charges

June 24th, 2011

After spending more than three years in federal prison in connection with a 2001 Taunton fire, NEIP exoneree James Hebshie was officially cleared of all charges on Monday. Hebshie was convicted of intentionally starting a fire that destroyed the building where his news store was located. The prosecution alleged that he had set the fire to collect insurance money on the building. Since his release in November of 2010, Hebshie has been awaiting the government’s decision as to whether they would appeal or re-try the case. On Monday the U.S. Attorney General’s office in Boston filed a motion to dismiss the indictment against Hebshie effectively ending the legal case against him.

Read the story of NEIP exoneree Jimmy Hebshie wrongfully convicted of arson based on police use of a sniffer dog.

Public Hearing Held Today on Postconviction DNA Access Bill

June 8th, 2011

A public hearing was held today at the Massachusetts State House regarding the Postconviction DNA Access Bill pending before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary. NEIP Executive Director Gretchen Bennett testified with Betty Anne Waters and NEIP exoneree Dennis Maher. Betty Anne Waters worked for 18 years to exonerate her brother Kenny. Much of her struggle was locating the evidence in Kenny’s case. Once she located the evidence it took her an additional year to obtain DNA testing. This testing lead to Kenny’s exoneration in 2001.

The committee was noticeably moved after NEIP’s testimony regarding the bill. Senator Cynthia Stone Creem commended Ms. Waters and Mr. Maher for their courage and perseverance.

This morning an op-ed by Dennis Maher was printed in the Boston Herald regarding the bill. In March 1984, Mr. Maher was found guilty of the rape and assault of two women in Lowell on consecutive evenings in November 1983. In April 1984, he was convicted of the August 1983 rape of another woman in Ayer. After the second trial, Maher was sentenced to life in prison. Additionally, he spent six years in prison trying to gain access to the evidence that ended up clearing his name.

Boston Bar Association Advocates for Mass. DNA Access Bill

June 3rd, 2011

Kathleen Joyce, the Government Relations Director for the Boston Bar Association (BBA), recently published an op ed calling for Massachusetts to pass a DNA access law. The bills are being sponsored by Senator Cynthia Creem and Representative John Fernandes. A public hearing for the bills is scheduled for June 8th in the Gardner Auditorium.

While Massachusetts is generally at the forefront of reform, it is one of only two states lacking a DNA access law. The other state is Oklahoma. Ms. Joyce writes, “An access to DNA statute is important because it is not uncommon for a person to exhaust all possible appeals without being allowed access to DNA evidence from the case. Sometimes the DNA evidence that was available at the time of the defendant’s trial was never tested or the methods of DNA testing used at the time of the trial were inexact, yielding unreliable results.” She also points out that while innocenct people remain in prison, the guilty go free. If passed, the DNA access law would be a useful tool for law enforcement to solve cold cases.

Ms. Joyce ends the piece with a call to action: “Massachusetts could end up being the only state in the country without post-conviction access to DNA. Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?”

To read the op ed in its entirety, click here.

Mother’s Day Exoneration

May 12th, 2011

A Utah woman was released earlier this week after spending 17 years in prison for a murder she did not commit. Debra Brown left the Utah State Prison in the pouring rain on Monday, May 9, 2011, the day after Mother’s Day. Brown was the first person to be exonerated under a 2008 Utah law allowing judges to consider factual innocence in addition to scientific testing when deciding wrongful conviction cases. Brown was accused of murdering her boss in 1993, but in light of factual innocence demonstrating that she had a strong alibi during the time the crime was committed, her conviction was overturned. Her children were waiting to greet her when she was released from prison and in addition to spending time with them, she intends to go fishing and get baptized in the coming days. The state will pay her $570,000 as restitution for her wrongful conviction.

NEIP Executive Director Speaks About Wrongful Convictions

May 2nd, 2011

NEIP Executive Director Gretchen Bennett was featured on the April 11th segment of the Callie Crossley Show. Gretchen was joined by Betty Anne Waters, who became a lawyer after her brother was wrongly convicted and ultimately secured his exoneration after 18 years in prison, and Brandon Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia who specializes in DNA exonerations. The trio spoke about the problem of wrongful convictions and the need for reform. In particular, they discussed the role DNA has played in hundreds of exonerations and Massachusetts’ status as one of only two states without a law granting inmates access to DNA testing that could prove their innocence. Of the New England states, only Massachusetts does not have a DNA Access Law, and all but Massachusetts and Vermont also have laws requiring preservation of DNA evidence.

Listen to the interview here.

Read State DNA Access and Preservation Laws here.

Recent Studies Show the Shortcomings of Police Dogs

April 27th, 2011

Radley Balko’s February 2011 article highlighting studies at the University of California-Davis and University of North Carolina details how misconceptions about dog behavior may lead to false positives in criminal cases. Balko argues that while dogs’ sense of smell remains very powerful, over the course of domestication they have developed other powerful traits, namely the desire to please their owners. For example, if a dog handler has a suspicion that a suitcase contains drugs, the dog may be able to pick up on that bias and signal a false positive in order to please its owner. Balko cites University of North Carolina law professor Richard Meyers’ 2006 statistical analysis that demonstrated that police dogs “were not reliable enough to produce probable cause for a search, let alone serve as the cornerstone of a conviction.” Balko acknowledges the potential for dogs to play a key role in bomb sniffing and survivor detection but cautions against ignoring the dogs’ bias towards pleasing their owners.

Read the story of NEIP exoneree Jimmy Hebshie wrongfully convicted of arson based on police use of a sniffer dog.