Evidence of Concealed Jailhouse Deal Raises Questions About Todd Willingham's Execution

The Willingham's house after
the blaze that killed 3 children

In the 10 years since Texas executed Cameron Todd Willingham after convicting him on charges of setting his house on fire and murdering his three young daughters, family members and death penalty opponents have argued that he was innocent. Now newly discovered evidence suggests that the prosecutor in the case may have concealed a deal with a jailhouse informant whose testimony was a key part of the execution decision.

The battle to clear Mr. Willingham’s name has symbolic value because it may offer evidence that an innocent man was executed, something opponents of the death penalty believe happens more than occasionally. By contrast, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote seven years ago that he was unaware of “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit.”

Mr. Willingham was convicted on charges of setting the 1991 fire in Corsicana, Tex., that killed his three children, and was sentenced to death the next year. The conviction rested on two pillars of evidence: analysis by arson investigators, and the testimony of a jailhouse informant, Johnny Webb, who said that Mr. Willingham had confessed the crime to him.

The arson investigation has since been discredited; serious questions were raised about the quality of the scientific analysis and testimony, which did not measure up to the standard of science even at the time. But the prosecutor who led the case shortly before Mr. Willingham’s execution argued that even though the arson analysis had been questioned, the testimony of Mr. Webb should be enough to deny any attempt for clemency.

In recent weeks, as part of an effort to obtain a posthumous exoneration from the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Rick Perry, lawyers working on Mr. Willingham’s behalf say they have found evidence that Mr. Webb gave his testimony in return for a reduced prison sentence.

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Source: The New York Times, February 27, 2014

Suggested reading:

- Trial By Fire, The New Yorker, David Grann, Sept. 2009
The fire moved quickly through the house, a one-story wood-frame structure in a working-class neighborhood of Corsicana, in northeast Texas...

Exonerated Texas death row inmate Anthony Graves files grievance against prosecutor

Anthony Graves

Former Texas death row inmate Anthony Graves filed a state bar grievance Monday asking that former Burleson County District Attorney Charles Sebesta be held accountable by the State Bar of Texas for Graves' wrongful murder conviction.

Lawmakers who flanked Graves as he made the announcement at Texas Southern University touted a new state law that allows a grievance against a prosecutor to be filed within four years of a wrongfully imprisoned person's release.

"I am asking prosecutors who operate with the highest integrity to support me," Graves told reporters. "I am seeking justice for the man who wrongfully prosecuted me."

Graves, who was convicted in the 1992 murder of 45-year-old Bobbie Davis, her 16-year-old daughter and her four grandchildren, was released on Oct. 27, 2010, more than 18 years after his conviction.

Sebesta maintains that Graves is guilty of capital murder.

Graves was released from prison after his case was returned to Burleson County on appeal to be retried. The district attorney who succeeded Sebesta declined to prosecute Graves again, freeing him.

Graves's complaint to the state bar follows on the heels of last year's plea agreement for former Texas prosecutor Ken Anderson, who was sentenced to a 10-day jail sentence for the wrongful murder conviction of Michael Morton. Morton's case was the impetus for the new law, said state senator John Whitmire.

Anderson was also disbarred and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service. Morton was released from prison in 2011 after DNA evidence showed he didn't beat his wife to death in 1986.

Source: Houston Chronicle, January 20, 2014

Former death row inmate Anthony Graves taking action against man who prosecuted him, alleging misconduct 

HOUSTON — Former death row inmate Anthony Graves, who who spent 18 years behind bars before being exonerated, announced Monday that he is taking action against the man who prosecuted him, alleging prosecutorial misconduct.

“We’re here today, Martin Luther King Day, seeking justice for me and my family and the citizens of this state,” Graves said to a crowd at Texas Southern University while announcing that he would file a grievance against former Burleson County District Attorney Charles Sebesta.

Graves spent 12 of his 18 years in prison on death row — where he twice neared execution. Graves had been convicted of killing a Somerville family of six, even though another man, Robert Carter, confessed that he was the sole killer. Both men were sentenced to death. Then, in 2006, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Graves' conviction, ruling that Sebesta had used false testimony and withheld Carter's confession from the defense.

“I’m asking prosecutors to cooperate with the highest of integrity,” Graves said. "It took me 18-and-a-half years to get back home. Two execution dates. All because a man abused his position."

Robert Bennett, Graves’ attorney, said Graves could elect to pursue criminal charges against Sebesta in addition to filing a grievance with the State Bar of Texas. Sebesta could not immediately be reached for comment, but he has denied that he withheld evidence in the case. On his website, Sebesta defends his actions and points to the State Bar's dismissal of a previous grievance over the case.

State Sens. John Whitmire and Rodney Ellis and Rep. Senfronia Thompson, all Houston Democrats, joined Graves at Monday's news conference. Supporting Graves' pursuit of a grievance, they called on the State Bar to provide justice for Graves.

“It doesn’t hurt to have some transparency,” Thompson said. “No one is above the law.”

In 2013, Whitmire authored Senate Bill 825, which changed the statute of limitations for a wrongfully imprisoned person to file a grievance in cases of alleged prosecutorial misconduct. The new law allows Graves to take action against Sebesta up to four years after the date of Graves’ release from prison. Previously, the four-year statute began on the date the misconduct was discovered.

Whitmire said that while district attorneys will always be needed, “the message today is, we’re watching them.”

Graves was released Oct. 27, 2010, which meant that under SB 825 he is eligible to file a grievance through Oct. 27 of this year. At the conclusion of Monday's news conference, using an aide’s iPad, he submitted his grievance electronically.

“It’s a great day to be alive,” he said.

Source: The Texas Tribune, January 20, 2014

Texas ex-prosecutor's sentence sends warning on wrongful convictions

Punishment meted out to a former Texas district attorney in a wrongful conviction sends a stern warning to other prosecutors, analysts say.

HOUSTON — Williamson County Dist. Atty. Ken Anderson had risen to a district judge by the time a special investigation was launched this year to scrutinize a murder he had prosecuted in 1987.

In a rare finding, a judge determined that Anderson had intentionally withheld evidence, resulting in the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton. Morton served 25 years in prison for the murder of his wife before DNA tests exonerated him and another man was convicted of the crime.

Anderson agreed to serve nine days in jail, resign from the bench and surrender his law license.

The dramatic, high-profile proceeding has raised the possibility of more prosecutorial misconduct investigations in Texas, a state known for tough justice and frequent executions.

Anderson was penalized after a court of inquiry, a unique Texas proceeding that allows a judge to determine whether prosecutors broke the law and, if so, to charge them.

Although it has been on the books in Texas since 1965, the court of inquiry was typically used to hold elected officials accountable. But the Morton case may change that.

"I am guardedly optimistic that we'll see more courts of inquiry," said Jeff Blackburn, founder of the Innocence Project of Texas, which helped free Morton.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat who attended Anderson's court of inquiry, said the proceeding "sends out a message to prosecutors around the country that if you don't play by the rules, you will be held accountable."

Texas legislators passed a law this year extending the deadline for filing misconduct grievances from four years after the offense to four years after a wrongfully convicted prisoner is released.

Lawyers can also petition judges to convene courts of inquiry, as they did in Morton's case.

The State Bar of Texas is considering half a dozen other complaints filed against prosecutors this year, according to lawyers.

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Source: LA Times, December 29, 2013

OUTRAGEOUS! Ex-prosecutor released from jail after 4 days

GEORGETOWN, Texas (AP) — A former Texas prosecutor is out of jail after serving less than half of a 10-day sentence for his role in sending an innocent man to prison for nearly 25 years.

Ken Anderson was released from the Williamson County Jail in Georgetown on Friday.

That was four days after he was booked for criminal contempt of court in the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton for the fatal 1986 beating of Morton's wife.

Anderson already had credit for serving one-day in jail before his sentence began. He had his term further reduced because of good behavior.

The charge stemmed from Morton's trial when Anderson, then Williamson County district attorney, was accused of withholding evidence that could have cleared Morton.

Anderson also will be disbarred and serve 500 hours of community service.

Source: Houston Chronicle, November 16, 2013

U.S.: A Prosecutor Is Punished

For what may be the first time on record, a former prosecutor in Texas is going to jail for failing to turn over exculpatory evidence in a murder trial. The 10-day jail sentence for the prosecutor, Ken Anderson, is insultingly short — the victim of his misconduct, Michael Morton, spent nearly 25 years in prison. But because prosecutors are so rarely held accountable for their misconduct, the sentence is remarkable nonetheless.

In 1987, Mr. Morton was convicted of beating to death his wife, Christine, and sentenced to life in prison. He maintained his innocence, and in 2010 DNA testing confirmed that he was not the killer.

Even before a Texas court vacated Mr. Morton’s conviction, his lawyers alleged that Mr. Anderson, the prosecutor in his case, had deliberately withheld evidence that would have exonerated him. During Mr. Morton’s trial, the judge had ordered Mr. Anderson to turn over any such evidence and received only a few documents in return. In fact, Mr. Anderson possessed many documents he did not turn over, including a transcript of a phone conversation revealing that the Mortons’ 3-year-old son had described his mother’s killer as a “monster” who was not his father.

Mr. Anderson, who later became a judge, has said he did not consider the judge’s order official because it was not written down. But he was fully aware of his ethical duty to disclose important exculpatory evidence and that a failure to disclose violates due process rights under the Constitution. In April, a judicial investigation found probable cause to believe that Mr. Anderson was in criminal contempt for withholding the documents. On Friday, he pleaded no contest. In addition to receiving the jail sentence, he was disbarred and stripped of his law license.

This case may sound extreme, but prosecutorial misconduct is far too common, and the remedies for it, if any, usually come long after the harm has been done. Criminal defense lawyers have called for judges to issue a standard written order reminding prosecutors of their ethical duty and to warn them of contempt charges if they do not comply. Prosecutors should welcome this practice to reinforce professional standards and identify the wrongdoers among them.

Source: The New York Times’s Editorial Board, November 9, 2013

Ohio Court Dismisses Charges And Bars Retrial of Former Death Row Inmates

On September 19 the Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's dismissal of all charges against Thomas Keenan, a former death row inmate sentenced to death for a 1988 murder. The appeals court also barred the state from retrying Keenan.

His co-defendant, Joseph D'Ambrosio, was fully exonerated in 2012 based on similar state misconduct to that found in Keenan's trial.

Keenan's conviction was overturned by a U.S. District Court in 2012 because the state had withheld vital evidence from the defense. After spending nearly 20 years on death row, Keenan was released, but the state said it intended to retry him. However, the trial court found the state's misconduct so offensive that it precluded any further prosecution, noting that "in the interest of justice and fairness, the harm done to defendant Keenan has been so egregious that this is the extraordinary case where the court has no other option but to grant the motion to dismiss." In upholding that decision, the Court of Appeals said, "The degradation of this case began 25 years ago, when the desire to obtain a conviction overwhelmed the state's responsibility to seek the fullest truth of that day in September 1988."

The state can appeal the Court of Appeals ruling to the Ohio Supreme Court. If the latest decision stands, Keenan could be added to DPIC's Innocence List.

Source: Death Penalty Information Center, September 23, 2013

USA: Citing 'miscarriage of justice,' judge overturns murder conviction

A federal judge on Wednesday overturned the 1992 conviction of a Philadelphia man she said had been unjustly sentenced to die for a murder he probably did not commit. In a scathing ruling, Judge Anita B. Brody said city police and prosecutors ignored, lost, or "covered up" evidence that James Dennis was not the man who fatally shot a high school student for her gold earrings near the Fern Rock SEPTA station in 1991.

"The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has committed a grave miscarriage of justice," Brody concluded in her 40-page opinion. She ordered the state to retry Dennis within six months or set him free. District Attorney Seth Williams said his office had not decided whether it would appeal. He said he was disappointed in what he called the judge's "acceptance of slanted factual allegations" and "a newly concocted alibi defense" that he contended was a lie.

The ruling marked a stunning turn in the 20-year legal battle over Dennis, whose cause drew supporters worldwide even as he lost appeal after appeal. One of his lawyers, Ryan Guilds, said Dennis, 42, broke down when he received the news in a phone call Wednesday at the state prison in Waynesburg, in the southwestern corner of Pennsylvania, where he has been on death row for two decades.

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Source: Philly.com, August 21, 2013

Arizona: Debra Milke to be retried in killing of 4-year-old son

Arizona Death Chamber

PHOENIX - Prosecutors formally told a court Monday that they plan to retry an Arizona death row inmate whose conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court four months ago.

The Maricopa County Attorney's Office hasn't filed a notice on whether they intend to seek the death penalty in the case of Debra Milke.

Milke, 49, was convicted in 1990 and sentenced to death for sending her 4-year-old son off to visit a mall Santa Claus with two men who shot the boy execution-style in the desert in 1989.

She is one of three women on death row in the state.

A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out Milke's conviction on March 14, concluding that prosecutors hadn't turned over evidence of the history of misconduct by a detective who testified at her 1990 trial that she had confessed to him in a closed interrogation room.

Milke has always maintained her innocence, saying she had nothing to do with her son Christopher's death.

Since Milke's conviction was overturned, prosecutors have said they were planning to retry her.

Still, they officially declared they were seeking a retrial after a ruling Monday by U.S. District Judge Robert Broomfield. The judge ordered Milke to be released from custody unless prosecutors say within 30 days that they were going to retry her.

"Today's filing is consistent with what the county attorney has said for some time, namely that our office is preparing to retry this case," said Jerry Cobb, a spokesman for the Maricopa County Attorney's office, which is handling the retrial.

Michael Kimmerer, an attorney for Milke, told The Arizona Republic that he will try to secure bond for Milke after she's transferred from state prison to the county jail.

Prosecutors claimed Milke had her son killed to collect on a $5,000 insurance policy.

The two men convicted in the case -- Roger Scott and former Milke roommate James Styers -- also are on Arizona's death row.

Scott confessed during a police interrogation and led detectives to the boy's body. Neither Scott nor Styers testified against Milke.

Source: AP, July 9, 2013

After Innocence: Exoneration in America

John Thompson

John Thompson was a 22-year-old father of two when the New Orleans police broke down his door to arrest him. What happened next was like a nightmare. He was taken to the homicide division, where he listened to a cassette tape of a man he knew accuse him of murder. The acquaintance had sold him a gun recently, which turned out to be the murder weapon. Then, other people around the neighborhood started coming forward with additional, unrelated crime reports and pinned them on Thompson. A neighbor said that he looked like the man who robbed his children. He became a suspect for an unsolved armed robbery that had occurred weeks earlier.

Thompson was tried and convicted for the robbery. In a second trial, he was found guilty of murder. The judge used his criminal history—which consisted solely of the robbery—to justify the death penalty as punishment for the homicide. Two and a half years after his initial arrest, Thompson arrived on death row at Angola prison, where he’d spend the next 14 years. Over that time, he was given six execution dates. He watched 12 other men leave death row and never come back.

“Cruel and unusual punishment starts there –to watch a man that claimed to be innocent, walk away, claiming he’s innocent all the way, and then you know he don’t return because he’d been executed,” Thompson said in an interview with WUNC at the Innoncence Network Conference. “Mentally tortured. I can’t tell you how many days that beat me up.”

What Thompson didn’t know while he was in prison was that the prosecutors hadn’t brought all of their evidence to his trial. Days before his final execution date, Thompson’s lawyers hired an investigator to search one last time for anything that might help. The investigator found a microfiche previously unknown to Thompson’s lawyers that contained information about the blood type of the individual who committed the armed robbery. It did not match Thompson’s.

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Source: WUNC, June 10, 2013

Ohio death row shrinks as new sentences dwindle

The head count on Ohio's death row continues to decline, as the killers who either are executed, die in prison of other causes, win appeals or receive clemency outnumber new death sentences, which have slowed to a trickle.

Ohio courts handed down just 3 new death sentences in 2012. Meanwhile, 3 killers were executed, 1 died in prison, 1 had his death sentence vacated but remains in prison, 2 received clemency and life sentences from Gov. John Kasich and 1 inmate, Thomas Michael Keenan of Cleveland, was released on appeal because of prosecutorial misconduct in his case. That leaves 142 people - 141 men and 1 woman - on Ohio's death row today, down from 147 a year ago and 204 in January 2003.

New death sentences decreasing

The number of new death sentences in Ohio and other states with capital punishment have dropped sharply in recent years. It's a trend experts attribute to increased public skepticism about the penalty in an era of high-profile DNA exonerations, the staggering costs associated with pursuing death sentences and the option now in all 33 death-penalty states of sentencing killers to life in prison without the possibility of parole. 5 states have abolished the death penalty since 2000.

Nationwide, there were 77 new death sentences in 2012, virtually unchanged from 76 in 2011, according to the Death Penalty Information Center of Washington, D.C. That's the 2nd-lowest number of new sentences since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, and a far cry from the record 315 new death sentences U.S. courts handed down in 1996. Ohio's 3 new sentences in 2012 were up 1 from the 2 in 2011, but down markedly from the record 24 imposed in 1985.

"There is no singular reason" for the decline, said Ohio Public Defender Tim Young. "It's a combination of things."

Among the factors, he said, are "evolving societal values" and a change in "the idea of what 'the worst of the worst' is." The availability of life without parole gives prosecutors more options in charging defendants and negotiating plea deals, and gives juries the option of ensuring that killers are taken off the streets permanently without being executed. And the cost to the public of prosecuting and defending death cases is becoming harder to justify as budgets tighten.

"The cost is extraordinary," Young said. "Judges, prosecutors, county commissioners are all extremely cognizant of the cost."

More survivors of murder victims also feel that life without parole allows for quicker "closure" than a death sentence that involves years of appeals, he said.

The death penalty is still a reality in Ohio

There are executions scheduled for 13 killers between March and March 2015, including Dennis McGuire of Preble County, who is scheduled to die Jan. 16, 2014. Most of their crimes date to the 1980s and '90s.

In Ohio, prosecutors can seek the death penalty in cases of aggravated murder under certain circumstances, including the killing of a child or a police officer, murders with multiple victims, murder for hire or to prevent a witness from testifying, and killings that are done during the commission of certain other felonies like robbery, burglary and kidnapping.

Young said preliminary data being compiled by his office show that the death penalty is imposed in 25-30 % of cases involving multiple murders, but only about 2 % of the time when murders are combined with other felonies. This suggests, he said, that it may be time to narrow the types of offenses that carry a possible death penalty.

The data also show there are fewer racial disparities in imposing the death penalty when multiple murders are involved, Young said.

Requirements for a death verdict

Butler County Prosecutor Michael Gmoser said there's "no question about it" that the death penalty is used more rarely than in the past.

At one time, he said, obtaining a death sentence "was left more open to excellent argumentation and creativity" by prosecutors. Over time, he said, the law has become more specific about what elements are required for a death verdict, and prosecutors with tight budgets and limited staffing are being more selective about seeking the death penalty.

"I would not want the public to think that life and death is only a matter of money," Gmoser said. But the cost to taxpayers of prosecuting and defending death cases from trials through years of appeals is "a reality" officials must weigh.

Gmoser said he and his assistants carefully examine the facts of every potential new death case to determine the likelihood of a death sentence, including the outcome of similar past cases.

The call on whether to seek the death penalty is "probably the most serious and important decision I ever make in this office," he said. "The case has to shock the conscience of this community."

Life without parole

Since 1998, Ohio jurors have had the option of sentencing defendants to life without parole in death penalty cases. Since 2005, prosecutors have had the option of seeking life without parole instead of the death sentence. Previously, the harshest punishment short of death was life with the possibility of parole in 30 years.

Gmoser said life without parole keeps killers off the streets and is a strong punishment, without the costs and "seemingly never-ending" appeals involved in death cases. "As far as society is concerned, that person might just as well be dead," he said.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said the low number of new death sentences underlines the capriciousness of the penalty in a nation with 14,000 murders a year.

"The point we're trying to make is, it's less relevant," he said. "It's not a regular punishment. It raises the question of why are we picking out these people (for execution). It's not unconstitutional, but it is questionable."

Source: Dayton Daily News, January 5, 2013

Japan's judicial system triggers concern

Execution chamber at
Tokyo Detention Center

The exoneration of a Nepalese man who served 15 years in a Japanese jail for a murder he did not commit raises questions about the judicial system in a country that refuses to scrap the death penalty.

The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday finally acquitted 46-year-old Govinda Prasad Mainali of the murder of a Japanese woman in 1997.

Prosecutors had already admitted at a brief retrial in late October that new DNA evidence proved Mainali could not be guilty of the crime. He returned to Nepal in June after the DNA test.

Prosecutors offered an apology to Mainali on Wednesday but insisted that they had acted appropriately in their handling of the case.

Speaking to the local media in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu after hearing the court's decision, Mainali was clearly not ready to accept the judicial authorities' expressions of regret.

He had been originally acquitted by a lower court only for a more senior judge to overturn that decision, and he was then denied repeated requests for a retrial during his 15 years in prison. Moreover, it was recently discovered that the authorities failed to provide his defense with evidence that could have cleared his name at the outset of the case.

"Japan's police, administration and all those responsible for my imprisonment that resulted from the concealment of crucial and decisive evidence and the absence of a fair trial should admit their mistake and apologize to me, my family and my nation," Mainali said at a press conference.

"If DNA tests had not been conducted on important evidence from the site of the crime, I would still be rotting in prison and would probably die there," he said.

Innocent individuals behind bars

It is only the 8th time since the end of World War II that someone sentenced to death or a life prison term has been granted a retrial and subsequently acquitted in Japan.

There are concerns that other cases have not come to light and that innocent individuals languish behind the bars of Japan's notoriously strict prisons.

In early 2010, Toshikazu Sugaya was released from prison after serving more than 17 years in prison on the strength of inaccurate DNA evidence and a coerced confession to the sexual assault and murder of a girl aged four in the city of Ashikaga in 1991.

In 2010, Haruhiko Kataoka completed a 16-month prison term after being involved in a collision with a police motorbike in which the motorcyclist was killed. Despite all the evidence and witnesses' testimony to the contrary, Kataoka was blamed for causing the accident and charged with professional negligence resulting in death.

He continues the fight to clear his name and is supported by Toshiro Senba, a former police officer who acts on behalf of others wrongly accused of crimes and describes the Japanese police as "a criminal organization."

Senba retired from the Ehime Prefectural Police in March 2010, after 36 years on the force. After refusing to falsify expenses forms, he was never promoted again, was regularly transferred between unappealing assignments and had his pistol taken away on the grounds that he might pose a danger to others.

"The Japanese police are a criminal organization and the senior officers of the force are all criminals," Senba said. "Of all the companies and organizations in Japan, only the 'yakuza' and the police commit crimes on a daily basis. That includes building up slush funds."

Solitary confinement for former boxer

In another notorious case, 76-year-old Iwao Hakamada has been in solitary confinement for over 4 decades after being sentenced to death in June 1966 for killing four people. Numerous appeals and requests for a retrial have been turned down.

The former professional boxer's lawyers say his mental condition has deteriorated to the point that he no longer even understands he is in prison.

"Sometimes he has better days, sometimes his mental condition is very bad," Hideyo Ogawa, his defense attorney, said at a press conference announcing another appeal in 2009. "There are days when he refuses to meet me or the members of his family. He refuses to come out of his cell and says he is too busy."

The case regularly attracts attention in Japan because Hakamada was questioned for 22 days without a lawyer. Sometimes he was interrogated for 16 hours a day. He finally confessed to breaking into a house in the town of Shimizu and killing a family of 4.

Clothing linked to the case did not fit Hakamada and the alleged murder weapon did not match the wounds on the bodies. Prosecutors did, however, have a signed confession.

In court, Hakamada withdrew his confession and claimed the officers had slapped him, pulled his hair and threatened to summon his mother for questioning.

2 senior judges sentenced Hakamada to death; the third judge felt so strongly that a miscarriage of justice had occurred that he resigned and became a defense lawyer.

There were 129 prisoners on death row in Japan as of the end of 2011. Many have developed mental health problems, the rights group Amnesty International claims, often stemming from the fact that prisoners only learn they are to be executed on the morning of their death. Relatives then receive a bill for the disposal of the body.

In a 72-page report, Amnesty has called on the Japanese government to impose a moratorium on hangings. The European Union and the United Nations have also brought pressure to bear on Japan to end its use of the death penalty.

The Japanese public remains broadly in favor of the death penalty - a recent survey put the support rate at 81 % - and petitions have been started by relatives of victims of particularly gruesome crimes that quickly attract tens of thousands of signatures.

Source: Deutsche Welle, November 7, 2012

Killing Time: Resurrecting Death Row's Exonerated

Louisiana Death Row

"When the judge sentenced me to death, he tells you about how he is going to kill you," Thompson said. "How much electric volts are going to run through your body."

"I wasn't ready for what was ahead of me," he said.

Innocence Irrelevant

Thompson spent the first four years of his incarceration at the Orleans Parish Prison. But the true reality of his death sentence didn't hit him until guards moved him to Angola.

He arrived at his cell to find the clothes of man who had just been executed, still inside.

"That really blew me away," Thompson recalled. "I started throwing the stuff out in the hallway. They were laughing at me, saying, 'You better get used to that little brother.'"

However, there was not much laughter during his 14 years of solitary confinement.

"John Thompson, while he was on death row, had seven stays of execution," said Gauthier, recounting some of his research for the book. "That means he had the death warrant brought to his cell. He was prepared for execution seven times."

"It's not about whether you did it or not anymore," Thompson said. "It's irrelevant. It is totally irrelevant whether you are innocent or not because they are here to kill you. So you have one common goal and that is to try to stay alive by any means necessary."

Before Thompson could be executed, a death bed confession from an original prosecutor led investigators to uncovered evidence: blood test results, testimonies, and conflicting eyewitness accounts.

"He was actually re-tried and it took the jury less than 35 minutes to acquit him of the murder," Gauthier said. "So John was freed."

Click here to read the full article

Source: CBN News, Sept. 19, 2012

Terrance Williams gets a new hearing in effort to avoid execution

Terrance "Terry" Williams' execution is still set for Oct. 3, but a Philadelphia judge on Friday agreed to hear testimony on his lawyers' claim that the prosecutor at his 1986 trial withheld from the jury evidence of Williams' history of sexual abuse by his victim.

Although Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina questioned whether Williams' lawyers had met the legal standard for an emergency hearing, she added that "The fact is, death is different. . . . The penalty is serious enough, and it cannot be reversed."

Sarmina said the hearing Thursday would involve two witnesses: Andrea Foulkes, the city prosecutor in Williams' trial in the 1984 murder of Amos Norwood; and Marc Draper, Williams' admitted accomplice, who in new sworn statements says detectives and Foulkes ordered him to testify that Williams killed Norwood in a robbery - not in a rage over years of sexual abuse by Norwood.

In seeking clemency, Williams' attorneys have cited his youth when Norwood was killed - three months over 18, the minimum age for execution - and his sexual abuse by Norwood.

Click here to read the full article

Source: philly.com, September 15, 2012

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Missouri: Reggie Clemons death penalty case reopened

St. Louis, MO (KSDK) - The footage has aged, but the day is no doubt still vivid for those close to what happened here on the Chain of Rocks Bridge over the Mississippi River on April 4t 1991: two sisters, Julie and Robin Kerry, ages 20 and 19, raped and pushed to their deaths.

"There are some times that he's very hopeful and there are some times there's a resignation," said Jamala Rogers, Justice for Reggie.

Since the early days of the case, Rogers has been by the side of one of the four men convicted in the Kerry sisters' murders: Reggie Clemons, who, 21 years later, still maintains he is innocent from a cell on death row.

"It's big, it's historic, it's huge," Rogers said. "This has been the day that he's been waiting for."

On Monday, a Missouri Supreme Court appointed judge will open a hearing on Clemons' case, reexamining old evidence from prosecutors and hearing claims of a forced confession, police brutality, misconduct by prosecutors and racial bias in jury selection.

And the court will likely hear from Clemons himself, who insists on taking the stand.

"That's not a thing that most attorneys like to do but we'll be able to see him in court this week," Rogers said.

"Most death row inmates to do not get access to this kind of process," said Laura Moye, Amnesty International.

Clemons has supporters from around the world. His hearing is drawing interest from groups who see systemic problems with the death penalty system.

"We find that his case is emblematic of many things that go wrong in death penalty cases in the United States," Moye said. "His case reads like a checklist of those problems."

The judge hearing Clemons' case could recommend a retrial, commute his sentence, or leave Clemons on death row.

"Let's take another look at this system and let's make sure that we get the right person, but also that justice is done for all sides including the murder victim families," Rogers said.

The prosecutor in next week's case declined to comment before the hearing.

And NewsChannel 5 tried several times, unsuccessfully to reach the family of the Kerry sisters. But they have said in the past that they believe Clemons is manipulating the justice system.

Source: KSDK, Sept. 2012

Iowa: GOP House Nominee Opposes The Death Penalty: 'We Have Put Innocent People To Death'

A GOP congressional nominee in Iowa has a succinct - and tragic - reason for bucking his party's stance on the death penalty: "we have put innocent people to death."

John Archer, the Republican challenger in Iowa's 2nd congressional district currently represented by Rep. Dave Loebsack (D-IA), was asked during an interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board today about any issues where he differs with his party. "I believe the Party platform calls for the death penalty and I'm personally opposed to the death penalty," Archer said. He pointed to his experience clerking at the Illinois Supreme Court where, he saw, "firsthand" that "we have put innocent people to death."

QUESTIONER: Are there any issues where you part ways with the Republican Party?

ARCHER: Yes. I believe the Party platform calls for the death penalty and I'm personally opposed to the death penalty. Having clerked for an Illinois Supreme Court Justice, I know firsthand, and unfortunately, we have put innocent people to death. Life is too precious to do that.

Though Archer did not specify a precise case, the morality of the death penalty has been in the headlines recently. An Ohio inmate who had spent 24 years on death row was freed last week after a Catholic priest discovered the prosecutor had withheld evidence showing the man's innocence. Last month, a Texas inmate was executed despite the Supreme Court's prohibition on putting mentally retarded individuals to death. Meanwhile, a Georgia man was put to death last year despite a worldwide campaign on his behalf noting that there was too much doubt about whether or not he was actually guilty.

Because of problems with the death penalty that Archer alluded to, including racial and socioeconomic inequities, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) last year made his state the 16th to abolish the death penalty, 11 years after Gov. George Ryan (R) imposed a moratorium on executions in the state.

Source: thinkprogress.org, Sept. 12, 2012

Ohio's 2nd death row exoneration in 9 months, nation's 141st

Michael Keenan

After 24 years of imprisonment, Michael Keenan is the 2nd man in 9 months to be exonerated from Ohio's death row. Judge Russo dismissed all charges against Mr. Keenan this morning, making Mr. Keenan the 7th exoneree from Ohio and the nation's 141st death row exoneration.

Mr. Keenan was 1st tried, convicted and sentenced to death for his alleged role to the murder of Tony Klann in 1988. His conviction was overturned in 1994 and again in 2012 due to prosecutorial misconduct. Most recently, a federal court ruled in April 2012 that Mr. Keenan must be retried or freed in light of potentially exculpatory evidence hidden from Keenan at the time of his trial.

Cuyahoga County prosecutors elected to conduct a 3rd trial against Mr. Keenan but removed the death penalty in an effort to coax Keenan into taking a plea deal. Kevin Werner, executive director of Ohioans to Stop Executions said, "Ohio's track record of making these kinds of mistakes is both troubling and a sharp reminder that our state routinely sends people to death row for crimes they did not commit. This is completely unacceptable."

6 other innocent men have been freed from death row in Ohio.

Talking Points:

--Michael Keenan is the second man released from Ohio's death row in nine months. His wrongful conviction demonstrates Ohio has big problems with fairness and accuracy in its death penalty system.

--Ohioans don't want people being executed for crimes they did not commit. Even for those who support death penalty, Ohio's undisputed track record shakes the public's confidence that our system gets it right when life and death hang in the balance.

--The 7 men who have been freed from death row spent a combined 127 years imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. That doesn't sound like a death penalty system that's being administered properly.

--Mr. Keenan's case shows Ohio's death penalty system risks executing innocence people.

--When misconduct within a prosecutor's office goes unchecked, as it did in Cuyahoga County for 25 years, practices that lead to wrongful convictions are allowed to continue. Yet another example of practices that send innocent people to death row.

Source: OTSE, Sept. 6, 2012

Michael Keenan freed, murder charge from 24 years ago dismissed by Cuyahoga County judge

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cuyahoga County judge this morning dismissed a 24-year-old murder charge against Michael Keenan, who had spent about two decades on death row with co-defendant Joe D'Ambrosio.

The decision was a dramatic change of events from Wednesday, when it appeared that Keenan was prepared to plead to involuntary manslaughter charges in order to be released from prison right away.

Judge John Russo set bond at $5,000 today, essentially allowing Keenan to be freed immediately.

Keenan was prepared to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter Wednesday for the 1988 slaying of Tony Klann if he could walk out of the Justice Center a free man.

But the proposed plea deal with county prosecutors hit a snag when Keenan balked at the prospect of spending five years under supervised release with regular visits to a parole officer.

So prosecutors and defense lawyers resumed their negotiations.

Keenan, 62, was twice convicted of killing Klann in 1988 in Cleveland's Rockefeller Park. D'Ambrosio, who also was convicted of killing Klann, was freed in 2009 after a federal judge determined that evidence that could have exonerated him had been withheld from his trial attorneys.

Another federal judge ruled in April that Keenan had to be tried again or have his verdict set aside.

Both Keenan and D'Ambrosio spent many years on death row, always professing their innocence.

A Catholic priest who befriended D'Ambrosio in prison and was convinced of his innocence worked with lawyers to uncover evidence favorable to both defendants that had been withheld by county prosecutors at trial.

That evidence included police statements that concluded Klann could not have been killed at Doan Brook, as the prosecutors' only eyewitness to the killing claimed.

Eddie Espinoza, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with Klann's death and was given a reduced sentence, claimed that Keenan slit Klann's throat and D'Ambrosio stabbed him in the chest.

The withheld evidence also included information that the man who led police to Keenan, D'Ambrosio and Espinoza, had a possible motive for killing Klann.

Keenan's new trial was scheduled to begin Oct. 31, but he's now a free man.

Source: The Plain Dealer, September 6, 2012

Washington: Court throws out death sentence of accused double-murderer

The state Supreme Court on Thursday reversed the conviction and death sentence of a man accused of killing his wife and business partner and called for a new trial in his double murder case.

In an 8-1 ruling, the state high court said that Darold Stenson's rights were violated because the state "wrongfully suppressed" photographs that raised questions about mishandling of evidence as well as an FBI file that wasn't provided to the defense until 2009, years after Stenson was convicted.

Stenson was sentenced to death in 1994 for the 1993 slaying of his wife, Denise, and a business partner, Frank Hoerner, at Stenson's Clallam County exotic bird farm.

Sheryl McCloud, an attorney for Stenson, said she was pleased that the court so overwhelmingly sided with their position.

"I was just so gratified that the court was willing to make a decision that might be unpopular but is really necessary given what we discovered almost 20 years after the conviction about the evidence being so unreliable," McCloud said.

The high court noted that other than 2 key pieces of evidence that tied Stenson to the shootings, the remainder of evidence provided at trial was "largely circumstantial." Those 2 pieces of evidence - gunshot residue found inside the front pocket of the jeans Stenson was wearing when officers arrived, and blood spatter on the front of those jeans "consistent with Hoerner's blood protein profile" - were at the heart of Stenson's most recent appeal to the high court.

At issue were photographs showing sheriff's Detective Monty Martin wearing Darold Stenson's jeans with the right pocket turned out and Martin's ungloved hands and an FBI file indicating an agent who testified did not perform a gunshot residue test, which the court said was implied at the trial.

Stenson had claimed that he kneeled next to Hoerner's body, accounting for the blood on the jeans. But an expert witness called by the prosecution had testified that was not possible.

"Had the FBI file and photographs been properly disclosed here, Stenson's counsel would have been able to demonstrate to the jury that a key exhibit in the case - Stenson's jeans - had been seriously mishandled and compromised by law enforcement investigators," wrote the majority for the high court, led by Justice Pro Tem Gerry Alexander.

Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deborah Kelly said she was deeply disappointed by the decision.

"It is my firm belief that all involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case acted conscientiously and in good faith towards a just outcome. It is an utter tragedy for the victim's family that they are forced to relive this."

Kelly said she expected a retrial on murder charges but would consult with the family about whether to seek the death penalty again.

Stenson has long claimed he didn't commit the murders. When Stenson called authorities in 1993 to report the deaths, he suggested that his business partner, Frank Hoerner, had killed Denise Stenson and then shot himself in another room. Prosecutors have said Stenson, struggling financially and in dire business straits, shot the 2 in order to collect $400,000 in life insurance.

Stenson has filed multiple appeals to his death sentence, and courts have stayed his execution 3 times, most recently in 2008 when he was less than 2 weeks from a scheduled execution.

In January 2011, a Superior Court judge ruled that the prosecuting attorney did not meet its legal obligation to provide the evidence to the defense but also found it wouldn't have changed the outcome of the trial, something the high court disagreed with in its ruling Thursday.

The high court noted that it had already once affirmed both of Stenson's convictions and the death sentence in 1997, and has since rejected four prior personal restraint positions filed by Stenson.

But the current petition cited due process violations of the so-called Brady rights. Those rights are named after the Supreme Court's Brady v. Maryland case, which says prosecutors violate a defendant's constitutional rights by not turning over evidence that could prove a person's innocence. The high court on Thursday said that those rights were violated.

"We are left with the fact that constitutionally significant mistakes were made in Stenson's trial, resulting in imposition of the ultimate punishment without the full benefit of due process protections," the majority opinion read.

Alexander was joined on the majority in Thursday's ruling by Chief Justice Barbara Madsen, Justices Charles Johnson, Debra Stephens, Tom Chambers, Charles Wiggins, Mary Fairhurst and Justice Pro Tem Teresa Kulik.

Justice Jim Johnson, the lone dissenter, argued that the Supreme Court has "reviewed and affirmed both guilt and sentence over the intervening 18 years" since Stenson was sentenced.

"The interests of finality in justice to provide peace for the families of Stenson's victims argue for the same result," he wrote.

With Stenson's death sentence now overturned, 7 men remain on death row at the state penitentiary. Washington state's last execution was in September 2010, when Cal Coburn Brown died by lethal injection for the 1991 murder of a Seattle-area woman. He was the 1st Washington inmate executed since 2001, after spending nearly 17 years on death row.

Since 1904, 78 men have been put to death in Washington.

Source: Associated Press, May 11, 2012

First Racial Justice Act result: Death row inmate is resentenced to life without possibility of parole

This statement below from Gerda Stein at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation in Durham summarizes what happened this morning in a Cumberland County courtroom. The Racial Justice Act appeal on behalf of Marcus Robinson, convicted of murder in 1994 and sentenced to death, resulted in a finding of racial bias in his case, and Robinson was resentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. This was the first RJA appeal and as such is certain to be precedent-setting.

[Update: People of Faith Against the Death Penalty called the outcome a huge victory for justice. I've added their statement below.]

Judge Gregory Weeks ruled that prosecutors in North Carolina capital murder cases intentionally discriminated against eligible black jurors in the period 1990-2010, producing racial bias in cases where black defendants were convicted and sentenced to death — rather than receiving a life sentence. The statistical evidence of bias was valid and inexplicable except as the intentional result of prosecutors not wanting black jurors, the judge said. Further, the explanations of prosecutors in rebuttal not only didn't rebut the statistical evidence; some of what they said was so unbelievable that it tended to reinforce, for him, the fact that bias was present.

Click here to read the full article

Source: indyweek.com, April 20, 2012

South Carolina Inmate Released After Nearly 30 Years on Death Row

Edward Lee Elmore was released from prison in South Carolina on March 2 after agreeing to a plea arrangement in which he maintained his innocence but agreed the state could re-convict him of murder in a new trial. 

He had been on death row for nearly 30 years after being convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the sexual assault and murder of an elderly woman in Greenwood, South Carolina.

The state's case was based on evidence gathered from a questionable investigation and on testimony with glaring discrepancies. Elmore’s appellate lawyers discovered evidence pointing to Elmore's possible innocence that prosecutors had withheld.

Originally, state officials repeatedly claimed the evidence had been lost. The evidence included a hair sample collected from the crime scene. After being tested for DNA, the evidence suggested an unknown Caucasian man may have been the killer. 

In February 2010, Elmore was found to have intellectual disabilities and thus was ineligible for execution; he was taken off death row. 

In November 2011, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit granted him a new trial because of the prosecutorial misconduct in handling the evidence. The court found there was “persuasive evidence that the agents were outright dishonest,” and there was “further evidence of police ineptitude and deceit.”

Click here to read the full article

Source: Death Penalty Information Center, March 2012

Texas DA seeks death penalty review

Craig Watkins

The Texas prosecutor leading an aggressive push to free wrongly imprisoned inmates, in a county where more than two dozen wrongful convictions have been overturned, is calling for a review of the capital punishment system in the nation's busiest death penalty state.

Craig Watkins' tenure as Dallas County's top prosecutor has earned him a national reputation. Now, as Watkins publicly acknowledges that his great-grandfather was executed in Texas almost 80 years ago, he called on state lawmakers to review death penalty procedures to ensure the punishment is fairly administered.

"I think it's a legitimate question to have, to ask: `Have we executed someone that didn't commit the crime?'" Watkins said in an interview with The Associated Press.

After becoming district attorney in 2007, Watkins started a conviction integrity unit that has examined convictions and, in some cases, pushed for them to be overturned. Dallas County has exonerated 22 people through DNA evidence since 2001 – by far the most of any Texas county and more than all but two states. An additional five people have been exonerated outside of DNA testing. Most of those exonerations occurred during Watkins' tenure.

Texas has executed 55 inmates since 2009, including 13 last year, a 15-year low. 12 former death row inmates have been freed since 1973.

"I think the reforms we've made in our criminal justice system are better than any other state in this country," Watkins said. "But we still need reforms. And so, I don't know if I'm the voice for that. I just know, here I am, and I have these experiences."

Among those experiences was hearing about the execution of his great-grandfather, Richard Johnson. According to state criminal records and news accounts, Johnson escaped from prison three times while serving a 35-year sentence for burglary, and he was charged with killing a man after his third escape. He was convicted of murder in October 1931 and executed in the electric chair in August 1932.

Watkins said he did not get a full explanation of what happened until he became district attorney. His grandmother, who was a young girl when her father was executed, still struggles with the story, according to Watkins and his mother, Paula.

Watkins says he opposes the death penalty on moral grounds but doesn't want those beliefs "pushed upon someone else." He has sought the death penalty at trial in nine cases, with eight death sentences received. An additional four death penalty cases are pending, according to his office. A panel within his office reviews possible death penalty cases and votes on whether to pursue it.

While Watkins doesn't take a position on his great-grandfather's guilt, he said hearing about the incident made him think harder about whether defendants, particularly African-Americans, are being treated fairly by the courts.

Watkins, the first African-American district attorney in Texas, said he remains troubled by allegations that faulty evidence and prosecutorial misconduct were used to secure convictions. Watkins did not offer specific proposals for changes or suggest halting executions, but he said he wanted state lawmakers to take a look at how the death penalty is handled in counties.

"I think in Dallas County, we're getting it right," he said. "But I think the larger responsibility is for other places to get it right."

State Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Houston Democrat, is a key supporter of legislation to expand DNA testing and provide compensation for wrongful imprisonment. He said more people are "taking another look" at the death penalty, but doubted that immediate changes were on the horizon.

"I don't foresee a time when major changes will occur, but the discussion has at least begun on how we make it more just and how we make it more certain that we actually have the right guy," Ellis said in an email.

The latest wrongfully convicted man to be exonerated in Dallas County, Richard Miles, was formally declared innocent Wednesday by a judge. Miles was released from prison in 2009, 15 years after a jury convicted him of murder and sentenced him to 40 years in prison. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals last week declared that his case was one of actual innocence.

With a handful of other exonerees watching, Watkins told the courtroom that it was a "fair question" to ask whether Texas had executed an innocent person.

"I think anyone that does not – that sits in a DA's seat – have doubts, they shouldn't be DAs," he said.

Watkins told the AP later that he didn't want to lecture other prosecutors, but thought that Dallas County could be "a part of the debate."

He pointed to the exoneration of Michael Morton, who served 24 years in prison before new DNA testing showed he didn't kill his wife. Attorneys for Morton accuse Ken Anderson, who prosecuted the case in Williamson County, north of Austin, of keeping key facts from the defense at his trial. Morton was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to life in prison.

Anderson, now a judge, faces a special investigation ordered last week by the Texas Supreme Court's chief justice.

"I think the Williamson County case is a perfect example of how there may be innocent individuals languishing on death row waiting for their execution," Watkins said.

John Bradley, the current Williamson County district attorney, said that "extraordinary changes" had already been made in the quarter-century since Morton was convicted. He said Watkins and others should wait for the inquiry against Anderson to be completed.

"It's a little premature for finger-pointing," Bradley said. "My preference is to let the process work through and evaluate what's there."

Watkins said he had already started talking to other elected officials about the death penalty. "The conversation needs to be had about if we pursue (the death penalty) and when we pursue it, are we pursuing it against someone who actually committed the crime," he said.

Source: Associated Press, Feb. 23, 2012