Prosecuting Innocence: 8-15% of sex offenders wrongfully-convicted.

Those folks who know that I advocate for all prisoners, regardless of their convictions, occasionally ask me how I can stomach dealing with people who have perpetrated crimes against children. Apart from my belief that all prisoners should be treated according to basic standards protecting human rights, there's a body of research on wrongful convictions and sex offenses - here's a good, current study on the subject by the good people at the Urban Institute:

Post-Conviction DNA Testing and Wrongful Conviction

"This study analyzed the results of new DNA testing of old physical evidence from 634 sexual assault and homicide cases that took place in Virginia between 1973 and 1987 in the first study of the effects of DNA testing on wrongful conviction in a large and approximately random sample of serious crime convictions. The study found that in five percent of homicide and sexual assault cases DNA testing eliminated the convicted offender as the source of incriminating physical evidence. When sexual assault convictions were isolated, DNA testing eliminated between 8 and 15 percent of convicted offenders and supported exoneration. Past estimates generally put the rate of wrongful conviction at or less than three percent."

 Wrongfully-convicted Courtney Bisbee

 and daughter Taylor Lee...

That said, please hit this petition for the release of Courtney Bisbee. I have witnessed this woman's battle to maintain a relationship with her daughter from prison, and have no doubt that she's innocent. The petition was authored by one of her juvenile accusers, Nik Valles, now old enough to resist his mother's influences.

-------finally, this in today from the Arizona Justice Project at ASU-----

Drayton Witt: Case Dismissed With Prejudice 

The Arizona Justice Project has great news to share about a win in a shaken baby case. On Monday, October 29, the Arizona Superior Court dismissed the State's case against Drayton Witt with prejudice, meaning that the State may never again bring charges against him for the death of his son, Steven. Drayton was convicted back in 2002 of second-degree murder after being accused of shaking his nearly 5 month old baby to death.

Steven Witt was born a "blue baby" with the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around his neck, had aspirated meconium (fecal matter), and was in respiratory distress. Steven suffered medical problems almost every day of his short life and was in and out of doctors' offices and hospitals. After being prescribed medicine for flu-like symptoms (Cefzil), Steven began to suffer from seizures. After the first seizure, Steven was taken to the hospital and spent 6 days in care of doctors. On June 1, 2000, less than a month after his release from that hospital stay, Steven suffered a catastrophic seizure, which led to his death.

The State charged Drayton Witt with second degree murder. The State's witnesses relied on the SBS triad—subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhages, and cerebral edema to conclude that the baby must have been shaken by his father, the only adult with him at the time of the ultimately fatal seizure. No cuts, no bruises, no grip marks, no fractures, no dislocations, nor spinal cord injuries—but the doctors at the Phoenix Children's Hospital in 2000 insisted that the "triad" of injuries meant an SBS homicide.

The Justice Project began working on this case in 2008 under the leadership of Carrie Sperling. Eight different experts in a variety of fields reviewed the case and provided sworn testimony in support of Mr. Witt.

Dr. A. Norman Guthkelch, famed British pediatric neurosurgeon who authored the seminal paper on SBS, acknowledged that aspects of SBS are now "open to serious doubt" and that a diagnosis of SBS as cause of death in Witt's case was "inappropriate."

Dr. Patrick Barnes, chief of pediatric neurology at Stanford, believed Steven Witt did not die of SBS but rather the medical records suggest a "classic picture of venous thrombosis" with no indicators of non-accidental trauma.

Dr. Horace Gardner (an ophthalmologist), Dr. John Lloyd (a biomechanics expert), Dr. Waney Squier (pediatric neuropathologist), and Drs. Karen Griest and John Plunkett (forensic pathologists), all found no evidence of the child being shaken to death, and—like Dr. Barnes—believed the child died of natural causes. The most likely cause was venous thrombosis, a condition the doctors at Phoenix Children's Hospital never even considered in 2000.

Perhaps most notably, the medical examiner at the time of Steven's autopsy in 2000, re-examined the case and swore an affidavit stating:

Based on my review of these materials from an expansive body of post-2000 SBS literature, as well as the significant developments in the medical and scientific community's understanding of SBS and several of the conditions that mimic its symptoms, I have determined that I cannot stand by my previous conclusion and trial testimony that Steven Witt's death was a homicide. Steven had a complicated medical history, including unexplained neurological problems. He had no outward signs of abuse. If I were to testify today, I would state that I believe Steven's death was likely the result of a natural disease process, not SBS. It is my hope that the court will see fit to revisit Drayton Witt's conviction.

In April 2012, the State elected not to oppose Witt's motion to vacate his original 2002 conviction after receiving his post-conviction petition seeking relief. However, the State continued to press its case against Witt, preparing for a new trial. Eventually, faced with a motion to exclude the scientific basis for the original conviction, the State moved to dismiss the charges against Mr. Witt. The Court heard the State's motion to dismiss this morning and took the additional step of ordering the dismissal with prejudice so that Mr. Witt will never have to face these unfounded charges again. After spending 12 years in prison for a crime that never occurred, Witt and his wife Maria can now get on with their lives.

A HUGE thank you to the phenomenal (pro bono) legal team—Carrie Sperling, Randy Papetti, Christina Rubalcava, Erin Ronstadt, Adam Adinolfi, and a handful of students from ASU's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law who spent hundreds of hours working on this case. Finally, a very special thank you to our eight experts who spent hours reviewing the evidence and writing reports, all without any monetary compensation.

Another Black Man Exonerated in Texas.

I love the Dallas County DA - they're clearing these cases at an unbelievable rate...

Hard to believe so many innocent black men were imprisoned in Texas to begin with. They'd die in prison without DNA to exonerate them. A bunch of people already are.

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Dallas County man cleared in 1979 rape, robbery will be Texas' longest-serving exoneree

12:00 AM CST on Tuesday, January 4, 2011

By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News
jemily@dallasnews.com

Two men convicted in connection with a 1979 Dallas rape, robbery and abduction have been cleared of the crime through DNA testing. They have served about three decades in prison – more than any other Texas inmate cleared by DNA testing.

The exonerations are also the first where DNA testing has been used in Dallas County to prove men innocent of crimes that occurred as far back as the 1970s. Until recently, authorities thought that evidence had only been preserved by the county's crime lab since 1981, said Nina Morrison of the Innocence Project in New York. The discovery that other testable evidence exists could mean Dallas County's national record number of 20 exonerations since 2001 will keep growing.

"It may provide grounds to go back and look at other evidence from older cases where we thought there was nothing to test," Morrison said. "It's really a miracle it was saved."

Cornelius Dupree Jr., 51, is expected to be exonerated today in a Dallas County courtroom. He is on parole after having been released in July. He spent more than 30 years in prison.

His exoneration, the 21st, will be the first in Dallas County since May 2009, although three other men have been cleared since then with other evidence.

The second man, Anthony Ray Massingill, 49, will remain behind bars for now while authorities search for evidence to test in a second rape for which he is serving a life sentence.

Neither Dupree nor Massingill could be reached for comment. They were wrongly convicted in a Nov. 23, 1979, attack on a 26-year-old woman who was confronted at gunpoint along with a male friend after they stopped for cigarettes and to use a pay phone at a liquor store on Dolphin Road, north of Interstate 30.

The attackers carjacked the victims and eventually ordered the man from the car. They then raped the woman while holding a gun on her. They debated whether to kill her before shoving her out of the vehicle and threatening to kill her if she called the police. She was found unconscious in a median by a police officer.

Five or six days later, two men tried to sell the woman's rabbit fur coat at a grocery store two miles from the liquor store. The stolen car was found in the parking lot. Dupree and Massingill are not believed to be these men.

Dupree and Massingill were arrested Dec. 1, 1979, two miles from where the abduction occurred. Police initially stopped them because they matched the description of men wanted in connection with a similar case. Massingill had a gun; Dupree was unarmed.

Wrongly identified

Paul Cates, also of the Innocence Project, said the rape victim wrongly identified Dupree and Massingill in a photo lineup. The male victim could not pick out Dupree or Massingill.

At trial, both victims identified Dupree as one of the men who abducted them. Cates said that the woman, at times, confused the identities of the two defendants when identifying them in court.

Massingill was sentenced to three 10-year terms and a life sentence in connection with the liquor store abduction and another 1979 rape-robbery.

Dupree was sentenced to 75 years in prison for the liquor store robbery. He was not tried on the liquor store abduction-rape because prosecutors thought it wouldn't result in any more prison time. Although he was a suspect, a grand jury declined to indict him in the second 1979 robbery-abduction.

Evidence preserved

The Innocence Project accepted the case in 2007 after an intense review. Morrison said Dupree had written to them a few years earlier.

The Innocence Project first contacted the Dallas County district attorney's office about the case in 2008. The district attorney's office then asked the crime lab to search for any evidence in the case.

The lab found and tested pubic hairs from the victim's rape exam that contained genetic material from two men who were not Dupree and Massingill. Had the hair not contained two other men's DNA, neither Dupree nor Massingill would have likely been cleared in the case, Morrison said.

Morrison said that even if the crime lab does not find DNA to test in Massingill's other case, it's possible he could still be freed. She said that authorities at the time believed the same men were responsible for both crimes.

Morrison said the real perpetrators have not been identified, but she was not sure whether the test results had been compared with a national DNA database.

The Dallas County district attorney's office said Monday that prosecutors would answer questions about the case today. Massingill's attorney, Michelle Moore of the Dallas County public defender's office, declined to comment.

Preliminary tests showing Dupree's innocence came back two weeks after he was paroled because of time he'd earned through good behavior. The results of the final test – DNA from the victim confirming that the lab correctly labeled the sample – were not available until December.

Morrison said Dupree could have been released on parole earlier if he had admitted his guilt. But like many exonerees, he refused to do so. 

Next AZ Attorney General: Pay Attention.

The good news is that this refers to funding I presume the Arizona Justice Project at ASU gets. The bad news is that it doesn't appear to cover re-opening cases of people whose eyewitnesses have sworn new statements recanting the original testimony (admitting that they committed perjury) that resulted in the conviction. They seem focused exclusively on cases that can be cleared via DNA evidence - many people sit in prison wrongfully convicted of crimes that will never be solved with physical evidence. 

We need judges and prosecutors to take the initiative to re-examine these cases when they come back to them - not just bury them with their other mistakes. The next Attorney General of Arizona is going to have a big mess to clean up with Maricopa County's wrongful convictions if Thomas doesn't take care of his own business first. Guess he has his hands full these days prosecuting political enemies, though, instead of protecting victims of state violence. His violence. Incarceration is violence. Just ask these men who had whole chunks of their life taken from them - kids grow up, parents grow old and die, human touch is hard to come by. Imprisoning someone for any period of time is no small thing. We'd better make sure that we aren't carelessly throwing the innocent in there as well.

Finally, Congress needs to repeal the Prison Litigation Reform Act and replace it with the Prison Abuse Remedies Act. Ever since the PLRA was passed in 1995 (thanks for yet another swell piece of work, Clinton), it's been extremely difficult for prisoners to sue to protect or seek remedy for human rights violations - they must exhaust all internal administrative remedies before they even have standing in court. 

Now, imagine filing a rape complaint against a CO who's popular with the other guards and supervisors, and having to wait for it to go through all administrative channels before you can even get outside intervention to protect you. Anyone have any idea of how many ways you could be punished for that by the time help arrived? Many prisoners don't even bother trying to sue for their rights - just filing grievances can be an uphill battle that just sets you up for massive guard and administrative retaliation. Abuses didn't decrease in prisons after the PLRA was passed - the victims were simply silenced, which usually fosters an environment in which even more serious abuses can take place. We owe the cause of justice better than that. The SAVE Coalition will tell you more about the problems with the PLRA and how to fix them.

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Sunday, December 13, 2009 - Page updated at 11:01 AM

Connecticut searching for any wrongful convictions

By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN

Associated Press Writer

Connecticut is looking into hundreds of old criminal cases to determine if any prisoners were wrongly convicted of rape, murder or manslaughter as part of an ambitious initiative under way around the country.

Fourteen states have received millions of dollars in federal grants for DNA testing of old cases. In Connecticut, the money will pay for prosecutors, DNA experts and defense attorneys to work full-time reviewing cases and ultimately testing evidence in some for DNA.

"The goal is to be sure that if somebody is in jail wrongfully that they get out as soon as we can possibly do that," said James Clark, a New Haven prosecutor participating in the effort. "There is no right thinking person who would not want to release someone who is wrongly convicted."

Clark and Karen Goodrow, director of the Connecticut Innocence Project, predicted the initiative likely would lead to exonerations, but with the project in its early stages they could not say how many.

"I think in any system which is a human system there will be error," Clark said. "My sense of it is there is not going to be a lot. I don't think false convictions are common."

The Connecticut Innocence Project has already helped free three men in recent years who were wrongly convicted.

In August, Kenneth Ireland was freed after spending two decades in prison after a judge dismissed murder and rape charges against him following DNA testing that showed he could not have committed the crimes.

James Calvin Tillman was released from prison in 2006 after serving 18 years for rape. The state awarded him $5 million for his wrongful conviction.

Miguel Roman was sentenced to 60 years in prison for the 1988 murder of his girlfriend, 17-year-old Carmen Lopez, but freed after he served 20 years. DNA tests showed he could not have been the killer.

Connecticut received a $1.5 million federal grant for the project. Thirteen other states, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, Minnesota, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Kentucky, Texas, Virginia and Washington have received federal grants as well in the past two years to review old cases...
                                                   (Back to the Seattle Times for the rest)