New York Post
by Austin Fenner, Jeane Macintosh and Lukas I. Alpert
May 16, 2007
May 16, 2007 -- A man who served 19 years in prison for the rape and murder of his girlfriend's children was set free yesterday after DNA evidence proved that a next-door neighbor - the star prosecution witness - was responsible for the heinous crime.
Walking out of the same New Jersey courthouse where he had been sentenced to life in prison in 1988, Byron Halsey, 46, thanked God as he embraced his family, supporters and the team of lawyers who had worked to have his conviction overturned.
"I want to thank the lord. I want to thank my lord and savior Jesus for keeping me here," he said through tears as he stood beneath the word "Jusice" inscribed in Latin on the facade of the Union County Courthouse. "I'm just thankful."
Although he was happy to be free, Halsey said he would have a hard time getting over what had happened, especially because he had narrowly avoided a death sentence at his sensational trial two decades ago.
"I'm not happy because of what was done to me. It was criminal at best," he said. "I wasn't going to let anyone take my life from me."
His mother, Eloise, hugged her son as he walked out of the courthouse.
"I did not give up on him. I knew he was innocent," she said, overwhelmed by emotion.
Halsey's first glimpse of freedom began when his attorneys - of the New York-based Innocence Project - and Union County prosecutors submitted a joint request asking that his conviction be overturned.
In the legal filing, they explained that new DNA technology allowed them to trace semen found at the scene of the vicious rape and murder to Clifton Hall, 49, who lived next door to Halsey and his girlfriend at a Plainfield, N.J. rooming house.
Hall, who testified against Halsey, was imprisoned for three savage sexual assaults in 1993 and his DNA was on file with New Jersey authorities.
"We can say with scientific certainty that Byron Halsey is innocent. Every piece of physical evidence connects Cliff Hall, not Byron Halsey, to these murders," said Innocence Project attorney Vanessa Potkin. "It has taken more than two decades, but DNA has finally revealed the truth in this case."
Ruling that the new evidence "would probably change the verdict," Superior Court Judge Stuart Peim vacated the verdict and granted Halsey a new trial.
Halsey threw his head back as tears streamed down his face.
Peim then told prosecutors they had until a July 9 hearing to decide whether they would retry Halsey or drop the charges. A spokeswoman for the Union County prosecutor would not discuss what will happen.
Peim allowed Halsey to be released on $55,000 bail - raised by church groups in Plainfield - but ordered that he wear an electronic-monitoring ankle bracelet.
In a statement, the children's mother, Margaret Urquhart, said she had always doubted Halsey was responsible for the crimes.
"I knew Byron loved Tyrone and Tina. It didn't make sense to me that he could have done this. I always had my doubts, but I didn't know what to do about them. I'm thankful that the DNA testing has identified who really did this to my children and that Byron is being released today. I want justice done in this case," she said.
The brutal rape and murder of 8-year-old Tyrone Urquhart and his 7-year-old sister Tina shocked New Jersey.
The two children's beaten and abused bodies were found in the basement of the rooming house in November 1985.
The girl was found under a shelf with her nightgown draped over her head, her underwear stuffed in her mouth and her legs spread. She had been brutally raped on a nearby blue couch, beaten and strangled.
The boy had been sexually assaulted, his face slashed with scissors and a piece of cloth hammered to his skull with long nails. Several cigarette butts were found littered around his body.
It was later determined that the nails piercing his brain caused his death.
Investigators were able to recover evidence of semen from the girl's underwear, the covering of the couch, and from an oral swab of the boy's mouth. More DNA evidence was recovered from the cigarette butts.
At the time, however, DNA technology was not sufficient to provide a match to an individual, and investigators were only able to match Halsey to the semen because he had the same blood type as the culprit.
In the immediate aftermath, investigators aggressively questioned Halsey - who told them he had left the children alone and came home to find them missing.
After hours of questioning, Halsey allegedly confessed to the killings, admitting he "sexually assaulted [Tina] in the basement on the blue couch."
But his attorneys argue the confession was coerced after a 30-hour interrogation during which Halsey - who has a sixth-grade education and suffers from severe learning disabilities - was allowed little sleep.
But influenced by the blood-type evidence, and testimony from Hall - who earlier on the night of the murders had driven Halsey to a friend's house - the jury convicted Halsey in 1988 after five days of deliberation.
The jurors reject the prosecution's plea for the death penalty, and Halsey was sentenced to consecutive life sentences, a decision that elicited jeers in the courtroom.
The judge who handled the original case, William Wertheimer, said, "It gives pause about the death penalty, doesn't it?"
It is the 201st case for the Innocence Project - which works to exonerate the wrongly convicted using DNA technology unavailable until recently - in which a conviction was overturned.
"He's got an uphill battle trying to get his life back in order. He's got his mom, his brother which is going to be a help and he's got us," said David Shephard, president of the Council for the Wrongly Convicted.
He said his group had arranged for an apartment in Newark for Halsey and would help him find a job.
Hall has been imprisoned since 1993 for three brutal sex attacks on women in Plainfield during an 11-month period in 1991 and 1992. ■
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Saturday, May 19, 2007
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Juvenile Injustice
The New York Times
Editorial
May 11, 2007
The United States made a disastrous miscalculation when it started automatically trying youthful offenders as adults instead of handling them through the juvenile courts. Prosecutors argued that the policy would get violent predators off the streets and deter further crime. But a new federally backed study shows that juveniles who do time as adults later commit more violent crime than those who are handled through the juvenile courts.
The study, published last month in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, was produced by the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, an independent research group with close ties to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After an exhaustive survey of the literature, the group determined that the practice of transferring children into adult courts was counterproductive, actually creating more crime than it cured.
A related and even more disturbing study by Campaign for Youth Justice in Washington finds that the majority of the more than 200,000 children a year who are treated as adults under the law come before the courts for nonviolent offenses that could be easily and more effectively dealt with at the juvenile court level.
Examples include a 17-year-old first-time offender charged with robbery after stealing another student’s gym clothes, and another 17-year-old who violated his probation by stealing a neighbor’s bicycle. Many of these young nonviolent offenders are held in adult prisons for months or even years.
The laws also are not equally applied. Youths of color, who typically go to court with inadequate legal counsel, account for three out of every four young people admitted to adult prison.
With 40 states allowing or requiring youthful offenders to spend at least some time in adult jails, state legislators all across the country are just waking up to the problems this practice creates. Some states now have pending bills that would stop juveniles from being automatically transferred to adult courts or that would allow them to get back into the juvenile system once the adult court was found to be inappropriate for them.
Given the damage being done to young lives all over the country, the bills can’t pass soon enough.■
Editorial
May 11, 2007
The United States made a disastrous miscalculation when it started automatically trying youthful offenders as adults instead of handling them through the juvenile courts. Prosecutors argued that the policy would get violent predators off the streets and deter further crime. But a new federally backed study shows that juveniles who do time as adults later commit more violent crime than those who are handled through the juvenile courts.
The study, published last month in The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, was produced by the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, an independent research group with close ties to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After an exhaustive survey of the literature, the group determined that the practice of transferring children into adult courts was counterproductive, actually creating more crime than it cured.
A related and even more disturbing study by Campaign for Youth Justice in Washington finds that the majority of the more than 200,000 children a year who are treated as adults under the law come before the courts for nonviolent offenses that could be easily and more effectively dealt with at the juvenile court level.
Examples include a 17-year-old first-time offender charged with robbery after stealing another student’s gym clothes, and another 17-year-old who violated his probation by stealing a neighbor’s bicycle. Many of these young nonviolent offenders are held in adult prisons for months or even years.
The laws also are not equally applied. Youths of color, who typically go to court with inadequate legal counsel, account for three out of every four young people admitted to adult prison.
With 40 states allowing or requiring youthful offenders to spend at least some time in adult jails, state legislators all across the country are just waking up to the problems this practice creates. Some states now have pending bills that would stop juveniles from being automatically transferred to adult courts or that would allow them to get back into the juvenile system once the adult court was found to be inappropriate for them.
Given the damage being done to young lives all over the country, the bills can’t pass soon enough.■
Saturday, April 28, 2007
Straight Talk: Duke Case Shows Justice System's Flaws
By Radley Balko
FOX News
Monday, April 23, 2007
To their great credit, the Duke lacrosse players who were exonerated of rape charges by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper earlier this month understood that for all the hell they've gone through the past year, what happened to them isn't uncommon.
"There seem to be some flaws in the legal system that should be addressed," Colin Finnerty said, "the fact that in North Carolina there are no recordings of the grand jury, and to establish checks and balances on district attorneys."
Reade Seligmann, who had an iron-clad alibi to counter District Attorney Mike Nifong's accusation but was nonetheless dragged through the mud, added,
"I can't imagine what they do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves."
There's probably some truth to the accusation that the media's initial interest in this case was driven by media bias and "frat boy" stereotypes. But much of the initial interest also likely was driven by the "man bites dog" nature of this story.
Everything was happening in reverse. Here you had a lower-income black woman making accusations against affluent, white men. You had conservatives and law-and-order types rallying to support the defendants, while civil rights activists and criminal justice advocates were finding common cause with the accuser.
In fact, in some way the extensive media coverage may have helped the Duke players. It brought a new level of scrutiny and transparency to this particular criminal justice outrage and kept the media glare on Nifong's every move.
The same week the Duke players were exonerated, another man was cleared of rape charges as well. James Giles was convicted in 1982 of raping a woman in Dallas County, Texas. Giles served 10 years in prison and 14 as a registered sex offender.
He lost his marriage and contact with much of his family and couldn't travel 10 miles outside his home without first obtaining permission. He was cleared by DNA evidence, with the help of the fantastic organization, the Innocence Project.
Giles isn't alone. He's the 12th man in Dallas County to be exonerated by DNA evidence. There are more than 400 others there waiting for DNA tests, and even the district attorney there believes a large percentage of them may be innocent.
"It's a new day in Dallas," said Dallas County's district attorney, Craig Watkins, after announcing Giles' release. Dallas County has a long history of tough-on-crime prosecutors and indifference to criminal justice protections that may have put hundreds of innocents in prison — or to death.
Referring to the old mentality, Watkins added, "if you sent someone to jail who was possibly innocent, it was a badge of honor."
Watkins' quest to clear the names of the innocent is aided by the fact that Dallas County coincidentally has historically preserved blood samples from cases involving violent crime. Most other jurisdictions across the country only recently began doing that.
It's likely of no coincidence that the one jurisdiction where blood samples have been preserved is also one that's finding a shocking number of convictions of innocent people.
If there's one positive that might come out of the Duke imbroglio, it's that the unusual demographics of the parties involved and alliances it spawned may mean some much-needed new scrutiny of the criminal justice system, and win welcome new advocates for reform.
Nifong is by no means the only overly aggressive prosecutor in this country. And Durham is by no means the only jurisdiction where the wrong people have been wrongly accused. As Seligmann suggested, the only real difference may have been that the Duke players had the resources to fight back. Many others don't.
Examples abound.
A 2002 audit of the crime lab in Houston, Texas, found that experts may have given "false and scientifically unsound" testimony in thousands of criminal cases. Subsequent reports showed that crime lab employees often tailored their tests to fit police theories about how a crime was committed. The city is finishing up a $5.5 million review of 2,300 cases, including death penalty cases.
In 2003, Texas Gov. Rick Perry pardoned 35 mostly black residents of Tulia, Texas, who had been prosecuted for drug crimes based on testimony from undercover police officer Tom Coleman. Coleman, once named Texas "Police Officer of the Year," was found to have manufactured evidence from whole cloth.
Just last month in Maryland, self-styled ballistics expert Joe Kopera committed suicide after it was revealed that he lied about his expertise and training. Kopera had testified in hundreds of criminal trials over 40 years, many of which may need to be reopened.
A 2005 audit found critical errors in the sate of Virginia's crime lab, considered one of the best in the country. The audit found that senior-level experts in the lab were too often persuaded by political pressure to secure convictions. The audit was ordered after the exoneration of Earl Washington Jr., a man who served 17 years on Virginia's death row.
These are merely examples from the last several years, and they're by no means comprehensive. Here's hoping that the most vocal critics of Mike Nifong and the Durham justice system that relentlessly pursued the Duke lacrosse players — many of whom don't generally speak out on criminal justice issues — will see the case as more than just an example of media bias or reverse discrimination.
It's merely one very high-profile example of the flaws and inadequacies in our criminal justice system. And it demonstrates why we need strong protections for the accused and transparency, accountability and oversight of the system that accuses them.■
Radley Balko is a senior editor with Reason magazine. He publishes the weblog, TheAgitator.com.
FOX News
Monday, April 23, 2007
To their great credit, the Duke lacrosse players who were exonerated of rape charges by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper earlier this month understood that for all the hell they've gone through the past year, what happened to them isn't uncommon.
"There seem to be some flaws in the legal system that should be addressed," Colin Finnerty said, "the fact that in North Carolina there are no recordings of the grand jury, and to establish checks and balances on district attorneys."
Reade Seligmann, who had an iron-clad alibi to counter District Attorney Mike Nifong's accusation but was nonetheless dragged through the mud, added,
"I can't imagine what they do to people who do not have the resources to defend themselves."
There's probably some truth to the accusation that the media's initial interest in this case was driven by media bias and "frat boy" stereotypes. But much of the initial interest also likely was driven by the "man bites dog" nature of this story.
Everything was happening in reverse. Here you had a lower-income black woman making accusations against affluent, white men. You had conservatives and law-and-order types rallying to support the defendants, while civil rights activists and criminal justice advocates were finding common cause with the accuser.
In fact, in some way the extensive media coverage may have helped the Duke players. It brought a new level of scrutiny and transparency to this particular criminal justice outrage and kept the media glare on Nifong's every move.
The same week the Duke players were exonerated, another man was cleared of rape charges as well. James Giles was convicted in 1982 of raping a woman in Dallas County, Texas. Giles served 10 years in prison and 14 as a registered sex offender.
He lost his marriage and contact with much of his family and couldn't travel 10 miles outside his home without first obtaining permission. He was cleared by DNA evidence, with the help of the fantastic organization, the Innocence Project.
Giles isn't alone. He's the 12th man in Dallas County to be exonerated by DNA evidence. There are more than 400 others there waiting for DNA tests, and even the district attorney there believes a large percentage of them may be innocent.
"It's a new day in Dallas," said Dallas County's district attorney, Craig Watkins, after announcing Giles' release. Dallas County has a long history of tough-on-crime prosecutors and indifference to criminal justice protections that may have put hundreds of innocents in prison — or to death.
Referring to the old mentality, Watkins added, "if you sent someone to jail who was possibly innocent, it was a badge of honor."
Watkins' quest to clear the names of the innocent is aided by the fact that Dallas County coincidentally has historically preserved blood samples from cases involving violent crime. Most other jurisdictions across the country only recently began doing that.
It's likely of no coincidence that the one jurisdiction where blood samples have been preserved is also one that's finding a shocking number of convictions of innocent people.
If there's one positive that might come out of the Duke imbroglio, it's that the unusual demographics of the parties involved and alliances it spawned may mean some much-needed new scrutiny of the criminal justice system, and win welcome new advocates for reform.
Nifong is by no means the only overly aggressive prosecutor in this country. And Durham is by no means the only jurisdiction where the wrong people have been wrongly accused. As Seligmann suggested, the only real difference may have been that the Duke players had the resources to fight back. Many others don't.
Examples abound.
A 2002 audit of the crime lab in Houston, Texas, found that experts may have given "false and scientifically unsound" testimony in thousands of criminal cases. Subsequent reports showed that crime lab employees often tailored their tests to fit police theories about how a crime was committed. The city is finishing up a $5.5 million review of 2,300 cases, including death penalty cases.
In 2003, Texas Gov. Rick Perry pardoned 35 mostly black residents of Tulia, Texas, who had been prosecuted for drug crimes based on testimony from undercover police officer Tom Coleman. Coleman, once named Texas "Police Officer of the Year," was found to have manufactured evidence from whole cloth.
Just last month in Maryland, self-styled ballistics expert Joe Kopera committed suicide after it was revealed that he lied about his expertise and training. Kopera had testified in hundreds of criminal trials over 40 years, many of which may need to be reopened.
A 2005 audit found critical errors in the sate of Virginia's crime lab, considered one of the best in the country. The audit found that senior-level experts in the lab were too often persuaded by political pressure to secure convictions. The audit was ordered after the exoneration of Earl Washington Jr., a man who served 17 years on Virginia's death row.
These are merely examples from the last several years, and they're by no means comprehensive. Here's hoping that the most vocal critics of Mike Nifong and the Durham justice system that relentlessly pursued the Duke lacrosse players — many of whom don't generally speak out on criminal justice issues — will see the case as more than just an example of media bias or reverse discrimination.
It's merely one very high-profile example of the flaws and inadequacies in our criminal justice system. And it demonstrates why we need strong protections for the accused and transparency, accountability and oversight of the system that accuses them.■
Radley Balko is a senior editor with Reason magazine. He publishes the weblog, TheAgitator.com.
DNA to Clear 200th Person
By Richard Willing
USA TODAY
Monday, April 23, 2007
A former Army cook who spent nearly 25 years in prison for a rape he did not commit is scheduled today to become the 200th person exonerated by DNA evidence, underscoring the quickening pace of overturned convictions, according to the Innocence Project.
The New York-based legal group says the 100th exoneration occurred in January 2002, 13 years after the first exoneration. It took just more than five years for the number to double.
"Five years ago, people said that the number (of exonerations) was going to dry up because there just weren't many wrongful convictions," said lawyer Barry Scheck, who co-founded the Innocence Project in 1992 to help prisoners prove their innocence through DNA evidence. "But clearly, there are plenty of innocent persons still in prison. There's no way you can look at this data without believing that."
David Lazer, a Harvard University public policy professor who specializes in DNA issues, says improved testing technology and an increase in the number of lawyers who are taking on DNA cases should result in a continued increase in the number of wrongful convictions that are set aside.
Convicting an innocent person is "every prosecutor's nightmare," said Joshua Marquis, vice president of the National District Attorneys Association.
The "tiny number" of exonerations suggests that the "epidemic of bad convictions" that Scheck suggests is "fiction," said Marquis, chief prosecutor in Clatsop County, Ore. There were 1,051,000 felony convictions in state courts in 2002, up from 829,300 in 1990, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The exoneration milestone is to be reached today in Chicago, where Cook County prosecutors and Innocence Project attorneys together will petition a Chicago court to set aside Jerry Miller's 1982 conviction, said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office.
Miller, 48, was convicted of raping, robbing, assaulting and kidnapping an office worker in a Near North Side parking lot in September 1981.
It is near certain the judge will grant the joint motion, Simonton said.
DNA tests performed by the Innocence Project in March showed that his genetic profile differs from the rapist's, proving that he didn't commit the crime. Miller continued to insist he was innocent even after being paroled last year.
"I really need to hear from the judge — 'your record is clear, we know you didn't do it' — before I feel truly free," Miller said in an interview. "I'm waiting for this to be finally, truly over."
Most exonerations come from cases from the 1980s and 1990s, before DNA testing was available or widely used. DNA was first used in an American criminal court case in 1987. The Innocence Project — which now has 36 affiliates at law schools and law offices across the USA — says its records show all but two of the exonerations occurred in convictions that happened before the year 2000.
Scheck said the "typical" DNA exoneration case has not changed much over the years. It often involves a sex crime allegedly committed by a black man in which the white victim is often the only witness, he said.
Miller, who is black, was identified by two parking lot attendants, who were also black. The victim, who was white, could not identify her assailant.■
DNA Should Clear Man Who Served 25 Years
USA TODAY
Monday, April 23, 2007
A former Army cook who spent nearly 25 years in prison for a rape he did not commit is scheduled today to become the 200th person exonerated by DNA evidence, underscoring the quickening pace of overturned convictions, according to the Innocence Project.
The New York-based legal group says the 100th exoneration occurred in January 2002, 13 years after the first exoneration. It took just more than five years for the number to double.
"Five years ago, people said that the number (of exonerations) was going to dry up because there just weren't many wrongful convictions," said lawyer Barry Scheck, who co-founded the Innocence Project in 1992 to help prisoners prove their innocence through DNA evidence. "But clearly, there are plenty of innocent persons still in prison. There's no way you can look at this data without believing that."
David Lazer, a Harvard University public policy professor who specializes in DNA issues, says improved testing technology and an increase in the number of lawyers who are taking on DNA cases should result in a continued increase in the number of wrongful convictions that are set aside.
Convicting an innocent person is "every prosecutor's nightmare," said Joshua Marquis, vice president of the National District Attorneys Association.
The "tiny number" of exonerations suggests that the "epidemic of bad convictions" that Scheck suggests is "fiction," said Marquis, chief prosecutor in Clatsop County, Ore. There were 1,051,000 felony convictions in state courts in 2002, up from 829,300 in 1990, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The exoneration milestone is to be reached today in Chicago, where Cook County prosecutors and Innocence Project attorneys together will petition a Chicago court to set aside Jerry Miller's 1982 conviction, said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office.
Miller, 48, was convicted of raping, robbing, assaulting and kidnapping an office worker in a Near North Side parking lot in September 1981.
It is near certain the judge will grant the joint motion, Simonton said.
DNA tests performed by the Innocence Project in March showed that his genetic profile differs from the rapist's, proving that he didn't commit the crime. Miller continued to insist he was innocent even after being paroled last year.
"I really need to hear from the judge — 'your record is clear, we know you didn't do it' — before I feel truly free," Miller said in an interview. "I'm waiting for this to be finally, truly over."
Most exonerations come from cases from the 1980s and 1990s, before DNA testing was available or widely used. DNA was first used in an American criminal court case in 1987. The Innocence Project — which now has 36 affiliates at law schools and law offices across the USA — says its records show all but two of the exonerations occurred in convictions that happened before the year 2000.
Scheck said the "typical" DNA exoneration case has not changed much over the years. It often involves a sex crime allegedly committed by a black man in which the white victim is often the only witness, he said.
Miller, who is black, was identified by two parking lot attendants, who were also black. The victim, who was white, could not identify her assailant.■
DNA Should Clear Man Who Served 25 Years
By Richard Willing
Twenty-five years in Illinois prisons for a rape he didn't commit gave Jerry Miller plenty of time to think about how the criminal justice system works.
It is, he decided, a lot like "a big assembly line."
"Lots of products come off, and most of the time it's OK," says Miller, set to be formally exonerated of rape, battery, robbery and kidnapping at a court hearing in Chicago today.
"But then there's the defects, the one's that are messed up. …You got an assembly line, you're always gonna have some defects."
The Innocence Project, a New York City-based group that uses DNA to clear persons wrongly convicted, says the 48-year-old former Army cook will be the 200th person exonerated by DNA evidence since the technology was first used to clear a convict in 1989.
DNA testing hadn't yet been used in a criminal case when Miller was convicted of the September 1981 rape, robbery, assault and kidnapping of a Chicago office worker in a parking garage north of the Loop.
The woman testified that she had been assaulted by a black man, robbed and raped in the back seat of her car before being thrown into the trunk.
The victim never got a good look at her assailant. Two lot attendants, both black, identified Miller as the man who attempted to drive the car out of the lot but fled when challenged.
A few days earlier, police had briefly detained Miller for acting suspiciously near cars parked in the area.
Miller had an alibi: He was home watching the Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns welterweight title bout. Only family members backed up his story.
The jury didn't believe them.
"It was a high-profile case, and they basically had it in their minds to convict me from the start," he says of prosecutors.
Miller appealed his conviction, lost, then began hearing about DNA in the mid-1990s. He sought help from the public defender's office and the Innocence Project. He was paroled last year before testing could be performed on semen stains from the crime scene. Even though free, he says, he insisted on DNA testing to remove the "stigma" of the conviction and to be removed from Illinois' sex-offender registry.
In March, Miller's DNA was shown not to match the genetic profile of the rapist drawn from the crime scene. He says the number of DNA exonerations will grow because there are more innocent people in prison "than you would ever think."
"You know everybody (in prison) can't be innocent, but there's a lot of guys who say they are, and they've got pretty good cases," he says. "But so many of them get discouraged, and they give up."
The second-hardest part of living with a wrongful conviction, he says, is "sticking with your guns" by continuing to insist you're innocent.
The hardest part?
"Getting people to believe you."
Since his parole last year, Miller lives with family in a town outside Chicago, cooks part-time at a restaurant and works as an attendant on a shuttle bus that serves handicapped persons.
He has focused on having his conviction vacated, both to clear his name and to be rid of the restrictions that came with his parole. These include an order that prevents Miller from interacting with children and a Global Positioning System-based monitor that allows parole officers to monitor his whereabouts. "I know I didn't do it, but it's still important for me to hear a judge say so," Miller says. "It's like there's this weight I been carrying around for 25 years, and I'm still carrying it."■
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Small Gifts, Big Treasures
by Efren Paredes, Jr.
When I receive visits from friends and family I see them in a visiting room which is located toward the front of the prison, near the prison's control center. And, each time I make the trip, I feel as if I am entering another world.
In many ways, I am.
I am always amazed when I enter the visiting room and I see children who come to visit their imprisoned family members. It is always a refreshing experience seeing them laugh, smile, talk, play, and interact with others.
Observing children interact with other children is even more enjoyable. They are always so full of energy and seemingly oblivious to where they are. They walk around and do things not realizing they are even in the confines of a prison. Seeing these children can always brighten the day of those who observe their activities and exploration of life.
Often times children who are visiting other prisoners sit near me in the visiting room. I am never surprised to see or hear them say or do funny things that make me laugh or smile. What is even more amazing about this is that I am able to share in their fun without even having to communicate with them.
Even if I wanted to communicate with the children I see on visits I couldn't. Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) visiting policy prohibits prisoners from communicating with the visitors of other prisoners, including children. Doing so can result in termination of their visit.
On one occasion, in recent months, I was on a visit when a small child who was less than two-years-old walked up to me, smiled, and said, "Hi!" I smiled at the little boy and within seconds the visiting room officer confronted me and stated, "No cross-visiting with the kid!" I hadn't even said anything to the child. I merely smiled at him.
I know the visits are very meaningful for those who the children are visiting because they are members of their family. They are afforded the opportunity to spend time together, bond with each other, and be a part of each other's lives, which is a positive thing for all involved. It helps establish and maintain strong family ties.
While seeing children during visits is a special time, it is also a disappointing time because I am not allowed to visit my only nephew, Landon, who is now two-years-old. Landon was born on Christmas Day 2005. Since Landon's birth I have only been able to see photographs of him and speak to him on the phone. (A photo of Landon appears above.)
Due to Landon's age he doesn't understand the things I tell him, and I certainly don't understand what he tells me. He's just learning how to put words together and construct sentences. Other than the photos, talking to him on the phone, and hearing the stories about him from friends and family, I have never seen Landon in person.
MDOC policy doesn't consider Landon to be my immediate family, so I can not see him until he turns 18-years-old. I can see other visitors' children whom I don't even know each week in the visiting room, and they can even sit right next to me, or in close proximity to me in the visiting room, but my own nephew can't visit.
According to MDOC policy nephews are considered to be friends. So are aunts, uncles, and cousins according to their rules. These rules went into effect in 1995 when the MDOC made sweeping revisions to its visiting policies across the state.
From 1995 to 2000 I was precluded from visiting with my youngest brother Hans. In 1995, when the MDOC changed its visiting policies, even immediate family members under age 18 were disallowed from visiting prisoners in the MDOC. According to their policy I could not visit Hans until he turned 18-years-old.
In 2000, after Hans turned 18, and after a long court battle between prisoners and the state prison system, immediate family of any age could again visit prisoners (accompanied with their parent or guardian, of course). If not for a federal judge who truly cared about the emotional and psychological damage this ongoing separation was causing, the cruel practice of keeping siblings totally separated would have never desisted.
The judge's order and opinion came too late for Hans and me though. Hans had already turned 18 and we had been denied the opportunity to see each other on visits with the rest of the family for five long years. We can never have that restored.
The last time I held a child in my arms was in 1990 when I last saw my cousin Arielle who was born that year. Since that time I have not seen a child or held a child from my family besides seeing my youngest brother Hans from 1989 until 1995 when the visiting policy changed. Hans was between the ages of 7 and 13 during that time.
Seeing children on visits makes a prisoner really appreciate the gift of life. It is a reminder to them about some of the small things that mean so much in free society. Prisoners see other adults every day inside the prison. So, seeing other adults on visits isn't unordinary.
However, prisoners never see children inside a prison except on TV, in photos they receive in the mail, or in periodicals. The only time they will ever see a child is during a visit. Prisoners who do not receive visits will never see children at all until they are released from prison.
For now it doesn't appear I will get to share any of Landon's childhood until I am released. I just hope that day comes in the near future or I will miss sharing his childhood altogether. If I am not released within the next couple of years I could be forced to wait to see Landon until he becomes an adult according to Michigan law — in 16 more years.
When I receive visits from friends and family I see them in a visiting room which is located toward the front of the prison, near the prison's control center. And, each time I make the trip, I feel as if I am entering another world.
In many ways, I am.
I am always amazed when I enter the visiting room and I see children who come to visit their imprisoned family members. It is always a refreshing experience seeing them laugh, smile, talk, play, and interact with others.
Observing children interact with other children is even more enjoyable. They are always so full of energy and seemingly oblivious to where they are. They walk around and do things not realizing they are even in the confines of a prison. Seeing these children can always brighten the day of those who observe their activities and exploration of life.
Often times children who are visiting other prisoners sit near me in the visiting room. I am never surprised to see or hear them say or do funny things that make me laugh or smile. What is even more amazing about this is that I am able to share in their fun without even having to communicate with them.
Even if I wanted to communicate with the children I see on visits I couldn't. Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) visiting policy prohibits prisoners from communicating with the visitors of other prisoners, including children. Doing so can result in termination of their visit.
On one occasion, in recent months, I was on a visit when a small child who was less than two-years-old walked up to me, smiled, and said, "Hi!" I smiled at the little boy and within seconds the visiting room officer confronted me and stated, "No cross-visiting with the kid!" I hadn't even said anything to the child. I merely smiled at him.
I know the visits are very meaningful for those who the children are visiting because they are members of their family. They are afforded the opportunity to spend time together, bond with each other, and be a part of each other's lives, which is a positive thing for all involved. It helps establish and maintain strong family ties.
While seeing children during visits is a special time, it is also a disappointing time because I am not allowed to visit my only nephew, Landon, who is now two-years-old. Landon was born on Christmas Day 2005. Since Landon's birth I have only been able to see photographs of him and speak to him on the phone. (A photo of Landon appears above.)
Due to Landon's age he doesn't understand the things I tell him, and I certainly don't understand what he tells me. He's just learning how to put words together and construct sentences. Other than the photos, talking to him on the phone, and hearing the stories about him from friends and family, I have never seen Landon in person.
MDOC policy doesn't consider Landon to be my immediate family, so I can not see him until he turns 18-years-old. I can see other visitors' children whom I don't even know each week in the visiting room, and they can even sit right next to me, or in close proximity to me in the visiting room, but my own nephew can't visit.
According to MDOC policy nephews are considered to be friends. So are aunts, uncles, and cousins according to their rules. These rules went into effect in 1995 when the MDOC made sweeping revisions to its visiting policies across the state.
From 1995 to 2000 I was precluded from visiting with my youngest brother Hans. In 1995, when the MDOC changed its visiting policies, even immediate family members under age 18 were disallowed from visiting prisoners in the MDOC. According to their policy I could not visit Hans until he turned 18-years-old.
In 2000, after Hans turned 18, and after a long court battle between prisoners and the state prison system, immediate family of any age could again visit prisoners (accompanied with their parent or guardian, of course). If not for a federal judge who truly cared about the emotional and psychological damage this ongoing separation was causing, the cruel practice of keeping siblings totally separated would have never desisted.
The judge's order and opinion came too late for Hans and me though. Hans had already turned 18 and we had been denied the opportunity to see each other on visits with the rest of the family for five long years. We can never have that restored.
The last time I held a child in my arms was in 1990 when I last saw my cousin Arielle who was born that year. Since that time I have not seen a child or held a child from my family besides seeing my youngest brother Hans from 1989 until 1995 when the visiting policy changed. Hans was between the ages of 7 and 13 during that time.
Seeing children on visits makes a prisoner really appreciate the gift of life. It is a reminder to them about some of the small things that mean so much in free society. Prisoners see other adults every day inside the prison. So, seeing other adults on visits isn't unordinary.
However, prisoners never see children inside a prison except on TV, in photos they receive in the mail, or in periodicals. The only time they will ever see a child is during a visit. Prisoners who do not receive visits will never see children at all until they are released from prison.
For now it doesn't appear I will get to share any of Landon's childhood until I am released. I just hope that day comes in the near future or I will miss sharing his childhood altogether. If I am not released within the next couple of years I could be forced to wait to see Landon until he becomes an adult according to Michigan law — in 16 more years.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Eighteen Years of Wrongful Incarceration — Day One
by Efren Paredes, Jr.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." —Nelson Mandela, 1994 Inaugural Speech
March 15, 2007 marked the beginning of my 18th year of wrongful imprisonment for a crime I did not commit. And while it is a sad day for my family, supporters, and me, it is also a good day in other ways.
One of the things I have chosen to do with my time while in prison is make the most of each moment. Rather than dwell on all the evils that have been perpetrated against me for no reason at all, I have channeled that energy into my continued growth and development, and helping others.
I have transformed the dark, deplorable milieu I have found myself in for nearly two decades into a radiant chamber of wisdom, and fostered the same in others. I have learned very valuable lessons about life and refused to succumb to the injustice that has held me captive. While I am physically captive, my mind and spirit will always be free by the grace of God.
The wisdom I have gained through this experience is enormous and expansive. It is this wisdom, my faith in God, and continued support of my family, friends, and individuals who have selflessly supported my campaign for justice, that have kept me moving forward and given me the strength to continue warding off the relentless effort to extinguish the light of hope that burns within me.
These individuals have been there for me in my darkest hours and offered their love and support throughout this very difficult experience. Without them the support that has been generated, and the progress that has been accomplished, could not have taken place. They are each my heroes and I am deeply appreciative of all that they do on my behalf.
So, rather than shine light on the unfortunate 18 years of my wrongful imprisonment, I want to take this opportunity to shine light on the people working to free me and salute them for their efforts that do not go unnoticed. Like every other situation I have transformed from darkness into light, I thought it was fitting to do it in this instance as well.
Our concerted efforts are going to produce justice. I am confident of this. And, with each passing day it becomes even more evident. But it also grows increasingly evident that the progress we witness isn't borne on its own. We reap what we sow, and the size of the harvest will be dependent on the labor that is exerted. Together we can make the harvest bountiful.
Please keep gathering signatures for the online petition for new trial available at http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/4Efren and please continue generating much needed support. We currently have nearly 160 electronic signatures for the petition and over 300 handwritten signatures. We are nearly halfway to our goal of 1,000 signatures.
Other recent positive developments that have manifested in recent weeks I would like to share with you are as follows:
1. An article was published in Workers World, a New York-based newspaper, about Elena Herrada's support of my campaign for justice. The writing called upon people to sign my online petition for new trial/commutation and was a great source of public relations for us. The article is available online at www.workers.org/2007/us/paredes-0222/.
2. Elena Herrada, Sherry Meyer, and another committee member, attended the 14th annual Dia de la Mujer (Day of the Woman) Conference held on February 24, 2007 at the Kellogg Hotel & Convention Center at Michigan State University. While at the conference they gathered over 200 signatures for my petition for new trial and commutation request. Elena spoke on stage before a large room full of people about our campaign during one of the lunch periods and made a strong plea urging people to get involved and support our cause.
3. Since the above event transpired Elena Herrada has gathered an additional 100 petition signatures. Elena continues to work hard on this campaign and plans to visit me again on Saturday, March 24 to discuss how to proceed next with the petition-drive. We will also discuss other strategies to increase our public relations work.
4. A very prominent nun, Sister Julie Vieira, has signed my petition for new trial/commutation and published a post on her blog about our petition campaign. Sister Vieira's blog, A Nun's Life, has gained international popularity on the Internet. A member of the religious order of Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, works at Loyola Press in Chicago and blogs daily about religious life, politics, and other issues. Her blog is very popular and was recently featured in The Detroit Free Press because of all the wonderful things she has done. The post about me can be viewed on her blog at http://nuns2day.wordpress.com/2007/03/09/a-couple-requests-for-help/.
5. A web site named Noahide Reflections has also posted an article on its site recently urging people to support my campaign for justice and sign our petition for new trial/commutation. Additionally, they have included a link to our web site. The post about me on the Noahide Reflections web site can be viewed at http://noahide.typepad.com/noahide_reflections/2007/02/please_help_efr.html.
My blog continues to be updated weekly at http://4efren.blogspot.com/, there have been updates to my web site at http://www.4efren.com/, and there is now a Picasa photo album that is available for viewing that features photos of me before my arrest, during court proceedings, and recent photos taken during my incarceration. The latter can be viewed at http://picasaweb.google.com/4Efren. Please also visit my MySpace page at www.myspace.com/4Efren to see all the recent changes and additions of friends that have been made there as well.
Thank you for your continued support, and thank you for your strength and dedication to justice. I am a stronger person because of it.
With Warm Regards,
Efren
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." —Nelson Mandela, 1994 Inaugural Speech
March 15, 2007 marked the beginning of my 18th year of wrongful imprisonment for a crime I did not commit. And while it is a sad day for my family, supporters, and me, it is also a good day in other ways.
One of the things I have chosen to do with my time while in prison is make the most of each moment. Rather than dwell on all the evils that have been perpetrated against me for no reason at all, I have channeled that energy into my continued growth and development, and helping others.
I have transformed the dark, deplorable milieu I have found myself in for nearly two decades into a radiant chamber of wisdom, and fostered the same in others. I have learned very valuable lessons about life and refused to succumb to the injustice that has held me captive. While I am physically captive, my mind and spirit will always be free by the grace of God.
The wisdom I have gained through this experience is enormous and expansive. It is this wisdom, my faith in God, and continued support of my family, friends, and individuals who have selflessly supported my campaign for justice, that have kept me moving forward and given me the strength to continue warding off the relentless effort to extinguish the light of hope that burns within me.
These individuals have been there for me in my darkest hours and offered their love and support throughout this very difficult experience. Without them the support that has been generated, and the progress that has been accomplished, could not have taken place. They are each my heroes and I am deeply appreciative of all that they do on my behalf.
So, rather than shine light on the unfortunate 18 years of my wrongful imprisonment, I want to take this opportunity to shine light on the people working to free me and salute them for their efforts that do not go unnoticed. Like every other situation I have transformed from darkness into light, I thought it was fitting to do it in this instance as well.
Our concerted efforts are going to produce justice. I am confident of this. And, with each passing day it becomes even more evident. But it also grows increasingly evident that the progress we witness isn't borne on its own. We reap what we sow, and the size of the harvest will be dependent on the labor that is exerted. Together we can make the harvest bountiful.
Please keep gathering signatures for the online petition for new trial available at http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/4Efren and please continue generating much needed support. We currently have nearly 160 electronic signatures for the petition and over 300 handwritten signatures. We are nearly halfway to our goal of 1,000 signatures.
Other recent positive developments that have manifested in recent weeks I would like to share with you are as follows:
1. An article was published in Workers World, a New York-based newspaper, about Elena Herrada's support of my campaign for justice. The writing called upon people to sign my online petition for new trial/commutation and was a great source of public relations for us. The article is available online at www.workers.org/2007/us/paredes-0222/.
2. Elena Herrada, Sherry Meyer, and another committee member, attended the 14th annual Dia de la Mujer (Day of the Woman) Conference held on February 24, 2007 at the Kellogg Hotel & Convention Center at Michigan State University. While at the conference they gathered over 200 signatures for my petition for new trial and commutation request. Elena spoke on stage before a large room full of people about our campaign during one of the lunch periods and made a strong plea urging people to get involved and support our cause.
3. Since the above event transpired Elena Herrada has gathered an additional 100 petition signatures. Elena continues to work hard on this campaign and plans to visit me again on Saturday, March 24 to discuss how to proceed next with the petition-drive. We will also discuss other strategies to increase our public relations work.
4. A very prominent nun, Sister Julie Vieira, has signed my petition for new trial/commutation and published a post on her blog about our petition campaign. Sister Vieira's blog, A Nun's Life, has gained international popularity on the Internet. A member of the religious order of Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, works at Loyola Press in Chicago and blogs daily about religious life, politics, and other issues. Her blog is very popular and was recently featured in The Detroit Free Press because of all the wonderful things she has done. The post about me can be viewed on her blog at http://nuns2day.wordpress.com/2007/03/09/a-couple-requests-for-help/.
5. A web site named Noahide Reflections has also posted an article on its site recently urging people to support my campaign for justice and sign our petition for new trial/commutation. Additionally, they have included a link to our web site. The post about me on the Noahide Reflections web site can be viewed at http://noahide.typepad.com/noahide_reflections/2007/02/please_help_efr.html.
My blog continues to be updated weekly at http://4efren.blogspot.com/, there have been updates to my web site at http://www.4efren.com/, and there is now a Picasa photo album that is available for viewing that features photos of me before my arrest, during court proceedings, and recent photos taken during my incarceration. The latter can be viewed at http://picasaweb.google.com/4Efren. Please also visit my MySpace page at www.myspace.com/4Efren to see all the recent changes and additions of friends that have been made there as well.
Thank you for your continued support, and thank you for your strength and dedication to justice. I am a stronger person because of it.
With Warm Regards,
Efren
Thursday, March 8, 2007
Dallas DA to Review Decades of Convictions
NPR Morning Edition
Legal Affairs
by Wade Goodwyn
February 24, 2007
February 23, 2007 — Dallas' new district attorney, Craig Watkins, says he will open his files to the Innocence Project and work with the group to examine hundreds of cases over the past 30 years. The goal is to see whether DNA tests might reveal wrongful convictions.
The move reflects the magnitude of the change that has occurred in the Dallas DA's office over the last six weeks. Watkins was elected the first black district attorney in Texas.
"It's a whole different world in the Dallas criminal justice system," says defense attorney Gary Udashen. "It is a world where if a client of ours is innocent, we feel like there's openness in the District Attorney's office to hear what we have say, to look at what we have to show them, where we don't anticipate resistance every step of the way."
Udashen's firm alone has had seven Dallas clients who were convicted, sent to prison, exhausted their appeals and then ultimately — with the pro bono help of Udashen and his colleagues — were found to be innocent.
Udashen says Dallas used to be like many other cities in Texas when it came to the DA's office. If it got a conviction, it defended that conviction to the bitter end, even if strong scientific evidence was later uncovered that the convicted was wrongly convicted.
This occurs most often in cases that are brought to trial built solely on the testimony of a single eyewitness, often the victim. But Udashen says that Watkins has decided that defending wrongful convictions is not going to be part of the job.
"Well, he has taken a completely different approach to questions of innocence... where he is going to cooperate with these innocence projects reviews of these cases, give them the information they need," he says. "And that active involvement in proving people innocent is something I've never seen a district attorney do before."
Watkins puts it this way: "I am cut from a different cloth."
At 39, he says he's seen both sides of the criminal justice system in Dallas, good and the bad. Dallas has already released 12 men convicted of sexual assault, and that was with the previous DA fighting it every step of the way. That's more than any other county in the nation, and more than all but two states.
"And when you tested 36 people and 12 of them came up to be not guilty as a result of DNA testing, then, yes, a red flag is raised," Watkins says. "So we need to look at what we've been doing in the past and try to right those wrongs."
So Watkins is opening his files to the Texas Innocence Project. North Texas law students supervised by seven veteran former prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers will begin deciding which cases merit further investigation.
"In a state that is a national hotspot, Dallas is the hottest of the hotspots in state right now," says Jeff Blackburn, the Innocence Project's Texas director. "What'd happened in Dallas is that a lot of samples, unlike other any other parts of the state, were preserved, and they're still there."
In a twist of irony, Dallas has long outsourced its lab work. And instead of destroying evidence post-conviction like many law enforcement labs, the private labs preserved all the evidence. Blackburn says as a result, Dallas has a treasure trove of potentially exonerating DNA evidence.
"It would be safe to say that right now Dallas is on the edge of opening up in a very revealing way what the system in Texas is really all about," Blackburn says.■
Legal Affairs
by Wade Goodwyn
February 24, 2007
February 23, 2007 — Dallas' new district attorney, Craig Watkins, says he will open his files to the Innocence Project and work with the group to examine hundreds of cases over the past 30 years. The goal is to see whether DNA tests might reveal wrongful convictions.
The move reflects the magnitude of the change that has occurred in the Dallas DA's office over the last six weeks. Watkins was elected the first black district attorney in Texas.
"It's a whole different world in the Dallas criminal justice system," says defense attorney Gary Udashen. "It is a world where if a client of ours is innocent, we feel like there's openness in the District Attorney's office to hear what we have say, to look at what we have to show them, where we don't anticipate resistance every step of the way."
Udashen's firm alone has had seven Dallas clients who were convicted, sent to prison, exhausted their appeals and then ultimately — with the pro bono help of Udashen and his colleagues — were found to be innocent.
Udashen says Dallas used to be like many other cities in Texas when it came to the DA's office. If it got a conviction, it defended that conviction to the bitter end, even if strong scientific evidence was later uncovered that the convicted was wrongly convicted.
This occurs most often in cases that are brought to trial built solely on the testimony of a single eyewitness, often the victim. But Udashen says that Watkins has decided that defending wrongful convictions is not going to be part of the job.
"Well, he has taken a completely different approach to questions of innocence... where he is going to cooperate with these innocence projects reviews of these cases, give them the information they need," he says. "And that active involvement in proving people innocent is something I've never seen a district attorney do before."
Watkins puts it this way: "I am cut from a different cloth."
At 39, he says he's seen both sides of the criminal justice system in Dallas, good and the bad. Dallas has already released 12 men convicted of sexual assault, and that was with the previous DA fighting it every step of the way. That's more than any other county in the nation, and more than all but two states.
"And when you tested 36 people and 12 of them came up to be not guilty as a result of DNA testing, then, yes, a red flag is raised," Watkins says. "So we need to look at what we've been doing in the past and try to right those wrongs."
So Watkins is opening his files to the Texas Innocence Project. North Texas law students supervised by seven veteran former prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers will begin deciding which cases merit further investigation.
"In a state that is a national hotspot, Dallas is the hottest of the hotspots in state right now," says Jeff Blackburn, the Innocence Project's Texas director. "What'd happened in Dallas is that a lot of samples, unlike other any other parts of the state, were preserved, and they're still there."
In a twist of irony, Dallas has long outsourced its lab work. And instead of destroying evidence post-conviction like many law enforcement labs, the private labs preserved all the evidence. Blackburn says as a result, Dallas has a treasure trove of potentially exonerating DNA evidence.
"It would be safe to say that right now Dallas is on the edge of opening up in a very revealing way what the system in Texas is really all about," Blackburn says.■
Monday, March 5, 2007
'Snitch Evidence' Under Fire
More cases involving informants overturned
by Paul Egan
The Detroit News
February 20, 2007
DETROIT -- When David Eddleman was convicted of murder in the 1996 shooting death of 16-year-old Joane Gergescu on Detroit's west side, the jury based its decision largely upon the testimony of a cellmate who claimed to have heard him confess.
But a federal appeals panel found that Eddleman's cellmate had plenty of reason to lie.
Eddleman, who will be freed this month or granted a new trial in the case, is joining a growing number of defendants whose convictions are being overturned because of "snitch testimony" by jailhouse informants, a practice under increasing scrutiny in Michigan and across the nation.
It's also the subject of author John Grisham's first work of nonfiction. Grisham's bestseller "The Innocent Man" examines the case of Ron Williamson, who was convicted of murdering a cocktail waitress and sentenced to death largely on the testimony of snitches and convicts. DNA evidence later exonerated Williamson.
A 2005 study by the Northwestern University School of Law Center on Wrongful Convictions found that of 111 death row inmates exonerated since the 1970s, 46 percent of the convictions had relied on snitch testimony.
Beyond Eddleman's case, Michigan lawyers are alarmed by the recent revelations related to alleged abuse of confidential informant testimony by indicted former federal prosecutor Richard Convertino.
"In a perfect world, I wouldn't allow jailhouse informants," said Detroit defense attorney Mark Kriger.
Cases examined
Lawyers are examining Convertino's cases following his 2006 indictment on charges of misconduct in prosecuting the nation's first terrorism trial after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The star witness in the terrorism case, Youssef Hmimssa, was exposed as a serial con artist. In one of Convertino's drug cases under review, federal court records show the prosecutor arranged a secret early release for Hans Thomas, a violent convict who had admitted to participating in murders and shooting into a home with children inside.
Thomas was released pursuant to a sealed order in return for his testimony against an accused drug trafficker.
Thomas was charged with a new murder within a year.
Sentence reduced
In return for cooperation in the same drug case, Convertino arranged a sharp sentence reduction for convict Tali Alexander, who had admitted to shooting at Washtenaw County Sheriff's deputies; then Convertino arranged for
Alexander to share a cell with another defendant in the terrorism case, Karim Koubriti, lawyer Carole Stanyar alleged in a court filing.
"Taking full advantage of this golden opportunity," Alexander reported that Koubriti admitted to him he was a terrorist, according to the court brief.
A terrorism-related conviction against Koubriti was later dismissed.
Convertino has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, obstruction of justice and other charges and awaits trial in July.
His lawyer, William Sullivan, would not comment on Stanyar's allegations but said Convertino "always acted zealously to protect the safety of his community, and his ethics are unimpeachable."
Kenneth Wyniemko, a Rochester Hills man who spent nine years in prison before DNA evidence cleared him of a rape he did not commit, said he will never forget his former cellmate testifying at his trial.
'It was too concise'
"It was almost like his testimony was memorized," Wyniemko said last week. "It was too concise. It matched almost word for word the (police) reports."
Glen McCormick testified Wyniemko confessed to him in the Macomb County Jail. Facing a possible life sentence as a habitual offender, McCormick got less than a year for attempted armed robbery in return for his cooperation.
He later recanted.
"Judges have to have the courage to ban that type of testimony altogether," Wyniemko said. But Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who prosecuted the Eddleman case and many more murder cases when he worked in the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, said jailhouse informants often provide crucial information.
"When people get locked up together they get bored and they just spill their guts," Cox said.
Cox said prosecutors must use common sense and evaluate the testimony of jailhouse informants in the context of other facts in the case and corroborating evidence.
Defense lawyer Kriger said jailhouse informants provide among the most unreliable types of evidence prosecutors can use.
"Jailhouse informants have the greatest motive to fabricate and are likely to fabricate in order to extricate themselves from their own difficulties," Kriger said.
U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy draws a distinction between the classic jailhouse informant who claims to have heard a confession and others who may have been offered deals in return for their testimony.
"Point blank, the only way that we can convict the most serious of criminals is to use the testimony of other criminals," Murphy said. "(But) we need to be even more cautious."
by Paul Egan
The Detroit News
February 20, 2007
DETROIT -- When David Eddleman was convicted of murder in the 1996 shooting death of 16-year-old Joane Gergescu on Detroit's west side, the jury based its decision largely upon the testimony of a cellmate who claimed to have heard him confess.
But a federal appeals panel found that Eddleman's cellmate had plenty of reason to lie.
Eddleman, who will be freed this month or granted a new trial in the case, is joining a growing number of defendants whose convictions are being overturned because of "snitch testimony" by jailhouse informants, a practice under increasing scrutiny in Michigan and across the nation.
It's also the subject of author John Grisham's first work of nonfiction. Grisham's bestseller "The Innocent Man" examines the case of Ron Williamson, who was convicted of murdering a cocktail waitress and sentenced to death largely on the testimony of snitches and convicts. DNA evidence later exonerated Williamson.
A 2005 study by the Northwestern University School of Law Center on Wrongful Convictions found that of 111 death row inmates exonerated since the 1970s, 46 percent of the convictions had relied on snitch testimony.
Beyond Eddleman's case, Michigan lawyers are alarmed by the recent revelations related to alleged abuse of confidential informant testimony by indicted former federal prosecutor Richard Convertino.
"In a perfect world, I wouldn't allow jailhouse informants," said Detroit defense attorney Mark Kriger.
Cases examined
Lawyers are examining Convertino's cases following his 2006 indictment on charges of misconduct in prosecuting the nation's first terrorism trial after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The star witness in the terrorism case, Youssef Hmimssa, was exposed as a serial con artist. In one of Convertino's drug cases under review, federal court records show the prosecutor arranged a secret early release for Hans Thomas, a violent convict who had admitted to participating in murders and shooting into a home with children inside.
Thomas was released pursuant to a sealed order in return for his testimony against an accused drug trafficker.
Thomas was charged with a new murder within a year.
Sentence reduced
In return for cooperation in the same drug case, Convertino arranged a sharp sentence reduction for convict Tali Alexander, who had admitted to shooting at Washtenaw County Sheriff's deputies; then Convertino arranged for
Alexander to share a cell with another defendant in the terrorism case, Karim Koubriti, lawyer Carole Stanyar alleged in a court filing.
"Taking full advantage of this golden opportunity," Alexander reported that Koubriti admitted to him he was a terrorist, according to the court brief.
A terrorism-related conviction against Koubriti was later dismissed.
Convertino has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, obstruction of justice and other charges and awaits trial in July.
His lawyer, William Sullivan, would not comment on Stanyar's allegations but said Convertino "always acted zealously to protect the safety of his community, and his ethics are unimpeachable."
Kenneth Wyniemko, a Rochester Hills man who spent nine years in prison before DNA evidence cleared him of a rape he did not commit, said he will never forget his former cellmate testifying at his trial.
'It was too concise'
"It was almost like his testimony was memorized," Wyniemko said last week. "It was too concise. It matched almost word for word the (police) reports."
Glen McCormick testified Wyniemko confessed to him in the Macomb County Jail. Facing a possible life sentence as a habitual offender, McCormick got less than a year for attempted armed robbery in return for his cooperation.
He later recanted.
"Judges have to have the courage to ban that type of testimony altogether," Wyniemko said. But Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who prosecuted the Eddleman case and many more murder cases when he worked in the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office, said jailhouse informants often provide crucial information.
"When people get locked up together they get bored and they just spill their guts," Cox said.
Cox said prosecutors must use common sense and evaluate the testimony of jailhouse informants in the context of other facts in the case and corroborating evidence.
Defense lawyer Kriger said jailhouse informants provide among the most unreliable types of evidence prosecutors can use.
"Jailhouse informants have the greatest motive to fabricate and are likely to fabricate in order to extricate themselves from their own difficulties," Kriger said.
U.S. Attorney Stephen Murphy draws a distinction between the classic jailhouse informant who claims to have heard a confession and others who may have been offered deals in return for their testimony.
"Point blank, the only way that we can convict the most serious of criminals is to use the testimony of other criminals," Murphy said. "(But) we need to be even more cautious."
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