Supreme Court

Appeals court rejects request to remove judge in Arizona death-penalty case – Kevin Miles

September 28, 2012, http://www.bellinghamherald.com

 

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court Friday rejected an Arizona death row inmate’s request that a judge recuse herself from his carjacking-murder case because her own father was murdered in a carjacking close to 40 years ago.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said Kevin Miles” request that Judge Susan Graber recuse herself was inappropriate and “especially flimsy.”

Graber wrote the opinion last month upholding Miles’ death sentence for the 1992 carjacking and murder of Patricia Baeuerlen in Tucson. Graber’s father, Julius, was carjacked in 1974 by two teens wielding a sawed-off shotgun, then driven to a Cincinnati cemetery, where he was shot in the back of the head.

Miles‘ motion said federal court procedure and U.S. law require that federal judges disqualify themselves “in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned.”

But Judges Marsha Berzon and Richard Tallman wrote that it is up to Graber to decide whether or not to step down, and they went on to defend her impartiality at some length in their published five-page order.

“Life experiences do not disqualify us from serving as judges on cases in which the issues or the facts are in some indirect way related to our personal experiences,” they wrote.

Miles‘ public defender, Timothy Gabrielsen, had no comment on the order Friday except to say, “I stand by the motion. I think it is appropriate.”

Assistant Arizona Attorney General Jonathan Bass called the timing of the motion peculiar, since it came after the court had already ruled on Miles’ appeal. If there’s any doubt, “you don’t want the judge to rule at all,” he said.

Bass agreed with the order, saying he “had no reason to think they (the circuit judges) are not impartial.”

Miles, then 24, and two underage friends were standing on a street corner in Tucson in December 1992 when Baeuerlen pulled up. Levi Jackson, 16, pointed a gun at her and the trio got into her car.

They drove to the desert, where they took her out of the car, taunted and harassed her before Jackson shot her in the chest and they drove off, leaving Baeuerlen where she had been shot.

Miles later used Baeuerlen’s ATM card to take money out of her account. He drove her car to Phoenix where he went shopping at a mall, exchanged her children’s Christmas gifts for other items and met with friends.

Police arrested Miles two days after Baeuerlen’s slaying, and he confessed after several hours of questioning. He was later convicted and sentenced to death. Jackson, who was initially sentenced to death, had the sentence reversed on appeal and is now serving a life sentence.

The recusal motion noted similarities to Julius Graber’s murder and to the post-conviction proceedings for Willie Lee Bell, an accomplice in Graber’s killing.

Bell, who was 16 at the time of that crime, was sentenced to death, but his sentence was overturned in 1978. He is now serving a life sentence in Ohio.

A motion for a rehearing before the full 9th Circuit of the latest decision in Miles‘ case is pending. If that motion is denied, Miles could then petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a hearing.

The US Is Still Executing People For Crimes Committed As Teens

September 25, 2012 http://www.eurasiareview.com

The United States never misses an opportunity to castigate other countries for “uncivilized” behavior, and certainly there is enough of that to go around almost anywhere you look in the world. But there’s plenty of it here in the U.S. too.

Just consider the case of Terry Williams.

Williams, a 47-year-old black man, has spent almost 30 years on Pennsylvania’s crowded death row while lawyers sought appealed his death penalty for two murders committed back when he was a 17 and 18-year old boy. Now he’s about to be killed by the state for those crimes.

At the time he was tried and convicted, although it was known to prosecutors that his two victims were adult men who had forcibly raped Williams when he was as young as 13, and that he had been a victim of sexual abuse since he was six, the jury was not informed about any of this. In recent years, a number of the 12 jurors who originally convicted him and sentenced the teenager to death have now said that had they known about the abuse he suffered — particularly at the hands of the two men he later killed — they would have decided the case differently, and certainly would not have voted for the death penalty. Even the wife of one of his victims has pleaded with the state to spare him.

Nevertheless, the state’s governor, Tom Corbett, a hard-on-crime Republican who, prior to being elected to the state’s top post, served as attorney general, making him the state’s top lawyer, had no hesitation in signing his death warrant earlier this month, with an Oct. 3 execution date.

The irony is that Pennsylvania has just gone through a huge ugly scandal involving the football program at its largest public university, Pennsylvania State University, where the defensive coach on the school’s nationally recognized football team, Jerry Sandusky, was found to have been raping dozens of young boys over a period of some 20 years, at least part of that time with the knowledge of the school’s athletic director and top school officials, who acted to cover up his crimes. Sandusky was tried and found guilty of multiple rapes, and could be sentenced to life in prison.

There are credible allegations that Corbett, as attorney general, ignored charges and evidence forwarded to his office that Sandusky was raping and molesting young boys at Penn State.

In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a narrow 5-4 ruling, abolished execution for people convicted of murder who were 17 or younger at the time they committed their crime. At the time of that decision there were more than 70 people on the nation’s death rows who had committed their capital crimes while aged 16 or 17. Interestingly, the court majority cited “international opinion” in partial explanation for its decision. Between 1990 and 2007, there were only seven countries that had executed someone under 18: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo and China. By 2007, even those nations had put a halt to such executions.

Williams’ case stands apart, because one of his two murders was perpetrated after he had turned 18. But the fact of his repeated abuse at the hands of both of his victims, plus his long history of sexual abuse as a child, complicates the picture, painting him clearly as a victim himself.

In most “civilized” countries, this history of abuse would be a clear mitigating factor in determining the appropriate punishment for his crimes, and perhaps even his guilt or innocence.

Meanwhile, while no one will again be executed in the US for a murder committed under the age of 18, those who were facing death before the Supreme Court’s decision merely had their sentences converted to life in prison without possibility of parole, which many critics argue is perhaps worse than death, and which certainly is “cruel and unusual,” particularly given modern neurological research showing that the brain and personality is still not even fully developed at the age of 18, or even 21.

In Pennsylvania alone — a state where the concepts of mercy, compassion and understanding appear to be uniquely in short supply –there are an astonishing 470 prisoners currently serving prison terms of life-without-chance-of-parole who committed their crimes as children. Nationwide, the figure is close to 2600. Some of these people committed their crimes when they were as young as 14. Many, we know, had suffered circumstances of neglect or abuse similar to what Terry Williams endured as a child, but had shoddy defense attorneys who failed to bring such evidence to the attention of the court and the jury, or had prosecutors who deliberately and illegally hid that evidence.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled in one such case — that of a woman named Trina Garnett, who was convicted of setting a house fire at the age of 14 which killed two young boys — that such permanent sentences were unconstitutional. Garnett, a low-IQ girl with diagnosed mental problems, was serving a life sentence and was 50 at the time that the court, in another 5-4 decision, granted her the right to a new sentencing hearing. All such prisoners sentenced to life in prison as children will now at least have a chance for a re-sentencing hearing.

It’s a small step towards civilized behavior in the nation that today has the highest percentage of its citizens behind bars of any country in the world.

ARIZONA – Death-row inmate’s appeal rejected by federal court-Pete Carl Rogovich

September 21, 2012 http://www.azcentral.com

A federal appeals court this week rejected multiple challenges by an Arizona death-row inmate to reduce his sentence for the 1992 murders of four people, including three who were killed in a Phoenix trailer-park “homicidal rampage.”

Pete Carl Rogovich, 46, confessed to the killings and other crimes when caught by police on March 15, 1992, after a lengthy car chase, according to court documents.

“I did it. I know it was wrong. I know I’ll burn in hell,” Rogovich reportedly told police.

 

He presented an insanity defense, but was convicted of all counts by an Arizona jury in a seven-day trial in May 1994.

In his latest round of appeals, Rogovich argued that his attorney at trial presented the insanity defense without his approval. He also claimed that his attorney failed to challenge prejudicial prosecution statements during closing arguments or to challenge the aggravating factors that led to the imposition of the death penalty.

But a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected those arguments Tuesday, saying there is no law “requiring the defendant to consent on the record to an insanity defense.” It also upheld lower-court rulings that Rogovich was adequately represented at trial.

“Of course we’re disappointed” by the decision, said Sarah Stone, Rogovich’s lawyer for his appeal. “He’s a seriously mentally ill person.”

She said there is no question that he committed the crimes, since he never denied his actions. “The question is whether the punishment (a death sentence) is appropriate,” she said.

“We think a life sentence is best for Mr. Rogovich, given his mental condition,” she said.

Prosecutors could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The case began on the morning of March 15, 1992, when a customer walked in to the Super Stop Market near Rogovich’s central Phoenix apartment at 8:45 and found clerk Tekleberhan Manna, 24, dead, shot once in the eye at close range. Nothing had been taken from the store, court documents said.

Rogovich, who had told an apartment maintenance worker that morning that he was angry with his girlfriend and would get even with her, left his apartment about 1 p.m. that day with a gun and began firing randomly. After shooting at two people in the parking lot and missing, he hopped the fence to a neighboring trailer park and began what courts described as a “homicidal rampage.”

Rogovich shot Phyllis Mancuso, 62, in the laundry room; Rebecca Carreon, 48, in her driveway; and Marie Pendergast, 83, in her trailer. All three women died as Rogovich ran off.

Some time later, he stole a radio station’s van at gunpoint from a promotional appearance at a restaurant. He was later seen at a convenience store in Goodyear, where he stole beer and cash before “casually” walking out and driving off in the van.

Goodyear police spotted him about 5 p.m. and caught Rogovich after a “lengthy chase at speeds ranging from 50 to over 100 miles per hour.”

Rogovich admitted to all the crimes, including all four killings, but said he was upset by the breakup with his girlfriend and the death of his stepfather six years earlier.

“Of course I’m sorry. It was wrong,” he said, according to the court. “I know it, but I just snapped. I was so angry. I just couldn’t stop.”

Despite his insanity defense he was convicted in 1994 of all charges: four murders, two aggravated assaults, two armed robberies and unlawful flight.

At his sentencing a year later, his attorneys presented evidence of an abusive childhood, mental illness and drug dependencies. But the court sentenced him to death for the trailer-park killings and life in prison for Manna’s death.

Stone said that Rogovich’s attorneys have not decided on the next step.

TEXAS – Court rejects death sentence appeal in 1998 road rage killings of two truckers – DOUGLAS FELDMAN

September 20, 2012 http://fleetowner.com

READ THE OPINION : http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/11/11-70013-CV0.wpd.pdf

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected an appeal to get Douglas Feldman, 54, off death row for the road rage slayings of two truck drivers in 1998 in Texas.

Feldman, a former financial analyst, was convicted in 1999 of murder in the shooting deaths of truckers Nicholas Velasquez, 62, of Irving, TX, and Robert Everett, 36, of Marshfield, MO.

In his 1999 trial, Feldman told jurors he was cruising on his Harley-Davidson on southbound Dallas Central Expressway in August 1998 when a truck “came out of nowhere, just flying.” He said he feared for his life and became angry, according to a report in The Dallas Morning News.

Feldman testified that he fired at Everett’s truck “because I felt like I needed to try to stop that man.” When the truck continued on the highway, “I chased Mr. Everett down, and I shot him to death.”

Feldman said he then spotted Velasquez at a gas station and “exploded again in anger” and shot him, even though Velasquez had done nothing to him. He then shot another man in a restaurant parking lot, who survived.

“I felt emotionally compelled,” Feldman told jurors. “I was consumed by anger.”

In his trial, Feldman testified that he carried a 9mm handgun because he thought his life was in danger. His lawyers presented evidence showing that he had been treated earlier for substance abuse and paranoia.

The jury in the trial took only 24 minutes to convict Feldman of capital murder in the case. He was sentenced to death, but an execution date has yet to be set.

In his appeal, Feldman contended that he had deficient legal help at his trial, that the jury received improper instructions and that a prospective juror was improperly dismissed.

Feldman’s lawyer said he plans to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Delaware Supreme Court overturns death sentence – LESLIE SMALL

September 17, 2012 http://www.delmarvanow.com

DOVER — The Delaware Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence of a taxi driver who murdered a 78-year-old Lewes woman in her home in 2009.

Leslie Small was sentenced last year to death by lethal injection after a Sussex County jury found him guilty of stabbing June McCarson to death with a pair of scissors on the floor of her mobile home, then stealing her Social Security money to buy crack cocaine.

Small’s defense attorneys appealed the decision and argued prosecutors tainted the sentencing process by describing Small’s defenses as “excuses.”

To avoid the death sentence, Small’s lawyers presented a list of mitigating factors for jurors to weigh when deciding if his life should be spared. The factors included Small’s strained relationships with his family, his drug addiction and his HIV-positive status.

The Supreme Court ruled that the prosecution unfairly characterized them as “excuses” several times in remarks to the jury, which could have led jurors to believe the defenses stated by Small’s lawyers were not to be taken seriously.

“A penalty hearing conducted without the prosecutorial misconduct may have led to the jury’s vote being split or in favor of life imprisonment,” wrote Chief Justice Myron T. Steele in an opinion released Tuesday. “Although Delaware law would have permitted the trial judge to impose the death penalty even if the jury had voted differently, we cannot be confident that the trial judge would have done so.”

The Attorney General’s Office would not say if prosecutors will try again for a death sentence.

“Small will, at the very least, remain in prison for the rest of his natural life,” read a statement released by AG spokesman Jason Miller.

“The ultimate decision regarding further sentencing proceedings will be made after a full examination of the matter and discussion with those the closest to Ms. McCarson.”

CONNECTICUT – Supreme Court takes up death penalty appeal – Eduardo Santiago

September 14, 2012 http://www.sfgate.com

HARTFORD, The state Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether the recent repeal of Connecticut’s death penalty applies only to future defendants.

The state’s highest court granted a request on Thursday by Eduardo Santiago to challenge the repeal’s impact on those who committed capital crimes before the law was passed. He was convicted in a murder-for-hire plot that promised him a broken snowmobile.

The death penalty was repealed in April, but it was preserved for 11 inmates on death row and for pending cases.

The Supreme Court overturned Santiago’s death sentence in June, saying the trial judge wrongly withheld key evidence from the jury.

Santiago’s lawyers have until Nov. 13 to file legal papers. The state will have 60 days to respond and a hearing could be scheduled early next year.

Five of the 11 inmates on Connecticut’s death are fighting their death sentences in a trial at Northern Correctional Institution in Somers, the site of death row. The inmates say prosecutors’ decision-making process in death penalty cases has been arbitrary and were biased on the basis of race and geography.

Of the 11 men on death row, six are black, four are white and one is Hispanic. Of their 15 victims, 10 were white, four were black and one was Hispanic.

Santiago and two other men were convicted in the fatal shooting of Joseph Niwinski, 45, in West Hartford in 2000. Police said Santiago was promised a pink-striped snowmobile with a broken clutch in exchange for the killing.

Santiago, 32, has denied allegations that he agreed to kill Niwinski in exchange for the broken snowmobile. He was sentenced to lethal injection in 2005 after a jury convicted him, despite no clear evidence that he was the one who pulled the rifle trigger.

Connecticut was the 17th state to repeal capital punishment and the fifth in five years. In the past five decades, the state has executed only one person, serial killer Michael Ross in 2005, who pushed for his death sentence to be carried out.

GEORGIA – WARREN HILL awaits appeals decisions to stave off scheduled today at 7:00 p.m STAYED – New update july 4

Update : july 4. 2012

Georgia has set an execution date of July 15 for Warren Hill, despite his pending petition before the U.S. Supreme Court demonstrating that all of the physicians who have examined Hill agree he is intellectually disabled. People suffering from intellectual disability (mental retardation) are constitutionally barred from execution. (Atlanta Journal Constitution, July 3, 2013). This is the exceptional and rare case where there is clear proof an inmate is ineligible for the death penalty and the U.S. Supreme Court is the only avenue for relief.

 

Murderer Warren Hill will die Monday evening unless his attorneys can find a court that believes his mental capacity is diminished enough that it would be unconstitutional to execute him, or if a judge finds fault with the state’s new method of execution.

If he is executed as planned, Hill will be the first in Georgia to be put to death using only one drug — the powerful barbiturate pentobarbital — instead the three that the state has been using in combination since 2008.

Hill still has appeals based on the mental retardation issue pending in the Georgia and U.S. Supreme Courts. And on Monday a Fulton County Superior Court judge is scheduled to hear the issue of the Department of Corrections’ sudden change in its lethal injection protocol from three drugs to one drug. Last Tuesday, the day before Hill was initially scheduled to die, the prison system announced it was abandoning the three-drug cocktail — a sedative followed by the paralytic pancuronium bromide and then potassium chloride, which stops the heart. It was replaced with a single drug process, pentobarbital, the same as in six other states [a seventh uses a different sedative].

Later, on Monday evening, there will be vigils held in 11 Georgia cites to express outrage that the state is executing a mentally retarded man.

“In other states, Hill would not face the ultimate punishment due to his disability,” said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA.”Unless the Supreme Court steps in to prevent this execution, the state of Georgia will have committed a terrible injustice.”

Hill was condemned for using a nail-studded 2-by-6 board in 1990 to beat to death fellow prisoner Joseph Handspike. At that time Hill was already incarcerated for murdering his 18-year-old girlfriend.

The judge presiding over the 1991 trial for Handspike’s murder found Hill, with an IQ of 70, was more likely than not to be mentally disabled. But the judge also determined that the lawyer representing Hill at the time had not proven his mental disability beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard set in 1988 when Georgia became the first state to prohibit executing the mentally

If he is executed as planned, Hill will be the first in Georgia to be put to death using only one drug — the powerful barbiturate pentobarbital — instead the three that the state has been using in combination since 2008.

Hill still has appeals based on the mental retardation issue pending in the Georgia and U.S. Supreme Courts. And on Monday a Fulton County Superior Court judge is scheduled to hear the issue of the Department of Corrections’ sudden change in its lethal injection protocol from three drugs to one drug. Last Tuesday, the day before Hill was initially scheduled to die, the prison system announced it was abandoning the three-drug cocktail — a sedative followed by the paralytic pancuronium bromide and then potassium chloride, which stops the heart. It was replaced with a single drug process, pentobarbital, the same as in six other states [a seventh uses a different sedative].

Later, on Monday evening, there will be vigils held in 11 Georgia cites to express outrage that the state is executing a mentally retarded man.

“In other states, Hill would not face the ultimate punishment due to his disability,” said Suzanne Nossel, executive director of Amnesty International USA.”Unless the Supreme Court steps in to prevent this execution, the state of Georgia will have committed a terrible injustice.”

Hill was condemned for using a nail-studded 2-by-6 board in 1990 to beat to death fellow prisoner Joseph Handspike. At that time Hill was already incarcerated for murdering his 18-year-old girlfriend.

The judge presiding over the 1991 trial for Handspike’s murder found Hill, with an IQ of 70, was more likely than not to be mentally disabled. But the judge also determined that the lawyer representing Hill at the time had not proven his mental disability beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard set in 1988 when Georgia became the first state to prohibit executing the mentally disabled.

Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court said it has said it is unconstitutional to to execute the mentally retarded who are at “special risk of wrongful execution.” But also in that 2002 decision, the justices left it up to the states to determine what was required to show mental retardation; Georgia has the strictest standard.

“Mildly mentally retarded individuals like Warren Hill frequently defy the stereotypical image we often have of persons with the disability in part because they tend to make efforts to hide the symptoms,” wrote Hill’s attorney, Brian Kammer. He said if a defendant can prove retardation beyond a reasonable doubt, then he is likely so severely retarded that if he went to trial the death penalty would not be an option. “He may even be found incompetent to stand trial. This leaves the majority of mentally retarded persons in the criminal justice system, who are mildly mentally retarded, in the lurch, because it is the mildly mentally retarded whose symptoms can mislead … about the significance or even the existence of the disability.”

Docket from  Supreme court

No. 12A57
Title:
Warren Lee Hill, Jr., Applicant
v.
Carl Humphrey, Warden
Docketed:
Linked with 11-10109, 11-10109
Lower Ct: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
  Case Nos.: (08-15444)
~~~Date~~~ ~~~~~~~Proceedings  and  Orders~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jul 16 2012 Application (12A57) for a stay of execution of sentence of death, submitted to Justice Thomas.
~~Name~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~Address~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~Phone~~~
Attorneys for Petitioner:
James W. Ellis 1117 Stanford Drive, NE (505) 277-2146
Albuquerque, NM  87131
Party name: Warren Lee Hill, Jr.
Attorneys for Respondent:
Beth A. Burton Senior Assistant Attorney General (404) 656-3499
    Counsel of Record Office of the Attorney General
40 Capitol Square, S.W.
Atlanta, GA  30334-1300
Party name: Carl Humphrey, Warden
Other:
Sheri Lynn Johnson Professor of Law (607) 255-6478
Cornell Law School
108 Myron Taylor Hall
Ithaca, NY  14853

TEXAS – APPEALS COURT REJECTS CLAIM OF TEXAS DEATH ROW’S BROWN

June 12, 2012 Source : Execution Watch

NEW ORLEANS — A federal appeals panel Tuesday rejected an appeal by Texas death row prisoner Arthur Brown Jr.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Brown’s assertion that his trial attorneys failed to uncover and present sufficient mitigating evidence at the punishment hearing where he was ordered put to death.

“Brown’s claims are not adequate to proceed further,” the U.S. Fifth District Court of Appeals said in denying Brown’s request for permission to continue in the appeals process.

He was convicted in a 1992 drug-related quadruple homicide in Houston.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit, one of 13 federal court districts, encompasses Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.

Full text of the ruling is at http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/11/11-70012-CV0.wpd.pdf

TEXAS – Man on death row for Houston slaying loses appeal – Jamie McCoskey

May 30, 2012  Source : http://www.chron.com

HOUSTON — A federal appeals court has rejected an appeal from a Texas death row inmate condemned for the slaying of a Houston man abducted from his apartment and fatally stabbed more than 20 years ago.

Attorneys for 47-year-old Jamie McCoskey contended instructions to the jury at his 1993 trial were improper. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late Tuesday rejected the claims, moving McCoskey closer to execution for the death of 20-year-old Michael Dwyer. Dwyer’s fiancé also was abducted and taken to an abandoned Houston home where Dwyer was killed and she was raped. She later identified McCoskey as the attacker.

McCoskey already had been convicted of kidnapping in Travis County, was a two-time parole violator and was released from prison six months before the November 1991 abductions and slaying.

As fourth appeal is lost Scott Lewis asks for your help finding a new witness in 1999 murder case

May 28, 2012 Source : http://www.wxyz.com

DETROIT  – There has been another setback for a man serving life in prison for a Mother’s Day murder he says he did not commit. A judge has denied Justly Johnson’s fourth appeal, despite a new witness uncovered by the 7 Action News investigators.

Johnson’s lawyers from the Michigan Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan said they are disappointed but determined to press forward to the Michigan Court of Appeals.

Last December, the 7 Action News Investigators tracked down a new witness in the 1999 Mother’s Day murder of Lisa Kindred , the crime Johnson is serving a life sentence for.  Investigator Scott Lewis located her son, C.J. Skinner, who was with his mother in her minivan when a man walked up and shot her.

Skinner, who was eight years old at the time, talked with Lewis in a phone interview from Pennsylvania, where he is also serving time in prison. Skinner told Lewis that he saw what happened the night his mother was murdered and he would never forget the gunman’s face.

Did the police ever question you?” Lewis asked Skinner.

“Never,” he replied.

“Never looked at a photo line-up?” Lewis asked.

“Never,” Skinner said.

Skinner described a lone gunman who looked nothing like Justly Johnson or the second man convicted, Kendrick Scott.

Lawyers from the Michigan Innocence Clinic took that information and other new evidence they uncovered to Judge Prentiss Edwards asking for a new hearing. But the judge rejected their request as he has three times in the past.

Judge Edwards has declined to be interviewed about the case.

“Suffice it to say we don’t think the judge gave any legally adequate reason to not at least hold a hearing on all of the evidence, and especially the new testimony from C.J. (Skinner),” said attorney David Moran, co-director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic.

Lawyers from the Innocence Clinic have stated in court records that police overlooked the most likely suspect back in 1999, Lisa Kindred’s husband Will who had a history of domestic violence and threats against his wife and kids.

Detroit police never discovered Kindred’s history of violence.  It was uncovered years after Johnson and Scott’s convictions by lawyers from the Wisconsin Innocence Project. The Wisconsin lawyers originally took on Johnson’s case and are still involved in efforts to win a new trial for him.

Will Kindred has denied any involvement in the murder during conversations with 7 Action News Investigator Scott Lewis.

In their latest appeal lawyers from the Michigan Innocence Clinic also argued Johnson’s conviction was tainted by what is known as a Brady violation. A Brady violation occurs when the prosecution withholds important information from the defense during a trial.

In this case, attorneys argued, police were given information by Lisa Kindred’s sister that pointed toward Will Kindred as a suspect, but that information was not passed on to Johnson’s defense attorney.

Judge Edwards rejected that claim as well, saying that while police did not turn the information over to defense attorneys they did not share it with the prosecuting attorney either.

“That’s a mistake because under the law if the police have the information it has to be turned over to the defense even if they haven’t turned it over to the prosecutor,” Moran said.

Innocence lawyers from Michigan and Wisconsin have been on this case for years and have now taken on an appeal for Scott , the second man convicted. Both men were convicted primarily on testimony of two young men who later recanted and said they were pressured by police to implicate Johnson and Scott in the murder.

A series of reports in the Detroit Free Press documented how police were using pressure tactics to solve homicides during the 1990’s and the news reports became a factor in the U.S. Justice Department taking control of the Detroit Police Department in a consent decree that is still in place to this day.

Moran said the evidence of Johnson and Scott’s innocence is compelling and he believes the two men deserve a judicial review of new information that has come to light.

“We just want to get a hearing in some court so we can present this new evidence and let a judge, any judge, decide whether this merits a new trial,” Moran stated.

Moran said if the Innocence Clinic eventually exhausts all of its appeals in state court they will take the case to the Federal District Court for a last-ditch effort known as a habeas petition.

Meanwhile, 7 Action News Investigator Scott Lewis, who has been looking into the case for nearly two years, continues to search for new evidence.

Lewis is currently trying to locate a man who lived on the Bewick Street where Lisa Kindred was shot and killed back in 1999 .  The man is known only by his street name, Tone.

Witnesses told Lewis that Tone was on the street shortly before Kindred was shot telling people to get back in their houses because “something was about to go down.”

According to witnesses, Tone was related to Antonio Burnette, one of two

prosecution witnesses who implicated Johnson and Scott in the murder. There is no evidence in the hundreds of police records reviewed by 7 Action News that Detroit Police ever questioned Tone.

Lewis was told by people who lived in the neighborhood that the man known as Tone left the State of Michigan shortly after the murder and never returned. 

The 7 Action News Investigators are trying to find out Tone’s first and last name hoping to track him down and find out what, if anything, he knows about the 1999 murder.

If you have any information on this case, contact The Investigators by calling 248-827-9252, or send an email to tips@wxyz.com .