R.I.P Troy
We must all fight for justice, freedom, humans rights, Troy Davis must remain an example for the fight against the mistakes of U.S. laws! there are still many of “Troy Davis” in the death Row. Do not close our eyes because innocent people waiting for someone to lend a hand.
On November 3, 2011, CWCY client Robert Taylor was released from prison after almost 19 years in prison, proven innocent by DNA. Robert was 15 years old when he falsely confessed to a crime he knew nothing about.
Ray Krone was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit. He has been proven innocent and exonerated, and now helps other “exonerees” share their stories of unjust sentences and close calls with state-sanctioned death penalties. Ray works for Witness to Innocence, which receives support from Atlantic, toward abolishing the death penalty throughout America. Atlantic is the largest funder of work to abolish the death penalty in the U.S.
For more info see: http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/rays-story-death-penalty-mistake
april 2 2012 source : http://thinkprogress.org
Yet another death row inmate in Texas may in fact not be guilty of the crime that put him there. Robert Gene Will was convicted in the 2000 slaying of Deputy Sheriff Barrett Hill in Harris County, Texas. Will and another man, Michael Rosario, were caught trying to break into a car in December 2000. Both men fled, but Will says he was apprehended and placed in handcuffs by police. That’s when someone shot Deputy Sheriff Hill.
Will says that the shooter couldn’t have been him, on account of his hands literally being tied behind his back. And his lawyers argue that Rosario, the accomplice in the attempted car burglary, has admitted to at least five people that he was the one who pulled the trigger that morning. And now, Will’s case is attracting even more attention after a U.S District Judge voiced his own reservations about the initial conviction and the appeal that was conducted. TheHouston Chronicle reports:
“The questions raised during post-judgment factual development about Will’s actual innocence create disturbing uncertainties …,” [Judge Keith] Ellison wrote in a Jan. 17 memorandum. “On top of the considerable evidence supporting Will’s innocence and the important errors in the trial court, there must also be addressed the total absence of eyewitness testimony or strongly probative forensic evidence. With facts such as these, and only circumstantial evidence supporting Will’s conviction and death sentence, the court laments the strict limitations placed upon it.”
Judge Ellison was limited in his ability to hear new evidence before making a decision on whether to grant an appeal to Will, and despite his expressed dismay over the lower court’s verdict, was forced to deny the appeal on a technicality. But Will and his defense attorneys still have avenues open to them, including a recent Supreme Court ruling that allows for convicted criminals to, in some cases, challenge the competency of their state-assigned appeals lawyers. For Will, whose appointed attorney filed a legal brief that copied extensively from one he filed previously for a completely different case, the Supreme Court decision offers a ray of hope.
Texas has a well-earned reputation for unsympathetic governors who are undeterred at overseeing more executions than any other state in the country. Current Gov. Rick Perry presided over 235 executions during his time in office, by far the most of any governor in the modern era. This despite several questionable convictions that call into question the use of the death penalty at all.
my own opinion
Perry is more of a murderer than anyone who’s death warrant he has signed. Innocent isn’t in Perry’s vocabulary, Perry loves the smell of burning flesh in the morning. What’s going wrong with him ? what’s going wrong with this state ? Maybe Perry may need psychotherapy, an event in his childhood of the trauma to become a man who happens to sleep at night knowing that he killed people and especially innocent people. I think sometimes the most dangerous people are not those caught, but those who elected to lead.
well we know Texas-Bush-Perry .. murderers..
march 31 2012 source : http://www.chron.com
Like so many before him, Texas death row inmateRobert Gene Will II says he’s not guilty. Given the state of Texas’ record in seeing its death sentences carried out, the odds on getting the right people to believe him are not great.
But there have been exceptions. Will insists that if he can get a fair hearing, he will be another one. He admits he was no saint in his younger days, that he ran with a bad crowd, and yes, that he and a buddy were breaking into a car on the morning of Dec. 4, 2000, when a spotlight suddenly caught them in its glare. Within moments his life changed forever, and Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Barrett Hill lost his.
Will claims he did not shoot Hill. He has claimed as much since the day of his arrest. He could not have done it, he says, because his hands literally were tied behind his back.
“I am COMPLETELY INNOCENT,” Will wrote on a website dedicated to securing his freedom, “and I am sure anyone who takes the time to look into my case will come to that same conclusion.”
Perhaps not. Those convicting of killing law enforcement officers are even less likely than most of death row’s 288 residents to find sympathy. So it was bound to draw notice when U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison recently showed legal solidarity even as he denied Will’s latest appeal. Ellison said legal limitations – technicalities, if you will – precluded him from siding with Will.
“Questions as to Will’s possible innocence do remain,” Ellison wrote in a March 19 order granting Will the right to appeal to a higher court. “Unfortunately, the court is powerless to address the merits of additional claims raised post-judgment, unsettling though they are.”
Judge suggests review
In a separate opinion two months earlier, issued after a hearing at which Will was allowed to introduce evidence, Ellison reiterated his frustration at not being able to help, and he went further. Although he also denied Will’s motion, the judge made clear that Will’s case should get a broader review. He called one of the original trial judge’s rulings an “error of grave proportion” and said that the presence of rows of uniformed law enforcement officers in the courtroom “would have likely justified post-trial relief had the issue risen on direct appeal.”
“The questions raised during post-judgment factual development about Will’s actual innocence create disturbing uncertainties …,” Ellison wrote in a Jan. 17 memorandum. “On top of the considerable evidence supporting Will’s innocence and the important errors in the trial court, there must also be addressed the total absence of eyewitness testimony or strongly probative forensic evidence. With facts such as these, and only circumstantial evidence supporting Will’s conviction and death sentence, the court laments the strict limitations placed upon it.”
Questions abound
Will, 33, admits that he and Michael Rosario were burglarizing a car when Hill came across them. They ran, but Will was apprehended. He claimed that he was handcuffed when Rosario showed up and shot the deputy. Prosecutors contended that Will shot the deputy and admitted as much to a motorist he encountered during a later carjacking as he was trying to escape. Will’s lawyers argue that the motorist did not mention that in any of her early statements to police.
Will’s lawyers also have argued that Rosario, the son of a Houston police officer who was not charged in the murder, has admitted killing Hill to at least five individuals. They also point to an absence of any forensic evidence connecting Will to the shooting, and to a bullet graze on the back of a jacket Will wore that morning – consistent with a shot being fired by Rosario toward Hill when the latter was close by and in custody. Hill’s weapon was not fired.
Justices’ ruling a factor
Ellison’s sympathetic language after reviewing the case was the first good news Will’s legal team has had in a long time. But even better news arrived on March 20 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that simple fairness, if not the Constitution, requires that the lawyers who handle the early appeals of a capital murder conviction do so competently.
In a 7-2 decision in Martinez v. Ryan, the high court ruled those convicted of a crime can in some instances challenge the effectiveness of those hired for so-called habeas corpus appeals at the state level. It is unclear, experts said, whether such a challenge is limited to the very narrow circumstances raised by that Arizona case, or whether it can be applied to all manner of misconduct that results in a defendant being unable to raise an issue in future appeals, such as missing a deadline or failing to file certain claims.
“I think it is arguable that Martinez covers the latter scenario and will be argued by defense counsel that way, but the opinion as written is pretty restrictive,” said Brad Levenson, head of the State Office of Capital Writs, a public defender’s office for appeals in capital murder cases that was established in 2010 in part because of concern over the consistence of legal representation. “I think only time will tell how far Martinez can be interpreted.”
If the decision turns out the be less restrictive than the specifics of the Martinez case, the ruling could be significant. Critics of the decision, including dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia, raise fears that it will prolong death row appeals and be a burden to states. Defense lawyers who specialize in capital cases say it could be a great boon to those who have drawn the black bean of a lousy appeals lawyer.
Ex-lawyer defends work
Will’s former state habeas lawyer, Leslie Ribnik, filed a 28-page legal brief on Will’s behalf, the first 20 pages of which were the same — word for word, typo for typo — as the one he filed in the case of Angel Maturino Resendiz, the notorious “railroad killer” whose serial murders led to his conviction and ultimate execution in 2006.
Ribnik admitted making mistakes in Resendiz’s appeal and missed deadlines, which resulted in the default of some claims. Ribnik later removed himself from the appellate lawyer list and acknowledged he suffered from Parkinson’s disease and likely was feeling the effects even as he was preparing Will’s appeal.
Nevertheless, Ribnik has previously insisted he did an adequate job on Will’s appeal.
“I will own up to my screw-ups — I’ll take my lumps,” Ribnik told the Austin American-Statesman in 2006. “As for Will, I think I did a good job on that one.”
Will’s later appeals lawyers disagreed, pointing out that Ribnik did not investigate the statements from individuals about Rosario’s alleged statements about the shooting, or investigate anything.
“The damage was real,” Will’s lawyer, Samy Khalil, said of Ribnik.
Ellison seemed inclined to agree. If Will’s appeal is again placed before him, he may be able to do something.
“It seems that Judge Ellison could hear the claim now,” Levenson said. “And from what I know, it could be a substantial claim.”
march, 31, 2012 source : http://www.nytimes.com
A couple of Fridays ago, Kerry Max Cook, who was released from Texas’ death row in 1997 after two decades, went to pick up his 11-year-old son, Kerry Justice, from his North Dallas school. Class was just letting out. As Mr. Cook approached a group of children and their parents, a little girl squirmed out of her mother’s arms and ran toward him. “Mr. Kerry!” she called. He laughed as she jumped into his arms. “Haleigh!” he shouted, and began tickling her. “She adores Mr. Kerry,” her mother said.
The same jolly scene followed Mr. Cook as he walked around the small campus — children calling out to him, laughing, jumping into his arms. Vicki Johnston, the school’s director, looked on, smiling. “Kerry’s such a big part of the school,” she said. “He’s like a pied piper to the kids.” Asked about his past, Ms. Johnston simply said: “We know him. We know what kind of man he is.”
Unfortunately for Mr. Cook, 15 years after his release, the State of Texas still does not share Ms. Johnston’s view. Though he is widely recognized as one of the country’s most famous exonerated prisoners, Mr. Cook is not legally exonerated. In fact, in the eyes of the state, he is still a killer — convicted of the 1977 rape and murder of Linda Jo Edwards.
Mr. Cook’s situation is complex. His death sentence was twice overturned by higher courts, and DNA taken from the victim’s underwear did not match his own, and the evidence used to convict him has been shown to be entirely fallacious — but because Mr. Cook pleaded no-contest to the murder on the eve of what would have been his fourth trial, he cannot be declared actually not guilty.
Nevertheless, Mr. Cook has become a high-profile spokesman for the wrongfully imprisoned. He has published a book about his experience and has been one of the subjects of a popular Off Broadway play, “The Exonerated,” which was later made into a film. He has given speeches all over the United States and Europe. His Facebook page contains pictures of Mr. Cook with actors like Robin Williams, Richard Dreyfuss and Ben Stiller, who have been drawn to his story.
Yet Mr. Cook lives in the shadows with his wife and their son, knowing that whenever he applies for a job or gets on an international flight, he will be identified as a convicted murderer. Now he hopes to change that, with two motions filed recently in Smith County, where the case was originally heard, that could finally clear his name.
Mr. Cook has always claimed to be innocent of the murder of Ms. Edwards, a woman who lived in the same Tyler apartment complex. The case against him was largely circumstantial, including the words of a jailhouse informant who said that Mr. Cook had confessed to him and the recollections of a man who said that on the night of the murder, he and Mr. Cook had had sex and watched a movie that involved a cat torture scene.
The prosecution’s theory was that Mr. Cook, aroused by the torture scene in the movie, had left his apartment to rape and kill Ms. Edwards.
In the years after, every piece of evidence used to convict Mr. Cook was revealed to be bogus. The informant admitted he had lied as part of a deal with prosecutors, and the witness who claimed to have had sex with Mr. Cook told a grand jury that there was no sex and that Mr. Cook had not paid any attention to the movie. The prosecution had also suppressed evidence showing that Mr. Cook and Ms. Edwards had known each other casually, which explained a fingerprint found at the scene.
Mr. Cook’s verdict was overturned on a technicality in 1988. When District Attorney Jack Skeen of Smith County tried him again in 1992, the case ended in a mistrial. Another trial in 1994 resulted in a guilty verdict and a new death sentence, but two years later the Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, reversed that conviction, noting that “prosecutorial and police misconduct has tainted this entire matter from the outset.”
Mr. Cook was released on bail in 1997, but the state prepared to try him for a fourth time. He was presented with an option: plead guilty in exchange for 20 years, which he had already served, and the charges would be dropped. He refused. As the trial date approached, in early 1999, Ms. Edwards’s underwear was sent to a lab for modern DNA testing. Mr. Cook, certain he would be exonerated, gave a blood sample.
On the morning of jury selection, the district attorney made another offer: if Mr. Cook pleaded no-contest with no admission of guilt, the case would be dismissed and he could go on with his life. Mr. Cook considered the deal. He had suffered terribly during his 19 years in prison — he had been stabbed, raped repeatedly and had tried to kill himself, once slitting his own throat after severing his penis, which was reattached.
He took the plea deal. Two months later, the DNA results returned. The semen belonged to James Mayfield, a married man with whom Ms. Edwards had been having an affair.
By then Mr. Cook was trying to move on with his life, but it was harder than he had imagined. The physical and emotional abuse he endured in prison causes nightmares and suicidal urges. And the murder conviction made him a second-class citizen.
“I couldn’t get a job, couldn’t sign a lease,” he said. “We’ve had to move five times because people would find out about me. One woman threatened to put up posters in the neighborhood saying ‘Convicted murderer lives here.’ ”
In 2009 Mr. Cook met Marc McPeak, a civil lawyer — with Greenberg Traurig in Dallas — who had read his book. Mr. McPeak’s firm began devising a legal strategy, pro bono, to navigate the difficult road of getting Mr. Cook an official exoneration. The first step was to get DNA testing on other items from the crime scene, including a hair found on Ms. Edwards’s body.
On Feb. 28, Mr. McPeak filed two motions in Smith County, one for the DNA testing and the other to recuse the judge who would decide whether to allow the testing — Mr. Skeen, the former district attorney. “We want it heard outside of Smith County,” Mr. McPeak said. “Not once in 35 years have officials there shown either the desire or the ability to treat Kerry fairly.”
They hope that further DNA evidence excluding Mr. Cook will help them to file a writ of habeas corpus to have him declared actually innocent.
Meanwhile, Mr. Cook waits. He dresses only in black (he swears he will not wear any other color until he is exonerated), and with his dark eyes and white hair, he cuts a striking figure. What he wants more than anything else are life’s simplest things.
“All I want is to be able to put my name on a lease,” he said. “I want to be able to walk my dog and have my neighbors over for cookouts. I want to live a normal life.”
march, 29 source : http://www.baltimoresun.com
When Renee Hutchins, the University of Maryland law professor, got her client on the phone Thursday afternoon and told him the news — that the governor was going to commute his life sentence — Mark Farley Grant was “largely speechless and completely stunned.”
Hutchins said she will visit her client at the state prison in Hagerstown on Monday. By then, Grant should have a complete understanding of what’s happening: freedom after nearly 30 years in prison, but no exoneration and no pardon.
This was never simply a case of a convicted killer asking for parole as he approached middle age. There are plenty of such cases.This was a young man — 14 years old at the time of his arrest in a fatal shooting of another teenager in Baltimore in 1983 — with a credible claim of innocence. He had exhausted all his appeals over two decades since his trial.
Then, as a last resort, he’d asked Gov. Martin O’Malley to look at the facts of his case and consider his petition for clemency. Hutchins, together with another professor, Michael Millemann, and students at the University of Maryland law school (the governor’s alma mater) spent four years researching Grant’s 1984 conviction. They filed a report with the governor’s office in 2008. I caught wind of it a year later, and I first visited Grant in prison in September 2009. My first column on this case, drawing to the public’s attention the disturbing facts raised by the law school’s impressive investigation, appeared that month.
Each time I asked, a member of the governor’s staff said the case was “being reviewed.”
But it is clear by now that the governor never acted on the report. He never made a judgment about whether Grant had been wrongfully convicted.
Time went on, month after month, year after year.
From prison, Grant wrote several letters, asserting his innocence and stating his hope that Mr. O’Malley’s heart would be turned.
“Remember this, if nothing else,” Grant wrote me from prison in November 2010, “our creator, God, Lord of the Universe, created the sun, the moon and the Earth, and gave Earth life and everything in it. God is the turner of hearts.”
Still, nothing happened with regard to his claim of innocence.
And with Thursday’s executive order, O’Malley remains silent on the question of whether Mark Farley Grant ever belonged in prison.
All the governor has done is commute Grant’s sentence — something that would have happened on March 30 in the absence of gubernatorial action. The General Assembly made it so.
Legislators changed the law that gives the Maryland governor final say on parole recommendations for lifers. As of last Oct. 1, when the new law took effect, the governor had to act within 180 days of a Maryland Parole Commission recommendation or the recommendation automatically took effect. Grant’s was among those that were still pending on Oct. 1.
O’Malley denied 57 other recommendations.
So, in that regard, I guess Grant should be grateful. He has claimed his innocence since the night of his arrest 29 years ago. He had the help of law professors and students, who put in long hours to investigate the case and to locate witnesses, one of whom said he testified against Grant under threat of death from the real killer’s family. Grant’s advocates got the governor’s attention. Considering that the politically ambitious O’Malley has embraced the “life means life,” no-parole policy begun (but since disavowed) by the state’s previous Democratic governor, Parris Glendening, Grant is lucky.
But minus action by the governor, who has the authority and power to independently investigate Grant’s claim of innocence, Grant leaves prison under a cloud. It is disingenuous of Mr. O’Malley to say he is being just and fair in commuting Grant’s sentence while not acting on — perhaps even ignoring — his credible claim of innocence.
march, 26, 2012 source : http://www.roosevelttorch.com
Last year, the execution of Troy Davis execution sparked outrage around the world. Davis, who was wrongfully convicted of killing a police officer in 1989, became a symbol of worldwide artistic and political movements against racial injustice and wrongful convictions.
At the Wicker Park Arts Center Friday, Occupy Chicago Rebel Arts Collective (OCRAC) hosted a tribute event called “Better DaysAhead.” The event was to pay remembrance to Davis and his sister, Martina Correia. Correia, who passed six months after Davis, was an advocate on Davis’ behalf and fought against the death penalty.
“We’ve learned quite a bit of how the legal system fails in the last few decades,” said Paul Cates, Innocence Project communications director. He explained that 25 percent of wrongfully convicted cases are due to misidentification. False confessions account for another 25 percent and 50 percent is attributed to invalidated forensic science. In Davis’ case, there was no DNA evidence, according to Cates.
OCRAC, a project of Occupy Chicago’s Arts & Recreation, hosts events like the Davis tribute to connect local artists and to highlight the human effect of unchanging laws and wrongful convictions.
“OCRAC exists for the purpose of connecting with artists of all stripes…and mobilizing the power of art in the name of a more just and equal world,” according to the OCRAC website.
Artists and attendees reflected on the tragedies and celebrated Davis’ and Correia’s lives at the “Better Days Ahead” event. Speakers from various local anti-racism organizations like Amnesty International, Occupy 4 Prisoners, and Campaign to End the Death Penalty attended the tribute.
FM Supreme, ‘Two-time Louder than A Bomb’ city-wide high school poetry competition winners, performed at the event. The group wrote a song last year, dedicated to Davis and Correia.
“FM Supreme in particular was active in trying to save Troy,” Alex Billet said, an OCRAC artist and Rebel Frequencies founder, a journalism website focused on political activism through music. “Word is that Supreme had the chance to perform the song for her (Correia) before she passed away.”
An additional memorial was held for Trayvon Martin, in which a local artist set up a framed photo of Martin along with candles, and placed iced tea and Skittles, which Martin was carrying in his pockets at the time of the shooting.
Billet felt the impromptu memorial was important.
“Troy Davis and Trayvon Martin are both victims of the same sick, violent and virulently racist system,” Billet said in an email statement.
Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy at ACLU Illinois, believes tributes like “Better Days Ahead” help to spread awareness about injustices in the legal system and inspire people to right those injustices in various ways.
“I think stories like Davis’ have a powerful impact on how people relate to policy issues, and how it could affect them,” said Yohnka. “For example, President Obama’s statement in regards to relating to Trayvon Martin as a son. Comments like that connect people to issues. It’s very, very powerful.”
OCRAC hosts several events a month to promote activism through art. The next
OCRAC-sponsored event is Chicago Spring, at the Chicago Board of Trade on April 7 at noon.
march, 26, 2012 source :http://www.br.psu.edu
the public is invited to attend a free presentation by Juan Melendez at 6 p.m., Wednesday, March 28 in the auditorium of the Penn State Beaver Student Union Building.
Melendez was imprisoned on death row in Florida for almost 18 years until his conviction was overturned and he was released in 2002. Upon his release, Melendez became the United States’ 99th death row inmate to be exonerated and released since 1973.
In his presentation, Melendez will discuss his story of injustice and wrongful imprisonment on death row as one of many problems pervasive throughout the nation’s legal system and will describe the high rate of wrongful convictions based on poverty, race, and ethnicity.
Melendez will also share how he survived his experiences while imprisoned and how he maintained his spirit while he and others worked to free him.
Since his release, he has spoken here and abroad about the crisis of wrongful imprisonment, especially on death row, and his story has been reported in French, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic.
The administration of justice program and the Beaver campus Student Activity Fee are sponsoring the presentation as part of the Unique Perspectives for Selecting Your Career Path Speaker Series.
For information, contact Larissa Ciuca, student personal and career counselor, at lbm12@psu.edu or 724-773-3961 or LaVarr McBride, instructor in administration of justice at Beaver, Penn State New Kensington, and Penn State Shenango, atlwm13@psu.edu or 724-773-3866.
Take the time to read Leon Benson’s website,, take action sign the petition and share when possible.
We can not allow a person imprisoned which should be free !
Leon Benson website :http://www.freewebs.com/freeleonbenson/
Claim your Innocence 