DNA profiling

OHIO – EXECUTION – Brett Hartman 11/13/2012 EXECUTED 10.34 a.m

Brett Hartman

November 13, 2012 http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Today, he calmly accepted his death.

‘I’m good, let’s roll,’ he said in his final words.

He then smiled in the direction of his sister and repeatedly gave her, a friend and his attorney a ‘thumbs up’ with his left hand.

‘This is not going to defeat me,’ Hartman then said to warden Donald Morgan, who didn’t respond.

The effect of the single dose of pentobarbital did not seem as immediate as in other executions at the state prison in Lucasville, in southern Ohio.

Four minutes after Hartman first appeared to be reacting to it as his abdomen began to rise and fall, his abdomen rose and fell again, he coughed and his head shifted rhythmically for a few moments.

His sister, Diane Morretti, dabbed at her eyes during the process. The warden declared Hartman’s time of death as 10:34am.

Both Hartman’s attorney, David Stebbins, and prisons system spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said the gap between Hartman’s movements was not out of the ordinary.

Hartman claimed he did not kill Snipes, but found mutilated body and panicked, trying to clean up the mess before calling 911. It was a claim rejected by numerous courts over the years.

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a last-minute appeal by Hartman yesterday.

Hartman’s last meal, which in Ohio is called a special meal, consisted of steak with sauteed mushrooms, fried shrimp, Macaroni & Cheese, a baked potato with butter and sour cream, Rainforest Crunch cereal, cans of Pepsi and Dr Pepper, and a bowl of Honey-Comb cereal, a prison spokesman told MailOnline.

Hartman is the 49th inmate put to death since Ohio resumed executions in 1999.

Murdered: Ms Snipes had been stabbed 138 times. Her throat had been cut and her hands were cut off in the gruesome murder in her home  Ms Snipes

November 10, 2012 http://www.ohio.com

Three years ago, the condemned killer from Akron came within a week of being executed by the state of Ohio. Just last year, he came within three weeks of being executed.

While prosecutors continue to block his efforts for additional DNA testing, only the U.S. Supreme Court stands between Hartmann and his execution Tuesday in Lucasville. Hartmann contends he is innocent of the brutal slaying of Highland Square resident Winda Snipes in 1997 and his attorneys plan to continue his fight for testing of evidence until the final hours.

Prosecutors have long argued that Hartmann, 38, has already been granted his wish with additional DNA testing that only confirmed the “clear and convincing evidence of his guilt.” They say the 11th-hour appeals by Hartmann are only designed to delay his death.

Hartmann’s attorneys, Michael Benza and David Stebbins, say the courts have failed to take the testing further and examine key pieces of evidence.

Prosecutors originally sent many of the items to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the state’s forensic crime lab, but the evidence has either never been tested or never revealed, Benza said.

The items include bloody fingerprint on an electric clock in which the cord was cut and used to kill Snipes. There is also a bloody fingerprint on a chair.

The defense wants the untested prints compared to Hartmann as well as Snipes’ ex-boyfriend. They’ve been seeking the tests for years, but the state will not cooperate.

“If Brett’s not a match to the bloody fingerprints, then that’s pretty good evidence that someone other than Brett committed this crime,” Benza said.

Some fingerprints that were apparently tested, he said, were never linked to Hartmann. Other items were sent for testing. What those items were, however, were never disclosed to defense attorneys, he said.

“That’s what I find really most disturbing,” Benza said. “The prosecutors wanted it tested at trial, yet we get no answers from anybody on why there were not tested.”

Details of slaying

Snipes, 46, was found dead in her South Highland Avenue apartment. Her body was bound at the ankles, her torso stabbed more than 130 times, her neck slashed and her hands severed and missing.

Hartmann, who had a casual sexual relationship with Snipes, contends he had been with her about 14 hours earlier during a sexual encounter, but did not kill her.

It was Hartmann, then 23, who reported finding Snipes’ body. He told police he went to her apartment, discovered her mutilated body and panicked, fearing police would pin the murder on him. He cleaned up evidence of his previous visit — cigarette butts, beer cans and his T-shirt, which he said was left behind in his haste to leave Snipes after their sexual encounter.

About two hours after finding the body, Hartmann said, he made a series of 911 calls in an attempt to report Snipes’ death anonymously. He was later arrested when his bloody shirt and a watch belonging to Snipes were found in his bedroom. His semen was also found in Snipes’ body.

Years later, a federal judge ordered additional DNA testing from Snipes’ body. The DNA was linked to Hartmann. But defense attorneys counter that Hartmann had already acknowledged having sex with Snipes before her death. They want specific evidence tested before the execution goes forward.

Clock evidence

The clock has been an intriguing untested item since the slaying in September 1997. It was found inside Snipes’ apartment stopped at 4:40. The cord was cut and used to strangle Snipes, who had been seen alive at 4:30 p.m.

Defense attorneys believe the clock stopped around the time of the murder. Phone records suggest Hartmann was at his home at 4:50 p.m.

In past appeals, defense attorneys say a former jail inmate lied at Hartmann’s original trial and the ex-con’s attorney, Tom Adgate, would confirm it — if he was granted immunity from attorney-client privacy violations.

They also allege that Snipes had an abusive boyfriend with a violent history who was never fully investigated by Akron police, lacked an alibi and likely saw Hartmann and Snipes together just before the killing.

Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh declined to comment Friday through a spokeswoman, preferring to wait until after Tuesday’s scheduled execution. In 2009, a federal appellate court granted a stay a week before Hartmann was to die. In 2011, an unofficial moratorium by Gov. John Kasich sparred Hartmann for another year.

Walsh and state attorneys have consistently maintained Hartmann’s guilt and say he has already had his chance at DNA testing.

The Supreme Court, Benza said, has granted three stays of execution in the past month to grant evidence testing to condemned inmates

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Supreme Court Weighing Genetic Privacy

November 8, 2012 http://www.wired.com

Supreme Court justices are to meet privately Friday to weigh whether it will hear a major genetic privacy case testing whether authorities may take DNA samples from anybody arrested for a serious crime.

The case has wide-ranging implications, as at least 21 states and the federal government have regulations requiring suspects to give a DNA sample upon arrest. In all the states with such laws, DNA saliva samples are catalogued in state and federal crime-fighting databases.

The issue confronts the government’s interest in solving crime, balanced against the constitutional rights of those arrested to be free from government intrusion.

The case before the justices concerns a decision in April of Maryland’s top court, which said it was a breach of the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure to take DNA samples from suspects who have not been convicted.

The Maryland Court of Appeals, that state’s highest court, said that arrestees have a “weighty and reasonable expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches” and that expectation is not outweighed by the state’s “purported interest in assuring proper identification” of a suspect.

Maryland prosecutors argued that the mouth swab was no more intrusive than fingerprinting, (.pdf) but the state’s high court said that it “could not turn a blind eye” to what it called a “vast genetic treasure map” (.pdf) that exists in the DNA samples retained by the state.

The court was noting that DNA sampling is much different from compulsory fingerprinting. A fingerprint, for example, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much more can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks and, according to some, can predict apropensity for violence.

In the justices’ Friday conference, they are likely to agree to review the Maryland case, and announce their decision days later. That’s because Chief Justice John Roberts has stayed the Maryland decision pending whether the justices review the case. In the process, he said there was a “fair prospect” (.pdf) the Supreme Court would reverse the decision. If the justices decline the case, the Maryland decision becomes law.

The National District Attorneys Association is urging the Supreme Court to overturn the Maryland decision, saying DNA sampling “serves an important public and governmental interest.” (.pdf)

The group points to the Maryland case at hand, concerning defendant Alonzo King. After being arrested in 2009 on assault charges, a DNA sample he provided linked him to an unsolved 2003 rape conviction. He was later convicted of the sex crime, but the Maryland Court of Appeals reversed, saying his Fourth Amendment rights were breached.

The issue before the justices does not contest the long-held practice of taking DNA samples from convicts. The courts have already upheld DNA sampling of convicted felons, based on the theory that those who are convicted of crimes have fewer privacy rights.

Still, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that when conducting intrusions of the body during an investigation, the police need so-called “exigent circumstances” or a warrant. For example, the fact that alcohol evaporates in the body is an exigent circumstance that provides authorities with the right to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant.

Maryland’s law, requiring DNA samples for those arrested for burglary and crimes of violence, is not nearly as harsh as California’s. The Golden State’s statute is among the nation’s strictest, requiring samples for any felony arrest.

A three-judge federal appeals panel has upheld California’s law, although the court is reviewing the issue again with 11 judges.

DNA testing in the United States was first used to convict a suspected Florida rapist in 1987, and has been a routine tool to solve old or so-called cold cases. It has also exonerated convicts and those on death row.

 

CALIFORNIA – Kill the death penalty

October 18, 2012 http://www.newsreview.com/

In 1978, a man named Ron Briggs ran the campaign for Proposition 7, which proposed to expand California’s death penalty law to make it among the toughest in the country. Briggs was the son of John Briggs, a Republican state senator who strongly supported the measure. It was written by Donald J. Heller, a former prosecutor. The Briggs Initiative, as it was called, passed resoundingly.

Since then Ron Briggs and Heller have had a change of heart. Today they are campaigning vigorously on behalf of Proposition 34, the SAFE California initiative that would end the death penalty and replace it with mandatory life without parole.

Their goal with Proposition 7, Briggs has written, was to broaden the murder categories eligible for the death penalty and “give prosecutors better tools for meting out just punishments” and warn “all California evildoers that the state would deliver swift and final justice.”

They now realize, however, that it didn’t work. There were 300 people on death row in 1978; today there are more than 720. Only 13 death row prisoners have been executed since their measure passed—far more have died of natural causes—and the state has spent $4 billion trying to enforce capital punishment. Eliminating it could save $183 million annually.

Opponents of Proposition 34 argue that it forgoes justice in order to save money. But where’s the justice? As Briggs writes, it’s “a nightmarish system that coddles murderers and enriches lawyers.” Meanwhile, the families of victims suffer because they’re forced over and over to face the alleged murderer in a series of mandated appeals that, because of a shortage of judges and public defenders, can take decades to exhaust.

Opponents of Proposition 34 also argue that the death penalty deters crime, but study after study shows that’s simply not true. States without the death penalty have murder rates similar to, and sometimes lower than, those of states with capital punishment.

In addition, the death penalty is applied in a biased manner. Proportionally, blacks are sentenced to death far more often than whites, especially when the victim is white.

Finally, there’s the matter of innocence. DNA testing has exonerated more than 2,000 prisoners, including many on death row. It’s a virtual certainty that some innocent people have been executed. Death is a punishment that cannot be reversed.

For all of these reasons, it’s time to abolish the death penalty in California. Vote yes on Proposition 34.

 

OHIO – Court to weigh DNA testing for man given death penalty in 1990 Portage County slaying – TYRONE NOLING

october 15, 2012 http://www.ohio.com/

COLUMBUS: The Ohio Supreme Court plans to hear arguments in the case of a condemned inmate whose attorneys argue DNA testing could help exonerate him.

At issue is the case of death row prisoner Tyrone Noling, convicted in 1996 of fatally shooting an elderly Portage County couple at their home.

The Supreme Court on Monday scheduled a Jan. 8 hearing for arguments from both sides.

Noling has been on death row at the Ohio State Penitentiary since his conviction in the slayings of Bearnhardt and Cora Hartig at their Atwater Township home.

The Hartigs, both 81, were shot multiple times in the chest April 5, 1990, as they sat at their kitchen table, according to the police investigation.

Lawyers for the Ohio Innocence Project want to test a cigarette butt found at the scene against DNA profiles of offenders in a national database, including a convicted killer who was executed.

The state says previous tests have excluded Noling as the smoker of the butt and says new testing would prove nothing.

A lower court judge has twice denied the request.

OHIO – Inmate on death row professes innocence – BRETT HARTMANN

October 15, 2012 http://www.vindy.com

photo

COLUMBUS

An Akron man facing execution next month for the murder and dismemberment of a woman 15 years ago maintains his innocence, saying prosecutors and a jailhouse snitch lied about the crime and failed to test evidence that could exonerate him.

In an interview from death row at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, Brett Hartmann told the Statehouse bureau of The Vindicator that phone records and hair and fingerprints taken from the scene could prove he didn’t stab 46-year-old Winda Snipes 138 times, slit her throat or cut off her hands.

The latter were never found.

“Whether people want to believe I’m innocent or not, you know, but ask why,” Hartmann said. “Why are they hiding? Why are they lying so much? … Why are they lying and hiding evidence like they do?”

Hartmann, 38, is scheduled for lethal injection Nov. 13 at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.

Twice in recent years, the state parole board has recommended against clemency in the case, with a third decision from that panel expected in coming days after another hearing earlier this week.

In documents presented to the parole board, Snipes was described as a “thoughtful and caring person” who “dressed meticulously” and was “extremely close” to her family.

One day in September 1997, she picked up her paycheck, mailed a letter and stick of gum to her grandmother and was spotted crossing the street near her Highland Square neighborhood in Akron.

Police found her mutilated body tied to a bed in her apartment that evening after receiving several 9-1-1 calls from Hartmann, who admitted having sexual relations with the victim hours before she was murdered.

Police found Hartmann’s fingerprints on a bedspread and on the leg of a chair, and investigators later matched his DNA to the victim’s body.

They also found a wristwatch that purportedly belonged to Snipes and a bloody T-shirt at Hartmann’s apartment.

They also cited incriminating comments he made to a co-worker and a cellmate. The latter said Hartmann confessed the crime.

According to documents submitted by the prosecutor’s office to the state parole board, “… The evidence at trial (as well as recent DNA evidence) clearly establish that [Hartmann] tied Winda to her bed, had vaginal and anal intercourse with her, beat her, strangled her with a cord, stabbed her 138 times, slit her throat, and cut off her hands. The jury found [Hartmann] guilty of Winda’s murder and determined unanimously that [Hartmann’s] crimes warranted death. The jury’s verdict has been affirmed many times by state and federal courts. Subsequent DNA testing also confirmed [Hartmann’s] guilt. … [His] many claims of legal error have been carefully reviewed, considered and rejected.”

Summit County Prosecutor Sherri Bevan Walsh added in a released statement Friday, “The state has provided Mr. [Hartmann] with top-notch defense attorneys to argue his claims in state and federal courts for the past 14 years. No court — state or federal — has bought any of Mr. Hartman’s claims.”

Hartmann said he and Snipes had a casual sexual relationship, “hooking up” on occasion after drinking at a bar near her apartment. He admitted to police on the night that Snipes’ body was found that he had been with her early on the morning of the crime but that she was alive when he left.

“Clearly, no matter how intoxicated I was that morning, when I left her, she was well, alive and healthy, because she was seen alive later that day,” he said.

Hartmann said he did not murder Snipes; rather, he returned to her apartment for another “hookup” and found her dead on the floor. He said he panicked, grabbed anything that connected him to the crime scene and fled. He said he didn’t think about calling the police immediately to report the crime, only doing so later from a nearby pay phone.

“I lived on the streets with bikers and meth-heads,” he said. “I grew up on Indian reservations where you don’t call the police at all. … When I found her, the first thing that went through my head was two warrants out for my arrest for traffic violations and failure to pay fines. And the first thing that went through my head was if I call the police, they’re going to run my name, see I have warrants and arrest me and I’m going to lose my job.”

Hartmann said the watch police found at his apartment was common at the time and belonged to a married woman, one of many who he had sexual relations with and who left clothes or other belongings behind. And he said it doesn’t make sense, logically, that he would leave the watch and bloody T-shirt at his apartment for police to find but manage to hide the victim’s hands and other evidence.

“… I supposedly went and hid all these so well that police have never found them and yet come back to my apartment and these two pieces of evidence are just thrown right there in the middle of everything,” he said. “If I would have done something like this, common sense would dictate that you take everything if you’re going to hide it hide it altogether. You don’t hide some of this stuff and then throw some of the most critical evidence in the middle of your floor.”

Hartmann said phone records prove he was at home at the time the murder was committed. He said police and prosecutors failed to test fingerprints, hair and other evidence found at the crime scene that could prove someone else committed the murder. And he denied making incriminating statements to a co-worker or cellmate.

Hartmann said he does not support the death penalty, calling the process for determining capital punishment “totally flawed. … It has nothing to do with justice or the law or anything. It’s almost all politics.”

He said he and others on Ohio’s Death Row are changed people.

“Most people I know back here don’t even resemble the people they were when they first came,” he said. “I know no one will ever believe me, most of the public will never believe me when I tell them I’ve met better people on Death Row than I ever met out on the street. If I’m hungry, all I have to do is say so and there’s someone there to give me some food. If there’s ever something I need, there will be someone there to help me.”

Asked what he would say to the family and friends of Winda Snipes, Hartmann replied, “My heart goes out to them. I know losing anyone, especially family, is a very traumatizing experience. I recently lost my mom and my sister. And no one in the world deserves to lose a relative or anyone the way that Winda was taken, and my heart goes out to them. But I didn’t do it.”

There’s no real argument for the death penalty by James Varney “opinion”

October 13, 2012 http://www.nola.com/

Three stories — or, more accurately, two stories and a column — have led to thoughts about that ever contentious issue, the death penalty.

The first was a justice corkscrew at Tulane and Broad detailed by reporter John Simerman, a tale of shifting heroes and villains. In it, a rapist was briefly represented by the Innocence Project, a prominent arm of the anti-death penalty movement that has a strong case — namely, not every person on death row is guilty. Yet for reasons I can’t fully understand, I don’t find that reason to dispose of the death penalty. In part, this view may be colored by the Innocence Project’s paladin, Gary Scheck, who proclaims DNA evidence infallible. Which it may be, unless the blood of two murder victims is splattered all over O.J. Simpson’s car and house, in which case the DNA was planted or contaminated, as Scheck argued while springing The Juice.

I could have sworn O.J. did it, but that’s what high-priced defense lawyers do, I suppose, and it’s true Scheck’s work elsewhere has freed some innocent men from a living hell on death row.

In fact, the column in question is just that sort of case. Damon Thibodeaux was sent to Angola’s death row for raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl under the Huey P. Long Bridge in 1996. Problem was, Thibodeaux didn’t do the crime and the Innocence Project helped prove it. Consequently, Thibodeaux was freed last month, and Denny LeBoeuf, formerly of the Death Penalty Resource Center in New Orleans, penned an op-ed about it for The Times-Picayune.

Thibodeaux’s case hinged on a bogus confession, a thing LeBoeuf pointed out talented law enforcement officers constantly guard against. Yet here we have a man — not guilty — dreading the lethal needles the state planned to plunge into his veins. He has escaped the jaws of death, which is all to the good, and whether one finds that alone reason to halt executions, there is no gainsaying the argument in favor of them is now diminished.

Thibodeaux can’t be made whole any more than the family of the girl who was killed, but does the death penalty’s existence mean similar tragedies won’t be visited on others? Here we turn to the death penalty’s supposed deterrent properties.

And here we turn to the other recent story, reporter Claire Galofaro’s magisterial three-part tale of the men accused of gunning down two St. John the Baptist Parish sheriff’s deputies and wounding two more. These alleged warped souls floated across the landscape from Nebraska to Louisiana like modern Charles Starkweathers, apparently willing, even eager, to kill.

Was the death penalty any sort of deterrent to these seething misfits? Has the fear of the death penalty — a sentence quite real in New Orleans and Louisiana — in any way crimped the appalling violence that sends so many New Orleanians to an early grave?

Well, it may have — that’s a hard one to gauge — but if it has, the impact has been marginal at best. The argument in favor of execution shrinks again.

So we appear to have but one plank left in favor of executions: the succor it may provide crime victims’ survivors. Here most of us, thankfully, are at sea because thus far we’ve been spared that nightmare.

That’s always seemed one of the best arguments in favor of execution while simultaneously the most disquieting. Where does the state — why does the state — become an instrument of retribution? There are Biblical passages supporting the death penalty as a legal recourse, but are these life and death matters not better left in God’s hands? Doesn’t the death penalty then skirt dangerously close to revenge killing, a thing civilized society should shun?

I don’t presume to speak for victims’ families, but years of covering capital cases and witnessing two executions at Angola have shown me that seeking a death for a death is not uniform among them. The quality of their mercy is an awesome, humbling thing, and one it seems to me should be embraced.

So what do we have: Guilty? Not always. Deterrent? Unlikely. Morally? Dubious. LeBoeuf is correct: the death penalty should be abolished.

••••••••

James Varney can be reached at jvarney@nola.com.

 

Louisiana death-row inmate Damon Thibodeaux exonerated with DNA evidence

 

september 28, 2012 http://www.washingtonpost.com

NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana death-row inmate convicted of the rape and murder of his 14-year-old step-cousin in 1996 on Friday became the 300th person exonerated on the basis of DNA evidence in the United States — and the 18th death-row inmate saved from execution by DNA.

Damon Thibodeaux, now 38, confessed to the brutal attack on his cousin after a nine-hour interrogation in 1996 by detectives from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office. He recanted a few hours later and has maintained since that his confession was coerced. Despite his recantation, Thibodeaux was indicted four days after his arrest. In 1997, a jury found him guilty of murder and rape, largely on the basis of his confession. He was sentenced to death.

Thibodeaux walked out of the death-row unit of Louisiana’s Angola prison farm on a rainy Friday afternoon, free for the first time after 15 years, during which he was kept in solitary confinement 23 hours per day.

In an interview minutes after he left the prison, Thibodeaux said he struggled to control his emotions during the years he waited for exoneration.

“For the first couple of years, it takes a lot of getting used to. Sometimes, it seemed like it wasn’t going to happen. You think, they’re going to kill you and just accept it,” he said. “But as things started to accumulate, you start, you know, gaining hope.”

He said the detectives who questioned him in 1996 took advantage of his exhaustion and fed him details of the crime to include in his confession.

“They look for vulnerable points where they can manipulate you, and if you’re sleep-deprived or panicked, or you’re on something or drunk, it makes it that much easier to accomplish what they want to accomplish,” Thibodeaux said. “At that point, I was tired. I was hungry. All I wanted to do was sleep, and I was willing to tell them anything they wanted me to tell them if it would get me out of that interrogation room.”

Thibodeaux said that he hoped his case could help lead police agencies to be more careful not to induce false confessions.

The detectives involved in Thibodeaux’s interrogation could not be reached Friday. Earlier, a spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the agency’s handling of the case and said the investigators would not be made available.

Thibodeaux’s exoneration came after an unusual five-year joint reinvestigation of the case by the office of Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul Connick, which brought the charges, and a team of defense lawyers and investigators, including the New York-based Innocence Project.

During the reexamination of the case, during which Thibodeaux put his formal appeals on hold, investigators concluded that his confession was riddled with glaring errors, such as the manner and time of death and the identification of the murder weapon, and did not match the crime scene and other evidence. Most remarkable, the investigation found that the sexual assault to which Thibodeaux also confessed — making him eligible under Louisiana law for the death penalty — never occurred.

“The 300th exoneration is an extraordinary event, and it couldn’t be more fitting that it’s an innocent man on death row who gave a false confession,” said Barry Scheck, a founder of the Innocence Project and one of the lawyers who worked on the case. “People have a very hard time with the concept that an innocent person could confess to a crime that they didn’t commit. But it happens a lot. It’s the ultimate risk that an innocent man could be executed.”

New DNA testing conducted during the inquiry on the clothing worn by Thibodeaux on the night of the murder and virtually every other piece of evidence collected by police established no links to the crime — so the absence of DNA became a powerful element of evidence itself. A DNA profile was also obtained from a tiny sample of blood on a piece of the wire used to strangle the victim. It did not match Thibodeaux.

The reinvestigation totaled more than $500,000, a cost shared by the defense and prosecution, according to lawyers involved in the case.

The dismissal of Thibodeaux’s case comes amid a flurry of such exonerations across the country and at a time when doubts about the reliability of American courts in determining guilt and innocence appear to be growing.

Early this week, John Edward Smith was released from a Los Angeles jail nearly two decades after being wrongly imprisoned for a 1993 gang-related drive-by shooting. Prosecutors in Chicago moved to dismiss murder charges against Alprentiss Nash in August, 17 years after he was convicted of a murder that new DNA analysis indicates he did not commit. In Texas last month, David Lee Wiggins was released after DNA testing cleared him of a rape conviction for which he had served 24 years.

In July, a D.C. judge declared Kirk L. Odom innocent of a 1981 rape and robbery for which he had served more than 22 years in prison. The same week, the Justice Department and FBI announced they would reexamine thousands of cases after The Washington Post reported widespread problems in its forensic examination of hair fibers over several decades. That came on the heels of a conclusion by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan that five people convicted in the 1995 murder of a taxi driver and imprisoned since are innocent.

 

PENNSYLVANIA – Jimmy Dennis another innocent man on death row – Read and share when u can !

Hi everyone, 

First at all, i wanna say THANKS Ana for your post about Jimmy. We need more people like U ! 

Claim your innocence is ready from Switzerland for support Jimmy and follow him !

No more innocent on death Row 

THE CASE:

In Philadelphia on October 22, 1991, a young woman named Chedell Williams went to the Fern Rock subway station to buy a transit pass. At approximately 1:50 p.m. she was approached by two men, one of whom demanded her gold earrings and shot her. These two men then ran to a getaway car, where a third accomplice drove them away. By all accounts, the crime took place in mere seconds, and in those few seconds, Miss Williams tragically lost her life. She was only 17.

Jimmy Dennis was convicted of this crime and given a death sentence, yet he has steadfastly maintained his innocence. After several months of thoroughly studying his case, collecting and reading the documents (including police statements, the trial transcript, and appeal brief), we- an international volunteer group of supporters- have concluded that the facts in this case fully support his innocence. There is simply no reason to believe that Jimmy Dennis had anything whatsoever to do with this murder. In the meantime, we have exchanged many letters with Jimmy, and even traveled to Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, to meet him personally.

He has languished on death row since 1992 (not including a year he spent in jail awaiting trial), confined to his cell for 22 to 23 hours a day. We are horrified by the idea that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania intends to kill an innocent man. Indeed, we don’t even want to think about that. Instead, we are persuaded that if enough people knew the facts of this case, there would be an enormous outcry for justice that would not only assist in preventing Jimmy’s execution, but would also help in securing his release.

At the time of his arrest, Jimmy was 21 years old. As a member of a music group called Sensation, Jimmy had a promising future. He was looking forward to the birth of his daughter, who was born about a week after Jimmy was imprisoned; sadly, he has never spent a full day with her.

 

The Facts:

1.  Jimmy was a complete stranger to the victim and witnesses. No evidence was presented at the trial to connect Jimmy with the victim and/or with the witnesses.

2.  There is no physical evidence linking Jimmy Dennis to this crime.

No car – The getaway car was described by witnesses as a gold or tan 4-door Chevy Malibu or Caprice with a Pennsylvania license plate ending in 988. Jimmy neither owned a car nor had a license. The vehicle used in the crime was never connected in any way to Jimmy, nor was it ever located.

No weapon – The gun used at the crime was never recovered, nor was any gun found among Jimmy’s possessions.

No fingerprints – A button was torn from Miss Williams’ clothes. Either the state never tested the button for fingerprints or the results were never made known to the defense.

No earrings – The earrings that were allegedly stolen from Miss Williams were never found, and there is no evidence that Jimmy ever had them in his possession.

3.  There is no evidence to connect Jimmy with a previous incident in which the earrings were stolen.

Chedell Williams’ former boyfriend, Walter Gilliard, testified at the trial that Miss Williams’ earrings had been stolen previously, in June of 1991, just four months prior to her murder. Mr. Gilliard testified that Miss Williams had once pointed out to him who stole the earrings. Gilliard testified that Jimmy wasn’t this person. (Gilliard also stated that he learned on the street who purchased the earrings from the thief, and he had repurchased them for Miss Williams for approximately $125.)

4.  Jimmy, who is 5’4″, doesn’t match the eyewitnesses’ descriptions.

The evidence against Jimmy was largely dependent on the eyewitness testimony of three people who were strangers to Jimmy: Zahra Howard, Thomas Bertha and James Cameron. All three identified Jimmy as the shooter at the trial, despite the fact that Jimmy’s physical characteristics don’t match their original descriptions. Witnesses who identified other suspects were not called to testify.

Zahra Howard, who had accompanied Miss Williams to the Fern Rock Station, told police that the shooter was as tall as or taller than the detective who interviewed her. According to police notes, this meant that the murderer was 5’9″ or 5’10”. Miss Howard testified at a preliminary hearing that she saw the shooter’s face for 5 seconds.

Thomas Bertha testified at the trial that he told the police the shooter was 5’9″ and weighed approximately 180 pounds. Mr. Bertha testified at a preliminary hearing that he saw the shooter’s face for just 1 second.

James Cameron didn’t give a description of the murderer’s height and weight in the original police statement, but his description of the shooter’s jacket doesn’t match that of Zahra Howard. Mr. Cameron testified at a preliminary hearing that he saw the shooter’s face for 20 seconds.

Jimmy Dennis’ height was established at the trial as 5’5″ with dress shoes. Pennsylvania’s Department of Corrections website states that Jimmy is 5’4.” Jimmy weighed approximately 130 pounds at the time of the murder. Witnesses described the shooter as having very dark skin, unlike Jimmy’s lighter complexion. Yet, the prosecutor, Roger King, told jurors to dismiss such details. He told them it wasn’t a case about weight, race and height, but rather about the right to take public transportation.

5.  As DNA evidence has repeatedly helped prove, eyewitness stranger identification is notoriously unreliable. 

When shown a photo spread and asked to identify the murderer, Zahra Howard selected Jimmy’s picture and stated, “This one looks like the guy, but I can’t be sure.”When the police detective asked, “Can you be sure that this is in fact the guy that shot Chedell?”, Miss Howard replied, “No.”

When shown a photo spread, James Cameron stated, “Number one looks familiar, but I can’t be sure.”

6.  Shanaqua Ramsey, a high school friend of Zahra Howard, has given a statement that Miss Howard told her that she was not sure she picked out the right person from the photo spread. According to Miss Ramsey, Miss Howard said that she really did not get a good look at the person because all she saw was “pulling and tugging.”

7.  The defense did not call any of several witnesses of the murder to testify at the trial, including David LeRoy, Dr. Clarence Verdell, and George Ritchie. These witnesses either failed to identify Jimmy as the assailant or identified someone else.

David LeRoy, a hot dog stand owner who witnessed the crime, described the assailant as 5’10” and wearing a red and white jacket or red jacket with a white shirt. However, he insisted that the crime happened so fast that he “only caught a glimpse of these males.” He refused to select anyone from the police officers’ photo spreads, saying, “I will not make an identification that could wrongly affect someone’s life.”

Dr. Clarence Verdell selected another suspect from the photo spread. Furthermore, Dr. Verdell states that there were as many as ten other witnesses giving descriptions to the police on the day of the murder.

George Ritchie described the assailants as being 5’9″ or 5″10″ in height and weighing approximately 170 to 190 pounds.

Yet Mr. LeRoy, Dr. Verdell, and Mr. Ritchie were NOT called to testify.

James Cameron said that there were as many as 50 witnesses to the crime. Sergeant John Fetscher testified that he could conservatively estimate that hundreds of people would have been present at the station at the time of the crime, yet only three (Zahra Howard, James Cameron, and Thomas Bertha) testified at the trial.

8.  Jimmy lacked a motive to rob or murder anyone.

George Pratt was a promoter, producer and manager in the production and entertainment division of  G. W. Management Incorporated. He had his own record label. Mr. Pratt testified that at the time of Jimmy’s arrest, he had a verbal contract with Jimmy and was in the process of completing a written contract with him to produce gospel music.

The Sensation group members gave statements and trial testimony that the group practiced singing and dance steps for 4 ½ to 9 hours every day.

9.  Charles Thompson and police coercion

Charles Thompson was a member of Jimmy’s singing group, Sensation. On November 8, 1991, Charles Thompson gave a statement to the police that he had seen Jimmy with a gun on the night of the murder during the singing group’s rehearsal. Mr. Thompson also testified to this at Jimmy’s trial in 1992. On January 24, 1996, Mr. Thompson retracted his statement and his 1992 trial testimony, explaining that his original statement was a result of intimidation. In his recantation, he states that he was handcuffed to a chair and badgered for hours by five police officers, who were insisting that he implicate Jimmy or face murder charges himself. He ultimately decided to tell the police officers “what they wanted to hear and just get out and not be charged with anything.” He insists that he has never seen Jimmy with a gun, and that he attempted to retract his statement prior to the trial. Mr. Thompson explains: “It was in my conscience, I couldn’t sleep and get it out of my mind.  It was like a monkey on my back.” However, Mr. Thompson states that the prosecutor, Roger King, told him that nothing could be changed in his statement.

Charles Thompson had a motive to lie about Jimmy. At the time of his statement to the police in 1991, there were charges against Mr. Thompson for assault of a pregnant woman. These charges were dropped prior to Jimmy’s trial. At the time of the trial in 1992, Mr. Thompson had been charged with a felony involving drugs. Mr. Thompson confessed in his recantation that he was expecting help with his drug case because he was helping them (the prosecution).

10.  Police did not immediately arrest Jimmy after getting Mr. Thompson’s statement, nor is there any mention of Charles Thompson in the arrest warrant.

Charles Thompson gave his statement to the police on November 8, 1991. Though his statement later became a focal point in the trial, there is no mention of Mr. Thompson’s statement in the arrest warrant dated November 22, 1991. This corroborates Mr. Thompson’s recantation; that is, the fact that the police didn’t include Thompson’s statement in the arrest warrant supports Thompson’s insistence that his original statement was coerced. There also is no reasonable explanation as to why the police didn’t immediately arrest Jimmy after obtaining Thompson’s November 8 statement. In fact, Jimmy wasn’t arrested until November 23. Furthermore, any evidence mentioned in the arrest warrant was available to the police as early as October 28.

11.  All of the other members of Jimmy’s singing group testified at the trial that Charles Thompson was lying and that they never saw Jimmy with a gun.

12.  Where are the accomplices? Though there were a number of other potential suspects, and witnesses agreed that three people were involved, no one else was ever charged with this crime.

13.  Jimmy’s case was not properly investigated by the defense. The lack of preparation is evident in the fact that numerous witnesses who should have been called to testify on Jimmy’s behalf were not contacted. In 1991, Jimmy’s attorney, Mr. Lee Mandell, had 46 active court-appointed cases, not including his private practice.

14.  Jimmy Dennis has always maintained his innocence. He was unwilling to accept any plea bargains or deals.

15. Jimmy’s alibi is supported by at least three other individuals. However, LaTanya Cason, who was merely an acquaintance of Jimmy’s, unintentionally gave false information at Jimmy’s trial due to her misinterpreting a time stamp on a bank check, which was stamped in military time. Jimmy knew that he saw Ms. Cason at approximately 2:00 pm on the day of the murder. Ms. Cason testified that after leaving work that day, she cashed a check and did some shopping. She estimated that she saw Jimmy about an hour after cashing her check, which was stamped 13:03. Falsely believing that 13:03 meant 3:03 pm, Ms. Cason testified that she saw Jimmy between 4:00 and 4:30 pm. She has since given a statement rectifying her mistake, stating that she would have seen Jimmy between 2:00 and 2:30 pm, which supports Jimmy’s alibi.

16.  Police were pressured to find a murderer. This was a high profile case in Philadelphia. The city was outraged over yet another senseless murder. The local media focused on this crime, with numerous stories in the major newspapers. The media had portrayed Jimmy as the killer even before the trial, which was held in Philadelphia. One juror mentioned in a statement that other jurors slept during various parts of the trial. No reprimand regarding this was given by the judge to the jurors, as such instruction is absent from the transcripts.

17.  The conduct and words of Roger King, the prosecutor, were so inflammatory that Pennsylvania’s State Supreme Court nearly overturned Jimmy’s case on the basis of Mr. King’s startling behavior. Here are some quotes: “And as I said in my opening, stick a fork in him and turn him over. He will be done when you say he is done.”And, “We’re talking about the right to take public transportation. . .’cause this is what this case is about, ladies and gentlemen. It’s not about race, it’s not about size and height.”

18.  The angle of the bullet wound suggests a murderer who was as tall as or taller than the victim. According to the postmortem report, the direction of the gunshot wound was “slightly downwards.” David LeRoy, who witnessed the murder, gave a statement that the murderer was “a little taller” than the victim. Though it was never mentioned at the trial, Chedell Williams was 5’10”.

19.  There is evidence of documents that were never turned over to the defense.

In some cases, it is known that specific individuals gave statements to the police, but these statements were never produced for the defense to review.

20.  Numerous individuals appeared at Jimmy’s trial and testified to his good conduct and character in the community. Unfortunately, Mr. Mandell did not give all of the people an opportunity to testify individually. In the interest of time (which should not have been a factor, considering Jimmy’s life was at stake), Mr. Mandell had several of Jimmy’s friends and family members agree in unison that they could attest to Jimmy’s good character in his community without actually having them take the stand. In any case, 26 people either testified on Jimmy’s behalf or publicly vouched for Jimmy’s good character at his trial.

Jimmy’s pastor, Rubin Jones, stated that he knew Jimmy all his life and that Jimmy was a member of his church, the Christian Tabernacle Church of God in Christ. He testified that Jimmy had been an active member of the choir and in the last couple of years had attended the church’s services “about every time the door opened.”

21.  Though this final point is not objective evidence, we the members of “Justice for Jimmy International”– a global volunteer-based support organization– have had the opportunity to read hundreds of letters from Jimmy and to meet him in person. We are privileged to know Jimmy and consider him a good friend. Our intense study of his case in the last few years and our own personal knowledge of his character have caused us to conclude that not only is Jimmy Dennis innocent, but also that the world has been far worse off in his absence. Jimmy is a beautiful person of incredible substance, a true gem who has a lot to offer to all of us, and yet he has been assigned to die. In fact, a death warrant was signed by a former governor of Pennsylvania, and an execution date was once set for him. 

 

SAVE JIMMY DENNIS, AN INNOCENT MAN ON DEATH ROW

HOW YOU CAN HELP: Become an educated spokesperson for Jimmy by learning the facts of his case. Spread the word. Tell your family members, friends, and acquaintances that you know about an innocent man on death row named Jimmy Dennis. Find opportunities to speak about Jimmy. If you would be willing to distribute literature, wear a “Free Jimmy Dennis” bracelet or t-shirt, sign a petition, receive monthly email updates on Jimmy’s case, or put a bumper sticker on your car, let us know. Also, if you would be interested in helping us advertise about Jimmy’s case in major newspapers in Philadelphia, please contact us.

If you have any information whatsoever about this case, please call Jimmy Dennis’ Tip Line at 1-800-728-1854 (toll free and confidential) or contact his support team, “Justice for Jimmy, International” at jimmydennis.org.

Please consider giving to Jimmy’s defense fund. Checks or money orders can be made out to The James A. Dennis Legal Expense Trust. The address is The James A. Dennis Legal Expense Trust, Sun Trust Bank Dept. 28, Washington, D.C., 20042-0028.

Lastly, if you have any questions or comments, or if you would like to receive monthly email updates on Jimmy’s case, please contact us at jimmydennis.org. or visit our Facebook page, “Justice for Jimmy International, Inc.”

More info here:

http://www.jimmydennis.org,

http://www.jimmydennis.com

Interview:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/the-other-side-of-justice/2012/08/01/the-city-of-not-so-brotherly-love-the-jimmy-dennis-case

Petition:

https://www.change.org/petitions/free-jimmy-dennis-innocent-on-death-row-2

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Va. DNA data support innocence of 33 convicted of sex crimes, study concludes

June 18, 2012 Source : http://www2.timesdispatch.com

RICHMOND, Va. —

Data from Virginia’s post-conviction DNA project support the innocence of 33 persons convicted of sexual assaults from 1973 to 1987 concludes an Urban Institute study.

Findings released today indicate more people remain to be cleared by the Virginia project, a groundbreaking effort aimed at identifying persons wrongfully convicted in the 15 years before DNA testing was widely available.

The institute estimates a wrongful conviction rate in sexual assault cases of between 8 to 15 percent, comparable with the results in sample testing that exonerated two people and prompted then-Gov. Mark R. Warner to order the full Virginia project in 2005.

Jon Gould, director, of the Washington Institute for Public and International Affairs Research at American University, said “This is the most methodologically sound study that’s been done and the rate is much higher than has been shown in other studies.”

An acknowledged weakness in the institute’s report is that the contract for the study expired before researchers could get to courthouses to review the old trial files to better determine the context and significance of the DNA results.

The institute said available information on the cases was limited to data in the old state forensic files, which mainly included basic facts about the crime and the results of the original forensic tests and the results of more recent DNA analysis.

Rockne Harmon, a former California district attorney and DNA expert, said that is a problem. He said the institute should have at least done a representative sampling of the old court files.

Among other things, rape victims are frequently asked if they had consensual sex within 72 hours of an assault. “Without this (kind of) information little can be said about the materiality of finding a matching or non-matching DNA profile,” said Harmon.

However, John Roman, the lead researcher in the project, said that even if all the court records were reviewed he would not expect many of the 33 cases to drop out.

Weaknesses or not, Steven D. Benjamin, a member of the Virginia Board of Forensic Science and president elect of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said the study should set off alarm bells.

“Each defendant in the cases that support innocence should be interviewed immediately, and the case investigated thoroughly,” he said. “If any one of these 33 is innocent, each day . . . is an injustice,” said Benjamin.

The Urban Institute cannot reveal any of the identities, though many of those cases may be made public after July 1 due to recent state legislation ordering the department to release test results in cases where the convicted person’s DNA was not found.

Nearly 800 cases involving 1,100 convicted persons have been tested in the Virginia project since 2005 but only three more people have been exonerated in addition to the two cleared in sample testing seven years ago.

The Urban Institute says the Virginia data – DNA results in a random sample of suspects convicted of rape, murder and other serious crimes — is better suited for such studies on wrongful conviction rates than data in earlier studies.

“This ‘test-them-all’ approach to post-conviction DNA testing has never been replicated by any other state,” says the report.

The Virginia Department of Forensic Science said last month that testing failed to identify, or excluded, the DNA of 78 convicted defendants more than a dozen of them now dead and others not yet located.

Absence of DNA in the 78 cases can be consistent with innocence but may prove nothing. Much depends on context. Failure to find a suspect’s DNA in a cigarette butt at the scene of a rape may be irrelevant — but failure their DNA in semen can be telling.

Though unable to review old courthouse files, the institute said the Virginia data, “likely provide the best opportunity to date to understand the rate of wrongful conviction.”

“Whether the true rate of potential wrongful conviction is 8 percent or 15 percent . . . is not as important as the finding that these results require a strong and coordinated policy response,” concludes the institute report.

Brandon Garrett, a University of Virginia School of Law professor, also thinks the study needs a strong response from policy makers. “I think this report isn’t the final report, it’s just the beginning,” he said.

“There’s still a lot of (work) to do and a lot of questions that need to be answered,” said Garrett.

The Virginia Department of Forensic Science does not determine the legal significance of test results and forwarded them to local authorities where the crimes took place.

But aside from the five exonerations and several other cases, little is known of the other exclusion cases.

Critics of the Virginia effort such as Benjamin and Peter Neufeld, a cofounder of the Innocence Project, want to allow defense lawyers access to project results along with police and prosecutors.

They also urge that cases of possible wrongful convictions be pursued even where the convicted person is dead to clear their name, to make sure the guilty person is off the street and to learn what led to the wrongful conviction to help prevent future ones.

The Virginia Department of Forensic Science and the Board of Forensic Science, which considers the DNA test results criminal records, have long resisted efforts to reveal them to anyone other than law enforcement.

The convicted people were not going to be told about the testing until 2008 when the General Assembly used a budget amendment and directed they be notified.

This year the General Assembly, concerned that potential exonerations were not being adequately investigated, directed the department, effective July 1, to release the test results in cases where testing failed to find the convicted person’s DNA.

The legislators’ concern stemmed from the case of Bennett S. Barbour, of Charles City County, who was wrongly convicted of a 1978 rape in Williamsburg and was one of the people excluded by testing who could not be initially found by mail.

Testing in June 2010 cleared him and implicated a convicted rapist who will be tried for the crime in August. Barbour did not learn about the DNA testing until 18 months later when a volunteer lawyer tracked him down via telephone.

Garrett, of the University of Virginia School of Law, who urges more work be done, said, “Time will tell how many more of these cases, like Barbour’s, will result in full exonerations. Hopefully that process is moving more smoothly now.”

Methodology

Here is how the study was conducted:

The Justice Policy Center of the Urban Institute studied the test results in 634 of the Virginia cases involving 715 convicted people from 94 Virginia localities under the terms of a $4.5 million federal grant that paid for most, but not all, of the state testing.

Of the 634 cases, 422 were for sexual assault. In 227 of those cases, testing results were sufficient to either implicate or fail to find the convicted person’s DNA. And the institute believes that the testing in 33 of the exclusion cases supports innocence.

Comparing the 33 with all 422 sexual assault convictions yields an 8 percent wrongful conviction rate while comparing it to just the 227 cases where testing either implicated the convicted person or failed to find his or her DNA yields a 15 percent rate.

In 2005 the initial state sample testing of 31 cases resulted in 16 cases where the convicted person’s DNA was either identified or excluded and exonerated two men of rapes.

Comparing the two exonerations to the 31 cases yields a wrongful conviction rate of 6 to 7 percent while comparing the exonerations to the 16 cases with determinative results yields a rate of 12 to 13 percent.

According to the Urban Institute, the Justice Policy Center conducts nonpartisan research and evaluation designed to improve justice and public safety policies and practices at the national, state and local level.

 

Prosecutors often challenge DNA evidence that could clear the convicted

June 13, 2012 Source : http://www.chicagotribune.com

When Terrill Swift was released from prison after serving 15 years for rape and murder, he sought DNA testing because he wanted to prove his innocence. Cook County prosecutors opposed his efforts but relented last year after the Tribune made inquiries about Swift’s request.

After the DNA from semen in the victim’s body was matched to a convicted murderer and rapist, Swift went to court to get his conviction thrown out. But prosecutors opposed that effort, saying the DNA was meaningless, especially when considered against Swift’s confession.

A judge turned aside prosecutors’ arguments, saying the DNA was powerful evidence, and earlier this year the judge vacated Swift’s conviction.

And last month, when Swift went to court to obtain a certificate of innocence to expunge the record of his arrest and conviction and clear the way for him to seek compensation from the state, prosecutors opposed that request, too, saying Swift’s disputed confession outweighed the DNA.

Nearly a quarter-century into the DNA era, what has been called the gold standard of forensic evidence has fulfilled its promise to help police and prosecutors win convictions. Rare is the case in which DNA evidence, particularly in a rape or a murder, does not send a defendant to prison.

DNA’s potential to free the innocent has been more elusive. That has been especially true in Cook and Lake counties, where prosecutors have opposed requests for DNA testing and then downplayed the results when they excluded their leading suspects or inmates trying to win their freedom.

“When we started doing this work 20 years ago, we received opposition on requests and motions to do post-conviction DNA testing in more than three-quarters of the cases,” said Peter Neufeld, a co-founder of the New York-based Innocence Project. “Today … the overwhelming majority of prosecutors do not oppose motions for DNA testing.”

What’s more, Neufeld said, prosecutors rarely challenge DNA results that appear to indicate a suspect’s innocence. Prosecutors in Cook and Lake counties are part of a tiny group that consistently do that, he said.

“That kind of consistent rejection of logic and common sense,” Neufeld said, “is fairly unequaled around the country.”

Prosecutors counter that DNA is not the “end all” of evidence, as Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez once said, and say they are bound to consider all evidence in a case, not just the DNA. In the cases where DNA has failed to persuade prosecutors, the opposition frequently has been supported by a suspect’s confession. For decades a building block of murder cases, confessions remain remarkably potent in spite of what DNA has revealed about their frailties.

“Generally speaking, the significance of DNA evidence varies from case to case,” said Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for Alvarez. “In some cases, it may be critically important to a criminal investigation or a prosecution. In others, it can be relatively unimportant. It is the state’s attorney’s opinion and the general policy of this office that DNA evidence cannot be viewed in a vacuum, but rather examined in light of all of the other facts and evidence known at the time.

“DNA evidence certainly establishes a link between the donor of the DNA and a location or a piece of evidence, but it does not always establish the identity of the criminal,” Daly added. “The significance of DNA evidence is dependent upon all other facts available in the totality of the investigation.”

A series of cases in Lake County illustrate that standoff.

On May 15, Lake County prosecutors issued news releases announcing new murder charges in two cases — the bludgeoning of Fred Reckling, 71, in Waukegan in 1994 and the stabbings of Laura Hobbs, 8, and Krystal Tobias, 9, in Zion in 2005.

Both announcements credited “newly developed leads and forensic findings … actively pursued by law enforcement.” The releases did not mention that the new sets of charges resulted from DNA tests that prosecutors had dismissed as either unnecessary or meaningless.

In the Reckling case, prosecutors fought for years to block post-conviction testing sought by James Edwards, who had confessed and was sentenced to life in prison.

Edwards, often working as his own lawyer, claimed his innocence could be proved by testing blood found at the scene from a then-unidentified man. Prosecutors argued at trial that the blood in Reckling’s appliance store and car did not clear Edwards because it could have come from a store employee. They aimed to block post-conviction testing by noting that jurors were presented with that theory, and they still found Edwards guilty.

“Testing of this showing us who specifically (the blood came from) is not going to exculpate the defendant,” said then-Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Mermel, according to a court transcript. “The defendant is wasting the time of the criminal justice system because he has nothing else to do but write these motions.”

After Edwards had spent 14 years in prison, the Illinois Supreme Court ordered the DNA tests. Last month, prosecutors said forensic evidence had guided investigators toward Hezekiah Whitfield, 42, of Chicago, who is now charged with murder.

Prosecutors agreed to a new trial for Edwards and then immediately dropped the charges, though he remains jailed on separate convictions for armed robbery and murder.

“The Supreme Court says prosecutors have a duty to seek justice, not convictions,” said Edwards’ lawyer, Paul De Luca. “Doesn’t it seem like they didn’t abide by the rules?”

In the killing of the two girls in Zion in May 2005, lawyers for the original suspect — Jerry Hobbs, one victim’s father — clashed with prosecutors over the timeline and procedures for both sides to assess the physical evidence. Immediately after the murders, authorities sent evidence to the Northeastern Illinois Regional Crime Laboratory, where analysis with a microscope found no semen evidence that would have indicated a sexual assault, according to the lab’s report.

After Hobbs had spent more than two years in jail awaiting trial, the defense team’s scientists reported the opposite — that semen from another man had been found in Laura Hobbs and on her clothes. Hobbs’ lawyers argued this proved that his confession — given after some 24 hours of intermittent interrogation — was false. Prosecutors disagreed, arguing that the girls had been playing in the woods and the girl could have touched some semen and then wiped herself.

“The defense is … misleading the court,” Mermel said in December 2008. “What they have is one errant sperm which is impossible to deposit by the offender or an offender. It’s trace evidence.”

After that hearing, Hobbs sat in jail for more than a year before the DNA was matched to Jorge Torrez, a onetime friend of Tobias’ brother, according to court records. While Hobbs was jailed, prosecutors say, Torrez murdered a 20-year-old woman in 2009 and raped another in 2010, both in Virginia. Torrez is now serving five life sentences for a series of attacks on women, including the rape, and he faces trial in the Virginia murder case.

Hobbs was freed in August 2010, but nearly two years passed before the Lake County prosecutor’s office tacitly acknowledged his confession was false by announcing that Torrez had been charged with the girls’ murders. Mermel retired this year amid controversy over remarks he made to the media about the meaning of DNA. Lake County prosecutors could not be reached for comment. Mermel declined to comment.

Hobbs’ attorney, Kathleen Zellner, said she would like to see legislation making confessions inadmissible in court unless they can be corroborated by physical evidence. Prosecutors, she said, repeatedly have proved reluctant to admit the faults of their favorite evidentiary tools.

“(DNA) takes away the power that a prosecutor would have to develop a case around an eyewitness or a confession … and I guess there’s resistance to that,” she said.

Zellner has another client fighting his case in which DNA calls into question the conviction. Though there is no confession, prosecutors say the DNA does not persuade them of his innocence. So far they have declined to vacate the man’s conviction, although they say they are “actively investigating” the case.

Alprentiss Nash was convicted in the 1995 murder of a man named Leon Stroud during a home invasion and robbery and sentenced to 80 years in prison. Nash, according to prosecutors, put on a black ski mask before committing the crime, and the mask was found near the crime scene.

Cook County prosecutors under then-State’s Attorney Dick Devine opposed Nash’s request for testing, but the Illinois Appellate Court later ordered it. When the testing was done on skin cells found on the mask, the genetic profile was matched to an inmate who recently was paroled from prison after serving time for a drug conviction. Zellner requested additional testing, to which Alvarez’s office agreed.

In an interview at Menard Correctional Center, where he is being held, Nash, 37, said he hoped the DNA results would lead to his release.

“I’m tired of doing time,” he said of his 17 years in custody.

But Alvarez’s prosecutors argue that the DNA evidence does not clear Nash, which has frustrated him and Zellner.

“They’ve got an exclusion. They’ve got the profile of the real killer,” Zellner said. “And they’re horsing around with it.”