August 11: Former Neonatal nurse Lucy Letby: U.K. Prominent British public health expert and academic explains in a commentary published by LBD, under the heading, "Lucy Letby: Innocent until stitched up," why he has every reason to believe Letby is innocent," noting that, "Having had over the course of my career first hand experience of some of the most notorious clinical service failings of the last 40 years, including the Shipman murders, the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital organ retention scandal, and the Morecambe Bay maternal and child health hospital deaths, and having cut my disaster awareness teeth at the Hillsborough Stadium disaster in 1989, my antennae were aroused very early on during the trial of Lucy Letby. "

PASSAGE OF THE DAY:  "By the time the case came to court Lucy Letby was on a hiding to nothing, what with the gross misuse of medical statistics and of conjured up ‘evidence’ since disproven, relating to the use of insulin and injections of air to kill and harm the innocents.  A scientifically illiterate judiciary and jury were the icing on the cake for the ‘journalistic bystanders’, knitting while the tumbrels approached to claim a young nurse as a victim. If the death penalty were still in place, she would by now have been hanged."

---------------------------------- 

PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Having been immersed in the detail of the evidence with dozens of international experts from a wide range of relevant disciplines for the past two years, I can now say that I have every reason to believe that Lucy Letby is innocent of the charges against her and that the true culprits lie elsewhere and with a failed system of medical care and justice. My heart goes out to all those who are the victims of what now appears to be a gross calumny."

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STORY: "Lucy Letby: Innocent until stitched up?"  by Professor John Ashton, published on August 11, 2026, by. LBC on August 11, 2026. (Professor John Ashton served as Regional Director of Public Health for North-West England for 13 years.)

 

SUB-HEADING: "Professor John Ashton says he has every reason to believe Letby is innocent."

GIST "One of the earliest hard lessons learned in medical school is that ‘common things are commonest’ and that the everyday complaints that characterise a family doctor's evening surgery are usually very different from the esoteric pre-digested diet of patients referred to the teaching hospital.

As with routine medical practice, so it is with the ‘routine’ of medical disasters and cock-ups.

The fact that so many maternity and neonatal units are currently the subject of investigation should have alerted us to the understanding that, rather than being rife with bad sole actors determined to wreak havoc and death on those who they have dedicated their lives to helping, we are facing a perfect storm of dysfunctional organisational settings. 

In my extensive experience as a Director of Public Health and Regional Medical Officer in the UK’s second largest region of England’s North West, while bad actors certainly do exist, when clinical disasters occur they are usually the result of a convergence of factors amounting to a perfect storm in a dysfunctional organisation. 

These factors include a lack of self awareness in hierarchical organisations combined with overweening ambition and a closing of ranks when things go wrong; none of which is helped by underinvestment and stretched resources.

Having had over the course of my career first hand experience of some of the most notorious clinical service failings of the last 40 years, including the Shipman murders, the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital organ retention scandal, and the Morecambe Bay maternal and child health hospital deaths, and having cut my disaster awareness teeth at the Hillsborough Stadium disaster in 1989, my antennae were aroused very early on during the trial of Lucy Letby. 

What we now know is that among the factors in play was a hospital hell bent on playing above its competence in the race to be a Foundation Hospital Trust in 2004, leading to a collusion of management and medical staff in taking very sick babies that were outside their competence; staffing levels and clinical practices that were not fit for purpose in a worn out building that suffered from serious environmental health threats; and when things went wrong a rush to scapegoat a dedicated nurse whose only fault was her willingness to go above and beyond the call of duty in pursuing her vocation. 

Once the clinicians in the hospital got the bit between their teeth alongside a dysfunctional and publicity seeking Cheshire Constabulary the script began to write itself, helped along by a long retired and unqualified ‘expert witness’ who had skin in the game. 

By the time the case came to court Lucy Letby was on a hiding to nothing, what with the gross misuse of medical statistics and of conjured up ‘evidence’ since disproven, relating to the use of insulin and injections of air to kill and harm the innocents. 

A scientifically illiterate judiciary and jury were the icing on the cake for the ‘journalistic bystanders’, knitting while the tumbrels approached to claim a young nurse as a victim. If the death penalty were still in place, she would by now have been hanged. 

At the beginning of this sorry affair, I held the view that the evidence against Lucy Letby was wholly circumstantial and that it was not possible to say whether or not she was guilty. 

Having been immersed in the detail of the evidence with dozens of international experts from a wide range of relevant disciplines for the past two years, I can now say that I have every reason to believe that Lucy Letby is innocent of the charges against her and that the true culprits lie elsewhere and with a failed system of medical care and justice. 

My heart goes out to all those who are the victims of what now appears to be a gross calumny.

________________________________

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/lucy-letby-innocent-until-stitched-up-5HjdRpN_2/

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 The Shipman murders; "Harold Frederick Shipman (14 January 1946 – 13 January 2004), known to acquaintances as Fred Shipman, was an English doctor in general practice and serial killer. He is considered to be one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history, with an estimated 250 victims over roughly 30 years. On 31 January 2000, Shipman was convicted of murdering 15 patients under his care."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shipman

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The Alder Hey Children’s Hospital organ retention scandal; "The Alder Hey organs scandal in Liverpool, England, involved the unauthorised removal, retention, and disposal of human tissue, including children's organs, during the period 1981 to 1996. Organs were retained in more than 2,000 pots^{[note 1]} containing body parts from around 850 infants. These were later uncovered at Alder Hey Children's Hospital, during a public inquiry into the organ retention scandal."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alder_Hey_organs_scandal

-------------------------------------------------------

The Morecambe Bay maternal and child health hospital; deaths: "The **Kirkup Report**, formally known as the **Report of the Morecambe Bay Investigation**, was an independent inquiry chaired by **Dr. Bill Kirkup CBE**. It investigated serious failings in maternity and neonatal services at the **University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust** between **January 2004 and June 2013**. The inquiry was initiated in response to a series of tragic incidents, including the deaths of three mothers and 16 babies, which highlighted significant deficiencies in the care provided."

morecombe

----------------------------------------

The Hillsborough Stadium disaster: "The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal crowd crush at a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989. It occurred during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in the two standing-only central pens within the Leppings Lane stand allocated to Liverpool supporters. Shortly before kick-off, police match commander David Duckenfield ordered exit gate C to be opened in an attempt to ease crowding, which led to an influx of supporters entering the pens.^[1] This resulted in overcrowding of those pens and the fatal crush; with a total of 97 fatalities and 766 injuries, the disaster is the deadliest in British sporting history.^[2] Ninety-four people died on the day; one more died in hospital days later, and two more suffered irreversible brain damage on the day and died in 1993 and 2021 respectively.^[3] 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

August 10: The Chester 3: Pennsylvania: Unravelling the threads of mixed DNA: (Samuel Grasty, Morton Johnson and Derrick Chappell): Their defence teams are seeking review by the full Pennsylvania Superior Court - after a panel of three judges last month overturned a Common Pleas Court order that would have granted them new trials. The Delco Times (Reporter Alex Rose) reports, noting that: Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan issued an order in March 2024 that the men should be granted new trials due to advances in DNA evidence that seemed to exclude them from the crime scene while also implicating a single person identified as “Unknown Male 1.”

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Brennan heard from Professor Timothy Palmbach, a crime scene investigation expert, and DNA expert Dr. C. Alan Keel, former director of the Forensic Analytical Crime Lab in California, at hearings in July and August of 2022. Keel explained that DNA testing technology has increased significantly since the three men were tried, especially in the ability to pick up much fainteBrr “touch” DNA that can be left behind from a person merely brushing an object. He found that the new testing indicated the defendants “were not involved in this crime.”

----------------------------------

STORY: "Delco Times Defense teams for ‘Chester 3’ seek review by full Superior Court," by Reporter Alex Rose, published by The Delco Times, on August 5, 2026.

G Defense attorneys representing a trio of men convicted in the 1997 murder of a 70-year-old Chester woman have asked for a reconsideration of their fate by the full Pennsylvania Superior Court after a panel of three judges last month overturned a Common Pleas Court order that would have granted them new trials.

Samuel Grasty, Morton Johnson and Derrick Chappell, known as the “Chester 3,” were separately convicted in trials from 1998 to 2001 in the death of Henrietta Nickens inside her home on the 3200 block of West 10th Street in Chester on Oct. 10, 1997.

Chappell, 44, and Grasty, 49, each received life sentences, while Johnson, 47, received a de facto life sentence of 99 years.

They were 15, 20 and 18 years old, respectively, when the crime occurred. Chappell was later resentenced to 28 years to life after the U.S. Supreme Court retroactively changed the rules for sentencing minors.

All maintain their innocence.

Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan issued an order in March 2024 that the men should be granted new trials due to advances in DNA evidence that seemed to exclude them from the crime scene while also implicating a single person identified as “Unknown Male 1.”

Brennan heard from Professor Timothy Palmbach, a crime scene investigation expert, and DNA expert Dr. C. Alan Keel, former director of the Forensic Analytical Crime Lab in California, at hearings in July and August of 2022.

Keel explained that DNA testing technology has increased significantly since the three men were tried, especially in the ability to pick up much fainter “touch” DNA that can be left behind from a person merely brushing an object.

He found that the new testing indicated the defendants “were not involved in this crime.”

Palmbach said that a previously unidentified stain on Nickens’ bedsheet had been tested in 2022 and found to contain blood from the victim and semen from a person identified only as the unknown male.

Based on his prior testing in 2006 and 2008, Palmbach said the blood, urine and semen making up the stain all had to be in a liquid form at the same time before soaking into and fixing to the bedsheet in the manner they had.

Though it was known when all three petitioners were tried that there was DNA from another unknown person at the crime scene, Palmbach said this stain undercut prior prosecution theories that they were unrelated to Nickens’ death.

Brennan said in an opinion supporting her granting of new trials that the new evidence provided an avenue for the petitioners to make a “strong, scientifically based argument” for a single-perpetrator defense at trial that was not available to them when they were convicted.

Brennan noted that the updated testing also specifically excluded each of the defendants as contributors to any of the evidence at the scene, including a green jacket left behind and a plastic straw inside the jacket that prosecutors had previously tied to Grasty and Johnson.

‘Court erred’

Two of the Superior Court judges issued a memorandum overturning Brennan’s order, however, finding her analysis contravened clearly delineated rules for when a new trial may be granted.

The standard, set by the state Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Murchison, requires taking the totality of the evidence into consideration, including that already entered at trial.

“Because petitioners already had DNA evidence excluding them as contributors to the DNA found in the victim’s body, and argued at their individual trials that the DNA evidence exonerated them, we conclude, based on the unanimously decided Murchison … (that) the (Post-Conviction Relief Act) court erred in finding that the 2021 DNA evidence was after-discovered evidence within the meaning of the PCRA, specifically, as it erred in concluding that the evidence was not cumulative and would likely compel a different verdict,” the majority opinion stated.

The majority opinion filed by Judges Megan Sullivan and Maria McLaughlin additionally found that Brennan failed to adhere to Murchison’s directive that “the only way to assess the likelihood that after-discovered evidence will produce a different result is to review the totality of all the trial circumstances.”

The Post Conviction Relief Act court showed no such reliance on the trial record, the majority found, instead basing its decision solely on the PCRA testimony and expert reports.

President Judge Anne E. Lazarus wrote in her dissent that the new DNA evidence does not merely illustrate that UM1 was in Nickens’ apartment that night, but also that it was “physically impossible” that any of the petitioners were present. It made a compelling case, she said, that the unknown male was the person who assaulted and likely killed Nickens.

“Further, I am unpersuaded that the petitioners’ previous attempts to raise the single-perpetrator defense at trial preclude them from successfully pleading and proving the after-discovered evidence test now,” Lazarus wrote. “As noted in Murchison, after-discovered evidence that strengthens a defense may still warrant a new trial where the grade and character of that evidence is such that it would likely change the outcome. Here, the DNA evidence cannot fairly be broken-down piece-by-piece but, rather, must be considered in its totality.”

Appeals court erred?

In reconsideration petitions filed this week, defense attorneys with the nonprofit Centurion in Princeton, New Jersey, the Innocence Project, the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, the Exoneration Project, and the firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon argued that it was the Superior Court panel that had erred, not Brennan.

The petitions were filed on behalf of each defendant individually and therefore make specific arguments concerning the particular petitioner’s case, but make several of the same points that the court misapprehended established case law or ignored significant factors.

The individual filings argue that the Superior Court seemed to impermissibly lump the defendants and the evidence of all three trials together, though there were some elements that may have been only briefly touched on in one trial or that were not available at the time of another.

In doing so, the petitioners state the Superior Court inaccurately assessed the evidence related to each petitioner’s individual conviction and inappropriately merged the records of all three men while failing to take into account the different exhibits, arguments and witnesses presented for each at trial.

While the Superior Court pointed to witness testimony supporting conviction at trials for all three men, the petitioners argued it failed to gauge the credibility of those witnesses, particularly ones who may have been incentivized.

The defense also argues that the majority seemed to ignore Brennan’s statement that she had conducted an “extensive review” of the full record, not just the testimony presented in the PCRA proceedings.

As to those proceedings, the Superior Court put aside the lower court’s express findings that Keel and Palmbach had provided credible evidence and did not appear to consider their testimony at all, the petitioners argued.

Unlike the “evidentiarily neutral” evidence reviewed in Murchison, the evidence presented about the stain on the bed was crucially important in establishing that Nickens’ fatal beating and apparent sexual assault occurred simultaneously and pointed to a single actor, according to the defense.

While there is a maxim that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” the petitioner’s note the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last year cautioned that the saying “is not universally true,” and that “it is erroneous to claim the absence of evidence can never be probative.”

Here, the petitioners argue, that absence of evidence is of overwhelming probative value, given the totality of the other, newly strengthened evidence supporting a single unknown perpetrator.

The entire story can be read at:

https://share.google/gVGI3O2DMPvTNGHt2

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

Discredited Forensic Scientist Mary Jane Burton: Virginia: A landmark dna case is among Virginia executions being examined in a review of her 'work', WVTF (Reporter Dave Cantor) reports, noting that: "During a meeting of the Forensic Science Board this summer, a state researcher announced that 7,545 cases connected to Burton had been assessed — a process that took about two years. That work identified 199 cases where the serologist likely testified in court and found 3,857 individuals who were named suspects in more than 5,000 cases where she may have contributed evidence. The conviction status of thousands of people in those cases has yet to be determined. When that step’s completed, the cases will be assessed by a Crime Commission subcommittee comprising a Commonwealth’s Attorney, public defender, a retired circuit court judge and others. People potentially affected by Burton’s work are being contacted by DFS, but the department has not contacted the families of the executed men, Jenkins said."

BACKGROUND: "From a previous post of this Blog:  (28 October, 2024): "Discredited former lab analyst Mary Jane Burton: Virginia: Half-hearted effort to identify individuals who may have been convicted because of her tainted work? (Sure looks like it! HL); VPM (Reporter Megan Pauly) reports that the Virginia State Crime Commission has recommended a deeper view of her work. noting that some critics are deeply concerned by the number of people convicted whose evidence was analyzed by Burton…"Del. Charniele Herring (D–Alexandria), majority leader for Virginia’s House of Delegates and chair of the Crime Commission, said she gets a lump in her throat every time she sees the number of people convicted whose evidence was analyzed by Burton. She thinks further review of Burton’s work — and potential legislative changes — are warranted to ensure more innocent people were not wrongfully convicted. “The number of executions… it weighs heavy,” Herring told VPM News. “I'm glad we got rid of the death penalty in Virginia, because people can make mistakes, or intentionally falsify evidence.”

1023086286015384380

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "As work to review the breadth of Burton’s time at the state crime lab continues, Armbrust — the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project’s executive director — said legislation focused on potentially problematic testimony and evidence could protect against future scenarios when this kind of process is necessary. But she also explained the importance of the current review. “One of the questions that comes up when people are looking into something like Mary Jane Burton is, ‘But that was so many years ago, who really cares?’” Armbrust said. “It's really important for the credibility of Virginia's criminal legal system going forward that it grapples with sins of the past and tries to learn from those things.”

----------------------------------------

PASSAGE  ONE OF THE DAY: "Legislation in 2024 began the reexamination of Burton’s time at the state crime lab, after independent journalist Tessa Kramer found reason to question her practices. A bill the following year defined the review panel being set up by the Crime Commission; members are expected to be selected this summer. The eight executed men were collectively found guilty in the deaths of 16 people between 1977 and 1993. Most were connected to a single killing, though Poyner and Spencer were found guilty in multiple deaths. The executions were carried out by the Virginia Department of Corrections during the ’80s and ’90s, overlapping with an increase in the American prison population and its use of capital punishment. The term “superpredator” also entered the American lexicon around the same time."

-------------------------------------

PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "As work to review the breadth of Burton’s time at the state crime lab continues, Armbrust — the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project’s executive director — said legislation focused on potentially problematic testimony and evidence could protect against future scenarios when this kind of process is necessary. But she also explained the importance of the current review. “One of the questions that comes up when people are looking into something like Mary Jane Burton is, ‘But that was so many years ago, who really cares?’” Armbrust said. “It's really important for the credibility of Virginia's criminal legal system going forward that it grapples with sins of the past and tries to learn from those things.”

----------------------------------------

PARAGRAPH THREE OF THE DAY: "Timothy Spencer’s convictions in multiple murder cases are among those being reconsidered. His case became the first in the country to use DNA in securing a capital murder conviction. It’s also the first instance in the U.S. of DNA being used to exonerate an individual who was wrongfully implicated when David Vasquez was cleared in one slaying. His brother, Travis Spencer, who now lives in Tennessee, recently published a book detailing his experiences growing up with Timothy and living through the trials. He said it took him more than 40 years to write. Spencer — both in conversation and in the pages of his book, “History in the Making” — claimed that evidence was mishandled during the investigations."

--------------------------------------------

PARARAPH FOUR OF THE DAY: Spencer also recalled his older brother saying he wasn’t guilty of the deaths. have my own reasons why I think he was in that situation and why he did what he did,” Spencer said. “But did that make him a bad person or did people not love him because of that? Absolutely not. He was my brother and taught me a lot in the little time he was here.”

--------------------------------------------

STORY: "Landmark DNA case is among Virginia executions being examined in review of Mary Jane Burton's work," by Dave Cantor,  published by  WVTF on August 5, 2026. (Dave Cantor is an award-winning reporter whose work has been featured on NPR, and in The New York Times and DownBeat magazine, where he was an editor.)

GIST: Timothy Spencer’s convictions in multiple murder cases are among those being reconsidered. His case became the first in the country to use DNA in securing a capital murder conviction. It’s also the first instance in the U.S. of DNA being used to exonerate an individual who was wrongfully implicated when David Vasquez was cleared in one slaying.

His brother, Travis Spencer, who now lives in Tennessee, recently published a book detailing his experiences growing up with Timothy and living through the trials. He said it took him more than 40 years to write.

Spencer — both in conversation and in the pages of his book, “History in the Making” — claimed that evidence was mishandled during the investigations.

The negative media attention likely played a role in his basketball career being derailed.

“I don't blame anyone,” said Spencer, who was a teenager during the investigations. “It was a situation where I was talented. I did have a lot of opportunities to go play Division I basketball, and only one coach took the time out to tell me my my phone stopped ringing.”

Spencer also recalled his older brother saying he wasn’t guilty of the deaths.

“I have my own reasons why I think he was in that situation and why he did what he did,” Spencer said. “But did that make him a bad person or did people not love him because of that? Absolutely not. He was my brother and taught me a lot in the little time he was here.”

In addition to Spencer, the executions of Michael Marnell Smith, Earl Clanton Jr., Edward B. Fitzgerald Sr., Syvasky Poyner, Walter Correll Jr., Alton Waye and Kenneth Wilson are part of a review that will be conducted by a Virginia State Crime Commission panel.

Legislation setting up the initial reassessment of Burton’s work disallowed information from being released through Freedom of Information Act requests, and the state has not previously identified anyone whose case is being reexamined. But a document that included the last names of the eight executed men was made public by the Department of Forensic Science earlier this year. Radio IQ requested confirmation of their names after identifying most individuals through media reports.

Amy Jenkins, DFS chief deputy director, wrote in an email that the names were included in the presentation “because of the historical significance of these cases.”

During a meeting of the Forensic Science Board this summer, a state researcher announced that 7,545 cases connected to Burton had been assessed — a process that took about two years. That work identified 199 cases where the serologist likely testified in court and found 3,857 individuals who were named suspects in more than 5,000 cases where she may have contributed evidence.

The conviction status of thousands of people in those cases has yet to be determined. When that step’s completed, the cases will be assessed by a Crime Commission subcommittee comprising a Commonwealth’s Attorney, public defender, a retired circuit court judge and others.

People potentially affected by Burton’s work are being contacted by DFS, but the department has not contacted the families of the executed men, Jenkins said.

Legislation in 2024 began the reexamination of Burton’s time at the state crime lab, after independent journalist Tessa Kramer found reason to question her practices. A bill the following year defined the review panel being set up by the Crime Commission; members are expected to be selected this summer.

The eight executed men were collectively found guilty in the deaths of 16 people between 1977 and 1993. Most were connected to a single killing, though Poyner and Spencer were found guilty in multiple deaths. The executions were carried out by the Virginia Department of Corrections during the ’80s and ’90s, overlapping with an increase in the American prison population and its use of capital punishment. The term “superpredator” also entered the American lexicon around the same time.

Shawn Armbrust is the executive director of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, and in Spring 2024, conducted an initial review of the eight executions being reexamined. Her remit wasn’t to decide whether the executions were justifiable, but whether evidence or testimony connected to Burton — who worked for the state between 1973 and 1988 — affected the legal outcomes.

Armbrust said she didn’t find that Burton’s participation in the cases came to bear on the results, but noted that most of the men put to death were Black.

“Whether these cases are a legacy of the United States’ history of the way Black men are treated in the criminal legal system — or Virginia more specifically or Mary Jane Burton even more specifically — I can't quantify it,” she said. “But it is really noteworthy that six of the eight executed men were Black.”
Clemency

Virginia became the first Southern state to end its use of the death penalty in 2021, meaning each of these cases would be concluded differently today — despite the federal government and more than 20 other states continuing to use capital punishment.

Former Governors Gerald Baliles, Doug Wilder, George Allen and Jim Gilmore served during the time of the executions — and in at least half the cases were asked to grant clemency to the men who’d been found guilty.

Lloyd Snook — who worked on both the Smith and Waye cases — called the clemency process a joke.

Seated on a couch in his office just behind Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall, the attorney repeatedly referred to a quote by the late Yale University law professor Charles Black: “Though the justice of God may indeed ordain that some should die, the justice of man is altogether and always insufficient for saying who these may be.”

Snook, who currently serves as a Charlottesville city councilor, said the appeals and habeas cases he worked on hinged on psychological — not forensic — evidence, distancing them a bit from Burton. He didn’t dispute the guilt of either man, pointing to their confessions, but added there’d been inappropriate mental health testimony during Smith’s trial. And after Ake v. Oklahoma later addressed psychological testimony at trial, he said Smith’s execution would have been disallowed.

Correll, the man Allen denied clemency to, had an IQ of 68, indicating “a significant limitation in intellectual functioning.”

“We did about everything we could do,” Snook said about his work. “The caselaw in Virginia had been very much pro-finality — ‘Execute him as soon as you can,’ kind of a thing.”

As work to review the breadth of Burton’s time at the state crime lab continues, Armbrust — the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project’s executive director — said legislation focused on potentially problematic testimony and evidence could protect against future scenarios when this kind of process is necessary. But she also explained the importance of the current review.

“One of the questions that comes up when people are looking into something like Mary Jane Burton is, ‘But that was so many years ago, who really cares?’” Armbrust said. “It's really important for the credibility of Virginia's criminal legal system going forward that it grapples with sins of the past and tries to learn from those things.”

Travis Spencer, Timothy’s brother, said he has one desired outcome for the review, echoing a sentiment similar to Armbrust’s.

“I hope and wish for the outcome of this, is just to make sure they do it right and do their jobs 100% truthfully,” he said.

Read more at Red Onion Resources.

https://www.wvtf.org/news/2026-08-05/landmark-dna-case-is-among-virginia-executions-being-examined-in-review-of-mary-jane-burtons-work

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

AUGUST 9: Junk Science: Question of the day? Could a federal evidence law help end junk science in U.S. courtrooms? (Wouldn't that be nice? HL) Journalist Barbara Kay who is prompted by the Jimmie (Chris) Duncan case to tackle this question in the Davis Vanguard, reports that: In their July 27 opinion essay, “When Junk Science Decides Guilt in the South,” writers Jeremy Hutchinson, director of Special Projects at Unify.US; Mark Bowling, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent; and Mary Kate Mull, a legal fellow at Unify.US, condemned the use of junk science and urged courts to adopt Federal Rule of Evidence 702. The writers argue the damage from unreliable forensic evidence has been particularly severe in the South, where it has operated alongside underfunded public defense systems, elected coroners with limited medical training and a criminal legal system shaped by a history of racial inequality. They noted that poor defendants in rural communities may lack the resources necessary to effectively challenge forensic claims presented by prosecution experts. “Phony forensics gave the system a language of certainty,” they wrote. “It allowed prosecutors to present weak cases as scientific fact, and it made racial and class bias harder to see because the prejudice arrived wearing the mask of expertise.”

BACKGROUND: "After spending 27 years on death row in a case built largely on disputed forensic testimony, Jimmie “Chris” Duncan was exonerated in June 2026 for the 1998 murder of his former girlfriend’s toddler. Duncan spent 27 years on death row largely due to the testimony of medical examiner Dr. Steven Hayne and Hayne’s co-conspirator and local dentist, Dr. Michael West. Hayne and West had been using “junk science” to take advantage of “bad forensics, structural racism and institutional failures,” Duke Law wrote, from the 1990s through the 2000s. Duncan was the last person “awaiting an execution” based on Hayne and West’s testimony, according to ProPublica. Nine people who were convicted following Hayne and West’s testimony have also been freed from prison, including three men who were also on death row."

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "“Science deserves its privileged place in the courtroom, but only when it is truly scientific,” Hutchinson, Bowling and Mull wrote. “The most important safeguard against junk science is not a better jury instruction or a stronger cross-examination. It is a judge willing to keep unreliable opinions out of the courtroom altogether. Expert testimony must be grounded in methods that have been rigorously tested, independently validated and honestly presented to juries with their limitations fully acknowledged.”

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Federal Rule of Evidence 702 governs the admissibility of expert testimony. It requires that the witness’s “scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge” must aid in the court’s understanding of the evidence presented. It also requires that the testimony be based on facts or data and that the “expert’s opinion reflects a reliable application of the principles and methods to the facts of the case,” according to Cornell Law School. The 2023 amendments to Rule 702 reinforced the judge’s gatekeeping responsibility to determine whether expert testimony satisfies reliability requirements before it is admitted. Hutchinson, Bowling and Mull noted that Mississippi is considering changing its court rules to embrace the federal approach and that the Mississippi Supreme Court is studying the issue. “States should adopt the federal standard for expert testimony and make reliability a threshold requirement, not a question left for jurors to sort out after unreliable science has been heard,” they wrote. “…States should adopt the federal approach so that evidence is not admitted because it sounds scientific; it is admitted because it is reliable.” Using this standard, junk science can be avoided, and people will be far less likely to be wrongfully convicted, Hutchinson, Bowling and Mull argue."

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STORY: "Federal rule of evidence could help end junk science in story: Courtrooms," by journalist Barbara Kay published by The Davis Vanguard, on August 7, 2026. (Barbara Kay is Brooklyn born and based journalist, and student at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism;)


LOUISIANA — After spending 27 years on death row in a case built largely on disputed forensic testimony, Jimmie “Chris” Duncan was exonerated in June 2026 for the 1998 murder of his former girlfriend’s toddler.

Duncan spent 27 years on death row largely due to the testimony of medical examiner Dr. Steven Hayne and Hayne’s co-conspirator and local dentist, Dr. Michael West.

Hayne and West had been using “junk science” to take advantage of “bad forensics, structural racism and institutional failures,” Duke Law wrote, from the 1990s through the 2000s.

Duncan was the last person “awaiting an execution” based on Hayne and West’s testimony, according to ProPublica. Nine people who were convicted following Hayne and West’s testimony have also been freed from prison, including three men who were also on death row.

In their July 27 opinion essay, “When Junk Science Decides Guilt in the South,” writers Jeremy Hutchinson, director of Special Projects at Unify.US; Mark Bowling, a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent; and Mary Kate Mull, a legal fellow at Unify.US, condemned the use of junk science and urged courts to adopt Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

The writers argue the damage from unreliable forensic evidence has been particularly severe in the South, where it has operated alongside underfunded public defense systems, elected coroners with limited medical training and a criminal legal system shaped by a history of racial inequality. They noted that poor defendants in rural communities may lack the resources necessary to effectively challenge forensic claims presented by prosecution experts.

“Phony forensics gave the system a language of certainty,” they wrote. “It allowed prosecutors to present weak cases as scientific fact, and it made racial and class bias harder to see because the prejudice arrived wearing the mask of expertise.”

The writers point to Levon Brooks and Kennedy Brewer, two Black men from rural Mississippi who were convicted in separate child murder cases after Hayne and West linked them to purported bite-mark evidence. Both spent years incarcerated before DNA evidence showed another man was responsible, demonstrating, the writers argue, that junk science can not only convict innocent people but also allow the guilty to remain free.

Junk science claims are not peer-reviewed, misapply neuroscience and more, according to Palo Alto University. Junk science can include bite marks, microscopic hair comparisons and bloodstain patterns, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Concerns about such forensic techniques have persisted for years. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences warned that numerous forensic methods lacked sufficient scientific support, and in 2016, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology found that feature-comparison disciplines, including bite-mark and hair-comparison analysis, lacked foundational validity.

A 2015 review of more than 3,000 cases found that in 95% of cases involving microscopic hair comparisons, FBI examiners gave scientifically invalid testimony.

The Innocence Project has found that misapplied forensic science contributed to more than half of its wrongful conviction cases, according to Hutchinson, Bowling and Mull.

Sixty percent of those exonerated due to junk science have been people of color, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, with half of those exonerated people of color being Black.

Hutchinson, Bowling and Mull argue that rather than having jurors decide whether a piece of evidence is scientifically reliable, judges should determine whether expert evidence meets reliability requirements before allowing jurors to hear it.

Federal Rule of Evidence 702 governs the admissibility of expert testimony. It requires that the witness’s “scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge” must aid in the court’s understanding of the evidence presented.

It also requires that the testimony be based on facts or data and that the “expert’s opinion reflects a reliable application of the principles and methods to the facts of the case,” according to Cornell Law School.

The 2023 amendments to Rule 702 reinforced the judge’s gatekeeping responsibility to determine whether expert testimony satisfies reliability requirements before it is admitted. Hutchinson, Bowling and Mull noted that Mississippi is considering changing its court rules to embrace the federal approach and that the Mississippi Supreme Court is studying the issue.

“States should adopt the federal standard for expert testimony and make reliability a threshold requirement, not a question left for jurors to sort out after unreliable science has been heard,” they wrote. “…States should adopt the federal approach so that evidence is not admitted because it sounds scientific; it is admitted because it is reliable.”

Using this standard, junk science can be avoided, and people will be far less likely to be wrongfully convicted, Hutchinson, Bowling and Mull argue.

“Science deserves its privileged place in the courtroom, but only when it is truly scientific,” Hutchinson, Bowling and Mull wrote. “The most important safeguard against junk science is not a better jury instruction or a stronger cross-examination. It is a judge willing to keep unreliable opinions out of the courtroom altogether. Expert testimony must be grounded in methods that have been rigorously tested, independently validated and honestly presented to juries with their limitations fully acknowledged.”"

The entire story can be read at: 

https://share.google/MKLH9x8S4SSYS01Nw

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;

August 8: Elvis Brooks: Louisiana: From our 'Something is terribly wrong in this picture department: The Propublica/Verite News story by Reporter Richard A. Webster is headed:"He’s Eligible for Up to $480,000 After Being Wrongly Imprisoned for 42 Years. The State Says No."..."In her two years in the role, Louisiana attorney general Liz Murrill has opposed almost all compensation claims by wrongfully convicted people. Freed After Four Decades: Elvis Brooks’ murder conviction was thrown out after a prosecutor admitted he hid potentially exonerating evidence. Murrill maintains he’s guilty. A Higher Bar: Twenty-three people have sought compensation after judges threw out their convictions. Murrill has asserted that 22 have failed to sufficiently prove their innocence"

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “She knows people are innocent but she doesn’t care,” Brooks said of (Louisiana Attorney General) Murrill during a recent interview, his voice rising with frustration. “She wouldn’t want nobody to do this to one of her loved ones.”

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QUOTE TWO OF THE DAY: "Murrill’s hard-line tactics, particularly in Brooks’ case, stand out among her peers in other states, said Jeffrey Gutman, a professor emeritus at the George Washington University Law School and a national expert on compensation funds. “I can’t think of an attorney general who has been quite as aggressive in trying to prevent people from getting compensation,” Gutman said."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The 69-year-old New Orleans native has never wavered in his claims of innocence, insisting since his 1977 arrest that the cops had the wrong guy. But it would take nearly 45 years and a prosecutor admitting he failed to turn over key fingerprint evidence before the courts threw out Brooks’ conviction. That decision made Brooks eligible for up to $480,000 under a program createdby Louisiana lawmakers to pay those wrongfully convicted in a state with one of the highest rates of overturned guilty verdicts. But Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, the top prosecutor in the state, has vigorously fought Brooks’ compensation claim, asserting in court filings that he is still guilty and therefore should not receive any money at all. And it isn’t just Brooks:  Since taking office two years ago, Murrill has opposed all but one of 23 compensation claims brought by people whose convictions have been vacated by the courts. These include cases in which the men were exonerated through DNA or blood evidence and others in which police are accused of fabricating evidence. Once, Murrill even threatened to block an exoneree’s ability to obtain a license to practice law if he didn’t drop his claim."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY; 'In July 1977, a man named Cecil Lloyd was seated at the bar in the local dive when he was shot to death during an armed robbery. Less than three weeks later, police arrested 19-year-old Brooks. There was no physical evidence tying him to the killing, and a dozen people testified that Brooks was at a family party at the time of the shooting. But three white witnesses said they saw the perpetrators in the dimly lit room and picked Brooks, who is Black, out of a photographic lineup. Although studies have shown that witnesses often have difficulty correctly identifying suspects of another race, and despite the fact that the three witnesses gave conflicting descriptions, the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder after a one-day trial. What the jurors weren’t told is that fingerprints lifted from beer cans held by the robbers did not match Brooks’, or that police suspected the same men had robbed several people less than a block away just before the Welcome Inn robbery, according to prosecutor records discovered by Brooks’ attorneys 40 years later. The victims of the earlier crime were shown a photo of Brooks and ruled him out as a suspect.''

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STORY: "After Elvis Brooks spent 42 years in prison, a court threw out his conviction for murder. But he has struggled to get compensation from Louisiana for his wrongful conviction," by Reporter Richard A. Webster, published by Verite News, on August 6, 2026. (Before coming to Verite News, Richard A. Webster spent the past two and a half years as a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. He investigated allegations of abuse against the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, and claims of racial and economic inequities within Louisiana’s Road Home recovery program following Hurricane Katrina. Webster previously was a member of The Times-Picayune’s investigative team, reporting on numerous special projects including “The Children of Central City,” an in-depth look at childhood trauma through the lens of a youth football team; “A Fragile State,” a multi-part series on Louisiana’s mental health care system; and “Dying at OPP,” which examined the deaths of inmates in Orleans Parish Prison." This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Verite News."

.SUB-HEADING: "He’s Eligible for Up to $480,000 After Being Wrongly Imprisoned for 42 Years. The State Says No."

HIGHLIGHTS: "In her two years in the role, Louisiana attorney general Liz Murrill has opposed almost all compensation claims by wrongfully convicted people.

Freed After Four Decades: Elvis Brooks’ murder conviction was thrown out after a prosecutor admitted he hid potentially exonerating evidence. Murrill maintains he’s guilty.

A Higher Bar: Twenty-three people have sought compensation after judges threw out their convictions. Murrill has asserted that 22 have failed to sufficiently prove their innocence.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story."

GIST: "Elvis Brooks thought he had an airtight case when he applied for compensation from the state of Louisiana after he was wrongfully convicted in a fatal bar shooting that kept him in prison for more than four decades.

The 69-year-old New Orleans native has never wavered in his claims of innocence, insisting since his 1977 arrest that the cops had the wrong guy. But it would take nearly 45 years and a prosecutor admitting he failed to turn over key fingerprint evidence before the courts threw out Brooks’ conviction.

That decision made Brooks eligible for up to $480,000 under a program createdby Louisiana lawmakers to pay those wrongfully convicted in a state with one of the highest rates of overturned guilty verdicts. But Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, the top prosecutor in the state, has vigorously fought Brooks’ compensation claim, asserting in court filings that he is still guilty and therefore should not receive any money at all.

And it isn’t just Brooks: Since taking office two years ago, Murrill has opposed all but one of 23 compensation claims brought by people whose convictions have been vacated by the courts. These include cases in which the men were exonerated through DNA or blood evidence and others in which police are accused of fabricating evidence. Once, Murrill even threatened to block an exoneree’s ability to obtain a license to practice law if he didn’t drop his claim.

Civil rights attorneys say Brooks’ case is one of the most egregious examples of a wrongful conviction in recent years. Murrill has been pushing the court since September 2024 to reject his compensation claim and also to reinstate a manslaughter charge against him. The case is pending before a district court judge in New Orleans; attorneys are scheduled to appear for the next hearing Monday.

When Brooks heard what Murrill was trying to do, five months after he’d filed his claim, he said he was flooded with anger and disbelief. Once again, he said, the state was trying to rip away his good name and falsely brand him a killer.

“She knows people are innocent but she doesn’t care,” Brooks said of Murrill during a recent interview, his voice rising with frustration. “She wouldn’t want nobody to do this to one of her loved ones.”

Some states that have more recently created compensation funds have experienced startup problems. In Michigan, narrow criteria and confusion over eligibility have prevented exonerees from getting paid. But in Louisiana, conservative politicians who oppose the very existence of a compensation fund and therefore fight nearly every claim have proven to be the biggest obstacle.

Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican who served as attorney general for eight years, during which time he hired Murrill as the state’s solicitor general, opposed 10 of 12 compensation claims during his tenure. Both have staked their political careers on a tough-on-crime agenda. By contrast, Murrill’s more moderate Republican predecessor, Buddy Caldwell, who served as attorney general from 2008 to 2015, opposed just 33% of all claims.

Murrill’s hard-line tactics, particularly in Brooks’ case, stand out among her peers in other states, said Jeffrey Gutman, a professor emeritus at the George Washington University Law School and a national expert on compensation funds.

“I can’t think of an attorney general who has been quite as aggressive in trying to prevent people from getting compensation,” Gutman said.

Murrill, through her spokesperson, declined interview requests and did not answer questions regarding her opposition to the compensation fund. Both she and Landry have made their views on the fund clear during recent legislative sessions. Murrill told lawmakers last year that defending the state against these claims consumes an enormous amount of time and resources and that the fund should be abolished altogether. And in June, Landry vetoed a bill passed unanimously by the Republican-controlled Legislature that would have increased the amount paid to the wrongfully convicted. In his veto statement,Landry painted many of the exonerees as “convicted criminals” whose only interest is money.

Murrill’s opposition doesn’t necessarily mean that Brooks and other exonerees won’t eventually be compensated. The claims are ultimately decided by one of a number of district court judges, whose approach to this issue may vary. But it ensures that a process the law says should take no more than five months could instead drag on for years, exacting financial hardship and emotional pain on people who have already endured decades of both, said Herbert Larson, an attorney representing exonerees and a senior professor at the Tulane University Law School.

“If they’ve got DNA evidence that points at somebody else, if they’ve got fingerprints that point at somebody else, if it looks like sloppy police work, then we should pay the money and not spend the next two years litigating it,” Larson said. “That’s not a very effective use of time and money on the part of the attorney general.”

Brooks filed his application in 2024, but more than two years later, his case has yet to be heard by a district court judge, After having 42 years of his life stolen - missing his son's  childhood and losing his parents and three siblings while he was behind bars, Brooks said he shouldn't continue to suffer at the hands of the state.

"It's miserable and it's frustrating, the games they play," he said. " But if think I'm going to give up, wave the white flag, they got me wrong."

Conflicting evidence and a one-day trial: 

On most days, Brooks can be found riding his bicycle down to Tricou and Douglas streets in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, where he was raised, or through the French Quarter, where as teens, he and his friends would go to meet girls.

But there is one place he avoids: a vacant lot at the intersection of Dauphine and Alabo streets. That’s where the Welcome Inn once stood, and where a murder took place that would change his life.

In July 1977, a man named Cecil Lloyd was seated at the bar in the local dive when he was shot to death during an armed robbery. Less than three weeks later, police arrested 19-year-old Brooks.

There was no physical evidence tying him to the killing, and a dozen people testified that Brooks was at a family party at the time of the shooting. But three white witnesses said they saw the perpetrators in the dimly lit room and picked Brooks, who is Black, out of a photographic lineup. Although studies have shown that witnesses often have difficulty correctly identifying suspects of another race, and despite the fact that the three witnesses gave conflicting descriptions, the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder after a one-day trial.

What the jurors weren’t told is that fingerprints lifted from beer cans held by the robbers did not match Brooks’, or that police suspected the same men had robbed several people less than a block away just before the Welcome Inn robbery, according to prosecutor records discovered by Brooks’ attorneys 40 years later. The victims of the earlier crime were shown a photo of Brooks and ruled him out as a suspect.

After his conviction, Brooks was sent to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola at a time when the maximum-security prison was considered one of the most violent in the country. Three years after Brooks arrived, his brother Errol, who was serving a 99-year sentence there for armed robbery, was stabbed to death.

“Angola was a madhouse,” Brooks said. “A hellhole.”While Brooks served his life sentence, the criminal justice system was being revolutionized through the introduction of DNA evidence and, with it, proof that innocent people had been convicted. This led to a deeper look into other factors contributing to wrongful convictions, including prosecutorial misconduct and mistaken eyewitness identifications, especially those made by witnesses with different racial backgrounds from the suspects.

As a result, the number of exonerations nationwide increased from 25 in 1989 to 259 in 2022, according to the National Registry of Exonerations, a project operated by universities in Michigan and California. By 2025, Orleans Parish, where Brooks was convicted, had the highest rate of exonerations among U.S. counties with more than 300,000 residents, according to the registry.

Many states reacted to the rise in exonerations by creating funds to compensate those who were wrongly convicted. Louisiana established its fund in 2005 and today is one of 39 states, in addition to the District of Columbia, that compensate the wrongfully incarcerated. But it is far from a rubber-stamp process.

“It’s miserable and it’s frustrating, the games they play. But if they think I’m going to give up, wave the white flag, they got me wrong.” Elvis Brooks, exoneree

To be eligible, a person has to have been imprisoned as a result of a conviction that was later vacated by a court. Applicants, like in all states with these funds, must then prove their innocence. Having a conviction thrown out is not enough to do so: A court can vacate someone’s conviction for a number of reasons, including an ineffective attorney or significant errors committed by the judge or prosecution. But that only means there were problems with the original trial. It is up to the person applying for compensation to present evidence that they did not commit the crime.

In many states, innocence in the compensation process is proven by a “preponderance of evidence,” which attorneys understand to mean that there is more than a 50% chance that the person is innocent. This is the standard used in civil cases. The threshold is higher in Louisiana and some other states, where applicants are required to prove they are innocent by “clear and convincing” evidence. This is supposed to leave little doubt in the judge’s eyes that they did not commit the crime.

That’s the hurdle Brooks must clear to receive any money from the state.

Exonerated but Not Paid

Brooks filed for compensation in April 2024, just a few months after Murrill and Landry took office. He didn’t know much about the process, he said, except that it was meant to help people like himself get back on their feet after a wrongful conviction. Brooks assumed it wouldn’t take long at all, maybe a few months. But like nearly all the others, his request was met with fierce opposition from the attorney general’s office.

Murrill, seen by many as a future candidate for governor, has earned the reputation as a fighter unapologetic about the methods she is willing to use to enact a conservative agenda, both in the political world and the courtroom.

Verite News and ProPublica interviewed the attorneys of 17 of the people whose compensation claims Murrill opposed. The majority expressed shock at her tactics. When Landry was attorney general, his office regularly spoke with defense attorneys and assured them that the attorney general would not stand in the way of compensation in the rare times the office agreed that a former prisoner was innocent, according to two of the attorneys. Landry did not respond to a request for comment.

Those conversations no longer happen under Murrill, the attorneys said. In nearly every case, Murrill’s office has insisted that the exoneree either is guilty or has failed to sufficiently prove his innocence.

Of the 23 people who have had active claims under Murrill, four so far have been awarded compensation. The rest are pending. Of the successful claims, two of the men were cleared by DNA evidence, while blood serum evidence was used to prove innocence in the third. Yet Murrill opposed all three, delaying their compensation for nearly two years. (In the fourth case, Murrill dropped her opposition to Patrick Brown’s claim after the victim testified that the exoneree was innocent).

Jarvis Ballard is one of the four. He spent 23 years in prison before his 1999 rape conviction was vacated after his DNA was not detected in any of the blood or semen samples found at the scene. In addition, the victim reported two men committed the crime; however, three men, including Ballard, were prosecuted and convicted. The other two men testified that Ballard was not involved.

The St. Bernard Parish district attorney’s office admitted in a 2021 statementthat the office had made a mistake in prosecuting him. “DNA evidence, witnesses recanting their prior statements and polygraph testing all supported the ‘actual innocence’ claims of Jarvis Ballard,” district attorney Perry Nicosia wrote.

In another case, Darrill Henry was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for a double homicide. Nine years later, New Orleans Criminal District Court Judge Dennis Waldron threw out his conviction after DNA evidence found under the fingernails of one of the victims cleared him, saying there was “clear and convincing evidence that he is indeed factually innocent of the crime.”

And in a third case, Sullivan Walter was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 1986 for burglary and rape, among other charges. He was only 17 at the time but was tried as an adult. His conviction was overturned in 2022 when blood evidence ruled him out as the perpetrator.

“This is horrible,” Criminal District Judge Darryl Derbigny said to Walter as he ordered his release from prison, according to news reports. “I’m at a loss of words to express the sorrow and the anger I have at the treatment you’ve been dealt by the system.”

But in all three cases, Murrill told the courts that despite the DNA or blood evidence, the men did not sufficiently prove their innocence.

“They’re taking a position that is inconsistent with what many prosecutors argue every day in seeking conviction,” Zac Crawford, staff attorney at Innocence & Justice Louisiana, a nonprofit law firm specializing in wrongful convictions, said about Murrill’s office. “Prosecutors frequently use DNA testing to match someone to a crime as a means of getting a guilty verdict, and they are not willing to concede that that same evidence also proves innocence.”

Murrill hasn’t confined her fight against compensation claims to the courts, having used threats to prevent at least one exoneree, Calvin Duncan, from even pursuing a claim. After serving 28 years of a life sentence for murder, he accepted a plea deal to secure his release in 2011. Ten years later, a district court judge ruled that he was factually innocent and threw out his conviction, citing the suppression of exonerating evidence by police, among other factors.

When Duncan filed for compensation in 2023, Murrill issued a threat, Duncan said during a recent legislative hearing: drop the claim or she would charge him with perjury for falsely saying he was exonerated. At the time, Duncan was pursuing a law license. He said Murrill added a second warning: If he didn’t drop the claim, she would report him to the bar association to prevent him from getting his license.

Duncan said he reluctantly agreed to withdraw his compensation application, with the understanding that Murrill would then drop the matter. But she didn’t keep her word, Duncan told legislators. During Duncan’s campaign last year for New Orleans criminal court clerk, Murrill sent him a letter threatening “further action from this office” if he didn’t stop referring to himself as being exonerated. “You have not proven you were actually innocent,” she told him.

She then used his plea deal against him, saying, “You knowingly and voluntarily pled guilty to manslaughter and armed robbery.”

Duncan, who declined to comment, won his election but was stripped of his office after legislators, with Landry’s support, eliminated his position. His campaign manager said Duncan has paused his pursuit of a law license in part because of his race for court clerk and Murrill’s persistent threats.

Malcolm Alexander spent nearly 38 years in prison before being exonerated through DNA evidence in 2018. Despite the opposition of Landry, then attorney general, Alexander was later awarded compensation, though he said these claims aren’t all about money. Even more important is that when a judge awards an exoneree compensation, it comes with a definitive ruling that the person is, in fact, innocent.

So while Murrill’s desire to deprive exonerees of money is terrible, Alexander said, her efforts to prevent them from having their names officially cleared are truly reprehensible.
“It Wasn’t Right From Day One”

Brooks was 60 years old and had been in Angola prison for nearly two-thirds of his life when his legal team discovered a wealth of new evidence that appeared to conclusively prove his innocence. Among these items were fingerprints lifted from beer cans held by the shooters during the Welcome Inn bar robbery and fatal shooting. And those fingerprints did not match Brooks’.

In January 2019, Brooks’ legal team filed a motion to overturn his murder conviction. Leon Cannizzaro, the New Orleans district attorney at the time, objected, telling the court that his office did not purposefully withhold any evidence.

Brooks said he was ready to wage a lengthy legal battle to prove he was not a murderer. But five months later, Cannizzaro approached Brooks with an unexpected offer: If he agreed to plead guilty to manslaughter, his life sentence would be reduced to 42 years and he would be allowed to walk out of Angola prison. Brooks agonized over the decision. The idea of standing up in court and saying he had killed someone was unimaginable. But he also didn’t want to die an old man on a rusted prison cot. So he took the deal.

Two years later, as Brooks was struggling to adjust to life outside of prison and still strapped with a felony record, his legal team found a memo in a pile of records they had requested from the district attorney’s office that detailed a 2019 internal meeting with one of the prosecutors at Brooks’ murder trial. He admitted that they didn’t turn over the fingerprint evidence and that it would have been helpful to Brooks’ case, according to the memo.

The meeting had occurred just two weeks before Cannizzaro offered Brooks the plea deal. If Brooks had known about the prosecutor’s admission, he said, he never would have accepted the plea.

“It wasn’t right from day one,” Brooks said.

In 2022, when presented with this new information, the district court agreed. It ruled that the district attorney withheld crucial evidence when offering the plea deal and threw it out along with Brooks’ conviction. Current New Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams declined to retry the case, clearing the way for Brooks to file his compensation claim two years later.

Cannizzaro could not be reached for comment. In a statement issued after Brooks’ 2019 release from prison, the former district attorney said he offered Brooks the plea deal because his office believed he was “rehabilitated and will not go out and reoffend.” Cannizzaro rejected the idea that Brooks was wrongfully convicted, saying at the time that if he were innocent, Brooks and his attorneys would have turned down the deal. “Notably, they did not,” he said.

Murrill is now using that discredited plea deal against Brooks, just as she did in Duncan’s case, in an attempt to quash his compensation claim. In a September 2024 motion, Murrill claimed that by vacating Brooks’ manslaughter conviction while he was a free man and not a prisoner, the court essentially pardoned him. And under the state constitution, only the governor has the power to issue pardons. As a result, she has asked that the court reinstate the manslaughter charge against Brooks.

Murrill did not, however, address the fact that the court vacated the deal because prosecutors intentionally withheld key information, according to court records.

In her motion, Murrill said she only learned the plea deal had been thrown out when Brooks filed his claim. And that, said attorney Harry Daniels, who represents Brooks, is when she started the effort to reinstate charges against him. “It’s only when he started demanding what he’s entitled to for being wrongfully convicted that this even became an issue,” Daniels said.

Brooks has described applying for compensation as torturous, a barricade that is constantly preventing him from being able to move forward. And life has been difficult: His only source of income is his $994-a-month Social Security payment, enough to rent a one-bedroom apartment in a low-income senior center.

There are moments, though, he said, when he allows himself to dream about what he would do with the money. The first would be to buy a bigger headstone for his family gravesite, where his parents, four siblings and a nephew are buried in a single plot in the Green Street Cemetery. All but one died while he was wrongfully imprisoned. There is room on the headstone for only three of the seven names.

“I want to put all our names on there,” he said. “Give them some respect, especially my momma.""

The entire story ca be read at:

louisiana-wrongful-conviction-compensation-liz-murrill-elvis-brooks

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;