BOOKER DIGGINS; INNOCENCE PROJECT CLAIMS "BULLETPROOF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE" HE IS NOT RAPIST; PROSECUTORS SHOULD HAVE KNOWN IT IN 1988; TIMES-PICAYUNE

"Diggins was convicted of aggravated rape, which carries mandatory life without parole, plus 30 years for armed robbery and five years for conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

The judge ordered him to serve the three sentences in consecutive order.

But 22 years after Diggins was shipped to the state penitentiary, he and his attorneys have unearthed the fact that prosecutors kept quiet the medical evidence that could have helped him at trial.

Well before January 1988, then-District Attorney Harry Connick's prosecutors -- Glen Woods and Wendy Baldwin Vitter -- knew that blood and semen had been collected from the victim, along with a blood type that didn't match the woman's.

Diggins wants a day in court to present the blood evidence that Connick's team failed to hand over to the defense, according to the Innocence Project, the New York-based group dedicated to freeing wrongly convicted people through DNA testing.

"This is bulletproof scientific evidence that he is not the guy," said attorney Barry Scheck. "He wasn't the rapist and they could have known that in 1988.""

REPORTER GWEN FILOSA: THE TIMES-PICAYUNE;

Wikipedia informs us that, "The Times-Picayune is a daily newspaper published in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Its name, which is widely recognized among journalists nationwide, is an icon of life in New Orleans and its environs."

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"The Orleans Parish jury that sent Booker Diggins off to prison for the rest of his life on Jan. 25, 1988, didn't hear much about the rape he supposedly committed during a robbery" the August 23 Times-Picayune story by reporter Gwen Filosa begins, under the heading, "Lifer at Angola unearths DNA evidence that might help him fight 1988 rape, robbery conviction."

"The examining doctor wasn't called to the stand, and no blood evidence turned up at court," the story continues.

"Instead, prosecutors relied solely on testimony of the alleged victim, a 23-year-old woman who picked Diggins out of a photographic line-up and then pointed him out in court as the one who raped her while she was handcuffed to a post in the storeroom of the restaurant she managed.

Diggins was convicted of aggravated rape, which carries mandatory life without parole, plus 30 years for armed robbery and five years for conspiracy to commit armed robbery.

The judge ordered him to serve the three sentences in consecutive order.

But 22 years after Diggins was shipped to the state penitentiary, he and his attorneys have unearthed the fact that prosecutors kept quiet the medical evidence that could have helped him at trial.

Well before January 1988, then-District Attorney Harry Connick's prosecutors -- Glen Woods and Wendy Baldwin Vitter -- knew that blood and semen had been collected from the victim, along with a blood type that didn't match the woman's.

Diggins wants a day in court to present the blood evidence that Connick's team failed to hand over to the defense, according to the Innocence Project, the New York-based group dedicated to freeing wrongly convicted people through DNA testing.

"This is bulletproof scientific evidence that he is not the guy," said attorney Barry Scheck. "He wasn't the rapist and they could have known that in 1988."

Scheck compares Diggins' case to that of John Thompson, the former death row inmate who is awaiting a $14 million federal jury award for having served decades in prison after Connick's lawyers hid blood evidence that showed he did not commit the armed robbery for which he was convicted.

Blood types disputed

While the Innocence Project resurrected Booker Diggins' appeal, it was Diggins himself who wrested his case file free in 2006 after paying $209 to then-DA Eddie Jordan's office, to learn that prosecutors had physical evidence that would have helped him fight the charges.

Diggins filed a huge petition in federal court in 2006, but was rejected because he had missed the legal deadline for such an appeal, U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance ruled. Diggins, whose conviction became final in 1990, had until 1997 to file a federal habeas corpus.

Vance's ruling barred Diggins from ever bringing back the appeal in federal court.

But the Innocence Project filed its motion for a new trial back at the same courthouse on Tulane Avenue where Diggins was tried and convicted.

On July 27, at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Diggins was finally able to provide blood and saliva samples which were sent to National Medical Services, one of the few private DNA laboratories still performing ABO blood-typing services.

Diggins is Type O. The victim is Type B.

The rapist is Type A, according to the Innocence Project's appeal.

The DA's office, led by Cannizzaro since 2008, declined comment for this story. Scheck and attorney Vanessa Potkin filed the appeal this month but no hearing date has been set. The case is in Judge Laurie White's Section A.

Former Judge Charles Elloie in 2004 denied Diggins' post-conviction relief appeal, finding that he had missed the deadline and that his request for DNA testing wasn't necessary because he hadn't met the legal standard of "articulable doubt."

Turncoat testimony

Turncoat testimony helped prosecutors persuade the jury to convict Diggins of rape and robbery.

Originally, four men were charged with the crime, but Diggins would receive the harshest prison sentence.

Matthew Thomas and Karis Scott, who both worked at Mike Anderson's Seafood Restaurant at the Riverwalk in 1987, confessed to setting up the robbery but insisted a rape was never part of the plan. They struck deals with the DA's office so they could avoid the kind of prison time that Diggins and Charles Washington would end up serving.

Thomas was an 18-year-old prep chef who admitted to providing the restaurant keys to Scott, who arranged the robbery that would net about $2,000.

Thomas testified that Diggins and Washington were the robbers who chose to humiliate and assault the 23-year-old manager in a storeroom, leaving her gagged with a paper bag and handcuffed to a post.

Washington was convicted of sexual battery, for touching the woman after the assault, and armed robbery.

Though Diggins denied being on the scene, Thomas told the jury that he watched as Diggins divvied up the stolen money -- and tipped him some extra cash for the opportunity to rape the manager. Thomas pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact.

Scott ended up with a five-year sentence for being an accessory to robbery. Prosecutors dropped an aggravated rape charge against him in exchange for his testimony.

A New Orleans police officer, employed for only two months at the time, lifted a partial fingerprint from the bag that the state's expert said definitely matched Diggins.

Diggins says the jury didn't hear crucial details of the victim's hospital exam, performed about five hours after the robbery.

In his pleadings, Diggins said that he didn't rape or rob anyone on the night of Aug. 30, 1987, and argued that the graphic details of the victim's rape examination kept from the jury show "no signs of force."

Diggins argues that the woman may have been in on the robbery, and that the semen came from consensual sex that the woman told hospital staff she had had with her boyfriend 48 hours before the attack."

The story can be found at:

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/08/lifer_at_angola_unearths_dna_e.html

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 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. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:

http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith

For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:

http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/08/new-feature-cases-issues-and_15.html

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;

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