STORY: "Missouri man officially cleared in 1982 slaying," by reporter Bill Draper, published by the Associated Press on Decmber 26, 2012.
GIST: "A St. Louis man who served 29 years of a 95-year prison sentence for a brutal 1982 slaying is officially a free man after a three-member state appeals court panel upheld a lower court's decision that led to his release from prison last month.... Prosecutors used a confession Allen gave to investigators to make their case, but Allen's defense contended the confession by their client, who suffers from schizophrenia, was coerced. Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green issued a scathing, 75-page ruling last month that suggested St. Louis police ignored and suppressed numerous pieces of evidence, including blood tests that ruled out Allen as the source of semen on Bell's robe. Green ordered Allen's release, and the St. Louis circuit attorney's office complied Nov. 14. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster appealed the ruling to the state's Western District, arguing that the lower court had abused its discretion by ruling that investigators' failure to provide evidence at trial violated Allen's due-process rights. Questions about undisclosed evidence were raised by attorneys working for and with the Innocence Project, a New York group that has helped free hundreds of wrongfully convicted inmates nationwide. Several lawyers from the St. Louis firm Bryan Cave also volunteered to work with Allen's defense. "We're thrilled the appeals court has acted quickly to dismiss the Attorney General's meritless appeal," said Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project. "We are relying on Attorney General Koster to keep his word and not further delay justice for Mr. Allen and his family by further appealing today's decision. Scheck urged the circuit attorney's office to try to find Bell's real killer in light of the previously undisclosed evidence, which includes fingerprints that investigators had initially rejected as unusable smudges. Koster issued a statement Wednesday confirming he would not pursue the case further."
http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Appeals-court-upholds-ruling-in-30-year-old-murder-4146923.phpGIST: "A St. Louis man who served 29 years of a 95-year prison sentence for a brutal 1982 slaying is officially a free man after a three-member state appeals court panel upheld a lower court's decision that led to his release from prison last month.... Prosecutors used a confession Allen gave to investigators to make their case, but Allen's defense contended the confession by their client, who suffers from schizophrenia, was coerced. Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green issued a scathing, 75-page ruling last month that suggested St. Louis police ignored and suppressed numerous pieces of evidence, including blood tests that ruled out Allen as the source of semen on Bell's robe. Green ordered Allen's release, and the St. Louis circuit attorney's office complied Nov. 14. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster appealed the ruling to the state's Western District, arguing that the lower court had abused its discretion by ruling that investigators' failure to provide evidence at trial violated Allen's due-process rights. Questions about undisclosed evidence were raised by attorneys working for and with the Innocence Project, a New York group that has helped free hundreds of wrongfully convicted inmates nationwide. Several lawyers from the St. Louis firm Bryan Cave also volunteered to work with Allen's defense. "We're thrilled the appeals court has acted quickly to dismiss the Attorney General's meritless appeal," said Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project. "We are relying on Attorney General Koster to keep his word and not further delay justice for Mr. Allen and his family by further appealing today's decision. Scheck urged the circuit attorney's office to try to find Bell's real killer in light of the previously undisclosed evidence, which includes fingerprints that investigators had initially rejected as unusable smudges. Koster issued a statement Wednesday confirming he would not pursue the case further."
See Innocence Project release:
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/State_Appeals_Court_Denies_AG_Appeal_Clearing_the_Path_for_Missouri_Mans_Full_Exoneration.php
The Missouri Court of Appeal decision. (Great read - once you get over the jurisdictional framework! HL).
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=13bde055715952a8&mt=application/pdf&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui%3D2%26ik%3D2772eb95cc%26view%3Datt%26th%3D13bde055715952a8%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dsafe%26realattid%3Df_hb8c76mj0%26zw&sig=AHIEtbRumeEvTBtc4H3-gHDwp46b07yeqQ
"Allen was convicted based largely on his statement that was elicited through the interrogation supervised by Detective Herb Riley and on serology evidence, which has since been proven false, that was conducted by lab analyst Joseph Crow. Newly discovered police and lab documents that were not disclosed to the prosecution or defense show that police actually found semen samples excluding Allen and the victim’s consensual sex partners as the source. Other undisclosed documents show that police relied on this serology evidence to exclude other suspects until they coerced the confession from Allen. The prosecution also failed to turn over fingerprint evidence excluding Allen, a drawing that Allen was asked to draw of the victim’s apartment that did not match her apartment and evidence that a witness who was called to verify a detail from Allen’s statement had been subjected to a police-organized hypnosis session in order to recall the incident. “To ensure other Missouri citizens never face what Mr. Allen endured, the state must order an independent audit of other cases handled by this detective and serologist,” said Laura O’Sullivan, Legal Director of the Midwest Innocence Project. “It’s the only way to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system.” Allen narrowly escaped receiving the death penalty after the jury issued the guilty verdict by a stroke of luck. A juror was relieved of duty due to a family emergency and as a result the sentencing could not be held and the state was forced to waive the death penalty."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
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 found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.
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.
