STORY: "Texas releases death row inmate Manuel Velez after wrongful conviction," by reporter Ed Pilkington, published by the Guardian on October 8, 2014.
SUB-HEADING: "Innocent man cleared of 2005 murder of one-year-old after review of evidence determines he could not have killed child."
GIST: "A building worker from Texas, who was sentenced to death for a murder he did not commit, was released on Wednesday after spending nine years in prison, four of them on death row. Manuel Velez, 49, emerged from Huntsville prison a free man at 11.32pm CT. He was arrested in 2005, and sentenced to death three years later, for killing a one-year-old who was partially in his care. But over the years the conviction unravelled. Tests on the victim’s brain showed that Velez could not have caused the child’s head injuries. Further evidence revealed that the defendant, who is intellectually disabled, had suffered from woeful legal representation at trial, and that the prosecutor had acted improperly to sway the jury against him. Brian Stull, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who has represented Velez since 2009, said that “an innocent man went to death row because the entire system failed him. The defence counsel who are meant to defend him let him down, the prosecutor who is meant to secure justice committed misconduct, and even the judge made errors that were recognised on appeal.”.........The state’s case against Velez was that Angel had died of a head trauma that had been inflicted on the child within the final two weeks of his life. The final fatal blow, caused by swinging or slamming the infant into a hard surface, occurred no more than a few hours before he was found unconscious, prosecutors told the jury. But when lawyers with the private firms Carrington, Coleman, Sloman & Blumenthal, and Lewis, Roca, Rothgerber took up Velez’s case after he was put on death row, they were astonished by what they found. They discovered that expert opinion had been given in 2006 – fully two years before the trial – that destroyed the state’s case against him. A neuropathologist had examined Angel’s body and recorded blood on the brain caused by a haematoma that was “well developed”. Crucially, the brain injury was at least two weeks old and was almost certainly inflicted between 18 and 36 days before Angel died. The timing was critical, as Velez was not in contact with Angel until he moved into the Moreno home on 14 October, 17 days before the boy died. In fact, within the 18- and 36-day period specified by the neuropathologist, Angel was some 1,000 miles away in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was on a building job. This key detail went unnoticed by Velez’s original defence lawyers who made nothing of it at trial, even though it had been prominently incorporated into the official autopsy report on Angel Moreno. The neuropathologist who made the finding was similarly never called as a witness. As the lawyers, working alongside the ACLU, delved further into the case they began to find other evidence relating to Angel’s mother, Acela. Members of her family testified that they had seen Moreno neglect and abuse her young son; her sister revealed that Moreno had admitted to her that she had bitten Angel on the face.........Velez leaves prison with a criminal record. Despite the conclusive evidence that he was not in Brownsville at the time Angel received his head injuries, and despite the fact that the state of Texas has not disputed any of the facts in his appeal, the state continued to demand a retrial. The ACLU advised him that he could not be guaranteed an acquittal, and that a further injustice was always possible. So Velez agreed to plead guilty to reckless injury to a child, leading to his release on time served. “He wanted to fight for his innocence. But even more he wanted to see his children who are almost grown up, and his parents who are getting old,” Stull said."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/08/texas-releases-death-row-inmate-manuel-velez
Pamela Colloff' provided insight into the Velez case in a remarkable article published by Texas Monthly in 2013: "When a child dies from suspected abuse or assault, law enforcement officers typically focus their investigation on the last person who was with the victim. This is logical reasoning; but recent developments in forensics have shown that a child’s fatal injuries could actually have been inflicted hours, days, or even weeks before he or she is rushed to the emergency room. The evolving science of head trauma , for example, has upended long-held beliefs about “ shaken baby syndrome ” and has recently resulted in a number of exonerations of people convicted of murdering children. At least three women in Texas have had their cases thrown out or convictions reversed when misinterpreted medical evidence was re-evaluated. And the case of Manuel Velez is now drawing attention for the same reasons.
http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/reasonable-doubt-manuel-velez-case
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
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.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
I look forward to hearing from readers at:
hlevy15@gmail.com.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
