Sunday, January 3, 2016

Bulletin: Clarence Moses-EL: Colorado; Conviction vacated, new trial ordered, after 28 years behind bars, Denver Post reports; "Judge Gerdes’ decision appears to hinge partly on the fact that another man has confessed on numerous occasions to committing the crime for which Moses-EL was imprisoned. The Denver Post remarks that those confessions, made by one LC Jackson, as well as blood tests indicating that the attacker had a different blood type than Moses-EL, were “some of the reasons Gerdes ordered a new trial.”..."Meanwhile, the outlet adds, scrutiny into the victim’s original testimony reveal additional inconsistencies which may point to Moses-EL’s innocence: “In 1987, when police, her sister and a neighbor asked who had attacked her, the woman gave three possibilities,” reports the Post. “A couple of days later, however, she told police for the first time that Moses-EL, a neighbor, was her attacker. . . . His identity had come to her in a dream, she said,” reported the Post. Moses-EL was ultimately convicted of sexual assault, assault and burglary and sentenced to 48 years in prison. While incarcerated, a court granted him DNA testing of the collected evidence but, says the Denver Post, the police “mistakenly destroyed the evidence before it could be analyzed.” The Innocence Project.

"A Denver, Colorado, man who spent more than 28 years in prison for a crime his lawyers say he didn’t commit, took his first steps towards freedom Tuesday after a judge vacated his conviction and ordered a new trial, according to a news story in the Denver Post. Clarence Moses-EL, now 60, was convicted of a 1987 sexual assault in which a woman was brutally beaten, dragged and raped, but has always maintained his innocence.........Judge Gerdes’ decision appears to hinge partly on the fact that another man has confessed on numerous occasions to committing the crime for which Moses-EL was imprisoned. The Denver Post remarks that those confessions, made by one LC Jackson, as well as blood tests indicating that the attacker had a different blood type than Moses-EL, were “some of the reasons Gerdes ordered a new trial.” Meanwhile, the outlet adds, scrutiny into the victim’s original testimony reveal additional inconsistencies which may point to Moses-EL’s innocence: “In 1987, when police, her sister and a neighbor asked who had attacked her, the woman gave three possibilities,” reports the Post. “A couple of days later, however, she told police for the first time that Moses-EL, a neighbor, was her attacker. . . . His identity had come to her in a dream, she said,” reported the Post.   Moses-EL was ultimately convicted of sexual assault, assault and burglary and sentenced to 48 years in prison.  While incarcerated, a court granted him DNA testing of the collected evidence but, says the Denver Post, the police “mistakenly destroyed the evidence before it could be analyzed.” Moses-EL will now await the Denver district attorney’s decision on whether or not to proceed in retrying the case."