"With the consent of Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney Sharen Wilson, a Texas Judge today filed an order recommending that the 1998 murder conviction of John Earl Nolley be vacated. The judge then ordered that Nolley be released on bond and allowed to return to live with his family. In July 2015, six months after taking office, District Attorney Wilson established her office’s first Conviction Integrity Unit (“CIU”). The CIU collaborated with the Innocence Project and Fort Worth attorney Reagan Wynn in reinvestigating the 1996 murder of Sharon McLane. The collaboration netted new evidence using new forensic technology revealing that Nolley was not the source of a bloody palm print found on a piece of paper recovered on the victim’s body. The CIU also discovered and turned over numerous pieces of previously undisclosed evidence significantly discrediting the testimony of two informants (both of whom were facing criminal charges during the original murder investigation) who had claimed to have critical evidence supporting the state’s case at trial. The case is the first conviction that the newly formed Conviction Integrity Unit has recommended be reversed..........With the support of the D.A.’s office, an expert using new digital technology that wasn’t available at the time of the trial examined the bloody palm print on the paper found on the victim’s body and concluded that it didn’t come from Nolley. The print also didn’t match to any of areas of McLane’s palm or hand for which “clear and complete impressions were recorded at autopsy,” indicating that she was also likely not the source. In his writ application filed last month, Nolley argued that this was powerful new scientific evidence that the crime was committed by someone else. After reviewing the new evidence, DA Wilson’s office agreed that the new print evidence was so significant that it would likely have led the jury to find Nolley not guilty had it been available at his trial. A review of the prosecutor’s files also revealed critical new information that directly contradicted testimony given by O’Brien and Vandergriff. With respect to O’Brien, a jailhouse informant, the CIU located numerous documents contained in other files in the District Attorney’s office revealing that O’Brien had been a State informant in numerous other cases, and lied to the jury when he claimed that he had never “snitched” on anyone but Nolley, nor had he even “offered to” do so. The CIU also discovered that Vandergriff gave starkly contradictory testimony before the grand jury about the inculpatory statement that Nolley allegedly made (telling the grand jury that Nolley had never indicated he had “cut” or stabbed anyone, while claiming he had admitted to doing so at trial). The parties have also conducted DNA testing of multiple pieces of crime scene evidence using new technology. Because the DNA testing is ongoing, the court was not asked to rule on the DNA issues in the case until all the testing is completed. “False informant testimony has contributed to nearly 15 percent of the 341 DNA exonerations, yet there are very few policies in place around the nation to make this deeply flawed evidence more reliable,” said Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project. “As a leader in wrongful conviction reform, we look to Texas to put meaningful safeguards in place to prevent this evidence from causing further injustice.”.........“Advances in science and technology are helping to make criminal prosecutions more accurate,” said Reagan Wynn, who served as local counsel for Nolley. “Mr. Nolley’s case affirms the Texas legislature’s decision to recognize that these same advances can be meaningful in exposing injustice where that advanced technology wasn’t previously available, by giving the wrongly convicted a way to get back into court and present that new evidence.”
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