"Montgomery County prosecutors dismissed all charges Thursday against Neal Robbins, whose murder conviction was vacated in 2014, after he served 15 years for the murder of his girlfriend's 17-month-old daughter. Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon said
there was not enough evidence to pursue new charges against Robbins,
whose odyssey through Texas courts helped bring about the state's "junk
science" law. Robbins's 1999 conviction was based almost entirely
on testimony from then-Harris County assistant medical examiner
Patricia's Moore finding of homicide. After Moore reviewed her findings
in 2007, she changed the manner of death to "undetermined," and
Montgomery County prosecutors were unable to find another expert to
officially declare it a murder. This left Robbins in the Kafka-esque
position of being convicted of a murder that may not have officially
happened. Houston attorney Brian Wice, who argued Robbins's case multiple times before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and who pushed for the junk science law, told the Conroe Courier,
"Today’s result was possible only because [Ligon] recognized that being
a tough but fair prosecutor sometimes means more than putting people in
the penitentiary; and we’re grateful to Mr. Ligon for doing the right
thing for the right reason.” Wice previously told the Houston Press that the new law was "a
failsafe mechanism that really is designed to kind of clean up the
scientific junkyard that's out there...This statute recognizes that when
an expert's opinion — or the underlying science on which that opinion
is based — has now been contradicted, then a defendant shouldn't have to
rot in prison because an expert got it wrong the first time around.".........Wice told the Courier in
an email that Robbins "looks forward to this next chapter of his life,
spending time (with) his family, friends and loved ones, and learning
how to deal with ATMs, smart phones and the Internet, none of which
existed when he went to prison during the Clinton administration."
"http://www.houstonpress.com/news/prosecutors-dismiss-charges-in-junk-science-murder-case-8684855
See more detailed Chronicle report at the link below: "The ruling comes more than a year after the state's highest court for criminal matters took up the issue of whether a state law that allows for new trials in cases where forensic science is flawed also covers mistakes by expert witnesses. The wrongful-conviction law was motivated in part by Robbins' case, Wice said. "Neal's case was really the benchmark," he said. "It's the ultimate fail-safe mechanism to ensure that the law keeps up with science." The law allows for retrials if newly available science can discredit expert or scientific testimony, Wice said. Clearly divided on the issue after it ruled in November 2014 for a new trial, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals made it clear then that Gov. Greg Abbott might decide the issue - if he signed into law a recently passed bill intended to affirm its earlier decision. Abbott signed the bill into law in June 2015. The complicated case could have significant impact on future cases - and was being watched nationally as one of the first such decisions on so-called "junk science" writs. At issue was whether Robbins, serving a life sentence for capital murder in the killing of the child, should get a new trial because Moore changed her autopsy decision from homicide to undetermined eight years after Robbins was sent to prison in 1999. Texas' initial law allowing new trials in cases where junk science was confirmed - the first in the nation, passed in 2013 - did not cover instances where witnesses later recanted their testimony, as in Robbins' case. Even so, Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Bill Delmore said last year that what should be a clear case had been complicated by the fact that the Legislature approved the new law. Under House Bill 3724, designed to codify the court's November decision, defendants could have their convictions re-examined if an expert who testified at their trial later recanted testimony, casting doubt on the integrity of the conviction. A bill analysis of the legislation stated that it was to cover "not only discredited science but also the testimony" based on it. Thursday's developments were the latest in Robbins' long-running appeal of his conviction. In 2007, another medical examiner reviewed Moore's initial findings in the case and found that none of the toddler's injuries would definitively point to homicide - asphyxiation - as the cause of death. Robbins and his attorneys say the girl was found unconscious and that bruising on her body was simply evidence of unsuccessful attempts to revive her. Robbins had been taking care of the toddler. When she returned home from errands, her mother found her unconscious. After the second opinion on the cause of death, Moore recanted her decision, saying in a letter to prosecutors that she should have ruled the cause of death as "undetermined." A district judge subsequently characterized her original testimony as "expert fiction calculated to attain a criminal conviction," and said she was biased in favor of the prosecution. The Chronicle first investigated Moore in 2004."
http://www.chron.com/houston/article/Man-freed-17-years-after-capital-murder-9170599.php
"http://www.houstonpress.com/news/prosecutors-dismiss-charges-in-junk-science-murder-case-8684855
See more detailed Chronicle report at the link below: "The ruling comes more than a year after the state's highest court for criminal matters took up the issue of whether a state law that allows for new trials in cases where forensic science is flawed also covers mistakes by expert witnesses. The wrongful-conviction law was motivated in part by Robbins' case, Wice said. "Neal's case was really the benchmark," he said. "It's the ultimate fail-safe mechanism to ensure that the law keeps up with science." The law allows for retrials if newly available science can discredit expert or scientific testimony, Wice said. Clearly divided on the issue after it ruled in November 2014 for a new trial, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals made it clear then that Gov. Greg Abbott might decide the issue - if he signed into law a recently passed bill intended to affirm its earlier decision. Abbott signed the bill into law in June 2015. The complicated case could have significant impact on future cases - and was being watched nationally as one of the first such decisions on so-called "junk science" writs. At issue was whether Robbins, serving a life sentence for capital murder in the killing of the child, should get a new trial because Moore changed her autopsy decision from homicide to undetermined eight years after Robbins was sent to prison in 1999. Texas' initial law allowing new trials in cases where junk science was confirmed - the first in the nation, passed in 2013 - did not cover instances where witnesses later recanted their testimony, as in Robbins' case. Even so, Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Bill Delmore said last year that what should be a clear case had been complicated by the fact that the Legislature approved the new law. Under House Bill 3724, designed to codify the court's November decision, defendants could have their convictions re-examined if an expert who testified at their trial later recanted testimony, casting doubt on the integrity of the conviction. A bill analysis of the legislation stated that it was to cover "not only discredited science but also the testimony" based on it. Thursday's developments were the latest in Robbins' long-running appeal of his conviction. In 2007, another medical examiner reviewed Moore's initial findings in the case and found that none of the toddler's injuries would definitively point to homicide - asphyxiation - as the cause of death. Robbins and his attorneys say the girl was found unconscious and that bruising on her body was simply evidence of unsuccessful attempts to revive her. Robbins had been taking care of the toddler. When she returned home from errands, her mother found her unconscious. After the second opinion on the cause of death, Moore recanted her decision, saying in a letter to prosecutors that she should have ruled the cause of death as "undetermined." A district judge subsequently characterized her original testimony as "expert fiction calculated to attain a criminal conviction," and said she was biased in favor of the prosecution. The Chronicle first investigated Moore in 2004."
http://www.chron.com/houston/article/Man-freed-17-years-after-capital-murder-9170599.php
