PUBLISHER'S NOTE: Over the weekend, Mark Godsey expressed his skepticism about Pres. Donald Trump's newfound love for 'due process' in a post on The Wrongful Conviction Blog. (One of my favorite blogs. HL). I fired off the following comment to the W.C.B. "Is this the same Donald Trump who reasserted the guilt of the exonerated Central Park Five who had wrongfully been convicted for rape as teenagers ? (He had once called for their execution). As Liliana Segura wrote in The intercept on October 11, 2016: “But despite the burst of outrage, the ugly truth is that Trump’s attitude is all too common in district attorneys’ offices around the country. Not only have prosecutors defended the convictions of innocent people in the face of exonerating evidence, they will often block efforts to test for such evidence as DNA in the first place. Once a conviction is overturned, DAs often refuse to drop charges, dragging out a legal fight while dangling the specter of re-imprisonment over men and women who just want to move on with their lives. If a person is officially exonerated and seeks compensation, it is not uncommon for DAs to fight these efforts as well.” Thank you Mr. President Trump. Such compassion for the wrongfully accused!" It strikes me that the inability of New Jersey to back off, free Eric Kelley and Ralph Lee and truly investigate the actual killer (identified by the DNA evidence), is a classic example of Liliana Segura's point, in the Intercept, that Trump's harsh, vindictive attitude - as evidenced in the Central Park Five case - "is all too common in district attorneys’ offices around the country." Since Eric Kelley and Ralph Lee's prosecutors appear unable to find it in themselves to exonerate two men shown to be innocent by the scientific (DNA) evidence in a case where that evidence points to a third person as perpetrator of the crime, it's hard to imagine any case in which they will admit their errors and truly act in their wider role as administrators of justice who owe a duty to protect the rights of the accused as well. Read on!
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
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Read Mark Godsey's Wrongful Conviction Blog entry at: https://wrongfulconvictionsblog.org/2018/02/10/lives-shattered-by-a-false-allegation/#comments
Read Liliana Segura's Intercept story at:
https://theintercept.com/2016/10/11/donald-trump-ugly-attack-on-central-park-five-reflects-all-too-common-attitude/
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Run through a database of convicted felons, the DNA evidence later matched the profile of a man who had been released from prison for a similar knifepoint robbery three months before Merino's killing. That man has never been charged in connection to the video store murder and, through his attorney, has denied any involvement. Prosecutors argue he is not a viable suspect, pointing out that while he was determined to be the primary DNA contributor on the hat, there were also traces of other, unidentified individuals. Paul Casteleiro, a lawyer for Centurion Ministries, which is representing Lee, said prosecutors never even interviewed the possible new suspect. In order to fight his client's release, Casteleiro said, they had effectively declared the man innocent without investigating his involvement. "
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STORY: "Prosecutors tell N.J. court released men are still guilty of murder despite DNA doubts," by reporter S.P. Sullivan, published by N.J. Com on Feb. 12, 2018."
GIST: "Prosecutors are asking a state appeals court to put two New Jersey men back in prison after a judge gave them new trials thanks to DNA evidence. Eric Kelley and Ralph Lee spent 24 years behind bars for the 1993 murder of a Paterson video store clerk. The pair confessed during interrogations but later recanted their
confessions, saying they made them up under pressure from police. They
were convicted at separate trials. Last year, a state Superior Court judge tossed those convictions
after two legal groups dedicated to freeing the wrongly convicted
uncovered DNA and other evidence that contradicted their confessions and
eyewitness accounts. The case was the subject of a July special report from NJ Advance Media which reexamined court records and evidence gathered by the legal groups and raised questions about the investigation. The Passaic County Prosecutor's Office counters the evidence, which
points to another possible suspect, does not prove the two men innocent.
The office filed an appeal of the judge's ruling, and now a panel of
three appellate judges is weighing whether to reverse the decision or
move forward with new trials. Assistant Prosecutor Robert Wisse told the three-judge panel during a
hearing in Trenton on Monday that the juries that convicted Kelley and
Lee two decades ago already heard arguments alleging false confessions
and pertaining to a prior DNA test done at the time. "Both of those juries rejected those arguments," he said. Vanessa Potkin, an attorney for the Innocence Project, which is
representing Kelley, said prosecutors are "clinging to a conviction" to
cover for a bungled criminal case and ignoring test results that may
point to the real killer. The key piece of evidence in the case is a green and purple baseball
cap found near the body of Tito Merino, the young store clerk who
was beaten and stabbed during the robbery at his uncle's store. Kelley wrote in his signed confession that he owned the hat, but DNA
testing ruled him out as a DNA contributor, which would have been
expected for someone who wore it. The technology was limited at the
time, however, and never ruled out Lee as a possible owner. An eyewitness who was in the store picked Lee out of a photo array as
the man she saw in the store wearing the hat shortly before the time of
the murder. But the new DNA testing, performed in 2014, ruled out Lee as the
owner of the hat as well. Run through a database of convicted felons,
the DNA evidence later matched the profile of a man who had been
released from prison for a similar knifepoint robbery three months
before Merino's killing. That
man has never been charged in connection to the video store murder and,
through his attorney, has denied any involvement. Prosecutors argue he
is not a viable suspect, pointing out that while he was determined to be
the primary DNA contributor on the hat, there were also traces of
other, unidentified individuals. Paul Casteleiro, a lawyer for Centurion Ministries, which is
representing Lee, said prosecutors never even interviewed the possible
new suspect. In order to fight his client's release, Casteleiro said, they had
effectively declared the man innocent without investigating his
involvement. Judge Jack Sabatino said Monday it could take "some time" for the panel to issue a ruling in the case."
The entire story can be found at:
The entire story can be found at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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/c
