GIST: "Citing
a prosecutor's duty to do justice, the Kentucky Attorney General's
office Thursday moved to dismiss charges against two men who spent more
than 20 years behind bars for a murder falsely linked to Satanism. The
motion will finally end the ordeal of Garr Keith Hardin and Jeffrey
Dewayne Clark, who were convicted in 1995 of killing Rhonda Sue Warford
and dumping her body in a field in Meade County. The
attorney general's office says the pair were convicted using defective
evidence and possibly perjured testimony from a police officer. Clark's lawyer, Linda Smith, supervising attorney for the Kentucky Innocence Project, said he cried when she told him the news. "He was beyond happy," she said. "It's been a long time coming." The
attorney's office said in its motion that when the defendants were
tried 23 years ago, the prosecution presented physical evidence and
testimony from which "a reasonable jury" could find the defendants
guilty. But the office said "subsequent discoveries
about the reliability of these witnesses, along with the development of
more reliable scientific testing, leave the commonwealth to conclude
that there is no longer sufficient evidence by which a reasonable jury
could conclude the defendants are, in fact, guilty beyond a reasonable
doubt. "The Attorney General’s constitutional
obligation is to adhere to its mandate to do justice," says the 12-page
motion filed by Assistant Attorneys General Jon Heck and Jeffrey
Prather. "Therefore the Commonwealth does hereby motion this Court to
dismiss." In a statement, the office said it would continue to investigate Warford's murder.“ He was beyond happy. It's been a long time coming. Meade
Circuit Court Judge Brian T. Butler threw out the convictions in
2016, saying there was no credible evidence that Warford's murder was
inspired by satanic worship, as the prosecution contended in 1995. Citing DNA evidence, Butler ruled the convictions were "based on assumptions we now know to be totally false," and released Hardin and Clark on bond. But
the Meade commonwealth's attorney's office elected to retry them, and
persuaded a grand jury to hand up new indictments for perjury and
kidnapping. Butler last month dismissed those additional charges as vindictive, and the attorney general's office, which took control of the case last fall, said it would review the case. Smith said in an interview that she hopes Clark and Hardin win civil rights suits they filed seeking compensation for their wrongful conviction, and that it produces "systemic" changes in Kentucky. "Preventing
wrongful convictions in the future is something everyone should be on
board with," she said. "It shouldn't be controversial to want to end
this kind of suffering. We are only half done." In
the motion to dismiss, the attorney general said suspicion immediately
fell on the men after Warford was found stabbed to death because Hardin
was her boyfriend. Both also were admittedly interested in Satanism, according to the motion. They
both gave recorded statements denying involvement, but then-Louisville
police Detective Mark Handy alleged that Hardin had said he'd
participated in animal sacrifice and wanted to sacrifice a human. "This alleged confession was used to great effect during the trial," the motion says. Prosecutors
also said a broken chalice found with a bloody rag in Hardin's home
supported the belief that Hardin had sacrificed animals. There
was limited forensic evidence tying the defendant to the murder, but
the commonwealth's forensic examiner testified that a hair on Warford's
sweatpants was similar to Hardin's hair. And a jailhouse informant
testified that Clark twice admitted to the murder. "Taken as a whole, it was reasonable for the jury to convict both men," Heck and Prather say in their motion. But over the years, the evidence collapsed. “Preventing
wrongful convictions in the future is something everyone should be on
board with. It shouldn't be controversial to want to end this kind of
suffering.” The
Kentucky Supreme Court, over the objection of local prosecutors and the
attorney general's office, allowed post-conviction DNA testing that
showed the hair found on Warford did not match either defendant. The testing also showed blood on the rag was Hardin's, as he claimed all along. Handy
was investigated for falsifying evidence that led to the wrongful
conviction of Edwin Chandler in another murder case, and that
Handy ascribed to Chandler facts he could not have possibly known. "Put
bluntly, the commonwealth cannot put credibility into an unrecorded
statement taken by a detective who has a documented history of
fabricating details of a murder case," the motion says. The
assistant attorney general also noted that in a new trial jurors would
learn about Handy's handling of the Chandler case, and that Chandler was
falsely imprisoned for almost 10 years largely because of Handy's
testimony. The city paid $8.5 million to settle
Chandler's lawsuit for wrongful arrest and imprisonment. A former
Louisville police sergeant, Denny Butler, recommended that Handy be
prosecuted for perjury. He never was, and is now a sergeant in the
Jefferson County sheriff's office. The motion also
said Hardin never confessed to the jailhouse informant, who had offered
perjured testimony against another inmate. Former
commonwealth's attorney Kenton Smith, who prosecuted the case, did not
immediately respond to requests for comment. The current commonwealth's
attorney, David M. Williams, said last month that he still wanted Clark
and Hardin retried for the murder, but "that's not my call now." He said he gave up the case last fall to the attorney general's office because he was swamped with other work. Terry
Sebastian, a spokesman for that office, said Williams sought the
additional indictments that Butler dismissed as vindictive. But the
judge singled out an assistant attorney general, Perry Ryan, who has
worked on the prosecution for 20 years. He was recently removed him from
the case."
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
