QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The state has had these DNA results since end of 2014 showing that somebody else committed the crime," said Vanessa Potkin, an Innocence Project attorney representing Kelley. "It was a great thing that happened today, but it should have happened three years ago."
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STORY: "Murder charges dropped for 2 N.J. men after DNA raises doubts," by S.P. Sullivan, published by NJ.com on April 6, 2018.
GIST: "Prosecutors have dropped charges against two New Jersey men
who spent decades behind bars for the 1993 killing of a Paterson video
store clerk after DNA evidence raised doubts about their guilt. Eric Kelley and Ralph Lee were released from prison after a judge
tossed their convictions in October. Prosecutors in Passaic County
challenged their release, losing an appeal last month, and said Friday
that pursuing the case was no longer "in the interests of justice." Two legal groups dedicated to freeing the wrongly convicted, the
Innocence Project and Centurion Ministries, had been fighting for their
freedom. Vanessa Potkin, an attorney for Kelley, said they arrived at a
routine court appearance in the ongoing legal struggle on Friday and
learned prosecutors were dropping the charges. "We had no notice, and thought we were appearing on a routine
electronic monitoring issue," Lee's attorney, Paul Casteleiro, said in
an e-mail. "We won!" In a statement, Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia Valdes said her office would not re-try the case. "The decision to not re-try these matters was made after consultation
with the family of (the victim) Tito Merino - who attended both trials
in 1996 and who have attended recent post-conviction hearings - and upon
consideration of the fact that both defendants in this matter have
served almost 25 years in custody," she said. The prosecutor said the appeals court ruling, coupled with the amount
of time the two men spent in prison and the difficulty of presenting
witnesses in a decades-old murder, prompted the office to drop charges. The case was the subject of a July special report from NJ Advance Media
reexamining court records and evidence gathered by the legal groups,
which raised questions about the investigation that led to their arrest.
Kelley and Lee claimed their confessions -- which they recanted before trial -- were false. A key piece of evidence in the case was 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, Victoria Video. Both Kelley and Lee were identified at various points as the owner of the hat, but new tests performed using technology not available at the time of the trial found no trace of either man's DNA. A sample from the hat was checked against a DNA database of convicted felons and came up with a match for a former Paterson man who finished a prison sentence for a knifepoint robbery just weeks before the video store killing. Prosecutors refused to interview that man and argued in court papers that he had nothing to do with the murder. Potkin said the case raised questions about how prosecutors in New Jersey handle credible claims of wrongful convictions. "The state has had these DNA results since end of 2014 showing that somebody else committed the crime," said Vanessa Potkin, an Innocence Project attorney representing Kelley. "It was a great thing that happened today, but it should have happened three years ago.""
The entire story can be found at:
Kelley and Lee claimed their confessions -- which they recanted before trial -- were false. A key piece of evidence in the case was 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, Victoria Video. Both Kelley and Lee were identified at various points as the owner of the hat, but new tests performed using technology not available at the time of the trial found no trace of either man's DNA. A sample from the hat was checked against a DNA database of convicted felons and came up with a match for a former Paterson man who finished a prison sentence for a knifepoint robbery just weeks before the video store killing. Prosecutors refused to interview that man and argued in court papers that he had nothing to do with the murder. Potkin said the case raised questions about how prosecutors in New Jersey handle credible claims of wrongful convictions. "The state has had these DNA results since end of 2014 showing that somebody else committed the crime," said Vanessa Potkin, an Innocence Project attorney representing Kelley. "It was a great thing that happened today, but it should have happened three years ago.""
The entire story can be found at:
Read Innocence Project report (April 6, 2018) on the exonerations of Eric Kelley and Ralph Lee at the link below: "Today, Innocence Project client Eric Kelley and Centurion client Ralph Lee were exonerated of their 1996 felony murder and robbery convictions, marking the end in their fight for justice of more than 24 years......... Kelley and Lee were convicted of the 1993 murder of Tito Merino based largely on contradictory statements they made to police after the police took them into custody. At the Paterson detective bureau, the two were interrogated separately for several hours. Kelley, who suffers from significant cognitive impairments because of a brain injury from a car accident and has difficulties processing information, was interrogated first and allegedly admitted to the crime. Detectives admitted that they fed the information supplied by Kelley when interrogating Lee. The interrogations were not recorded and there are no notes of what occurred. The only evidence of the confessions are typewritten statements officers prepared that were signed by Kelley and Lee. Kelley allegedly told police where the knife used in the murder was hidden and where stolen property was fenced. However, the police were not able to corroborate the claims, and the purported confessions were contradicted by the crime scene evidence......“We hope this case will spark changes in how prosecutors in New Jersey respond to potential wrongful conviction cases. New Jersey has been a leader when it comes to adopting reforms aimed at preventing wrongful convictions, but when it came to the individual cases of Mr. Kelley and Mr. Lee, we encountered unjustified and unrelenting resistance,” added Potkin. “Rather than investigate the person whose DNA was found at the scene, the prosecutors chose to bury their heads in the sand and cling to the conviction. The trial court and appellate court recognized not only the power of the new DNA evidence here, but also the problem of false confessions, mistaken identification, and law enforcement tunnel vision – leading causes of wrongful conviction.”
https://www.innocenceproject.org/eric-kelley-and-ralph-lee-exonerated/
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
