PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Jones’ conviction was suspect from the beginning. He was originally convicted in the 1985 shooting death of Guillermo Rodrigues outside a Brockton bar, based solely on inconsistent eyewitness identification testimony. At trial, the so-called “eyewitnesses” gave conflicting accounts about whether they had, in fact, identified Jones as the shooter. The prosecutor presented no physical evidence connecting Jones to the crime, nor any proof of motive or a relationship with the victim. There was also affirmative evidence supporting Jones’ factual innocence, including several witnesses who reported seeing him eating inside a nearby bar at the time of the shooting. Jones’ trial counsel was manifestly ineffective. He failed to meaningfully cross-examine police witnesses, some of whom he had recently represented in civil matters, including Detective Joseph Smith, who tampered with evidence by “crash editing” the videotape of an eyewitness to erase her description of the perpetrator. Inexplicably, trial counsel also requested to have Jones sit in the prisoners’ dock throughout the trial rather than at counsel table, a decision that denied Jones the opportunity for attorney consultation. "
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COMMENTARY: "After 32 Years In Prison, Darrell Jones' 'Not Guilty' Retrial Verdict Was Long Overdue," by Stephanie Roberts Hartung, Pubkished by WBUR on June 12, 2019. (Stephanie Roberts Hartung is a professor at Northeastern University School of Law and serves on the board of the New England Innocence Project. Her scholarship focuses on wrongful convictions and criminal justice reform.)
GIST: "Tuesday’s swift "not guilty" verdict in the retrial of Darrell Jones is
a clear repudiation of prosecutors' misguided decision to retry the
case in spite of strong evidence of his innocence. In 1986, Jones, who
is black, was convicted of first-degree murder by an all-white jury in Brockton, and sentenced to life in prison. He stayed there for 32 years. In 2017, Jones was released after the court vacated his conviction and granted a new trial,
finding that his original trial was unjust — tainted by an overtly
racist jury and false police testimony. Jones’ original lawyer also had a
clear conflict of interest, initially failing to disclose that he had
recently represented several witnesses against Jones, including the two
lead detectives in the case. In spite
of proof of police, attorney and jury misconduct in the original trial —
along with growing evidence of Jones’ factual innocence — the Plymouth
County District Attorney’s Office still opted to retry to the case. This
decision demonstrated the DA’s arrogant refusal to honestly assess the
evidence. The jury responded to their hubris with an acquittal.
While
the "not guilty" verdict in the Jones case was a just result, it was
long overdue. This case illustrates the layers of injustice during the
investigation, trial and after the conviction. Jones’ original trial
resulted in a wrongful conviction and over three decades of
incarceration — a profound miscarriage of justice. The prosecution’s
unwillingness to reckon with the wrongful conviction once it was
revealed added further insult to injury. In 2019, nearly 35 years after
Jones’ original trial, and in light of the increasing public awareness
of wrongful convictions in the interim, there is no excuse for a
prosecutor to turn a blind eye to such significant evidence of
innocence. Wrongful convictions of the innocent occur at an alarming rate. To date, there have been 2,462
known exonerations in the United States, resulting in 21,645 years of
wrongful incarceration. These numbers are widely regarded as reflecting the tip of the iceberg of factually innocent prisoners who remain incarcerated. The primary factors giving rise to wrongful convictions
include eyewitness identifications, false confessions, flawed forensics
and police and prosecutorial misconduct — several of which were present
in the Jones case. Jones’ conviction was suspect from the beginning. He was originally convicted in
the 1985 shooting death of Guillermo Rodrigues outside a Brockton bar,
based solely on inconsistent eyewitness identification testimony. At
trial, the so-called “eyewitnesses” gave conflicting accounts
about whether they had, in fact, identified Jones as the shooter. The prosecutor presented no physical evidence connecting Jones to the crime, nor any proof of motive or a relationship with the victim. There was also affirmative evidence supporting Jones’ factual innocence, including several witnesses who reported seeing him eating inside a nearby bar at the time of the shooting. Jones’
trial counsel was manifestly ineffective. He failed to meaningfully
cross-examine police witnesses, some of whom he had recently represented
in civil matters, including Detective Joseph Smith, who tampered with evidence by
“crash editing” the videotape of an eyewitness to erase her description
of the perpetrator. Inexplicably, trial counsel also requested to have
Jones sit in the prisoners’ dock throughout the trial rather than at
counsel table, a decision that denied Jones the opportunity for attorney
consultation. This arrangement also gave the jury the impression that
he was dangerous and likely guilty. During his decades in prison, Jones
consistently maintained his innocence, filing a series of unsuccessful appeals and motions. In December 2017, following an investigation
by WBUR uncovering racial bias among the jury and a new trial motion
filed on Jones’ behalf by the state’s Innocence Program, Superior Court
Judge Thomas McGuire found the circumstances of Jones’ trial to have
been fundamentally unjust. He vacated the conviction and granted a new trial." Although
the original trial was deemed to have been unjust, and in spite of
mounting evidence of Jones’ factual innocence — including medical
records turned over on the eve of the trial casting Jones’ identity as
the shooter into doubt — the DA insisted on retrying the case. During
the retrial, the prosecution presented much of the most contested and
critical eyewitness testimony without the benefit of live witnesses
appearing before the jury. Instead, members of the district attorney's
office read prior transcripts of witnesses' testimony. This approach left the jury unable to assess the credibility of this fundamental testimony. Ultimately,
the jury’s verdict was a rebuke to the DA’s irresponsible approach. A
prosecutor’s job is to pursue justice, not to pursue a conviction at all
costs. It is bad enough that Darrell Jones was wrongfully convicted in
1986, well before the era of DNA exonerations and the resulting
understanding of wrongful convictions and their causes. But it is worse
still, in 2019, for a prosecutor to ignore evidence of innocence and
blindly pursue a retrial against a factually innocent man."
The entire commentary can be read at:
https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2019/06/12/darrell-jones-retrial-innocence-project-stephanie-roberts-hartung
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/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
