Saturday, February 15, 2020

Chris Tapp; Idaho. False confession case I have been following on this Blog. Now he's in the news again - pushing, with Charles Fain - for legislation that would compensate the wrongly imprisoned, Associated Press, Reporter Keith Ridler, reports..."Two men who combined spent nearly 40 years in Idaho prisons for crimes they didn’t commit testified Tuesday in favor of legislation that would compensate the wrongly convicted. Christopher Tapp and Charles Fain told lawmakers on the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee that they left prison with no resources after DNA evidence proved their innocence. Both had been convicted of murder. “Being in prison is as horrible as you can imagine, and being there when you are innocent is that much worse,” Tapp, who spent 20 years in prison, told lawmakers. “I never planned to die there,” said Fain, who spent 17 and half years incarcerated, mostly on death row where he spent 23 hours a day in a small cell. “I always planned to walk out, and I did.” The legislation brought forward by Republican Rep. Doug Ricks would pay $60,000 a year for wrongful incarceration and $75,000 per year on death row."

 

BACKGROUND:   From an Idaho Press story by reporter Tommy Simmons which ran on May 24, 2019. For full background, including the incredible role played by Dr. Greg Hampikian and his colleagues at the then fledgling Idaho Innocence Project read the entire story at the link below: "Sometime between 12:45 a.m. and 1:15 a.m. June 13, 1996, police believe, a man broke into Angie Dodge’s apartment in Idaho Falls and fatally cut her throat. There was also evidence he’d raped her. At the time, officers hypothesized multiple people had been involved in the crime, according to a recent statement from the Idaho Falls Police Department. In January 1997, they began to believe Chris Tapp, then 20 years old, was one of them. Brian Dripps lived across the street from Angie Dodge. He had told police he’d been so drunk on the night of her murder he couldn’t remember any of the people or vehicles he may have seen or interacted with, according to an affidavit, but he was not investigated further. Police kept investigating Tapp, even when they learned his DNA did not match that found at the scene. They still believed he may have been involved in the crime, because they thought it had been committed by multiple people. Tapp confessed his involvement in January 1997 — a confession he later tried to rescind and later said was coerced. Police asked him for the names of other people who may have been involved. None of the information he gave them led to any viable suspect, according to the affidavit. With a withdrawn confession and a lack of a DNA match, a Bonneville County jury in May 1998 convicted Tapp of the rape and murder of Dodge. A key witness in the case against Tapp — who had been 18 years old at the time — recanted her testimony this week, claiming she, too, was coerced by police and fed information, according to the Post Register. In December 1998, a judge sentenced Tapp to prison for 30 years to life and ruled he would be eligible for parole after 20 years. The Idaho Falls Police Department had never matched the DNA evidence taken from Angie Dodge’s apartment on the night she died. All that officers knew was that it did not belong to Tapp. About 12 to 13 years ago, an attorney working with a Boise State student on another Idaho Innocence Project case suggested they look into Tapp's case, Hampikian said. The Idaho Innocence Project was still in its infancy and working on its first cases — that of Sarah Pearce, who was convicted in a brutal attack of a Canyon County motorist and later released after the project got involved. Tapp's case became the Idaho Innocence Project's second.  None of the DNA evidence in the case was tested at Boise State, for legal reasons, Hampikian said, but the project worked with the Idaho Falls Police Department nonetheless. The department contracted with a private company, Parabon NanoLabs, ultimately using the genealogical techniques project members told them about, in order to secure Dripps’ arrest. The technique is a new one, and it's controversial, but it has been effective at solving cold cases across the country. Hampikian said the Idaho Falls Police Department was the first department to use it. Scientists use the DNA evidence to build a profile of the suspect. They then cross-reference that profile with other records, such as Census data, vital data, newspaper archives, and information publicly available through ancestry websites, according to the Idaho Falls Police Department. Once they pinpoint a likely ancestor of the DNA sample's owner, they build a family tree using more records. That, eventually, creates a pool of suspects. After that, police collected evidence "surreptitiously" — in this case, they waited until Dripps tossed a cigarette out a car window, then tested the DNA on the cigarette butt. It matched the DNA collected in 1996 from Angie Dodge's apartment..................Meanwhile, Tapp remained in prison. Back then, in Idaho, as long as they had an “actual claim of innocence,” an inmate could ask for additional DNA testing to help prove their innocence — but only if they did so within a year of their conviction. Tapp hadn’t done that, and since he started his sentence in 1998, forensic DNA had evolved. Additionally, Idaho, alongside Mississippi, had some of the most restrictive laws governing post-conviction DNA tests. Such cases are why current Ada County Commissioner Rick Visser, who was then serving as the Idaho Innocence Project’s legal director, wanted to change the law......... Gov. Butch Otter signed it into law the first day it appeared on his desk. That law, Visser said, “would open the door for Chris Tapp to make that claim (for DNA testing) 17, 18 years after the murder.”..............Prosecutors offered to reverse the rape charge against Tapp, because the DNA evidence from the rape kit did not belong to him. They also asked the judge to amend Tapp’s sentence to “time served” — meaning he’d served the appropriate amount of time in prison — but they did not drop the murder conviction.For a prisoner, being confronted with such a deal is “mind-blowing,” Hampikian said.At the time prosecutors offered Tapp the deal, he had been in prison for about two decades. Dripps had not been arrested, and there were no DNA matches in the case.Tapp took the deal and was released in March 2017.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: Greg Hampikian of the Idaho Innocence Project, which helped Tapp and Fain, said the lack of financial resources for people cleared of crimes concerns him. “I love doing the work that I do,” he told lawmakers. “I tremble when someone gets out"" 

Greg Hampikian.

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "

STORY: "Wrongly convicted men testify before Idaho lawmakers," by Associated Press Reporter Keith Ridler, published on February 11, 2020.


PHOTO CAPTION: "Christopher Tapp, from left, Republican Rep. Doug Ricks and Charles Fain appeared before the Idaho House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee in Boise, Idaho, on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2020, to testify in favor of legislation that would compensate the wrongly convicted. Tapp and Fain combined spent nearly 40 years in Idaho prisons for crimes they didn’t commit after being convicted of murder." 
GIST: "Two men who combined spent nearly 40 years in Idaho prisons for crimes they didn’t commit testified Tuesday in favor of legislation that would compensate the wrongly convicted. Christopher Tapp and Charles Fain told lawmakers on the House Judiciary, Rules and Administration Committee that they left prison with no resources after DNA evidence proved their innocence. Both had been convicted of murder. “Being in prison is as horrible as you can imagine, and being there when you are innocent is that much worse,” Tapp, who spent 20 years in prison, told lawmakers.  “I never planned to die there,” said Fain, who spent 17 and half years incarcerated, mostly on death row where he spent 23 hours a day in a small cell. “I always planned to walk out, and I did.” The legislation brought forward by Republican Rep. Doug Ricks would pay $60,000 a year for wrongful incarceration and $75,000 per year on death row. The committee won’t vote on whether to send the legislation to the full House until Thursday. “I have a lot of faith in our justice system,” he said. “I think we have the best system in the world. But what happens when we get that wrong? I think it’s important for the state to take some responsibility here.” He said Idaho is one of 15 states with no wrongful conviction legislation. Tapp in 1998 was convicted of rape and murder following the 1996 death of Angie Dodge. He was released in 2017, and DNA evidence cleared him in 2019. Brian Leigh Dripps was arrested on DNA evidence last year and is charged with rape and murder in Dodge’s death. “I was released with no more than the clothes on my back, left completely reliant on friends and family to help me while I tried to rebuild my life,” Tapp said. Fain was convicted of kidnapping, rape and murder in 1983 following the death of 9-year-old Daralyn Johnson. In 1984 he was sentenced to death. “The worst day of my life was the day I got arrested for murdering a 9-year-old girl, and that’s the worst crime you can get convicted for,” Fain said. But DNA evidence not available at the time of the conviction later cleared him, and he was released in 2001. Johnson’s killer hasn’t been identified. Greg Hampikian of the Idaho Innocence Project, which helped Tapp and Fain, said the lack of financial resources for people cleared of crimes concerns him. “I love doing the work that I do,” he told lawmakers. “I tremble when someone gets out""

The entire story can be read at: https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/northwest/idaho/article240208782.html

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;
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FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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