QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The same DNA techniques in 2018 identified the suspected Golden State Killer, a former police officer now awaiting trial in 12 homicides and numerous rapes across California in the 1970s and 1980s. It has since been used to find suspects in nearly 80 cases nationwide, said Anne Marie Schubert, the district attorney in neighboring Sacramento County whose office made the DNA link in both cases. But it’s only the second time the new technique exonerated a suspect, the first being last year in Idaho when Christopher Tapp was cleared of the 1996 murder of Angie Dodge, she said. “It must be remembered that this is not a tool of conviction, it is a tool of justice,” Schubert said."
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Jane Hylton, a 54-year-old columnist for the Foothills Times, was found dead — stabbed 29 times and bitten on the shoulder — on July 7, 1985, inside an El Dorado Hills home. She was staying there temporarily with her teenage daughter, Davis and Davis’ then-girlfriend Connie Dahl. The man arrested this week was one of three youths who were in a park that night with the then-13-year-old daughter of the victim. One of the three boys is now dead and another is cooperating in the investigation, Pierson said. That man is not believed to have participated in the slaying, but may have known about it afterward, he said. The daughter is not a suspect and helped identify the new suspect, he said. Davis and Dahl told detectives they had gone to a party the night before and returned home at 3:30 a.m. where they found Hylton’s daughter waiting outside. The teenager told them she had gone out with a group of boys that night and was afraid her mother would be upset with her for being out too late, according to an online synopsis of the case by the Innocence Project, which is part of the Santa Clara University School of Law. “The three entered the house together. Davis saw blood in the hallway outside the master bedroom and found Hylton’s body on the bed. Davis and Dahl immediately called 911 to report the crime. All three maintained they were not involved in the murder and did not know who committed the crime,” according to the project. The case went unsolved until detectives reopened it in late 1999.Dahl changed her story under what Pierson said were the aggressive interrogation techniques in use at the time, implicating Davis as the killer and telling detectives that she bit the victim during the attack. He said the two investigators have since retired. More sophisticated recent DNA tests found unknown male DNA on the nightgown in the area of the bite mark and the same DNA profile under the victim’s fingernails. Those tests excluded Davis, Dahl and Hylton’s daughter as the sources of the DNA. That led to Davis’ murder conviction being overturned in 2019 after project lawyers argued that “had the original jury heard the DNA results, it would have likely reached a different outcome.” He remained in jail until investigators were satisfied they had the real killer in custody."
STORY: "Wrongfully convicted man freed after 15 years as DNA leads to new arrest," by Associated Press reporter Don Thompson, published on February 13, 2020.
PHOTO CAPTION: "El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson displays a generic genetic DNA ribbon as he discusses how new DNA evidence was used to help exonerate a man who spent about 15 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of killing his housemate, during a news conference in Placerville, Calif., Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020. Ricky Davis was convicted in 2004 of second degree murder in the stabbing death of a newspaper columnist. But the conviction was thrown out after new evidence was found implicating another person."
GIST: "California authorities used recently
developed DNA techniques to free one man and implicate another for only
the second time in the United States, officials said Thursday. A man who spent about 15 years in prison after being wrongfully
convicted in the slaying of his housemate has been exonerated after
authorities used extended DNA links developed through publicly available
genealogical websites to build a family tree that led to the arrest of a
new suspect. El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson would not go into
detail on the newly implicated suspect, who was a juvenile at the time
of the slaying and by law must make at least his first appearances in
juvenile court even though he is now in his 50s, but said he was one of
three young men who had been with the victim’s teenage daughter on the
night of the slaying. A county judge on Thursday ordered Ricky Davis released from custody
during an emotional court hearing in Placerville, about 45 miles (70
miles) east of Sacramento. He was to be released after paperwork is
completed later Thursday.
Hours later a smiling Davis walked out of El Dorado County jail surrounded by family and friends.
When asked by reporters to comment on his release he answered “no comment, thank you,” and held up a black sweatshirt embroidered with a yellow Innocence Project logo. Davis, 54, had always maintained his innocence. Pierson said the developments are “two of the most dramatic extremes that you can experience.” “On the one hand, we have the system working in the worst possible way. On the other hand, we have the evolution of technology in terms of genetic genealogy” that led to Davis being freed and a new suspect arrested this week, he said. “It is a surreal thing in a sense.” The same DNA techniques in 2018 identified the suspected Golden State Killer, a former police officer now awaiting trial in 12 homicides and numerous rapes across California in the 1970s and 1980s. It has since been used to find suspects in nearly 80 cases nationwide, said Anne Marie Schubert, the district attorney in neighboring Sacramento County whose office made the DNA link in both cases. But it’s only the second time the new technique exonerated a suspect, the first being last year in Idaho when Christopher Tapp was cleared of the 1996 murder of Angie Dodge, she said. “It must be remembered that this is not a tool of conviction, it is a tool of justice,” Schubert said. Jane Hylton, a 54-year-old columnist for the Foothills Times, was found dead — stabbed 29 times and bitten on the shoulder — on July 7, 1985, inside an El Dorado Hills home. She was staying there temporarily with her teenage daughter, Davis and Davis’ then-girlfriend Connie Dahl. The man arrested this week was one of three youths who were in a park that night with the then-13-year-old daughter of the victim. One of the three boys is now dead and another is cooperating in the investigation, Pierson said. That man is not believed to have participated in the slaying, but may have known about it afterward, he said. The daughter is not a suspect and helped identify the new suspect, he said. Davis and Dahl told detectives they had gone to a party the night before and returned home at 3:30 a.m. where they found Hylton’s daughter waiting outside. The teenager told them she had gone out with a group of boys that night and was afraid her mother would be upset with her for being out too late, according to an online synopsis of the case by the Innocence Project, which is part of the Santa Clara University School of Law. “The three entered the house together. Davis saw blood in the hallway outside the master bedroom and found Hylton’s body on the bed. Davis and Dahl immediately called 911 to report the crime. All three maintained they were not involved in the murder and did not know who committed the crime,” according to the project. The case went unsolved until detectives reopened it in late 1999.
Dahl changed her story under what Pierson said were the aggressive interrogation techniques in use at the time, implicating Davis as the killer and telling detectives that she bit the victim during the attack. He said the two investigators have since retired. More sophisticated recent DNA tests found unknown male DNA on the nightgown in the area of the bite mark and the same DNA profile under the victim’s fingernails. Those tests excluded Davis, Dahl and Hylton’s daughter as the sources of the DNA. That led to Davis’ murder conviction being overturned in 2019 after project lawyers argued that “had the original jury heard the DNA results, it would have likely reached a different outcome.” He remained in jail until investigators were satisfied they had the real killer in custody. Dahl, who received a one-year county jail sentence in the case, died in 2014. Innocence Project staff attorney Melissa O’Connell said she thought she had the evidence to free her client in 2014, yet it took six more years before investigators were satisfied that they had found the real killer. She said she was in tears and her client was emotional in court as he was ordered freed. He planned to celebrate with pizza and will be entitled to more than $750,000 in state compensation because he was wrongfully convicted, $140 for each day he spent behind bars. A prosecutor shook Davis’ hand, she said, and “he got to hug his mom for the first time in court today in a very, very long time.”
The entire story can be read at:
https://fox5sandiego.com/news/wrongfully-convicted-man-freed-after-15-years-as-dna-leads-to-new-arrest/
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Hours later a smiling Davis walked out of El Dorado County jail surrounded by family and friends.
When asked by reporters to comment on his release he answered “no comment, thank you,” and held up a black sweatshirt embroidered with a yellow Innocence Project logo. Davis, 54, had always maintained his innocence. Pierson said the developments are “two of the most dramatic extremes that you can experience.” “On the one hand, we have the system working in the worst possible way. On the other hand, we have the evolution of technology in terms of genetic genealogy” that led to Davis being freed and a new suspect arrested this week, he said. “It is a surreal thing in a sense.” The same DNA techniques in 2018 identified the suspected Golden State Killer, a former police officer now awaiting trial in 12 homicides and numerous rapes across California in the 1970s and 1980s. It has since been used to find suspects in nearly 80 cases nationwide, said Anne Marie Schubert, the district attorney in neighboring Sacramento County whose office made the DNA link in both cases. But it’s only the second time the new technique exonerated a suspect, the first being last year in Idaho when Christopher Tapp was cleared of the 1996 murder of Angie Dodge, she said. “It must be remembered that this is not a tool of conviction, it is a tool of justice,” Schubert said. Jane Hylton, a 54-year-old columnist for the Foothills Times, was found dead — stabbed 29 times and bitten on the shoulder — on July 7, 1985, inside an El Dorado Hills home. She was staying there temporarily with her teenage daughter, Davis and Davis’ then-girlfriend Connie Dahl. The man arrested this week was one of three youths who were in a park that night with the then-13-year-old daughter of the victim. One of the three boys is now dead and another is cooperating in the investigation, Pierson said. That man is not believed to have participated in the slaying, but may have known about it afterward, he said. The daughter is not a suspect and helped identify the new suspect, he said. Davis and Dahl told detectives they had gone to a party the night before and returned home at 3:30 a.m. where they found Hylton’s daughter waiting outside. The teenager told them she had gone out with a group of boys that night and was afraid her mother would be upset with her for being out too late, according to an online synopsis of the case by the Innocence Project, which is part of the Santa Clara University School of Law. “The three entered the house together. Davis saw blood in the hallway outside the master bedroom and found Hylton’s body on the bed. Davis and Dahl immediately called 911 to report the crime. All three maintained they were not involved in the murder and did not know who committed the crime,” according to the project. The case went unsolved until detectives reopened it in late 1999.
Dahl changed her story under what Pierson said were the aggressive interrogation techniques in use at the time, implicating Davis as the killer and telling detectives that she bit the victim during the attack. He said the two investigators have since retired. More sophisticated recent DNA tests found unknown male DNA on the nightgown in the area of the bite mark and the same DNA profile under the victim’s fingernails. Those tests excluded Davis, Dahl and Hylton’s daughter as the sources of the DNA. That led to Davis’ murder conviction being overturned in 2019 after project lawyers argued that “had the original jury heard the DNA results, it would have likely reached a different outcome.” He remained in jail until investigators were satisfied they had the real killer in custody. Dahl, who received a one-year county jail sentence in the case, died in 2014. Innocence Project staff attorney Melissa O’Connell said she thought she had the evidence to free her client in 2014, yet it took six more years before investigators were satisfied that they had found the real killer. She said she was in tears and her client was emotional in court as he was ordered freed. He planned to celebrate with pizza and will be entitled to more than $750,000 in state compensation because he was wrongfully convicted, $140 for each day he spent behind bars. A prosecutor shook Davis’ hand, she said, and “he got to hug his mom for the first time in court today in a very, very long time.”
The entire story can be read at:
https://fox5sandiego.com/news/wrongfully-convicted-man-freed-after-15-years-as-dna-leads-to-new-arrest/
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Read Northern California Innocence Project' summary of the case at the link below: "On July 7, 1985, 55-year old Jane Hylton was found murdered in a home in El Dorado Hills, CA. The home belonged to Hylton’s employer Wilma Klein and was occupied by Klein’s grown daughter, Maureen, Klein’s grandson, 20-year-old Ricky Davis, his then girlfriend 19-year-old Connie Dahl, the victim, and the victim’s 13-year-old daughter. One day prior to the murder, Hylton, moved into the Klein home because Hylton was having problems with her husband and wanted to move out. Klein welcomed Hylton and her daughter to live in the home. In the early morning hours of July 7, 1985, the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department responded to a 911 call reporting a homicide from the Klein home. When deputies arrived, Davis, Dahl, and Hylton’s daughter were all present, and Davis directed deputies to Hylton’s body in the upstairs master bedroom. Davis and Dahl told detectives they had gone to a party the night before and returned home at 3:30 a.m. where they found Hylton’s daughter waiting outside. She told them that she had gone out with a group of boys that night and was afraid her mother would be upset with her for being out too late. The three entered the house together. Davis saw blood in the hallway outside the master bedroom and found Hylton’s body on the bed. Davis and Dahl immediately called 911 to report the crime. All three maintained they were not involved in the murder and did not know who committed the crime. Hylton’s husband was questioned and he denied any involvement, and was later cleared as a suspect. With no further leads in the case, the investigation into Hylton’s murder went cold. Fourteen years later, in November 1999, cold case detectives reopened the case and sought out Dahl for questioning. The detectives interrogated Dahl four times over the next eighteen months using techniques known to increase the chances of false confessions. Dahl ultimately changed her story for police and implicated Davis as the killer. She also implicated herself in the crime, telling the police that she bit the victim during the attack. Dahl also maintained that Hylton’s daughter helped her and Davis move Hylton’s body. Based almost entirely on Dahl’s testimony, Davis was convicted of second-degree murder in August of 2005 and sentenced to 16 years to life in state prison. Dahl received only one year in county jail for her alleged involvement in the crime. Davis always maintained his innocence. Davis first contacted NCIP in 2006 and we began a thorough re-investigation of the case. With the cooperation of the El Dorado County District Attorney’s office, NCIP obtained post-conviction DNA testing on a number of pieces of evidence at the crime scene, including Hylton’s nightgown and biological material from under Hylton’s fingernails. DNA test results revealed an unknown male DNA profile on the nightgown in the area of the bite mark and a consistent male DNA profile under the victim’s fingernails. The test results excluded Davis, Dahl and Hylton’s daughter as the sources of the DNA. The unknown male DNA profile found on the nightgown indicated that Dahl did not bite the victim, contrary to her testimony at trial. With this new evidence, NCIP filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the El Dorado County Superior Court on Davis’ behalf in October of 2016. In January of 2017, the court issued an order to show cause and an evidentiary hearing was ordered for mid- 2018. NCIP successfully argued that had the original jury heard the DNA results, it would have likely reached a different outcome. It was a key moment because until January 2017, the California standard required that new evidence “point unerringly to innocence”— then the highest hurdle in the country and a nearly unattainable standard. In 2016, NCIP co-sponsored Senate Bill 1134 championed by former California State Senator Mark Leno, to put California’s standard in line with that of 43 other states. The Bill, which passed in January 2017, allowed wrongfully convicted inmates like Davis to instead prove that the new evidence would likely have been compelling to a jury. On April 15, 2019, the Honorable Judge Kenneth Melikian reversed Davis’ 2005 murder conviction."
http://ncip.org/ricky-davis/
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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;
