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 With a withdrawn confession and a lack of a DNA match, a Bonneville County jury in May 1998 convicted Tapp of the rape and murder of Dodge.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: “I’m grateful to the Senate for voting to pass this bill and for moving us one step closer to being able to help those wrongfully convicted as they restart their lives,” Tapp said in a news release. “I look forward to seeing compensation for Idahoan exonerees become a reality so that other innocent people do not have to struggle like I did.” Idaho is one of 15 states that does not have a compensation statute for exonerees. Among the other 35 states that do, the average sum paid to a wrongfully convicted individual per year they spent in prison is $68,000. “Without a state compensation law, wrongfully-convicted Idahoans have no recourse but to file civil lawsuits that often involve years of litigation at great expense to them and the taxpayers,” co-director of the Idaho Innocence Project Greg Hampikian said in a news release."
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GIST: "The Idaho Senate unanimously passed the Wrongful Conviction Act on Wednesday.
With a 32-0 vote, the Senate approvedhe a bill to provide compensation to the wrongfully convicted. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Doug Ricks, R-Rexburg, and championed by exoneree Christopher Tapp. Tapp was convicted for the rape and murder of Angie Dodge in 1998 in Idaho Falls. He was exonerated in July 2019. “I’m just really excited about it, really happy we got it through,” Ricks told EastIdahoNews.com. “It’s been a lot of work and a lot of effort from a lot of folks to get the language right. We’re just really thrilled and very happy about it.” The bill would compensate a wrongfully convicted individual with $60,000 for every year spent in prison and $75,000 per year on death row. The exoneree would be given that money in yearly $85,000 installments, though a judge could decide to give it all in one lump sum. “People who have been wrongly convicted have been robbed of years of their lives, and once they have been fully exonerated, they are left to pick up the pieces of their lives on their own,” Ricks said in a news release from the Idaho Innocence Project. “When that happens, we as a state, as a society and as citizens have an obligation to make it right. This bill is a big step forward in the right direction.” Ricks worked with the Idaho Innocence Project out of Boise State University as well as others like Tapp to craft the bill. “I’m grateful to the Senate for voting to pass this bill and for moving us one step closer to being able to help those wrongfully convicted as they restart their lives,” Tapp said in a news release. “I look forward to seeing compensation for Idahoan exonerees become a reality so that other innocent people do not have to struggle like I did.” Idaho is one of 15 states that does not have a compensation statute for exonerees. Among the other 35 states that do, the average sum paid to a wrongfully convicted individual per year they spent in prison is $68,000.
“Without a state compensation law, wrongfully-convicted Idahoans have no recourse but to file civil lawsuits that often involve years of litigation at great expense to them and the taxpayers,” co-director of the Idaho Innocence Project Greg Hampikian said in a news release. “A law providing a fixed amount of money per year of wrongful conviction is a sensible approach to help exonerees try to restart a productive life.” Ricks said he hopes Gov. Brad Little will sign the bill either today or tomorrow, though there may not be a signing ceremony due to coronavirus precautions."
The entire story can be read 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/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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