Friday, July 31, 2020

Pervis Payne; Tennessee; Execution set for December 3: District Attorney DA asks court to deny request for DNA "A Tennessee death row inmate fighting for his own life. His defense team believes new DNA evidence could clear his name. But Thursday, the Shelby County District Attorney asked the court to deny his request for DNA testing."


PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Payne is represented by attorneys with the Innocence Project.
They filed a petition for DNA testing a blood-stained comforter, sheets, and pillow, all of which was discovered by Payne’s attorney in the court clerk’s office last December. But DA Weirich said this evidence is from a separate murder that happened in Memphis in 1998, a decade after Payne’s conviction. “The property room made a mistake. These items have nothing to do with Pervis Payne and should not have been shown as a part of this case,” said Weirich. In a statement to FOX13 Kelley Henry, one of Payne’s attorney said DA Weirich is wrong to oppose the DNA testing. “The police tampered with evidence at the crime scene. They moved the victims’ bodies. If the victim’s ex-husband’s DNA is found on any piece of evidence, it would exonerate Mr. Payne,” said Henry’s statement."

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STORY: "DA Weirich  asks court to deny request for DNA testing in Pervis Payne death penalty case," by reporter Kirstin Garriss, published by Fox13 News on July 30, 2020.

GIST:  "A  Tennessee death row inmate fighting for his own life. His defense team believes new DNA evidence could clear his name. But Thursday, the Shelby County District Attorney asked the court to deny his request for DNA testing.

A jury convicted Pervis Payne for the 1987 deadly stabbing of Millington mother Charisse Christopher and her two-year-old daughter, Lacie. Christopher’s three-year-old son Nicholas survived with multiple stab wounds. Payne’s execution is set for December 3, 2020.

During a press conference, District Attorney Amy Weirich said the evidence against Payne speaks for itself.

“[Payne] was seen by police running out of this apartment sweating blood. He puts himself there, his fingerprints were found in the apartment. His hat is on a dead baby’s arm,” said Weirich.

Payne is represented by attorneys with the Innocence Project.
They filed a petition for DNA testing a blood-stained comforter, sheets, and pillow, all of which was discovered by Payne’s attorney in the court clerk’s office last December.
But DA Weirich said this evidence is from a separate murder that happened in Memphis in 1998, a decade after Payne’s conviction.

“The property room made a mistake. These items have nothing to do with Pervis Payne and should not have been shown as a part of this case,” said Weirich.

In a statement to FOX13 Kelley Henry, one of Payne’s attorney said DA Weirich is wrong to oppose the DNA testing. “The police tampered with evidence at the crime scene. They moved the victims’ bodies. If the victim’s ex-husband’s DNA is found on any piece of evidence, it would exonerate Mr. Payne,” said Henry’s statement.

Payne’s defense team also wants DNA testing of crime scene evidence including a tampon, a weapon, and potentially a rape kit.

DA Weirich said this same request was made back in 2006 and the courts denied it."

The entire story can be read at:
https://www.fox13memphis.com/news/local/da-weirich-asks-court-deny-request-dna-testing-pervis-payne-death-penalty-case/QZAA5S3RQZCBTLV32DHQ2U3LCM/

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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Technology: Facial recognition; Fake Video evidence in trial? 'The Capture': Part One: Can't wait to see this one: (Amazon Prime): BBC drama series 'The Capture.' As Diksha Sundriyal writes in Cinemaholic: "Technology has made our lives a lot easier, but it has also opened us to new kinds of dangers. Surrounded by cameras on all sides, we have made ourselves vulnerable to constant surveillance, and rarely do we give it a second thought. If George Orwell’s works didn’t make you paranoid enough about it, then allow BBC’s ‘The Capture’ to add fuel to the fire. "


BACKGROUND: TECHNOLOGY: In the last several years I have been spending considerably more time than usual on applications of rapidly developing technology in the criminal justice process that could effect the  quality of the administration of justice - for better, or, most often, for worse. First, of course, predictive policing (AKA Predpol) made it’s interest, at its most extreme promising  the ability to identify a criminal act before it occurred. At it’s minimal level, it offered police a better sense of where certain crimes where occurring in the community being policed - knowledge that the seasoned beat officer had intuited through every day police work years earlier. Predpol has lost some of it’s lustre as police departments discovered that the expense of acquiring and using the technology was not justified. Then we entered a period where logarithms were become popular with judges for use on bail hearings and on sentencing, In my eyes, these judges were just passing the buck to the machine when they could have, and should have made their decisions  based on information they received in open court - not from Logarithm’s which were notorious for their secrecy, because the manufacturers did not want to reveal their trade secrets - even in a courtroom where an accused person’s liberty and reputation  were in jeopardy. Some of these logarithms on bail and sentence have come under attack for discriminating against minorities and are hopefully on the way out. Lastly,  facial recognition technology has become a concern to this Blog  because of its prove ability to sweep up huge numbers of people, lead to wrongful arrests and prosecutions, and discriminate racially.  May we never forget that  a huge, extremely well-funded, powerful industry, often politically connected industry  is pushing for profit use of all these technologies in the criminal systems - and, hopefully, in the post George Floyd aftermath  will be more concerned with the welfare of the community than their bottom Line. HL.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY: "The idea of video manipulation and how important video evidence is in a trial held his (Author/Director Ben Chanan) attention. “I began to think what if you combined the idea that anything online can be hacked with the fact that video evidence is increasingly integral to our justice system? How if those two things came together, it could create a nightmare scenario,” he told The Guardian. He realized how closely the public had been placed under CCTV surveillance, with London being in the top ten of the most monitored cities in the world. The fact that people have come to live with it, without ever stopping to think how such a thing could, in the worst-case scenario, be turned against them. “What’s interesting is how easy it might be to abuse that comfort. Because if software can take somebody’s audio and sample it and make them say what we want, how can we ever entirely trust a police confession or any audio archive? If you then apply that to video evidence as well, what happens then?” he said.

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "This show follows the story of a man who is accused of kidnapping and murdering a woman. The act is caught on CCTV, and the video evidence is enough to convict him of the crime. The twist comes when he claims that he is innocent. The show keeps itself rooted in reality to extrapolate on the things that could happen. As we watch the events unfold, we are also forced to wonder if such a thing is possible in real life? Is ‘The Capture’ a real story? Let’s find out."

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STORY: "Is The Capture a true story?" by Senior Writer Diksha Sundriyal, published by Cinemaholic on July 24, 2020. As Cinemaholic describes itself: "The Cinemaholic is an entertainment news website written by real experts. Our writers are not just movie or tv journalists, but they are so much more. Every writer in our team is inherently a student of cinema."

GIST: "Technology has made our lives a lot easier, but it has also opened us to new kinds of dangers. Surrounded by cameras on all sides, we have made ourselves vulnerable to constant surveillance, and rarely do we give it a second thought. If George Orwell’s works didn’t make you paranoid enough about it, then allow BBC’s ‘The Capture’ to add fuel to the fire.

This show follows the story of a man who is accused of kidnapping and murdering a woman. The act is caught on CCTV, and the video evidence is enough to convict him of the crime. The twist comes when he claims that he is innocent. The show keeps itself rooted in reality to extrapolate on the things that could happen. As we watch the events unfold, we are also forced to wonder if such a thing is possible in real life? Is ‘The Capture’ a real story? Let’s find out.

Is The Capture based on a true story?

No, ‘The Capture’ is not based on a true story. It is based on an original story by Ben Chanan, who also directs the show. The idea first came to him while working on a documentary about counter-terrorism, during which he had interviewed several people who had worked in intelligence. He played with the plot for a while and then created a fictional narrative that would allow him to underline the moral implications of the issue.

In the two years before the show premiered, he had thought of it as a “what if” drama, with BBC interpreting it as that of “heightened reality”. But in the making of the show, and in the current times, he has found it to be all the closer to reality than he had initially expected. “Barely a week goes by without a new warning about the potential horrors of facial recognition, deep-fakes or fake news. I had no idea our current era would turn out to be such a good fit,” he said in its introduction.

The idea of video manipulation and how important video evidence is in a trial held his attention. “I began to think what if you combined the idea that anything online can be hacked with the fact that video evidence is increasingly integral to our justice system? How if those two things came together, it could create a nightmare scenario,” he told The Guardian. He realized how closely the public had been placed under CCTV surveillance, with London being in the top ten of the most monitored cities in the world. The fact that people have come to live with it, without ever stopping to think how such a thing could, in the worst-case scenario, be turned against them. “What’s interesting is how easy it might be to abuse that comfort. Because if software can take somebody’s audio and sample it and make them say what we want, how can we ever entirely trust a police confession or any audio archive? If you then apply that to video evidence as well, what happens then?” he said.

In creating the story of such dark and paranoia-inducing nature, Chanan was inspired by the 70s thrillers like The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, and Capricorn One. It was their “overtly political and unashamedly risky” tone that made him push his story on the same path.

As for whether the Correction program is real, Chanan ensures that it is just the product of his imagination. (Not that we’d know what the government is secretly doing with all our data.) However, things like deep-fake, manipulating audio and video, and even tinkering with CCTV footage (though maybe not on the level as depicted in the show) is not an alien concept. We live in a world where fake news spreads like a wildfire, while no one seems interested in the truth. If it is so easy to convince people with some minor here and there of pictures and manipulation of facts, would it really be that difficult to introduce something like the Correction?"

The entire story can be read at:
https://www.thecinemaholic.com/the-capture-true-story/

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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Thursday, July 30, 2020

Sedley Alley: Pervis Payne: Death Row: Tennessee: State's refusal to test DNA: Powerful, beautifully written commentary by Nashville Scene Staff Writer Steven Hale..."The Governor Can Demand to Know the Truth in Two Tennessee Death Penalty In the Alley case, DNA testing could clear a man’s name and reveal that the state of Tennessee committed an unimaginable and irreversible act. But in the case of Pervis Payne, DNA testing could keep the state from doing so."


WORDS TO HEED: FROM OUR POST ON KEVIN COOPER'S  APPLICATION FOR POST-CONVICTION DNA TESTING; CALIFORNIA: (Applicable wherever a state resists DNA testing): "Blogger/extraordinaire Jeff Gamso's blunt, unequivocal, unforgettable message to the powers that be in California: "JUST TEST THE FUCKING DNA." (Oh yes, Gamso raises, as he does in many of his posts, an important philosophical question: This post is headed: "What is truth, said jesting Pilate."...Says Gamso: "So what's the harm? What, exactly, are they scared of? Don't we want the truth?" 

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY:  "(Pervis) Payne is an intellectually disabled Black man who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1987 murder of a white woman named Charisse Christopher and her 2-year-old daughter Lacie Jo. He has always maintained his innocence, saying he came upon the bloody crime scene while checking to see if his girlfriend — who lived across the hall — was at her apartment. Overwhelmed by the horror before him, Payne testified in court that he fumbled around trying to help before he ran off, afraid that the police would instantly believe he was the murderer. They did. But more than 30 years later, Payne’s attorney Kelley Henry, who also represented Alley, discovered previously undisclosed evidence — a bloodied comforter, sheets and pillow — that had never been tested. In a Dec. 30 court filing, Henry wrote that the case against Payne had been “concocted out of whole cloth” and based on “outdated racial stereotyping.” At the very least, DNA evidence that was apparently hidden from the defense does nothing to make one doubt her characterization of the case. Now, the Innocence Project has also taken up Payne’s case. Last week, attorneys filed a petition seeking DNA testing.  The court may well side with them. But the governor could step in right now. Never mind the pandemic, which has now caused the delay of three executions scheduled in Tennessee this year and could also lead to a stay for Payne. Lee could arguably announce a reprieve right now, declaring that Payne will not be executed without DNA testing on evidence that was withheld from his attorneys for three decades."

COMMENTARY: "The Governor Can Demand to Know the Truth in Two Tennessee Death Penalty Cases," by  Staff writer Steven Hale, Published  by The Nashville Scene on July 27, 2020.
GIST: Earlier this month, Gov. Bill Lee invoked perhaps his most significant power for the first time when he granted a reprieve to Harold Nichols less than three weeks before Nichols was set to be executed. Lee has allowed four men to be executed since he became governor in January 2019. He denied pleas for clemency from those men and has not used the power to commute the sentences of anyone in prison, or to grant any pardons.
That’s not particularly unusual. Governors are often hesitant to grant executive clemency, fearing a political backlash. That’s why it’s typically reserved for one’s final days in office. But it doesn’t have to be that way — Lee can show mercy whenever he wants to. 
In Nichols’ case, the governor’s intervention was not motivated by questions about the man’s guilt. Nichols confessed to the 1988 rape and murder of Karen Pulley, as well as a series of other rapes in the Chattanooga area. There are reasons his attorneys and supporters thought clemency was warranted — among them, testimony that he is a changed man and the fact that Chattanooga prosecutors agreed two years ago that Nichols was eligible to be resentenced to life in prison. But Lee’s hand was forced by “the challenges and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a short statement from his office announcing the reprieve. That will keep Nichols out of the death chamber through the end of the year. 
But the cases of two other men — one still on this year’s execution calendar and another long since executed — cry out for the governor’s attention. Both were convicted and sentenced to death in Shelby County, which is home to less than 14 percent of the state’s population but accounts for nearly half of the state’s death row.
Last year, with the backing of federal public defenders and the Innocence Project, April Alley announced a renewed effort to have DNA testing done on evidence that could prove her father, Sedley Alley, was innocent when he was executed by the state of Tennessee in 2006. Alley was convicted for the brutal 1985 rape and murder of Suzanne Collins. He confessed to the crime under police interrogation, but attorneys have argued that his case has all the signs of a false confession. Parts of his confession, for instance, matched police theories at the time that turned out to be erroneous. Alley had also told April that he had no memory of committing the crime.
Alley’s attorneys fought for DNA testing before his execution, insisting that it could prove his innocence. The state Board of Probation and Parole recommended that then-Gov. Phil Bredesen stay Alley’s execution so that DNA testing could be performed. Bredesen granted a stay, but punted on the matter of DNA testing, leaving it to the courts. The courts blocked the testing in a decision that the Tennessee Supreme Court has since found to be in error. 
In a letter sent to Lee last year, attorneys for April Alley asked the governor to do what his predecessor had not — order DNA testing on the evidence. A Shelby County judge would later dismiss a petition seeking testing in the case, but Alley’s attorneys argued in the letter that Lee still has the authority to intervene. 
“While we believe the court has the authority to order the DNA testing of the evidence, you also have that authority, which constitutionally is broader than the authority of the courts in this matter,” the attorneys wrote. “You can order the DNA testing in the course of considering the issuance of a pardon and exoneration for Sedley Alley.” 
In the Alley case, DNA testing could clear a man’s name and reveal that the state of Tennessee committed an unimaginable and irreversible act. But in the case of Pervis Payne, DNA testing could keep the state from doing so. 
Payne is an intellectually disabled Black man who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1987 murder of a white woman named Charisse Christopher and her 2-year-old daughter Lacie Jo. He has always maintained his innocence, saying he came upon the bloody crime scene while checking to see if his girlfriend — who lived across the hall — was at her apartment. Overwhelmed by the horror before him, Payne testified in court that he fumbled around trying to help before he ran off, afraid that the police would instantly believe he was the murderer. They did.
But more than 30 years later, Payne’s attorney Kelley Henry, who also represented Alley, discovered previously undisclosed evidence — a bloodied comforter, sheets and pillow — that had never been tested. In a Dec. 30 court filing, Henry wrote that the case against Payne had been “concocted out of whole cloth” and based on “outdated racial stereotyping.” At the very least, DNA evidence that was apparently hidden from the defense does nothing to make one doubt her characterization of the case.
Now, the Innocence Project has also taken up Payne’s case. Last week, attorneys filed a petition seeking DNA testing. 
The court may well side with them. But the governor could step in right now. Never mind the pandemic, which has now caused the delay of three executions scheduled in Tennessee this year and could also lead to a stay for Payne. Lee could arguably announce a reprieve right now, declaring that Payne will not be executed without DNA testing on evidence that was withheld from his attorneys for three decades. 
In response to a request for comment on the Payne case — and questions about whether the governor agrees with death row attorneys that he can order DNA testing — Lee’s spokesman Gillum Ferguson said that Lee “reviews all clemency cases in detail before making any decisions and he will have more to say about Mr. Payne’s case upon further reviews.” 
Every Tennessean should want to know whether the state executed an innocent man nearly 15 years ago, and whether it is mere months away from executing another. Does the governor?"

The entire story can be read at: 
 https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pith-in-the-wind/article/21141409/the-governor-can-demand-to-know-the-truth-in-two-tennessee-death-penalty-cases

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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Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Ronny Long: North Carolina: Flawed identification process: Federal appeals court ruling expected 'any day' in case where an all-White jury convicted a Black man of rape in 1976 - and now, lawyers say evidence was hidden from the defense.


PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in eye-witness identification issues because  wrongful identifications are at the heart of so many DNA-related exonerations in the USA and elsewhere - and because so much scientific research is being conducted with a goal to making the identification process more   transparent and reliable- and less subject to deliberate manipulation.  I have also reported far too many cases over the years - mainly cases lacking DNA evidence pointing to the suspect - where the police have rigged the identification process in order to make an identification inevitable. Sure sounds like  obstruction of justice to me.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "They got the wrong man," said Jamie Lau, a supervising attorney with the Duke Law School Wrongful Convictions Clinic. "Ronnie Long is absolutely innocent of this crime." Lau said Long, who had been a talented high school athlete, was facing a minor trespassing charge when cops asked the victim to come to court that day. "They dressed her in a disguise, brought her to the courtroom. She sat there for an hour and a half in the presence of Mr. Long without identifying him," Lau said. "When Long's name was called, she identified him as the person who assaulted her ... and she later testified that she selected him because he looked most similar to her attacker of all the people who were present in the courtroom that day." But the victim had originally described her attacker as a "light-colored" Black man, which Long is not. And while a shoe print found outside the victim's home had a similar tread, it could not be matched to shoes owned by Long. There was also clothing — including a black leather coat — found in Long's car that looked like what the rapist wore. "It was a ubiquitous piece of clothing for Black males at the time, in part because the movie 'Shaft' had come out a few years prior," Lau said. At trial, Long didn't take the stand, but several alibi witnesses testified to seeing him at the time of the rape. "Every moment of his day had been accounted for," Lau said. The all-White jury convicted Long of rape and burglary. He was given two life sentences."

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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "About 30 years after Long's conviction, his attorneys learned that investigators had tested more than a dozen pieces of evidence and had hidden the results. "Not only did they hide evidence, but then they took the stand while under oath and lied about the evidence," Lau said. The defense did not know there were 43 fingerprints found at the crime scene that didn't match Long, as well as a hair at the crime scene that did not match Long, Lau said. They also didn't know there was a rape kit with evidence taken from the victim."

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STORY: "An all-White jury convicted a Black man of rape in 1976. Now, lawyers say evidence was hidden from the defense,"  by CBS News published by WBTV on July 29, 2020.

GIST: "A federal appeals court is expected to rule any day on whether to overturn a 44-year-old rape conviction. In 1976, there were angry protests in Concord, North Carolina after the conviction of a young Black man, Ronnie Wallace Long, accused of raping a prominent White woman.
Now, lawyers for Long, who accuse investigators of lying about evidence, are trying to right what they say is a wrongful conviction.
Long, who is now 64 years old, told "48 Hours" correspondent Erin Moriarty that he never had a chance for a fair trial in what was back then a mostly segregated community.
"So now you tell me, you got a young Black man in 1976 in front of a White jury … for a sexual assault of a rich, wealthy, White female. I mean, what kind of justice is that?" Long said.
Long was 20 years old in 1976 when he was arrested in Concord for the rape of Sarah Bost, a 54-year-old widow.
"They got the wrong man," said Jamie Lau, a supervising attorney with the Duke Law School Wrongful Convictions Clinic. "Ronnie Long is absolutely innocent of this crime."
Lau said Long, who had been a talented high school athlete, was facing a minor trespassing charge when cops asked the victim to come to court that day.
"They dressed her in a disguise, brought her to the courtroom. She sat there for an hour and a half in the presence of Mr. Long without identifying him," Lau said. "When Long's name was called, she identified him as the person who assaulted her ... and she later testified that she selected him because he looked most similar to her attacker of all the people who were present in the courtroom that day."
But the victim had originally described her attacker as a "light-colored" Black man, which Long is not. And while a shoe print found outside the victim's home had a similar tread, it could not be matched to shoes owned by Long. There was also clothing — including a black leather coat — found in Long's car that looked like what the rapist wore.
"It was a ubiquitous piece of clothing for Black males at the time, in part because the movie 'Shaft' had come out a few years prior," Lau said.
At trial, Long didn't take the stand, but several alibi witnesses testified to seeing him at the time of the rape.
"Every moment of his day had been accounted for," Lau said.
The all-White jury convicted Long of rape and burglary. He was given two life sentences.
"I felt like somebody had hit me with a bat," said Long's older sister, Lynda Smith, who was there for the verdict. "Everything just fell down because I just knew — I wasn't expecting that."
She wasn't the only one. Concord erupted. "Oh my God. It was a terrible sight. They went crazy," Smith said. "They was breaking windows. They was turning over police cars. They was running out through the street."
Bost died believing that Long was the man who attacked her, but Lau said victims can convince themselves the wrong person was their attacker.
"There's very clear examples of people believing with high levels of confidence that they have identified the right attacker only to later be proven wrong," he said.
About 30 years after Long's conviction, his attorneys learned that investigators had tested more than a dozen pieces of evidence and had hidden the results.
"Not only did they hide evidence, but then they took the stand while under oath and lied about the evidence," Lau said.
The defense did not know there were 43 fingerprints found at the crime scene that didn't match Long, as well as a hair at the crime scene that did not match Long, Lau said. They also didn't know there was a rape kit with evidence taken from the victim.
"My reaction was 'Oh, my brother's coming home now,'" Smith said about learning about the evidence. "But they still ain't let him out."
Long's only child, Carlos Spears, was 3 when his dad went to prison. He's now 47.
"I want the world to know that Cabarrus County locked up an innocent man and they need to go ahead and give him justice," Spears said.
But, in May, at a federal appeals court, the North Carolina attorney general's office argued that none of the evidence hidden at trial would have changed the verdict.
"Christmas times, cookouts, ... we always miss Ronnie," Smith said. "Somebody's missing … it's just like a burden — carrying a burden all the time."
"Somebody's in prison for something he didn't do," she said.
The North Carolina attorney general's office declined to talk about the pending case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is expected to rule soon.
Meanwhile, Long's attorney is asking Governor Roy Cooper to commute his sentence and send him home.
One of the detectives in Long's case later went to prison for stealing checks."

The entire story can be read at:
https://www.wbtv.com/2020/07/28/an-all-white-jury-convicted-black-man-rape-now-lawyers-say-evidence-was-hidden-defense/

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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Edwin Chandler: Keith Hardin; Jeffrey Clark: Louisville, Kentucky: Horror stories involving former Louisville Detective Mark Handy...Prosecutors say Handy forced Chandler into a false confession, taped over video evidence and lied on the stand in the Chandler case."....The police corruption was so egregious, Louisville paid Edwin Chandler $8.5 million...Now Louisville is suing its former detective to recover the $8.5 million paid out in the settlement! (And that's just the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Check out what Handy did to Keith Hardin and Jeffrey Clark. HL);


PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in false confessions because of the disturbing number of exonerations in the USA, Canada and multiple other jurisdictions throughout the world, where, in the absence of incriminating forensic evidence the conviction is based on self-incrimination – and because of the growing body of  scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects are to widely used interrogation methods  such as  the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’ As  all too many of this Blog's post have shown, I also recognize that pressure for false confessions can take many forms, up to and including physical violence, even physical and mental torture.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog:

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BACKGROUND: Reporter Andrew Wolfson: Courtier Journal; March 1, 2018: "Former Louisville detective Mark Handy, who was implicated in the wrongful convictions of three men who spent a combined 55 years in prison before being exonerated, is finally out of law enforcement. Handy was scheduled to retire at midnight Wednesday as a Jefferson County deputy sheriff, said Lt. Col. Carl Yates, a spokesman for the office. Yates said Handy’s departure was voluntary..." He was a detective in a murder case against Edwin Chandler, who said Handy coerced him into a confession by threatening to lock up his sister and take her children away. Chandler, who spent nine years in prison, was exonerated in 2009 in part through new fingerprint technology that lead to the conviction of another man for the 1993 killing of a gas station clerk during a robbery.  The city paid Chandler an $8.5 million settlement after his lawyers showed that Handy fed him facts to use in the confession and also taped over a surveillance video that might have led to the real killer. Handy was also the lead detective in an investigation of Garr Keith Hardin and Jeffrey Dewayne Clark, who were convicted in the 1992 murder of teenager Rhonda Warford. Handy testified that Hardin admitted sacrificing animals as part of a part of a satanic ritual and later decided that he wanted to “do a human.” But citing his misconduct in the Chandler case and other evidence, a judge ruled that Handy wasn’t credible and granted the defendants a new trial in 2016. He dismissed the case entirely on Monday. Each man served 23 years behind bars."

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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in false confessions because of the disturbing number of exonerations in the USA, Canada and multiple other jurisdictions throughout the world, where, in the absence of incriminating forensic evidence the conviction is based on self-incrimination – and because of the growing body of  scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects are to widely used interrogation methods  such as  the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’ As  all too many of this Blog's post have shown, I also recognize that pressure for false confessions can take many forms, up to and including physical violence, even physical and mental torture.
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog:

STORY: "Louisville files lawsuit against former LMPD detective to recover $8.5 million paid in settlement,  published by WDRB on July 24, 2020.
GIST: The city of Louisville has filed a lawsuit against a disgraced former Louisville Metro Police detective who committed perjury that led to a man being wrongfully convicted of murder.


The lawsuit was filed against Mark Handy in Jefferson Circuit Court on Thursday.
Earlier this year, Handy agreed to a plea deal to first-degree perjury in connection with the 1995 murder case against Edwin Chandler. That plea deal still has to be accepted by a judge.
Chandler spent nine years in prison for the murder of Brenda Whitfield, which a court later found he did not commit. He was exonerated in 2012. Metro Government went on to pay him $8.5 million.The lawsuit against Handy is an attempt by the city to recover some of those funds.
"Handy's fraudulent, malicious, or corrupt actions and/or inactions in the Edwin Chandler case were the proximate cause of the cost of the settlement of Chandler's lawsuit and the costs expended to defend Handy in the lawsuit," the suit states, before going on to say that according to state law, the city, "is statutorily entitled to recover from Handy the cost of the settlement of Chandler's lawsuit..."
Prosecutors say Handy forced Chandler into a false confession, taped over video evidence and lied on the stand in the Chandler case.
As part of his plea deal, Handy would serve no jail time. The special prosecutor's recommendation to the judge is a sentence of five years, but that sentence would be probated. 
According to online court documents, Jefferson Circuit Judge Olu Stevens is set to hold a hearing next month to decide whether to approve the plea deal.
Lawsuits represent only one side of a story. WDRB has reached out to the Jefferson County Attorney's Office, as well as the attorney who is representing Handy in his criminal case. At the time of this writing, neither party has responded for comment.
Handy was involved in other wrongful convictions as well.

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.wdrb.com/news/louisville-files-lawsuit-against-former-lmpd-detective-to-recover-8-5-million-paid-in-settlement/article_685c9954-cdb6-11ea-9248-d7ed4e98a781.html

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: NATIONAL REGISTRY:

In February 2015, lawyers for Garr Keith Hardin and Jeffrey Clark, who had been convicted of a murder in 1995, filed a motion for a new trial in their case based on DNA testing that excluded them from evidence in that case. The motion also cited evidence that Louisville police Detective Mark Handy manufactured and falsely attributed incriminating statements to them. The motion said that Handy had similarly manufactured false incriminating statements in Chandler’s case. Moreover, the defense lawyers for Hardin and Clark presented evidence that in a 1992 murder investigation involving a defendant named Keith West, Handy erased a witness’s tape-recorded statement and recorded over it. However, when he testified about the statement in February 1995 at a pretrial hearing in West's case—the same month Hardin and Clark’s trial began – Handy falsely denied erasing or copying over the taped interview. Hardin and Clark were granted a new trial and the charges were dismissed in February 2018.'

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Read the National Registry of Exonerations entry for Edwin Chandler, Keith Hardin and Jeffery Clark (by Maurice Possley)  at the link below:

"Just after 10 p.m., on September 28, 1993, a man entered a Chevron station in Louisville, Kentucky, and brought a bottle of beer to the counter. When he held out $1 for the 99-cent purchase, the clerk, 25-year-old Brenda Whitfield, opened the register. The man drew a gun, fatally shot Whitfield in the face, and fled with $32 he grabbed from the cash register.

Police recovered three fingerprints from the beer bottle, a Georgetown Hoyas stocking cap, and sunglasses left behind by the gunman. Police took a statement from John Gray, who was pumping gas when the shooting occurred. Gray said he saw a bald, heavy-set black man about 5 feet eight inches tall come out of the store, throw something into the bushes, and then run off in the direction of the Turtle Creek apartments.

Detectives looked at surveillance video and determined that a man named Melvin Carr was in the store and left just before the crime occurred. Carr stopped by the station almost every night after work, so police returned there the following night to question him when he arrived. Carr went to the police station where he viewed the surveillance video. He said he had seen the gunman in the store, and that the man appeared to be waiting for him to leave. Carr described the man as about five feet eight to five feet 10 inches tall with a medium build.

Inexplicably, a detective wrote down that Carr said the gunman was “tall and thin.” To further complicate the investigation, shortly after Carr left the station, a detective taped over the surveillance video with an episode of “Late Show with David Letterman.”

On October 1, 1993, detectives interviewed Vincent Pozzie, a store employee who was not present at the time of the crime, and showed him some of the photographs from the surveillance video. Pozzie said he thought the robber looked like his former neighbor, 21-year-old Edwin Chandler, who lived about a half-mile away in an apartment complex where Pozzie had previously lived.

Police knew who Chandler was. He had been convicted at age 20 of passing bad checks and was sentenced to a work-release program. However, on August 17, 1993, rather than spend the night of his 21st birthday in the detention center, Chandler went home and did not return. A warrant for his arrest was outstanding.

Detectives showed Pozzie a photographic lineup that included Chandler’s photograph, but Pozzie could not identify him as the gunman. Records showed that Pozzie was mistaken about Chandler being his former neighbor—Chandler had not moved into the complex until Pozzie had already moved out. Even though Chandler was nearly six feet two inches tall and 175 pounds with a full head of hair, and even though his fingerprints did not match those on the beer bottle, police focused on him anyway.

On October 3—five days after the murder—detectives visited Sonya Collins’s apartment. Collins was Chandler’s sister, with whom he was living at the time. Collins said that Chandler had nothing to do with the crime—although they had heard sirens down the road. Collins said Chandler and his girlfriend, Anita Treat, had dinner with Collins in the apartment. At about 9 p.m., they went to the home of a neighbor, Viacha Burley, where they watched a movie, “Single White Female.” He returned home around 11 p.m., she said.

The detectives threatened to arrest Collins on a charge of harboring a fugitive. They threatened to take away her children unless she implicated Chandler and offered her a $1,000 reward for doing so. Collins, however, rebuffed their efforts.

The detectives then turned to Viacha Burley, in whose apartment Chandler and his girlfriend had watched the movie. Burley was a crack addict and when first questioned, she said she only knew Chandler through his sister, and only knew him by the nickname “Pooh Bear.” When the detectives offered Burley a $1,000 reward, she suddenly said that Chandler did come to her apartment that night at around 8:30 p.m., and that he was wearing a knit stocking cap. She also said that when she saw him again the following day, he was acting nervously.

In addition, Burley’s 11-year-old daughter then volunteered that she had seen “Pooh Bear” leave the apartment complex that night wearing a stocking cap and that he returned not long after. She said that she heard Chandler admit to someone else that he had committed the crime.

Burley’s neighbor, Robin Graves, another crack addict, at first told police that she stopped at Burley’s apartment that night and that Chandler and his girlfriend were there watching the movie. After being offered a $1,000 reward, Graves said that she had seen Chandler wear sunglasses like those worn by the gunman and that he wore a dark knit stocking cap on the night of the crime. Later that night, Graves said, Chandler was acting nervously and looking out the window.

That same day, detectives showed a photographic lineup that included Chandler’s photograph to Melvin Carr—the customer who left the store just before the shooting. Carr said the gunman was not in the lineup, but that two of the men, including Chandler, looked familiar to him. In their report, however, the detectives said that Carr told them that two of the photographs, including Chandler’s, looked like the gunman.

Chandler saw his photograph on television and learned that police were pressuring his sister. So on October 8, 1993, he went to the police station to deal with the outstanding warrant and to tell them that he was not involved in the crime. Detectives interviewed him for about two hours, during which he gave a 34-minute audiotaped statement describing his whereabouts on the night of the crime and denying involvement. He then agreed to take a polygraph test.

After the first taped statement, Chandler was again interrogated. During the two-hour interrogation, police falsely told him his fingerprints had been found at the scene and that he had failed the polygraph. They also told him that neighbors had identified the sunglasses and stocking cap as his, and that if he did not confess they would arrest his sister and take away her children. The detectives promised Chandler that if he confessed and said it was an accident, he would get off with a five-year prison term.

Chandler ultimately gave a 12-minute audiotaped statement confessing to the crime, although the detectives had to correct him on a few occasions when he could not give an account that squared with the facts.

On October 14, 1993, Chandler was indicted on charges of first-degree robbery and capital murder.

In January 1994, a Kentucky State Police crime lab analyst compared a hair from Chandler’s head to hair found in the stocking cap at the scene. Chandler was excluded as the source of the hair in the cap, but that information was not disclosed to the defense.

The prosecution also failed to disclose that Melvin Carr had viewed a photograph lineup as well as an individual photograph of Chandler and did not identify him as the gunman. Nor did it inform the defense of any of the threats made to Chandler’s alibi witnesses or that John Gray—the customer who was pumping gas at the time of the crime and saw the gunman leave the station—and Melvin Carr had given a description of the gunman that differed considerably from Chandler’s appearance.

In January 1995, Chandler went to trial in Jefferson County Circuit Court. The prosecution relied heavily on the confession, despite the numerous flaws and corrections that the detectives could be heard instructing Chandler to make. The detectives denied coercing or threatening Chandler or any witnesses, and denied offering any incentives. Viacha Burley, Robin Graves, and Graves’s daughter all testified consistently with the statements they gave after being offered the reward.

A clerk at a nearby BP gas station testified that the night before the crime, he saw a man who resembled Chandler smoking marijuana behind the BP station and that he saw that same man in the BP store on the night of the crime.

Melvin Carr was the only testifying witness who actually had seen the gunman. Carr, who was in the Chevron just before the shooting, said that Chandler was not the man he saw that night. Carr also said that Chandler was taller and had a lighter complexion than the gunman.

Chandler testified that his confession was false. He denied any involvement in the crime, and accused the detectives of threatening him, his sister, and her children to make him confess. Chandler also said the detectives fed him the information about the crime, and corrected him when he made mistakes during his recorded confession.

On February 10, 1995, the jury, after 16 hours of deliberation, convicted Chandler of manslaughter and first-degree robbery. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

In 1996, while Chandler was appealing his convictions, he bumped into John Gray, the man who was pumping gas when the crime occurred. Gray, who was in prison for an unrelated crime, told Chandler that he knew Chandler was innocent because he had seen the man come out after the shooting and he looked nothing like him.

Chandler’s lawyer soon contacted Gray, who said that not long after the murder, he learned that the man’s name was Percy Phillips. Phillips confronted Gray and asked him what he saw that night, and then admitted to Gray that he was the killer.

Gray also disclosed that in November 1995, while in jail prior to being sent to prison, he sent a letter to Louisville police detailing what he knew about Phillips and his admission. A detective with no prior connection to the case was sent to interview Gray, who repeated his statements about Phillips and his confession to killing the store clerk. When the detective reported his findings to the detectives on Chandler’s case, they said Gray should be disregarded because Chandler had been identified by a witness as the gunman and he had confessed to the crime—the case was closed.

In August 1997, Chandler filed motion for post-conviction relief based on the claim that Percy Phillips committed the crime. The motion was denied.

In April 2002, after all his appeals had been denied, Chandler was released from prison on parole.

He continued to fight to prove his innocence, however. In 2004, the Kentucky Innocence Project began re-investigating his case. In 2005, they persuaded the local cold case unit to take another look at the case, but authorities said the evidence could not be found. However, in 2008 a detective said he had found the evidence. The fingerprints on the beer bottle were re-examined and two belonged to Chevron employees. In 2009, the remaining print was matched to Percy Phillips, who was in prison serving a 20-year term for an assault that occurred in 2001, eight years after the Chevron robbery-murder.

Meanwhile, Chandler had taken a polygraph exam and the examiner concluded he was truthful when he denied involvement in the crime. Gray viewed a photographic lineup and identified Phillips as the man he saw leaving the Chevron after the shooting.

On October 13, 2009, a grand jury indicted Phillips for the robbery and murder. That same day, Chandler’s convictions were vacated and the prosecution dismissed the charges.

Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Frederic Cowan, in vacating Chandler’s convictions and granting the motion to dismiss, said, “It is absolutely clear that there has been a grave miscarriage of justice in this case.”

Chandler later filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Louisville. In October 2012, the lawsuit was settled for $8.5 million.

In February 2015, lawyers for Garr Keith Hardin and Jeffrey Clark, who had been convicted of a murder in 1995, filed a motion for a new trial in their case based on DNA testing that excluded them from evidence in that case. The motion also cited evidence that Louisville police Detective Mark Handy manufactured and falsely attributed incriminating statements to them. The motion said that Handy had similarly manufactured false incriminating statements in Chandler’s case.

Moreover, the defense lawyers for Hardin and Clark presented evidence that in a 1992 murder investigation involving a defendant named Keith West, Handy erased a witness’s tape-recorded statement and recorded over it. However, when he testified about the statement in February 1995 at a pretrial hearing in West's case—the same month Hardin and Clark’s trial began – Handy falsely denied erasing or copying over the taped interview.

Hardin and Clark were granted a new trial and the charges were dismissed in February 2018.

In March 2018, the Louisville Metro Council adopted a resolution requesting the state Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Detective Handy for any criminal activity in his handling of the Chandler case. In April 2018, a special prosecutor was appointed and authorized to pursue allegations in other cases where similar claims of wrongdoing have been made against Handy.

In September 2018, a Jefferson County grand jury indicted Handy on one count of perjury for giving false testimony against Chandler and another count of tampering with evidence in the case against Keith West. He was convicted on the perjury count on June 2, 2020."

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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