the charles smith blog: 2021

Friday, December 31, 2021

Steven Avery: (Making a Murderer); Wisconsin; Rejected by Wisconsin, but he still has options, The Appleton Post-Crescent (Reporter Chris Mueller) reports..."A claim Avery raised earlier this year about a potential new witness was not evaluated as part of his most recent appeal, but could still be presented in circuit court, O'Hear said, though Avery would have to show why the issue could not have been raised earlier. The new witness, a delivery driver named Thomas Sowinski, claims to have seen “a shirtless Bobby Dassey” — Brendan Dassey's brother and Avery’s nephew — and “an unidentified older male” pushing a Toyota RAV4 down Avery Road “toward the junkyard” in the early morning hours of Nov. 5, 2005, according to court documents filed by Zellner in April. Halbach’s vehicle, a Toyota RAV4, was found later that day at the Avery Salvage Yard. Sowinski said he realized the significance of what he had seen after hearing the type of car Halbach was driving and where it was found. He immediately reached out to the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office but said a female officer told him: “We already know who did it,” the court documents say. Zellner mentioned both the new witness' claim and a potential habeas corpus petition as possible options in a statement released on Twitter after the Wisconsin Supreme Court elected not to review Avery's case. "We've just finished warming up in the first inning," she said."

CONTEXT: "Avery, 59, has been serving a life sentence since he was convicted by a jury of killing Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer who disappeared in 2005. His story was featured in the Netflix docuseries "Making a Murderer," which cast doubt on the motives of police and left many viewers with the impression that Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, were wrongfully convicted. In November, the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided not to review Avery's case. Avery and his attorney, Kathleen Zellner, asked the state's highest court to look at the case after a state appeals court ruled against them, rejecting arguments related to the effectiveness of his attorneys at trial and the way some of the evidence was handled by prosecutors.STORY: Steven Avery still has options, even after rejection by Wisconsin's highest court, The Appleton Post-Crescent (Reporter Chris Mueller) reports, on December 15, 2021."

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STORY: "Steven Avery still has options, even after rejection by Wisconsin's highest court," by Reporter Chris Mueller, published by The Appleton Post-Crescent, on December 15, 2021.

GIST: "Steven Avery still has options despite some recent setbacks as he continues to try to overturn his conviction for the murder of Teresa Halbach.

Avery, 59, has been serving a life sentence since he was convicted by a jury of killing Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer who disappeared in 2005.

His story was featured in the Netflix docuseries "Making a Murderer," which cast doubt on the motives of police and left many viewers with the impression that Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, were wrongfully convicted.

In November, the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided not to review Avery's case. Avery and his attorney, Kathleen Zellner, asked the state's highest court to look at the case after a state appeals court ruled against them, rejecting arguments related to the effectiveness of his attorneys at trial and the way some of the evidence was handled by prosecutors.

Michael O'Hear, a law professor at Marquette University, said the decision by the state's highest court isn't necessarily surprising, considering it chooses to review only a limited number of cases.

"They have a tendency to focus on cases that present legal questions as opposed to messy factual problems," O'Hear said.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court gets about 1,000 petitions for review every term but chooses to hear only about 100 cases. It takes support from at least three of the seven justices for the court to accept a case.

"It would be surprising if there was any success on that front," he said.

There are other possibilities, though.

Avery could file a habeas corpus petition in federal district court, where he would have to show his constitutional rights had been violated. Only a small number of people who apply for such relief actually receive it, O'Hear said.

A decades-old study by the U.S. Department of Justice that examined habeas corpus petitions filed over a two-year period found about 3% were granted in whole or in part and about 2% resulted in any type of release.

"It would not be enough to show that there was a close or difficult constitutional question in the case," O'Hear said. "You would have to show that the state courts really blew it and committed an obvious violation."

And even if Avery's habeas corpus petition is somehow successful, prosecutors could appeal, potentially dragging out the process for years, O'Hear said.

A claim Avery raised earlier this year about a potential new witness was not evaluated as part of his most recent appeal, but could still be presented in circuit court, O'Hear said, though Avery would have to show why the issue could not have been raised earlier.

The new witness, a delivery driver named Thomas Sowinski, claims to have seen “a shirtless Bobby Dassey” — Brendan Dassey's brother and Avery’s nephew — and “an unidentified older male” pushing a Toyota RAV4 down Avery Road “toward the junkyard” in the early morning hours of Nov. 5, 2005, according to court documents filed by Zellner in April.

Halbach’s vehicle, a Toyota RAV4, was found later that day at the Avery Salvage Yard. Sowinski said he realized the significance of what he had seen after hearing the type of car Halbach was driving and where it was found. He immediately reached out to the Manitowoc County Sheriff’s Office but said a female officer told him: “We already know who did it,” the court documents say.

Zellner mentioned both the new witness' claim and a potential habeas corpus petition as possible options in a statement released on Twitter after the Wisconsin Supreme Court elected not to review Avery's case.

"We've just finished warming up in the first inning," she said.

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/local/steven-avery/2021/12/15/steven-avery-reviews-options-after-rejection-wisconsin-court/6460351001/?utm_source=postcrescent-USA%20TODAY%20NETWORK%20Coverage:%20Making%20a%20Murderer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=baseline&utm_term=hero&utm_content=WISCONSIN-E-NLETTER0100

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;

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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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!

Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;

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FINAL, FINAL, FINAL WORD: "It is incredibly easy to convict an innocent person, but it's exceedingly difficult to undo such a devastating injustice.

Jennifer Givens: DirectorL UVA Innocence Project;

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Rogel Aguilera-Mederos: Major (Welcome) Development: Bulletin: Colorado Governor Jared Polis has reduced his 110-year sentence to 10 years (parole eligibility beginning in 2027) citing a punishment that was disproportionate to the crime..."I believe you deserve clemency for several reasons. You were sentenced to 110 years in prison, effectively more than a life sentence, for a tragic but unintentional act. While you are not blameless, your sentence is disproportionate compared with many other inmates in our criminal justice system who committed intentional, premeditated, or violent crimes."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "During the trial, prosecutors argued that Aguilera-Mederos could have taken steps to prevent the deadly crash, including using a runaway truck ramp miles before the crash, and that he “made a bunch of bad decisions” instead. His defense attorneys claimed he did not know the truck’s brakes were smoking or that he would not be able to stop his truck, though others testified at the trial that they had seen them smoking. The sentence given to Aguilera-Mederos drew outrage from around the country and among truck drivers, with around five million people signing an online petition seeking clemency for him."

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STORY: "Gov. Polis reduces trucker's 110-year sentence to 10 years," by Reporter Robert Garrison, published by The Denver Channel, on December 30, 2021. (Robert Garrison is a Colorado native who grew up in Montrose and attended Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction. He is an AP award-winning journalist who joined Denver7 in August 2016 after working for several other stations across Colorado and Oklahoma over the past decade.)

DENVER — Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday reduced the sentence of the semi-truck driver convicted of killing four people in the April 2019 explosive crash on Interstate 70.

Polis granted clemency to Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, reducing his sentence from 110 years to only 10 years.

The 26-year-old was given the 110-year sentence on Dec. 13. The judge who handed down the sentence was bound by the state's mandatory minimum sentencing rules.

Aguilera-Mederos was convicted on Oct. 15 on most of the 42 counts he faced, including four counts of vehicular homicide, first-degree assault, attempted first-degree assault, reckless driving and careless driving.

Miguel Angel Lamas Arellano (24), Doyle Harrison (61), Bill Bailey (67) and Stanley Politano (69) were killed in the crash. Two others sustained serious bodily injuries.

Twenty-eight vehicles, including four semi-trucks, were damaged or caught on fire in the wake of the fiery crash on April 25, 2019. Investigators estimated he was going at least 85 miles an hour just before the crash as he was driving a semi-truck carrying lumber on eastbound I-70 down from the mountains into Lakewood.

During the trial, prosecutors argued that Aguilera-Mederos could have taken steps to prevent the deadly crash, including using a runaway truck ramp miles before the crash, and that he “made a bunch of bad decisions” instead.

His defense attorneys claimed he did not know the truck’s brakes were smoking or that he would not be able to stop his truck, though others testified at the trial that they had seen them smoking.

The sentence given to Aguilera-Mederos drew outrage from around the country and among truck drivers, with around five million people signing an online petition seeking clemency for him.

In granting clemency, Polis wrote in a letter that the 110-year sentence Aguilera-Mederos received was disproportionate to the crime.

"I believe you deserve clemency for several reasons. You were sentenced to 110 years in prison, effectively more than a life sentence, for a tragic but unintentional act. While you are not blameless, your sentence is disproportionate compared with many other inmates in our criminal justice system who committed intentional, premeditated, or violent crimes. Your highly unusual sentence highlights the lack of uniformity between sentences for similarly situated crimes, which is particularly true when individuals are charged with offenses that require mandatory minimum sentences. This case will hopefully spur an important conversation about sentencing laws, but any subsequent changes to the law would not retroactively impact your sentence, which is why I am granting you this limited commutation," wrote Polis.

The move comes days after a judge scheduled a hearing for next month to reconsider the sentence at the request of the district attorney, who had planned to ask that it be reduced to 20 to 30 years.

The Governor’s Office disclosed in a statement that a relative of Aguilera-Mederos works in the office, but “This individual had absolutely no involvement in the commutation process and works in an unrelated capacity to this matter, and was not aware of the Governor’s decision in advance," wrote Shelby Weiman, a spokesperson for Polis.

Aguilera-Mederos will be eligible for parole beginning in 2027."

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/local-news/gov-polis-reduces-truckers-sentence-to-10-years

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

—————————————————————————————————

Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;

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FINAL, FINAL, FINAL WORD: "It is incredibly easy to convict an innocent person, but it's exceedingly difficult to undo such a devastating injustice.

Jennifer Givens: DirectorL UVA Innocence Project.

Forensic hypnosis: (Junk science): Major (Unwelcome Development): A bill banning forensic hypnosis because it is unreliable and has led to wrongful convictions passed both houses - and was then vetoed by Governor Greg Abbott. Bye Bye Bill!..."In Abbott’s veto statement he said he supported limiting forensic hypnosis voided the bill because he found the final version too broad. And Abbott blamed one lawmaker for that: Rep. Eddie Lucio lll. “I did not unilaterally make any changes. All changes were in consultation with all the stakeholders on the Senate side,” Lucio said. Lucio, a Democrat from the Rio Grande Valley, is not seeking re-election. He says Abbott’s veto was the result of state prosecutors wanting to keep hypnosis, regardless of its reliability. “The main message of the legislation was that it was junk science. I can't say it’s junk science here, but it's reliable over here. No, it's junk science,” he said. And this junk science can send people to their deaths. Four people are currently on Death Row in Texas who were convicted with forensic hypnosis including Charles Don Flores. Flores maintains his innocence in the 1998 murder of Betty Black. No physical evidence links him to the crime."

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "“You know, it was passed unanimously. Everyone agreed to it, everyone. And so September 1st — it would have been law that we couldn't send another person to prison much less Death Row through the use of forensic hypnosis. And it was vetoed and it was vetoed. And so, you know, that's like, how did that happen?” (Charles Don) Flores said."

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STORY: "How Texas almost banned forensic hypnosis," by Reporter David Martin Davies published by Texas Public Radio, on December 15, 2021.

GIST: "During the last regular Legislative Session, State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen, introduced a bill aimed at ending the use of uncorroborated hypnosis testimony in Texas courts.

“Hypnosis has been used as a forensic tool in Texas since 1980. Witnesses are often told that memory works like a video tape and that during hypnosis you’ll be able to recall certain events and suspect descriptions that normal memory would not be able to access. The popular belief that hypnosis guarantees the accuracy of recall is still to this day without established foundation; in fact hypnosis often has no effect on memory at all,” he told the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice.

Hinojosa tried to pass a similar state law in 2019, but it didn’t even get a hearing. This session, though, things were different. There had been a series of articles in the "Dallas Morning News" highlighting the controversy. And in January, the Texas Rangers, the state’s leading practitioner of forensic hypnosis, announced it would halt the program.

Texas Rangers Captain Wende Wakeman, who is a certified forensic hypnotist, addressed the House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence as they considered banning forensic hypnosis.

“We have had a program since the '80s that was recently suspended. So we do not at this time have a hypnosis program,“ she said.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said it’s developed more advanced interview and interrogation techniques that yield better results. But retired DPS Inspector Marx Howell, who has trained hundreds of Texas law officers in forensic hypnosis, says he’s disappointed with the decision.

“I've got my own ideas about why they did it. And there's a lot of political pressure against the use of Hypnosis,” Howell said.

The Texas Rangers suspended their program doesn't stop local law enforcement from still using forensic hypnosis. That concerns Mike Ware, Executive Director of The Innocence Project of Texas.

“The clear consensus is that investigative hypnosis is not science. It really has no place as a forensic tool or in the courtroom,” he said.

Ware supported the law to ban forensic hypnosis because he says it’s unreliable and it’s been used in wrongful convictions. The bill ended up passing unanimously in the State House and Senate. Then Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed it. In Abbott’s veto statement he said he supported limiting forensic hypnosis voided the bill because he found the final version too broad. And Abbott blamed one lawmaker for that: Rep. Eddie Lucio lll.

“I did not unilaterally make any changes. All changes were in consultation with all the stakeholders on the Senate side,” Lucio said.

Lucio, a Democrat from the Rio Grande Valley, is not seeking re-election. He says Abbott’s veto was the result of state prosecutors wanting to keep hypnosis, regardless of its reliability.

“The main message of the legislation was that it was junk science. I can't say it’s junk science here, but it's reliable over here. No, it's junk science,” he said.

And this junk science can send people to their deaths. Four people are currently on Death Row in Texas who were convicted with forensic hypnosis including Charles Don Flores. Flores maintains his innocence in the 1998 murder of Betty Black. No physical evidence links him to the crime.

“You know, it was passed unanimously. Everyone agreed to it, everyone. And so September 1st — it would have been law that we couldn't send another person to prison much less Death Row through the use of forensic hypnosis. And it was vetoed and it was vetoed. And so, you know, that's like, how did that happen?” Flores said.

Had the ban on forensic hypnosis became law it wouldn’t have overturned Flores’ conviction. But he says his main concern is that others could be subjected to the same injustice he says he’s facing."

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.tpr.org/news/2021-12-15/how-texas-almost-banned-forensic-hypnosis

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

—————————————————————————————————

Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;

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FINAL, FINAL, FINAL WORD: "It is incredibly easy to convict an innocent person, but it's exceedingly difficult to undo such a devastating injustice.

Jennifer Givens: DirectorL UVA Innocence Project.

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Ghislaine Maxwell: (Elizabeth Loftus): New York: Bulletin: The jury has asked to review 'false memory' expert Elizabeth Loftus's testimony, Reuters (Reporter Luc Cohen) reports. .."Over a three-week trial, jurors heard from four women who said Maxwell was central to facilitating their abuse by Epstein, Maxwell's former boyfriend and employer. Her attorneys argued that the women's memories had been corrupted in the decades since the abuse allegedly occurred, and called to the stand Elizabeth Loftus, a psychology professor at the University of California, Irvine. Loftus told the jury about experiments in which she and colleagues had successfully planted false memories in study participants' minds. "Even traumatic experiences can be subjected to post-event suggestion," Loftus said. "False memories ... can be very vivid, detailed. People can be confident about them, people can be emotional about them, even though they're false." Loftus has been an expert witness or consultant for the defense in hundreds of trials, including those of O.J. Simpson and Harvey Weinstein. The request for Loftus' testimony came on the beginning of what could be a fifth full day of deliberations."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The jury in British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell's sex abuse trial resumed deliberations on Wednesday, and asked to review the testimony of a psychologist who testified that people can form "false memories" about events that never happened."

STORY: "Ghislaine Maxwell jury asks ro review testimony of 'false memory' expert," by Reporter Luc Cohen, published by Reuters on December 29, 2022.

GIST: "The jury in British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell's sex abuse trial resumed deliberations on Wednesday, and asked to review the testimony of a psychologist who testified that people can form "false memories" about events that never happened.

Maxwell, 60, is accused of recruiting and grooming teenage girls to have sexual encounters with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein between 1994 and 2004.

Over a three-week trial, jurors heard from four women who said Maxwell was central to facilitating their abuse by Epstein, Maxwell's former boyfriend and employer.

Her attorneys argued that the women's memories had been corrupted in the decades since the abuse allegedly occurred, and called to the stand Elizabeth Loftus, a psychology professor at the University of California, Irvine.

Loftus told the jury about experiments in which she and colleagues had successfully planted false memories in study participants' minds.

"Even traumatic experiences can be subjected to post-event suggestion," Loftus said. "False memories ... can be very vivid, detailed. People can be confident about them, people can be emotional about them, even though they're false."

Loftus has been an expert witness or consultant for the defense in hundreds of trials, including those of O.J. Simpson and Harvey Weinstein.

The request for Loftus' testimony came on the beginning of what could be a fifth full day of deliberations.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan warned of an increasing risk of a mistrial due to the rapid spread of the Omicron COVID-19 variant.

Nathan said on Wednesday she would tell jurors they should plan on deliberating each day until they reach a verdict, including New Year's Eve and over the weekend if needed. She said jurors should let her know if this schedule would pose a hardship due to "unmovable commitments."

Epstein, who counted top business executives and politicians among his associates, died by suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 at age 66 while awaiting trial on sex abuse charges.

Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to six counts of sex trafficking and other crimes. Her attorneys have argued she is being scapegoated for Epstein's behavior since he is no longer alive."

The entire story can be read at:

https://news.yahoo.com/maxwell-jury-resume-deliberations-judge-110141069.html

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

—————————————————————————————————

Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;

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FINAL, FINAL, FINAL WORD: "It is incredibly easy to convict an innocent person, but it's exceedingly difficult to undo such a devastating injustice.

Jennifer Givens: DirectorL UVA Innocence Project.

Devonia Inman: Georgia: Major (all too long overdue) Development: (Belongs in our 'enough to make one weep' department); He has been exonerated 23 Years after his wrongful capital murder conviction, The Death Penalty Information Center reports: Recanting witnesses, bought testimony, false testimony from alleged jailhouse informant, and much more, including evidence that the prosecution had unconstitutionally suppressed multiple police records and physical evidence that another man had committed the killing..."Several witnesses had told the defense that (Hercules) Brown had admitted to having committed the murder. However, when Inman’s lawyers attempted to present them at trial, judge Buster McConnell barred them from testifying. With the ski mask in its possession and aware that Inman was arguing at trial that Brown was the killer, prosecutors withheld from the defense evidence that police had found another homemade ski mask in Brown’s car when he was arrested on drug and weapons charges outside an Adel supermarket in September 2000. Brown also was arrested for, and pleaded guilty to, the murders of two other people during another armed robbery in an Adel grocery store months after the Taco Bell killing." Having successfully hidden this evidence, District Attorney Bob Ellis — later sentenced to federal prison after lying to the FBI over whether he coerced a woman facing criminal charges to engage in sexual acts with him — then told the jury there was not “one scintilla of evidence” that Brown was involved in the murder. The evidence that Brown had been apprehended with a similar mask, Graham wrote, “would have been independent, reliable and admissible evidence tending to connect Hercules Brown to the murder, corroborating the defense’s theory of mistaken identity,” Graham wrote. The prosecution’s misconduct, she ruled, “demonstrates the fundamental unfairness of Mr. Inman’s trial, undermines the Court’s confidence in the outcome of the trial and related conviction, and justifies granting habeas corpus relief.”

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "“At least 186 people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the United States have been exonerated since 1973. But those numbers are just the tip of the iceberg of the wrongful use of the death penalty in this country,” Death Penalty Information Center executive director Robert Dunham said. “Devonia Inman is one of more than 70 people to be exonerated in just the last five years in wrongful murder prosecutions in which district attorneys had sought the death penalty or cases in which police or prosecutors had threatened defendants or witnesses with the death penalty to coerce their cooperation in wrongful prosecutions.”

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PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: "Christina Cribbs, Senior Attorney from Georgia Innocence Project, sharply criticized the systemic roadblocks that delayed Inman’s exoneration. “Despite so much compelling information showing that the State convicted the wrong man, it took a massive team effort that spanned almost a decade to correct this obvious injustice and free an innocent man from prison,” she said. “It simply cannot and should not take so long for the State to correct wrongful and unjust convictions in Georgia.” Prosecutors and the courts repeatedly delayed Inman’s exoneration despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence."

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ENTRY: "Georgia Man Exonerated 23 Years After Wrongful Capital Murder Conviction," published by The Death Penalty Information Center, on December 23, 2021.

GIST: "Devonia Inman, sentenced to life in a capital murder trial in which Georgia prosecutors hid exculpatory evidence, has been exonerated 23 years after his wrongful conviction.

On December 20, 2021, one month after Judge Kristina Cook Graham granted Inman a new trial based on evidence that the prosecution had unconstitutionally suppressed multiple police records and physical evidence that another man had committed the killing, the Alapaha Judicial Circuit District Attorney Chase L. Studstill moved to dismiss all charges against Inman.

Alapaha Circuit Superior Court Chief Judge Clayton Tomlinson granted the motion, exonerating Inman and ordering his immediate release.

Inman spoke to reporters outside the Augusta State Medical Prison following his release. “I’m happy,” he said. “It’s been a long time.”

“For 23 years, I’ve felt like my life was on hold,” his mother, Dinah Ray said. “I can breathe now.”

“At least 186 people who were wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in the United States have been exonerated since 1973. But those numbers are just the tip of the iceberg of the wrongful use of the death penalty in this country,” Death Penalty Information Center executive director Robert Dunham said.

“Devonia Inman is one of more than 70 people to be exonerated in just the last five years in wrongful murder prosecutions in which district attorneys had sought the death penalty or cases in which police or prosecutors had threatened defendants or witnesses with the death penalty to coerce their cooperation in wrongful prosecutions.”

Inman was convicted in a death-penalty trial in 2001 for the September 19, 1998 robbery and murder of the manager of a Taco Bell in Adel, Georgia in the restaurant parking lot.

No physical evidence linked him to the crime, although a distinctive homemade ski mask that the prosecution said belonged to the killer was recovered from the victim’s stolen car.

Later DNA testing on the mask identified the killer as Hercules Brown, a former employee at the Taco Bell.

The prosecution presented four key witnesses against Inman, three of whom subsequently recanted their testimony, saying they had been pressured or coerced by police.

They included an alleged jailhouse informant who provided false testimony that Inman had confessed to the murder, and a woman described in press reports as a friend of Inman’s who claimed to have seen Inman with a lot of cash the morning after the Taco Bell robbery.

A fourth witness, who received a $5,000 payment for her testimony, claimed to have seen Inman driving the victim’s car.

However, a man who was next to her at the time testified it had been too dark for anyone to have identified the driver.

Several witnesses had told the defense that Brown had admitted to having committed the murder.

However, when Inman’s lawyers attempted to present them at trial, judge Buster McConnell barred them from testifying.

With the ski mask in its possession and aware that Inman was arguing at trial that Brown was the killer, prosecutors withheld from the defense evidence that police had found another homemade ski mask in Brown’s car when he was arrested on drug and weapons charges outside an Adel supermarket in September 2000. Brown also was arrested for, and pleaded guilty to, the murders of two other people during another armed robbery in an Adel grocery store months after the Taco Bell killing."

Having successfully hidden this evidence, District Attorney Bob Ellis — later sentenced to federal prison after lying to the FBI over whether he coerced a woman facing criminal charges to engage in sexual acts with him — then told the jury there was not “one scintilla of evidence” that Brown was involved in the murder.

The evidence that Brown had been apprehended with a similar mask, Graham wrote, “would have been independent, reliable and admissible evidence tending to connect Hercules Brown to the murder, corroborating the defense’s theory of mistaken identity,” Graham wrote. The prosecution’s misconduct, she ruled, “demonstrates the fundamental unfairness of Mr. Inman’s trial, undermines the Court’s confidence in the outcome of the trial and related conviction, and justifies granting habeas corpus relief.”

The Roadblocks to Exoneration:

Christina Cribbs, Senior Attorney from Georgia Innocence Project, sharply criticized the systemic roadblocks that delayed Inman’s exoneration. “Despite so much compelling information showing that the State convicted the wrong man, it took a massive team effort that spanned almost a decade to correct this obvious injustice and free an innocent man from prison,” she said. “It simply cannot and should not take so long for the State to correct wrongful and unjust convictions in Georgia.”

Prosecutors and the courts repeatedly delayed Inman’s exoneration despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence. Although DNA testing by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in 2011 excluded Inman and implicated Brown, prosecutors opposed and Judge McConnell denied Inman’s petition for a new trial. Then, in 2014, the Georgia Supreme Court refused to hear Inman’s appeal.

In 2018, in front of a new judge, the Georgia Innocence Project and the Atlanta-based law firm Troutman Pepper filed a new habeas corpus petition alleging that Inman was actually innocent. The Georgia attorney general’s office opposed Inman’s petition and moved to dismiss it. When the trial court denied its motion to dismiss the petition, state prosecutors then filed an interlocutory appeal to try to prevent Inman from presenting his evidence to the court. The Georgia Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s ruling, and in a remarkable set of concurring opinions, two justices urged the Georgia attorney general’s office to end its opposition to granting Inman a new trial.

Chief Justice Harold Melton wrote that the evidence connecting Brown to the murder “raises some very troubling issues” and urged the attorney general to “closely re-examine this case in order to ensure that justice is truly being served.”

Justice David E. Nahmias wrote: “ Everyone involved in our criminal justice system should dread the conviction and incarceration of innocent people. During my decade of service on this Court, I have reviewed over 1,500 murder cases in various forms. In those cases, trial courts, habeas courts, and this Court through appellate review have occasionally granted new trials to defendants who appeared not to be guilty of crimes of which they were convicted. Of the multitude of cases in which a new trial has been denied, Inman’s case is the one that causes me the most concern that an innocent person remains convicted and sentenced to serve the rest of his life in prison.

“This is, in short, a case that the Attorney General and his senior staff should review — should personally and fully review – before it goes much further. The Attorney General should decide whether it is really in the interest of justice for the State of Georgia to continue fighting to block discovery regarding Inman’s claims and asserting procedural defenses to prevent a hearing on the merits of those claims — and indeed whether the State should continue resisting Inman’s efforts to obtain a new trial. No one can say for sure what the result of a new trial would be, but with the new evidence that has been uncovered since Inman’s original trial — including but not limited to the DNA of Hercules Brown, and not of Devonia Inman, on the homemade mask found in the murder victim’s stolen car — there is no doubt that a new trial would be very different than the one in which Inman was found guilty.

“Let justice be done.”

Nonetheless, on remand, the attorney general’s office continued to oppose Inman’s petition for relief and waited the full thirty-day appeal period before announcing it would not challenge the trial court’s grant of relief. With the case returned to local prosecutors, the Alapaha Judicial Circuit District Attorney’s office moved to dismiss the charges against Inman, ending his 23-year odyssey through the Georgia judicial system.

The entire entry can be read at:

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/georgia-man-exonerated-23-years-after-wrongful-capital-murder-conviction

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;

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FINAL, FINAL, FINAL WORD: "It is incredibly easy to convict an innocent person, but it's exceedingly difficult to undo such a devastating injustice.

Jennifer Givens: DirectorL UVA Innocence Project.

Darryl Howard: North Carolina: 'Corrupt Justice; at Durham: Question of the Day: Reporter JD King looks closely at The Howard case and the Duke Lacrosse case and asks, "How many more people have a case that should be overturned?"..."As you’ll remember, District Attorney Mike Nifong, the Durham police and a DNA lab had all conspired to frame three Duke lacrosse players. We remember wondering at the time how many other people had been falsely accused and convicted? You can put Darryl Howard in that number. Howard was convicted in 1991 of murdering a mother and her daughter and wasn’t cleared until 2016 when DNA evidence led to his exoneration. Durham police detective Darryl Dowdy was accused of making up evidence and - surprise - Nifong did not disclose exulpatory evidence to the defense. Howard got $6 million but he says that’s not enough to make up for 23 years spent in prison and who can argue? How can anything make that right?"

COMMENTARY: "The long arm of Mike Nifung, exposed again," by Reporter JD King, published by Duke Basketball Report on December 16, 2021.

SUB-HEADING: "How many more people have a case that should be overturned?"

PHOTO CAPTION: "Durham County District Attorney Mike Nifong, left, speaks while attorney Kirk Osborn, center, and Duke lacrosse player Reade Seligmann, right, listen in the courtroom at a Durham County court building Thursday, May 18, 2006. Instead of trying to find the truth about what happened on March 13, 2006, District Attorney Mike Nifong set out to prove that three Duke University lacrosse players had raped an exotic dancer. Michael Nifong may never be able to practice law again, but Dave Evans, Collin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann may never be able to erase the stain left by a case that went wrong from the start."

GIST: "The Duke lacrosse case revealed many things but among the most disturbing was the realization of just how corrupt justice in Durham had become.

As you’ll remember, District Attorney Mike Nifong, the Durham police and a DNA lab had all conspired to frame three Duke lacrosse players. (By withholding DNA evidence that exculpated them. HL); We remember wondering at the time how many other people had been falsely accused and convicted?

You can put Darryl Howard in that number.

Howard was convicted in 1991 of murdering a mother and her daughter and wasn’t cleared until 2016 when DNA evidence led to his exoneration.

Durham police detective Darryl Dowdy was accused of making up evidence and - surprise - Nifong did not disclose exulpatory evidence to the defense.

Howard got $6 million but he says that’s not enough to make up for 23 years spent in prison and who can argue? How can anything make that right?

In many ways, the Duke Lacrosse hoax presaged many of the divisions that later became so stark. And we really don't care what side you might prefer. Live your own life.

But we hope that we can all agree on this: no one, under any circumstance, should go to prison for a crime or crimes they did not commit.

Instead of shirking jury duty or trying to get out of it, we should all accept it as a great privilege and do our absolute best to be fair and even handed.

It’s impossible to stop every prosecutor and rogue cop that comes along, but we the people are the backstop. We can’t stop people from being corrupt but we can help prevent tragedies like what happened to Howard. We can keep future Nifongs from destroying more lives."

The entire commentary can be read at:

https://www.dukebasketballreport.com/2021/12/16/22839008/the-long-arm-of-mike-nifong-exposed-again-darryl-howard-exonerated-duke-lacrosse-case

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:

Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;

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Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;

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FINAL, FINAL, FINAL WORD: "It is incredibly easy to convict an innocent person, but it's exceedingly difficult to undo such a devastating injustice.

Jennifer Givens: DirectorL UVA Innocence Project.