Monday, January 10, 2022

Willie Stokes: Pennsylvania: The trial witness against him recanted back in 1984 - saying detectives offered him sex with his girlfriend, would give him party favors like weed and opioids, and a lesser sentence for his crimes if he lied on Stokes. Stokes was convicted in spite of the recantation and then charged with perjuring himself in the preliminary hearing, pleaded guilty and received a heavy prison term. Now here's the catch: Prosecutors kept all this from Stokes and his lawyers, and as Nicole Duncan Smith reports in The Atlanta Black Star, "Some 30 years later in 2015 Stokes found out about Lee’s perjury conviction. He hired an attorney. He and his lawyers, even armed with that evidence, didn’t get an evidentiary hearing on his federal habeas corpus motion until November 2021. In a transcript of Lee’s testimony during the 2021 federal hearing, he told the judge that he “fell weak and went along with the offer,” admitting that he made everything up. He further stated that his girlfriend, under the counsel of Lee’s mother, did not go along with the detectives’ suggestion to sleep with Lee in exchange for a lesser time. Not to be deterred, the detectives hired a prostitute to satisfy him the “next time.”



PUBLISHER'S NOTE: 'Confidential informants):  "Confidential, often jailhouse informants, have probably been around for as long as there have been jails and inmates willing to trade information for a favor or two — including more privileges, a shorter sentence or dropping of charges. They commonly turn up in investigations which are not going anywhere - as in ‘no DNA'.   “Incentivized informants” is the legal term of art, but too often they also have “a strong incentive to lie,” said Michelle Feldman, state campaigns director for the Innocence Project. That explains why, according to the project’s figures, 16 percent of DNA exonerations involved false testimony by informants. Broader studies of wrongful convictions put the figure as high as 46 percent. Innocent people have spent decades in prison while the guilty remained free, and often the victims of those informants never see justice either — a lose-lose-lose for the criminal justice system. Boston Globe Editorial:  February 15, 2020.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: "While (District Attorney Larry) Krasner, who has shown massive support to Stokes’ case, has not yet formally decided not to retry him, his office did say publicly that Lee, the key witness, lied during his trial and that Stokes did not receive due process in his case.  A spokesperson from the DA’s office said that the decision will be shared before the scheduled Jan. 26 hearing in state court." I will be following developments closely. 

Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

PASSAGE OF THE DAY:  "Krasner’s office is responsible for the release of several Black men who were lied to by the Philadelphia police and spent decades in jail. In August of 2021, Anthony Wright was exonerated of the rape and murder of an elderly woman in 1993 and served 25 years in prison before evidence proved that three former Philly homicide detectives Manuel Santiago, Martin Devlin, and Frank Jastrzembski set him up. After serving 31 years behind bars and 25 years on death row, Christopher Williams and co-defendant Theophalis Wilson, through Krasner’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit, were found innocent of four 1989 murders.  Remarkably similar to Stokes, the CIU re-examined the cases and found the crooked police officers paid a witness, who was already in jail, to lie in order to get the men convicted of those murder crimes. Williams has now enlisted civil rights attorney Ben Crump and is suing the city, the Philadelphia Police Department, Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, as well as 17 police detectives or their estates, two former assistant district attorneys, and former district attorney Lynne Abraham for $100 million for knowingly participating in his wrongful conviction."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

STORY: "'Go In There and Tell the Truth': Despite a Witness Recanting Their Testimony In '84, Detectives and Prosecutors Accused of Using Bribery and Deceit Kept a Man Imprisoned for Another 30 Plus Years," by Reporter Nicole Duncan-Smith, published by The Atlanta Black Star on January 8, 2022

GIST: "A Black man in Philadelphia spent 37 years in prison, despite the trial witness being charged with perjury just months after his conviction. In 2022, he was released from his incarceration after evidence emerged that officers offered said witness sex and drugs to lie on the stand.


According to NPR, Willie Stokes, 61, spent more than half of his life in a Pennsylvania state prison after a man from his neighborhood named Franklin Lee told the courts that Stokes killed a man named Leslie Campbell during a dice game in 1980. 


After being arrested on rape and murder charges and being bribed by police with a deal to receive special favors and an early release, Lee testified in a preliminary hearing in May of 1984 that Stokes confessed the crime to him. 


Lee would later say that detectives offered him sex with his girlfriend, would give him party favors like weed and opioids, and a lesser sentence for his crimes if he lied on Stokes. 


However, by the time of Stokes’ murder trial in August 1984, Lee had changed his mind about the deal he was offered. On the witness stand he told jurors he’d lied in the hearing and didn’t know anything about Stokes and the murder of Campbell.


Despite Lee recanting, the prosecution still won their case and Stokes was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors then charged Lee with perjuring himself in the preliminary hearing. Lee pleaded guilty and was sentenced to serve a maximum of seven years in prison in addition to his sentences for his convictions on his original charges.


Some 30 years later in 2015 Stokes found out about Lee’s perjury conviction. He hired an attorney.


He and his lawyers, even armed with that evidence, didn’t get an evidentiary hearing on his federal habeas corpus motion until November 2021.


In a transcript of Lee’s testimony during the 2021 federal hearing, he told the judge that he “fell weak and went along with the offer,” admitting that he made everything up.


He further stated that his girlfriend, under the counsel of Lee’s mother, did not go along with the detectives’ suggestion to sleep with Lee in exchange for a lesser time. Not to be deterred, the detectives hired a prostitute to satisfy him the “next time.”


Lee confessed that his mother had an impact on him also. The transcript said he testified saying, “Once I talked to my mother, she told me, ‘I didn’t raise you like that, to lie on a man because you got yourself in a jam.”

He said, “She said, ‘I couldn’t care if they give you 1,000 years. Go in there and tell the truth.’ And that’s what I did.”


That federal magistrate judge took Stokes’ side after that hearing, especially after Philly’s DA’s office agreed that the trial and post-conviction actions by the prosecution — withholding info about the perjury plea from Stokes’ appeal lawyers — were unfair and Stokes deserved a new trial.


The US magistrate who listened to Stoke’s appeal said it was an ‘egregious violation of (his) constitutional rights,’ the Daily Mail reports. A U.S. district judge agreed and overturned the conviction last week. 


Stokes’ attorney Michael Diamondstein summed up the case this way, “The homicide prosecutors that used Franklin Lee’s testimony to convict Willie Stokes then prosecuted Franklin Lee for lying on Willie Stokes. And they never told Willie Stokes.”


On Tuesday, Jan. 4, he was released from prison but was not aware that he was getting out until 30 minutes before he was let go.


From outside of the SCI Chester prison in Chester, Pennsylvania, Diamondstein said to CBS 3, “He’s only known for a half hour he was going to be released, this isn’t something that we expected.” 


Key to his emancipation was Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who in 2018 dismissed 31 prosecutors in the city in efforts to achieve substantive criminal justice reform. Before this position, he sued the police department 75 times on cases that he believed had foul play.


Krasner’s office is responsible for the release of several Black men who were lied to by the Philadelphia police and spent decades in jail.


In August of 2021, Anthony Wright was exonerated of the rape and murder of an elderly woman in 1993 and served 25 years in prison before evidence proved that three former Philly homicide detectives Manuel Santiago, Martin Devlin, and Frank Jastrzembski set him up.


After serving 31 years behind bars and 25 years on death row, Christopher Williams and co-defendant Theophalis Wilson, through Krasner’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit, were found innocent of four 1989 murders. 


Remarkably similar to Stokes, the CIU re-examined the cases and found the crooked police officers paid a witness, who was already in jail, to lie in order to get the men convicted of those murder crimes.


Williams has now enlisted civil rights attorney Ben Crump and is suing the city, the Philadelphia Police Department, Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, as well as 17 police detectives or their estates, two former assistant district attorneys, and former district attorney Lynne Abraham for $100 million for knowingly participating in his wrongful conviction.


While Krasner, who has shown massive support to Stokes’ case, has not yet formally decided not to retry him, his office did say publicly that Lee, the key witness, lied during his trial and that Stokes did not receive due process in his case. 


A spokesperson from the DA’s office said that the decision will be shared before the scheduled Jan. 26 hearing in state court.


The entire story can  be read at:


https://atlantablackstar.com/2022/01/08/go-in-there-and-tell-the-truth-despite-a-witness-recanting-their-testimony-in-84-detectives-and-prosecutors-accused-of-using-bribery-and-deceit-kept-a-man-imprisoned-for-another-38-years/

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;

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SEE BREAKDOWN OF  SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG,  AT THE LINK BELOW:  HL:



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;
—————————————————————————————————

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