Richard Glossip: Oklahoma: (Intentional destruction of evidence by the state, inadequate investigation, and much more); Bulletin: His death row appeal filed in U.S. Supreme Court charges that Oklahoma prosecutors "knowingly presented" false evidence from key witnesses, The Davis Vanguard reports…"The defense also, according to a statement, “condemned…the state court’s ‘result-driven’ state law ruling on the grounds that it defied the ‘physical laws of time and space’ because it required ‘Glossip to have raised a claim decades before he learned the basis for it.’” Republican Attorney General of Oklahoma Gentner Drummond filed the State’s brief in support of Glossip’s cert petition, stating, “After careful consideration – including a thorough review by an independent counsel – the State came to the conclusion that …ensuring that justice is done in this case requires a retrial.” The defense notes The Innocence Project “and six legal scholars who focus on legal ethics and the professional responsibility of trial lawyers and prosecutors filed separate friend-of-the-court briefs in support of Mr. Glossip.” Glossip’s case “implicates many of the hallmarks of a wrongful conviction—including an acknowledgment by the State itself that it committed prosecutorial misconduct that renders Richard Glossip’s capital conviction fundamentally unreliable.”

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Sixty-two Oklahoma legislators, including at least 45 pro-death penalty Republican lawmakers, back Glossip’s appeal. The defense added two independent investigations “found multiple errors that cast grave doubts on the reliability of Mr. Glossip’s conviction.” The State of Oklahoma said it will not defend Glossip’s conviction and death sentence, and is represented by Paul Clement, the former U.S. Solicitor General appointed by George W. Bush. The Supreme Court granted a stay of execution May 5 for Glossip, who has been on death row for 25 years and claims another man, Justin Sneed, committed the murder, and “lied on the stand at key points in the trial.” Glossip filed a new petition for writ of certiorari May 4 asking the Supreme Court to “accept what the State’s chief law enforcement officer recognizes: that Mr. Glossip’s conviction is a grave miscarriage of justice, and to execute him would be an unthinkable, irreversible travesty.” And OK AG Drummond “confessed error and agreed that Mr. Glossip did not receive a fair trial, and that his conviction must be reversed,” but the parole board “refused to stop the execution of an innocent man who never had a fair trial.”  

————————————————————————————————————

PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Glossip maintains the “only evidence linking Mr. Glossip to the murder was testimony from the undisputed killer, Mr. Sneed, who only claimed Mr. Glossip hired him to do the crime after detectives suggested Mr. Glossip’s name to him six times, informing Mr. Sneed that Mr. Glossip was ‘putting it on [Sneed] the worst’ and suggesting his cooperation would result in leniency.” The petition argues the “State’s suppression of Sneed’s admission that he was under the care of a psychiatrist and the failure to correct Sneed’s false testimony about that care and his diagnosis was a due process violation under Brady v. Maryland, which requires the prosecution to turn over evidence that might exonerate the defendant to the defense.” The filing adds, “Even at this late stage of his case, the State has only recently disclosed evidence showing it knew its critical witness, Justin Sneed, was lying and yet did not correct the record for the jury. The State agrees this failure, and the cumulative effect of the other errors in this case, require a new trial before Mr. Glossip can be punished at all, let alone put to death.”

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

STORY: "Death Row Appeal to SCOTUS Charges OKLA Prosecution ‘Knowingly Presented’ False Evidence from Key Witness, The Davis Vanguard (staff reporters) reports, on July 20, 2023.

GIST: Lawyers for death row prisoner Richard Glossip in an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court this week charged the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals did not address the defense complaint prosecutors “knowingly presented” false testimony a key witness.

The defense also, according to a statement, “condemned…the state court’s ‘result-driven’ state law ruling on the grounds that it defied the ‘physical laws of time and space’ because it required ‘Glossip to have raised a claim decades before he learned the basis for it.’”

Republican Attorney General of Oklahoma Gentner Drummond filed the State’s brief in support of Glossip’s cert petition, stating, “After careful consideration – including a thorough review by an independent counsel – the State came to the conclusion that …ensuring that justice is done in this case requires a retrial.” 

The defense notes The Innocence Project “and six legal scholars who focus on legal ethics and the professional responsibility of trial lawyers and prosecutors filed separate friend-of-the-court briefs in support of  Mr. Glossip.”

Glossip’s case “implicates many of the hallmarks of a wrongful conviction—including an acknowledgment by the State itself that it committed prosecutorial misconduct that renders Richard Glossip’s capital conviction fundamentally unreliable.”

Authored by Seth Waxman, the former U.S. Solicitor General appointed by William J. Clinton, the petition also states, “Over more than 30 years of experience, the Innocence Project has found that prosecutorial doubt about guilt or the reliability of a conviction is a substantial indicator of a wrongful conviction. 

“And when, as here, the State expresses not merely doubt, but a firm conviction that a capital conviction was ‘obtained with the benefit of material misstatements to the jury by the State’s key witness,’ it is virtually unthinkable that the conviction could be allowed to stand.

“This Court should grant certiorari and reverse the state court’s decision to make it clear that the integrity and fairness of criminal proceedings unequivocally require prosecutors to rectify false testimony that is relevant to any issue the jury will decide,” the ethicists’ brief urges.

Sixty-two Oklahoma legislators, including at least 45 pro-death penalty Republican lawmakers, back Glossip’s appeal. The defense added two independent investigations “found multiple errors that cast grave doubts on the reliability of Mr. Glossip’s conviction.”

The State of Oklahoma said it will not defend Glossip’s conviction and death sentence, and is represented by Paul Clement, the former U.S. Solicitor General appointed by George W. Bush.

The Supreme Court granted a stay of execution May 5 for Glossip, who has been on death row for 25 years and claims another man, Justin Sneed, committed the murder, and “lied on the stand at key points in the trial.”

Glossip filed a new petition for writ of certiorari May 4 asking the Supreme Court to “accept what the State’s chief law enforcement officer recognizes: that Mr. Glossip’s conviction is a grave miscarriage of justice, and to execute him would be an unthinkable, irreversible travesty.”

And OK AG Drummond “confessed error and agreed that Mr. Glossip did not receive a fair trial, and that his conviction must be reversed,” but the parole board “refused to stop the execution of an innocent man who never had a fair trial.”  

Glossip maintains the “only evidence linking Mr. Glossip to the murder was testimony from the undisputed killer, Mr. Sneed, who only claimed Mr. Glossip hired him to do the crime after detectives suggested Mr. Glossip’s name to him six times, informing Mr. Sneed that Mr. Glossip was ‘putting it on [Sneed] the worst’ and suggesting his cooperation would result in leniency.”

The petition argues the “State’s suppression of Sneed’s admission that he was under the care of a psychiatrist and the failure to correct Sneed’s false testimony about that care and his diagnosis was a due process violation under Brady v. Maryland, which requires the prosecution to turn over evidence that might exonerate the defendant to the defense.”

The filing adds, “Even at this late stage of his case, the State has only recently disclosed evidence showing it knew its critical witness, Justin Sneed, was lying and yet did not correct the record for the jury. The State agrees this failure, and the cumulative effect of the other errors in this case, require a new trial before Mr. Glossip can be punished at all, let alone put to death.” (Petition at p. 1.)

In January, the state’s review of Glossip’s case led AG Drummond to state, “After thorough and serious deliberation, I have concluded that I cannot stand behind the murder conviction and death sentence of Richard Glossip,” and he asked the OCCA to set aside Mr. Glossip’s conviction and remand the case to the district court. That request was denied by the OCCA on April 20.

The review, explains Glossip’s lawyers, “followed an independent investigation commissioned by an ad hoc group of Republican Oklahoma state legislators by the international law firm Reed Smith, which found that if presented with all the evidence now available, no reasonable juror would find Mr. Glossip guilty of murder for hire.”

   

Glossip’s defense noted Glossip—in addition to the May 4 petition for writ of certiorari—has another petition before SCOTUS (Glossip v. Oklahoma, filed in January 2023) challenging Oklahoma’s “treatment of his claims that the State illegally withheld evidence that would have bolstered his claims of innocence.”

The defense also said in a statement, “An unusual group of amici filed briefs in support of relief for Mr. Glossip, including an Oklahoma legislator, who is a self-described death penalty proponent, as well as a diverse group of prosecutors,” including “a sitting member of the U.S. Congress as well as current and former elected District Attorneys, an Attorney General, line prosecutors, and, in one instance, the author of a state’s death penalty statute.”

The entire story can be read at:

death-row-appeal-to-scotus-charges-okla-prosecution-knowingly-presented-false-evidence-from-key-witness

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929

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;

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

YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:

David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”

https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/

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

Discredited Forensic Scientist Henry Lee: Connecticut: (Part 7); Yale University Prof. Emeritus David R. Cameron asks the question of the day: 'Who killed Everett Carr?'…"It should have been obvious to investigators from day one that Birch and Henning did not kill Mr. Carr. Despite the bloody crime scene, there was no trace evidence of the crime in the car the young men drove that evening or on their clothing and shoes. And their DNA was not found anywhere in the house, including in the bathroom where they supposedly cleaned up and on the white towel they supposedly used. The state’s notion that the single smear on a towel in the bathroom was evidence the two young men killed Carr was absurd; had they killed him and tried to clean up afterwards in the bathroom, it would have been covered with Carr’s blood and their DNA. And had they killed him, their clothes and shoes, and the interior of the car, would have been covered with blood as well, and their DNA would have been on door handles and other places in the house."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The only “evidence” linking them to the crime, aside from the dubious smear on the towel, were statements of several individuals implicating them in the crime: A childhood friend of Henning claimed he had said he was involved in a burglary during which a man was killed.  And two men who had been incarcerated with Birch each said that Birch had said he and Henning killed a man while robbing a house in New Milford. But Henning’s friend and one of the jailhouse informants recanted their testimony at the habeas trial, and an acquaintance of the other jailhouse informant testified he had said he lied in order to get transferred to another facility. And importantly, there was evidence that one or more other people had murdered Carr.  There were footprints of two people in the blood on the floor in the house, but the prints didn’t match the treads on the soles of Birch and Henning’s shoes and one set of prints was made by someone who, an FBI footwear specialist determined, had a shoe size of 7½ to 9.  Henning and Birch wore shoes that were 10½ to 11½ in size. A DNA profile was found at four locations at the crime scene, including on the inside of the front waistband of Carr’s underwear and on a piece of metal under his body that came from the knife used in the attack. That DNA came from a woman."

COMMENTARY: "Questions in civil claims against CT forensic scientist Henry Lee," by Prof. David R. Cameron, published by The Hartford Courier, on July 30, 2023. (David R. Cameron is a professor emeritus of political science at Yale and has served on the state’s task force on eyewitness identification.)

GIST: "In June 2019, the state Supreme Court unanimously reversed a judge who rejected the habeas petitions for new trials of Ralph “Ricky” Birch and Shawn Henning, who were convicted in 1989 of murdering Everett Carr on Dec. 1, 1985.

Carr, 65, was a retired truck driver and lived in his daughter’s home in New Milford. Sometime that evening, he was attacked in the home, hit on the head seven times, stabbed 27 times, and his jugular vein severed. Birch, 18, at the time of the crime, and Henning, 17, at the time, were convicted in 1989 and sentenced, respectively, to 55 years and 50 years in prison.

The Supreme Court later ordered new trials for both men.

In reversing the habeas judge, the Supreme Court concluded the men’s right to a fair trial was violated by the state’s failure to correct the trial testimony of Dr. Henry C. Lee, at the time the director of the State Police Forensic Science Laboratory. Lee investigated the crime scene and took photos in the upstairs bathroom in the home, including one of a white towel hanging on a bar in the bathroom.

 He later told a prosecutor he had tested a smear on the towel and it was positive for blood, and in the trials of the two men he said he had done a field test on the smear that was “positive consistent with blood” and was “subsequently identified to be blood.”

But two lab technicians testified at the habeas trial there were no records of either a field test or a subsequent lab test and that, when the smear was tested years later, it was found not to be blood.

In July 2020, after Litchfield State’s Attorney Dawn Gallo told a Superior Court judge the state had decided not to retry Birch and Henning because the witnesses from the original trial had either died or recanted and there was no evidence linking the men to the murder, the judge dismissed all charges against them.

Subsequently, Birch and Henning sued the town of New Milford, two police officers of the town, five detectives and two sergeants of the State Police, and Lee in federal court for alleged fabrication of evidence, malicious prosecution, and suppression of material exculpatory evidence that resulted in their wrongful conviction for felony murder and burglary and their incarceration for more than 30 years. 

All of the defendants moved to dismiss some of the claims against them, but the court denied those motions. 

Following discovery, the town defendants and some of the state defendants moved for summary judgment on the claims against them.

U.S. District Court Judge Victor A. Bolden then delivered his ruling and order on the motions for summary judgment put forward by the town and state defendants.

 Except for one part of the motion for summary judgment of one state police official, all of the state and town defendants’ motions for summary judgment were denied.

But it was the judge’s ruling in regard to one defendant in particular — Lee — that captured the attention of the media throughout the country. 

Lee had moved for summary judgment on all claims against him on the basis of the affirmative defense of absolute testimonial immunity. 

However, as Judge Bolden noted, Lee did not plead that affirmative defense in his answer to the complaint, nor did he move to amend his answer to include that defense before filing his motion for summary judgment. 

The plaintiffs argued that, because he didn’t plead that defense in his answer and didn’t move to amend his answer to the complaint before filing his motion for summary judgment, which relied exclusively on that defense, Lee shouldn’t be allowed to rely on it now at this late stage in the litigation.

Bolden agreed and denied both Lee’s motion to amend his answer and his motion for summary judgment on the basis of absolute testimonial immunity. Bolden also agreed with the plaintiffs that they are entitled to summary judgment as to liability on their claims against Lee.

In reading Bolden’s 84-page ruling, one sentence stands out in regard to Lee’s failure to amend his answer to the plaintiffs and his motion for summary judgment on the basis of absolute testimonial immunity.

 Bolden wrote that “Dr. Lee argues that his counsel ‘unintentionally neglected to move more quickly to amend when it became clear to counsel that testimonial immunity was a viable, and in fact, meritorious defense for the Defendant.”

 Bolden goes on to say that “upon review of the claims contained in the Complaint, it should have been fairly obvious that absolute testimonial immunity may have been a defense to the claims against Dr. Lee … Dr. Lee therefore had ample opportunity to raise this defense. Yet he did not raise it until after he filed his motion for summary judgment, nearly two years after the Complaint was filed.”

All of this raises an exceptionally important question both for Lee and the state: If, as Bolden says, it should have been fairly obvious that absolute testimonial immunity may have been a defense to the claims against Lee, why did his counsel, according to Lee, unintentionally neglect to move more quickly to amend his answer when it became clear to the counsel that testimonial immunity was a viable, and in fact, meritorious defense?

On Wednesday, July 26, the office of Attorney General William Tong, which is defending Lee and the other state defendants, said, “We disagree with Judge Bolden’s decision, and we will appeal. We stand by our lawyers’ strong work in this case. They offered a vigorous and legally correct defense.”

 Nevertheless, the question remains: Why wasn’t Lee’s answer to the plaintiffs amended to give them notice of a defense based on absolute testimonial immunity?

While that is the most important unanswered question raised by Bolden’s ruling, there is another equally important question that hangs over this case — one that has, indeed, been there for more than 37 years, since the evening of Dec. 1, 1985: Who killed Everett Carr?

It should have been obvious to investigators from day one that Birch and Henning did not kill Mr. Carr.

 Despite the bloody crime scene, there was no trace evidence of the crime in the car the young men drove that evening or on their clothing and shoes.

 And their DNA was not found anywhere in the house, including in the bathroom where they supposedly cleaned up and on the white towel they supposedly used.

The state’s notion that the single smear on a towel in the bathroom was evidence the two young men killed Carr was absurd; had they killed him and tried to clean up afterwards in the bathroom, it would have been covered with Carr’s blood and their DNA. 

And had they killed him, their clothes and shoes, and the interior of the car, would have been covered with blood as well, and their DNA would have been on door handles and other places in the house.

The only “evidence” linking them to the crime, aside from the dubious smear on the towel, were statements of several individuals implicating them in the crime: A childhood friend of Henning claimed he had said he was involved in a burglary during which a man was killed. 

And two men who had been incarcerated with Birch each said that Birch had said he and Henning killed a man while robbing a house in New Milford.

 But Henning’s friend and one of the jailhouse informants recanted their testimony at the habeas trial, and an acquaintance of the other jailhouse informant testified he had said he lied in order to get transferred to another facility.

And importantly, there was evidence that one or more other people had murdered Carr. 

There were footprints of two people in the blood on the floor in the house, but the prints didn’t match the treads on the soles of Birch and Henning’s shoes and one set of prints was made by someone who, an FBI footwear specialist determined, had a shoe size of 7½ to 9. 

Henning and Birch wore shoes that were 10½ to 11½ in size.

A DNA profile was found at four locations at the crime scene, including on the inside of the front waistband of Carr’s underwear and on a piece of metal under his body that came from the knife used in the attack.

That DNA came from a woman.

Astounding as it may seem in a state that, thanks largely to Lee and his fellow forensic scientists in the state lab, has been at the forefront in the development of the forensic use of DNA, the source of that DNA has never been identified. So the question remains: Who killed Everett Carr?

The entire commentary can be read at:

https://www.courant.com/2023/07/30/opinion-questions-in-civil-claims-against-ct-forensic-scientist-henry-lee-and-murder-case/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929

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;

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

YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:

David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”

https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/

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

Christopher Dunn; Missouri: Bulletin: St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner's last act was to petition the court to set aside the conviction of Christopher Dunn, citing evidence of innocence. Now, as KSDK (Reporter Christine Byers) reports, a former judge has been appointed to review the decades-old murder conviction…"St. Louis' top prosecutor has asked a court to set aside the conviction of the man who has spent 33 years in prison for a killing he says he didn't commit, after witnesses who testified against him later said authorities had pressured them to lie. In her request to overturn Dunn's first-degree murder conviction, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner cited “clear and convincing evidence” that he had not been involved in the 1990 shooting death of Ricco Rogers."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "A judge has heard Dunn's innocence case before.  At an evidentiary hearing in 2020, Judge William Hickle agreed that a jury would likely find Dunn not guilty based on new evidence. But Hickle declined to exonerate Dunn, citing a 2016 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that only death row inmates — not those like Dunn sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — could make a “freestanding” claim of actual innocence. A 2021 law now allows prosecutors to seek court hearings in cases with new evidence of a wrongful conviction. It has led to the freeing of another longtime inmate, Kevin Strickland, who served more than 40 years for a Kansas City triple killing. Lamar Johnson, who spent nearly three decades in prison, was the second inmate freed as a result of the new law."

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

STORY: "St. Louis circuit attorney appoints former judge to review decades-old murder conviction," by Reporter Christine Byers, published by KSDK, on July 18, 2023.

SUB-HEADING: "St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner's last act was to petition the court to set aside the conviction of Christopher Dunn, citing evidence of innocence."

PHOTO CAPTION: "This photo provided by Kira Dunn shows Christopher Dunn. St. Louis' top prosecutor has asked a court to set aside the conviction of the man who has spent 33 years in prison for a killing he says he didn't commit, after witnesses who testified against him later said authorities had pressured them to lie. In her request to overturn Dunn's first-degree murder conviction, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner cited “clear and convincing evidence” that he had not been involved in the 1990 shooting death of Ricco Rogers."

GIST: "St. Louis Circuit Attorney Gabe Gore has appointed former federal judge and assistant circuit attorney Booker Shaw to review the first-degree murder conviction of Christopher Dunn dating back to 1990.

Shaw has agreed to do so on a pro-bono basis.

It's somewhat of an about-face for Shaw, who represented the judges of the 22nd Judicial Circuit as they prepared to testify against Gore’s predecessor Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner during the Missouri Attorney General’s lawsuit to remove Gardner from office.

She resigned before that case went to trial. 

She filed the request after witnesses who testified against Dunn later said authorities had pressured them to lie. In her request, Gardner cited “clear and convincing evidence” that he had not been involved in the 1990 shooting death of Ricco Rogers. 

“In a case of this magnitude, a full review of the facts and the law is required," Gore said in a release announcing Shaw's appointment. "I could not think of a better attorney to assist me in conducting the necessary analysis. I would like to thank Thompson Coburn for lending us one of their finest legal minds."

Dunn, 51, who is Black, was 18 when Ricco Rogers was killed. Among the key evidence used to convict him was testimony from two boys who were at the scene of the shooting. Both later recanted their testimony, saying they had been coerced by police and prosecutors.

A judge has heard Dunn's innocence case before. 

At an evidentiary hearing in 2020, Judge William Hickle agreed that a jury would likely find Dunn not guilty based on new evidence.

 But Hickle declined to exonerate Dunn, citing a 2016 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that only death row inmates — not those like Dunn sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — could make a “freestanding” claim of actual innocence.

A 2021 law now allows prosecutors to seek court hearings in cases with new evidence of a wrongful conviction.

 It has led to the freeing of another longtime inmate, Kevin Strickland, who served more than 40 years for a Kansas City triple killing. Lamar Johnson, who spent nearly three decades in prison, was the second inmate freed as a result of the new law."

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local/st-louis-circuit-attorney-appoints-former-judge-review-murder-conviction/63-0fb9c1a8-31dd-448b-95f6-306f8324e241

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929

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;

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

YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:

David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”

https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/

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

Michael Agee: Niagara Falls, New York: Major (Welcome) Development; Prosecution dirty tricks? Convicted of two armed robberies in Niagara Falls and imprisoned for more than a decade was ordered to be released Wednesday after his lawyers successfully argued prosecutors failed to provide him with conflicting DNA evidence obtained after his conviction, WIFB4 (Digital Executive Reporter Nick Veronica and Reporter Daniel Telvock) report… "Agee was convicted of first-degree attempted robbery of a furniture store in 2010, and first- and second-degree robbery for a car theft two days later. He was sentenced on March 14, 2013, to 12 years in prison. Court papers state prosecutors came into possession of a DNA report in October 2013 that cast doubt in Agee being involved, but they never provided the exculpatory evidence to Agee’s attorneys. Agee did not get a copy of the report until 2021, when a team of investigators and an attorney filed a Freedom of Information law request. Specifically, the DNA report stated that a knife recovered at the scene of one of the robberies contained DNA that matched another man, Darius Belton, and not Agee, according to court papers."

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Judge Calvo-Torres wrote that the DNA evidence, combined with testimony from Belton that he, and not Agee, committed the crime, “demonstrated a reasonable probability that had the newly discovered DNA evidence been produced at trail, the verdict would have been more favorable to the defendant.”

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

STORY: "Judge orders new trial for a man who claimed DNA evidence was withheld,"  WIFB4 (Digital Executive Reporter, producer  Nick Veronica and Reporter Daniel Telvock) report ,on July 26, 2023.

GIST: "A man who was convicted of two armed robberies in Niagara Falls and imprisoned for more than a decade was ordered to be released Wednesday after his lawyers successfully argued prosecutors failed to provide him with conflicting DNA evidence obtained after his conviction.

Judge Betty Calvo-Torres vacated the judgment against 30-year-old Michael Agee and granted his request for a new trial.

Niagara County District Attorney Brian Seaman did not indicate whether prosecutors would re-try Agee.

Agee was convicted of first-degree attempted robbery of a furniture store in 2010, and first- and second-degree robbery for a car theft two days later. He was sentenced on March 14, 2013, to 12 years in prison.

Court papers state prosecutors came into possession of a DNA report in October 2013 that cast doubt in Agee being involved, but they never provided the exculpatory evidence to Agee’s attorneys.

Agee did not get a copy of the report until 2021, when a team of investigators and an attorney filed a Freedom of Information law request.

Specifically, the DNA report stated that a knife recovered at the scene of one of the robberies contained DNA that matched another man, Darius Belton, and not Agee, according to court papers.

Judge Calvo-Torres wrote that the DNA evidence, combined with testimony from Belton that he, and not Agee, committed the crime, “demonstrated a reasonable probability that had the newly discovered DNA evidence been produced at trail, the verdict would have been more favorable to the defendant.”

Agee was being held at a state prison in Wyoming County. His earliest possible release date was listed as March 2027.""

The entire story can be read at:

https://www.wivb.com/news/judge-orders-new-trial-for-man-who-claimed-dna-evidence-was-withheld/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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

https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929

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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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:

David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”

https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/

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