Spencer S. Hsu: "A Maryland judge has thrown out the murder convictions and ordered a new trial for a man imprisoned for nearly 32 years in a notorious 1981 double killing in Harford County, faulting scientific errors in the testimony of several FBI forensic experts. Frederick County Circuit Court Judge G. Edward Dwyer Jr. made the ruling after a new DNA test in March refuted key FBI statements in the 1983 trial of John Norman Huffington, who is now 50. The genetic testing contradicted testimony by an agent with the FBI Laboratory who said that he found Huffington’s hair in the bed where one victim was killed, claiming an accuracy rate of 99.98 percent. "Due to the substantial weight given to the microscopic hair analysis by the jury . . . as well as the results of the DNA test . . . there is a significant possibility that the outcome of Petitioner's case may have been different," Dwyer wrote in a May 1 order that Huffington's lawyers received Wednesday. Harford County State’s Attorney Joseph I. Cassilly said he will ask Dwyer to reconsider the ruling and, if necessary, appeal, citing evidence of Huffington’s guilt. Cassilly said he would continue to pursue the case “if there is any possible way I can.” Huffington’s lawyers said they hoped there would be no retrial. “John Huffington has asserted his innocence for more than 30 years,” said Ryan M. Malone, counsel with the Ropes & Gray law firm. “He’s served 30 years in prison, and today we’re celebrating a victory because the truth has finally come out.” Huffington's case was among those featured in a series of articles last year in The Washington Post, which reported that government officials knew for years that flawed forensic testimony and false hair matches may have led to hundreds of wrongful convictions. On Tuesday, Mississippi's Supreme Court stayed the execution of Willie Jerome Manning for a 1992 double slaying after the FBI offered to retest DNA evidence because of testimony problems uncovered by a new Justice Department review of all FBI hair cases from the 1980s and 1990s. In Maryland, Huffington was convicted of shooting Joseph Hudson, 30, during a drug deal on May 25, 1981, and later using a vodka bottle and knife to beat and stab Hudson’s girlfriend. Diane Becker, 21, was stabbed 33 times in their trailer as her 4-year-old son slept nearby. Huffington’s trial was moved to Frederick County. A key prosecution witness was Huffington’s friend, Deno Kanaras, who testified that he sold Huffington a gun and that Huffington used that gun in the crime. Kanaras also testified that he was forced to accompany Huffington in the killings. The FBI found blood and Huffington’s fingerprint on a gallon liquor bottle that was dumped in the woods near Becker’s burned purse. Kanaras led police to the evidence, as well as to a gun, knife and bullets. Huffington claimed that while he had been with Kanaras and the victims earlier that evening, he had gone home to bed. The fingerprint, he said, was left during one of several earlier visits to the trailer. Kanaras secured a lesser sentence after prosecutors tried him separately for Becker’s murder; he was freed on parole in 2008 Huffington’s lawyers said they did not know of specific problems with the FBI hair examination until informed by The Post that in July 1997, Cassilly considered and then rejected having the FBI review the case because the hair expert involved, FBI Special Agent Michael P. Malone, had been discredited. Cassilly said he subsequently asked the FBI to go forward with a DNA test, which led to the new findings in March. While an FBI microscopic hair examination last May reached the same conclusion as Malone, DNA testing found that the hair on Becker’s bedsheet that was traced to Huffington did not come from him, Kanaras, Hudson or Becker. Separately, other FBI agents testified that bullets found at several crime scenes could be traced to a single box of ammunition. They relied on a technique that has been scientifically discredited. They also claimed that slugs found at different scenes were fired by a single weapon, a claim the FBI now says must be qualified. Huffington was initially sentenced to death. He was resentenced to two life terms in prison after a 1991 appeal. A retrial would be Huffington’s third. His defense has cost more than $1 million, his lawyers said."
Spencer S. Hsu is an investigative reporter, two-time Pulitzer finalist and national Emmy Award nominee. Hsu has covered homeland security, immigration, Virginia politics and Congress.
SUB-HEADING: "John Huffington served 32 years in prison — 10 on death row — for a double murder he did not commit."
GIST: "John Huffington was pardoned in January for a 1981 double murder he didn’t commit.
And, on Wednesday, Maryland awarded the exoneree nearly $2.9 million for the 32 years he was wrongly imprisoned — 10 of which he’d spent on death row.
His compensation, calculated by an administrative law judge at $91,431 per year, comes under a 2021 law that allows the wrongly convicted to seek a financial remedy. That same year, the Maryland Supreme Court — which was then known as the Maryland Court of Appeals — disbarred the prosecutor who sought Huffington’s conviction, citing egregious missteps in the case, including withholding evidence.
As the Democrats who chair the three-member Board of Public Works panel approved Huffington’s award Wednesday, they celebrated the state’s willingness to address the wrongs in its past.
Comptroller Brooke E. Lierman (D) said she brought her 10-year-old son to watch “because I wanted him to witness and understand that government makes massive failures sometimes, but we have to put people in place to try to correct those.”
“I recognize that no dollar amount can ever make up for what was stolen from you,” she said to Huffington. “But I hope that today’s action brings some solace, some vindication.”
Gov. Wes Moore (D), who said he has a signed copy (sic) Huffington’s book in his office and considers him a friend, praised the exoneree for not leaving prison a decade ago as a bitter man and instead working with community groups and on criminal justice panels.
Huffington was imprisoned at 18 for the May 1981 slayings of Diane Becker and Joseph Hudson in Abingdon, a community in Harford County. A second suspect in the killings, who testified against Huffington, was convicted of first-degree murder and served 27 years.
Huffington was in prison when his mother died in 2008 and was not permitted to attend her funeral, something he said in a 2021 interview was impossible to process. “That’s the one thing that’s so unforgivable,” Huffington said then. He has no pension or retirement, and has worked to help former prisoners with reentry, job training and other programs to reduce recidivism.
“Mr. Huffington, John, was wrongfully incarcerated for 11,575 days,” Moore said. “He was robbed of the time being spent with family and loved ones. Holidays, birthdays, missed milestones and opportunities denied. Injustice, time and time again.”
Moore led the room in a 30-second standing ovation for Huffington, who attended with his girlfriend and some of his attorneys. More than 120 lawyers at the Ropes and Gray law firm worked on Huffington’s case for 40 years.
“Your presence here today, frankly, serves as a reminder that our state has not always gotten it right, but we will always keep searching to make sure we that do,” Moore said. “So, bless you, man, and thank you so much. And on behalf of the entire State of Maryland, we are deeply, deeply sorry.”
Former Harford County state’s attorney Joseph I. Cassilly, who had handled Huffington’s case for 36 years before retiring, was disbarred by the state’s Supreme Court in 2021.
The judges wrote in a 97-page ruling that Cassilly had committed “various instances of intentionally dishonest misconduct” and that he “intentionally failed to disclose exculpatory evidence as a prosecutor for over a decade” in Huffington’s case.
When Cassilly learned of the disbarment from a Baltimore Sun reporter, he told the Sun he had done nothing wrong and his case “fell into the whole anti-criminal justice movement, where the cops are the bad guys and the prosecutors are the bad guys.”
Cassilly wrote in the Aegis, a Harford County newspaper, that he was “unduly disbarred” and that he was still confident that Huffington was a killer.
Huffington’s conviction was built partially on expert testimony that matched hair found at the crime scene to the same type of hair Huffington has, an analysis that was later found scientifically unreliable. (His fingerprints were also one of several sets found on a bottle of vodka allegedly used to hit one of the victims, and a co-suspect testified against him.)
Huffington has always maintained his innocence.
In 1999, the Federal Bureau of Investigation flagged to Cassilly that the hair analysis testimony given by its expert in Huffington’s case was questionable. But Cassilly never turned over the document, which was made public by an advocacy group in 2011. A subsequent DNA test in 2013 determined the crime scene hair did not belong to Huffington.
That year, a judge overturned Huffington’s conviction and a new trial was ordered. He was released from prison in July 2013, awaiting another murder trial.
In 2017, Cassilly offered — and Huffington accepted — an Alford plea, where the defendant acknowledges the state has enough evidence to convict but does not accept guilt. Huffington was sentenced to his 32 years served, and later sought a pardon from Gov. Larry Hogan (R).
Hogan granted that pardon in January, five days before he left office.
The same day, he issued a pardon for Walter Lomax, a fellow exoneree who served 39 years in prison for the murder of a grocery store clerk that he did not commit.
In 2019, Lomax, who later became a criminal justice activist, received $3 million in compensation for his wrongful conviction.
Huffington sought financial redress under the 2021 “Walter Lomax Act,” which its namesake worked for years to pass.
It sets the amount that exonerees would be paid for each year behind bars, and it allows an administrative law judge to grant other benefits, including a state identification card, housing accommodations for up to five years, health and dental care, educational training and reimbursement for court fees."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/07/05/john-huffington-maryland-exoneree/
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/
