UPDATE TO POST: "Pro-Death Penalty Oklahoma Lawmaker Calls on Attorney General to Retest DNA Evidence for Prisoners on Death Row Where Accuracy is a Concern," published by The Death Penalty Information Centre (DPIC) , on August 8, 2023.
UPDATE: "On August 8, 2023, the Oklahoman reported that AG Drummond has declined Representative Humphrey’s request to retest DNA evidence in Anthony Sanchez’s case. AG Drummond said that “the evidence is overwhelming that Anthony Sanchez brutally raped and murdered Juli Busken” and “instead of expressing remorse, he made the cowardly decision to try blaming the crime on his deceased father - a ludicrous allegation thoroughly discredited by DNA analysis.”
(THE POST WHICH WAS UPDATED): "Oklahoma State Representative Justin Humphrey (pictured) has called on Attorney General Gentner Drummond to reexamine DNA evidence in death-row prisoner Anthony Sanchez’s case and other Oklahoma death row prisoners.
Citing Mr. Sanchez’s upcoming September execution date, Rep. Humphrey wrote in a letter to AG Drummond that he “completed an initial review of [Mr.] Sanchez’s case, and [he] believe[s] there is a significant issue with the processing of DNA evidence in death penalty cases in Oklahoma.”
He said it is necessary to reprocess the DNA evidence used to convict Mr. Sanchez and other Oklahoma prisoners in order to confirm guilt or produce reasonable doubt where accuracy is in question.
For Rep. Humphrey, who supports the use of capital punishment, retesting evidence “would be a critical step towards ensuring that the death penalty process is fair and just, not just in this case but in others like it.”
Mr. Sanchez was formally sentenced to death in 2006 for the 1996 rape and murder of Jewell ‘Juli’ Busken, a student at the University of Oklahoma. Ms. Busken’s murder was unsolved for about 8 years, but DNA evidence recovered from her clothing eventually linked Mr. Sanchez to the crime.
The identity of the perpetrator has been contested, as Mr. Sanchez has maintained his innocence from the beginning.
Following the death of his father, Thomas Glen Sanchez, Mr. Sanchez filed a post-conviction petition with the Court detailing that his father was the actual perpetrator, and the state incorrectly linked him to the murder.
According to the petition, the elder Sanchez admitted to his girlfriend on several occasions prior to his death that he had killed Ms. Busken.
The state courts rejected this evidence on the grounds of hearsay.
Supporters of Mr. Sanchez say that in addition to the improperly connected DNA evidence, the footprints at the crime scene were too small to belong to Mr. Sanchez and fingerprints found did not match him but have never been compared to his father
. Mr. Sanchez’s counsel writes that “if Attorney General Drummond heeds the advice of Representative Humphrey, the whole State of Oklahoma will soon know for sure that [he is] an innocent man.”
In June 2023, he waived his opportunity to appear in front of the Oklahoma State Pardon and Parole Board, which was set to conduct a clemency hearing in early August.
Instead of presenting a case for clemency, Mr. Sanchez continues to work on a variety of motions relating to his innocence. He wrote that he does not “want clemency. [He] want[s] to prove that [he] did not kill Juli Busken.”
Representative Humphrey, who also called for an investigation into prosecutors withholding evidence in Richard Glossip’s case, acknowledges the issues surrounding capital punishment in Oklahoma and believes “that it is imperative for our government to go the extra mile to restore confidence in the Oklahoma Death Penalty process.""
The entire post can be read at:
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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