WORDS TO HEED: FROM OUR POST ON KEVIN COOPER'S APPLICATION FOR POST-CONVICTION DNA TESTING; CALIFORNIA: (Applicable wherever a state resists DNA testing): "Blogger/extraordinaire Jeff Gamso's blunt, unequivocal, unforgettable message to the powers that be in California: "JUST TEST THE FUCKING DNA." (Oh yes, Gamso raises, as he does in many of his posts, an important philosophical question: This post is headed: "What is truth, said jesting Pilate."...Says Gamso: "So what's the harm? What, exactly, are they scared of? Don't we want the truth?")
https://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2018/06/kevin-cooper-2-california-application.html
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Sanchez and his team also question footprints found at the crime scene. “The footprint of the killer wasn’t even close to my shoe size,” said Sanchez on the recording. “I’m a size 11 and a half. Not a size nine.” They also want fingerprints tested against Sanchez’s father. “There were 49 fingerprints in the car. Not one matched me,” said Sanchez. “Enough is enough. I deserve to be free.”
STORY: "Enough is enough, I deserve to be free," death row inmate maintains innocence continues call for new DNA tests," by Reporter Katelyn Ogle. published by KFOR, on August 9, 2023. (Katelyn Ogle started her journalism career as an intern for a local station during her senior year of college at The University of Central Oklahoma in 2018. Shortly after graduating, Katelyn became the Alert Desk Anchor and morning reporter.)
GIST: "A clemency hearing was supposed to be held Wednesday for a death-row inmate scheduled to be executed in September."
He decided not to have one and instead spoke out during a Death Penalty Action news conference.
“My name is Anthony Castillo Sanchez. I am an innocent man in Oklahoma Death Row,” said Anthony Sanchez through a recording.
Sanchez, 44, is trying to save his own life before he is scheduled to be executed on September 21.
He rejected his clemency hearing, saying it was a waste of time.
“There is not one shred of evidence that links me to this crime,” he said during the recording
In 1996, Julie Busken, 21, was found sexually assaulted and shot in the head at Lake Stanley Draper.
In 2006, prosecutors said DNA evidence linked Sanchez to the crime.
Sanchez and advocates, with the Death Penalty Action group, claim the real killer is Sanchez’s father, Glenn. They said he confessed to the crime before dying by suicide last year.
However, in a recent letter to Rep. JJ Humphreys, a pro-death penalty republican who questions the validity of the DNA results, Attorney General Gentner Drummond said, “OSBI (Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation) requested and received a sample of his blood from the Medical Examiner. The DNA profile developed from Glen Sanchez was not a match to the profile developed from Ms. Busken’s leotard.”
Sanchez’s advocates want a new sample taken directly from the clothing for retesting, instead of going off of the profile developed years ago.
“How hard would it be to test the original evidence,” said Jeff Hood, Sanchez’s spiritual advisor. “We are getting smoke and mirrors when we’re asking for facts.”
“If we have those capabilities and we’re not using it, why?” said David Ballard, a CLEET licensed private investigator.
Sanchez and his team also question footprints found at the crime scene.
“The footprint of the killer wasn’t even close to my shoe size,” said Sanchez on the recording. “I’m a size 11 and a half. Not a size nine.”
They also want fingerprints tested against Sanchez’s father.
“There were 49 fingerprints in the car. Not one matched me,” said Sanchez. “Enough is enough. I deserve to be free.”
A spokesperson for AG Drummond’s office provided News 4 the following statement:
“It is beyond any doubt that Anthony Sanchez is a rapist and a murderer. Justice for Juli Busken will be done Sept. 21” — Phil Bacharach, spokesperson for AG Drummond.
News 4 tried calling a phone number linked to Busken’s father and left a voicemail. We also
messaged several Facebook accounts, but we did not hear back."
The entire story can be read at:
death-row-inmate-maintains-innocence-continues-call-for-new-dna-tests
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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