PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Lieutenant Doug Collard of the Tyler Police Department testified about the crime scene. He said Edwards’s killer had cut off part of her lip and her entire vagina. These body parts were not found. He also testified that Edwards showed no signs of a defensive struggle. Collard was qualified as an expert witness on the fingerprint evidence. He testified about a set of prints found on the patio door and said that they had no dissimilar characteristics from prints taken from Cook at the time of his arrest. Collard said it was his opinion that these prints were six to 12 hours old at the time they were lifted by the police, indicating that they were left between 8 p.m. on June 9 and 8 a.m. on June 10. Collard testified that the prints were “heavy perspiration” or “sweat” prints, based on how well the dusting powder attached to them. He said that Cook was a “heavy secretor,” a person who perspires more than normal from their fingerprints and therefore leaves stronger and more pronounced fingerprints that last longer than those left by non-heavy secretors. He said that direct sunlight and heat would “rapidly tear down a sweat print.”
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: Two weeks prior to the 1992 trial, Cook’s attorneys filed a state petition for a writ of habeas corpus, raising double-jeopardy issues and alleging that prosecutorial misconduct had denied Cook the ability to mount an effective defense. The motion said that the state had withheld exculpatory evidence from Cook’s attorneys. These included: Collard had clarified his testimony regarding the age of the fingerprints on the patio door. After the first trial, the International Association of Identification filed a grievance against Collard. In his response, Collard said his opinion about the purported newness of the prints was actually just a personal opinion rather than an expert opinion and not supported by scientific evidence. “I was contacted by the District Attorney who asked me if I had made the statement regarding the approximate age of the latent print,” Collard said. “I informed him that I had made the statement, but that it was not intended for use and that there was no positive or scientific way that it could be supported. He advised me that if I had made the statement, it was therefore an opinion."
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BACKGROUND: From a previous post of this Blog. (June 22, 2024); HEADNOTE: Kerry Max Cook: Texas; Major (but incredibly overdue) Development: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has declared him “actually innocent” - 46 Years after his original conviction, noting amongst other factors that there has been "new scientific evidence."… "Describing Mr. Cook’s case as “one of the most notable murder cases of the last half-century,” the majority opinion explains that “when it comes to solid support for actual innocence, this case contains it all—uncontroverted Brady violations, proof of false testimony, admissions of perjury, and new scientific evidence.” The Death Penalty Information Center has determined that Mr. Cook meets the criteria for inclusion on our exoneration list, making him the 198th person exonerated after being sentenced to death." PASSAGE OF THE DAY: “Marked by bookends of deception spanning over 40 years,” the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has now found Mr. Cook to be innocent. “The State merely has to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt—which the State could never achieve in this case. Cook should therefore not have to prove his innocence beyond all doubt,” stated the majority opinion, authored by Judge Bert Richardson. “After being incarcerated on death row for almost twenty torturous years, we hold that Cook has met the burden required for actual innocence and relief is hereby granted.”
https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/3687031727174061939
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RECENT ENTRY: NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS: By Ken Otterbourg; August 29, 2024…'Contributing factors: Mistaken witness ID, False or misleading Forensic evidence Perjury or false allegations; Official misconduct); DNA evidence contributed to the exoneration.'
| ENTRY: On June 19, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals declared Kerry Max Cook to be factually innocent of the brutal murder of Linda Jo Edwards in the city of Tyler in 1977. Cook had been tried three times, convicted twice of capital murder, and sentenced to death. Prior to a fourth trial, he entered a plea to a reduced charge to secure his release from prison. “It is alarming that for more than four decades some of those charged with pursuing that justice for Linda have actually obstructed the search for the truth of what really happened that night,” the appellate court wrote. “During the past 40 years, not only have memories faded because of the passage of time, witnesses have died and evidence in the care of the State has been inexplicably destroyed. Linda Jo Edwards deserves better.” Paula Rudolph discovered Edwards’s body on the morning of June 10, 1977, in the unit they shared at the Embarcadero Apartments. Both women worked at Texas Eastern University. Edwards, who was 21 years old, was a secretary in the English Department. Rudolph worked in the library. Edwards had been having an affair with James Mayfield, the university’s head librarian. On May 14, Mayfield, then 43 years old, had left his wife and three children and signed a lease at the Embarcadero with Edwards. He moved back home on May 19. The next day, Edwards attempted to kill herself. Mayfield found her and took her to the hospital. After her release and on Mayfield’s request, Rudolph agreed to let Edwards stay with her for a short while until she got back on her feet. Edwards moved into Rudolph’s apartment on May 27. Two weeks later, she was murdered. According to the autopsy report, Edwards had been struck repeatedly in the face and head. She also was stabbed numerous times. Her sexual organs had been mutilated and nearly removed. Investigators found bloody handprints on her body. They also quickly recovered two of the murder weapons—a small plaster statute and a pair of scissors. Another murder weapon, a carving knife, was found a week later by Rudolph’s father in a closet. The police dusted the apartment for fingerprints. Other than those belonging to Edwards and Rudolph, no usable prints were found inside the apartment. A set of prints was found on the exterior of the patio door. Rudolph told the Tyler police that she last saw Edwards at about 9:30 p.m. on June 9. They were both in the apartment, just before Rudolph went out for a drink. Rudolph said she returned around 12:30 a.m. and saw a figure standing in the den, the room Edwards used as her bedroom. She said the figure responded to her voice, disappeared from view and shut the door. Her initial belief was that the figure was Mayfield, and she said, “Don’t worry, it’s only me.” She said she heard the patio door slide open and close a few minutes later. Rudolph then went to bed and discovered Edwards at 7 a.m. In her first statement to the police, Rudolph gave this description: “Silver hair cut in a medium touching-the-ear fashion that men wear. The body was that of a Caucasian with a tan wearing white shorts of some fashion. I do not know if they were briefs, walking shorts, tennis shorts or exactly what style. The figure was sleek and slender.” Mayfield, an avid tennis player, went to the police station and gave a statement. He admitted to the affair but said it had ended a few weeks earlier. Mayfield said he had been home all night with his wife and 16-year-old daughter, Louella, who confirmed his alibi. The brutality of the crime and the mutilations pushed the investigation in a different direction, away from a crime of passion to one focused on a suspect who could execute a “lust murder.” For assistance, the police reached out to Jerry Landrum, a psychologist who lived in the apartment complex and had assisted the Smith County District Attorney on other cases. Landrum created a psychological profile of the likely killer, concluding that “the suspect was a male between the ages of 18 and 30 and that the subject was possibly homosexual, that the subject would be very introverted, possibl[y] impotent, that the subject would possibly be on some type of drugs and that he might be an epileptic.” The police went door-to-door at the Embarcadero, interviewing residents about anyone who might fit that description and fingerprinting every man. The investigation stalled for nearly two months, until August 2, when James Taylor, a truck driver who lived at the apartments, called the police. Taylor said a hitchhiker had stayed with him in April and then returned for a few days in June. Taylor described the man, Kerry Max Cook, as young and bisexual. Taylor said Cook lived in nearby Jacksonville with his parents. Cook, then 21 years old, had a previous theft conviction, which meant his prints were on file and could be compared with the prints lifted from the patio door. A fingerprint examiner said Cook was the source of the prints, and he was arrested on August 5, 1977, in Port Arthur, where he was working as a bartender. Cook was charged with capital murder and would face the death penalty if convicted. With Cook present, Rudolph appeared at a pre-trial hearing but did not identify him as the person she glimpsed in her apartment. She testified similarly before the grand jury. At a later hearing, she again testified that she could not make an identification. But during a break in that hearing, Rudolph would later testify at trial, she was riding the elevator with her sister-in-law when the door opened and several people appeared before her. “One of them was the person I had seen in Linda’s apartment that night; he [Cook] was standing as the doors opened, it was—there was a light behind, it was almost like a flashback,” Rudolph said. “I mean it was just—I gripped [my sister-in-law’s] hand, her arm. I was in the corner. I gripped her arm with one hand and squeezed so hard, I left bruises on it.” Cook’s trial in Smith County District Court began on June 5, 1978. Rudolph identified Cook as the figure she had seen in her apartment, testifying that “after the figure whirled, we stood face to face.” She testified that she had first assumed the figure was Mayfield In addition, Rudolph testified that she had never seen Cook before and that he did not have anyone’s permission to be in the apartment. John Ament, one of Cook’s attorneys, asked Rudolph about the shift in her identification from her initial statement to police. “I’m just telling the jury that I could have been mistaken in the original interpretation of my perception,” Rudolph said. “It is the result of attempting to look back, recall the figure I saw and recall it without the preconceived notion that it was someone else.” Robert Hoehn, a resident of the complex, testified under a grant of immunity that he and Cook spent most of the evening together, drinking beer and watching an arthouse movie, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea. The jury saw part of the film, where several of the characters mutilate a cat. Hoehn testified that he and Cook paused the movie and went down to the pool. On the way, Hoehn testified, Cook pointed out Edwards’s window and said a good-looking woman lived there. When they got back to the apartment, Hoehn said, he performed oral sex on Cook. Later, Hoehn testified, Cook tried to have sex with Hoehn but was unsuccessful. Around midnight, according to Hoehn, the two men left to get cigarettes and returned about 12:30 a.m. Hoehn said that Cook was wearing blue shorts. Lieutenant Doug Collard of the Tyler Police Department testified about the crime scene. He said Edwards’s killer had cut off part of her lip and her entire vagina. These body parts were not found. He also testified that Edwards showed no signs of a defensive struggle. Collard was qualified as an expert witness on the fingerprint evidence. He testified about a set of prints found on the patio door and said that they had no dissimilar characteristics from prints taken from Cook at the time of his arrest. Collard said it was his opinion that these prints were six to 12 hours old at the time they were lifted by the police, indicating that they were left between 8 p.m. on June 9 and 8 a.m. on June 10. Collard testified that the prints were “heavy perspiration” or “sweat” prints, based on how well the dusting powder attached to them. He said that Cook was a “heavy secretor,” a person who perspires more than normal from their fingerprints and therefore leaves stronger and more pronounced fingerprints that last longer than those left by non-heavy secretors. He said that direct sunlight and heat would “rapidly tear down a sweat print.” Dr. Virgil Gonzales, a pathologist and medical examiner, visited the body at the crime scene and performed the autopsy. He identified at least 10 blows to Edwards’s head and 20-30 stab wounds on her body. Because of the extensive injuries to the woman’s genitals, he said it was impossible to detect the presence of any semen. Randy and Rodney Dykes, Taylor’s nephews, testified that Cook had told them about a girl who was “playing with herself” and that he had pointed to Edwards’s apartment. Edward Jackson testified that Cook confessed his involvement in the murder while they were together in the Smith County Jail. Jackson said that Cook described the details of the crime and worried that he might have been seen by another lady when he was leaving. According to Jackson, Cook also expressed violent thoughts or fantasies against dark-haired women. At the time of his testimony, Jackson was facing his own murder charges, and he denied that he and prosecutors had made any deal in exchange for his testimony. Cook’s attorneys presented impeaching testimony against Jackson by three inmates at the Smith County Jail. One testified that Jackson saw his testimony as an “ace in the hole” to reduce his charge from murder to involuntary manslaughter. During his closing argument, prosecutor Michael Thompson said Cook had used the movie as a template for what he did to Edwards. “His lust for blood and perversion didn’t stop with his homosexual acts,” he said. “No, he had to act it out. He went on his final trip and murdered that young woman in the most brutal and inhumane fashion you’d ever want to see.” Thompson also dismissed the idea that Jackson had a deal in the wings. “That man has got no deal with the State of Texas,” he said. “I will be yelling for his head before this rail of justice just like I am on this killer, and it will fall. I don’t make deals with killers. I don’t trade one man’s life for another.” Cook’s other attorney, LeRue Dixon, said there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction. The fingerprint could have been made at an earlier time. Rudolph’s identification was shaky, and Jackson was a jailhouse informant. In addition, Cook’s attorneys focused on the timeline, including Hoehn’s testimony that he dropped Cook off at just about the time that Rudolph said she saw a figure in her apartment. “Logically, it doesn’t make sense,” said Dixon. “It doesn’t add up.” On June 28, 1978, the jury convicted Cook of capital murder. Testifying for the state in the punishment phase were Dr. James Grigson, a psychiatrist who examined Cook when he was in jail, and Landrum, the psychologist who helped the Tyler police with the investigation. Landrum said that Cook had “no chance” of rehabilitation. Grigson testified that Cook was a sociopath. “It is extremely severe,” Grigson testified. “I feel absolutely one hundred percent certain that he is and will continue to be a threat no matter where he is. Cook was sentenced on June 29 to death by lethal injection. On August 15, 1978, Jackson pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to two years in prison, with 625 days of credit for time served in jail. In his appeal, Cook said his indictment was flawed and that the trial judge had improperly allowed Jackson to testify. In 1977, the Texas State Legislature had changed the law to allow the use of oral statements defendants made to fellow inmates. The new law took effect on August 29, 1977. Jackson had given a sworn statement to officials on October 18, 1977, and said Cook gave his confession between September 2 and September 5. A jailer had testified that the records showing inmate assignments from the end of June 1977 to mid-November had been lost. The appeal also said that Grigson’s interview of Cook without his attorney’s consent was a violation of his right to counsel. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed the conviction on December 9, 1987. In a dissent, Justice Sam Houston Clinton said the conviction had serious flaws. “The evidence may be sufficient when one picks and chooses certain items, but a rational reviewer of all facts is left with serious questions whether a rational trier of fact could find guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” he wrote. Cook then petitioned the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, alleging that Grigson’s testimony violated his right to counsel. The Supreme Court granted the petition, based on an earlier ruling also involving Grigson, and remanded the case back to the court of criminal appeals, which then reversed Cook’s conviction on September 18, 1991. Cook remained incarcerated as the state prepared for a retrial, which began on October 30, 1992. Two weeks prior to the 1992 trial, Cook’s attorneys filed a state petition for a writ of habeas corpus, raising double-jeopardy issues and alleging that prosecutorial misconduct had denied Cook the ability to mount an effective defense. The motion said that the state had withheld exculpatory evidence from Cook’s attorneys. These included:
On January 29, 1993, after the mistrial but before the start of the third trial, Judge Joe Tunnell ruled that prosecutors had committed misconduct at the first trial but their actions didn’t bar a retrial. The third trial began on January 31, 1994, in Williamson County, where the second trial had also been held due to pre-trial publicity in Smith County. Collard again testified and said that the patio-door fingerprints “appeared to be fresh.” He did not define fresh. Collard defended his investigation of the physical and forensic evidence. Initially, the state had not found one of Edwards’s nylon stockings, and Collard had testified at the second trial that Cook used the item to carry off some of Edwards’s body parts as souvenirs. But jurors at the second trial had found the stocking crumpled up inside Edwards’s jeans. Collard said that was his mistake. He also said there was no need to test Edwards’s underwear for semen, because it appeared the underwear had been cut from her body. Two prosecution witnesses testified as experts about so-called “lust-type attacks.” FBI Agent David Gomez testified that Cook was a window-peeper. “The act of voyeurism, actually peeping … [is] a form of deviant sexual behavior and, in essence, it is a form of fantasy … and also a form of sexual inadequacy.” He testified that homosexual or bisexual activity was common in lust murders, even with female victims. Sergeant Dusty Heskew, a crime-scene reconstruction expert with the Austin Police Department, said Edwards was totally surprised by her attacker, a person she did not know. He said, “The pattern at the scene is of a disorganized crime.” He also said that Edwards’s attacker likely posed her body as a “symbolic message.” Hoehn had died in 1987. At the second and third trials, jurors heard part of his testimony from the first trial, although not the section that included his statements about sex acts between him and Cook. Jackson did not testify at either the second or third trial, but the state had a new witness. Bob Wickham, a volunteer reserve deputy sheriff, said Cook had confessed to him in 1978, when Wickham worked as a bailiff and escorted Cook to the courtroom during jury selection. Wickham’s story appeared improbable: Cook had allegedly told him this in 1978, but Wickham didn’t tell officials about the account until 1991, after Cook received a new trial. Despite these problems, the trial judge allowed him to testify. Wickham said Cook asked what Wickham would do if Cook made a run for it. Wickham said he would shoot him. “And then he said, ‘Do you think I killed the girl?’ I said, ‘I don’t know. That’s for the jury to decide.’ He said, ‘I killed her and I don’t give a shit what they do to me.’” Mayfield testified and said he did not kill Edwards. He said that he was forced to resign from the university after his affair became public and “ruined his career.” He said his affair with Edwards ended after he moved back to his house in mid-May 1977. Louella Mayfield testified and acknowledged that she had threatened Edwards but never acted on those threats. She said she just wanted Edwards to stay away from her father. Rudolph testified about what she saw on the morning of June 10. She told jurors about her initial belief that it was Mayfield and her later epiphany in the elevator that it was actually Cook. She testified that on further reflection she realized it wasn’t Mayfield because the figure she saw wasn’t wearing glasses and heard her come in. Mayfield, she said, always wore glasses and was hard of hearing. Cook had dark hair, and Mayfield had light-gray hair. Rudolph had initially described the figure’s hair as “silver,” and now she said this was an optical illusion, created by lights directly behind the figure. “It gave the appearance with the light, it shined silver, you know, and gave the appearance almost of a halo around the hair … around the head.” To bolster this theory, Allen Weckerling, an accident-reconstruction expert, testified that a strong light from behind a person could increase this “halo effect” and make dark hair appear silver-ish. In his defense, Cook presented testimony from Dr. Richard Coons, a forensic psychiatrist, who disagreed with the state’s witnesses that Edwards was killed in a “lust attack” by a stranger or someone whom she did not know well. In addition, George Bonebrake, a retired FBI agent and fingerprint expert, testified that Collard’s description of the fingerprints as “fresh” was misleading, imprecise, and unscientific. “It’s a term that doesn’t mean anything to me,” he said. Prior to the murder, Dr. Frederick Mears, a psychology professor, had found a book in the university library titled The Sexual Criminal—A Psychoanalytical Study, which included graphic illustrations of “lust murders” and crime scenes. After the murder, Mears contacted authorities because the “book was so close to the autopsy.” Cook’s attorneys believed that Mayfield had ordered and read the book, and sought to admit it into evidence. The judge denied the motion, because he said there was no proof that Mayfield had seen the book. Outside the presence of the jury, Mears testified that he hadn’t ordered the book and the only other person who could have done so was Mayfield. He also said Mayfield, who had “tremendous anger and belligerence,” had asked him for help in taking a polygraph test. On February 23, 1994, after a week of deliberations, the jury convicted Cook of capital murder. He was again sentenced to death. Cook again appealed, pursuing the same lines of attack raised in his earlier habeas petition and asking the court to bar a retrial. On November 6, 1996, a sharply divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that although Cook was entitled to a new trial based on the state’s misconduct, prosecutors could proceed with a fourth trial. On November 11, 1997, Cook was released from the Smith County Jail after Centurion Ministries posted a $100,000 bond on his behalf. Centurion’s investigation into Cook’s case had also scrutinized Wickham’s truthfulness; a former employer said Wickham was “dishonest.” On January 13, 1999, Cook filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. It asserted many of the claims that had been made in his appeal in the state courts and said that the state’s misconduct and the passage of time had harmed his ability to mount a successful defense. On January 29, 1999, Judge John Hannah denied the petition. Because Cook’s conviction had been vacated, there was no issue of double jeopardy. “The court notes that it is somewhat sympathetic to the Petitioner’s situation in that he should not be forced to defend himself ad infinitum after the Smith County District Attorney’s Office has repeatedly engaged in egregious acts of misconduct throughout the course of this matter,” Judge Hannah wrote. “Nonetheless, the Court does not have a constitutional basis to prevent the retrial.” In early February 1999, as a fourth trial loomed, the state asked for a continuance to conduct DNA testing on semen stains found on Edwards’s underwear and a hair found on her buttocks. A judge denied the continuance. On February 16, 1999, on the morning of jury selection, the state offered Cook a deal. In exchange for pleading no contest to murder, Cook would be offered a sentence of 20 years in prison. Including time served, he would be released immediately. During his plea hearing, Cook said: “This today is no admission of guilt. I didn’t have 10 more years to give them fighting as an innocent man on death row.” Two months later, on April 16, 1999, the DNA results came back. Cook was excluded as a contributor. The genetic material was determined to be consistent with Mayfield, who had testified twice at Cook’s trials that he didn’t have sex with Edwards in the three weeks before her death. Cook later requested that the state test the hair found on Edwards’s buttocks. Without notifying Cook’s attorneys, the state ordered it destroyed prior to any testing. In 2012, several other items from the crime scene were submitted for DNA testing, including Edwards’s clothes, a knife, a cigarette butt, and various bloody swabs. Cook’s DNA was not found on any of these items. During this period, Cook emerged as a leading figure in the innocence movement. He traveled widely, speaking to audiences around the world about his brutal treatment in prison and the misconduct that plagued his criminal trials. He married and had a son. His story became part of the play, The Exonerated, which was later made into a movie. He wrote a book: Chasing Justice: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn’t Commit. On September 14, 2015, Cook’s then-attorneys, Gary Udashen of Dallas and Nina Morrison with the Innocence Project, filed a new state petition for a writ of habeas corpus based on the DNA evidence. On April 5, 2016, Mayfield was interviewed by Udashen and Smith County officials under a grant of immunity. During the interview, Mayfield said that he had had sex with Edwards on June 8, 1977, which was his birthday. This contradicted his trial testimony that he had no intimate contact with Edwards for three weeks and that he had pivoted to a more paternal role in her life. Mayfield again said the affair ruined his career and nearly destroyed his marriage. He said that if his wife had found out about the later sexual encounter, it would have been the last straw. Mayfield said he knew about The Sexual Criminal. But he denied ordering the book and said he refused to agree to Mears’s request to remove it from the library. He also denied asking for Mears’s assistance in passing a polygraph test. Mayfield said he failed the first test but passed the second. After Mayfield’s interview, Cook’s attorneys and the Smith County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office entered into a settlement agreement that said Cook was entitled to have his conviction vacated based on Mayfield’s false testimony. The state did not take a position on Cook’s claim of actual innocence. On June 27, 2016, Gregg McCrary, an FBI supervisory special agent, said in an affidavit that Gomez had testified inaccurately regarding “lust murders,” misrepresenting that homosexual or bisexual activity was common in these types of crimes. McCrary said Gomez had jumped to an improper and hasty conclusion when classifying Edwards’s death as a lust murder. “He had not reviewed the entire file, was unaware of victimology and all other data necessary to properly classify a homicide.” Judge Jack Carter of Smith County District Court held a hearing on the habeas petition on July 1, 2016. Cook’s new attorney, Mark Bennett, said there was clear evidence that Mayfield was the true killer, as he had lied about when he last had sex with Edwards and about his knowledge of the book. “We can understand why he would lie for 40 years about the last time he had sex with Linda Jo Edwards,” Bennett said. “That was about saving his marriage. But why lie about this book for 40 years? The reason is he used this book to make it look like Linda Jo Edwards was the victim of a sexual criminal.” On August 16, 2016, Judge Carter recommended to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that Cook’s conviction be vacated based on Mayfield’s false testimony. But Judge Carter denied relief based on a claim of actual innocence. He said significant new evidence undermined the state’s theory and pointed to Mayfield, but “Overall when the new exculpatory evidence is analyzed together with the inculpatory evidence this court finds that the evidence is not rationally irreconcilable.” For the next six years, the case remained in limbo at the appellate level. The court ordered Smith County to provide the full record, but the county didn’t respond in a timely fashion, in part because of the COVID pandemic and a ransomware attack on the statewide court system. Cook replaced his lead attorney, twice, finally hiring Austin attorney Keith Hampton and attorneys Glenn Garber and Rebecca Freedman with the Exoneration Initiative. In September 2022, the criminal appellate court received the remaining records from Smith County. Nearly two years later, on June 19, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Cook’s conviction should be vacated based on actual innocence, as opposed to due-process violations. The 106-page decision, written by Judge Bert Richardson, examined the case from start to finish and said that each piece of the state’s evidence was either undermined, questionable or invalidated. Looked at with fresh eyes, the evidence pointed to Mayfield, the court said. For example, Mayfield’s admission in 2016 that he had sex with Edwards on June 8, 1977, but not on the day of the murder was implausible, the court said, because it meant that Edwards hadn’t changed her underwear in nearly two days. The court’s opinion sharply criticized the former prosecutors in Smith County for their actions in prosecuting Cook and then doubling down when confronted with their misconduct. “Several actions of the State go beyond gross negligence and reach into the realm of intentional deception against the tribunal,” the ruling said. “Cook spent close to a decade and half on death row from the very beginning based on a web of fabricated testimony and misrepresentations.” Richardson’s opinion noted that Cook was horribly abused physically and emotionally in prison and tried to kill himself in 1990. He left a note that said: “I REALLY WAS AN INNOCENT MAN. Goodbye MAMA, DADDY, AUNT JOANNE. I’m sorry I could Not Fight it ANY more. TAKE me Home, KERRY MAX COOK Lord.” He woke up in the prison infirmary, proclaiming his innocence, but still on death row. Still, the state pressed on, the ruling said, continuing to use Collard’s testimony about the age of the fingerprints at the second and third trials. “Even after he was caught in his deception, the State continued to urge Sgt. Collard to testify as an expert that the fingerprints were ‘fresh’ and ‘recently made’ in the second and third trials—18 years later—even though this position was completely scientifically unsupported.” It was Cook’s “misfortune,” the ruling said, to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Where the prosecuting party relies on numerous misrepresentations to contrive a conviction, the more it weighs heavily in favor of the defendant’s actual innocence,” the ruling said. “This is because while a single instance might be attributable to mere negligence or honest mistake, no rational juror can trust a prosecuting party proven to have engaged in repeated deception, especially where that party possesses the greater resources of the state.” In a statement, Cook said: “I was convicted and sentenced to die for a crime committed by another person, in proceedings tainted by deliberate deception and police and prosecutorial misconduct that, to this day, has not been held to account. This opinion creates an opportunity for the victim, Linda Jo Edwards, to finally receive justice.” After the appellate court’s ruling, Smith County asked the court to delay issuing its mandate in order to allow the completion of DNA testing on several items discovered during a 2023 search of an offsite storage facility. Cook’s attorneys opposed the motion. On July 31, 2024, the court denied the state’s request for further testing and issued its mandate granting Cook habeas relief based on actual innocence." The entire entry can be read at: |
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=6825
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/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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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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