PUBLISHER'S NOTE: (Denial of DNA testing): "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?")
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: It's an extraordinary tale of two men, on opposite sides of the world who have collectively served a century on their respective death rows; One who has been freed due to advances in DNA testing, the other who remains on death row awaiting testing.
The two men are Iwao Hakamada, of Japan, and Tommy Zeigler in the United States (Florida).
As Wikipedia points out, Iwao Hakamada, born on March 10 1936, is a Japanese former professional boxer who was sentenced to death on 11 September 1968 for a 1966 mass murder
His time on death row has often been described as the longest of any prisoner in the world. (If that is the case, Tommy Zeigler must be a close second. HL);
Iwao Hakamada was granted a retrial and an immediate release from death row in March 2014, (That''s after after a court found that there was reason to believe that evidence against him had been falsified.)
Indeed, DNA testing conducted in 2008 revealed that the blood on the clothing used as evidence did not match Hakamata's andmore accurate testing conducted over the years revealed that the blood did not match Hakamada's DA.
In September 2024, Hakamata was acquitted in a retrial by the Shizuoka District Court. Hakamata's innocence was confirmed in October 2024, when the prosecution waived its right to appeal. In 2025 a court awarded him 217,362,500 yen, 12,500 yen (US$83) for each day of imprisonment.
(The recital of these facts cannot convey the horror's Iwao Hakamada had to endure on death row for decades, as a convicted mass-murderer , cut off from those he loved, tightly confined, not knowing from day to day when he would face the executioner. HL);
Wikipedia entry: Iwao_Hakamata
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Tommy Zeigler was sent to death row for killing his wife Eunice; her parents Perry and Virginia Edwards; and customer Charlie Mays.
The Orlando Sentinel reports that he has long maintained his innocence and his claim that killings were the result of a botched robbery by Mays, who Zeigler’s lawyers argue is implicated by DNA evidence.
"Mays owed money to his store and, according to Zeigler, shot him in the stomach before later being gunned down and beaten to death with a steel crank," the story continues. "After uncovering DNA evidence said to exonerate him of the four 1975 murders in his Winter Garden store, Tommy Zeigler’s lawyers are now asking a judge to vacate convictions that landed him on death row."
Just as the new forensic testing on the clothing used as evidence did not natch Hakamada's, leading to more accurate testing which revealed that the blood did not match Hakamada's DNA, Tommy Zeigler's lawyers contend that the newly-analyzed DNA evidence, they piles on another layer of doubt.
As the Orlando Sentinel Story points out: "From comparing the blood spatter on the victims and the lack of blood on Zeigler’s clothes to noting work by investigators described in the motion as “shoddy,” the recently-filed documents offer an alternate narrative to the one presented during his 1976 trial.
“This shows without question that Zeigler could not have committed the crimes,” the motion argued. “If, as the State argued, he shot each of his family members at close range, he would have been covered in backspatter and gunshot residue from the shootings. But there was none. No backspatter. No gunshot residue.”
"This is the culmination of a long legal process for Zeigler, who made his first DNA testing request in 1994," the Death Penalty Information Center entry continues, noting that Tommy Zeigler now has a chance to prove his innocence through DNA testing of evidence including never-before-tested guns, fingernail clippings, and clothes of the victims and the accused."
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Iwao Hakamada; Tommy Zeigler: Worlds apart. But sharing so much in common. Both illustrating why no civilized society can be trusted to impose the death penalty- and why the courts must curb their reluctance (in their preoccupation with finality) to permit DNA testing which, as Iwao Hakamada and Tommy Zeigler prove, can be such a potent remedy against injustice.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/47-years-after-his-death-sentence-florida-court-orders-dna-testing-for-tommy-zeigler
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;
