Friday, September 25, 2020

Amy Wilkerson: Mississippi: A Shaken Baby Syndrome/False confession case, which fits the pattern of several Charles Smith wrongful conviction cases. I would have hoped that this viscerally discredited Shaken Baby Syndrome would have withered away by now. Well, sadly, it appears to be alive and well in Mississippi. (HL)..."Her lawyers say she was coerced to plead guilty to a crime that never happened," The Appeal (Reporter Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg) reports......"Wilkerson’s advocates say her case could be a study in how to obtain a wrongful conviction. The treating physician believed that Tristan had been violently shaken and investigators immediately focused on Wilkerson as a suspect. She was charged with felony child abuse the day after Tristan collapsed. After what her lawyers say was coercive questioning, Wilkerson made what the state claims was an inculpatory statement."

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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: " This is a case where, under the threat of death, a woman who had no prior experience with the criminal justice sy...
Wednesday, September 23, 2020

Lamar Johnson: Missouri: Flawed eyewitness testimony (and much more) case: Neat heading for KCTV story says so much in so few words......"Missouri man waits for Missouri Supreme Court ruling, has already spent 26 years in prison - called innocent by current prosecutor.".....Reporters Angie Ricono and Cyndi Fahrlander. (The lead is also excellent......"Lamar Johnson has spent more than half his life in prison for the 1994 murder of his friend Marcus Boyd." ......"Johnson had an alibi and thought speaking with police would clear things up. 26 years have now rolled by. “They just made up case. And I don’t know how else to say it. I hate to say it. That’s exactly what happened. There’s no motive, no physical evidence, nothing to say I had something to do with this case,” Johnson said. There are so many details in the investigation and trial which now seem shocking in hindsight. Johnson was largely convicted based on eyewitness testimony that identified him as the gunman in the dark, despite the fact that the killer wore a full-face mask."

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BACKGROUND: "In a friend-of-the-court brief filed before the state Supreme Court this week, the retired judges joined a growing chorus ...