Texas: DNA Evidence Clears Man After 30 Years

From the New York Times:

Thirty years after Cornelius Dupree Jr. was imprisoned for rape and robbery, prosecutors in Dallas declared him innocent on Monday in light of new DNA evidence. Mr. Dupree, 51, has served more years in a Texas prison for a crime he did not commit than any of the other 41 people exonerated in the state in recent years. In 1980, Mr. Dupree was convicted along with a second man, Anthony Massingill, of robbing a couple and then kidnapping and raping the woman. But DNA tests completed last year on traces of semen showed that neither man committed the rape. Mr. Dupree was released on parole last summer, weeks before the DNA tests were done. Mr. Massingill, who was convicted in another sexual assault, remains in prison.

"Innocence claim rejected: Troy Davis Loses Challenge"

From Sentencing Law & Policy:

The title of this post is the title of this terrific synopsis by Lyle Denniston at SCOTUS blog of a big death penalty ruling handed down today. Here is the start of the post along with links to the looong ruling the post discusses:

Carrying out a direct order of the Supreme Court, a federal judge in Georgia made a lengthy new study of a 21-year-old murder case but then ruled Tuesday that a Savannah, Ga., man had not proved that he is innocent of killing a police officer in a fast-food restaurant parking lot. In a 172-page opinion (issued in two parts, found here and here), U.S. District Judge William T. Moore, Jr., ruled that it would be unconstitutional to execute an innocent person, but went on to rule that Troy Anthony Davis “is not innocent.” Treating the case as an unusual one procedurally, Judge Moore said it appeared that he was acting as a fact-gatherer directly for the Supreme Court, so any appeal by Davis may have to go directly to the Justices. He sent a copy of his ruling to the Supreme Court.

(NOTE TO READERS: The judge’s legal and constitutional analysis of the evidence and the issues begins on numbered page 91, which is page 29 of Part II. Up to that point, the opinion is a recitation of the evidence and the history of Davis’s challenges to his conviction.)

A year ago, the Supreme Court sent Davis’s latest challenge — one filed directly with the Justices — to the District Court in Georgia “for hearing and determination.” The order said that the lower court should “receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis's] innocence.” The Justices’ unsigned order, issued over the dissent of Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, was apparently approved on a 6-2 vote (Justice Sonia Sotomayor took no part in it.) It was a highly unusual action because the Court does not often order fact-finding by a trial-level court; it more often pronounces the law and then leaves it to lower courts to implement such a ruling. The dissenters called the action an “extraordinary step — one not taken in nearly 50 years.”

Judge Moore closed his opinion by noting that he had carried out the Supreme Court’s mandate by holding a hearing and now ruling on Davis’s habeas challenge. “This Court,” he wrote, “concludes that executing an innocent person would violate the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution” — a point long hinted at but not yet specifically decided by the Supreme Court. However, the judge went on to reject Davis’s claim of innocence, summing up: “The evidence produced at the hearing on the merits of Mr. Davis’s claim of actual innocence and a complete review of the record in this case does not require the reversal of the jury’s judgment that Troy Anthony Davis murdered City of Savannah Police Officer Mark Allen MacPhail on August 19, 1989.”

In a footnote, the judge added that “while the state’s case may not be ironclad, most reasonable jurors would again vote to convict Mr. Davis of Officer MacPhail’s murder. A federal court simply cannot interpose itself and set aside the jury verdict in this case absent a truly persuasive showing of innocence. To act contrarily would wreck complete havoc on the criminal justice system.” (The judge may have meant “wreak,” not “wreck.”)

DNA Tests Vindicate Ohio Man Convicted of Rape

AP - An Ohio man who spent nearly 30 years in prison is being released after new DNA tests showed he didn't rape an 11-year-old girl.

Raymond Towler had been serving a life sentence for the rape of a girl in a Cleveland park in 1981. Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH'-guh) County Common Pleas Judge Eileen Gallagher choked back tears as she vacated the conviction on Wednesday and left the bench to shake Towler's hand at the defense table.

Prosecutors had asked the court to act immediately after receiving the test results Monday.

The Ohio Innocence Project, an organization that uses DNA evidence to clear people wrongfully convicted of crimes, says Towler has served the second-longest amount of time among prisoners in the U.S. who were eventually exonerated by DNA.

Eyewitness Misidentification

Misidentification is the number one cause of wrongful convictions. Whether by perjury or eyewitness/victim error, innocent people are spending time behind bars for crimes they did not commit. The criminal justice system puts a lot of faith in eyewitness testimony, but there is no way to guarantee their testimony is fact. Only after innocence is proven is it made evident that eyewitness testimony was erroneous. Due to this fact, it is not possible to know the number of wrongful convictions by mistaken identity, because many who are mistakenly identified will never have a chance to prove their innocence. Furthermore, the scope of the problem cannot be known because of instances where prosecutors drop the case or in cases where people are acquitted after reversals on appeal. While appellate decisions are published and readily available online, the problem with trial acquittals or dropped cases, is that they are not systematically catalogued and made public, so there is no way to be sure of the role of eyewitness testimony in those cases.

The Facts
In June of 2000, an analysis by the Center on Wrongful Convictions found that of 51 exonerations by DNA testing in the United States and Canada, 76.1% had been based in whole or in part on eyewitness identification testimony.
Another study of 86 exonerated capital cases by the Center on Wrongful Convictions found:

- Of the 86 cases, eyewitness testimony played a role in 46 (53.5%).
- In 33 cases (38.4%), eyewitness identification was the only evidence.
- Of the 46 cases that involved eyewitness testimony, 32 cases only had one eyewitness (69.6%), while the remaining 14 cases had multiple eyewitnesses (30.4%).
- In 19 cases (41.3%), the eyewitnesses were strangers, in 9 cases (19.6%), they were non-accomplice acquaintances.

Remedies
There are multiple remedies to minimize the number of wrongful convictions by mistaken identification. The most important remedy is to reform eyewitness identification procedures.


Methods of Reform
Sequential lineups is one technique that has been increasingly used in eyewitness identification procedures. In a sequential lineup, the witness is shown lineup members one at a time. The witness has to identify whether or not the person is the perpetrator before they can move on to the next person. This method differs from the traditional procedure of the witness viewing all members at once (simultaneous lineup). The sequential lineup procedure has proven to be more accurate because it forces witnesses to use an absolute judgment strategy rather than a relative judgment strategy (where they compare all the members and simply choose the best match from the group). After all, it is certainly possible that the perpetrator is not in the lineup at all.

Double-blind is another technique in lineup procedures. In double-blind procedures, neither the administrator nor the witness know who the suspect is. This prevents the administrator from influencing the witness by unintentional or intentional clues to the identity of the suspect.

Specific instruction to witnesses includes spoken instructions from the administrator to the eyewitness. These instructions are meant to deter the witness from feeling forced to make a selection from the lineup. Specific instructions also prevent the witness from looking at the administrator for feedback during the procedure; they are made aware that the administrator does not know who the suspect is and that he or she will not be able to assist the witness during the procedure. One recommended instruction is that the suspect may or may not be in the lineup.

Composing the lineup: Photographs of the suspect should be selected that do not bring unreasonable attention to him or her. In addition, it is vital that non-suspect photographs and lineup members are chosen by their resemblance to the description provided by the witness, not by their resemblance to the suspect. The suspect should also not really stand out from the other photographs or lineup members.

Confidence statements: Immediately following the lineup procedure, the witness should provide, in his or her own words, a statement regarding his or her confidence in making the right identification.

Recorded lineup procedure: Where possible, the lineup procedures should be video-recorded. Audio or written records should be made where this is not possible.

Courtesy of Innocence Project of Minnesota (©2007)

Innocence Speaks

The Center for Wrongful Convictions has this interesting podcast on the story of innocence and a new book "True Stories of False Confessions". This episode of Innocence Speaks features a conversation with Rob Warden and Steve Drizin of the Center on Wrongful Convictions discussing their new book. The book presents 39 stories of false confessions and this conversation touches on a few of the compelling stories. (direct mp-3 download here.)

Picking Cotton: New Memoir Tells the Story of the Human Costs of Mistaken Eyewitness Identification

Most people who follow the work of the Innocence Project have heard the tale of Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino. Mr. Cotton was wrongfully convicted and spent eleven years in prison after Ms. Thompson-Cannino mistakenly identified him as her attacker. Exonerated by DNA, Mr. Cotton and Ms. Thompson-Cannino have become allies and activists in the Innocence and Eyewitness Identification reform movement. In February, their memoir was published. The memoir focuses on how Mr. Cotton was picked, the journey through court twice, and what came after Mr. Cotton was exonerated. Mr. Cotton and Ms. Thompson-Cannino are currently touring around the country speaking about innocence and eyewitness identification. For more information on the case, click here.
Here is is a video that examine some of the flaws of Eyewitness Identification: