An Australian man’s conviction for breaking and entering was overturned on October 2, 2009 after it was discovered that his DNA was erroneously mixed with DNA recovered from the crime scene. The contamination occurred at the New South Wales Crime Lab. The man’s conviction and nine-month suspended sentence were vacated by the Wyong Local Court in Wyong, NSW, about 60 miles north of Sydney. See the Sydney Morning-News article.
Thomas Arthur’s case was first featured in Justice:Denied 10 years ago (Vol. 1 Issue 7, Fall 1999). Arthur has spent more than 20 years on Alabama’s death row while the State of Alabama has fought tooth and nail for more than a decade to block the forensic/DNA testing of blood, hair, sperm and other evidence recovered from the crime scene that Arthur claims will prove he is innocent of the murder he was convicted of committing.
No physical or forensic evidence links Arthur to the crime, two alibi witnesses place him an hours drive from the crime scene, and the State’s only eyewitness is the victim’s wife, who didn’t identify Arthur until she was offered immediate parole from her life sentence for murdering her husband.
Finally, in April 2009 a state judge ordered DNA testing of several crime scene items, including a wig worn by the murderer. The testing was conducted by the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences. In July 2009 the test results excluded Arthur’s DNA from being on any item.
The judge denied the request of Arthur’s pro bono lawyers for more state of the art DNA testing of the wig and other as yet untested evidence, to not just further exclude Arthur — but to identify Wicker’s murderer. The judge returned the case to the Alabama Supreme Court, and on September 3, 2009 Alabama’s Attorney General requested that the Court set a new execution date.
Arthur has had four stays of execution, twice being hours from execution.
Click here to sign an online petition for DNA testing of all the evidence in Thomas Arthur’s case.
Paul R. Shanley was convicted in February 2005 of raping and assaulting a 6-year-old boy in 1984 when he was a Catholic priest in suburban Boston. The prosecution’s case was based on memories of the abuse Shanley’s accuser said he remembered in 2002 after he read a news article that Shanley was accused of molesting several boys in the 1980s. The charges against Shanley in those cases were dropped.
During the 74-year-old Shanley’s trial, his defense was the victim’s recollections were “false memories’’ planted by friends, therapists, and personal injury lawyers. Shanley’s accuser had a troubled past that included substance abuse problems, and after accusing Shanley filed a civil lawsuit against the Boston Archdiocese that was settled for $500,000 prior to Shanley’s trial.
Shanley was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison.
Shanley’s appeal is now being considered by Massachusett’s Supreme Judicial Court. An amicus brief signed by almost 100 psychiatrists, psychologists, and scientists was submitted that contends repressed memory syndrome is “one of the most pernicious bits of folklore ever to infect’’ the fields of mental health.
Click here to read The Boston Globe’s article about Shanley’s appeal
Click here to read The New York Times’ article about Shanley’s appeal
By Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton
Review by Joel Freedman
Click here to order Picking Cotton from Amazon.com
Jennifer Thompson-Cannino, who is white, and Ronald Cotton, who is black, are both happily married to their respective spouses. But Jennifer and Ron also love one another in a deeply spiritual way, somewhat like a close sister-brother relationship. Such a friendship is unusual in the North Carolina community in which Jennifer and Ron reside, particularly when you consider that in 1984, when Jennifer was a 22 year-old college student, she identified Ron as the man who broke into her apartment and raped her at knifepoint.
Jennifer’s positive identification of Ron put Ron in prison for 11 years before he was freed from a life imprisonment sentence after DNA testing proved that the rapist was actually Bobby Poole, who, once confronted with this evidence, admitted his guilt of the rape of Jennifer and another woman whose rape Ron had also been convicted of. During Ron’s second year of imprisonment, Poole, convicted of rapes in Burlington, North Carolina, arrived in Central Prison where Ron was incarcerated. Fellow inmates alerted Ron to admissions made by Poole that he (Poole) was the person who raped Jennifer. Ron sent his attorney a photograph of himself and Poole. They look like twin brothers. Ron wrote his attorney, Phil Moseley, “there is no doubt in my mind that Bobby Poole did the crime I’m serving time for. I work in the kitchen here with him. As I’ve said before, Poole is the one.”
Ron’s initial conviction was reversed, but at his second trial, the judge would not allow the jury to learn about any evidence that Poole committed the rapes for which Ron was on trial. A lab report showed that Poole had an A blood type and was an A secretor, just like the spatter of blood found on the door frame of the apartment of Mary Reynolds (the other rape victim), which did not belong to her or her husband or to Ron, whose blood type is O positive. Inmates were willing to testify about Poole’s confessions to them. Poole fit the description of the attacker given by both Jennifer and Mary, and he resembled the composite drawing. Poole’s modus operandi in the rapes he had previously committed was the same as that of the two rapes Ron was charged with. The judge’s ruling meant that the jury would learn nothing about evidence linking Poole to the crimes in question, or his commission of crimes similar to the ones Ron was accused of, or that Poole had bragged in prison about getting away with the crimes the state of North Carolina was trying to pin on Ron.
At Ron’s second trial, Jennifer once again identified Ron as her rapist. So did Mary Reynolds – a curious twist in the case considering the fact that Ron’s first conviction was reversed because the trial judge had refused to allow the jury to learn that Reynolds had not been able to identify Ron as the rapist. Apparently, the police were able to persuade Reynolds to reconsider her initial inability, and so, at the second trial, Ron was charged with and convicted of both rapes, and he returned to prison with another life sentence. Interestingly, out of the presence of the jury, Poole had been in the courtroom. Jennifer and Mary Reynolds observed him testify that he had not raped them. Neither one of the women recognized him.
Many years later, when DNA testing confirmed Poole’s guilt in the rape of Reynolds, there was no DNA left to test in Jennifer’s rape kit. But the state knew that whoever raped Reynolds also raped Jennifer. Confronted by police with the DNA testing results, Poole confessed to both rapes, revealing to police details about the crimes only the person who had raped Jennifer would know.
An assistant district attorney and the lead detective in Jennifer’s case broke the news to Jennifer. “I can only imagine how difficult this must be for you—This is not your fault—We all made this mistake,” they told a speechless Jennifer. “Blood roared in my ears, an ocean of confusion crashing down on me, muffling their voices. It meant I had screwed up. They had brought Bobby Poole into the courtroom during the second trial. How could I have been in the same room as my rapist and not recoil? I didn’t even recognize him. Mike Gauldin was a first-rate cop who had risen through the ranks to captain from the young detective I met that awful night in the hospital, someone who had always treated me with dignity and respect. I had brought disgrace upon his investigation, and the whole Burlington Police Department. What did he think of me now?”
Recovering from her initial shock, Jennifer soon became overwhelmed by a sense of shame and guilt for her role in sending an innocent man to prison. After Ron’s release, the news media were always calling him up, asking him questions. A detective who had helped to put Ron in prison told Ron, “I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry about everything. Everyone is. Jennifer, too.” Ron wondered, if Jennifer was really sorry, why didn’t she tell him so directly?
Ronald Cotton and Jennifer Thompson-Cannino
In 1996, a television producer phoned Jennifer about doing a story for “Frontline” on PBS. The story would be about how eyewitnesses can make mistakes. Jennifer’s first instinct was to say no. Why should she go on national TV and admit she had identified the wrong man not once, but at two separate trials? But she saw the face of Ron Cotton in her memories. The producer told Jennifer that the TV program would enable her to better understand why she had made mistakes in identifying her rapist. Jennifer finally agreed to participate – on the condition that she would have no contact with Ron, who would also be participating in the documentary. During the filming of the program, the crew often told Jennifer that Ron was a decent person who did not hate her.
“What Jennifer Saw” aired in February 1997. The morning after it aired, Jennifer watched a tape of the documentary, at the end of which Ron told the interviewer that he wondered why he had never heard from her. “I would like to hear what she has to say – in her own words – to me,” Ron said. Recalling her reaction to Ron’s wish, Jennifer tells us: “I looked around the den, at the photos of my three children smiling back at me from the walls, and a picture of my husband Vinny and me on our wedding day. Eleven years. How do eleven years pass when you are locked up for a crime you didn’t commit? I couldn’t begin to imagine. For me, they were eleven years measured in birthdays, first days of school, Christmas mornings. Ronald Cotton and I were exactly the same age, and he had none of those things because I’d picked him. He’d lost eleven years of time with his family, eleven years of falling in love, getting married, having kids. He looked forlorn on the television, hurt and bewildered. The guilt suffocated me.”
And so, two years after Ron’s release, his attorney called him to let him know Jennifer wanted a meeting with him. Robbin, Ron’s wife, objected. “She went on with her life, and now you’re trying to go on with yours and what is she trying to do? Mess with it again? It’s not fair. You don’t owe her anything,” Robin said. Ron told his wife, “Robbin, I’m going with or without you.” Robbin decided to come with him. “It’s not fair for me to not want you to go. You’re the one who needs to be able to put this stuff to rest, to find peace if you can.”
At the meeting, Ron tells us, “someone introduced Jennifer Thompson and me, which was kind of funny when you think about it. We had known each other’s names for a long time. Even if we had never met again, or never saw each other, I would have remembered Jennifer Thompson’s name for the rest of my life, just as I’m sure she would have remembered mine.”
“Mr. Cotton. I don’t even know what to call you. Ron? Ronald? Mr. Cotton? If I spent the rest of my life telling you how sorry I am, it wouldn’t come close to how I feel,” Jennifer said. “Can you ever forgive me?”
Recalling this memorable occasion, Ron wrote that “sometimes people don’t have to say a thing. If you look directly into their eyes, it’s all there. People’s eyes talk. I learned to read people like that when I was in prison. So it was good to be there, to hear her and see the expression on her face. I could see that she was truly sorry. It was plain as day: If she could have gone back and turned the hands of time to change what happened, she would have.”
Ron told Jennifer: “I forgive you. I’m not angry at you. I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, thinking I’m out to get you, or harm your family. If you look, I’m not going to be there. All I want is for all of us to go on and have a happy life.”
“Jennifer looked at me, speechless. Her whole face trembled and she got tears in her brown eyes. I could see there was pain, a lot of pain that she was trying to let go. For the first time, in so many years, I didn’t see the hate in her eyes. She didn’t look at me and see the man who hurt her, the man she wanted dead, she saw me. I didn’t think about it until after the fact, but I reached for her hands and all of a sudden, we were standing there, hugging. The next thing I knew, Robbin, Mrs. Ball Breaker herself, was bawling, too. And before I even realized it, tears fell from my eyes.”
That was the beginning of a life long friendship between Ron, Jennifer, and their families. They see one another frequently, sharing their experiences, strengths and hopes, and forging the kind of friendship that is priceless. They go to one anothers’ homes, chat regularly on the telephone, attend their children’s athletic events together, and are always there for one another. That such a friendship can thrive in a southern community where not so long ago racial segregation was the norm calls to mind Reverend Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech and King’s prayer that the day would come that we would judge others not by the color of their skins but by the content of their characters.
An inscription on the Confederate Soldier statue outside the Alamance County Courthouse where Ronald Cotton was convicted reads, “Conquered they can never be whose spirits and whose souls are free.” Ron was the first post conviction DNA exoneree in North Carolina. His case helped to establish measures for the five others in North Carolina who have been exonerated since Ron’s release. Richard Rosen, the law professor who helped Ron win his freedom, was so deluged with requests from people seeking help with their cases that he started an Innocence Project with his students. One of these students, Christine Mumma, helped to establish the North Carolina Actual Innocence Commission (now called the North Carolina Chief Justice’s Study Commission), which, in turn, inspired North Carolina lawmakers in 2006 to establish the Innocence Inquiry Commission, America’s first formal state agency designed to be an independent truth-seeking forum for justice in innocence cases. Jennifer has become an advocate for judicial reform, and is a member of the North Carolina Chief Justice’s Study Commission. Under the leadership of Michael Gauldin, the lead detective on Jennifer’s case who later was promoted to Burlington’s chief of police position, the Burlington Police Department became the first in North Carolina to require sequential lineups, when witnesses are shown suspects or suspect’s photos one at a time, instead of simultaneously, and double-blind procedures, where the lineup administrator is not the investigating officer and therefore is unaware of which picture, or individual in a lineup, is a suspect and thus he is unable to provide the witness with any leading suggestions or clues.
Ron and Jennifer have made joint appearances in support of reforms in our criminal justice system. In October 2007 they traveled to Savannah, Georgia, where there was a march in support of death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis. Hundreds of people gathered in the parking lot of the Bolton Street Baptist Church, where civil rights mass meetings were held in the sixties. The marchers chanted:
Innocence Matters!
Equal Justice!
Ron and Jennifer shared their experiences with a cheering crowd. Later, Ron, Jennifer, Robbin, Jennifer’s daughter Brittany, and Ron and Robbin’s daughter Raven walked to a restaurant for dinner. Ron and Jennifer were thinking about how, out of the tragedy of Ron’s wrongful conviction, many wonderful things had happened. So, when Jennifer told Ron, “thank God I picked you,” Ron could smile and reply, “I know what you mean.”
Picking Cotton is a powerful reminder to me that our system of justice that results in the imprisonment of innocent people needs to be improved. This book also reminds me that life is an adventure, and as we travel along our individual pathways who can predict the way the road will twist and turn?
In my own life, I have dealt with many experiences in which my life journeys have brought me into places and situations in which I initially wished I could be elsewhere. God, why is this happening? Why me? I don’t want to be here. I then try to convince myself that this is where I am, that I should make the most of it, and that I should accept the fact that God has a plan for me that does not require me to always understand why things are the way they are. Sometimes life’s trials and tribulations seem like living nightmares. So I continue to travel on the road I don’t choose to be on and, lo and behold, I’ll eventually arrive at an intersection that will put me on a road I do want to be on. That is when I realize I would not have found this good road if I had not traveled the previous bad road.
Picking Cotton is a mesmerizing, inspirational book that is filled with high doses of drama and passion that one can expect from reading such an unusual and compelling memoir. Here is a book that is, indeed, a must-read.
This is what some distinguished people have said about Picking Cotton:
This book will break your heart and then lift it up again, a touching and beautiful example of the power of faith and forgiveness. Its message of hope should reverberate far beyond the halls of justice.
- Sister Helen Prejean, CSJ
Author of Dead Man Walking
What happened in this book will change what you think of the criminal justice system in this country, and challenge you to help fix it…An extraordinary story about crime, punishment, and exoneration, but it’s their shared spiritual journey toward reconciliation and forgiveness that is even more compelling and profound.
- Barry C. Scheck
Cofounder of the Innocence Project
Few have done more to put a human face on issues involving wrongful convictions than Jennifer Thompson-Cannino and Ronald Cotton. Yet through their shared pain, they have been able to forge a friendship that most of us search our lives for.
- Janet Reno
Former U.S. Attorney General
Click here to order Picking Cotton from Amazon.com
Picking Cotton: Our Memoir Of Injustice And Redemption, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2009. 298 pages. $25.95 hard cover. ISBN-13:978-0-312-37653-6
By Hans Sherrer
For Justice:Denied the- magazine for the wrongly convicted
In the fall of 1967 a nationally reported news story was the sudden deaths of seven family members, aged 2 to 8, in the small southern Florida town of Arcadia.
All seven of 31-year-old James Joseph Richardson’s children and step-children became violently ill-shortly after eating lunch on October 25, 1967. Within twenty-four hours they were all dead. Richardson and his wife both worked, so next-door neighbor Betsy (Bessie) Reese babysat the Richardson’s non-school age children. She fed those children and the older ones when they came home from school at noon, a lunch of rice, beans and cheese that had been prepared early that morning by their mother.
It was believed the children died from poisoning. A day after their deaths, and after the Richardson’s house and storage shed had been searched multiple times by the police looking for any clue to what caused the deaths, Reese reported to the police that an open bag of the insecticide parathion had been “found” in the shed by a neighbor, Charlie Smith. The police came and took the bag as evidence, although oddly it was very damp while the shed was bone dry.
Tests of the children’s lunch plates, the leftover bowl of breakfast grits, and other items in the kitchen revealed the presence of enough parathion to kill everyone in a large city.
Although Reese was the last adult to handle the plates and food before it was eaten by the children, she was not investigated as a suspect. Instead only the children’s father was seriously considered as the poisoner – even though he had not prepared the food, he had left early that morning for where he and his wife were working in a citrus grove 15 miles from Arcadia, and he was at work when told shortly after noon that his children were seriously ill.
Local law enforcement fanned a sensational media frenzy by pointing the finger at Richardson and leaking alleged details, and he was soon arrested on suspicion of committing the murders. Daytona Beach attorney John Robinson became interested in Richardson’s case, and he and his partner agreed to represent the lawyerless Richardson pro bono, although they were civil and not criminal lawyers.
Richardson was held without bail, so Robinson decided to file a writ of habeas corpus to secure his release by forcing the prosecutor to admit there was zero evidence against Richardson – only speculation. However, Robinson then made what turned out to be the fateful decision to approach the prosecutor with the offer that if Richardson was released on a reasonable bail the habeas wouldn’t be filed. Since there was no evidence tying Richardson to his children’s deaths, Robinson figured that once he was released the arrest warrant would be dropped and the Richardsons would be left alone to grieve. The judge acknowledged the flimsiness of the case by authorizing Richardson’s release on an unheard of $7,500 bond in a capital case involving a black man’s alleged murder of his seven children. The bail bondsman was convinced enough of Richardson’s innocence that he waived the bail bond fee.
The prosecution needed evidence, and sure enough, shortly after Richardson’s release a prisoner facing criminal charges claimed that Richardson confessed to him. Richardson’s bail was revoked and two other prisoners facing charges soon claimed that he also confessed to them. Curiously, Richardson was only indicted for murdering one of his children. The three jailhouse witnesses testified at Richardson’s preliminary hearing after which he was remanded for trial.
Richardson’s indictment was based on his alleged jailhouse confessions. The prosecution claimed his motive was to collect $500 life insurance on each of his children from a policy he allegedly bought the day before their deaths. In 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Dr. Sam Sheppard was entitled to a new trial because of prejudicial publicity, and to avoid what could have been a likely reversal if Richardson was convicted in Arcadia, his trial was moved to another county. That didn’t help him because it prevented him from getting any jurors who knew him or his reputation in the community and who would have given him a fair shake.
Before Richardson’s trial began in May 1968, the judge removed fifteen perspective jurors who were opposed to the death penalty and two who doubted circumstantial evidence was enough to convict someone of murder. In contrast with the removal of those possibly open-minded people, several of the empanelled jurors were former KKK members.
During the trial two of the jailhouse informants testified about what Richardson allegedly told them, and since the third prisoner informant had died, the sheriff was allowed to provide the hearsay testimony of what the prisoner told him Richardson had said. That testimony was the basis of the prosecution’s case, since Reese didn’t testify, Smith didn’t testify, the insurance agent who allegedly sold Richardson the life insurance policies didn’t testify, and no one testified that Richardson bought or was ever seen with the bag of parathion.
That didn’t prevent the prosecution during its closing from arguing as if that testimony had been given, and that was enough for the all-white jury that had been exposed to months of sensational news stories about the case. They convicted Richardson of murder after an hour of deliberations, and recommended that he be sentenced to death – which the judge did. The jury and judge ignored inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case and compelling evidence that Richardson was the wrong person because the parathion in the grits had to have been put there after the family ate breakfast – otherwise they all would have been dead before lunch.
The story faded away and when in Florida for a speaking engagement, attorney and writer Mark Lane’s curiosity was aroused by comments that there seemed to be irregularities in the prosecution’s case against Richardson. With a few days of free time, Lane drove to Arcadia to poke around and see if Richardson’s case was as open and shut as the media had made it seem to be. Lane was a bit of a maverick and had a national reputation because of his 1966 book Rush to Judgment, that challenged the Warren Commission’s Report about President John F. Kennedy’s murder.
Lane had enough doubts about Richardson’s case that he began an intensive investigation that evolved into a book that was titled simply Arcadia. Published in January 1970, Arcadia details how justice worked in the late 1960s for black folk in a segregated small southern town in which pervasive racism infected all aspects of everyday life.
In Arcadia Lane intertwines his many interviews and testimony from Richardson’s trial to demonstrate that among other things: the jailhouse witnesses almost certainly lied; there was no evidence whatsoever linking Richardson to the parathion found in the shed or to the insecticide in his children’s lunch and that was also put in the grits after the family ate breakfast. The picture Arcadia presents is that Richardson’s conviction was due to prejudice and unfounded negative publicity that caused the jurors to assume he was guilty without any actual proof.
Lane ends Arcadia by recounting his visit to Richardson on Florida’s death row at Raiford State Prison. The prison was refusing all media interviews, but as a lawyer Lane was able to see Richardson by accompanying John Robinson as his co-counsel. During that interview Richardson exclaimed, “I don’t know who killed my children,” and he talked about the day his children died and the events that followed. As the two men were leaving, Richardson earnestly said to Robinson, “I don’t know what you can do. I know you is trying with your heart, and I thank you for that and for bring this man [Lane] to see me who I know will try to help me and try to tell the truth. I thank you for everything.” Robinson replied, “I am going to get you out of here if I spend every dime I have, if I spend every hour that is left to me. I swear it, James. You are going to walk out of that door.” That is where Lane’s book ends, with Richardson caught in the limbo land between living and dying known as Death Row.
Richardson’s direct appeal was denied in April 1971 and the information Lane uncovered wasn’t enough for him to get a new trial. But before Florida was able to execute Richardson the improbable happened – the U.S. Supreme Court declared in the 1972 case of Furman v. Georgia that the procedures used to secure capital convictions and sentences in the U.S. were unconstitutional. Across the country death row prisoners were resentenced, and Richardson resentenced to 25 years to life in prison. So instead of being led to the death chamber Richardson was condemned to likely die in prison.
True to his word Robinson didn’t forget about Richardson. In 1980 he hired private investigator Jake Ross to find some of the witnesses in the Richardson case to see if compelling new evidence could be discovered. One of the people Ross located was Charles Smith, who supposedly found the parathion. Ross wrote about his meeting with Smith:
“Mr. Smith told me that he never believed James Richardson killed his children. He indicated that Bessie Reese, a babysitter for the Richardsons, first told him about the case. At the time of the incident, Charlie saw Bessie standing in front of her home and asked her what happened. Bessie told him that the Richardson kids had died from poisoning. Bessie took Charlie to where the insecticide was located in a shed directly behind the Richardson’s house. According to Mr. Smith, the insecticide had been opened. Mr. Smith stated that Bessie went directly to the open bag of parathion and said to him, “That’s it.”
So Richardson’s jury wasn’t told the truth, it was Reese who found the insecticide, not Smith. Even more important, Reese knew before the lab tests that the children died from parathion poisoning. But that information wasn’t enough to seek a new trial.
Although investigation continued sporadically, the big break came in late 1986. Nursing-home employee Brenda Frazier had heard rumors that Reese murdered the Richardson’s children, and she asked her, “Did you kill those kids, Betsy?” Reese answered, “Yeah, I did that.”
Lane, whose law office was in Washington D.C., learned about Reese’s confession. He traveled to Florida and obtained affidavits from Frazier and another nurse who heard Reese’s confession. It had been almost nineteen years since Arcadia was published, but armed with the new evidence, in August 1988 Lane launched a “Free James Richardson” campaign by staging a rally in Arcadia.
Shortly after the rally a man informed Lane and Robinson that he knew of documents proving Richardson’s innocence. In looking through the file from the State Attorney’s Office in Arcadia that was mysteriously provided to them, the two lawyers found a treasure trove of exculpatory evidence the prosecution had concealed from Robinson before, during and for two decades after Richardson’s trial.
Among the evidence were transcripts of interviews during which the two jailhouse informants who testified at Richardson’s trial gave conflicting accounts of his supposed confession. There was also evidence that Richardson did not purchase life insurance policies on his children the day before their deaths, and there was no insurance on them at the time of their deaths. Which means the prosecutor deliberately fabricated a non-existent financial motive for Richardson to commit the murders. There were also the prosecutor’s notes about Reese’s violent criminal background that the defense didn’t know about, and which may have been why the prosecution didn’t call her as a witness. When the Richardson’s children were murdered Reese was on parole after spending four years in prison for shooting her second husband to death in 1956. Reese was also suspected of murdering her first husband by poisoning him because he mysteriously died after eating a breakfast she had prepared for him. The concealed documents also suggested a revenge motive for Reese: her third husband abandoned her and became involved with Richardson’s cousin shortly before the children were murdered. The concealed evidence about Reese’s background was consistent with her confession to poisoning the children.
With the new evidence in hand, prominent Miami attorney Ellis Rubin agreed to represent Richardson pro bono. He gained additional evidence when he questioned James Weaver – the only living jailhouse informant against Richardson. In an affidavit Weaver admitted that Richardson never confessed to him.
Armed with the new evidence, on December 15, 1989 Rubin filed with the Florida Supreme Court an “Application For Permission To File Petition For Writ Of Error Coram Nobis To Circuit Court.” The petition claimed Richardson was entitled to a new trial based on the prosecution’s “Knowing use of perjured testimony; Suppression of evidence by the prosecution so as to constitute fraud; and Newly discovered evidence.” Although the State didn’t contest the authenticity of the prosecution files that Richardson’s attorneys had obtained through unorthodox means, they vigorously opposed the petition. The State’s Response wasn’t limited by the truth or the facts of the case. It went so far as to falsely claim that Richardson had a financial motive to murder his children for the $500 life insurance policies purchased on each of his children the day before their deaths – when the prosecution’s own files proved that no such policies were purchased and there was no insurance on any of the children.
As the petition was being litigated, Richardson’s case was once again national news. People magazine published a feature story on March 6, 1989, “Convicted of murdering one of his children, James Richardson hopes the truth will set him free.” Under the glare of negative publicity that the State had condemned to death and imprisoned a man for more than 20 years who could be innocent, on February 1, 1989 Florida Governor Bob Martinez appointed Dade County State Attorney (and future Attorney General of the United States) Janet Reno as special prosecutor to examine the case.
While the coram nobis petition was pending Richardson’s lawyers filed a motion for a new trial that the Florida Supreme Court authorized the Circuit Court to hear. With Special Prosecutor Reno agreeing after several months of reviewing Richardson’s case that he had suffered a miscarriage of justice, on April 25, 1989 his conviction and sentence were vacated and he was granted a new trial. Richardson was released on bail later that day. The state conceded it had no case to retry Richardson when Reno filed a thirty-five page nolle prosse memorandum that detailed the state did not even have enough valid evidence to charge Richardson, much less convict him. The memorandum concluded, “James Richardson was probably wrongfully accused.” The murder charge was dismissed on May 5. When told the news the 53-year-old Richardson exclaimed to reporters, “Now I’m free!”
Ironically, almost two months after Richardson’s release Florida’s Supreme Court denied his petition for coram nobis, ruling that it was only proper for a person released from prison, while a motion for a new trial was the proper remedy for an imprisoned person. The court noted that its ruling was moot for Richardson because his conviction had already been vacated.
After his release from more than 21 years of imprisonment, including four years on death row, Richardson described the feeling, “’It’s a pleasure to walk on the beach, see the sunlight, picking up sand and dirt, kicking my feet in the water.” He would have died without ever again being able to experience such simple joys of life if it wasn’t for the unrelenting efforts of Mark Lane and John Robinson.
Although Lane’s book Arcadia ends in late 1969 with Richardson on death row, in reading it one can understand the inconsistencies and doubtful nature of the prosecution’s case that caused both Lane and Robinson to so fervently believe in Richardson’s innocence and work for twenty years to prove it. Their faith was vindicated when the prosecution’s concealed files where miraculously handed to them, and the truth set James Richardson free.
Richardson filed a lawsuit against DeSoto County for his wrongful prosecution that was settled for $150,000. Richardson also sold the movie rights to his story for $20,000, but the movie was never made. On August 25, 2008 Richardson, who is now 73 and lives in Kansas, filed a claim under Florida’s wrongful conviction compensation law enacted in July 2008. The law provides for $50,000 per year, so if Richardson prevails he could be awarded over $1 million.
Sources:
Mark Lane, Arcadia, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970, 287 pages, hardcover (no softcover edition) (out of print)
James Joseph Richardson vs. State of Florida, 546 So. 2d 1037 (Fla. 6/29/1989).
Convicted of murdering one of his children, James Richardson hopes the truth will set him free, People magazine, March 6, 1989.
“Now I’m free,” Richardson says – Man accused of killing children will not face new trial, St Petersburg Times, May 6, 1989.
A Man Who Loves Challenges, PI Magazine, Spring 1994.
Richardson seeks redress for wrongful incarceration, Venice Gondolier Sun (Charlotte, FL), September 10, 2008.
Duran Bailey was a homeless man living in a trash enclosure near the Las Vegas Strip when he was murdered on July 8, 2001. 18-year-old Kirstin Blaise Lobato was charged with the crime. Las Vegas police and prosecutors disregarded that there is no physical, forensic, eyewitness or confession evidence tying Ms. Lobato to the crime, and 13 alibi witnesses place her or her car at her parent’s house in Panaca, 170 miles north of Las Vegas, during the entire day of the crime.
Ms. Lobato was convicted by a Las Vegas jury in May 2002 of first-degree murder and and sexual penetration of a dead body. The Nevada Supreme Court overturned her conviction and ordered her retrial. In October 2006 Ms. Lobato was again convicted by a Las Vegas jury. However, that jury convicted her of voluntary manslaughter and sexual penetration of a dead body.
Hans Sherrer, editor and publisher of Justice Denied magazine, has written a book about Ms. Lobato’s case, “Kirstin Blaise Lobato’s Unreasonable Conviction: Possibility Of Guilt Replaces Proof Beyond A Reasonable Doubt.” Information about the book is at, http://justicedenied.org/kbl.htm
On February 5, 2009 the Nevada Supreme Court affirmed Ms. Lobato’s conviction, and denied a rehearing.
On August 15, 2009 Ms. Lobato’s lawyers filed a writ of certiorari with US Supreme Court. You can read the writ here, http://justicedenied.org/kl/lobato_certioriari_ussc_08-15-2009.pdf
The Free Kirstin Website is at, http://www.justice4kirstin.com
The Lobato family has a website at, http://www.angelfire.com/stars4/justiceforkirstin/index.html
On the morning of August 6, 2009 Virgina Governor Tim Kaine granted partial pardons to Norfolk Four defendants, Derek Tice, Danial Williams and Joseph Dick. The governor’s pardon commutted the men’s sentences of life in prison without parole to time served. Tice and Williams were released on the evening of August 6, and Dick was released on the morning of August 7. The rape and murder convictions of the three men remain on their record, and they will have to register as sex offenders and comply with release conditions administered by the Virginia DOC.
The three released men and Eric Wilson, who was released in 2005 after 8-1/2 years imprisonment, were all Navy enlisted men convicted of charges related to the 1997 rape and murder of the 18-year-old married woman in Norfolk, Virginia.
A fifth defendant, Omar A. Ballard, confessed multiple times to different people, including the police, that he alone committed the crimes. Ballard’s confessions were supported by DNA testing of crime scene evidence that only linked him to the crime, and a detailed post-conviction crime scene analysis demonstrated that the crime was committed by one person.
The four defendants who proclaimed their innocence came to be called the Norfolk Four. They each filed a petition requesting a full pardon by Virginia’s governor. By the spring of 2009 their pardon petitions were supported by 30 former FBI agents; four former Virginia attorneys general; 13 jurors from two of the sailors’ trials; 12 former state and federal judges and prosecutors; and a past president of the Virginia Bar Association. Justice:Denied also submitted a leter to Virginia’s governor supporting a full pardon of the four men.
The first week in July 2009 it was announced that best-selling author John Grisham was writing a movie script about the Norfolk Four case. Grisham’s announcement focused national attention on the Norfolk Four case, and a month later Governor Kaine granted the conditional pardons.
Grisham’s public involvement in the case may have played a role in Governor Kaine’s decision, not just because of the publicity it attracted to the plight of Tice, Williams and Dick’s who remained imprisoned, but because Grisham made significant financial contribution’s to the Governor Kaine’s political campaign. Read The New York Times article about Governor Kaine’s pardon.
By Hans Sherrer
Patrick Swiney died on July 28. Mr. Swiney, 64, died while incarcerated by the Alabama Department of Corrections (AL DOC) at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility.
Mr. Swiney was convicted in 1989 of the murder of his wife and her lover. He asserted his innocence, and Justice Denied published an article about his case in Vol. 1, Issue 2. Another article about his case was published in Vol. 2, Issue 3. You can read details about Patrick Swiney’s case on his official website, http://www.patrickswiney.com
Details of Mr. Swiney’s illness and lack of medical treatment in the weeks that preceded his death are posted on the Prisonmovements Weblog under the title: “Correctional Medical Services: Since when do their nurses decide who gets medical care?” Several weeks before he died Mr. Swiney was diagnosed with pneumonia. However, he wasn’t hospitalized as his physical condition deteriorated and he increasingly had difficulty breathing.
The Prisonmovements Weblog has real-time postings about the events leading up to Mr. Swiney’s death. It states: “One inmate who was worried about Patrick because of how awful he looks, prepared a sick call slip and hand delivered it to Ms. Nurse Greene. Nurse Greene told the inmate, “Oh we know all about Swiney’s condition.” She turned the inmate away.” The next day “the same inmate hand delivered another sick call slip to the nurse and she repeated her remark then sent him away.”
The weblog also states: “Lt. “Bull Dog” who also knows Patrick’s condition happens to be married to the CMS screening nurse who decides who gets in to see the doctor and who does not. Mrs. “Bull Dog” has a vested interest in saving costs for her company. Every dollar she does not spend on the prison’s medical care is profit in her company’s pocket.”
Mr. Swiney’s wife, Sherry, was alarmed by his lack of medical care and deteriorating condition. She made calls to the prison in an effort to have him properly treated … to no avail. Patrick Swiney died while still waiting to be adequately treated for his illness.
The details of Mr. Swiney’s death suggest it may have been unnecessary, and caused by the negligence of the AL DOC and Correctional Medical Services (CMS). CMS is the private contract medical care provider at Donaldson CF, and 30 other Alabama correctional facilities.
The AL DOC and CMS’ disregard for Mr. Swiney continued after his death. No AL DOC and CMS employee contacted Mrs. Swiney to inform her that her husband had died. She learned of his death through a prisoner calling from the prison. When she called Donaldson CF for confirmation of her husband’s death, she was told to call back the next day. The prison chaplain took the initiative to call and confirm that her husband had died.
When the State of Alabama incarcerates a person it accepts legal and moral responsibility for that person’s health and welfare. A prisoner has no option beyond the health care provided by the State.
Patrick Swiney was buried on July 31 in Hoover, Alabama. The question that has to be asked is if the DOC personnel and CMS employees entrusted with Mr. Swiney’s medical care committed “Criminally negligent homicide”, or some other criminal violation(s). The Code of Alabama states:
Section 13A-6-4 Criminally negligent homicide: (a) A person commits the crime of criminally negligent homicide if he causes the death of another person by criminal negligence.
The circumstances of Mr. Swiney’s death should be thoroughly investigated by an independent law enforcement agency. The only such agency in Alabama would be the Alabama Bureau of Investigation. Since CMS provides medical services to prisons in at least 18 states, the United States Department of Justice should investigate for possible criminal violations of Mr. Swiney’s federal civil rights by AL DOC personnel and/or CMS employees.
The State of Alabama did not sentence Mr. Swiney to death by medical negligence. If that is what happened, then the DOC and CMS personnel responsible should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
This is a link to the Tribute in a webpage, http://justicedenied.org/cases/swiney/patricktribute.htm
Patrick Swiney’s story of being convicted in 1989 of the murder of his wife and her lover, was published in Justice Denied Vol. 1, Issue 2. There was another article about his case in Vol. 2, Issue 3.
Patrick Swiney died on July 28, 2009, while incarcerated at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility. You can read his obituary and leave a comment on The Birmingham News.
You can read details about Patrick Swiney’s case on his official website, http://www.patrickswiney.com
By Hans Sherrer
For Justice:Denied magazine
Pan-Am Flight 103 crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988. All 259 people on the Boeing 747 died, plus 11 on the ground, for a total death toll of 270. The New York bound plane had 180 U.S. citizens onboard, and the FBI took over control of the investigation within hours of the crash.
It was determined that a bomb explosion in the forward cargo hold caused a 20” hole in the fuselage that resulted in the break-off of the plane’s nose section. Among the wreckage was a thumbnail size piece of a circuit board from a Toshiba radio-cassette recorder. Small Semtex bombs were concealed in the same model of recorder seized two months earlier in a West German raid on a Palestinian militant group: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC).
Remains were recovered of the suitcase in which the bomb was concealed. Also found was clothing believed to have been in the suitcase. An item of clothing was traced to a shop in Malta co-managed by Tony Gauci. He eventually identified the clothes’ purchaser as Libyan national Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi. The investigation then focused on Megrahi, who was the head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines. In November 1991 the U.S. and England indicted Megrahi and another Libyan, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, for 270 counts of murder. Fhimah was station manager for Libyan Arab Airlines at Malta’s Luqa Airport, which is where the bomb-laden suitcase was alleged to have been put on a flight for transfer to Flight 103, that originated in Frankfurt, West Germany.
Libya’s leader Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi refused to extradite Megrahi and Fhimah. In 1993 Edinburgh University law professor Robert Black travelled to Libya and convinced Ghadafi that the men could be fairly tried in a neutral country under Scottish law – since that is where the crime occurred. The U.S. and the U.K. rejected the proposal, and in 1995 both men were placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List. After five years of opposition, in 1998 the U.S. and the U.K. agreed to the trial arrangement. On April 5, 1999 Megrahi and Fhimah arrived at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, where their trial was to take place under intense security.
Their trial began on May 3, 2000. Both men vigorously protested their innocence. No material evidence was introduced linking either man to the planning of the bombing, the handling of the explosives, or the planting of the bomb. However, key evidence tying Megrahi to the bombing that didn’t implicate Fhimah, was the testimony of merchant Gauci.
Almost nine months after the trial began, on January 31, 2001 the jury of three Scottish judges acquitted Fhimah of all charges, while Megrahi was convicted of the 270 murders. Scotland doesn’t have the death penalty, so Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison and transported to a Scottish prison to serve his sentence. He would have to serve at least 27 years before he was eligible for parole.
Megrahi’s conviction was affirmed by Scotland’s Court of Appeals in March 2002. However, many people familiar with his case believed the evidence didn’t support his guilt. The BBC reported that Dr Hans Köchler, a United Nations observers at the trial, didn’t think the trial had been fair, and that Megrahi’s conviction was a “spectacular miscarriage of justice.”
In September 2003 Megrahi applied to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to review his case. The SCCRC spent $2 million during almost fours years of investigation that uncovered significant new exculpatory evidence.
On June 28, 2007 the SCCRC referred Megrahi’s case to the Court of Appeals for review as a possible “miscarriage of justice.” The SCCRC’s petition to the appeals court was more than 800 pages in length. Among the petition’s key claims are Megrahi’s lawyers were not provided:
After Megrahi’s petition was filed with the appeals court, his lawyers learned that the CIA offered Gauci several million dollars for his testimony identifying Megrahi. Sources have since said that Gauci and his brother Paul, who co-managed the shop, were paid between $3 and $4 million each.
Megrahi’s lawyers learned in June 2008 that the British government was informed in 1996 that Abolghasem Mesbahi, an Iranian defector, told German intelligence that his former Iranian PFLP-GC bosses in Tehran ordered Flight 103’s bombing – and Libyan terrorists had nothing to do with it. Mesbahi’s credibility has been established by several terror cases being solved from information he provided. Until Gauci’s ID of Megrahi the PFLP-GC was the prime suspect for the bombing.
Megrahi’s lawyers also learned that in 1996 the British government was provided documents by another country – believed to also be Germany – that Mebo timers were provided to the East German Stasi (secret police) that had ties to a PFLP-GC cell in West Germany – where Flight 103 originated.
Additional evidence implicating the PFLP-GC is that two days after Flight 103’s bombing the Iranian government deposited $11 million in a PFLP-GC bank account. Also, Abu Talb is an Egyptian PFLP-GC member convicted of bombings in Copenhagen and Amsterdam. He is currently serving a life prison sentence in Sweden. Talb was in Malta in the fall of 1988. When the FBI first contact Gauci he was shown a photo of Talb. Gauci said Talb looked “similar” to the man who bought the clothes.
The picture painted by the evidence Megrahi’s lawyers have obtained since his conviction is the Iran backed PFLP-GC was likely responsible for the bombing, and even if the clothes believed to be in the bomber’s suitcase were bought at Gauci’s Malta shop, they were bought by a person other than Megrahi.
In September 2008 the 56-year-old Megrahi was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. His lawyers filed an application for his release pending the outcome of his appeal. A hearing was held in November 2008, after which he was denied bail. The court ruled, “While the disease from which the appellant suffers is incurable … he is not at present suffering material pain or disability. The full services of the National Health Service are available to him.”
Beginning in the mid-1980s Libya was an international pariah subjected to U.N. economic sanctions because of its status as an international sponsor of terrorism. Libya denied any responsibility for the bombing of Flight 103, but after Megrahi’s conviction was affirmed in 2002, Libya proposed paying $10 million to the family of each person killed. Libya said the payments would be a humanitarian act of good will. After Libya began making payments the U.N. cancelled its economic sanctions in 2003. The U.S. resumed full diplomatic relations with Libya in 2006. In spite of mounting evidence that Libya and Megrahi had nothing to do with the bombing of Flight 103, in October 2008 Libya made final payments totaling $1.5 billion for distribution to the families. Weeks after Libya made the payments, President Bush signed an executive order on October 31, 2008, establishing Libyan immunity from terrorism-related lawsuits in the U.S. and dismissing all pending cases. Libya’s oil reserves worth trillions of dollars are the 9th largest in the world, and U.S. companies are now able to invest in the country.
The Court of Appeals began its hearing into Megrahi’s appeal on April 27, 2009. Megrahi’s advancing cancer prevented him from being present in the courtroom, but he watched the proceedings via closed-circuit television from his prison. The hearing lasted four weeks. While the appeals court was deliberating one of the judges had heart surgery in early July, so a decision isn’t expected until after he resumes working in early Fall 2009. Megrahi’s lead counsel, Margaret Scott, expressed “dismay” at the delay, saying, “There is a very real risk my client will die before this case is adjudicated. He is deteriorating and there is a relentless onset of symptoms.”
The United Kingdom and Libya signed a prisoner exchange treaty in April 2009. Libya’s government applied for Megrahi’s transfer, but under the treaty he would have to drop his appeal and accept his conviction as final before he could be transferred.
On July 24 Megrahi filed a bail application for his release to Libya pending the outcome of his appeal. His application was based on the compassionate grounds of his worsening medical condition. Many Scottish legal professionals and lay persons, and even some family members of Flight 103 victims, support Megrahi’s conditional release.
After Megrahi was indicted he told a reporter in February 1992: “I want to send this message to the British people, the American people and the international community. One day I will be found not guilty. I am sorry for the people of Lockerbie and one day you will see that.” His prediction may come true, but he may return home to Libya in a casket.
Conclusion
The bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103 has been a major news story in the England and Scotland for more than twenty years, and at least 26 books about the event have been published in the United Kingdom. The most recent book was published on July 22, 2009. In contrast, the press in the United States has not treated the plane’s bombing as a major event, even with disclosure of evidence that the U.S. government not only bribed key witnesses to secure Megrahi’s conviction and put blame on Libya, but deliberately deflected the investigation away from the Iranian backed terrorist group that more likely caused the bombing.
