| Verdicts in Dispute:Texas vs.Rodney Reed | |
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| Topic Started: Mar 21 2009, 03:40 PM (653 Views) | |
| Sydney Carton | Mar 21 2009, 03:40 PM Post #1 |
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Baldo first called our attention to this case about two years ago and,following his lead,I spent three hours reading up on the case as it then stood,signed Reed's petition and did not follow up further here as(1) his cause was being loudly(if extremely sporadically) pushed by the Mumia people,(2)the defendant has an appalling character(he deals drugs and has been accused-but never convicted- of rape by four other women) and(3) his defenders(at least certain of them) are being highly misleading(not to say untruthful) in representing to the public that Reed was convicted due to the prejudice of an all white jury.The fact is that he was represented by a black defense team that chose not to utilize their clear challenges,under both Texas and Federal law, to this arrangement . The defense team further did not choose to call eleven available witnesses(one of whom was also prepared to give an alibi) who swore(still swear) that Reed and the victim were carrying on an affair for months before the murder and that there is ,accordingly, a perfectly reasonable explanation for the fact that his sperm was found in her body. The then defense attorneys justify their failure to present this quantatative mass of evidence on the grounds that the witnesses are mostly relatives or have criminal records,or could have been cross-examined on their prior knowledge of criminal acts committed by Reed. I have failed to read any rational explanation whatsoever as to why the defense lawyers allowed an all white jury to be seated without challenge in the case of a black felon accused of rape murdering the mistress of a white cop.And further,since they did introduce two witnesses as to Reed's relationship with Stacy,why they then stopped without putting the other eleven. Reed,a virtual illiterate,has therefore been deprived of the benefit of highly favorable evidence(evidence which would ,almost certainly ,have hung a racially mixed blue collar jury) but it is due to the malfeasance of his own counsel, not the racial prejudice, that he was deprived of those benefits,and it is not an isue before the Texas Supreme Court. Having said all this,the case has been altered by a dramatic series of recent events in which Stacy's white cop lover(who failed two lie detector tests given him prior to Reed's conviction) was recently caught red handed kidnappiing and raping another woman in a manner not dissimilar to the fate suffered by his deceased fiancee.And there is much other evidence of other sexual criminality. Last December 17th the highest Texas court in a one hundred page opinion(which ignored the recent evidence of violent and sadistic acts by the other prime suspect)upheld Reed's death sentence. I will print the links to the full opinion on Monday. Until then here is the account given by the Standover Texas Project: Thursday, December 18, 2008 CCA Rejects New Trial for Rodney Reed The majority opinion, written by Judge Michael Keasler is here. "Man on death row will not get new trial, state says," is today's Austin American-Statesman report by Isadora Vail and Steven Kreytak. The state's highest criminal court on Wednesday denied the most recent bid for a new trial by death row inmate Rodney Reed, convicted a decade ago in the brutal Bastrop County strangling and sexual assault of 19-year-old Stacey Stites. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in the most robust review to date of the controversial case, issued a 100-page opinion that evaluates in painstaking detail much of the evidence presented at Reed's 1998 trial and raised by his lawyers in the years since the guilty verdict. The opinion also evaluates some of the claims made by Reed's lawyers that Stites' fiance when she was killed, Jimmy Fennell, could be the real murderer. Fennell was a Giddings police officer at the time and went on to become a Georgetown police officer. He is serving 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in September to kidnapping and improper sexual activity with a person in custody. Wednesday's court opinion noted some of the evidence that Reed's lawyers say suggests Fennell's involvement — including that he gave deceptive answers in a polygraph test during the investigation — "arouse a healthy suspicion that Fennell had some involvement in Stacey's death." But, the opinion said, "we are not convinced that Reed has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that no reasonable juror, confronted with this evidence, would have found (Fennell) guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." And: In fact, it still could take years before Reed is executed. He is eligible to appeal in federal District Court, to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans and the U.S. Supreme Court. First, though, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must consider several appeals that were not addressed in Wednesday's opinion, said Bryce Benjet, one of Reed's lawyers. Those include requests for a new trial based on Fennell's conviction in the recent Williamson County case, Benjet said. One filing references the corrupt administration of former Bastrop County Sheriff Richard Hernandez, whose office participated in the investigation of Stites' death, Benjet said. This year, Hernandez was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 10 years of probation for six felony counts, including theft by a public servant and abuse of official capacity. Among other offenses, Hernandez admitted using inmate labor and county materials to build barbecue pits he sold for profit. "None of this evidence is ever mentioned in the 100-page opinion by the court," Benjet said at a new conference outside the Court of Criminal Appeals, near the Capitol. "It doesn't make sense to do it piecemeal." "We are certain that if a jury would consider all of the issues in this case" at a retrial, they would acquit Reed, Benjet said. The Texas high criminal court affirmed Reed's conviction in 2000 and two years later rejected his request for a new hearing and sent the case to federal court. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel sent the case back to the state for review, citing a federal law that requires new evidence to be considered in state court before a federal judge weighs in. In 2006, state District Judge Reva Towslee Corbett in Bastrop held a two-day hearing on the testimony of two witnesses: • Martha Barnett, who said she saw Stites and fiance Jimmy Fennell Jr. together almost two hours after Reed was said to have killed her. • Mary Blackwell, who said Fennell bragged that he would strangle his girlfriend, using a belt to prevent fingerprints, if he learned she had cheated on him. Corbett ruled that the evidence would not have changed the outcome of Reed's trial and sent her findings to the Court of Criminal Appeals, which held oral arguments this year. Wednesday's opinion was the first time the judges considered the importance of those witnesses and of a claim by Reed's lawyers that some empty Busch Light Beer cans found near Stites' body could link Fennell to the crime scene. The state's DNA analysis of those cans could not exclude fellow Giddings police officer David Hall, a friend of Fennell's, according to court documents. |
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| Sydney Carton | Apr 13 2009, 05:20 PM Post #2 |
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Sorry,to be so late.I took time to read both the defense brief and the Court's adverse opinion with extreme care. The Court obviously does not wish to be reversed in Federal Court and has been meticulous in explaining what it was doing.It certainly makes a better case against Reed than the prosecution has made in its previous briefs; but in the end one(at least this one)cannot help feeling that their opinion is a superior brief for the prosecution,not a balanced,impartial, appraisal of the evidence. Here is the link to Reed's brief with one hundred and fifty pages of supporting evidence. http://content.news8austin.com/auscontent/ReedBrief.pdf Here's the Court's one hundred page rebuttal argument : http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/OPINIONS/HTMLOPINIONINFO.ASP?OPINIONID=17748 On January 19,2009,the Court again refused to consider further defense arguments based on evidence which it ignored the first time around. A third brief is being filed but it is obvious that Texas will under virtually no conceivable circumstances consider granting Reed relief and that his case is now up to the Federal Court. No links yet to these later developments,but I'll post them when they come in. |
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| teddy bear | Apr 14 2009, 11:52 AM Post #3 |
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Sydney: Sure seems like the Texas Court has dug in its heels on this case, but federal court might very well grant new trial on ineffective counsel grounds. What were his trial lawyers thinking? |
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| Lodge Pro 345 | Apr 14 2009, 04:43 PM Post #4 |
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. Interesting case! Thank you for the analysis Sydney. There's quite a lot of information in those links. |
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| Sydney Carton | Apr 15 2009, 02:19 PM Post #5 |
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I'll withold more extensive commentary on Reed until I can read the latest prosecution and defense briefs.But there are two quite distinct issues involved here. (1) Did the prosecution willfully withold five distinct pieces of exculpatory evidence? (2) Was that evidence true? The second is actually beside the point as the prosecution gave ample evidence that it believed or (at the very least )feared that the exculpatory evidence was true.And it should have been up to the jurors to determine whether or not the unheard evidence was believed. To offset this the prosecution (and its credibility is now sustained by the High Court)claims that in all these instances the unheard evidence was either (a) made available to the defence or(b) was not received by the prosecutor uintil well after the time of trial.If it is telling the truth several previously respected officials in the field of law and enforcement(some of them white)have entered into collusion with perjured witnesses to make it appear that the ostensably perjured testimony was offered in a timely manner which would certainly (whether true or false evidence ) require that(since pertinent) that it be heard. In so far as the prosecutioon's excuses apply to their dealings with Reed's first counsel at time of trial ,I fully credit that the original defense could have been(whether it was or not) so clueless as to ignore a key piece of exculpatory evidence if it came up and bit their backsides.In that case ,as Teddy points out,Reed should be appealing to the Feds on the additional grounds that he was absolutely at the mercy of incompetent attorneys. As to the more recently discovered witnesses,you can see some of them here.O.k.,these are defense witnesses discussing their own testimony on a site which links to(ugh) Mumia videos.By and large they do not appear to be poltically motivated and they give clear and(at least on the surface) convincing (but still unchallenged)testimony.If the prosecutors wish to put the witnesses'(and their own) credibility on the line it should(as in the McDonald,Troy Davis,and Tommy Arthur cases) be done(should have been done years ago) in open court before a new jury. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4864052717720140330 Edited by Sydney Carton, Apr 15 2009, 02:19 PM.
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| Sydney Carton | Apr 28 2009, 12:11 PM Post #6 |
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COURTS New claims in Bastrop murder appeal Reed's lawyers cite more sexual misconduct complaints in suggesting that former police officer Fennell killed fiancee. By Steven Kreytak AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, April 24, 2009 Newly released allegations of sexual misconduct against former Georgetown police Sgt. Jimmy Fennell emerged this week in the latest appeal filed by lawyers for death row inmate Rodney Reed. Reed was convicted in the 1996 Bastrop County murder of Stacey Stites, who was Fennell's fiancée at the time. Reed has maintained his innocence, and his lawyers have suggested that Fennell committed the crime. The appeal continues the bid by Reed's lawyers to reveal Fennell, who is serving 10 years in prison for kidnapping and improper sexual activity with a person in custody, as a sexual predator with a history of abusing women. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has twice in recent months turned back bids by Reed for a new trial. Filed Tuesday, the latest appeal includes fresh allegations from police reports, including that Fennell forced a woman he met during a traffic stop in July 2007 to have sex with him, that Fennell abused his wife and that he stalked a woman in Giddings in 1997. "Jimmy Fennell has been a sexual predator for years," said Bryce Benjet, one of Reed's lawyers. "What we have been asking for is a chance for a jury to hear all of the facts in this case." Fennell's criminal defense lawyer, Bob Phillips, called the additional accusations "questionable in their reliability." The appeal also includes a vague account of a woman who said she may have seen Reed and Stites together before the killing, potentially significant evidence given Reed's assertion that his DNA was found on Stites' body because the two had a secret relationship. Benjet said he has not had time to investigate the woman's account. Stites, 19, was raped and strangled on April 23, 1996, before her 3:30 a.m. shift at a Bastrop H E B. Her body was found on the side of rural Bluebonnet Drive, off FM 1441 near Lake Bastrop. Reed initially denied knowing Stites but then at trial said the two had been in a relationship. Fennell was a Giddings police officer at the time. Reed's lawyers have included in previous appeals accusations that Fennell asked a female driver to provide him a lap dance after a 2004 traffic stop and of keeping a MySpace page with sexually explicit and violent images. A former girlfriend accused Fennell in a court affidavit of verbal abuse, racial bigotry and stalking. The allegations included in Tuesday's appeal surfaced after police arrested Fennell in 2007 and accused him of forcing sex on a woman he met during a domestic disturbance call. When that arrest made the news, calls came in to Williamson County sheriff's investigators and Texas Rangers on the case, said Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley. Bradley said that the accusations were considered at sentencing but that he did not seek an indictment because they were not the strongest and most serious cases against Fennell. Because Fennell has been sentenced and his victim last month settled her lawsuit against the City of Georgetown for $100,000, Reed's lawyers recently obtained the entire police investigation of that case, Benjet said. Among the allegations laid out in the report: Wendy Smith Wallace told police that in 1996 or 1997, Fennell followed her in a police car while she was riding her bike in Giddings. He stopped when she got to her house, the report said. • Keith Tubbs, who worked with Fennell's wife, Aida Fennell, sometime before 2004, told police that she once showed up with bruises on her face that she said came after Fennell threw a phone at her. In March 2007, Fennell brought a woman he detained during a traffic stop to the Georgetown police station and made her strip, the woman told police. He later drove her to a secluded place and forced her to have sex with him in exchange for avoiding arrest, she told police. In August 2007, Fennell told a woman parked outside a drug house that he found drugs in her car, she told authorities. He did not arrest her but told the woman that he would be at her house at 3 a.m. for what she interpreted as a sexual rendezvous, she said, but he never showed up, the report said. "We had investigated them thoroughly, and I was prepared to aggressively refute them in trial, and the state knew that," Phillips said. "I think they had very little confidence in the reliability of these outcries." skreytak@statesman.com; 912-2946 |
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| Tidbits | Apr 28 2009, 06:09 PM Post #7 |
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What is the standard of review? |
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| Tidbits | Apr 28 2009, 06:12 PM Post #8 |
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Perhaps they are not racist? |
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| Sydney Carton | Apr 29 2009, 12:22 PM Post #9 |
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Tid: What is the standard of review? SC: All I know is what I read in the papers.... Wednesday's court opinion noted some of the evidence that Reed's lawyers say suggests Fennell's involvement — including that he gave deceptive answers in a polygraph test during the investigation — "arouse a healthy suspicion that Fennell had some involvement in Stacey's death." But, the opinion said, "we are not convinced that Reed has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that no reasonable juror, confronted with this evidence, would have found (Fennell) guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." The court fails to specify any more incisive logical criterion within its opinion. What mode of evidential approach would enable the learned justices to enter into the mind of "a reasonable juror"( for does not the law assume that we are all for legal purposes-even Nifong,Travis Mangum,and Gottlied-reasonable men?) to ascertain that NO reasonable juror would have found Fennell guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.Doesn't the Court really mean that A hypothetical reasonable juror(not an entire reasonable jury) could (after having heard all the new evidence) still have in his own mind(as hypotheticallyread by the judges)found Fennell NOT guilty? And, apparently ,since at least one of all us millions(trillions) of reasonable guys out here will always be willing to acquit Fennel ,the Texas Court feels Reed(since the State opted to try him instead of Fennel) ought to die for it ,while still allowing the Texas justices and most of the rest of us to entertain a healthy suspicion that Fennel could be getting away with a douuble murder ,i.e. strangles the two timing Tracy and then gets Texas to kill her other boyfriend for him. The Federal Coutrt ordered a full evidential review of Reed's case in the earliest years of this century.Nearly a decade later this is what Texas gives him.It is better than what North Carolinean justices have yet given Jeffrey McDonald(despite four higher court orders that the lower court review the McDonald case on newly discovered evidence) and certainly better than the review Troy Davis got for his nineteen new (plus seven recanting) witnesses since Reed's witnesses were discussed analytically one by one ,but the opinion remains a prosecution brief which fails to provide any logical criterion on which the defendant(or any future defendant placed in an equally unfortunate position) could obtain relief from the Justices concerned. Edited by Sydney Carton, Apr 30 2009, 03:35 PM.
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| Sydney Carton | Jun 9 2009, 04:11 PM Post #10 |
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From the Austin Chronicle,May 1,2009. [The Chronicle files hold forty-five other Rodney Reed stories since the paper first went to bat for Reed in 2002] http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid:774702 More new evidence in the Rodney Reed Case. The latest – and likely last – in a string of state appeals filed by death row inmate Rodney Reed contains new and disturbing revelations about the conduct of former Georgetown Police Sgt. Jimmy Fennell, the man who Reed's supporters have argued was a far more likely suspect in the 1996 murder of Fennell's fiancée, Stacey Stites. The evidence detailed in the appeal – demonstrating Fennell's pattern of intimidation, stalking, and sexual assault of women while working for the Georgetown Police Department – raises significant questions about the lack of investigative focus on Fennell's possible involvement in Stites' murder. The new information also raises for the Court of Criminal Appeals a particularly poignant question: How much evidence does Reed have to bring forward before the court will take seriously the idea that the wrong man might be in prison? snip Questions about Fennell's possible involvement grew more urgent last fall after Fennell pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 years in prison for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a woman in his custody while he was on duty with the Georgetown Police Department. According to Reed's newest appeal, in the "aftermath" of Fennell's conviction and a subsequent civil case (the city of Georgetown settled with Fennell's victim last month for $100,000), "other evidence of Mr. Fennell's violent and sexual misconduct has come to light." The appeal includes copies of police reports detailing investigations of accusations other women have made against Fennell – including one woman who said he raped her after picking her up on a drug charge. He asked her what she'd do to get out of the charge, then took her to a secluded area in a police cruiser and assaulted her. Later, she said, he called her numerous times, asking for dates. lAnother woman said that Fennell approached a car she was sitting in, had her exit the car, told her that he'd found drugs in the car, backed her into some bushes, and said he wouldn't arrest her if she promised to meet him at her apartment later that night. The woman called her mother, who then called police to complain. The mother was told the drug charge would be dropped since there was an accusation of officer misconduct. After that, she told police, Fennell drove by her house in the "middle of the night" on several occasions. She was afraid of him, she said. At least two other women made similar accusations. There's also an account from Keith Tubbs, who previously worked at the Williamson Co. Juvenile Justice Center with Fennell's present wife, Aida. Tubbs told police that Fennell once questioned him about whether Aida had been "seeing someone" at work. Tubbs also said that Aida once came to work with bruises on her face from a phone Fennell had thrown at her. Aida told him that she was "nervous" about Fennell, who she said was "jealous and had a temper." Moreover, she told Tubbs she was concerned about Fennell's possible involvement in Stites' death. In previous appeals, Reed's attorneys presented evidence related not only to the conduct that led to Fennell's current incarceration but also showing that Fennell had a volatile relationship, shortly after Stites' death, with a woman who accused him of stalking her. Nonetheless, the court ruled that the evidence – some of which, the defense argued, was previously known to prosecutors but undisclosed – was not enough. Though it arouses "a healthy suspicion that Fennell had some involvement in Stacey's death," the court wrote in December, "we are not convinced that Reed has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that no reasonable juror, confronted with this evidence, would have found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." In a subsequent opinion, which included even more information about Fennell's alleged violent tendencies – including "sexually explicit and violent images" from his MySpace page – the court again ruled that Reed had not presented enough information to be persuasive. This time, however, they shifted their reasoning: The evidence doesn't change the fact that Reed was matched to semen found in Stites' body. " ther than showing that Fennell has engaged in despicable and reprehensible conduct as an officer with the [GPD]," the court wrote in an unsigned opinion, "the information does not exonerate Reed of Stacey's murder." The court's about-face frustrates Reed's attorney Bryce Benjet. "The first opinion essentially said, 'This is all very interesting, it raises our eyebrows, but there's not enough here about Jimmy,'" he said. Then, after additional information was discovered, "they said, 'Well, there's still the DNA.'" It seems, Benjet said, that the court's position is that there is never enough evidence with which to build even a reasonable doubt. "The procedures and standards the court has applied in this case are unreasonable," said Benjet, "and the conclusions they've come to are unreasonable." It is unclear whether the Williamson Co. District Attorney's Office has fully considered the claims made by the additional alleged victims of Fennell's misconduct – or whether officials there considered filing any additional criminal charges against the former GPD sergeant. "I knew about these extraneous allegations and was prepared to aggressively rebut them in trial," said Fennell's attorney, Bob Phillips. "I think it is notable that [Williamson Co. District Attorney] John Bradley, who is a very aggressive and skillful prosecutor, did not indict on any of them. And there were problems with [the accusers'] credibility, which I think would have been manifest in trial, and that's part of the reason why the case settled so favorably." At press time, Bradley had not responded to a request for comment. Bradley told the Austin American-Statesman that the additional allegations were "considered" at Fennell's sentencing but that he did not seek additional indictments because the accusations were "not the strongest and most serious cases against Fennell." Nonetheless, taken together, the allegations suggest a very disturbing pattern of aggression toward women – the same sort of behavior that sources close to Stites have previously told the Chronicle made them wary of Fennell's relationship with her and made them distrustful of him after she turned up dead. Fennell didn't like Stites hanging out or even talking on the phone with friends; he was jealous and had a bad temper, they said. Indeed, during their initial investigation of Stites' murder, a co-worker from the H-E-B told police that shortly before her death, Stites had seemed depressed. "He stated that she seemed down quite a bit and he asked her what was wrong," a Bastrop Sheriff's Office investigator wrote in 1997. "She told him that her and her boyfriend were having problems and also that the boyfriend had a violent temper." The co-worker's information was apparently never pursued by police, and he was never called to testify at Reed's trial. There is no deadline for the court to rule on Reed's latest appeal, and if they again deny relief, the case will move into the federal system. "I always hope the Court of Criminal Appeals will do the right thing," said Benjet. "At some point maybe the mountain of evidence will get high enough for them to decide this case deserves another look." |
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| winston sport | Jun 9 2009, 09:45 PM Post #11 |
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The Texas standard of review for a post-conviction actual innocence claim is: A defendant must show by clear and convincing evidence that, based on the newly-discovered evidence and the entire record before the jury, no reasonable juror would have convicted him in light of the new evidence. To receive relief, the defendant must convince the court that the new facts unquestionably establish his innocence; it is not enough for a defendant to merely show that he would be found not guilty by a subsequent jury. The defendant also has to show that the "new" evidence was not available to him at the time of his trial. This is a fairly high standard of review. |
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| Sydney Carton | Jun 11 2009, 05:45 PM Post #12 |
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Winston Sport writes: The Texas standard of review for a post-conviction actual innocence claim is: A defendant must show by clear and convincing evidence that, based on the newly-discovered evidence and the entire record before the jury, no reasonable juror would have convicted him in light of the new evidence. To receive relief, the defendant must convince the court that the new facts unquestionably establish his innocence; it is not enough for a defendant to merely show that he would be found not guilty by a subsequent jury. The defendant also has to show that the "new" evidence was not available to him at the time of his trial. This is a fairly high standard of review. SC This same thing came up on another thread recently:that of former DA Kenny Hulshof who railroaded Vinceent Kezer in Missouri. Judge Richard Callahan censuring Hulshof while he found Kezer innocent beyond reasonable doubt ,i.e.no reasonable juror could convict on the evidence. And didn't Chief Justice Roberts,to exactly opposite effect , say something siimilar in his recent 4-5 dissent in the Paul House case? The hypothetical single reasonable juror could still convict House i.e.despite the DNA evidence. Actually all this is quite troubling.Formerly a "Not Guilty" verdict was the most that could be given because a defendant was presumed innocent and the jury re-affirmed this by acquitting. Later the claim got slipped in(how early?) that "not guilty" was something less than innocence.That there was no legal way of proving innocence. And now this.A judge,not a juror, can find innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. But all men( and therefore all jurors) must be presumed reasonable under the law,or at least they used to be..Something is wrong here. Edited by Sydney Carton, Jun 17 2009, 04:47 PM.
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| Sydney Carton | Jun 18 2009, 01:10 PM Post #13 |
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Re the high standard of Texas justice: Yessterday I was reviewing one of my favorite series,"Carnivale". Therein a trial,of sorts is held by the carnies in Babylon ,Texas. Teenager:But you don't even know if you've got the right man. Lady Snakecharmer:That is not the point.There are times when we have to make our own law.It is who we are ,Ben. Edited by Sydney Carton, Jun 18 2009, 03:14 PM.
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| Sydney Carton | Jul 18 2009, 03:27 PM Post #14 |
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Though barely noted by the press,Rodney Reed lost his latest(6th) and probably last appeal before the Texas Supreme Court.The case will now go into the federal courts. Unlike their voluminous response to Reed's fifth appeal on grounds of newlly discovered evidence(much of which was,allegedly, suppressed by the prosecution, the court dismissed the many new witnesses in a few scant (unsigne)liines.It is all quite simple they wanted this scanelous case buried as deeply as they intend to bury the defendant. http://www.cca.courts.state.tx.us/opinions/HTMLOpinionInfo.asp?OpinionID=18577 |
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| Sydney Carton | Nov 4 2009, 06:28 PM Post #15 |
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Actually I could just as well have filled this under Willingham or on one of our numerous threads here and elsewhere involving people falsely convicted around Cooke County, .But as there has been no new news of Rodney Reed lfor a long time now so I am filing it here in hopes that you all will bear him in mind. Under the title "4 Prisoners Serving Long Sentences Who May Be Innocent" Liliana Segura does an admirable job of summarizing five very complex murder cases (including those of Willingham and Reed) in a single page each.The last three were previously unknown to me but are well worth the trouble of following .One of them(Anthony McKinney) is a death sentence case from Memphis,Tennessee,which again has been dragging for over twenty years. Another(Timothy McKinney,no relation to Anthony) involves a major run in between the the Cooke County States Attorney and the students of a journalism class at Northwestern University. The students are running their own innocence project and really went to town on McKinney.They actually got him a promised legal hearing but the vengeful DA isn't waiting for that hearing.He has tried to seize not only all the notes and recordings which the students made from the witnesses but the class syllabus,their e-mails to felloow students and professors,and their grades! The Chicago Tribune is protesting. Whther the Northwestern officials will stick up for their students or pull a Brodhead-Burness remains uncertain at present. Link to above which itself contains many further links.: nosimplematter.livejournal.com/867605.html |
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9:08 AM Nov 27
