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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_Four

The Norfolk Four are four men, Derek Tice, Danial Williams, Joseph J. Dick Jr. and Eric C. Wilson, who were convicted for the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko in Norfolk, Virginia. Their convictions were the source of controversy, as their convictions were largely based on confessions made by the men, which they maintain were coerced with threats of receiving the death penalty if they did not plead guilty. Organizations such as the Innocence Project protested the convictions as a "miscarriage of justice" while Moore-Bosko's parents continue to believe that all those convicted were participants in the crime.

Three of the four men, Tice, Williams, and Dick, were sentenced to one or more life sentences in prison without the possibility of parole due to them either pleading guilty to or getting convicted of the murder, while Wilson was convicted of rape and sentenced to 8½ years in prison. Three other men, Geoffrey A. Farris, John E. Danser and Richard D. Pauley, Jr., were also initially charged with the crime, but their charges were later dropped.

A fifth man, Omar Ballard, was also convicted in the crime, and was sentenced to 100 years in prison, 59 of which were suspended. He is the only man whose DNA matches that found at the scene, and his confession states that he committed the crime by himself, with none of the other men involved. Forensic evidence is consistent with his story that there were no other participants.

--------

Williams appealed his verdict but was denied in 2000. Tice's conviction was reversed in 2002 by the Virginia Court of Appeals due to Judge Poston not allowing Tice's attorney to question Ballard over his written confession.[3] During the re-trial Poston refused to allow the confession or statements in as evidence due to them not being "properly authenticated", but did allow Tice's attorney to read the confession letter aloud.[3] Despite the re-trial, Tice was again sentenced to life in prison.[3]

In 2005 attorneys for Dick, Williams and Tice petitioned for clemency from Virginia governor Mark Warner. Warner did not rule on the petition, and it was considered by subsequent Virginia governor Tim Kaine. The claims of innocence were backed by several FBI agents as well as eleven of the jurors who initially convicted them. Tice's conviction was overturned on November 27, 2006 by a circuit court on constitutional grounds, but the conviction was reinstated by the Virginia Supreme Court.

Tice filed a petition for habeas corpus with a United States District Court, and on September 14, 2009, U.S. District Court Judge Richard L. Williams vacated Tice's murder and rape convictions, on the ground that Tice had been denied his constitutional right to effective counsel. On November 19, 2009, Judge Williams ruled that prosecutors can retry Tice. On April 20, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed Judge Williams' rulings vacating Tice's convictions. Tice was later freed in 2011 after the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Tice's confession should have been thrown out of court. On August 6, 2009, Kaine granted a conditional pardon to Dick, Tice, and Williams, releasing them from prison while not erasing their convictions. Part of the conditional release states that the three men are required to register as sex offenders and felons.

Wilson was released in 2005, but must register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. In March 2010, he asked the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia for a writ of habeas corpus challenging his conviction. The court refused to hear Wilson's case, saying that since he was not in prison, on probation, on parole or on supervised release, he was not in custody and therefore could not petition for habeas. A panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit also refused to hear the case.

Former detective Glenn Ford was later indicted on May 2010 on on unrelated extortion charges of accepting payments from criminal suspects in return for favorable treatment, with him being found guilty of two of the four counts against him.This prompted attorneys for the Norfolk Four to call for full exoneration of their clients and in 2013 the Yale Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic filed a petition for the Supreme Court to clear Wilson's record of his crimes. Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli did not file a response, but the Supreme Court ordered him to file a brief by April 25, 2013.[25] The case is Wilson v. Flaherty, No. 12-986.

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U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear appeal from ‘Norfolk Four’ member
Supreme Court denies review of murder conviction


Posted: Tuesday, June 25, 2013 12:00 am | Updated: 11:57 pm, Tue Jun 25, 2013.

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will not hear an appeal from one of the so-called Norfolk Four, four former sailors convicted in a 1997 rape and murder in Norfolk.

“The court decided not to take the case, which is a huge disappointment,” said Steven Northup, a Richmond lawyer representing Eric Wilson of Texas. “I don’t know what we’re going to do at this point. We’re going to have to put our heads together.”

The Norfolk four have long contended they are innocent and that they were convicted after making coerced, false and conflicting confessions.

A fifth man, the only one linked to the rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko, who was 18 when she was killed, has said he acted alone.

Three of the Norfolk Four still behind bars in 2009 were granted conditional pardons from then-Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. But Wilson, convicted only of rape, had already been released from prison.

Wilson and two others, Joseph Dick and Danial Williams, filed challenges to the convictions in federal court in Richmond.

However, U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney Jr. tossed out Wilson’s case because he was no longer in custody. Wilson argued unsuccessfully that his presence on the state sex offender registry constituted custody.

Last August, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Gibney, leading to the appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We conclude that the sex offender registration requirements of Virginia and Texas ... do not impose sufficiently substantial restraints on Wilson’s liberty so as to justify a finding that he is in the custody of state officials,” said the appeals court panel.

[Can he leave the state? Can he move without notifying a register? Is it only a quirk of legal reasoning which consider that not a "substantial restraint"? And the actual question involved is, how does he get the registration requirement lifted? Absent a governor's pardon, is our system incapable of dealing
with innocent persons who must still bear the stigma of a false conviction?]

The fourth convicted man, Derek Tice, had his conviction tossed out in 2009 by U.S. District Judge Richard L. Williams on the grounds that his trial lawyers failed to ask the judge to suppress Tice’s confession made after he invoked his right to remain silent.

Without the confession, Williams ruled, there was a reasonable probability that Tice would have been acquitted.
Williams’ and Dick’s challenges are still pending in federal court, Northup said.

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http://www.law.yale.edu/news/16626.htm

February 19, 2013
Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic Files Petition with High Court Over ''Norfolk Four'' Case

A notorious case of injustice involving a former Navy sailor wrongly convicted of rape could be headed to the nation’s highest court after members of Yale Law School’s Supreme Court Advocacy Clinic recently filed a petition seeking to allow the man to clear his name.

[SCOTUS said no...]

Eric Wilson, a member of a group of ex-sailors known as the “Norfolk Four,” served more than seven years in prison as a result of a wrongful conviction for the rape of a woman in Norfolk, Virginia in 1997. He contends that he was convicted as a result of a coerced and false confession procured by a corrupt police detective (who is now in federal prison for corruption), and despite DNA evidence that conclusively exonerates him and shows that the rape was perpetrated by another man. Wilson remains subject to mandatory sex-offender registration and reporting laws despite never having committed the crime.

[If our justice system can't fix this, then it's thoroughly broken.]

“This is a case about a man who is innocent, as the evidence overwhelmingly shows,” stated Daniel Schuker ’13, “and about the question whether a court system that wrongly convicted him owes him a chance to show that he was denied justice.”

The petition in the case of Wilson v. Flaherty, contends that Wilson should be permitted to seek habeas corpus relief to challenge his conviction and that, despite the fact that he is no longer in prison, he is still in “custody” as the habeas corpus statute requires because he is subject to onerous mandatory lifetime sex offender registration and reporting conditions. While his “custody” claim was rejected by a federal appeals court last year, clinic members write that the Supreme Court's "intervention is urgently needed to correct a manifest and deeply disturbing miscarriage of justice."

“We hope that the Court will understand that, especially for an innocent man, the myriad restrictions of lifetime sex offender status are tantamount to many other non-prison restrictions that the Court has acknowledged to be ‘custody,’” stated Rachel Shalev ’14.

The petition filed before the U.S. Supreme Court was prepared by a team of instructors and students of the Clinic including Visiting Lecturer in Law Charles A. Rothfeld, Visiting Professor of Law Jeffrey A. Meyer ’89 and students Bridget Fahey ‘14, Erin Miller ’13, Rachel Shalev ’14, and Daniel Schuker ’13. The Supreme Court Clinic allows students to work on real-life public interest cases pending before the Court. Students work with instructors to draft petitions for writs of certiorari, write merits briefs in granted cases, and represent amici curiae in more than a dozen cases each year.

“It’s been an honor to help represent such a worthy client before the Court,” stated Bridget Fahey ’14.

(snip)

“False confessions are a continuing challenge for our criminal justice system,” noted Erin Miller ‘14. "We tried through this forum and Eric Wilson’s compelling story to help people understand the legal and psychological dynamics that can lead some people to confess under police pressure to crimes that they simply did not commit.”

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While his “custody” claim was rejected by a federal appeals court last year, clinic members write that the Supreme Court's "intervention is urgently needed to correct a manifest and deeply disturbing miscarriage of justice."

“We hope that the Court will understand that, especially for an innocent man, the myriad restrictions of lifetime sex offender status are tantamount to many other non-prison restrictions that the Court has acknowledged to be ‘custody,’” stated Rachel Shalev ’14.

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The petition filed before the U.S. Supreme Court was prepared by a team of instructors and students of the Clinic including Visiting Lecturer in Law Charles A. Rothfeld, Visiting Professor of Law Jeffrey A. Meyer ’89 and students Bridget Fahey ‘14, Erin Miller ’13, Rachel Shalev ’14, and Daniel Schuker ’13. The Supreme Court Clinic allows students to work on real-life public interest cases pending before the Court. Students work with instructors to draft petitions for writs of certiorari, write merits briefs in granted cases, and represent amici curiae in more than a dozen cases each year.

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http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/scac/Wilson_v_Flaherty_Petition_for_Cert_final_for_printing.pdf

Petitioner is subject to the following sex offender
registration and reporting requirements under Texas
law:

 He must report annually and in person to local
law enforcement authorities to re-register. Tex.
Crim. Proc. Code Ann. art. 62.058(a).

 He must notify law enforcement authorities
about changes in online contact information,
name, physical health, educational status, and
employment. Tex. Crim. Proc. Code Ann. arts.
62.0551(a), 62.057(b).

 If he changes his address, he must report in
person to law enforcement authorities in the localities that are
responsible for both his previous residence and his new residence. Tex.
Crim. Proc. Code Ann. art. 62.055(a).

 He must specially apply in person for a driver’s
license and/or a personal identification card
and is subject to annual in-person renewal requirements
(rather than being allowed to renew by mail every six years). Tex. Crim. Proc.
Code Ann. art. 62.060; Tex. Transp. Code. Ann.
§§ 521.103, 521.272.

Beyond those registration requirements, petitioner’s status as a violent sex offender burdens his right
to travel in several significant ways:

 Whenever he travels to another part of Texas
for at least three forty-eight-hour periods per
month, petitioner must notify local authorities.
Tex. Crim. Proc. Code Ann. art. 62.059.

 If he seeks to travel to certain other states for
even a short stay, he must notify local authorities in the new state as well. See, e.g., Ariz
Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-3821(A); Fla. Stat. Ann.
§ 943.0435; 730 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 150/3-
(a)(1); Nev. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 179D.460.

Petitioner faces not only the foregoing statutory
restrictions but also numerous other consequences
that affect his occupational and family status. For
example, his status as a violent sex offender has prevented him from working as an electrician at sites
requiring a security clearance, such as government
buildings. Ct. App. J.A. 89.

He has been unable to
adopt his young stepson, Garrett. Ibid.

He is branded
a sex offender on searchable Internet databases.

And
his name, birthdate, physical characteristics, and
numerous photographs of him appear on the Texas
Department of Public Safety’s sex offender website.

See Texas Department of Public Safety Public Sex
Offender Name Search, http://tinyurl.com/Norfolk01
(search for “Eric Wilson”).

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http://www.cotwa.info/2013/08/daughter-i-lied-and-sent-my-dad-to.html#more

Sunday, August 18, 2013

Daughter: I lied and sent my dad to prison for rape

Chaneya Kelly is on a mission: she wants the world to know about a horrible lie she says she told almost 16 years ago – a lie that cost a man his freedom.

“I'm 24 years old and I made this mistake when I was nine years old,” Chaneya told NBC News, “but it's never too late to try and right your wrong.“

Chaneya says that in 1997, she falsely accused a man of raping her. That man – who has always maintained his innocence -- is Daryl Kelly, Chaneya’s father.


(snip)

In fact, there was no definitive forensic evidence that Chaneya had been raped. While a doctor's report did conclude that there was "possible sexual abuse" because of some redness, Chaneya’s hymen was intact even though she claimed her father had penetrated her.

But with both Chaneya and her mom telling police the same story, it was enough for police. Daryl Kelly was charged with multiple counts of rape and sodomy.

Kelly -- who had never before been convicted of a felony -- refused a plea deal that would have made him eligible for parole in six years, and within a year he faced a jury. Based on Chaneya’s graphic testimony, it took them just hours to find her father guilty, and he was sentenced to 20 to 40 years and barred from having any contact with his children.

(snip)

From behind prison walls, Daryl Kelly has written to anyone who will listen to his story. Last year, one of those letters landed on the desk of Thomas Schellhammer, the head of the newly formed Conviction Review Bureau at the N.Y. Attorney General's office. Schellhammer contacted Orange County District Attorney Frank Phillips, the county’s elected chief prosecutor for almost 30 years, who was in charge when Daryl Kelly stood trial.

In an interview with NBC News, Phillips strongly defended the integrity of the original prosecution, saying he trained his prosecutors “that truth is the most important thing,” and stressing that a jury had found Kelly guilty.

“The system says he’s not innocent, that the credibility of Chaneya was tested, that the issues surrounding her testimony back in 1998 were addressed,” said Phillips.

Phillips also said it was “not unique” for the victim of a crime like rape or molestation to want to protect the abuser by withdrawing an accusation. “It’s part of a dynamic that we deal with. Whether it’s sex crimes or crimes of domestic violence, that is not unusual.”

(snip)

As for Daryl, he says he won’t truly be free until he’s vindicated. “This fight will never end,” he said. “I will continue to fight for this. This is my reputation. This is my decree. This is the truth. It's not just for me. It's for my daughter as well.”