Earlier this week murder charges against Michael Hash, 31, were dismissed 12 years after he had been convicted of the murder of Thelma B. Scroggins, 74, in Virginia. Hash was 15 at the time of the crime, 19 when accused. He was convicted and sentenced to life without parole. Last February, citing numerous examples of police and prosecutorial misconduct, U.S. District Judges James Turk tossed out the 2001 conviction. Judge Turk concluded, “the Court is disturbed by the miscarriage of justice that occurred in this case and finds that Hash’s trial is an example of an ‘extreme malfunction in the state criminal justice system.’”
The judge gave prosecutors six months to retry Hash. On Monday they declined the opportunity.
His parents, Pam and Jeff Hash actively pursued justice after the appeals process failed to provide relief. They attracted the assistance of the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project in 2005. The law firm of Hunton & Williams also joined the effort.
Hash was released to his parents’ custody after Judge Turk’s ruling. As referenced in this Washington Post article, Pam and Jeff Hash will no longer need to get up at 3:00 in the morning and drive six hours to see their son.
The Washington Post article summed up Judge Turk’s February ruling that detailed how this miscarriage of justice occurred:
“Senior U.S. District Court Judge James Turk ruled that Hash was being wrongly held and that he had satisfied the legal standard for actual innocence. Turk cited problems with the investigation, the prosecution and Hash’s trial counsel, including the acknowledgment late last year by former Culpeper County sheriff Lee Hart and then-Commonwealth’s Attorney Gary Close that Hash had been moved to another jail in order to expose him to a known informant; that investigators had provided crime-scene information to at least one witness and guided answers to their questions; that two witnesses had failed polygraph tests and one had since recanted his testimony; and that there is significant evidence that another suspect may have committed the crime.”
Longtime Commonwealth Prosecuting Attorney Gary Close resigned in March following Judge Turk’s ruling in this case.
The most recent post on this site on the case is here.
Read Judge Turk’s February ruling is here.
The Judge’s reference in the first paragraph: Harrington, 131 S. Ct. at 786 (quoting Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 332 n.5 (1979)).
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