Author Archives: Nancy Petro

Innocence Project Legal Directors Praise State’s Attorney and Police for “Model Response”

Posted on March 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

In a Chicago Tribune article today here, John Hanlon, legal director of the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project, and Steven Drizen, legal director of the Center on Wrongful Conviction at Northwestern Law praise Kane County (IL) State’s Attorney Joe McMahon and Aurora Police Chief Greg Thomas for pursuing truth even after a conviction, which resulted in the vacation of the murder conviction of Jonathan Moore. Key to this “model response”: Not having tunnel vision or defending a conviction in the face of significant new evidence, but instead dedicating resources—and “fresh” investigators—to a reinvestigation.

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Posted in Editorials/Opinion, Reforming/Improving the system

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Texas’ Forensic Science Commission is Stepping Up

Posted on March 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

Many may remember the Texas Forensic Science Commission for its controversial role, at odds with the Innocence Project’s advocacy, in the Todd Willingham arson case. Now, with a new committed leader, the Commission is showing signs of stepping up to fill alleged voids in effective oversight of Texas’s forensic crime labs. An example is a letter the Commission recently sent to the El Paso Police Department demanding further steps to resolve unanswered concerns and questions regarding the controlled substances division at the El Paso Crime Lab.  The respected Grits for Breakfast blog details this effort here, highlighting forensic crime lab oversight issues that go well beyond Texas.

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Posted in Forensic controls, Reforming/Improving the system

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Following Stevens Trial Report, Senator Introduces Legislation for New Federal Disclosure Standards

Posted on March 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

With the backing of the American Bar Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Civil Liberties Union, among others, legislation introduced by Senator Lisa Murkowsk (R-Alaska) seeks to create a new national standard for prosecutorial disclosure of evidence in federal cases. This comes in the wake of the scathing 524-page report recently unsealed that concluded prosecutors in the Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) case “intentionally withheld and concealed significant exculpatory information.”

In an article in Roll Call, the longstanding newspaper of Capital Hill, Peter Awindenbert, a partner at DLA Piper, said this issue goes well beyond this case: Continue reading →

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Posted in Legislation, Political cases, Prosecutorial conduct (good and bad)

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Lawsuits continue in wake of infamous “Beatrice Six” wrongful convictions

Posted on March 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

Sometimes an outrageous injustice prompts legislative steps toward reform. In the U.S., the state of Nebraska’s first DNA exoneration was the infamous case of the so-called “Beatrice Six.” Five falsely confessed (in exchange for lighter sentences) to the brutal 1985 rape-murder of 68-year-old Helen Wilson in Beatrice, NE. The sixth, Joseph White, insisted he was innocent, was convicted, and sentenced to life. After losing on appeal, he battled the state for years for the right to test the crime scene DNA. When finally tested in 2008, it excluded all six and linked to the true perpetrator.

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning proclaimed the Beatrice Six “100 percent innocent.” They had served more than 76 years in prison. Publicity about Continue reading →

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Posted in Compensation/Exoneree compensation, Editorials/Opinion, Exonerations, False confessions, Police conduct (good and bad)

Opinion piece references impact of plea bargains on wrongful conviction

Posted on March 12, 2012 | 1 comment

Writer Michele Alexander raises the wrongful conviction issue as it relates to plea bargaining. As an example, she writes, Erma Faye Stewart, a single African-American mother of two, arrested in 2000 in a drug sweep in Hearne, TX., claimed innocence, but was very worried about her children’s care while she was in jail. Her court-appointed lawyer told her to take the prosecutor’s deal: plead guilty for probation. She pled, was sentenced to 10 years’ probation, and a $1,000 fine. But now she was a felon. Barred from food stamps, evicted from public housing and homeless, her children were taken and placed in foster care. Read the full New York Times op-ed piece here.

More than 90 percent of U.S. criminal cases are not settled in a trial or by a jury. The plea bargaining system is seemingly essential to a criminal justice system that incarcerates about one in 100 adult Americans. But how often do innocent people plead to avoid the costs—in time and resources—of pursuing a trial or to avoid the risk of conviction and incarceration?

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Posted in Editorials/Opinion, False confessions

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What should Americans expect of public officials AFTER a wrongful conviction?

Posted on March 10, 2012 | 9 comments

In most endeavors a costly mistake results in immediate efforts to identify what went wrong and how it can be prevented. Curiously, in the criminal justice system, officials too often respond to the tragic error of convicting an innocent with defensiveness and denial. Such miscarriages of justice should prompt important improvements in the system, but these will be derailed or hard won until Americans clarify our expectations of officials after justice stumbles.

Following a wrongful conviction, public officials can go a long way toward restoring trust in the system by following a 7-step process—mandated by both decency and public relations 101—that includes (1) honestly acknowledging that a Continue reading →

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Posted in Editorials/Opinion, Exonerations, False confessions, Reforming/Improving the system

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Will Florida governor seek review of cases involving discredited witness?

Posted on March 8, 2012 | 1 comment

Governor Rick Scott has formally apologized “on behalf of the state of Florida” for the 27 years William Dillon spent in prison for a crime he did not commit.  He has also signed a claims bill of $1.35 million.  It took another three years of Dillon’s life to navigate the process of getting compensation from the state. But Dillon remains unsettled over the thought of others wrongfully convicted by the now deceased John Preston, Brevard County authorities’ go-to witness whose German shepherd had quite a nose. Preston claimed he could pick up a scent in the middle of a lake Continue reading →

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Posted in Compensation/Exoneree compensation, Forensic controls, Junk science, Prosecutorial conduct (good and bad)

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U.S. Court of Appeals ruling extends prosecutorial immunity

Posted on March 7, 2012

A prosecutor’s Brady obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence remains until a case is final even if the prosecutor is no longer the lead attorney. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled on February 28 that this and … Continue reading →

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The galvanizing Troy Davis case taught lessons beyond death penalty

Posted on March 3, 2012 | 11 comments

Massive attention in America and internationally on the Troy Davis case appropriately focused on the death penalty, but this case was a call to action regardless of one’s position on capital punishment. The troubling uncertainty that followed Troy Davis to the death chamber on September 21, 2011, should prompt widespread recognition that the U.S. criminal justice system can do better, and Americans must require it.

When Davis’s guilt was called into question following the recantation of most key witnesses, thousands protested but were unable to stop the train that had left the station twenty years earlier. That’s when a jury, after weighing evidence Continue reading →

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Posted in Capital punishment, Commissions/Innocence Commissions/Governmental Case Review Agencies, Editorials/Opinion, Events, Eyewitness identification, Police conduct (good and bad), Reforming/Improving the system

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New York Times urges open files in U.S. federal cases

Posted on February 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

A New York Times editorial yesterday properly urged that the Justice Department require federal prosecutors’ files be open to the defense. While Brady v Maryland requires disclosure of exculpatory evidence, too often prosecutors at all levels skirt this requirement and courts dismiss the undisclosed information as not “material,” a subjective call that can be flawed as revealed in many DNA-proven wrongful convictions.

As the editorial points out, 96% of federal cases are resolved in plea bargains. The lax application and court enforcement of Brady  puts defendants at the considerable disadvantage of not knowing the evidence against them in plea negotiating. The editorial advocates an open files federal rule, which would be an important example for the states.

Ohio and North Carolina were mentioned as two states that now have open files rules. At the state level this requires leadership; Ohioans can thank the late Chief Justice Thomas Moyer, who championed this rule change, adopted by the high court’s rules committee in July 2010.

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Posted in Editorials/Opinion, Prosecutorial conduct (good and bad), Reforming/Improving the system

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After a wrongful conviction, shouldn’t there be a reinvestigation?

Posted on February 25, 2012 | 4 comments

“As far as we know, not a single effort has been made to apprehend the actual perpetrators of that homicide. Including an admitted confession from a perpetrator, who after having been named as a perpetrator in this offense – law enforcement made no effort to apprehend him – he went ahead and killed another person. He is currently incarcerated in Nevada for having shot and killed a taxi driver there. I don’t understand law enforcement’s abdication of their responsibility here.” Linda Starr, Legal Director of the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP) was referencing the case of Maurice Caldwell in an interview with Rina Palta of NPR’s KALW local public radio in San Francisco.

In about 45 percent of DNA-proven wrongful convictions, the real perpetrator is also identified. But, what about cases in which the DNA excludes the wrongfully convicted but does not find a match in state or national criminal DNA databases? Or what about cases such as that of Maurice Caldwell, who spent 20 years in prison before Superior Court Judge Charles Haines, ruling that Caldwell had been represented by ineffective counsel, ordered a new trial. His attorney has since been disbarred for his conduct in other cases.

Caldwell, who steadfastly maintained his innocence, was convicted of murder on the testimony of a sole witness, now deceased. The identification procedure was Continue reading →

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Posted in Compensation/Exoneree compensation, Editorials/Opinion, Eyewitness identification

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U.S. Federal Judge Denies Prosecutorial Immunity

Posted on February 22, 2012 | 1 comment

Federal Judge Elaine Bucklo has denied prosecutorial immunity to former Illinois Assistant State Attorney Mark Lukanich in a law suit brought by Ronald Kitchen who spent 21 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Kitchen’s confession was extracted during the reign of disgraced imprisoned former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge, notorious for torturous interrogations. Kitchen says that Lukanich was aware of his torture because he was nearby during the interrogation. The judge has ruled that Lukanich’s alleged role was part of the investigative part of the case and therefore not covered by prosecutorial absolute immunity.

Nearly a year ago, as reported by the Chicago Tribune, Judge Bucklo wondered aloud why the City of Chicago had sent an army of lawyers to fight the law suit brought by Kitchen. “I don’t understand this case. Why don’t you settle? [Kitchen] was declared innocent. Burge is in jail. Have you tried to settle this?” she asked. The Tribune editorialized that the longer Chicago refuses to settle multiple cases relating to the coerced confessions, the more the reputation of the city would suffer.

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Posted in Exonerations, False confessions, Police conduct (good and bad), Political cases, Prosecutorial conduct (good and bad), Uncategorized

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Tipping Point: Is America finally saying no to prosecutorial overreach?

Posted on February 18, 2012

This week Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson ordered a special “court of inquiry” into former Williamson County District Attorney Ken Anderson’s alleged misconduct in his prosecution of Michael Morton, proven innocent of murdering his wife after he served … Continue reading →

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The Conviction Integrity Unit: Refining the Model

Posted on February 14, 2012

Since 1992, the Innocence Project—by identifying and reversing wrongful convictions—has been a watchdog for the U.S. criminal justice system. In light of nearly 300 wrongful convictions, should the justice system create its own self-correcting process? New York County District Attorney … Continue reading →

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