Former Death Row Inmate Acquitted in One Court, Now Convicted in Another

Master Sgt. Timothy Hennis was con­vict­ed in 1986 of mur­der­ing three peo­ple in North Carolina. He was tried in state court. However, his con­vic­tion was over­turned because of weak evi­dence and improp­er state­ments by the pros­e­cu­tion. He was re-tried, and the jury vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly for his acquit­tal in 1989. The evi­dence from the crime scene was pre­served and, when DNA test­ing became avail­able, a re-eval­u­a­tion of the evi­dence point­ed to the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Hennis was indeed guilty of the mur­ders. Although the con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­tec­tion against dou­ble jeop­ardy pre­vent­ed his being re-tried in North Carolina’s court, mil­i­tary courts have sep­a­rate juris­dic­tion and can try cas­es under mil­i­tary laws, allow­ing a retri­al even after an acquit­tal in state court. Hennis, who had left the ser­vice, was recalled to active duty in the mil­i­tary and then recent­ly tried for the third time for the triple mur­der – of a woman and two chil­dren. A mil­i­tary jury con­vict­ed Hennis of mur­der on April 8. The pros­e­cu­tion is seek­ing the death penal­ty, and a sen­tenc­ing hear­ing will begin soon. Hennis was pre­vi­ous­ly includ­ed on DPIC’s list of exonerated individuals.

(See J. Schwartz, ​“In 3^rd Trial, Conviction in Murders From 1985,” N.Y. Times, April 8, 2010). See Innocence. Timothy Hennis was pre­vi­ous­ly list­ed on DPIC’s list of death row inmates who had been exon­er­at­ed of their offense. With this con­vic­tion, Hennis’s legal sta­tus has now returned to guilty. Some ques­tions and answers about DPIC’s list are included below:

Q.1. If Hennis was acquit­ted at one tri­al and then con­vict­ed at a lat­er tri­al, is he actu­al­ly inno­cent or guilty?

A. Hennis is guilty under mil­i­tary law and faces pun­ish­ment. It is impos­si­ble to know exact­ly what hap­pened at the time of the crime twen­ty-five years ago. The legal sys­tem can make mis­takes in deter­min­ing guilt and in acquit­ting an indi­vid­ual. But unless his most recent con­vic­tion is over­turned, he is con­sid­ered guilty of the mur­ders he was orig­i­nal­ly charged with.

Q.2. What are the cri­te­ria for a case to be includ­ed on DPIC’s list of exonerated individuals?

Defendants must have been con­vict­ed, sen­tenced to death and sub­se­quent­ly either‑a) their con­vic­tion was overturned AND

b) or they were giv­en an absolute par­don by the gov­er­nor based on new evi­dence of innocence.

Q.3. So, was it a mis­take to include Hennis on DPIC’s list of exon­er­at­ed indi­vid­u­als?

A. No. DPIC’s list is not the result of sub­jec­tive judg­ments regard­ing the guilt or inno­cence of indi­vid­u­als. Rather, DPIC depends on the objec­tive deter­mi­na­tion of our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem to make that deter­mi­na­tion. If a per­son has been found guilty and that con­vic­tion still stands, then that indi­vid­ual would not be includ­ed on DPIC’s inno­cence list, regard­less of strong evi­dence indi­cat­ing he did not com­mit the crime. Similarly, if an indi­vid­u­al’s con­vic­tion is over­turned, and he or she is either acquit­ted at a retri­al or the pros­e­cu­tion drops all charges, then that per­son would be includ­ed on the list, even though the pros­e­cu­tion con­tin­ues to believe in their guilt.

Q.4. Could there be oth­er indi­vid­u­als on DPIC’s list who may be found guilty at a later time?

A. Yes, it is pos­si­ble, though this is the first case in almost 20 years that such a sub­se­quent con­vic­tion has hap­pened. Any form of research is sub­ject to change as new evi­dence becomes avail­able. The impli­ca­tions from that research, how­ev­er, are not nec­es­sar­i­ly changed. The fact that the num­ber of exon­er­a­tions from death row has tem­porar­i­ly dropped from 139 to 138 does lit­tle to alter the con­clu­sion that mis­takes are made in death penal­ty cas­es and that inno­cent peo­ple could be exe­cut­ed by mistake.

It should also be not­ed that there are thou­sands of cas­es of peo­ple who were sen­tenced to death and who still could be exon­er­at­ed based on sub­se­quent evi­dence. It seems far more like­ly there will be more exon­er­a­tions in com­ing years than that there will be unusu­al re-con­vic­tions like that of Timothy Hennis. Even this case under­scores the real­i­ty that the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is not infal­li­ble – either in deter­min­ing guilt or in exon­er­at­ing. Hence the impo­si­tion of an irre­versible pun­ish­ment like the death penal­ty car­ries a heavy risk.