Idaho Falls Will Pay $11.7 Million to Exoneree Coerced Into False Confession by Threat of the Death Penalty

The city of Idaho Falls, Idaho has agreed to a set­tle­ment of $11.7 mil­lion with an exoneree who spent 20 years in prison for a rape and mur­der he did not commit.

Christopher Tapp (pic­tured, cen­ter, with Stacy Tapp and Idaho Innocence Project Director Greg Hampikian at the Idaho Senate Chambers as they unan­i­mous­ly sup­port­ed the Compensation for Wrongful Conviction Bill) was con­vict­ed in 1998 of the rape and mur­der of Angie Dodge based upon a false con­fes­sion coerced by police who threat­ened him with the death penal­ty and false­ly promised him immu­ni­ty if he con­fessed. DNA evi­dence lat­er exclud­ed Tapp and iden­ti­fied the actu­al per­pe­tra­tor, lead­ing to Tapp’s exon­er­a­tion in 2019.

Tapp filed the suit against the city in 2020, and the City Council unan­i­mous­ly agreed to the set­tle­ment on June 9, 2022. ​“No dol­lar amount could ever make up for the over 20 years of my life I spent in prison for crimes I did not com­mit,” Tapp said in a state­ment. ​“However, the set­tle­ment will help me move for­ward with my life.”

Idaho Falls Mayor Rebecca Casper issued a for­mal apol­o­gy to Tapp and his fam­i­ly ​“for the city’s role in your wrong­ful con­vic­tion and sub­se­quent incar­cer­a­tion, as well the harm and dam­ages that you and your fam­i­ly have endured over these many years.” She wrote, ​“In addi­tion to the set­tle­ment, the city pledges to review its poli­cies, pro­ce­dures, and train­ing (espe­cial­ly relat­ed to cus­to­di­al inter­ro­ga­tions) and to revise them, as need­ed, to pre­vent any recur­rence of what hap­pened in your case.”

Dodge’s moth­er played a major role in renew­ing atten­tion to the case about ten years ago. Concerned that Tapp’s DNA didn’t match DNA found at the crime scene, she asked to see video of Tapp’s con­fes­sion, then sought the involve­ment of the Idaho Innocence Project. A foren­sic geneal­o­gist used crime scene DNA to build a DNA pro­file for the per­pe­tra­tor, which led to Brian Leigh Dripps, Sr., who had lived across the street from Angie Dodge at the time of her mur­der. Dripps con­fessed to the crime and plead­ed guilty in 2021. He was sen­tenced to life in prison. 

Greg Hampikian, direc­tor of Idaho Innocence Project, called Tapp’s wrong­ful con­vic­tion ​“a hard-core case of tun­nel vision” by law enforce­ment. He added, ​“The only thing left is for the city of Idaho Falls to take a seri­ous and care­ful look at all of its cur­rent prac­tices. That’s real­ly the only way to hon­or the vic­tim and her fam­i­ly, and Chris and his family.”

Tapp’s case is the lat­est in a string of cost­ly pay­outs to exonerees who were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed after hav­ing been cap­i­tal­ly pros­e­cut­ed or threat­ened with the death penal­ty. In May 2021, a fed­er­al jury in North Carolina award­ed two intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled death-row exonerees, half-broth­ers Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, $75 mil­lion for the police mis­con­duct that sent them to death row. One year ear­li­er, in May 2020, the city of Cleveland agreed to pay a record $18 mil­lion dol­lars to set­tle a civ­il rights law­suit by three for­mer death-row pris­on­ers — Kwame Ajamu, Wiley Bridgeman, and Rickey Jackson — who, as a result of police mis­con­duct, spent more than a com­bined 80 years impris­oned for a mur­der they did not com­mit. In October 2018, Gage County, Nebraska raised prop­er­ty tax­es on its res­i­dents and asked the state leg­is­la­ture for a bailout to help pay a $28.1 mil­lion civ­il judg­ment against it for the wrong­ful con­vic­tions of the ​“Beatrice Six,” six men and women wrong­ly con­vict­ed of rape and mur­der after hav­ing been threat­ened with the death penalty.