Lawsuit Seeks DNA and Fingerprint Testing that Could Show Arkansas Executed an Innocent Man

In its unprece­dent­ed rush to exe­cute eight pris­on­ers over an eleven-day peri­od in April 2017, Arkansas may have exe­cut­ed an inno­cent man. Civil rights and legal reform orga­ni­za­tions filed a state Freedom of Information Act law­suit on January 23, 2020 on behalf of the broth­er of Ledell Lee (pic­tured), a man Arkansas exe­cut­ed on April 20, 2017. The law­suit argues that DNA and fin­ger­print evi­dence that courts blocked the defense from test­ing in the days lead­ing up to his exe­cu­tion can prove what Lee had argued since the time of his arrest — that he was not involved in the mur­der that sent him to death row.

The law­suit, filed by Patricia Young with the assis­tance of a coali­tion of legal orga­ni­za­tions includ­ing the nation­al American Civil Liberties Union, its Arkansas chap­ter, and the Innocence Project, seeks test­ing of bio­log­i­cal and phys­i­cal evi­dence that it says could prove Lee’s inno­cence. Fingerprints from the crime scene did not match Lee, but Arkansas has nev­er sub­mit­ted them to a nation­al data­base to deter­mine whether they might match some­one else. Hair and fin­ger­nail scrap­ings from the crime scene are suit­able for DNA test­ing, but also have not been tested. 

“My fam­i­ly has been unable to rest for the last two and a half years, know­ing that my broth­er was mur­dered by the state of Arkansas for a crime we believe he did not com­mit,” said Young. ​“What hap­pened to Debra Reese is hor­ri­ble, and we keep her fam­i­ly in our prayers. But I was with Ledell the day this mur­der hap­pened, and I do not see how he could have done this. If Ledell is inno­cent, then the per­son who did this has nev­er been caught. All we want is to final­ly learn the truth.”

On February 27, 2017, with one of its exe­cu­tion drugs about to expire, Governor Asa Hutchinson sched­uled eight exe­cu­tions to be car­ried out two-a-day on four days between April 17 and April 27, 2017. Lee sought DNA test­ing pri­or to his exe­cu­tion, but his motion was denied. Another of the eight pris­on­ers, Stacey Johnson, received a stay of exe­cu­tion on a near­ly iden­ti­cal DNA test­ing request, prompt­ing a dis­sent­ingopin­ion in Lee’s case from Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Josephine Linker Hart, who said she was ​“at a loss to explain this court’s dis­sim­i­lar treat­ment of sim­i­lar­ly situated litigants.”

After Lee’s exe­cu­tion, a team from the ACLU, Innocence Project, and law firm Hogan Lovells con­tin­ued to inves­ti­gate his case and dis­cov­ered sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems with the evi­dence pros­e­cu­tors had claimed impli­cat­ed Lee. The law­suit presents affi­davits from nation­al experts in foren­sics and eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion that under­mine crit­i­cal por­tions of the evi­dence used to convict Lee. 

Prominent foren­sic pathol­o­gist Dr. Michael Baden said a local Arkansas foren­sic wit­ness mis­in­ter­pret­ed a scrape on the victim’s face as com­ing from a rug, when in fact, it came from a shoe. Baden com­pared the injury to the shoes Lee wore the day of the crime and found they were ​“incom­pat­i­ble with the injury pat­tern.” Dr. Jennifer Dysart, an expert in eye­wit­ness misiden­ti­fi­ca­tion, described the pho­to line­up used in Lee’s case as ​“shocking[ly]” biased against Lee, taint­ing the tes­ti­mo­ny of eyewitnesses. 

“Since Ledell’s exe­cu­tion, we have dis­cov­ered a wealth of new evi­dence sup­port­ing his claim of inno­cence,” said Nina Morrison, senior lit­i­ga­tion coun­sel at the Innocence Project. ​“All of this evi­dence should have been pre­sent­ed to the courts while Ledell was still alive, but it wasn’t because he couldn’t afford a quality defense.”

Cassandra Stubbs, direc­tor of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, called Lee’s case ​“emblem­at­ic of so many of the fail­ings of the death penal­ty,” includ­ing poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion and racial bias. Lee was Black and the vic­tim, Debra Reese, was white. 

After his first tri­al end­ed in a mis­tri­al, Lee was con­vict­ed by a jury of 11 white mem­bers and one Black mem­ber, though the coun­ty is near­ly one-third Black. His tri­al last­ed just four days, and the jury delib­er­at­ed for three hours. His attor­neys had pre­sent­ed four ali­bi wit­ness­es at his first tri­al, but failed to call any of them at the second. 

On appeal, Lee was rep­re­sent­ed by attor­ney Craig Lambert, who has now signed an affi­davit admit­ting that he was over­whelmed by han­dling four oth­er active death-penal­ty cas­es and strug­gling with sub­stance abuse at the time he rep­re­sent­ed Lee. ​“I rec­og­nize the inves­ti­ga­tion into Ledell’s inno­cence was not ade­quate and he deserved far bet­ter than the rep­re­sen­ta­tion I was able to pro­vide him back then,” Lambert said.

In an inter­view with the Washington Post, Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robert Dunham urged test­ing of the evi­dence. ​“We have the capa­bil­i­ty of test­ing a wide range of foren­sic evi­dence that we couldn’t test in the past. It is a pow­er­ful tool to get to the truth and to get impor­tant answers as to whether the crim­i­nal legal sys­tem has been reli­ably apply­ing the death penal­ty,” he said.

DPIC has iden­ti­fied at least 18 cas­es in recent years in which states may have exe­cut­ed inno­cent peo­ple. The fam­i­ly of Sedley Alley, exe­cut­ed by Tennessee in 2006, are also seek­ing posthu­mous DNA test­ing that they believe will exonerate him.