On November 10 in Richmond, Virginia, thir­ty for­mer FBI agents held a press con­fer­ence call­ing for the par­don of four sailors, known as the Norfolk Four, who were con­vict­ed of rape and mur­der. Their con­vic­tions were based main­ly on their own con­fes­sions, which were appar­ent­ly made out of fear that they might oth­er­wise receive the death penal­ty. The FBI agents point­ed out that DNA and foren­sic evi­dence now points to a prison inmate who has con­fessed as the sole per­pe­tra­tor of the crimes. They asked Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to par­don the men. ​“After care­ful review of the evi­dence we have arrived at one unequiv­o­cal con­clu­sion: The Norfolk Four are inno­cent,” said Jay Cochran, a for­mer assis­tant direc­tor of the F.B.I. and for­mer spe­cial agent who served at the bureau for 27 years. ​“We believe a trag­ic mis­take has occurred in the case of these four Navy men, and we are call­ing on Governor Kaine to grant them immediate pardons.”

“We are not bleed­ing hearts, and we don’t take this type of pub­lic action light­ly,” said Cochran. ​“However, we also believe that law enforce­ment has an oblig­a­tion to pro­tect the most inno­cent from wrong­ful con­vic­tion.” The agents joined a long list of notable peo­ple call­ing for a par­don, includ­ing 4 for­mer Virginia attor­neys gen­er­al, 12 for­mer state and fed­er­al judges and pros­e­cu­tors, and a past pres­i­dent of the Virginia Bar Association. 



The con­fes­sions were obtained from the sailors after they were threat­ened with the death penal­ty if they did not coop­er­ate. Although all four quick­ly recant­ed, defense attor­ney George Kendall said the police elicit­ed the first false con­fes­sion and then used it with the threat of the death penal­ty to set off a ​“domi­no effect” of more false con­fes­sions. The detec­tive who elicit­ed the con­fes­sions had been rep­ri­mand­ed on a pri­or occa­sion for elic­it­ing false ones.

After the sailors’ arrests, anoth­er man, Omar Ballard, con­fessed in a writ­ten let­ter from prison brag­ging to a friend that he alone com­mit­ted the crimes. His let­ter pro­vid­ed a detailed account of the killing, while the sailors’ con­fes­sions con­tained inac­cu­rate and con­flict­ing infor­ma­tion. His DNA matched the evi­dence from the scene, and none of the arrest­ed sailors had DNA that matched the evi­dence.

Governor Kaine is cur­rent­ly review­ing the clemen­cy peti­tion and has declined com­ment on the case.

(I. Urbina, ​“Retired F.B.I. Agents Join Cause of 4 Sailors,” The New York Times, November 11, 2008) (empha­sis added). See also Innocence and New Voices. See video about this case on DPIC’s Multi-media page.

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