Entries tagged with “Junk Science”
Jul 06, 2026
Louisiana Supreme Court Affirms Lower Court’s Vacatur and Factual Innocence Finding for Former Death-Sentenced Man, Jimmie Duncan
On June 29, 2026, the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s decision finding Jimmie Duncan factually innocent and vacating his first-degree murder conviction and death sentence. Mr. Duncan was sentenced to death for the 1993 death of his girlfriend’s toddler, Haley Oliveaux, largely based on faulty bite mark evidence. In April 2025, Louisiana District Court Judge Alvin Sharp held that expert testimony presented during an evidentiary hearing demonstrated the bite mark analysis used…
Jun 17, 2026
U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Consider Fairness of Hypnotizing Key Prosecution Witness in Texas Death Penalty Case
On June 15, 2026, the United States Supreme Court declined to consider the appeal of Texas death-sentenced prisoner Charles Flores, whose death sentence was obtained through the use of a hypnotized prosecution witness. Mr. Flores has spent more than 25 years on death row for a murder he maintains he did not commit. His conviction relied on the testimony of a neighbor who identified him — for the first time, at trial — only after being hypnotized by police. Mr. Flores argued in his petition that his…
Apr 24, 2026
New Resource: Forensics, “Junk Science,” and the Death Penalty
Saturday April 25th is National DNA Day, marking the anniversary of the 1953 discovery of DNA’s double helix structure and the 2003 completion of the Human Genome Project. Today, the Death Penalty Information Center is pleased to present a new resource examining the controversial role of “junk science” in capital cases. When DNA testing became one of the most rigorously validated tools in forensic science, its development also prompted greater scrutiny of other forensic techniques. Many…
Mar 24, 2026
Amici Supporting Texas Prisoner Charles Flores Urge U.S. Supreme Court to Hear His Innocence Claims, Including Those Based on Discredited ‘Investigative Hypnosis’ Evidence
On March 12, 2026, a diverse group of voices filed amicus curiae briefs in support of Charles Flores (pictured), a Texas death-sentenced prisoner, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review his case. Mr. Flores has spent more than 25 years on death row for a murder he maintains he did not commit. His conviction relied on the testimony of a neighbor who identified him — for the first time, at trial — only after being hypnotized by police. The briefs were filed by a coalition including the entertainers…
Feb 09, 2026
Football, Death Row, and Hypnotized Witness Testimony: The Case of Charles Flores
Among the more than 100 million Americans watching the Super Bowl on Sunday, Charles Flores (pictured) watched from a 9‑by-12-foot cell in Livingston, Texas, marking his 27th Super Bowl on death row for a crime he has maintained he did not commit. In a podcast interview with Pablo Torre, a journalist and sportswriter, Mr. Flores sat down at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston to discuss his love of the Dallas Cowboys, watching the Super Bowl on death row, the intricacies of his fight to prove his…
Dec 02, 2025
Louisiana Death Row Prisoner Jimmie Duncan Released on Bail After Evidence Shows He is “Factually Innocent”
On November 26, 2025, Jimmie Duncan was released on bail from Louisiana’s Angola prison after spending 27 years on death row for a crime that a court now says never occurred. Ouachita Parish District Attorney Robert Tew opposed Mr. Duncan’s release on bail and maintains that he is guilty of rape and murder. Mr. Duncan’s attorneys dispute this and say Judge Alvin Sharp’s bail ruling “acknowledged the clear and convincing evidence showing Mr. Duncan is factually innocent.” “[T]his court finds…
Oct 15, 2025
Edward T. Blake, Pioneer of Using DNA to Prove Innocence, Dies at 80
Edward T. Blake, a forensic scientist who helped pioneer the use of DNA analysis in criminal cases and whose work helped exonerate more than 50 people, including those on death row, died in August 2025 at age 80 from pancreatic cancer. Dr. Blake was the first forensic scientist to use polymerase chain reaction testing, or PCR, on crime-scene DNA. The technique allowed Dr. Blake to extract usable genetic information from evidence samples that could not previously be tested because of old age…
Oct 07, 2025
New Evidence Revealed in “Dateline” Podcast Points to Judicial Misconduct in Robert Roberson’s Case Just Days Ahead of Execution
October 9, 2025 UPDATE: On October 9, 2025, just a week before his scheduled execution, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) granted Robert Roberson a stay of execution and remanded his case to the district court for further consideration of his request for relief based upon relief offered in a similar case, Ex parte Roark. Like Mr. Roberson’s case, Ex parte Roark, also involved a conviction based the now discredited “Shaken Baby Syndrome Hypothesis” (SBS) and the CCA granted relief to Mr.
Jul 29, 2025
Defendants Petition the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Alleging Washington County District Attorney Abused His Discretion in Death Penalty Cases
On July 22, 2025, attorneys with the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation filed a petition on behalf of two criminal defendants — Jordan Clarke and Joshua George — alleging Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh has demonstrated a pattern of improperly threatening or seeking death sentences in violation of the United States Constitution and the Pennsylvania Constitution. The attorneys are asking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to use its “extraordinary jurisdiction” to impose external…
Upcoming Executions
,Jul 18, 2025
District Judge Sets “Unfortunate” New Execution Date for Texas Prisoner Robert Roberson, Despite Pending Petition in Support of His Innocence Claim
On July 16, 2025, Smith County District Judge Austin Reeve Jackson set an execution date of October 16, 2025 for Robert Roberson, a man with a strong innocence claim who has a habeas corpus petition pending at the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA). Judge Jackson, after hearing arguments from both defense counsel for Mr. Roberson and attorneys from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, ruled that there was no legal basis for not signing an execution order. “It doesn’t seem like…
Jun 23, 2025
In Unusual Move, Texas Attorney General Requests Execution Date for Robert Roberson Before a Court Has Heard New Evidence of His Actual Innocence
On June 16, 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion in the Anderson County District Court requesting a new execution date for Robert Roberson, despite the fact that a motion from defense counsel with new evidence in support of Mr. Roberson’s actual innocence remains pending. As the Dallas Morning Editorial Board notes, it is “unusual” that “[AG] Paxton’s office is involved” in requesting the execution date. AG Paxton has actively sought Mr. Roberson’s execution and has publicly…
Jun 02, 2025
Texas Death Row Prisoner Seeks New Trial, Citing Conviction Based on Flawed Hypnosis Evidence
Charles Flores (pictured) was convicted and sentenced to death in 1999 for the 1998 robbery and murder of Elizabeth “Betty” Black in her Texas home. Mr. Flores was convicted because of the testimony of Jill Barganier, the victim’s neighbor, who only identified Mr. Flores after being hypnotized by police. No DNA or physical evidence connects Mr. Flores to the crime. Attorneys for Mr. Flores argue that he should be granted a new trial because of changes in the understanding of witness testimony…
Apr 28, 2025
Louisiana Judge Sets Aside Jimmie Duncan’s Conviction and Death Sentence Based on “No Longer Valid” Bite Mark Evidence
On April 24, 2025, Louisiana District Court Judge Alvin Sharp set aside Jimmie Duncan’s first-degree murder conviction and death sentence. Mr. Duncan was sentenced to death for the 1993 death of his girlfriend’s toddler largely based on faulty bite mark evidence. Judge Sharp, in a decision that came after a September 2024 evidentiary hearing, held that expert testimony presented during this hearing demonstrated the bite mark analysis used against Mr. Duncan is “no longer valid” and “not…
Issues
Victims' Families
,Aug 12, 2024
New York Times Video Op-eds Highlight Systemic Flaws in the Capital Punishment System, Including Mistakes from Junk Science and Lack of Closure for Victims’ Families
In the second and third videos of The New York Times’ three-part series, “The Fallibility of Justice,” Brett Malone, whose mother’s killer remains on Louisiana death row, and Texas death-sentenced prisoner Charles Don Flores provide their perspectives on capital punishment. The New York Times has consistently called for abolition of the death penalty, describing it as “full of bias and error, morally abhorrent, [and] futile in deterring crime.” Mr. Malone describes his personal journey from…
Issues
Aug 05, 2024
New Report Reveals Texas Junk Science Statute Fails to Adequately Provide Relief for Innocent Prisoners, Including Robert Roberson
A July 2024 report from the Texas Defender Service (TDS), An Unfulfilled Promise: Assessing the Efficacy of 11.073, the first-ever comprehensive review of Texas’ junk science writ, revealed that the “law systematically fails to provide relief to innocent people convicted based on false forensic evidence.” In 2013, the Texas Legislature passed a first-of-its-kind law, Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Article 11.073, creating a procedural pathway for convicted individuals to seek new trials if…
Issues
Jul 31, 2024
Articles of Interest: Lead Detective on Robert Roberson’s Case Now Believes He Is Innocent
Brian Wharton, who was the lead detective in Palestine, Texas at the time of Robert Roberson’s conviction for the death of his two-year-old daughter Nikki, now believes Mr. Roberson is innocent and supports abolition of the death penalty. Mr. Wharton said in a video for The New York Times that there is “unassailable doubt” that Mr. Roberson is guilty. In the video, Mr. Wharton recounts his role in the investigation of Nikki’s death, describing how he believed he was doing the right thing, but…
Issues
Jun 20, 2024
Anderson County, Texas District Attorney Requests Execution for Robert Roberson, Despite a Conviction Obtained with Debunked Forensic Science
On June 17, 2024, Anderson County District Attorney Allyson Mitchell filed a motion to set an execution date for Texas death row prisoner Robert Roberson, despite his steadfast maintenance of innocence in the death of his two-year-old daughter. Mr. Roberson has spent more than 20 years on death row for a crime that, according to the Innocence Project, “never occurred and a conviction based on the outdated and now debunked shaken baby hypothesis.” New evidence indicates that Mr. Roberson’s…
Issues
Dec 07, 2023
Mississippi Supreme Court Delays Decision on Willie Manning Execution Date, Allows Time for Appeal
On November 30, 2023, the Mississippi Supreme Court ordered that the state’s request to set an execution date for death row prisoner Willie Manning be held until the court rules on a recent petition seeking to bring new evidence of Mr. Manning’s innocence. Mr. Manning’s attorneys had filed a petition at the court on September 29, asking for an opportunity to present recantations from jailhouse informants who testified against Mr. Manning, as well as new expert analysis debunking the…
Issues
Sep 11, 2023
John Grisham on Robert Roberson: “Texas may execute an innocent man”
In an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, novelist John Grisham recounts the flawed science that led to the conviction of Robert Roberson (pictured, with his daughter Nikki) and the inadequate legal process that has maintained that conviction. Mr. Roberson was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2002 death of his 2‑year-old daughter Nikki. His conviction relied on a theory of “shaken baby syndrome” that has since been discredited. After a hearing ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal…
Issues
May 18, 2023
Texas Prisoner Seeks Supreme Court Review of Conviction Based on Debunked Scientific Evidence
On May 11, attorneys for Robert Roberson, a death-sentenced prisoner in Texas, filed a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court asking it to reverse the decision of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA). Mr. Roberson’s conviction for the murder of his daughter Nikki was based on the so-called “Shaken Baby Syndrome” which has now been debunked by new scientific and medical evidence. The TCCA disregarded this and other evidence that showed his daughter’s death was attributable to natural…
Issues
Jan 13, 2023
Supreme Court Reverses Texas Court Decision Based on Prosecutor’s Admission About Flawed Forensic Evidence
The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed the denial of relief to a Texas death-row prisoner whose request for new trial is supported by local prosecutors. In a two-sentence decision, the Court granted certiorari to Areli Escobar, vacated the judgment of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA), and sent the case back for reconsideration. The Court’s summary reversal relied on Travis County prosecutors’ admission that Escobar’s conviction is based on “flawed and misleading forensic evidence.”
Issues
Nov 11, 2022
U.S. Supreme Court Asks for Record of Texas Case Where Relief Denied Despite Agreement of Prosecutor and Trial Judge that Death-Row Prisoner Should Get New Trial
The United States Supreme Court has requested the production of the appellate record of a death penalty case in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) refused to grant a new trial to a death-row prisoner despite the agreement of county prosecutors that the use of faulty forensic evidence from a discredited crime lab to convict Areli Escobar (pictured) denied him a fair trial. Travis County prosecutors have taken the rare step of filing a response brief in support of Escobar’s…
Executions
Aug 15, 2022
Texas Executes Man Whose Conviction Relied on Discredited Forensics
Texas on August 17, 2022 executed Kosoul Chanthakoummane (pictured), whose conviction prosecutors obtained with discredited forensic testimony. He was the second defendant of color in less than a month to be put to death over the objection of the victim’s family. Chanthakoummane was convicted and sentenced to death in Collin County for the 2006 murder of Sarah Walker, a real estate agent who was found murdered in a model home. He has long maintained his innocence. Chanthakoummane’s conviction…
Issues
Aug 03, 2022
Amicus Groups Ask Supreme Court to Overturn Texas Appeals Court Refusal to Grant New Trial to Death-Row Prisoner Convicted Based on DNA Testimony Prosecutor and Trial Court Agree Was False
Three groups of fair justice advocates have filed friend-of-the-court briefs asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review and overturn a Texas appeals court ruling that denied a new trial to a death-row prisoner who prosecutors and the trial court agree was convicted based on false DNA testimony by a disgraced police crime lab. On July 26, 2022, The Innocence Network and The Center for Integrity in Forensic Sciences, Inc. filed a joint amicus brief on behalf of Areli Escobar asking the justices to…
Issues
Jul 15, 2022
Mississippi Supreme Court Denies Additional DNA Testing to Death-Row Prisoner
The Mississippi Supreme Court has denied additional DNA testing to death-row prisoner Willie Manning (pictured). Manning, who was sentenced to death in Oktibbeha County in 1994 and in 1996 for two separate crimes, has maintained his innocence of both crimes. He was exonerated of the 1996 conviction in 2015 after police and prosecutors unlawfully withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense. Manning sought DNA testing in the 1994 case to challenge discredited hair comparison testimony…
Issues
Jul 07, 2022
Florida Supreme Court Rejects State Attorney General’s Attempt to Block DNA Testing in 46-Year-Old Death Penalty Case
The Florida Supreme Court has rejected an attempt by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody to prevent DNA testing and fingerprint analysis of evidence lawyers for Henry Sireci (pictured) say could prove him innocent of a murder that sent him to death row 46 years ago. State prosecutors had sought to vacate two orders entered by the trial court on May 10, 2021 giving court approval to separate agreements between county prosecutors and counsel for Sireci and a second death-row prisoner, Tommy…
Issues
Apr 18, 2022
Forensics Experts and Shaken-Baby Exonerees File Briefs Supporting Texas Death-Row Prisoner Robert Roberson’s Innocence Claim
Forensics experts and three exonerees wrongfully convicted of murder based upon junk-science diagnoses of Shaken Baby Syndrome are urging the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) to overturn the conviction of death-row prisoner Robert Roberson (pictured with his daughter, Nikki). In separate friend-of-the-court briefs filed on April 8, 2022, the two groups argue that Shaken Baby Syndrome is an invalid medical diagnosis that should never be used as the basis of a murder conviction and that…
Issues
Mar 28, 2022
Bipartisan Majority of Texas House of Representatives Calls for Clemency for Melissa Lucio, Facing Execution for Likely Accidental Death of Disabled Daughter
Nearly 90 members of the Texas House of Representatives from across the ideological spectrum have issued a bipartisan call for the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to grant clemency to death-row prisoner Melissa Lucio. In a news conference in the state capitol on March 24, 2022, State Rep. Jeff Leach (R‑Plano, pictured), co-chair of the House’s bipartisan Criminal Justice Reform Caucus, announced that 81 House members had signed a letter urging Governor Abbott and…
Issues
Oct 22, 2021
Attorneys Present Closing Arguments in Rodney Reed Innocence Hearing
A Bastrop, Texas trial court heard closing arguments October 18, 2021 on whether Texas death-row prisoner Rodney Reed should be granted a new trial in the April 1996 murder of Stacey Stites. The argument concluded the adversarial portion of an extraordinary evidentiary hearing ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) to review Reed’s claims that prosecutors secured his convictions for rape and murder by suppressing exculpatory evidence and presenting false testimony. The TCCA…
Issues
Religion
,Upcoming Executions
,Oct 12, 2021
Texas Federal Court Stays Execution of Stephen Barbee on Religious Freedom Issue, Defense Seeks Review of False Forensic Testimony
A federal court in Texas has stayed the October 12, 2021 execution of Texas death-row prisoner Stephen Barbee on his claims that the state’s refusal to allow his spiritual advisor to administer last rites, touch him, or pray out loud in the execution chamber violates his constitutional and federal statutory rights to free exercise of religion. Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued the stay on October 7, 2021, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s…
Issues
Sep 30, 2021
Sherwood Brown Exonerated in Mississippi, 186th Death-Row Exoneration Since 1973
Sherwood Brown has been exonerated of the charges that sent him to death row in Mississippi in 1995 for a triple murder he did not commit. On August 24, 2021, DeSoto County Circuit Court Judge Jimmy McClure granted a prosecution motion to dismiss charges against Brown (pictured after his release), who was released later that day after having spent 26 years on the state’s death row or facing the prospects of a capital retrial. “We are extremely thankful to see Sherwood walk out of prison a free…
Issues
Sep 28, 2021
Death-Row Exonerees in Ohio, Oklahoma Receive Million Dollar Payments for Their Wrongful Convictions
Two men exonerated from death row, one in Ohio and one in Oklahoma, have received million ‑dollar payouts for their wrongful convictions and death sentences. Both were tried and convicted in counties with long histories of prosecutorial misconduct and high rates of wrongful capital convictions. The compensation comes more than a decade after each was released from incarceration. In early September 2021, former death-row prisoner Robert Miller reached a $2 million settlement with Oklahoma City…
Issues
Apr 20, 2021
Florida Bars From Medical Practice Psychiatrist Who Repeatedly Testified that Severely Mentally Ill Death-Row Prisoners Were ‘Malingering’
A controversial psychiatrist who repeatedly testified that severely mentally ill death-row prisoners were faking their symptoms and were competent to be executed has been barred from medical practice in Florida. On March 31, 2021, the Florida Department of Health issued an emergency restriction on the medical license of Alan J. Waldman, M.D. (pictured), prohibiting him from practicing as a medical doctor until the impaired practitioner program for the state’s Board of Medicine provides notice…
Issues
Mar 01, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of February 22, 2021
NEWS (2/25/21) — Alabama: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has denied habeas relief for Alabama death-row prisoner Charles Clark, who the trial court had sentenced to death based upon a non-unanimous jury sentencing vote. Clark had argued that the trial court improperly ordered that he be shackled during the trial, without an adequate justification and without placing the reasons for shackling him on the record. His trial counsel had waived the claim by failing to object and Clark…
Issues
Religion
,Women
,Feb 15, 2021
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of February 8, 2021
NEWS (2/11/21) — Alabama: In a splintered vote with three conservative justices noting their dissents, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Alabama Attorney General’s application to vacate a federal appeals court injunction that had halted that night’s scheduled execution of Willie B. Smith III unless the state permitted his pastor to be present in the death chamber to provide religious comfort during his execution. In a second night-of-execution order, the Court lifted a stay of execution based…
Issues
Jan 27, 2021
Philadelphia Boxer Sent to Death Row by Unrebutted False Medical Testimony Released After 28 Years
Former lightweight and junior welterweight boxing contender Anthony Fletcher (pictured) has been released from prison, 28 years after he was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder and sent to Pennsylvania’s death row by false medical testimony. In a virtual hearing in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on January 21, 2021, Fletcher entered a plea of no contest to charges of third-degree murder, and Judge Lillian Ransom resentenced him to 12½ – 25 years. Because he had already served…
Issues
Jan 12, 2021
Convicted by False Forensic Evidence, Eddie Lee Howard, Jr. Exonerated From Mississippi Death Row After 26 Years
Eddie Lee Howard, Jr., convicted and sentenced to death based on the false forensic testimony of a since disgraced prosecution expert witness, has been exonerated after nearly 26 years on Mississippi’s death row. He is the 174th former death-row prisoner exonerated in the U.S. since 1973 and the sixth in Mississippi. The Mississippi Supreme Court overturned Howard’s conviction in August 2020, 26 years after he was first sentenced to death for the 1992 murder and alleged rape of an 84-year-old…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Federal Death Penalty
,Dec 08, 2020
Jurors and Appellate Prosecutor Say Teen Offender Brandon Bernard Should Not be Executed
As the December 10, 2020 execution date of federal death-row prisoner Brandon Bernard (pictured with his family) approached, jurors and a former prosecutor in his case came forward saying that the teen offender’s life should be spared. Bernard, who was 18 years old at the time of the offense, became the youngest offender executed by the federal government in at least 68 years. Five of the nine surviving trial jurors in Bernard’s case provided his defense team with videotaped statements or…
Issues
Nov 03, 2020
Ohio Judges Acquit Capital Defendant in Alleged Arson Deaths of His Family
A three-judge panel in Madison County, Ohio has acquitted a man prosecutors charged with capital murder for allegedly setting his car on fire to burn down his house with his wife and children inside. The judges rejected prosecutors’ arguments that Peter Romans (pictured with his family) had poured gasoline on the driver’s side of the family’s SUV and set the car ablaze with the intent that the conflagration spread to the house to kill his wife Billi and their two children, Ami and Caleb.
Issues
Oct 26, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of October 19, 2020
NEWS (10/22/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the conviction and death sentence for Daniel Craven, Jr. for a 2015 prison murder. The court denied Craven’s claims that he was unconstitutionally denied the right to represent himself and that the trial court had violated his right to a fair jury by impaneling an African-American juror whom defense counsel had attempted to peremptorily strike. It also rejected several challenges Craven posed to the aggravating circumstances…
Issues
Sep 17, 2020
Robert DuBoise and Tina Jimerson Exonerated Decades After Wrongful Capital Prosecutions in Florida, Arkansas
A Florida man and an Arkansas woman, convicted of murder in separate cases involving junk science and prosecutorial misconduct, have been exonerated, decades after being wrongfully capitally prosecuted. Hillsborough Circuit Judge Christopher Nash dismissed all charges against former Florida death-row prisoner Robert DuBoise on September 14, 2020, granting a motion filed by the office of State Attorney Andrew Warren. The motion was the culmination of an investigation by Warren’s Conviction…
Issues
Sep 01, 2020
Mississippi Supreme Court Grants New Trial to Eddie Howard, Sentenced to Death by Junk Bite-Mark Evidence
The Mississippi Supreme Court has granted a new trial to death-row prisoner Eddie Lee Howard, Jr. (pictured), finding that the combination of scientifically invalid bite-mark evidence used to convict him and new DNA evidence entitled him to a new trial in the 1992 murder and alleged rape of an 84-year-old white woman. In an 8 – 1 decision on August 27, 2020, the court held that the discredited forensic testimony, “along with new DNA testing and the paucity of other evidence linking Howard to the…
Issues
Aug 10, 2020
Orleans Parish D.A. Will Not Run for Re-Election, Tenure Tainted By Office Misconduct in Death-Penalty Cases
After 12 years as Orleans Parish, Louisiana District Attorney, Leon Cannizzaro (pictured) has announced that he will not seek re-election and will be retiring as D.A. at the end of this term. Cannizzaro’s tenure in office was marked by his aggressive defense of prior official misconduct in capital cases, misconduct by his office while he was District Attorney, and revelations that Orleans Parish prosecutors had routinely issued fake subpoenas and threatened imprisonment to coerce victims and…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Federal Death Penalty
,Aug 02, 2020
NEWS BRIEF — Federal Government, Texas Set New Execution Dates
As July 2020 came to a close, the federal government issued two more notices of execution and a county judge in Texas reportedly issued a new death warrant for a death-row prisoner whose previously scheduled execution had been stayed. In a July 31 news release, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had set execution dates of September 22, 2020 for William LeCroy and September 24, 2020 for Christopher Vialva. LeCroy was sentenced to death in the U.S. District Court for the Northern…
Issues
Executions Overview
,Jun 06, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of June 1, 2020
NEWS (6/5/20) — North Carolina: The North Carolina Supreme Court has struck down the state legislature’s attempted retroactive repeal of the state’s Racial Justice Act, restoring the rights of approximately 130 death-row prisoners to seek redress of death sentences that they had claimed were substantially affected by racial bias. The Court issued its 6 – 1 rulings in the cases of death-row prisoners Andrew Ramseur (pictured, left) and Rayford Burke (pictured, right), holding that “the…
Issues
May 21, 2020
First Execution, New Death Sentence During Coronavirus Pandemic Highlight Grave Flaws in U.S. Capital Punishment System
The first new death sentence and first execution since public health concerns arising from the coronavirus pandemic shuttered most court proceedings across the country have highlighted several of the gravest concerns about the death penalty in the United States. On May 18, 2020, as defense lawyers questioned their client’s mental competency, a three-judge panel sentenced Joel Drain to death in Warren County, Ohio in trial proceedings lasting less than six hours. Drain, who had attempted…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,May 15, 2020
As Blood Spatter Evidence Causes Jurors to Question His Guilt, Missouri Prepares to Execute Walter Barton
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has vacated a stay of execution for Missouri death-row prisoner Walter Barton (pictured) who is scheduled to be executed on Tuesday, May 19, 2020. The court’s unsigned opinion, issued on Sunday, May 17, lifted a stay of execution that had been issued May 15 by a federal district court judge. The district court said a stay was necessary to afford it time to address a petition Barton had filed that challenged his conviction and death sentence based…
Issues
May 13, 2020
Texas Appeals Court Declines to Apply Junk-Science Law to Review Death Sentence Based Upon Hypnotically Assisted Identification Testimony
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has upheld the ruling of a Dallas trial court that denied a new trial to death-row prisoner Charles Flores (pictured), whose conviction and death sentence were the product of hypnotically assisted testimony. The TCCA said its decision was “[b]ased upon the trial court’s findings and conclusions,” which the appeals court acknowledged had simply “adopted the State’s proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law.” No physical evidence links Flores, a…
Issues
May 07, 2020
Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of May 4, 2020
NEWS (5/7/20) — Florida: The Florida Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence imposed on Leonardo Franqui, denying post-conviction challenges to his death sentence based upon claims that he is ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability and that his death sentence was unconstitutionally imposed after some members of his jury voted for life. The court rejected Franqui’s claim of intellectual disability, saying he had not proven by clear and convincing evidence that he…
Issues
Apr 15, 2020
Beginning April 15, Death Row Stories, Innocence Files to Feature Wrongful Death-Penalty Convictions
Beginning April 15, 2020, two television series — one a new program from Netflix and the other new episodes of a returning series from CNN — will highlight stories of wrongful convictions, including some death-penalty cases. The new Netflix documentary series, The Innocence Files, will debut on April 15, with its first episode featuring the case of Texas death-row exoneree Alfred DeWayne Brown. The fifth season of CNN’s series, Death Row Stories, will premiere on April 19 with an episode that…
Issues
Apr 02, 2020
STUDIES — Junk Psychological Science Continues to Infect Death-Penalty Determinations
Courts are failing badly in keeping junk psychological science out of the courtroom in criminal cases, permitting the admission of psychological tests that have never been reviewed for reliability and others that have been found unreliable, a recent study reports. Among the problematic tests, another group of psychologists write, is a “psychopathy checklist” commonly used by prosecutors to argue that a defendant poses a future danger to society and should be sentenced to death. The article…
Issues
Mar 31, 2020
Texas Appeals Court Rejects Recommendation for New Trial for Death-Row Prisoner
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has once again rejected the findings of a trial court that a death-row prisoner was entitled to relief from his conviction or death sentence. Applying a narrow interpretation of a 2013 junk-science law, the court on March 11, 2020 set aside the recommendation of an El Paso County trial court that death-row prisoner Rigoberto Avila should be granted a new trial as a result of the prosecution’s reliance on false and outdated scientific evidence. The…
Issues
Oct 10, 2019
New Podcast: Texas Lawyer James Rytting on Junk Science and the Execution of Larry Swearingen
In the latest episode of Discussions with DPIC, Texas capital defense lawyer James Rytting (pictured) discusses the case of his client, Larry Swearingen, and the junk science that led to the execution of a man legitimate science strongly suggests was innocent. Rytting describes the false forensic analysis presented under the guise of science in Swearingen’s case, the appellate process that makes it “almost impossible” to obtain review of new evidence, and the persistent problem of wrongful…
Issues
Oct 03, 2019
Junk Science and Wrongful Convictions: James Rytting Discusses the Case of Larry Swearingen
James Rytting, an attorney who represented Texas prisoner Larry Swearingen, describes the junk science used to convict his client. Swearingen was executed on August 21, 2019, after multiple courts declined to consider new evidence that revealed flaws in the forensic evidence presented at trial. Rytting also explains how Swearingen’s case highlights flaws that contribute to wrongful convictions throughout the criminal justice system: unscientific analysis of forensic evidence, lack of scientific…
Issues
Women
,Jul 31, 2019
Federal Appeals Court Overturns Mother’s Conviction in Texas Child Murder Case That May Have Been an Accidental Death
Citing trial court interference in her right to present a defense, a federal appeals court has overturned the conviction of a Texas mother who was sentenced to death on charges that she had murdered her two-year-old daughter. In an unpublished, unsigned opinion issued on July 29, 2019, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said that trial court rulings that blocked Melissa Elizabeth Lucio (pictured) from calling an expert witness to challenge the…
Issues
Jun 03, 2019
Ten Years After Landmark Study, Junk Science Still Pervasive in Death-Penalty Cases
In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a landmark report titled Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, in which it raised significant questions about the validity of every forensic science discipline except DNA analysis. The report concluded, “no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source.” In a…
Research
May 28, 2019
Amended Bill to Limit Oregon’s Death Penalty Easily Passes State Senate
An amended bill to narrow the circumstances in which the death penalty may be imposed in Oregon has easily passed the state senate. On May 21, 2019, by a vote of 18 – 9, the Oregon Senate passed SB 1013, which would limit the state’s use of capital punishment to three aggravating circumstances and eliminate speculation about a defendant’s future dangerousness from a jury’s capital sentencing deliberations. The bill would allow prosecutors to pursue the death penalty for only three crimes: acts of…
Issues
Apr 30, 2019
Federal Court Overturns Ohio Shaken-Baby Conviction and Death Sentence Based on Withheld Evidence
A federal district court has overturned the conviction of Genesis Hill (pictured), who was sentenced to death in Ohio in 1991 for the death of his six-month-old daughter, Domika, based upon a questionable shaken-baby diagnosis. On April 24, 2019, Chief Judge Edmund A. Sargus, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio found that Ohio prosecutors had unconstitutionally withheld exculpatory evidence that called into question the credibility of a key witness and the testimony…
Issues
Executions Overview
,Jan 11, 2019
Texas Prisoner Seeks Stay of Execution on Claims of Junk Science, Arbitrary Sentencing
[UPDATE: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay of execution to Blaine Milam on January 14, 2019] As Texas prepares to execute Blaine Milam (pictured) on January 15, 2019, Milam’s lawyers say his conviction and sentence rest on discredited bite-mark testimony and have asked for the execution to be halted. Milam filed a habeas corpus petition in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on January 10 challenging his conviction and sentence, along with a motion to stay his execution. While…
Issues
Executions Overview
,Oct 08, 2018
Law Review: Junk Mental Health Science and the Texas Death Penalty
Junk science is “enabling and perpetuating grave miscarriages of justice” in Texas death-penalty cases. So concludes Professor James Acker in his article, Snake Oil With A Bite: The Lethal Veneer of Science and Texas’s Death Penalty, published in the latest issue of the Albany Law Review. Acker’s article highlights the heightened risks of injustice from pseudo-science and junk science in capital cases in Texas, one of the few states that conditions death eligibility upon a finding of the…
Issues
Sep 24, 2018
Questionable Ruling Grants Jeffrey Havard New Sentencing but Not New Trial in Controversial “Shaken Baby” Case
Sixteen years after a notorious and now-discredited forensic witness told a Mississippi jury that Jeffrey Havard had sexually abused and shaken his girlfriend’s six-month-old daughter to death, Havard’s death sentence — but not his conviction — has been overturned. On September 14, 2018, Adams County Circuit Judge Forrest Johnson ruled that state pathologist Steven Hayne’s recantation of his diagnosis that infant Chloe Britt had been a victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome was “not sufficient to undermine…
Issues
New Voices
,Aug 15, 2018
Fox Commentator: Oklahoma “Frontier Justice” Has Produced “Wretched Record” of Wrongful Capital Convictions
Calling Oklahoma “the notorious home of ‘Hang ’Em High’ executions,” conservative commentator and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin (pictured) has urged the state to adopt sytemic reforms to address its “wretched record on wrongful convictions.” Malkin says that despite 35 exonerations in the last 25 years — including 7 death-row exonerations — and a “reign of prosecutorial terror and forensic error by the late Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy and rogue Oklahoma City police department…
Issues
Foreign Nationals
,Apr 18, 2018
Vicente Benavides, Sentenced to Death by False Forensics, to Be Freed After 26 Years on Death Row
Mexican national Vicente Figueroa Benavides (pictured), wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in Kern County, California for supposedly raping, sodomizing, and murdering his girlfriend’s 21-month-old daughter, will soon be freed after nearly 26 years on death row. He will be the 162nd person and fifth foreign national exonerated from a U.S. death row since 1973. In a media advisory on April 17, 2018, Kern District Attorney Lisa Green announced on April 17, 2018 that her office would be…
Issues
Foreign Nationals
,Mar 14, 2018
California Supreme Court Grants New Trial to Man Sent to Death Row 25 Years Ago by False Forensic Evidence
The California Supreme Court has vacated the conviction of Vicente Figueroa Benavides (pictured), saying that the forensic evidence that sent the former Mexican farmworker to death row 25 years ago was “extensive,” “pervasive,” “impactful,” and “false.” Benavides, now 68, was sentenced to death in 1993 after being found guilty of brutally murdering Consuelo Verdugo, his girlfriend’s 21-month-old toddler, by raping and anally sodomizing her. However, the court said, medical evidence showed that…
Issues
Oct 31, 2017
Mississippi, Pennsylvania Courts Grant New Trials to Wrongly Condemned Prisoners
Appeals courts in Mississippi and Pennsylvania have granted new trials to two men who have long asserted their innocence of charges that had sent them to their states’ death rows. On October 26, the Mississippi Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Sherwood Brown (pictured, left), after reviewing exculpatory results of DNA testing and evidence that Brown’s triple-murder conviction and death sentence had been obtained as a result of misleading forensic testimony. On October 31, the Pennsylvania…
Issues
Oct 24, 2017
False or Flawed Forensic Evidence Raises Questions About Two Texas Capital Convictions
Two recent appellate decisions by the Texas courts have thrust into the national spotlight the continuing controversy over the use of false or flawed forensic testimony to secure convictions in death penalty cases. On October 18, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a Travis County (Austin) trial court to conduct a hearing to consider evidence that the Austin police crime lab had botched its analysis of DNA evidence and presented scientifically false DNA testimony leading to the…
Issues
Oct 10, 2017
Texas Set to Execute Robert Pruett for Prison Murder Despite Corruption and Lack of Physical Evidence
Though no physical evidence links him to the crime, Texas is set to execute Robert Pruett (pictured) on October 12 for the 1999 stabbing death of a state correctional officer who was at the center of a prison corruption investigation. Results of a DNA test of the murder weapon in 2015 found DNA that matched neither Pruett nor the victim, Officer Daniel Nagle. According to Pruett’s pending clemency petition, Officer Nagle was working to identify corrupt correctional officers who had been…
Issues
Jun 28, 2017
New Podcast: Duane Buck’s Appeal Lawyer Tells Story of His Case, Discusses Future Dangerousness and Racial Bias
In DPIC’s latest podcast, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Litigation Director Christina Swarns (pictured, center, outside the U.S. Supreme Court following the argument in Buck v. Davis) discusses the issues of race, future dangerousness, and ineffective representation presented in the landmark case. She calls the case — in which a Texas trial lawyer who represented 21 clients sent to death row presented an expert witness who testified that his own client was more likely to commit future…
Issues
Jun 09, 2017
Duane Buck’s Lawyer Discusses How Future Dangerousness Taints Texas Death Penalty System
Thirty years ago, filmmaker Errol Morris, who directed the documentary “The Thin Blue Line,” helped to exonerate Texas death-row prisoner Dale Adams, falsely accused of murdering a police officer. During the course of making the film, Morris met the notorious Texas prosecution psychiatrist, Dr. James Grigson, who routinely testified that capital defendants — including the innocent Mr. Adams — posed a risk of future dangerousness. Morris recently interviewed Christina Swarns (pictured, center)…
Issues
Victims' Families
,Executions Overview
,Apr 10, 2017
Texas Court Stays Execution of Paul Storey Based on False Argument About Wishes of Victim’s Family
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has issued an order staying the scheduled April 12 execution of Paul Storey. The unpublished April 7 order sends Storey’s case back to the trial court to consider whether the prosecution knowingly presented false evidence about the victim’s family’s views on the death penalty. Storey had been scheduled to be executed on April 12. His lawyers argued that “the State denied him his right to due process because it argued “evidence it knew to be false” when…
Issues
Mar 09, 2017
LAW REVIEWS: Predictions of Future Dangerousness Contribute to Arbitrary Sentencing Decisions
In a new article for the Lewis & Clark Law Review, author Carla Edmondson argues that the future dangerousness inquiry that is implicit in capital setencing determinations “is a fundamentally flawed question that leads to arbitrary and capricious death sentences” and because of the “persistent influence of future dangerousness … renders the death penalty incompatible with the prohibitions of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments on cruel and unusual punishment.” Edmonson’s article, Nothing is…
Issues
Feb 22, 2017
Supreme Court Grants Relief to Duane Buck in Texas Racial Bias Death Penalty Case
Saying that the “law punishes people for what they do, not who they are,” the Supreme Court on February 22, 2017, granted relief to Duane Buck (pictured, right), a Texas death-row prisoner who was sentenced to death after his own lawyer presented testimony from a psychologist who told the jury Buck was more likely to commit future acts of violence because he is black. Writing for the six-Justice majority, Chief Justice Roberts (pictured, left) said that “[d]ispensing punishment on the basis of…
Issues
Feb 08, 2017
Problems in Florida, Arizona Crime Labs Renew Questions About Reliability of Forensic Testimony
More than 2,600 Florida cases — including at least one capital case — may have been tainted by erroneous fingerprint analysis by a long-term employee of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, according to letters sent to defense counsel by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office. The revelations were another in a series of events raising questions about the reliability of forensic evidence that is being used in capital prosecutions across the United States. In early February 2017, the…
Issues
Dec 08, 2016
Experts Say Texas’ Future Dangerousness Concept Is Based on Junk Science
Since 1973, juries in Texas have had to determine whether a defendant presents a future danger to society before imposing a death sentence. But while they have found that each of the 244 men and women currently on the state’s death row poses “a continuing threat to society,” experts argue that juries cannot accurately predict a defendant’s future. According to Dr. Mark Cunningham, a psychologist and leading researcher on the issue of future dangerousness, “[j]uries show absolutely no…
Issues
Oct 25, 2016
Supported by New DNA Evidence, Man Sentenced to Death in Virginia in 1970 Files Innocence Claim
Sherman Brown (pictured), a man who was sentenced to death in Virginia in 1970 for the murder of a 4‑year-old boy, has filed a writ of actual innocence with the Virginia Supreme Court saying that DNA testing on recently discovered evidence clears him of the crime. Brown’s petition states: “Recent DNA testing demonstrates by clear and convincing evidence what I have maintained for over 45 years: that I am innocent of this crime. The evidence against me at trial was deeply flawed.” Brown was…
Executions
Executions Overview
,Oct 13, 2016
Texas Executions Drop to Lowest Level in 20 Years
Texas is poised to have the fewest number of executions in 20 years. As of October, the state has executed seven prisoners in 2016, with just one more execution scheduled this calendar year. The total would mark the fewest executions in the state in any year since 1996. In that year, three people were executed, as legal challenges to a new state law billed as speeding up appeals put most executions on hold. Fifteen execution dates for 11 people have been stayed or halted in Texas this year.
Issues
Sep 06, 2016
Mississippi Attorney General Tries to Remove Defense Lawyers Who Challenged Suspect Bitemark Evidence
Attorneys for Mississippi death row prisoner Eddie Lee Howard (pictured) are seeking to prove his innocence and challenging the questionable expert bite mark testimony that persuaded jurors to convict him and sentence him to death in 1992. As part of the attack on that evidence, Howard’s lawyers recently deposed Michael West, the discredited forensic odontologist who testified against Howard and many other defendants in the 1990s, primarily in Mississippi and Louisiana. A two-part story by…
Issues
Sep 02, 2016
OUTLIER COUNTIES: Maricopa, Arizona — “Outrageously Exploited Power,” “Crippled” Defense, and Five Exonerations
Maricopa County, Arizona imposed 28 death sentences between 2010 and 2015 and, as described in a BuzzFeed news analysis of a new report on outlier death penalty practices, “stands out for its stark examples of the problems found across the counties that most often sentence people to death.” The report, Too Broken to Fix, by Harvard University’s Fair Punishment Project, studied the nation’s 16 most prolific death-sentencing counties and found that Maricopa County exhibited systemic problems…
Issues
Aug 09, 2016
Defense Lawyers, Former Prosecutors, and Constitutional Rights Groups File Amicus Briefs in Buck v. Davis
Five groups, representing defense lawyers, former prosecutors, and organizations devoted to protecting constitutional liberties have filed amicus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Texas death row prisoner Duane Buck. Buck was sentenced to death when a psychiatrist presented by his own lawyer said he posed a greater potential danger to society because he is Black, and the case attained widespread notoriety after the new Texas attorney general failed to honor a commitment by his…
Issues
Aug 04, 2016
Texas Prisoner Who Did Not Kill Anyone Challenges Execution, Use of False Psychiatrist Testimony to Condemn Him to Die
Lawyers for Jeffery Wood (pictured), a Texas death row prisoner who is scheduled to be executed August 24 despite undisputed evidence that he has never killed anyone, have filed a new petition in state court challenging his death sentence on multiple grounds. They argue that Wood cannot be subject to the death penalty because he neither killed nor intended for anyone to be killed and was not even aware the robbery in which a codefendant killed a store clerk was going to occur. They also…
Issues
Jun 17, 2016
Texas Court Stays Execution of Man Convicted by Now Debunked “Shaken Baby” Testimony
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has granted a stay of execution to Robert Roberson (pictured), who had been scheduled to be executed on June 21 for the 2003 death of his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis. The court’s June 16 stay order halts Roberson’s execution under a recent Texas law permitting court challenges based on new scientific evidence of innocence. Prosecution experts had testified at Roberson’s trial that his daughter died of Shaken Baby Syndrome, asserting that…
Issues
Jun 06, 2016
Supreme Court To Hear Texas Death Penalty Cases Dealing with Racial Bias, Intellectual Disability
On June 6, the U.S. Supreme Court granted writs of certiorari in two Texas death penalty cases, and will review the constitutionality of those death sentences during its next term. The two cases are Buck v. Stephens, in which Duane Buck was sentenced to death after a psychologist testified at his penalty trial that the fact that Buck is African-American increases the likelihood that he presents a future danger to society; and Moore v. Texas, a challenge to Texas’ unscientific test for…
Issues
Apr 15, 2016
Supreme Court to Consider Hearing Texas Capital Case Where Expert Said Defendant Posed Greater Danger Because He Was Black
UPDATE: The Supreme Court docket indicates that its conferencing of Mr. Buck’s case, originally set for April 22, has been rescheduled. The Court is now scheduled to considering the case on April 29. PREVIOUSLY: On April 22, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to confer on whether to review the case of Duane Buck (pictured), who was sentenced to death in Harris County, Texas after a psychologist testified that he posed an increased risk of future dangerousness because he is black. In the case…
Issues
Jan 15, 2016
Texas Prepares to Execute Richard Masterson While Autopsy Data Suggests Death Was Not Murder At All
As Texas readies itself to execute Richard Masterson (pictured), his lawyers have filed new pleadings questioning whether any murder occurred at all and are seeking a stay of execution based on what they say is “evidence of State fraud, misconduct, and his actual innocence.” Masterson’s filings challenge the forensic testimony presented by the prosecution in the case, the accuracy of instructions given to jurors, and the constitutionality of Texas’ lethal injection secrecy law. Masterson is…
Issues
Nov 17, 2015
Forensic Pseudoscience and the Death Penalty
In light of the FBI’s acknowledgement in April that flawed forensic testimony by its expert hair-comparison analysts had tainted at least 268 cases, including 32 death penalty cases, forensic science is coming under increased scrutiny. A commentary in the Boston Review argues that “mounting horror stories,” including instances of crime-lab “corruption and dysfunction, have created a moment of crisis in forensic science.” Referencing “scores of individual cases in which forensic science failures…
Issues
Nov 05, 2015
History of Misconduct Chronicled in Oklahoma County With 41 Executions
Oklahoma County has executed 41 prisoners since 1976, the third highest in the country, and is among the 2% of American counties responsible for 56% of the men and women currently on the nation’s death rows. A ThinkProgress report chronicles the decades-long pattern of misconduct committed under its long-time District Attorney “Cowboy Bob” Macy (pictured). Macy sent 54 people to death row during his 21 years as District Attorney, more than any other prosecutor in the U.S. in that period. “Macy…
Issues
Aug 27, 2015
Federal Court Rejects Duane Buck Racial Bias Appeal
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected an appeal in the case of Texas death row inmate Duane Buck, who argued that his trial was tainted by ineffective representation and racial bias when Buck’s own mental health expert testified that he could be a future danger to society because he is black. Dr. Walter Quijano, a clinical psychologist, testified in the sentencing phase of Buck’s case on the issue of future dangerousness. The prosecutor asked Quijano, “You have determined…
Issues
Jun 22, 2015
STUDY: “The Hidden Costs of Wrongful Capital Prosecutions in North Carolina”
A new study by North Carolina’s Center for Death Penalty Litigation examines the financial and human costs of cases in which, “prosecutors sought the death penalty despite a clear lack of evidence, resulting in acquittal or dismissal of charges.” The report found 56 such cases in North Carolina since 1989, in which innocent people spent a total of 112 years spent in jail, with $2.4 million spent in defense costs alone in these weak death penalty cases. The authors compare these cases to those…
Issues
May 04, 2015
Charges Dropped Against Willie Manning; Becomes 153rd Death Row Exoneree
On April 21, 2015, Oktibbeha County (Mississippi) District Attorney Forrest Allgood announced that he would drop charges against death row inmate Willie Manning. In February, the Mississippi Supreme court granted Manning a new trial, saying that key evidence was withheld. Justice Michael K. Randolph wrote, “The State violated Manning’s due-process rights by failing to provide favorable, material evidence.” A witness testified that he saw Manning enter the victims’ apartment, but police records…
Issues
Apr 20, 2015
FBI Acknowledges Flawed Forensic Testimony Affected At Least 32 Death Penalty Cases
(Click on image to enlarge). The Federal Bureau of Investigation has formally acknowledged that examiners from the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit for decades provided flawed forensic testimony purportedly matching crime scene hair evidence to the hair of defendants charged with those crimes. As part of an ongoing review of inaccurate forensic evidence, the FBI admitted that, in the 268 trials examined so far, its forensic experts systematically overstated the certainty of…
Issues
New Voices
,Sep 24, 2014
NEW VOICES: Former FBI Director Says People Were Executed Based Partly on Faulty Agency Testimony
William Sessions, former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, recently pointed to cases of defendants who were executed based in part on faulty hair and fiber analysis in calling for changes in the use of forensic evidence. In an op-ed in the Washington Times, Sessions told the story of Benjamin Boyle, who was executed in Texas in 1997. His conviction was based on testing conducted by an FBI crime lab that an official review later determined to be unreliable and “scientifically…
Issues
Sep 16, 2014
POSSIBLE INNOCENCE: Mississippi Inmate Challenges Bite-Mark Evidence
A new appeal filed on behalf of Mississippi death row inmate Eddie Howard, Jr. presented DNA evidence that calls into question bite-mark evidence used to convict him in 1992. At Howard’s trial, Dr. Michael West, a Mississippi dentist who had testified as a forensic expert in numerous cases, said Howard’s teeth matched bite marks found on the murder victim. The victim had been buried for three days and exhumed before West examined her. He said he found three bite marks that matched Howard “to a…
Issues
Aug 12, 2013
STUDIES: Texas To Re-Examine Previous Convictions for Forensic Errors
The Texas Forensic Science Commission announced it will study prior criminal convictions to determine whether mistakes were made using discredited forensic testimony. The Commission will employ DNA testing to review cases in which microscopic hair fibers were used to convict people of rape, murder, robbery, and other crimes. It has recently been established that it is impossible to match a hair under a microscope to a specific person. Forensic experts can make an “association” between a sample…
Issues
Jul 18, 2013
FBI To Examine 27 Death Penalty Cases For Potentially Inaccurate Testimony
A Federal Bureau of Investigation review of more than 21,000 cases has revealed 27 death penalty cases in which the FBI’s forensic experts may have exaggerated the scientific conclusions that could be drawn from their testimony, mistakenly linking defendants to crimes they may not have committed. It is possible that some of these cases involve inmates who have already been executed. Under particular scrutiny is testimony regarding hair evidence. Although FBI laboratory reports have long stated…
Issues
New Voices
,Jun 11, 2013
OP-ED: “DNA: A Test for Justice”
In a recent op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, former FBI Director William Sessions (pictured) underscored the importance of reliable FBI forensic analysis in convicting the guilty and exonerating the innocent. Sessions provided the example of Willie Jerome Manning, who received a last-minute stay of execution in Mississippi in order to allow time to conduct testing on DNA evidence that could exonerate him. Manning was convicted in 1994 based on FBI testimony that has since been invalidated by the…
Issues
Mar 14, 2013
RACE: New Study Shows Racial Bias in Seeking the Death Penalty in Harris County
A new study regarding the use of the death penalty in Harris County, Texas, was released in conjunction with the filing of an appeal by Harris County death row inmate, Duane Buck. The research was conducted by Professor Raymond Paternoster of the University of Maryland, who examined over 500 murder cases in the county. The study found that, in cases with circumstances similar to Buck’s and during the time in which he was tried, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office sought the death…
Issues
Feb 18, 2013
MULTIMEDIA: “One For Ten” Introduces Documentaries on Death Row Exonerees
One For Ten is a new collection of documentary films telling the stories of innocent people who were on death row in the U.S. The first film of the series is on Ray Krone, one of the 142 people who have been exonerated and freed from death row since 1973. Krone was released from Arizona’s death row in 2002 after DNA testing showed he did not commit the murder for which he was sentenced to death 10 years earlier. Krone was convicted based largely on circumstantial evidence and bite-mark…
Issues
Jan 10, 2013
Mississippi Inmate Faces Execution Despite Questionable Evidence from Overworked Medical Examiner
Jeffrey Havard (pictured) is facing execution in Mississippi despite the fact that key evidence against him came from a medical examiner who has been harshly criticized by experts in his field. Havard was convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s 6‑month-old daughter, based primarily on the testimony of Steven Hayne, a state pathologist. Dr. Hayne testified he found symptoms of “shaken baby syndrome” and sexual abuse on the infant. Recent investigations into Hayne’s credentials indicate he had…
Issues
Aug 18, 2011
NEW RESOURCES: The Causes of Wrongful Convictions
The Innocence Project has launched a new multimedia resource illustrating the main causes of wrongful convictions and the reforms necessary to prevent such mistakes. This interactive tool, “Getting it Right,” features videos, case studies and research on such topics as false confessions, eyewitness identification, informant testimony, and failures by the defense and prosecution. Three death penalty cases are highlighted: Ron Williamson, Earl Washington, Jr., and Ray Krone, who collectively…
Issues
Mar 14, 2011
Judge Dismisses Capital Murder Charges After Finding State Report “Intentionally Misleading”
On March 10, a North Carolina superior court judge released his opinion throwing out murder charges against Derrick Michael Allen, who was accused in the 1998 death and sexual assault of a 2‑year-old girl. Judge Orlando Hudson dismissed the case after finding that a State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) report was prepared in an “inaccurate, incomplete and intentionally misleading manner.” Judge Hudson also found that an SBI agent (now suspended) and a former assistant district attorney working…
Issues
Dec 03, 2010
OP-ED: “Capital Punishment and Human Fallibility”
A recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, highlighs flaws in Texas’s death penalty system that led to the execution of Claude Jones (pictured). Then-governor George Bush rejected Jones’s application for a reprieve. Bush was not informed that the reprieve would allow time for DNA tests to be performed on a strand of hair that was found at the crime scene. This hair had been attributed to Jones at his trial and was the only piece of evidence…
Issues
Nov 12, 2010
Another Texas Execution Thrown in Doubt by New DNA Tests
Recent DNA tests raise serious doubts about the conviction of a man executed in Texas in 2000. The tests revealed that a strand of hair found at the scene of a liquor-store shooting did not belong to Claude Jones, as was originally implied by the prosecution. Instead, the hair belonged to the victim. Jones was executed for the murder of the store’s owner. The strand of hair was the only piece of physical evidence that placed Jones at the scene of the crime, and this revelation raises the…
Issues
Jun 16, 2010
DNA Evidence Could Show If Texas Executed an Innocent Man
Texas Judge Paul C. Murphy recently ordered prosecutors to hand over key evidence from a 1989 murder case to the Innocence Project and the Texas Observer for DNA testing. In 2007, the Innocence Project and the Observer filed suit to obtain a one-inch strand of hair that allegedly implicated Claude Howard Jones (pictured) in the killing of a liquor store owner in San Jacinto County. Other than vague eyewitness accounts and questionable testimony from Jones’s two friends who were also at the…
Issues
Apr 03, 2009
STUDIES: Researchers Find Root of Wrongful Convictions in Forensic Science Testimony
A groundbreaking study by Brandon Garrett and Peter Neufeld published in the Virginia Law Review explores erroneous scientific testimony by prosecution experts in the trials of defendants who were later exonerated through DNA testing. The research, “Invalid Forensic Science Testimony and Wrongful Convictions,” explored serological analysis and microscopic hair comparison, bite mark evidence, shoe prints, soil, fiber, fingerprint comparisons, and DNA testing. In 60% of the trials, the…
Issues
May 27, 2008
Texas Death Row Inmate May Be Exonerated As Prosecution Recommends Overturning Conviction
Based on statements from the District Attorney’s office, it appears that Texas wrongly convicted Michael Blair and sentenced him to death in 1994 for the sexual assault and murder of 7‑year-old Ashley Estell. The case led to the passage of “Ashley’s Laws” to increase punishments for such offenses. Collin County District Attorney John Roach announced that new DNA tests show no physical evidence linking Blair to the crime. The only forensic evidence that pointed to Blair for the kidnap-murder was…
Issues
Dec 05, 2007
INNOCENCE: Another Inmate is Exonerated, After 16 Years on Death Row
On December 5, a Tennessee jury acquitted Michael Lee McCormick of the 1985 murder of Donna Jean Nichols, a crime for which McCormick spent 16 years on death row. In his first trial, the prosecution introduced hair evidence from Nichols’ car that the FBI said matched McCormick. DNA testing later found that the hair did not match McCormick and this evidence was not permitted in the new trial. McCormick’s attorney, Karla Gothard said after the trial, “We have been living with this case for years…
Issues
Sep 10, 2007
Judge Blocks Texas From Destroying Evidence in Case of Possible Wrongful Execution
A Texas judge blocked the destruction of DNA evidence that could prove the innocence of a man who was executed in 2000. A joint motion filed by a coalition of concerned groups sought DNA testing on a hair taken from the crime scene in the case of Claude Jones. In addition, the groups asked the court to impose a restraining order to prevent Texas from destroying the evidence while the court considers their request for DNA testing. Judge Elizabeth Coker granted the restraining order request and…
Issues
Jul 23, 2007
NEW RESOURCES: Destroyed DNA Evidence Blocks Possible Exonerations
A recent four-part series in the Denver Post about evidence in criminal cases detailed how police departments across the U.S. store and dispose of crucial biological evidence. The Post examined 10 states in which authorities destroyed biological evidence in nearly 6,000 rape and murder cases during the past decade. The investigation also revealed that over the past 30 years, destruction of DNA evidence in 28 states has undermined efforts by at least 141 prisoners to prove their innocence. Of…
Issues
May 11, 2007
BREAKING NEWS: Oklahoma Man Freed Today from Death Row — 124th Death Penalty Exoneration
Curtis Edward McCarty, who had been sentenced to die three times and has spent 21 years on Oklahoma’s death row for a crime he did not commit, has been released after District Court Judge Twyla Mason Gray ordered that the charges against him be dismissed. Gray ruled that the case against McCarty was tainted by the questionable testimony of former police chemist Joyce Gilchrist, who gave improper expert testimony about semen and hair evidence during McCarty’s trial. Oklahoma County District…
Issues
Feb 01, 2007
Another Prisoner Freed After DNA Evidence Leads to Exoneration
After spending 15 years in a New York prison for murder, Roy Brown has been exonerated through DNA evidence and is free. Brown is the eighth person in New York to be exonerated due to DNA evidence in the past 13 months, more than in any other state during the same period. While in prison, Brown conducted his own investigation of his wrongful conviction and found documents incriminating another man in the murder of Sabina Kulakowski. The documents pointed to Barry Bench, a volunteer firefighter…
Issues
Feb 24, 2006
Another Innocent Inmate to be Freed From Death Row
The Florida Supreme Court unanimously overturned the conviction of death row inmate John Robert Ballard (pictured) and ordered his acquittal in the 1999 murders of two of his acquaintances. The Court concluded that the evidence against Ballard was so weak that the trial judge should have dismissed the case immediately. The primary evidence presented against Ballard was a hair and a fingerprint, both of which he could have left during his many visits to the victims’ apartment. Bloody…
Issues
Aug 02, 2005
Convictions Overturned In Pennsylvania and New Jersery through DNA Testing
Thomas Doswell of Pennsylvania and Larry Peterson of New Jersey recently had their convictions overturned as a direct result of DNA testing. Each defendant had serverd 18 years in prison. In Peterson’s case, the prosecution had sought the death penalty but the jury could not agree and he was sentenced to life. His case marked the first time a New Jersey court has overturned a conviction because of DNA evidence. Both reversals stemmed from the work of attorneys at the Innocence Project of the…
Issues
Apr 29, 2005
DNA Evidence May Lead to Exoneration in Former Capital Case
Results from DNA testing may soon lead to the exoneration of Larry Peterson in New Jersey. He would become the first person in the state to be cleared of a homicide through DNA evidence. Peterson was convicted of a rape and murder that occurred in 1987. For the past 10 years, Peterson tried to have DNA evidence from his case tested. At his original trial in which he faced the possibility of a death sentence, the prosecution maintained that hairs from the crime scene belonged to Peterson. He was…
Issues
Apr 19, 2005
Attorneys Seek DNA Testing In Case of Executed Texas Man
Attorney Barry Scheck plans to ask Texas Governor Rick Perry to order DNA testing in the case of Claude Jones, who maintained his innocence until his execution in December 2000. Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, says Jones’ conviction was largely based on dubious evidence. The state’s case against him included testimony from an accomplice linking Jones to the crime and the report of a state forensic scientist who examined a one-inch length of hair found at the crime scene. The…
Oct 19, 2004
Chicago Tribune Investigates Forensic Science and Wrongful Convictions
A five-part Chicago Tribune investigation of forensics in the courtroom has revealed that flawed testing analysis, questionable science once considered reliable, and shoddy crime lab practices can often lead to wrongful convictions. Developments in DNA technology have helped shed new light on these problems by revealing the shaky scientific foundations of techniques like fingerprinting, firearm identification, arson investigation, and bite-mark comparison. A review of 200 DNA and death row…
Jun 17, 2004
EDITORIALS: Dallas Morning News Says Texas’ Statute is “Wrong and Should Not Stand”
A recent Dallas Morning News editorial decried the use of expert witnesses who claim to have the ability to predict future dangerousness, a determination that jurors in Texas heavily rely on in sentencing people to death. The editorial states: In Texas, we execute criminals not for what they did, but for what they might do. Convicted murderer David Harris has a date with the executioner June 30 for having killed a man in a Beaumont gunfight. But that’s not enough to get Mr. Harris, or any…
Issues
Jun 16, 2004
Texas Relies on “Junk Science” in Choosing Who Will Be Sentenced to Death
Texas plans to execute David Harris on June 30th on the basis of a prediction in 1986 that he would be a future danger even if sentenced to life in prison. Dr. Edward Gripon testified that Harris posed a substantial risk of committing further violent acts, even though Gripon had never met or examined Harris. During his nearly two decades on death row, Harris has had only minor infractions, such as having too many postage stamps or hanging a clothesline in his cell. In a 1983 brief to the U.S.
Oct 22, 2003
Judge Throws Out Last Piece of Evidence Against Tennessee Man
Michael Lee McCormick has been on Tennessee’s death row for 17 years, but a recent court decision throwing out the remaining evidence against him could result in his freedom. Judge Doug Meyer ruled that tapes containing conversations between McCormick and an undercover police officer who had befriended him were inadmissible due to “police misconduct.” Meyer noted that McCormick, who is an alcoholic, had continually denied his involvement in the crime “until the authorities made him dependent…
Issues
Jan 24, 2003
ANOTHER FLORIDA DEATH ROW INMATE TO BE RELEASED AFTER STATE DROPS ALL CHARGES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 24, 2003 Contact: Richard Dieter: 202 – 293-6970 ANOTHER FLORIDA DEATH ROW INMATE TO BE RELEASED AFTER STATE DROPS ALL CHARGES Prosecution Withheld Crucial Evidence; DNA Helps Clear Rudolph Holton Washington, DC — Rudolph Holton will be released from Florida’s death row later today in Raiford, becoming the 103 person exonerated and freed from death row since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Holton’s conviction for murder was overturned in…
Issues
Apr 09, 2002
100th DEATH ROW EXONEREE FREED IN ARIZONA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, April 9, 2002 CONTACT: BRENDA BOWSER (202) 293‑6970 bbowser@deathpenaltyinfo.org 100th DEATH ROW EXONEREE FREED IN ARIZONA DNA evidence vindicates man wrongfully convicted of 1991 murder WASHINGTON, DC — Ray Krone is the 100th innocent person convicted of capital murder to walk free from prison since 1973, according to an announcement made today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). Krone — who maintained his innocence throughout his incarceration…
Issues
Apr 09, 2002
DPIC Press Release: 100th DEATH ROW EXONEREE FREED IN ARIZONA
100th DEATH ROW EXONEREE FREED IN ARIZONA DNA evidence vindicates man wrongfully convicted of 1991 murder WASHINGTON, DC — Ray Krone is the 100th innocent person convicted of capital murder to walk free from prison since 1973, according to an announcement made today by the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). Krone — who maintained his innocence throughout his incarceration — was sentenced to death in 1992 for the murder of Kim Ancona, a Phoenix cocktail waitress. He spent three years on…
Issues
Dec 31, 2000
A State of Denial: Texas Justice and the Death Penalty
The nation is embroiled in a debate over the death penalty. Each day brings fresh accounts of racial bias, incompetent counsel, and misconduct committed by police officers or prosecutors in capital cases. The public increasingly questions whether the ultimate penalty can be administered fairly — free from the taint of racism; free from the disgrace of counsel sleeping through a client’s trial; free from the risk of executing an innocent person. Support for the death penalty is falling, and…