Entries tagged with “forensic science”
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…
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
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
Mar 11, 2020
News Brief — Texas Appeals Court Rejects Recommendation for New Trial for Rigoberto Avila
NEWS (3/11/20): The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA) has rejected 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. Avila was sentenced to death for the alleged murder of a 19-month-old infant based upon what he contended was false expert testimony that he had abused the child. The TCCA stayed Avila’s execution in January 2014 based…
Issues
Dec 06, 2019
Federal Appeals Court Grants New Trial to Arizona Death-Row Prisoner Who May Not Have Committed Murder
A federal appeals court has reversed the conviction of Arizona death-row prisoner Barry Jones (pictured) based on medical evidence suggesting that he may not have committed the murder for which he was sentenced to death. On November 29, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit threw out Jones’ convictions for child abuse, sexual assault, and felony murder of his girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter amid doubts about the prosecution’s claims that Jones had battered and sexually…
Issues
Upcoming Executions
,Aug 21, 2019
Texas to Execute Larry Swearingen Based on Forensic “Quackery,” Lawyers Say
With serious doubts swirling as to virtually every piece of forensic evidence in his case, Texas plans to execute Larry Swearingen — who has always maintained his innocence in the murder of Melissa Trotter — on August 21, 2019. His attorneys say his conviction is grounded in junk science that has been repudiated by numerous forensic experts, including false testimony regarding pantyhose used to strangle Trotter, blood found under her fingernails, and the time of her death. Even after the Texas…
Issues
Oct 10, 2018
Texas Courts Rule for Two Death-Row Prisoners on Intellectual Disability, Junk-Science Claims
Two Texas prisoners took steps away from death row as state courts ruled in their favor on issues involving false or faulty scientific evidence and argument. On October 5, 2018, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) granted a stay of execution to Juan Segundo (pictured, left), directing a Tarrant County trial court to reconsider a claim of intellectual disability that the courts had previously rejected based on an unconstitutional, unscientific standard for measuring his functioning. Four…
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
Sep 29, 2016
Orange County, California Crime Lab Accused of Doctoring Murder Testimony to Help Prosecutors
The Orange County, California Crime Lab has been accused of doctoring its testimony about DNA evidence to favor the prosecution, after a senior forensic analyst offered conflicting conclusions that bolstered the prosecution in two separate murder cases. A motion filed on September 23 by the Orange County Public Defender’s office says prosecutor Kevin Haskins (now a judge) presented testimony from Senior Forensic Scientist Mary Hong in the 2008 capital murder prosecution of Lynn Dean Johnson…