April 24
TEXAS:
Prosecutors consider pursuing death penalty against husband accused of killing
wife
The trial of a husband accused of killing his wife will wait at least another 6
weeks as prosecutors look at the possibility of seeking the death penalty.
Jesse Perales is facing a capital murder charge for allegedly shooting his wife
in front of their children back in February 2014.
According to police, the husband kicked in the door of the home where Krystal
Perales was staying. She was chased to the backyard and shot in the head. Their
son and family witnessed everything.
Attorneys were granted 6 weeks to prepare for another hearing on the case.
(source: KRIS TV news)
*******************
Exonerated death row inmate visits Texas Tech
17 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit.
Juan Melendez exonerated in 2002 now works with the Innocence Project to
eliminate the very social issue that nearly eliminated him. He's shared his
story in multiple documentaries bringing to light the fallacies of the death
penalty. Melendez has made it his life mission to speak to young adults which
he fulfilled this week on the Texas Tech campus.
"I'm trying to motivate them to get involved in social issues and problems in
the community and I think the death penalty is a problem," Melendez said. "The
law is made by human beings and carried out by human beings."
Melendez is the 99th death row prisoner nationwide to be exonerated since 1973.
(source: myfoxlubbock.com)
ALABAMA:
Former death row inmate talks about his new freedom
The Birmingham man who spent nearly 30 years on death row before he was
released from prison is slowly adjusting to his new life. Anthony Ray Hinton's
case was dropped by prosecutors after new tests on a gun originally believed to
be used in 2 murders did not match bullets from the crime scenes. The weapon
had been found in his mother's home.
3 weeks after his release Hinton met ABC3340 for an exclusive interview. Hinton
said when he first walked out of jail he thought of Martin Luther King's words:
"Free at last, free at last, great God almighty, I'm free at last."
"I felt relieved, I felt great but after the cameras leave reality sets back
in. That's the part you or nobody else can capture." We talked with Hinton at
the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery. The non-profit group worked for
years to clear Hinton's name. Their involvement began with a letter to attorney
Bryan Stevenson.
"If he would come see me I told him I would pay his gas but I couldn't pay for
his time. I received a letter 2 weeks later that he would come talk to me. I
had faith in God that he had sent me his best people," explained Hinton.
Without those people Hinton says an innocent man would have been executed. "The
fact that we don't have a perfect system should eliminate the death penalty
because mistakes are made."
That mistake put Hinton in a solitary cell for 1/2 his life on death row.
Sometimes going weeks without a walk outside and reading books to pass the
time. "You have to find something to carry you to another place. I went to New
York. I went to Hawaii," recalls Hinton.
He also remembers the stench of death watching inmates lead away for their
executions. "No man should be put in place where you smell the flesh of a man
that's been executed."
We asked Hinton about his 1st stop after leaving prison: his mother's grave. He
could not say goodbye to her or attend her funeral. Through tears he explained
his visit to her gravesite: "When I got to the grave I kissed the headstone. I
felt I let her down. The love I had for my mother was like no other... She was
my best friend."
Hinton isn't sure what the future holds. For now he's living with a friend in
Birmingham working on necessities like getting a drivers license and learning
new technology. He was most amazed by his friend's GPS which lead them straight
to Montgomery with that woman's voice guiding the way! A friend has taught him
to text and send pictures via cellphone.
Even with freedom, he says there is a feeling of being locked up. "Still to
this day I cry because people look at the outside and can't see the inside. I
feel I'm scarred."
Convicted for the 1985 murders of 2 restaurant managers, Hinton feels anger
towards a justice system that took so long to test crucial evidence. "Was their
hated so bad for a poor black man that they didn't care at all? They knew the
gun never matched that's why they never tested it 16 years ago. What would it
cost to test it? Justice is supposed to be about the truth," remarked Hinton.
"I just want somebody to say Mr. Hinton 30 years ago a grave mistake was done
on you and we apologize," says Hinton. He believes the victim's families have
suffered even more and they also deserve an apology. Under state law, Hinton
could petition to be compensated for his time in prison. But at this point he
has not pursued that.
Hinton's attorneys hope with so many convictions in question, states like
Alabama will set up committees to speed up reviews where there are real
concerns about someone's innocence on death row. They say it should not have
taken 16 years of work to free Hinton.
(source: ABC news)
MISSISSIPPI:
On Death Row for the Wrong Hair
Hair analysis helped to send Willie Jerome Manning to death row 21 years ago.
The science proved to be wrong but not before hundreds of men had been
convicted or even executed.
For 21 years, death row inmate Willie Jerome Manning has waited for a DNA test
to prove his innocence. In 1994, he was convicted in the murder of 2 white
Mississippi State University students, who were kidnapped outside a frat house
and later found shot in the head.
Manning was a black man facing an all-white Southern jury, and the cards were
already stacked against him. The prosecutor's case relied on testimony from a
jailhouse snitch and a woman who wanted to see her own criminal charges
disappear - and an FBI expert who said a hair sample linked Manning to the
crime. Manning was convicted and sentenced to death.
But on May 7, 2013, he got an 11th-hour stay of his execution. The reprieve
came days after the Department of Justice delivered letters calling the Federal
Bureau of Investigation's microscopic hair comparison analysis flawed.
"We have determined that the microscopic hair comparison analysis ... included
statements that exceeded the limits of science and was, therefore, invalid,"
read one DOJ letter to Oktibbeha County District Attorney Deforest Allgood.
While there wasn't a positive match, the FBI expert "stated or implied ... that
a questioned hair could be associated with a specific individual to the
exclusion of all others."
Rob Mink, an attorney for Manning, told The Daily Beast that the FBI's hair
analysis was drilled into jurors during closing arguments. "The hair testimony
was emphasized repeatedly by the prosecutor who tried the case," said Mink, a
trial attorney in Jackson, Mississippi. The DA echoed the FBI's claim that the
sample likely belonged to a black man.
"We should all be very concerned and frightened that this sort of thing can
happen," Mink added. "A person can be convicted and sentenced to death, and
science later shows the conviction is invalid and not reliable."
Manning's case is only 1 among thousands from the 1980s and '90s that used the
FBI's pseudoscientific analysis - which may have resulted in death sentences or
decades-long imprisonment for innocent people.
"There was massive scientific illiteracy at the FBI crime lab for multiple
decades, or this was done deliberately. There's plenty of evidence of both,
really."
Microscopic hair comparison is not a DNA test. Rather, follicles are put under
a microscope and inspected against hair samples of parties involved in a crime.
In 2009, the National Academy of Science called it "highly unreliable."
To date, 74 of the country's 329 wrongful convictions overturned by DNA
evidence involved the hair analysis, according to the Innocence Project.
On Monday, the DOJ and FBI acknowledged that its experts provided faulty and
exaggerated testimony favoring the prosecution for 2 decades - a scandal that's
propelled the largest post-conviction review in the country.
As early as 1984, the FBI acknowledged that microscopic hair comparison
couldn't positively determine whether hair belongs to a certain individual. The
admission, however, didn't stop its experts from using it.
Now the feds are slated to review thousands of cases where FBI experts
submitted reports or testified in trials using the method. An ongoing review is
being conducted in tandem with the Innocence Project and National Association
of Criminal Defense Lawyers and so far, it is shocking:
All but 2 of 28 FBI examiners testifying in 41 states provided testimony or lab
reports that contained erroneous statements.
-- Of the 268 cases where FBI analysts provided testimony, 96 % contained
erroneous statements.
-- In 35 cases where defendants received the death penalty, 33 contained
errors. 9 of the defendants have been executed, while 5 more died in prison.
These figures only represent cases involving the FBI's reports. There's no
telling how many state experts - including those who received training from FBI
examiners - are still using the dubious method or how it has influenced their
cases.
"The [FBI] examiners gave false and misleading testimony ... but what's worse,
they released a virus from the FBI's hair unit to the criminal justice system,"
Chris Fabricant, director of strategic litigation at the Innocence Project,
told The Daily Beast.
"There are only 2 conclusions that can be drawn from this," he added. "There
was massive scientific illiteracy at the FBI crime lab for multiple decades, or
this was done deliberately. There's plenty of evidence of both, really."
State courts are following the FBI's lead
Some cases put people behind bars for decades - even when the evidence was
hanging by a single hair. George Perrot has spent 30 years in prison for rape
because an FBI examiner convinced a jury that a strand of hair belonged to him,
his attorneys charge.
In 1984 and '85, authorities in Springfield, Massachusetts, grappled with a
series of rapes targeting elderly women. Perrot was only 17 years old when he
was put on trial for the rape and robbery of one 78-year-old - who repeatedly
told police and prosecutors he looked nothing like her attacker.
There was no blood or semen or other materials to test for evidence, but Perrot
was put away for life. His attorneys are requesting a new trial.
For Claude Jones, a DNA test came too late. In 1989, Jones was convicted in the
killing of a liquor-store owner during a robbery in Texas. His 2 conspirators
testified against him, but under Texas law, accomplice testimony isn't enough
to seal a conviction. State experts presented the hair, which they said likely
belonged to Jones.
Before his 2000 execution, Jones asked then-Governor George W. Bush for a stay
of execution and to conduct a DNA test. Bush refused. The Innocence Project
later learned, through an open records request, that Bush's staff didn't
include the DNA testing possibility in their memos to him. A decade later,
testing finally proved that the hair - the only physical evidence in the case -
never belonged to Jones.
In Oklahoma alone, between 1998 and 2012, 8 people whose cases involved hair
evidence were exonerated. Three were on death row, according to a recently
published paper co-authored by Fabricant.
Still, courts nationwide continue to accept hair comparison analysis as
evidence - even as scientists call it bunk.
The Florida Supreme Court last summer rejected the appeal of death row inmate
James Duckett, an ex-cop convicted for the 1987 sexual battery and murder of an
11-year-old girl. The court said Duckett never objected to now-discredited FBI
expert Michael Malone's testimony at trial, and even pointed to the FBI's
continued usage of the method.
"The field of forensic hair analysis has not been discredited, and the FBI has
not discontinued the use of such analysis," the court wrote in its June 26,
2014, opinion, adding that Malone's testimony was "well within the bounds of
the field."
Fabricant and the Innocence Project are advocating for national standards in
microscopic hair comparison analysis, as well as other pattern-matching
disciplines including ballistic evidence, tire tread and shoe print analysis.
"Smaller jurisdictions that don't have the resources to do DNA testing are
under no legal obligation to discontinue the use of this evidence," Fabricant
told The Daily Beast. "There is nothing to preclude them from doing so."
The case against Willie Manning
As the courts debate, Willie Manning is still in jail, waiting and swearing
that he's innocent, just like he has for 21 years. The university student case
isn't Manning's only capital conviction - his other murder charge was tossed
this week.
Manning had been convicted for the 1993 killing of a 90-year-old woman and her
daughter. But in February, the Mississippi Supreme Court granted Manning a new
trial, saying the state violated his rights by failing to provide "favorable,
material evidence."
On April 20, Deforest Allgood, the DA who also prosecuted Manning's student
slaying case, announced he was dropping the charges.
The state's key witness, who testified during trial that he saw Manning enter
the victims' Starkville apartment, recanted his statements in sworn affidavits.
It was also revealed that police withheld notes that showed the apartment where
the witness claimed to have lived was actually vacant.
"In my mind, the state had written Willie off," said Tucker Carrington,
founding director of the Mississippi Innocence Project and law professor at the
University of Mississippi. "'Who gives a fuck about this guy? He's already
condemned. We know he's the type of person who's capable of doing this. It's
him.'"
Carrington is referring to Manning's previous conviction for the murder of the
coeds. Weeks before Manning's 2013 scheduled execution in that case, the state
denied a request for DNA analysis of hair, fingerprints and other untested
evidence, meant to prove his innocence.
Manning's attorneys scrambled to pursue an injunction that would prohibit the
state from destroying the evidence, even after he was executed. "We wanted to
test the material at our own expense, even posthumously," Carrington said.
"We're not afraid of the results. The results will stand for themselves,
whatever they may be."
But the injunction wasn't submitted. After the FBI sent letters admitting its
hair analysis errors, the court stayed the execution and later granted a DNA
test - though it never cited the feds' mea culpa.
Manning's attorneys and supporters are now waiting to see if a Dallas forensic
lab can generate DNA profiles from the evidence in the university case.
"Even if the DNA and fingerprint evidence is inconclusive, we're not finished
arguing about whether he's entitled to a new trial," Mink said. "The fact that
he's essentially been exonerated from the other 2 murders should make everyone
concerned about the reliability of convictions like this - especially when the
convicted person is going to be killed at the behest of the state."
(source: The Daily Beast)
NEBRASKA:
Nebraska legislature leads charge to abolish death penalty ---- If bill
overcomes veto threat, Nebraska will be the first GOP-dominated state in
decades to end capital punishment
Nebraska's Republican-dominated legislature is leading the charge to abolish
the death penalty in the state, potentially making it the 1st GOP-controlled
state in decades to ban the practice and setting up a confrontation with
Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts.
State lawmakers approved Legislative Bill 268 late last week, which would
replace the death penalty with life without parole, in a lopsided 30-13 vote,
enough to overcome Ricketts' promised veto if support holds. Backers of the
bill, including several Republican advocates, are now trying to wrangle
additional supporters to overcome the remaining legislative hurdles. 2 more
rounds of voting must take place under the rules of Nebraska's unicameral
legislature - the only one of its kind in the nation - and 33 state senators
may be needed to break debate at the next stage.
"I'm actually very optimistic that we can get the votes we need for cloture to
end the filibuster," said Stacy Anderson, the executive director of Nebraskans
for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an advocacy group that has been lobbying
legislators on the issue. "There are senators in the body who don't support the
repeal, but they support this being given an up-or-down vote. They believe a
vote should be taken."
The rejection of the death penalty in Nebraska shows that more Republican
lawmakers at the state level feel free to express their qualms about capital
punishment and champion abolishment efforts. Similar legislation has been
introduced in Kansas and Arkansas, but in those states, the bills have not made
it out of committee.
"It makes sense for Republicans to support repeal. It's antithetical to life,"
said Marc Hyden, the director of the national group Conservatives Concerned
About the Death Penalty. "What's happening in Nebraska is what we're seeing
nationwide - more and more people are seeing the death penalty as a broken
system that doesn't line up with their values."
If the proposal succeeds in Nebraska, it will be the 1st solidly red state to
abolish capital punishment in decades. (Blue states Illinois, Connecticut and
Maryland repealed the death penalty in 2011, 2012 and 2013, respectively.) In
32 states, however, executions are still legal, according to the nonprofit
Death Penalty Information Center.
"There's strong conservative leadership in the body to actually get the repeal
bill passed," Anderson said. "We're in a race with several states to be the 1st
red state repeal, so I think it's just a matter of time before we see that
happening."
Although Nebraska's legislature is officially nonpartisan and elected officials
run for office without party affiliation, the party IDs of lawmakers are widely
known. In the death penalty vote, 17 Republicans joined 12 Democrats and 1
independent to advance the bill.
State Sen. Al Davis, a Republican who supports the bill, said that the unique
nature of the Nebraska legislature has allowed the issue to transcend hardened
partisanship.
"The people that serve here are not reliant on a party to tell them how to
vote," he said. "This bill has come up and is making that kind of progress
because people are free from their party obligations. We're able to talk these
things through from our own experiences and perspectives."
Davis said that he came to oppose the death penalty when he was made aware of
cases in which false confessions were extracted from defendants after they were
threatened with the death penalty by prosecutors.
"I thought, 'Boy, this is really not an appropriate punishment, because there's
no way to take it back," he said.
Sen. Ernie Chambers, an independent who sponsored the bill and who is the only
African-American serving in the state legislature, has been introducing similar
legislation intermittently for more than 40 years, since he was first elected
in 1970. The politics have changed dramatically in that time, he said. If
Nebraska is the 1st Midwestern state in a generation to abolish capital
punishment, he hopes others will follow.
"There were senators who told me if they could vote their conviction, we
would've been rid of the death penalty a long time ago," he said. "If Nebraska
is viewed as backward, as it really is, and it would take this step, there
could be people who say, 'If those people did it, everybody should be able to
do it.'"
Nonetheless, the bill faces stiff opposition from Ricketts and the state
attorney general, who will be fighting the repeal and lobbying lawmakers.
Legislators opposed to the bill have been strident in their views, saying they
will erect any roadblocks they can to prevent the legislation from being
enacted.
"Sen. Chambers' plan to repeal the death penalty is out of step with Nebraskans
who tell me that they believe the death penalty remains an important tool for
public safety," Ricketts said in a statement shortly after last week's vote.
"If this legislation comes to my desk, I will veto it. I urge senators to
reconsider their decision and to stand with law enforcement who need all the
tools we can give them to protect public safety."
(source: Al Jazeera)
*******************
Uphill battle -- Death penalty repeal may be difficult
State senators advanced legislation Tuesday to repeal the death penalty in
Nebraska and at least one official thinks the bill faces an uphill battle
before becoming law.
The bill, LB 268, advanced out of select file with 30 votes in favor, 13
against and 6 either abstaining or absent. District 44 Sen. Dan Hughes was
among the 13 opponents to the legislation and said this morning Gov. Pete
Ricketts had indicated he would veto the legislation.
Supporters will need 30 votes to override the gubernatorial veto, however,
maintaining that level of support may be difficult, according to Hughes. He
said some senators commit support for a bill yet are unwilling to extend that
support to a gubernatorial override, a game Hughes says he prefers not to play.
"Being coy with your vote is not how I operate," said Hughes.
Sen. Hughes said the cocktail of drugs used in state executions has
historically been manufactured in Europe, coming from countries which abolished
the death penalty years ago. Recently implemented export bans have eliminated
the supply and left Nebraska and other states searching for options. Nebraska's
supply of execution drugs has expired. Utah recently reinstated the firing
squad.
Sen. Hughes indicated much of the support to abolish the death penalty came
from legislators weary of the layers of delays and roadblocks placed on the
death penalty process by opponents to the law.
"We are a nation of laws, have a process and need to follow that process to
remove some of the hurdles that have been placed in front of us," said Hughes.
He said advances in DNA testing had not only exonerated some placed on death
row, but also increased the certainty that those remaining were guilty.
Hughes said none of the individuals exonerated in recent years were convicted
in Nebraska and that same technology should serve as further proof the
individuals on death row in Nebraska committed the crimes they were convicted
of.
Sen. Hughes said he believed the death penalty served as a deterrent and those
who choose to take the life of others should pay the ultimate price.
LB 268 was introduced by District 11 Sen. Ernie Chambers.
(source: McCook Gazette)
************************
Beatrice 6 member speaks out against death penalty Thursday
1 of the Beatrice 6 who was wrongfully convicted of murder spoke out against
the death penalty in the Capitol Thursday.
Ada JoAnn Taylor joined members of the Innocence Project to tell lawmakers that
errors happen in Nebraska. She said prosecutors and law officers constantly
told her she would be the first woman executed if she didn't confess, which is
why she said capital punishment needs to be repealed.
"So that no other innocent Nebraskan would be threatened with the death
penalty, causing them to confess to a crime that (they) didn't commit and allow
the actual murderer to murder again," Taylor said.
Last week, lawmakers advanced a bill on a 30-13 vote that would replace a death
sentence with life in prison. It still has 2 more rounds of debate and must
overcome a veto promised by Gov. Pete Ricketts.
(source: KETV news)
**************************
Loved Ones Killed By Homicide Rally Against The Death Penalty
Families of loved ones killed by homicide held a rally Thursday night against
the death penalty.
The group Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation held an anti death
penalty rally at the, "Tree of Healing," at 1176 SW Warren Avenue.
The cottonwood tree was planted 21 years ago by victims families, when Kansas
reinstated capital punishment.
50 years has passed since the last execution in the state.
Organizers of Thursday's event says the time has come to do away with the death
penalty all together.
(source: WIBW news)
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