IAPE Evidence Blog

Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Texas)
BYLINE: MITCH MITCHELL; mitchmitchell@star-telegram.com

Texas

More than a decade after his death and nearly 25 years since his arrest, the Texas Board of Par­dons and Paroles is rec­om­mend­ing clemency for a Fort Worth man who died in prison after being wrong­fully con­victed on rape charges.

The board sent a let­ter to Tim Cole’s attor­ney at the Inno­cence Project of Texas on Fri­day say­ing that it had voted to rec­om­mend clemency and for­warded its deci­sion to Gov. Rick Perry for his signature.

It would be the state’s first posthu­mous par­don, and Perry has indi­cated that he would sign an order clear­ing Cole’s name if rec­om­mended by the board.

“Gov. Perry looks for­ward to par­don­ing Tim Cole pend­ing the receipt of a pos­i­tive rec­om­men­da­tion from the Board of Par­dons and Paroles,” Perry spokes­woman Alli­son Cas­tle wrote in an e-mail to The Asso­ci­ated Press on Saturday.

Cory Ses­sion, who has been fight­ing to clear his brother’s name for years, said he antic­i­pates that the gov­er­nor will sign Cole’s par­don in March dur­ing a cer­e­mony in Fort Worth.

“To say that the wheels of jus­tice turn slowly would be an under­state­ment,” Ses­sion said Saturday.

“The ques­tion is: How many more Tim Coles are out there?”

As a Texas Tech Uni­ver­sity stu­dent, Cole became the tar­get of a ser­ial rape inves­ti­ga­tion in Lubbock.

While Cole main­tained his inno­cence, in 1985 he was sen­tenced to 25 years in prison.

He died in 1999, at age 39, from com­pli­ca­tions of asthma.

Jerry Wayne John­son, serv­ing life in prison for a series of rapes, was linked to Cole’s case by DNA test­ing in 2008, but only after writ­ing let­ters for years, while Cole was still alive, to Lub­bock County pros­e­cu­tors and judges con­fess­ing to the crime. Johnson’s let­ters were ignored.

The Inno­cence Project pressed for the DNA tests after John­son mailed a con­fes­sion to Cole’s fam­ily in 2007.

State Dis­trict Judge Char­lie Baird in Austin pro­nounced Cole not guilty dur­ing an exon­er­a­tion hear­ing last year, say­ing he had “suf­fered the great­est mis­car­riage of jus­tice imag­in­able in our crim­i­nal jus­tice system.”

His brother’s ordeal has lead Ses­sion to become an advo­cate for crim­i­nal jus­tice reform in Austin and Wash­ing­ton, D.C. Ses­sion said orga­ni­za­tions he works with esti­mate that 2 to 5 per­cent of peo­ple con­victed in Texas have been con­victed wrongfully.

At the end of fis­cal 2007, the Texas Depart­ment of Crim­i­nal Jus­tice reported that about 750,000 peo­ple — 1 in every 22 Tex­ans — were in prison or jail or on parole or probation.

“I hope that it makes peo­ple under­stand that just because some­one comes into your court under­funded and under­rep­re­sented, it does not nec­es­sar­ily mean that they are guilty,” Ses­sion said. “And I hope that it never takes another fam­ily this long to clear the name of an inno­cent fam­ily member.”

Last year, the Texas Leg­is­la­ture passed the Tim Cole Act, increas­ing the lump sum com­pen­sa­tion to vic­tims of wrong­ful impris­on­ment from $50,000 to $80,000 for each year of imprisonment.

Cole’s fam­ily is eli­gi­ble but has not filed a claim.

“Most of the time, every one of these cases sig­ni­fies that the sys­tem has gone wrong badly and that some­where in this state there’s some guilty guy won­der­ing around com­mit­ting more crimes,” said Jeff lack­burn, chief coun­sel for the Inno­cence Project.

“That’s a point that I wish most pros­e­cu­tors and police would under­stand. The inno­cent should be freed, and the guilty should be caught and pun­ished. It’s crazy that a group of over­worked lawyers and wide-eyed law stu­dents should have to do that. The state should be doing this work.”

This report includes mate­r­ial from The Asso­ci­ated Press .

MITCH MITCHELL, 817 – 390-7752

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Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org

The Jack­sonville Free Press (Florida)

Jack­sonville, FL

Unval­i­dated or Improper Foren­sic Sci­ence played a role in approx­i­mately 50 per­cent of wrong­ful con­vic­tions later over­turned by DNA test­ing. While DNA test­ing was devel­oped through exten­sive sci­en­tific research at top aca­d­e­mic cen­ters, many other foren­sic tech­niques — such as hair microscopy, bite mark com­par­isons, firearm tool mark analy­sis and shoe print com­par­isons — have never been sub­jected to rig­or­ous sci­en­tific eval­u­a­tion. Mean­while, foren­sics tech-niques that have been prop­erly val­i­dated such as serol­ogy, com­monly known as blood typ­ing — are some­times improp­erly con­ducted or inac­cu­rately con­veyed in trial tes­ti­mony. In other wrong­ful con­vic­tion cases, foren­sic sci­en­tists have engaged in misconduct.

“Snitches” con­tributed to wrong­ful con­vic­tions in 15 per­cent of cases. When­ever snitch tes­ti­mony is used, the Inno­cence Project rec­om­mends that the judge instruct the jury that most snitch tes­ti­mony is unre­li­able as it may be offered in return for deals, spe­cial treat­ment, or the drop­ping of charges. Pros­e­cu­tors should also reveal any incen­tive the snitch might receive, and all com­mu­ni­ca­tion between pros­e­cu­tors and snitches should be recorded. Fif­teen per­cent of wrong­ful con­vic­tions that were later over­turned by DNA test­ing were caused in part by snitch testimony.

There have been 238 post-conviction DNA exon­er­a­tions in the United States.
* The first DNA exon­er­a­tion took place in 1989. Exon­er­a­tions have been won in 33 states; since 2000, there have been 170 ’ exon­er­a­tions.
* 17 of the 238 peo­ple exon­er­ated through DNA served time on death row.’
* The aver­age length of time served by exonerees is 12 years. The total num­ber of years served is approx­i­mately 2,968.
* The aver­age age of exonerees at the time of their wrong­ful con­vic­tions was 26.

Races of the 238 exonerees:

• 142 African Americans
• 65 Cau­casians
• 21 Lati­nos
• 1 Asian American
• 9 whose race is unknown

* The true sus­pects and/or per­pe­tra­tors have been iden­ti­fied in 103 of the DNA exon­er­a­tion cases.
* Since 1989, there have been tens of thou­sands of cases where prime sus­pects were iden­ti­fied and pursued-until DNA test­ing (prior to con­vic­tion) proved that they were wrongly accused.
* In more than 25 per­cent of cases in a National Insti­tute of Jus­tice study, sus­pects were excluded once DNA test­ing was con­ducted dur­ing the crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion (the study, con­ducted in 1995, included 10,060 cases where test­ing was per­formed by FBI labs).

About half of the peo­ple exon­er­ated through DNA test­ing have been finan­cially com­pen­sated. 27 states, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment, and the Dis­trict of Colum­bia have passed laws to com­pen­sate peo­ple who were wrong­fully incar­cer­ated. Awards under these statutes vary from state to state.

* 33 per­cent of cases closed by the Inno­cence Project were closed because of lost or miss­ing evidence.

Lead­ing Causes of Wrong­ful Convictions

These DNA exon­er­a­tion cases have pro­vided irrefutable proof that wrong­ful con­vic­tions are not iso­lated or rare events, but arise from sys­temic defects that can be pre­cisely iden­ti­fied and addressed. For more than 15 years, the Inno­cence Project has worked to pin­point these trends.

Eye­wit­ness Misidentification

Tes­ti­mony was a fac­tor in 77 per­cent of post-conviction DNA exon­er­a­tion cases in the U.S., mak­ing it the lead­ing cause of these wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Of that 77 per­cent, about 40 per­cent of cases where race is known involved cross-racial eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. Stud­ies have shown that peo­ple are less able to rec­og­nize faces of a dif­fer­ent race than their own. These sug­gested reforms are embraced by lead­ing crim­i­nal jus­tice orga­ni­za­tions and have been adopted in the states of New Jer­sey and North Car­olina, large cities like Min­neapo­lis and Seat­tle, and many smaller jurisdictions.

Unval­i­dated or Improper Foren­sic Sci­ence played a role in approx­i­mately 50 per­cent of wrong­ful con­vic­tions later over­turned by DNA test­ing. While DNA test­ing was devel­oped through exten­sive sci­en­tific research at top aca­d­e­mic cen­ters, many other foren­sic tech­niques — such as hair microscopy, bite mark com­par­isons, firearm tool mark analy­sis and shoe print com­par­isons — have never been sub­jected to rig­or­ous sci­en­tific eval­u­a­tion. Mean­while, foren­sics tech­niques that have been prop­erly val­i­dated such as serol­ogy, com­monly known as blood typ­ing — are some­times improp­erly con­ducted or inac­cu­rately con­veyed in trial tes­ti­mony. In other wrong­ful con­vic­tion cases, foren­sic sci­en­tists have engaged in misconduct.

False con­fes­sions and incrim­i­nat­ing state­ments lead to wrong­ful con­vic­tions in approx­i­mately 25 per­cent of cases. In 35 per­cent of false con­fes­sion or admis­sion cases, the defen­dant was 18 years old or younger and/or devel­op­men­tally dis­abled. The Inno­cence Project encour­ages police depart­ments to elec­tron­i­cally record all cus­to­dial inter­ro­ga­tions in their entirety in order to pre­vent coer­cion and to pro­vide an accu­rate record of the pro­ceed­ings. More than 500 juris­dic­tions have vol­un­tar­ily adopted poli­cies to record inter­ro­ga­tions. State supreme courts have taken action in Alaska, Mass­a­chu­setts, Min­nesota, New Hamp­shire, New Jer­sey, and Wis­con­sin. Illi­nois, Maine, New Mex­ico, and D.C. require the tap­ing of inter­ro­ga­tions in homi­cide cases.

“Snitches” con­tributed to wrong­ful con­vic­tions in 15 per­cent of cases. When­ever snitch tes­ti­mony is used, the Inno­cence Project rec­om­mends that the judge instruct the jury that most snitch tes­ti­mony is unre­li­able as it may be offered in return for deals, spe­cial treat­ment, or the drop­ping of charges. Pros­e­cu­tors should also reveal any incen­tive the snitch might receive, and all com­mu­ni­ca­tion between pros­e­cu­tors and snitches should be recorded. Fif­teen per­cent of wrong­ful con­vic­tions that were later over­turned by DNA test­ing were caused in part by snitch testimony.

- — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — - — -
Inter­na­tional Asso­ci­a­tion for Prop­erty and Evi­dence
“Law Enforce­ment Serv­ing the Needs of Law Enforce­ment”
www.IAPE.org