Oct. 19 OHIO: State's law one is of strictest in nation Chris Bennett thought he was responsible for his best friend's death in a Stark County crash three years ago, but now hopes a DNA test will prove he pleaded guilty to a crime he did not commit. Bennett, 28, suffered serious head injuries in the May 2001 crash that killed Ron Young, 42, and did not remember much about the accident when he pleaded guilty. Months after he began serving his nine-year prison sentence, the memory of the crash returned and he recalls being the passenger, not the driver, he claims. Now Bennett is among more than 140 Ohio inmates who have turned to groups like Ohio Innocence Project, one of 26 nonprofit groups dedicated to helping inmates who have been wrongly convicted of crimes. In the last decade, 4 Ohio inmates who served a combined 45 years in prison for crimes they did not commit have been freed from prison after DNA tests unlocked their innocence. A state law passed last year allows inmates to request DNA tests under certain conditions. The inmates must have significant time left to serve and must have new evidence that can exonerate them. If an inmate succeeds, the state will pay for the tests, which can cost as much as $20,000. With the Oct. 29 application deadline approaching, local prosecutors and defense lawyers are scrambling to prepare cases that will bring convicted killers and rapists back to local courts to plead their case. Innocence Projects across the country have freed 151 wrongly accused inmates in the last 10 years. The Innocence Project in New York helped free Clevelander Michael Green in October 2001 after he served 13 years for a rape he did not commit. Ohio established its own Innocence Project in May 2003 at the University of Cincinnati Law School. Law students and professors there are sorting through cases to find ones with merit. The Ohio attorney general's office said only four inmates have been granted hearings so far. Mark Godsey, an assistant law professor at UC and faculty director of the Ohio Innocence Project, said Ohio's law is one of the strictest in the nation. "Inmates have to prove with 100 percent certainty that the outcome of their case would be different if DNA were tested," Godsey said. "In other states they need only show likelihood." Godsey said the restrictions mean very few cases will ever get inside a courtroom. One that did, thanks to Godsey's group, was Bennett's case. Godsey's students found Bennett's mangled car in a scrap yard just days before it was to be crushed. They recovered blood and hair imbedded in the passenger side dash. DNA tests proved they were Bennett's. Godsey argued the case in Stark County Common Pleas Court on Oct. 1 and is submitting written arguments this week in an effort to win either a new trial or freedom. Prosecutors there claim Bennett's DNA could have been thrown across the car during the accident. In Lake County, Donald Soke, 37, is the only inmate there to seek DNA tests. Soke made headlines in 1990 spinning tales of mayhem and murder when he confessed that he killed Eastlake housewife Karen LaSpina stabbing her 55 times during a burglary. Now after 14 years in prison, Soke is recanting and says DNA tests can prove someone else killed her. "I falsely confessed to the murder. I could not have been the murderer, blood found at the crime scene was not mine," Soke said in handwritten motions. He fabricated the confession, he said, to win favors like beer, pizza and a jailhouse wedding from police. Lake County Prosecutor Charles Coulson is opposing the DNA tests and said Soke is not likely to prevail. Much of the evidence from the crime scene has been contaminated or destroyed after his appeals ran out, Coulson said. Assistant Prosecutor Lisa Neroda, handling the DNA portion of the case, said it was not DNA but the confession and witnesses who saw Soke covered with blood that night that sealed his fate. Godsey said Ohio doesn't allow more advanced DNA tests that are more conclusive. While other states have no time limits, Ohio's one-year limit denies inmates the time they need to gather the crucial evidence that police have trouble locating years after a conviction, he said. That happened in a Summit County case where prosecutors have been unable to locate the DNA that inmate Robert Crider is seeking. Crider, 55, was convicted in the 1983 rape of a Cuyahoga Falls woman and said he was wrongly convicted by a witness who changed her description of her attacker 11 times at trial. In court documents, Cuyahoga Falls police said they couldn't find the DNA evidence and a state lab said their samples were contaminated when a power outage cut their refrigeration. A case that may be headed to court soon in Summit County started with a family so dedicated to clearing convicted killer Clarence Elkins' name that they raised more than $25,000 to pay a private lab to test the crime-scene DNA. Elkins, 41, of Magnolia, was convicted of the June 1999 murder and rape of his mother-in-law and rape of his niece. But DNA evidence tested recently excludes him in any of the crimes. His defense attorney Jana DeLoach is seeking a new trial and has a meeting planned this week with court officials. "Clarence Elkins is an innocent man," said DeLoach, adding that Elkins has served 6 years for a crime he could not have committed. "This has been horrible on him and his family." Elkins' case clearly demonstrates there are innocent men in prison, she said. "Since this law will expire in a few weeks, it's very scary because there may be others who can't get their cases filed on time. "Even scarier," she added, "is the fact that the real killer is still out there." (source: Cleveland Plain Dealer) ****************** Convicted Killer Wants Off Death Row A convicted murderer from Trumbull County will remain on death row. Andre "Kokomo: Williams claimed he was mentally retarded and therefore should not be put to death. Judge Wyatt McKay does not agree and ruled Tuesday that Williams should die for his crimes. He was convicted of the August, 1988, murder of George Melnick and the beating and blinding of his wife, Katherine. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the execution of mentally retarded inmates is cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. Constitution. (source: WYTV News) CONNECTICUT: Hitman could be first Conn. federal death sentence in decades While officials prepare for Connecticut's 1st execution in 44 years, a hired underworld hit man sits in prison, waiting to learn whether he will become the 1st person to face a federal death sentence in Connecticut in at least 77 years. Fausto Gonzalez was hired in 1996 to kill the leader of the Savage Nomads street gang. For $6,000, he rode up on a motorcycle and fired 13 times, killing Theodore "Teddy" Casiano, prosecutors said. He was convicted Friday of murdering Casiano as part of a drug and racketeering enterprise, a crime that carries a possible death penalty. A jury will begin deciding Wednesday whether Gonzalez should join 29 people across the nation awaiting lethal injection on federal death row. Though Casiano was killed in Hartford, Gonzalez would not be held in Connecticut's death row, where serial killer Michael Ross awaits his Jan. 26 execution. Since federal prosecutors resumed seeking the death penalty in the mid-1980s, all federal executions have been carried out at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind. Gonzalez's attorney, Robert M. Casale, said he isn't a death penalty opponent but doesn't understand how his client faces the same penalty as Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. "It just shouldn't be this guy. There's so many bad operators who've gone through the system," Casale said. "This guy probably just wasn't smart enough to get in the door and make the early deal. If that's the reason for executing somebody, this system is really screwed up." Casale pointed out that the mastermind and money man behind the killing, rival drug dealer Wilfredo Perez, was spared the death penalty and received a life sentence. Several other figures in the killing could have faced execution, but cooperated with investigators. "How do we arbitrarily execute one guy in all this mishmash?" Casale said. "There's been an awful lot of blame shifting. I don't know what we're doing with the death penalty when we use it only on those who don't cooperate in making other cases." (source: Newsday) LOUISIANA: Death sentence upheld in killing of Plain Dealing woman A death sentence handed to a man convicted of kidnapping and killing a Plain Dealing woman was upheld today by the Louisiana Supreme Court. Without dissent, the high court backed the 1st-degree murder conviction of Jeremiah D. Manning in the December 2000 killing of 62-year-old Mary Ann Malone. Prosecutors in Bossier Parish said Manning, who had done yard work for Malone, kidnapped her from her home, forced her to drive to a remote area and then beat her and slit her throat. Police arrested Manning as he ran along a highway after crashing Malone's car into a ditch. Manning contended that his low I-Q, along with his drinking on the day of the killing, made it impossible for him to knowledgeably waive his right against self-incrimination before he made statements to investigators. Manning's appeal said those statement should have been thrown out. Manning also complained that pre-trial publicity made it impossible for him to get a fair trial and that prosecutors failed to prove he had committed aggravated kidnapping -- a compounding felony that qualified him for the death sentence. The Supreme Court rejected all of the contentions. No execution date has been set. Manning can still ask the U-S Supreme Court to review the conviction and pursue other appeals in federal court. (source: Associated Press) NEW JERSEY: Court upholds conviction, death sentence in slaying of artist In Trenton, the state Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the murder conviction and death sentence of Ambrose Harris in the brutal rape-slaying of a Pennsylvania artist. Harris was condemned for the killing of Kristin Huggins, 22, of Lower Makefield, Pa., whom he kidnapped in Trenton and raped in 1992. Before his arrest, the Trenton man drove Huggins' car with her body stuffed in the trunk. The ruling affirms a lower court decision 2 years ago not to overturn Harris' conviction or send his death sentence back to the trial court for a hearing. Harris' lawyers on appeal sought to have the conviction overturned on the grounds that he did not receive competent legal counsel at his 1996 trial. His new lawyers contended the trial counsel should have had Harris interviewed by psychiatrists and then presented the findings to the jury. Jurors were only told about Harris' medical records from birth to age 13. Harris also challenged his death sentence, alleging he was mentally retarded and that his execution would therefore be barred under a U.S. Supreme Court ruling. But the New Jersey Supreme Court found that Harris' trial counsel's conduct was reasonable and based on a viable strategy. On the mental retardation issue, justices said the case record contains sufficient evidence to refute the claim, including IQ test results for Harris when he was young and the opinion of Harris' own expert in his trial's penalty phase who disagreed with any diagnosis that Harris was mentally retarded. (source: Newsday) MISSISSIPPI: Prosecutor Will Not Seek The Death Penalty A Wiggins man accused of killing a Moss Point police officer will not face the death penalty, if he is found guilty. That announcement came Tuesday before testimony started in Jonathan White's capital murder trial. District Attorney Tony Lawrence said he will not seek the death penalty against White, at the request of Larry Lee's family. Police say White killed Lee in 2002 when he rammed his patrol car while fleeing a routine traffic stop. "We had a meeting this morning with the family. At the consultation with the family and discussing the actually laws and facts of the case, they asked me to consider not going for the death penalty, and I respect their wishes. I believe victims should have rights in the court room. They lost a family member and I'm certainly going to abide by their desires," Jackson County District Attorney Tony Lawrence said. In opening statements Tuesday, prosecutors said White could have stopped, instead of hitting Lee's car. Defense attorneys claim that White did not intend to harm Lee, and that White should have been charged with manslaughter, not capital murder. The trial turned emotional for the Lee family. For the 1st time, they heard a dispatch tape of Lee's last words before his car was hit on Highway 63. (source: WLOX TV News) PENNSYLVANIA: Murder Victim's Father: Death Penalty will Be Justice The father of a murdered teenager says justice will only be served when the 2 men who killed his daughter are also killed. Police say Lester Johnson, 20, and Jaurvon Hopkins, 21, kidnapped and murdered Shawnte Betts, 17, and her friend James Jones, 26, this summer. Now Allegheny County's district attorney is planning to pursue the death penalty against the 2 men. For Betts' father, the DA's decision is welcome news. (source: KDKA News)
