March 22 TEXAS: TV stereotypes Viewers of Sunday night's episode of television's Boston Legal got a taste of what some outsiders think about justice in the Lone Star State. In the show, Massachusetts lawyers Alan Shore and Chelina Hall - played by James Spader and Kerry Washington - traveled to Texas to save a borderline mentally challenged death-row inmate from execution. There were plenty of stereotypes. Mr. Spader rode a mechanical bull in some unnamed town that looked like Dallas and tried to enter a courtroom with a cowboy hat until Ms. Washington's character stopped him. The Court of Criminal Appeals was filled with good old judges that cared little if the convicted man was innocent, even in the face of new evidence. At the end of his passionate argument before the court, Mr. Spader said that football teams in New England could whip football teams in Texas. He was probably right about that. And he spouted startling statistics about the number of Texas executions. The show, titled "Death Be Not Proud," ended with the convicted man being forcibly stretched on an execution table. "It was sort of Hollywood vs. the heartland," said Southern Methodist University political scientist Cal Jillson. "It was very predictable but stunning. There were stereotypes of Texas, but even a Texan would look at the numbers they gave and say, What?" ABC's Boston Legal has become increasingly political over the last few episodes. A recent show featured a high school student suing his principal because the Fox News Channel was banned from the school. Alison Rou, a spokeswoman for the show, said producer David E. Kelley would continue to tackle tough issues, even on a show that goes from "serious to ridiculous at the drop of a hat." "You will see more and more of David Kelley taking on political issues," she said. (source: Dallas Morning News) ARIZONA: Death penalty sought for accused child killer Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for a 30-year-old east Mesa man accused of beating a 3-year-old girl to death last month, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas announced Tuesday. The man, Christopher Langin, has been indicted on charges of first-degree murder, child abuse and aggravated assault in the death of Angeline Plummer. "It's a case that calls for justice for the victim and the fullest punishment allowed by law," Thomas said in a news release. In seeking the death penalty, Thomas cited the girl's age and the "especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner" in which she died. According to authorities, the girl's father, Michael Plummer, found her covered in stab wounds, bite marks and bruises on the morning of Feb. 9. Langin lived in a travel trailer next to Plummer's home on North 98th Place in a county island near Crismon Road and University Drive, and Michael Plummer had asked him to babysit the girl the evening before. Langin told investigators that he was the only person with the child, but he doesnt remember hurting her. He said she got into his Nintendo wires, he pushed her down, then put her to bed, according to court records. He said he later went to bed with her, and awoke to find she had been severely beaten, records state. An autopsy revealed signs of sexual assault, records state. The girl's parents, who have 2 other children, have been investigated on child abuse allegations 8 times in the past five years, but in each instance the allegations were found to be "unsubstantiated," according to Child Protective Services. Maricopa County sheriff's Sgt. Kip Rustenburg said detectives continue to investigate the possibility of submitting charges against family members to the county attorney's office for consideration. (source: East Valley Tribune) KENTUCKY: Prosecutor Says Death Penalty "Inappropriate" In Collman Murder Case Charles Hickman, the man charged with murdering 10 year old Katie Collman, might not face the death penalty. That's the word from the prosecutor in the case, despite the fact that the defendant admitted to the crime. As WAVE 3 Investigator Eric Flack reports, Katie's father can't understand it. He calls the murder heinous. He has a confession from the defendant. Yet the Jackson County prosecutor says, "right now, as the evidence stands, this does not appear to be a death penalty case." Stephen Pierson came to that decision last week, after meeting with other Indiana prosecutors working on death penalty cases. Pierson says they all told him the same thing: Katie Collman, drowned and left for dead in February, doesn't qualify as a death penalty case. "What they explained to me was that your case better be just about perfect, if you intended to get the death penalty in any case," Pierson told WAVE 3. "After listening to me brief the case it was apparent that the evidence is not perfect." The problems: No corroborating witness to Charles Hickman's confession. And no evidence to support mitigating circumstances like sexual assault or robbery. The news was a shock to Katie's dad, John Neace. "The people that took Katie's life, they should get the death penalty," Neace said. And Neace says after hearing what the defendant admitted to investigators, that he sat there and watched Katie drown for 20 minutes, only 1 penalty seems just. "They should all stand the same sentence, they should all pay the ultimate price," Neace said. "It should cost them their life." But Pierson says he has a responsibility to be fair to the victim's family and the defendant. That's why right now, the prosecutor calls the death penalty "inappropriate." But that could change. "There are still leads, there are still persons of interest," Pierson said. "This case is by no means done." Meaning, if the ongoing investigation produces another witness, another defendant, or DNA testing leads to proof of mitigating circumstances, Pierson could change his mind and seek the death penalty. There is still months of work to go before the investigation is complete. (source: WAVE3 TV News) LOUISIANA: Sister Prejean Applauds Bishops' Decision To Ban Death Penalty The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is renewing its push for an end to capital punishment in the United States. Local advocate Sister Helen Prejean is bringing her message to the Louisiana Legislature. Prejean told WDSU NewsChannel 6 political reporter Alec Gifford that she feels the Legislature can be swayed by public opinion into abolishing the death penalty. Public opinion swells, the legislators get the message, and then the legislators will be the ones to say we don't need the death penalty in Louisiana," Prejean said. "Now, we have a lot of work to do in Louisiana." Prejean thinks the governor is leaning in her favor. "The governor has said if there are a lot of mistakes, she'll look at it and consider a moratorium," Prejean said. Prejean said she is heartened by the bishops' decision. "The bishops yesterday declared their campaign against the death penalty," she said. "That means that they are declaring a campaign, because now there are no instances in which the Catholic Church countenances that you can execute a person." The entire interview with Prejean can be seen Sunday at 10 a.m. on WDSU's "Closeup." (source: TheNewOrleansChannel) USA: The John Tonge Centre, DNA evidence and miscarriages of justice The persuasive power of courtroom science impacts upon juries who tend to regard forensic evidence more highly than they regard witnesses because it seems more objective. Study after study shows that juries put a great deal of faith in the testimony of expert witnesses. A good expert witness can often swing a verdict one way or another. But what happens when the expert lies? What happens when the expert thinks his or her role is to support the case theory espoused by the side that employs him regardless of the results of the tests conducted? Forensic scientists work so closely with police and prosecutors that sometimes their objectivity can be clouded in that pursuit of justice. Fred Zain was a US West Virginia State Police forensics expert who testified in hundreds of criminal cases. He appeared to know his subject so well that judges, prosecutors, and defence attorneys didnt question his laboratory results. Juries convicted defendants based on Zains testimony even when other evidence conflicted with that testimony or no other incriminating evidence existed. Fred Zain became a forensics expert sought after by prosecutors who wanted to win convictions in difficult cases. He was promoted to Chief of Physical Evidence for the medical examiner in Bexar County, Texas. In that position Fred Zain did for Texas what he had done for West Virginia. He lied. Zains downfall resulted from the 1987 jailing of Glen Woodall who was convicted for multiple felonies including two counts of sexual assault. Zain testified that, based upon his scientific analysis of semen recovered from the victims, "[T]he assailant's blood types ... were identical to Mr. Woodall's." Woodall received 203 to 335 years imprisonment and the conviction was affirmed on appeal. Independent DNA testing done in a subsequent habeas corpus proceeding established that Woodall could not have been the perpetrator. His conviction was overturned in 1992 and Woodall was freed. Woodall sued the State of West Virginia for false imprisonment and received US$1 million compensation. This ultimately led to an extraordinary investigation of the entire body of Zain's work ordered by the West Virginia Supreme Court. The report concluded that the actual guilt of 134 people was substantively in doubt because the convictions were based on inculpatory reports and or testimony by Zain. Nine men have been freed because the remaining evidence offered against them was insufficient for conviction - the expert testimony of Fred Zain alone had put them in prison. Fred Zain's actions didn't take place in a vacuum. The conditions that gave rise to his abuses remain in place in other crime laboratories and courtrooms across the US. In a 21-year career with the US Oklahoma City Police Department forensic chemist Joyce Gilchrist had an unbroken string of positive job evaluations and was Civilian Police Employee of the Year in 1985. The ability to sway juries and win convictions earned Gilchrist the nickname Black Magic. She received the nickname in response to her remarkable ability to see evidence other forensic experts could not see. In the courtroom Gilchrist drew scientific conclusions that others would not approach and turned speculation into scientific fact. In doing so Gilchrist helped the Oklahoma County District Attorneys office rack up conviction after conviction in addition to sending dozens of prisoners to death row. In 1994 she was promoted from forensic chemist to supervisor. The reputation of Joyce Gilchrist was shattered in September 2001 when she was fired from the Oklahoma Police Department for laboratory mismanagement, flawed casework analysis and giving false or misleading testimony in criminal cases including some in which she helped send defendants to death row. The forensic scientists errors put capital punishment under the microscope in the US. A preliminary FBI study of 8 cases found that in at least 5 of them Gilchrist had made outright errors or overstepped "the acceptable limits of forensic science." Gilchrist got convictions by matching hair samples with a certainty other forensic scientists found impossible to achieve. She was also accused of withholding evidence from the defence and failed to perform tests that could have cleared defendants. Gilchrists testimony helped put Robert Lee Miller Jr in prison for 11 years for a murder he never committed. In 1998 Miller was released from death row based on the results of independent DNA tests. In Millers case the forensic chemist linked him to the rape and murder of 2 elderly women by comparing hairs under a microscope. She eliminated another suspect, Ronald Lott, by the same hair comparisons. The subsequent DNA test of semen from the crime scene not only freed Miller from death row but pointed to Lott as the perpetrator. Lott was arrested on 2 counts of first-degree murder. In that case Gilchrists testimony implicated an innocent man and helped put him on death row and excluded Lott as a suspect until independent DNA testing linked him to the crime. In another case Jeffrey Pierce was released after serving 15 years of a 65-year sentence for a 1986 rape conviction. Gilchrists junk science had placed him at the scene of the crime but independent DNA evidence proved he was not the rapist. In response to the miscarriage of justice that occurred in the Pierce case, Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating launched a review of every one of the thousands of cases Gilchrist touched between 1980 and 1993 starting with 12 in which death sentences were handed down. It was too late for another 11 cases that Gilchrist had testified in - the defendants had already been put to death. Generally the courts have accepted the reliability of DNA testing when they have allowed DNA tests into evidence. However, DNA profiling is controversial in a number of areas; the accuracy and interpretation of the results, the cost of testing and the possible misuse of technique. Some of those concerns were reinforced in a 500-page report issued in April 1997 by Michael Bromich, the Inspector-General for the US Justice Department, who criticised the work conducted by the FBI in their forensic laboratories. Bromich found errors in testimony and substandard analytical work had resulted from deficient practices employed by FBI laboratory technicians. The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 is one of 18 high-profile cases mentioned in the 1997 report that revealed forensic bungles had occurred. The explosion killed 168 people and resulted with Timothy McVeigh being arrested, convicted and subsequently executed despite those forensic bungles. The double-murder case against former US National Football League player O. J. Simpson was also on the list of 18 cases the FBI forensic laboratories mishandled. The Justice Department investigation resulted from exposure by whistleblower, Frederick Whitehurst, who alleged FBI laboratory specialists and technicians fabricated or suppressed evidence, gave perjured evidence and obstructed justice in thousands of cases to favour the prosecution. Investigators from the Inspector General's Office interviewed dozens of FBI agents during the course of their 18-month investigation and during that time they turned up evidence of a prevailing lab culture which one agent likened to a "fraternity." It was a "shoot from the hip" culture favouring the prosecution rather than a culture of objective science or an honest search for the truth. Michael Strutt, a Sydney criminal justice activist who specialises in forensic science, sees the inherent culture of scientists in forensic testing laboratories as one of the main stumbling blocks to the delivery of unbiased DNA testimony in Australian criminal trials. Strutt explained: "These people turn into advocates for a particular side and it totally distorts the scientific picture because you get them not doing tests that might undermine what they are trying to say. Like in the case of Button where they didnt test the sheets because they decided they were only going to do tests that were going to implicate him and not to try and exonerate him. Mr Strutt was also critical of the way prosecutors employed the use of DNA evidence in Australian courtrooms saying: We know from the Joy Thomas case (The Queensland Arnotts extortion case) that the Crown was sitting on evidence that would have let her off. They wouldn't have done a thing if the defence had not had enough resources and determination to discover it themselves. Australian criminologist, Professor Paul Wilson, argues that DNA evidence is equally effective for defence lawyers as it is for prosecutors. He said: The one big plus for DNA, as far as the defence is concerned, has shown that miscarriages of justice are far more frequent than we used to think. As the US experience has shown, a lot of people have escaped the death penalty quite correctly as a result of DNA technology. Since the US reintroduced capital punishment in 1976 there have been over 107 prisoners released from death row and exonerated after their convictions were quashed. Twelve of those prisoners were exonerated because DNA was a significant factor in establishing their innocence: Earl Washington, Virginia, sentenced to death in 1984 came within 9 days of being strapped into the electric chair and put to death for the rape and murder of Rebecca Williams three years earlier. Washington was reprieved and served 16 years, 9 ? months on death row before DNA established his innocence. He was released from prison in 2000 and granted an absolute pardon. Kirk Bloodsworth, Maryland, sentenced to death in 1984 served 9 years before DNA established his innocence. Released from prison 1993. Rolando Cruz, Illinois, sentenced to death in 1985 served 10 years before DNA established his innocence. Released from prison 1995. Alejandro Hernandez, Illinois, sentenced to death in 1985 served 10 years before DNA established his innocence. Released from prison 1995. Verneal Jimerson, Illinois, sentenced to death in 1985 served 11 years before DNA established his innocence. Released from prison 1996. Dennis Williams, Illinois, sentenced to death in 1979 served 17 years before DNA established his innocence. Released from prison 1996. Robert Lee Miller, Jr. Oklahoma, sentenced to death in 1988 served 10 years before DNA established his innocence. Released from prison 1998. Ronald Williamson, Oklahoma, sentenced to death in 1988 served 11 years before DNA established his innocence. Released from prison 1999. Ronald Jones, Illinois, sentenced to death in 1989 served 10 years before DNA established his innocence. Released from prison 1999. Ray Krone, Arizona, sentenced to death in 1992 served 10 years before DNA established his innocence. Released from prison 2002. Charles Fain, Idaho, sentenced to death in 1983 served 18 years before DNA established his innocence. Released from prison 2001. Frank Lee Smith, Florida, sentenced to death in 1986 served 14 years before DNA established his innocence. Smith died inside prison prior to his exoneration. While the US justice system continues to address the fallibility of forensic science used as evidence in US courts men like Marc Renton, Wayne Butler and Stephen "Shorty" Jamieson are still waiting for Australian justice to investigate their cases. That long wait for justice is compounded by forensic testing facilities like Queenslands John Tonge Centre that continue to use scientifically flawed DNA evidence and suspect interpretations of DNA test results to send more people to prison. (source: National Forum (Australia)
