#wrongful conviction

[morbidology]

The murder of a child is every parent’s worst nightmare, but what if you’re then wrongly accused of that child’s murder? That is the very nightmare that befell James Joseph Richardson, who was wrongly convicted of the murder of seven of his children.

On 25 October, 1967, Richardson left his seven children, ranging from two-years-old to eight-years-old, in the care of his neighbour, Bessie Reece, as he and his wife, Annie Mae Richardson, went to work for the day. Progressively throughout the day, each child became violently ill. By the next morning, all of the children would be dead. An autopsy revealed that all of the children had been poisoned.

An initial search of the Richardson apartment revealed no poison. However, the following day, a bag of parathion was discovered in the shed behind the apartment. It was noted that it wasn't there the day beforehand. Despite the fact that Richardson was a caring and loving father and that there was no reason for him to kill his children, he was arrested and charged with their murders.

Cellmates of Richardson claimed that he had confessed to murdering his children and during a time when racial segregation was high, an all-white jury found this evidence enough to convict him, completely disregarding the fact that the children were fed by Reece, not Richardson. He was sentenced to death.

Richardson remained incarcerated for twenty years. Mark Lane, a well-known trial attorney, decided to take matters into his own hands and began to look into the case. It was revealed that Reece had been out on parole at the time of the murders. What for? She murdered her husband with poison.

At the time Reece was living with caretakers as she was suffering from Alzheimer’s. She had confessed to the murder of the Richarson children 100+ times to these caretakers. It was also revealed that the cellmates of Richardson had lied about his confession in return for a lighter sentence.

Richardson was eventually released in 1989 and filed a lawsuit for his wrongful incarceration, getting just $150,000. Eventually, in 2014, bill HB 227 was signed into law, meaning that wrongfully incarcerated inmates can be granted compensation for time served. It was estimated that Richardson could be awarded up to $1.3 million, however he hasn’t yet received that compensation.

[rapeculturerealities]

“Unreliable” Lung Float Test Still Being Used to Convict Women of Murder — ProPublica

In investigations across the country, the lung float test has emerged as a barometer of sorts to help determine if a mother suffered the devastating loss of a stillbirth or if she murdered her baby who was born alive. The test has been used in at least 11 cases where women were charged criminally since 2013 and has helped put nine of them behind bars, a ProPublica review of court records and news reports found. Some of those women remain in prison. Some had their charges dropped and were released.

But the test is so deeply flawed that many medical examiners say it cannot be trusted. They put it in the same company as the discredited analysis of bite marks and bloodstain patterns, 911 calls and hair comparisons, all of which lack solid scientific foundations and have contributed to wrongful convictions.

It is pseudoscience masquerading as sound forensics, they say. Some even liken the test to witch trials, where courts decided if a woman was a witch based on whether she floated or sank.

“Basing something so enormous on a test that should not be used, that has been completely discredited, is absolutely wrong,” said Dr. Ranit Mishori, the senior medical adviser for the nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights, which has been studying the test, and a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine. “You can send a person who is innocent to prison for many years.”

[odinsblog]

Six days before Christmas, Darien Harris’ family showed up to court hoping he would be granted bail. They got more than they expected. He will walk out of a Chicago courthouse as a 30-year-old exonerated man after being incarcerated for 12 years.

On Tuesday, prosecutors dropped all charges against Harris in the 2011 shooting of Rondell Moore. Harris’ conviction was largely based on the testimony of a witness who turned out to be legally blind. Earlier this month, a judge overturned his conviction, and Cook County prosecutors said they planned to retry him. But after reviewing the totality of the evidence, they decided against retrying Harris.

Harris’ mother, Nekesha Harris, can finally release the shame and fear she said she’s been carrying for years as she raised her younger children.

“I feel like I am dreaming. I guess when I feel him in my arms, it will be real,” she said outside the courtroom shortly after prosecutors decided not to go forward with a second trial.

This outcome may be an answered prayer, but experts say the Harris case underscores a series of cracks in the criminal justice system. Mistaken eyewitness identification is among the leading contributors in wrongful conviction cases across the country.

Of the more than 3,400 wrongful convictions since 1989, more than 900 — most of them Black — were the result of witnesses mistakenly identifying a person as the culprit, according to the National Registry of Exonerations’ database.

Black men are also overrepresented in the headcount of exonerees every year. Moreover, most exonorees were incarcerated for more than half of their lives. Harris was arrested weeks before his high school graduation in June 2011 and convicted in 2014.

(continue reading)

[clemsfilmdiary]

Double Jeopardy (1999, Bruce Beresford)

1/10/24

[mudwerks]

(via Bob Dylan - Hurricane (1976)

[cheerfullycatholic]

Anthony Apanovitch’s conviction was thrown out after a hearing in 2014 based on DNA evidence that the state secretly tested and hid from Tony for 24 years. Once the DNA evidence surfaced, there was a hearing before a judge at which the DNA testing was authenticated and admitted into evidence and both parties called DNA experts to testify about the test results. In early 2015, the court ruled that the “uncontroverted” and “unequivocal” evidence, including the newly-discovered DNA evidence, indisputably proved that the semen that came from the victim’s vagina did not come from Tony. And, because the state had accused and convicted Tony of being the sole perpetrator of the crime, the DNA evidence proved not only that Tony did not rape Ms. Flynn, but also that Tony did not murder her, as he had maintained for his 36 years on death row. The court then vacated Tony’s conviction and death sentence, and released him from death row.

Why isn’t Tony a free man today?

In November 2018, after two years of freedom living with and caring for with his wife and grandchildren, Tony was taken into custody and sent back to death row. The reason? The Court used a hyper-technical loophole regarding the way that the evidence proving Tony’s innocence was produced.

According to the Court, the DNA statute in Ohio applies only where the prisoner makes the request to test DNA. Tony didn’t ask for the testing to be done – indeed he never had the opportunity to make that request – because the state did the testing itself in secret without telling Tony or his lawyers, and then hid the results even though the DNA testing proved that Tony was not the perpetrator. So, according to the Court, because Tony didn’t ask for the testing (he couldn’t have since it was hidden), the results of that test were irrelevant even though they prove him innocent.

In the State of Ohio, who asked for the testing is more important than what the testing actually reveals! So, even though the DNA testing proved that Tony is innocent of the rape, he was stolen from his family once again and is now back on death row and facing execution simply because he didn’t and couldn’t request the testing that exonerated him.

As a matter of simple fairness and American jurisprudence, including critical safeguards embedded in the Constitution and laws of the United States, no person should ever be convicted of a crime, let alone sentenced to death, without a full and fair trial and the opportunity to confront and challenge the evidence lodged against him. Tony Apanovitch never got that chance.

Please sign this petition to let Ohio representatives and Governor DeWine know that you are outraged by how Tony has been treated, and that you expect, indeed demand, that they do everything possible to free Anthony Apanovitch as soon as possible.

[nando161mando]

"Now that y'all have seen the differing career impacts, media coverage of, and societal reactions to, Black women being accused of plagiarism (Claudine Gay) and white women being accused of plagiarism (Neri Oxman)...

you can understand why I say that widely used automated plagiarism detecting software that advertises a false positive rate of 1%🤦🏿‍♂️, is devastating for Black students.

Another flavor of: in a racist country, being falsely accused has devastating consequences"

[to-dance-beneath-the-diamond-sky]

If anyone has the money, please consider donating. If you could please reblog this, that would be great

[morbidology]

On April 9, 1993, Gary Gauger, a 40-year-old resident of McHenry County, Illinois, made a harrowing discovery: the lifeless bodies of his elderly parents, Morris and Ruth Gauger, brutally murdered on their farm. Their throats had been viciously slit. Gary, in shock and disbelief, immediately alerted police, recounting that he had been asleep when the tragic attack occurred and awoke to the horrifying aftermath. Little did he know, this tragedy would thrust him into a nightmare of false accusations.

Instead of receiving support and assistance, Gary found himself ensnared in a web of deceit orchestrated by the very authorities meant to serve justice. During questioning, detectives falsely claimed to have found incriminating evidence—bloody clothes and a knife—in Gary's possession. They further deceived him by alleging he had failed a lie detector test. Exhausted and vulnerable after an 18-hour interrogation, Gary was coerced into describing a hypothetical scenario in which he murdered his parents. This fabricated narrative was twisted and used against him as a confession, despite the absence of any tangible evidence linking him to the crime.

In a travesty of justice, Gary Gauger was wrongfully convicted of his parents' double murder and sentenced to death. However, in March 1996, the Second District Illinois Appellate Court overturned his conviction, citing the illegally obtained confession. Gary was finally released from prison, vindicated but scarred by years of wrongful imprisonment.

It wasn't until 2002 that justice truly prevailed when two motorcycle gang members, James Schneider and Randall Miller, were convicted of the double murder. Their guilt was confirmed by Miller's clandestinely recorded confession, finally bringing closure to Gary Gauger's long ordeal of wrongful accusation and incarceration.

[thedyf]

Manz was acquitted and the case was dismissed. I don’t blame him for quitting.

[madmadmystic]

Yesterday my soulmate got sentenced on his 2nd degree murder conviction. He has a determinate sentence of 26 years and then once he serves that his 100 years to life will start. We have a strong case for an appeal. Here's the story: my man hit a fat lick, got this drug dealer for a shit ton of cash and gold and drugs. He didn't mask up and was recorded on the home surveillance system. So a couple days later the guy he robbed and two of his friends pull up on my man and our friend at their hotel room and hold them at gun point. They took one firearm from my man and recovered none of the stolen shit. Well once they decide to leave, my man gets his other gun and gets off a shot at the man that just had him on his knees with a gun to his head. One of the guys leaves on foot and the other two are in their vehicle. The one that didn't get shot drives the one that did to the hospital but leaves him in the parking lot. By the time his gf showed up (over an hour later) and got him inside for medical care it was too late and he died in the hospital.

The guy that left out the window was subpoenaed to testify and originally was refusing to (this guy is already a pc/drop out certified snitch) but after talking to his attorney (offered a deal) he takes the stand and fucking LIES. He claims the "victim" was unarmed, he swore under oath he was given no encouragement for his testimony but was given an absurdly low sentence for outstanding charges.

I'm not saying that my man isn't at fault. Obviously robbing somebody (even a drug dealer) is serious shit. But the instinct to protect yourself and your people and to eliminate any lethal threat is engrained in us. And the prosecution making a deal off of paper is still making a fucking deal. There witness wasn't credible and purjured himself on stand. The cats nickname is "criminal" for fucks sake, honest and credible are not attributes of his character.

You have no idea the shine my man has. He is so fucking glorious. He is intelligent and artistic and magickal. He builds up everyone around him. He's kind and honest and savage.

I feel that Santa Barbara County wrongly convicted him. Because he has prison priors and is native/black they did everything they could to put him away for good. Yes a life was lost but the facts of it should equal a lesser charge. 126 years to life is fucking obscene for defending yourself. California has no self defense law. But a friend of mine was just sentenced to 50 years to life after shooting a man in her home who was being violent and erratic and then her and her boyfriend proceeded to cut up the remains and dispose of them in a golf course pond. But she's a white girl with family money from orange county. Her charges were in Santa Barbara County however.

Tell me how that makes sense.

Maybe this will take off and the media will demand the DA's office admit a deal was made with the witness for his testimony and we can take my love's life back in appeal court.

[cheerfullycatholic]

Arthur Brown, Jr. is scheduled for execution in Texas on March 9, 2023 for the 1992 murders of Jose Tovar, Jessica Quinones, Audrey Brown and Frank Farias. The following information comes from the Texas Defender Service & the Office of Forensic & Capitol Writs. More is here. Arthur Brown, Jr. is a man who has been wrongfully convicted. His conviction was obtained using false evidence. His newly appointed attorneys have just discovered that the District Attorney suppressed exculpatory evidence showing that other people committed the murder. Mr. Brown also shows signs of having intellectual impairments, including possible Fetal Alcohol Disorder - impairments that made him even more vulnerable to the injustice of this wrongful conviction. Increasing the inhumanity of Mr. Brown’s conviction is the fact that his jury never heard mitigating evidence of the hardships he experienced as a child, including abject poverty, neglect, and severe abuse. Despite all he experienced, though, Mr. Brown grew to be a loving son, sibling, and father, until his arrest and wrongful conviction separated him from his life partner, his children, and his extended family. Please do not allow the execution of this wrongfully convicted man, with intellectual impairments, to occur. I respectfully request the Board recommend clemency for Arthur Brown and for Governor Abbott to grant it; or in the alternative, that Mr. Brown be granted a 180-day reprieve so that his attorneys can continue their investigation into his innocence in light of the suppressed evidence.

[beta-lactam-allergic]

From CNN: Mother wrongly jailed for 20 years over the death of her four children has convictions quashed

Mother wrongly jailed for 20 years over the death of her four children has convictions quashed

About time this finally happened. As an Australian I can say this whole saga had been disgraceful on the part of our legal system. 20 years this woman spent in prison. She was only released a few months back.

They could've released her in the 2019 review after most of our nation's researchers in genetics & biomedical fields signed statements telling the courts that Folbigg's children almost certainly died due to genetic defects. But nope, the legal profession dragged this out for 4 more years rather than admit to being wrong.

[uselectionnews]

"Inside Biden’s decision to secretly send longer-range U.S. missiles to Ukraine," by Lara Seligman, Paul McLeary and Alexander Ward in Politico.

"The Supreme Court’s very brief, very revealing new decision about guns, explained," Ian Millhiser in Vox.

"Inside Biden’s ‘Hug Bibi’ Strategy," by Franklin Foer in The Atlantic.

"A Democrat Just Suggested George W. Bush for House Speaker?," by Molly Olmstead in Slate.

"Deputy fatally shoots man who served 16 years for wrongful conviction," by Praveena Somasundaram in The Washington Post.

"Black Voters Have New Power in Mississippi. Can They Elect a Democrat?," by Nick Corasaniti in The New York Times.