Innocence

In the latest edition of the Death Penalty Information Center's podcasts, we interview attorney Jennifer Whitfield (pictured) of Covington & Burling, who worked to secure the release of former death row inmate Larry Smith in Alabama. Mr. Smith was sentenced to death in 1995 for a murder related to a robbery. His conviction hinged on a statement he made after 4 hours of interrogation. In violation of police guidelines, his interrogation was not recorded, and Mr. Smith later said his admission of involvement in the crime was coerced and influenced by threats made to prosecute his wife. No physical evidence or eyewitness account linked Mr. Smith to the murder, and a witness, who said Smith hatched a plan to rob the victim, was later implicated in planning the crime himself. In 2007, an Alabama Circuit Court ordered a retrial, and a plea deal was reached this year (April 6, 2012) that allowed Mr. Smith to be released after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery. The murder charges against him were dropped.  In the podcast interview, Ms. Whitfield discusses the failures that led to Mr. Smith's conviction and how some of those problems, including inadequate representation and coerced confessions, affect the death penalty system at large.  Listen to the podcast.

A recent editorial in the Lincoln Journal Star of Nebraska concluded that experience with inaccurate evidence from crime labs shows that the death penalty cannot be trusted in the taking of life.  The paper called for the repeal of the death penalty based on a case in which the state's CSI director tampered with evidence in a murder case. Recently, the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the conviction of former CSI chief David Kofoed for planting evidence in a double murder. Kofoed placed a speck of blood in a car belonging to a suspect, which resulted in two innocent men being held in jail for several months. The editorial said such crime-lab error has also been found elsewhere: “You will be - or should be - appalled at the number of times that crime labs turn out to be providing inaccurate and phony evidence. The problems crop up in New York, San Francisco, Houston and many points in between. Sometimes the problem is sloppiness. Sometimes technicians are manufacturing evidence deliberately. Sometimes the science itself turns out to be untrustworthy.” The editorial cited a 2009 report by the National Academy of Sciences that criticized some of the science behind crime lab testimony. The report found that, other than DNA technology, “no forensic method has been rigorously shown to have the capacity to consistently, and with a high degree of certainty, demonstrate a connection between evidence and a specific individual or source,” and that, “Substantive information and testimony based on faulty forensic science analyses may have contributed to wrongful convictions of innocent people.”  The editorial concluded, "The fallibility of the criminal justice system has been demonstrated again and again. Innocent people have been executed in the past and will be in the future," and thus people should "support repeal of the death penalty."  Read full editorial below.

A recent study released by the Prosecutorial Oversight Coalition and conducted by the Veritas Initiative of California found that although Texas prosecutors committed error in 91 cases between 2004 and 2008, none of those cases resulted in disciplinary action against the prosecutor. Misconduct was found most often in murder cases. Courts upheld the conviction in 72 of the cases and reversed it in 19. At a symposium discussing the research, two men who were wrongfully convicted because of prosecutorial misconduct, Michael Morton of Texas and John Thompson of Louisiana, called for increased accountability in such instances. Thompson spent 16 years on death row and was eventually freed, but a financial judgment he had won against the District Attorney's office was reversed.  In Morton's case, a court of inquiry scheduled to begin in September will investigate whether the prosecutor (who is now a judge) committed criminal misconduct in withholding evidence, resulting in Morton's being wrongly imprisoned for 25 years. Cookie Ridolfi, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and one of the researchers for the study, said, “Most prosecutorial misconduct is not intentional, but we know from John Thompson’s and Michael Morton’s cases that when it happens, the consequences can be devastating. What’s clear from this data is that we’re not doing nearly enough to document the scope of the problem and the disciplinary systems as they currently exist are vastly inadequate.”

A new book, "The Inferno: A Southern Morality Tale," by Joseph Ingle, chronicles the compelling story of Philip Workman, who was executed in Tennessee in 2007. The author, a minister of the United Church of Christ who has spent decades working with those on death row, served as Mr. Workman's pastor and tells the story from his own viewpoint, as well as those of others familiar with the case. Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking, called The Inferno "the most detailed, intimate and complete look at a death row prisoner that I have encountered."  Workman's case gained attention because of serious doubts about his guilt. His conviction was based largely on the testimony of a single eyewitness, who later admitted he was not present at the scene of the crime. Sr. Prejean said, "This is a remarkable book . . . that will leave your soul transformed." The book will be released April 2 and is available for pre-order through Amazon.com.