By Thursday of every week, you should have completed the activities associated with 1 project. You should blog about your experience as a comment to the blog posting of that particular project. Your blog comment can be largely experiential--tell us what it was like to do the project and what you learned. Products associated with the project and a more detailed analysis of the project will go in your portfolio (see the Portfolio blog post).
Project #7 - Wrongfull Convicted
Choose one of the people who has been wrongfully convicted (there are many posted on this blog) and learn all you can about this person. Go beyond the profile that you read at one of the innocence websites. Find news articles about their case, case law, anything and everything. Be sure to learn about what issues were at the heart of their conviction, and what issues were at the heart of their release. Your comment will give us a quick summary of who you chose, why, and what the main issues are. For your portfolio, include everything you find about this person and your analyses of the issues and your experience researching the person.
When reading this article about the wrongful conviction of Eddie Joe Lloyd (18 at the time of the crime) I was somewhat surprised. As a child growing up he was a well liked person; never had anything bad about anyone to say. He was an intelligent person and attended West Pointe. He grew up with a loving family and was very close to his twin sister Addie. .However, at the time he was wrongfully convicted (due to him being tricked into confessing) he had a mental disorder and was a patient at the Detroit Psychiatric Ward. At this particular time there had been other abductions in the Detroit area which were associated (but not directly) with the murder of Michelle Jackson. I feel as though the jury, the prosecution, and the judge were associating him with the other child abductions that were taking place and under investigation by the Detroit Police Department. At the time of sentencing it was apparent that if Michigan had an execution law Lloyd would be executed. Another interesting fact in one article I read stated when Eddie Lloyd wrote the police department with suggestions on how to solve the murder he was in a psychiatric ward-therefore the questions arise—When did he go into the psychiatric unit? How long has he been there? When did these other abductions occur? What did his Psychiatrist have to say in the defense? It seems to me If these questions were answered correctly it would be hard to convict Lloyd of the murder of Michelle Jackson.
The following link is to an article about the wrongful conviction of Eddie Joe Lloyd and has other information about his mental state at the time of his so called confession, the tactics used by the Detroit Police Department and statements by Eddie Joe Lloyd himself.
http://truthinjustice.org/eddie-lloyd.htm
After looking through the case of Douglas Warney, who was freed from prison after 10 years of serving his sentence for the murder of William Beason, I have developed many questions.
Warney falsely confessed to the murder of Beason and was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. With the help of the Innocence Project, Warney was found innocent when DNA results failed to tie him with the case and instead tied another man (who later confessed) to the murder.
Warney, who suffers from AIDS, has an IQ of 68, and previous mental illness, claimed that the interrogators coerced him into falsely confessing. The interrogation was not documented other than through written documents (which have the potential to be skewed), so whether or not Warney was coerced is unclear.
His story left a mark on me. It made me question why police interrogations (especially for intense crimes such as this) are not better recorded. It also brought up issues concerning whether or not that death penalty is a good/bad idea (Warney faced charges that could have ultimately caused him to be sentenced to death, but he was given a lesser sentence). What if he was executed before the DNA tests proved him innocent? Would this be justice? A crime that initially killed an innocent man (Beason) could have ended up killing another innocent man.
Warney ultimately spent 10 years of his life in prison for a crime he did not commit.
His case is very interesting, and I encourage you to investigate it!
Here is the link to his profile on the Innocence Project website.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/281.php?phpMyAdmin=52c4ab7ea46t7da4197
Sorry it is not a hyperlink....it isn't working for me, but I'm trying to figure it out and will fix it as soon as possible!)
After browsing through the Innocence Project web site I found an article relating the wrongful conviction of Ricardo Rachell. Ricardo was wrongfully convicted of the sexual assault involving a young boy in Rachell's neighborhood. The issue that caught my attention while perusing this article is the fact that the evidence NEVER went under DNA testing at the time of the crime (2002). This is a major issue since it would have prevented the wrongful conviction of this man. On the "plus side" he ONLY had to serve 5.5 years of his 40 year sentence before investigators found the real perpetrator.
The part of this issue that bothers me is that the DEFENSE attorney didn't even request the DNA testing when the crime occurred. This would have ultimately saved the defense attorney's client and kept him free - as he should have been.
Sadly enough the "evidence" that tied Ricardo Rachelle to the assault was that 1) it happened in his neighborhood, and 2) he looked somewhat similar to the actual perp.
All around this is poor lawyering and goes on to show that our legal system needs to implement certain "checks" on lawyer's so that an innocent person isn't dragged through the mud and that a portion of their life isn't wrongly taken away.
Brief summary of the article with link to an update.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/1891.php
Article located at the Houston Chronicle online.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/6159775.html
I was looking through the articles on The Innocence Project's website and found one that interest me. The case was with Kennedy Brewer who was convicted of killing and raping his 3 year old daughter. The only evidence that lead to his arrest was the fact that when they found his daughters body she had bite marks on her, however the semen and blood samples were 'contaminated' and couldn't be tested. Brewer was wrongfully convicted, but he was put into prison from 1992-2008. That's a lot of time to serve in jail when you're completely innocent.
It turns out that the killer of Brewers daughter committed a similar crime to this one, which he got away with leading yet again ANOTHER victim to be wrongfully committed. The only evidence they had on the other guy were bite marks as well. I think it's funny that they police didn't see a similarity between those two crimes and investigate further into them. They just based it off of bite marks, which weren't even accurate.
Here's the link to the actual article.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/1176.php
I choose James Bain. I went to the innocent project website and looked through the people to choose who I wanted to write my report on. After initially looking for someone who was from Iowa, then being unsuccessful, I choose Bain. The reason I choose him was because his prison sentence was the longest of anyone listed on the website. I thought it would be interesting because of how long it took. Bain lives in Florida, and was wrongly convicted of kidnapping and rape of a nine year old boy when he was nineteen. He was sent to prison in 1974 and finally released in 2009, serving 35 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was finally released because of DNA testing, which proved that he was not involved in the crime. He had been denied DNA testing several times, before finally being proven correct. Bain is now 54 years old. The biggest issue was eye witness testimony, which the prosecution based their case on. The victim, just a nine-year old boy, claimed his attacker had bushy side burns, and said he was “Jimmy”, which roughly fit a description of Bains at the time. The victim recalled being asked to “pick out Jimmy Bain” when trying to identify the attacker, however Florida police deny this accusation. Bain had an alibi, his sister, but the jury decided the boy’s identification was more important.
This link is to CNN’s description and report of the release of Mr. Bain:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/17/florida.dna.exoneration/index.html
I chose James Bain because he had spent more years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, than anyone else in the United States. Bain spend 35 years in prison for the rape of a boy. He was convicted almost solely on the boy’s identification of him or his misidentification. James Bain was released after DNA tests proved that he was not the one who raped that boy. The person who actually committed the crime has not been found yet. All of this happened in the state of Florida. I chose James Bain because he had served so many years in person. He was sentenced as a teenager and he got released at the age of 54. He lost all of those years of his life because a little boy picked his photo out of a book. The main issue is the boy’s misidentification of him. There was really no other evidence expect for the boy’s statement that James was the one. The Florida innocence project got the courts to do a DNA test to prove James was wrongly convicted. On December 17, 2009 James went into the Court house at 9 am expected to walk out on a conditioned released while the investigation continued. Just a few minutes before the 9 am court hearing, prosecutors got a call that the semen in the boys underpants did not belong to James Bain. On that day the courts released Bain and declared him a free man.
This is a very sad story and most people would be mad that they had spent all that time in prison. James Bain said that he is not made, that the state of Florida does not owe him anything and that God will take care of the person who committed the crime just as God has taken care of him all of his life. He said that the most important thing to him was to go see him mother and spend time with him family. He used a cell phone for the first time to call his mother after he had been released. He has a very amazing story to tell and he has a great sense of humor.
http://www.merinews.com/article/innocent-james-bain-released-after-spending-35-years/15791563.shtml
(This is just a news report about the case).
http://ktar.com/?nid=237&sid=1244376&pid=0
(These are some pictues of James in court the day he was released).
http://www.theledger.com/article/20091217/VIDEO/912172011?Title=Jimmy-Bain-Released-From-Prison
(This is a very emotional video about James after he got released. It shows James meeting his family outside the courthouse and he answers different questions by reporters).
Sorry i couldn't get the links to be highlighted.
I am doing mine on Paula Gray who at the time of her conviction was a 17 year old nearly mentally retarded girl who was convicted of the abduction, rape, and murder of Lawrence Lionberg and Carol Schmal. She was a suspect due to a "tip" from Charles McCraney. This man also accused four other men of being involved. Gray, after being questioned for two days straight confessed. Soon after being indicted in front of a grand jury Gray recanted. Eventually DNA testing proved that Gray and the others were not involved. Her conviction was overturned in 2001, and she was pardoned in 2002.
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-16968-AfricanAmerican-Art-Examiner~y2009m8d7-Savannah-Talks-Troy-Anthony-Davis-No-1-the-Inmate-on-Death-Row
This site tells of the very controversial story of Troy Anthony Davis. He was convicted to be executed in 1991 for the murder of a cop on August 19, 1989, Mark MacPhail. Since then he has appealed his case many different times, sometimes being saved only days before his execution. But the case lacks any physical data it has become very controversial that he even committed the case. Another great concern is that 7 of the 9 witnesses recalled their statements that they had seen Davis commit the crime. Some even said they had been pressured into saying that it was Davis. One thing that holds Davis though is the fact he fled to Atlanta after the murder that night, and turned himself in to the police the next day. Today it is very hard to convict someone without DNA. Because of the advances in sciences proof is definitely needed in order to truely convict someone. He said, she said seems to be less and less important in our cases. When throughout history this was probably the main way of convicting crimes.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/news/Blog.php
http://darrylhunt.journalnow.com/frontStories.html
I chose the case of Darryl Hunt. A black man who was convicted of murdering a white woman named Deborah Skyes who was 25 at the time and Darryl was 19 when he was charged with first degree murder. His trial was overturned by the North Carolina supreme court, but then he was retried in front of an all white jury which convicted him even though DNA evidence said he was innocent. After years of appeals, the attorneys finally got his case to be heard again on the basis of DNA testing and they found him innocent in 2003 and he was exonerated in 2004. The actual murderer was found through DNA testing and pleaded guilty. Darryl Hunt goes around talking with other exonerated people about how DNA testing is crucial if it can be done. More on the case can be found on the links above about how the case went on and how people acted towards it.
The case that I choose was that of Alan Crotzer. He was in jail for a rape charge along with kidnapping, burglary, aggravated assault, robbery, attempted robbery. He was sentenced to 130 years and served 1.25 million for the 24 years that he served. The case had witnesses that misidentified him and had improper forensic evidence against him. I choose this case because it seemed interesting and because of the witness had a mistaken identity in this man that sent him away for 130 years.
The police ran the plates that lead them to St. Petersburg resident and photographs were shown to the victims. They couldn't make a positive id on the car. Then photos of the suspects were shown and two other men and Crotzer were identified as the rapists. Crotzer was said to be the man that was holding the gun in the robbery charges. The evidence at the test they were testing the rape victim they couldn't determine who actually rape them because of the testing then, and that it could really be anyone in the male population that could have done it. On top of that, the analyst said that the test confirmed that is was that was Crotzer's which at the time couldn't be determined. Crotzer plead guilty to the robbery chargers but claimed that he was never there at the time of the rape and didn't know about the crime. He had an alibi that claimed he was home with his girlfriend, but because of identification from the victims he was charged.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/76.php
The case I chose was about Gregory Taylor. I picked this case because it is recent and I thought that it shows how evidence can be perceived in many ways.
It was today (February 17th, 2010) that Gregory Taylor was found not guilty for a murder that he has already served 17 years in prison for. 17 years ago he was found guilty of a prostitute in September of 1991.
When he was convicted the prosecution had his SUV, blood evidence that was said to be present (which was proven negative and not revealed at the first hearing) and a dog that found the scent of the victim on Taylor's SUV.
At his second hearing, there was a lack of witness testimonies and blood evidence that placed him at the scene of the crime. The only thing that was found at the scene was Taylor's SUV, which was stuck so his friends and him left to walk when they thought they saw the body. Also, the dog that was used to identify the scent of the victim on Taylor's SUV was not trained for scent identification.
I found this case on the Innocent Project website which is: http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/North_Carolina_Man_Cleared_After_17_Years.php and I also saw the case on the abc news website which is http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=7282220 .
I chose Habib Wahir Abdal because he servered 16 years of his 20-life sentence and died 6 years after he was exonerated. The white female victim of a rape said that it was a black man with a hood and four months later identified him as the perpatator. There was hair in evidence but it did not match Abdal, but it is common for people to have different hair on their head but the expert said he was pretty sure it was not his, but he was still convicted. Then in 93 when DNA analysis started being used it was found inconclusive but in 99 after DNA anlaysis had evolved they found it was not his. The prosecting attorney then tried to say that there were two men involved but it did not match the victims story and the rreal perp has not yet been caught. http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/45.php
For my wrongfully convicted project I chose Ray Krone. Krone was not only wrongfully convicted once, but twice. He spent 10 year in prison including death row before he was released. His original conviction was based solely on "expert" opinion. Have that he spent 4 years on death row before this was thrown out and he was retried. During his retrial there was DNA evidence. There was blood, but the was proven not to belong to him or the victim. After this he was once again convicted on "expert" opinion.
After all this he placed statements saying he had no faith in the system of "truth and justice". He did know the victim and they were often acquaintances. They ended up finding the guy that the DNA matched and he was already in prison for sexually assaulting a 7-year-old girl. There are cases like these that make you doubt the justice system and prove that it does not matter who is convicted as long as someone is punished for the crime.
I choose to look up information on Kerry Max Cook. He was convicted of killing a young secretary named Linda Edwards in 1977; Cook was only 19 years old. He was convicted because a witness stated that they saw him leaving Linda's apartment around the time of the murder, and also a jailhouse informant said that Cook confessed to him. Cook was sentenced to the death penalty and served over 20 years in prison, 13 of which were on the death penalty, before being let free. He was finally let free when the jailhouse informant recanted his testimony. Also, the witness later explained that it was not Cook, but Linda's professor who was leaving the apartment. Cook later wrote a book and is an advocate for the wrongly convicted. Here is a link to his website which I found very interesting! http://www.chasingjustice.com/
I chose the case of Scott Fappiano. He was a Brooklyn man convicted of raping a woman in 1985. In 1983, a New York police officer and his wife were asleep at home when a man broke into their home, and raped the police officer's wife. Fappiano was wrongly chosen out of a lineup by the wife, and this witness misidentification led to his conviction. Fappiano would've been found innocent if the New York City Evidence Preservation System hadn't lost valuable, DNA testable evidence.
"Scott Fappiano could have been exonerated more than three years ago, when the Innocence Project began searching for the evidence in his case, if the NYPD had adequate policies and procedures for its evidence warehouse", Morrison said. "New Yorkers have to wonder have many innocent people are sitting in prison because the NYPD can't find evidence that could be subjected to DNA testing".
In 2006, the Innocence Project used a piece of a 23-year-old pair of sweatpants found in Orchid Cellmark, Inc., a DNA Lab in New Jersey.
"New DNA testing by the New York City Medical Examiner's Office scientifically confirmed that the evidence came from this case and that Fappiano was not the rapist."
After 21 years in prison for a crime he never committed, Scott Fappiano was released.
http://www.northcountrygazette.org/articles/100706ManFreed.html
I am doing my research on Johnny Briscoe, a St. Louis man that spent 23 years behind bars because of eyewitness misidentification and improper forensic evidence. I chose this person because of the circumstance of his arrest. The person that committed the burglary and rape told the victim his name was Johnny Briscoe and smoked a cigarette with the victim which was later used as DNA evidence to exonerate him of the crime but his life was never the same and he felt like his was in prison and had a hard time adjusting to everyday life again.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-01-27-exonerated_N.htm
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/59.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Briscoe
After reading the post about the Dr. Phil episode of eyewitness identification, I decided to do this project on Dean Cage, the man who spent 14 years in prison for a wrongful conviction of raping a 15 year old girl on her way to school. I chose Cage because of the rare case of being reunited with the girl that put him behind bars and their unique friendship that developed after meeting again on the Dr. Phil show.
Cage spent time in prison writing to the Life After Innocence Project to help him regain his freedom. DNA evidence proved Cage's innocence and he was released from an Illinois prison 14 years after being wrongfully convicted.
Here is a clip of Cage speaking about his wrongful conviction and exoneration through the help of the Life After Innocence Project on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOsJsPxD_ag
I will be researching Kerry Max Cook. He was sentenced to death for the murder of a young woman. At the time, he was a college student working in a "gay bar" so it is thought that there was a high amount of prejudice in this case. Questionable DNA evidence was a allowed into the case that ultimately sealed his fate. He was also convicted because of a witness' identification of him.
Later, he was freed because the fingerprint "expert" admitted it was impossible to "date" a fingerprint. The eyewitness also admitted it was someone else she saw the night of the crime.
I chose to look at Jimmy Wingo. He was convicted of killing a married couple during a robbery in 1982. He was sentenced the death penalty. The only source of evidence that "proved" Wingo (and his friend, Jimmy Glass) committed the crime was the testimony of Wingo's friend/mother of his child. Wingo tried to get is case appealed because there is a video of Wingo's friend saying that the only reason she said Wingo was guilty is because the police who interviewed her threatened to give her 10 years in prison. Only a few days before Wingo's execution, the state Pardon Board reviewed the tape of Wingo's friends telling the truth but they dismissed it. On Tuesday, June 16, 1987, Jimmy Wingo was wrongfully executed. I chose this case because it relates to class in that many people are coerced into saying things that aren't the truth.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/206.php
I am doing this project on Ryan Matthews. He was convicted of shooting a convenience store owner in Louisiana and sentenced to die.
Several witnesses saw a man in a ski mask run out of the store and jump into the passenger side of a getaway car through the window. Matthews, 17, and a friend of his, Travis Hayes, were stopped by police a few hours later and questioned about the crime. They were stopped because their car resembled the getaway car. They were arrested and questioned for six hours, which ended up with Hayes confessing he was the driver and Matthews shot the store owner. Matthews was identified as the gunman by several witnesses as well. Both boys were also described as "borderline" mentally retarded.
There were several reasons for Matthews' release. The defense presented evidence that forensic testing of the mask excluded both Matthews and Hayes. A defense expert also testified that the car that the two boys were driving could not have been the getaway car because the passenger side window that Matthews allegedly jumped through was inoperable and unable to roll down. Other witnesses to the crime described the shooter as being much shorter than Matthews.
I'm doing my project on Kennedy Brewer who was sentenced to dealth for the rape and murder of his girlfriends 3 year old daughter in 1995. The only evidence that was used to convict Brewer was teeth marks on the victims body. Brewer was finally found innocent because of dna evidence in 2001 but he wasn't released from jail until 2007.
I chose this case because of the way he was convicted. The article said that the medical examiner was not very reliable with his cases agianst people in the first place and he made up bogus statments to look smart.
http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/2369.php
I found a case about Raye Dawn Smith who was accused of enabling child abuse to her daugher that was sexually abused and killed by Raye's new husband, Mike Porter. Kelsey, Smith's daughter, had many different things happen to her that could not be explained, such as broken legs, broken collar bone, and sprained ankles. Everyone pointed their fingers at Smith, but most of these instances happened while Kelsey was in the care of her paternal grandmother and birth father. Kelsey was found unresponsive in her bed while Smith was picking up her step-daugher from school. Mike Porter was the only one watching Kelsey at the time. When examining Kelsey's body, they found that she had been sexually abused. The step-daughter had seen Porter abuse Kelsey a few times before.
I chose this case because everyone, even the DA, thought that Raye Dawn Smith was the one who made all of this happen. Porter wasn't even taken to trial and he took the plea of 30 years to say that he enabled the child abuse, even though he was the one who actually abused and killed Kelsey. Raye has been convicted of enabling child abuse and has a sentence of 27 years in prison. How does the murderer get away with only 30 years in prison when Raye did nothing wrong and is in prison for almost as long as he? All she is guilty of is missing her daughter.
http://www.thetruthaboutkelsey.com/default.htm
I chose Marvin Anderson. He was convicted for rape, sodomy, abduction, and robbery in Virginia in 1982. I found his story on the Innocence Project website and was excited to see that he was compensated after serving 15 years and the real perpetrator was found. The main problem in this case was the actions of an unfair police officer.
When I was looking for wrongfully convicted people, I came across George Franklin. I thought that this case was interesting because his own daughter was the one that accused him of murdering her childhood friend, Susan Nason. His daughter came up with this through a repressed memory she had of him when he supposedly raped and killed Nason in Sept. of 1969.
When brought to trial, his daughter explained the repressed memory in great detail, thus leading to Franklin's conviction of first degree murder. He received the highest sentence, which was life in prison. After much debate, his defense atournys decided to appeal his case, because they had found out that hypnosis was used in order to get the repressed memory out of Franklin's daughter. Insufficient evidence led to Franklin's release after six years of being in prison.
I choose to write and research on Joseph Abbitt. He served 14 years on prison for a crime he did not do. After reviewing his profile I learned that he was charged with Two counts of first degree rape, one count of first degree burglary, and two counts of first degree kidnapping. He was convicted with all of those charges. He was sentenced to two life sentences plus an additional 110 years.
The incident happened in the year of 91 and he was convicted and imprisoned in 1995. He was convicted on eyewitness identification, even though is DNA was not present. After investigation, it was clear that the eyewitness identification could not have been all that clear.
He asked for help from the Innocence Project and they allowed his case in and he was found innocent and his Exoneration date was 9/2/2009
I am choosing to do this project on Anthony Caravella who was released just recently (March 25, 2010) after spending 26 years in prison. DNA evidence was the reason for his release proving that he was not the person who committed murder and rape. What interested me about this case was the reason why he was arrested and that had to deal with a false confession he admitted to when he was only 15. It is interesting to note that he had a below average intelligence level at the time of his confession. After being released he was still forced to wear an ankle monitor and abide by a curfew because DNA testing was not totally yet completed. I’m curious to read more into this case because I find it difficult to understand why people confess to something they didn't do, but in this case it could easily be related to the fact that Anthony had below average intelligence.
For my last project I decided to do another wrongfully convicted person however, unlike my other posts this person is till in the process of being exonerated. Therefore, this case is slightly different. Debra Jean Milke is on Arizona's death row due to the fact that she apparently stated that she developed a plan to kill her 4 year old son. With this different approach to the idea of wrongfully convicted I plan on looking up the detail of her trial and researching how she could be exonerated and why she was the person that was convicted and who they might have overlooked. With Milke's wrongful conviction it is said that there was no waiver found when she waived her Miranda rights and this has never happened in the last 30 years anywhere in the world. I am interested to read more about her case and see how it was created and how she got to the point she is right now.
I chose Jamie Bain because he had been imprisoned for hte longest amount of time, 35 years. He was accused of raping a young boy who subsequently picked Bain out of a lineup and testified that it was Bain. Later it came out that when he first described what the attacker looked like the boys uncle claimed it sounded like Bain, and later police asked the boy to "pick out Bain" in the lineup. The police deny that this happened.
The case was based laregly on the eye-witness testiomny, and serology on the underwear which indicated that Bain's AB serology did not EXCLUDE him as a suspect. Bain's alibi was thrown out. DNA evidence eventually proved that the seman stain on the boys underwear was not from Bain but from another person.
First of all, I wish to state that I researched into this project prior to giving my speech, but I postponed commenting due to sheer procrastination. I still had some comments prior to writing my speech, but the majority of details were further investigated for said speech.
I chose Debra Milke because she's one of the few female death row inmates who is believed to be innocent. That's right; she is currently still in jail. The issue is not only whether she did or did not commit the crime of murdering her four year old son, but if her rights were violated and misconstrued. She never had her Miranda Rights read to her and a detective states she gave a full confession. What is the issue about this confession? There is no written, recorded, or signed document that states she did. There is only the word of the detective that she confessed. Since she has not been released yet, I cannot write about that. However, she is awaiting a re-trial due to these errors.
Her psychological reports demonstrate that she is mentally healthy and does not display that of a killer. As her co-workers and neighbors stated, she seemed to be a very kind and caring person. With this bit of information as well as no prior criminal history, I believe it is possible the court made a severe error in her guilt of this murder.
Project#9-Wrongfully Convicted-“The Norfolk Four”
Shortly after returning from assignment at sea, U.S. Navy sailor Billy Bosko returned to his apartment to find his wife Michelle Bosko brutally murdered and raped. After questioning a few residents that lived within the same apartment complex as the Bosko’s, detectives asked Danial Williams, a possible suspect according to Tamika Taylor, to come to the station to answer some questions.
While Danial Williams did exhibit some awkward and unusual behavior when interacting with Michelle Bosko, the police were talking to the wrong guy. After 22 hours of questioning and verbal abuse, Danial Williams provided the police with an audio recorded and written statement of confession. In the confession Williams admitted to killing and raping Michelle Bosko. At a glance, it appeared that the good guys caught the bad guy, the bad guy confessed, and justice would be served. Evidence collected at the crime scene provided DNA samples of hair, blood, and semen to the investigators. “Excellent!” they must have thought. Not only do we have a confession, but we also have physical evidence that will convince any jury on the planet to give this guy the death penalty. A problem would soon reveal itself though, and test results confirmed the DNA evidence at the crime scene did not match that of Danial Williams.
This led the manipulative and forceful Detective Robert Glenn Ford to assume that Williams must have had an accomplice, and Joe Dick (Williams’ roommate) was brought in to “answer some questions.” And just like Williams, Dick found himself confessing to a crime he was never involved in. This cycle of finding a suspect, questioning them, forcing a confession, and implicating another innocent man would eventually include nine different men, none of which committed the crime.
Cases such as the Norfolk Four are exemplary of some of the “holes in the system”, and highlight some of the changes that are necessary to avoid situations like this from occurring again. The police investigators operated within the law by telling the suspects things that were not true, such as their failing the lie detector test. The suspects were told that they would receive a lesser sentence if they confessed. They were told that certain things were “off the record”, and that they may have “blacked out” during the crime. The suspects were interrogated for long hours, without counsel, and threatened by the police. They also were duped into thinking that by waiving their Miranda Rights they were simply filling out paperwork and expediting bureaucratic hoops. In cases where the suspects requested an attorney, the police ignored their requests. The police investigators consistently “lead” the suspects by asking them questions that included information about the crime scene and the events of the crime, so that the suspects knew more about what had occurred than someone that wasn’t involved.
In February 2009, a governors pardon finally freed Danial Williams, Joe Dick, and Derek Tice, after years of accusations, humiliation, and incarceration. Interestingly enough, despite the prosecutions inability to link any of the convicted to the DNA evidence, the court system was never able to exonerate the innocent men, and it wasn’t until a governors pardon that justice was finally served.
I chose to write about Cameron "Todd" Willingham. His story seemed to be different than many of the wrongfully convicted stories I had heard. He was executed after he was believed to have started a house fire that killed his two daughters. Years later, fire experts said this was highly unlikely.