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Alan
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Helen Prejean |
Innocence commission
proposes review board
The Associated Press, Mar.
09, 2005
CARY, N.C. - A commission charged with handling
claims from prisoners that they are not guilty of the crimes
they've been convicted of has proposed creating a review board
to review those claims.
The N.C. Actual Innocence Commission
voted 19-9 Monday to send the proposal to the General Assembly.
If enacted, North Carolina would be the first state with an agency
to screen claims of innocence.
The idea for such a body came
after a series of wrongly convicted people were released from
prison, including Alan Gell, who spent nine years on death row
but was later acquitted of murder.
The commission had to approve
the plan soon because it faced an April 20 deadline for it to
be considered by the legislature this year. The commission would
have had to wait two years before being able to introduce the
bill.
"It's the right thing
for all of us to do. It's not right to wait two more years,"
former Superior Court Judge Tom Ross said in support of the measure.
Ross was joined by prosecutors,
judges, defense lawyers, law professors and law-enforcement officials,
although some acknowledged support of the concept with a bit
of hesitation about the details.
"Although I might feel
a little bit uncomfortable, I can still hold my head up and say
I've done what I think is right," Burlington Police Chief
Mike Gauldin said.
The proposal was opposed by
Wake District Attorney Colon Willoughby, Mel Chilton with the
N.C. Victim Assistance Network and some law-enforcement officials.
Although not rejecting an innocence
review panel, they wanted more time to get support among their
constituents.
New youth program provides
motivational speakers, tutoring and jobs
March 9, 2005
Teens participating in a new
after-school program operated by Southern University in Shreveport
mix a taste of the real world with reality TV twice a week.
Youth Network Initiative targets
teens at risk of dropping out, young adults who dropped out of
school and young adults with a high school diploma who could
benefit from career training. The program, funded with a $182,000
federal Workforce Investment Act grant, serves 22 students and
will take in another 10 when career training starts.
Middle and high school students
receive tutoring, help with homework and preparation for state
standardized tests. Dropouts can take classes to prepare for
the general equivalency diploma test. The program helps younger
participants find summer or part-time work.
Dominique Jackson and Lisa
Bright, students at Booker T. Washington High School in Shreveport,
said they're looking forward to starting work soon. Bright will
take a part-time job at SUSLA. Jackson doesn't know where she'll
work, but "I'm depending on that check this summer."
"I have good people skills,
so I'm hoping I have a job with the public," Jackson said.
"I do good with kids, too."
Bright and Jackson were among
about a dozen high school students who listened intently Monday
as Shreveporter Calvin Willis described his 22 years in prison.
He was wrongly convicted of rape. DNA evidence freed him from
Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in 2003.
Youth Network Initiative provides
a variety of speakers to supplement classroom work and educational
games.
"Hopefully, it will motivate
students to get their education and show them that, even if you
have shortcomings, you can move up from it and move on,"
said Arcenia Anthony, SUSLA continuing education coordinator.
After more than an hour of
give and take with the students, Willis departed and the group
turned to academics, engaging in a raucous game based on the
TV show "Fear Factor." Students wrinkled their noses
as a young man tipped a plastic bag back and swallowed a pinkish-brown
substance.
"It's potted meat,"
Anthony said, laughing.
At another site, five older
teens studying for the GED also are planning two community service
projects. The first, a health fair scheduled for May 7, will
focus on everything that helps a community, including physical
and mental health, substance abuse and violence prevention. One
on May 14, dubbed Community Unity Fair, will focus on food and
clothing drives.
"We're having them research,
talk to people at churches, at the city, at Southern," said
Veronica Crandall, SUSLA's youth programs manager. "They
wanted to make sure we really were going to do this, not just
sit around in class talking about it."
Innocence
and the Death Penalty
For Every Six People Executed
In North Carolina, One Innocent Person Has Been Removed From
Death Row.
The most compelling reason
for a temporary halt on executions in North Carolina is that
problems with the current capital punishment system are so widespread
that there is the real possibility that an innocent person could
be executed. The people in North Carolina have reason to fear
that could happen. Under our current death penalty law, at least
six innocent people have been wrongfully convicted of first-degree
murder four of their stories are below.
Alan Gell: State Hides Key
Evidence of Innocence
Alan Gell spent nine years
behind bars, more than four of them on death row awaiting his
execution, for a 1995 murder in Bertie County. In 2002, over
objections of the Attorney General's office -- and while a five-part
series on the case was running in The News & Observer --
a judge ordered a new trial because the Attorney General's office
had withheld compelling evidence of Gell's innocence. Forensic
experts agree the victim died at a time Gell could not have committed
the murder. Seventeen witnesses said they saw the victim alive
well after the only time Gell could have done it. Many of those
statements, along with an audiotape showing that a key witness
planned to frame Gell, were not shared with the defense during
Gell's trial, and he was sentenced to death.
The Attorney General's office
continued to seek Gell's execution even after the evidence of
his innocence was revealed. A judge threw out Gell's conviction
and Attorney General Roy Cooper decided to retry Gell for the
murder. The jury in the second trial deliberated for less than
three hours before finding Gell not guilty. On February 18, 2004,
Alan Gell was released from prison after spending almost nine
years in jail for a crime he did not commit.
Darryl Hunt: After 18 Years,
DNA Matches True Killer
Darryl Hunt was tried and convicted
twice of the 1984 rape and murder of Deborah Sykes. In his first
trial, the state sought the death penalty, and the jury sentenced
him to life. Hunt consistently maintained his innocence. In 1994,
scientific advances allowed for DNA testing of evidence that
revealed that the DNA of the rapist did not match Hunt's. The
State then changed its story insisting that there was more than
one assailant, and that Hunt still could have killed her. Hunt
remained in prison. In December 2003, shortly after the Winston-Salem
Journal published an eight-part series, the DNA from the crime
scene was finally run through a database and a match was found.
A man who had been identified in a similar rape a few months
after Sykes' murder was arrested. He confessed to having committed
the rape and murder alone, and apologized to Hunt and to the
victim's family. Hunt was exonerated on February 6, 2004, and
formally pardoned by the Governor on April 15, 2004.
Jerry Hamilton: DNA Tests Point
to Innocence
Jerry Hamilton has been behind
bars since 1996, and spent more than six years on death row.
His conviction and death sentence were overturned in April 2003
because the state withheld evidence of his innocence. The key
witness against Hamilton was his codefendant, who made a deal
with prosecutors and was sentenced to 12 years in prison after
recanting his own confession. Crime scene DNA samples tested
by the SBI after Hamilton's trial match the codefendant and do
not match Hamilton. There was no other physical evidence tying
Hamilton to the crime. He is currently awaiting a new trial.
Charles Munsey: Records in
State's Possession Prove Key Witness Lied
Charles Munsey was sentenced
to death in 1996. The state's star witness was a jailhouse informant
who said Munsey confessed to him when they were both in Central
Prison. Prison records showed the informant was lying, that he
was never at Central Prison with Munsey. State files that were
finally turned over to the defense showed the prosecutor and
the Attorney General's office knew about those records. Even
after another man confessed to the crime, the state continued
to press for Munsey's execution. A judge threw out the conviction
and the state dropped the murder charge against Munsey, but he
died in prison before he could be released.
In addition to Gell, Hamilton,
and Munsey, Tim Hennis and Alfred Rivera were also sentenced
to death for crimes they did not commit. Both were ultimately
acquitted in retrials, Hennis in 1989, and Rivera in 1999.
CHARLES MUNSEY: DA turned
blind eye to evidence snitch lied
By JOSEPH NEFF, Staff Writer,
The News & Observer, November 2, 2003
A jailhouse informant took
center stage in 1996 when Charles Munsey went on trial for his
life, accused of beating a woman to death with a rifle butt in
Wilkes County.
Munsey, 48, had a lengthy record
of property crimes -- safecracking, breaking and entering, larceny
-- but no history of violence. The case against him was thin:
One witness said he had seen Munsey's car in the vicinity of
the slaying. A month later, Munsey pawned a gun that had been
taken from the scene.
The trial turned on Thursday,
June 6, when Timothy Bryan Hall took the stand and swore to be
truthful. Munsey turned to his lead lawyer, Brad Cameron.
"I've never seen the man
before," Munsey told Cameron. Hall's testimony was the prosecutor's
entire case against Munsey. Hall's story was dramatic -- and
utterly false.
A former inmate, Hall testified
that he went to the hospital at Central Prison in late 1993 to
be treated for stomach ulcers. Hall said he spoke with Munsey
in the yard -- and that Munsey was sitting at a picnic table,
wearing an orange jumpsuit.
As they stood a few feet apart,
separated by a single chain-link fence, Munsey confessed, Hall
said; he had surprised Shirley Walker in the house. She slapped
him. Munsey crushed her head with a rifle butt. "We just
had a small 10- to 15-minute conversation," Hall said. Hall
testified he had no ulterior motive to testify against Munsey.
"I found God a few years ago, or a few months ago -- and
I -- it's just the right thing to do. No matter, no matter what
happens to me, I still feel like in my heart I've done the right
thing.
Hall's testimony blindsided
Munsey and his attorneys. They had seen Hall's name on the witness
list but had no idea who he was.
On cross-examination, Cameron
scrambled to pin Hall down. Over that weekend, Cameron and his
co-counsel, John Gambill, sought more information. Had Hall ever
been in Central Prison?
That Monday, District Attorney
Randy Lyon received a fax from Dale Talbert, a special deputy
attorney general, about Hall's prison records. The judge announced
that Lyon had shared the records with Munsey and his lawyers.
Lyon had not. He did not hand over Talbert's memo or Hall's medical
records. Talbert's memo was telling: A search of Hall's prison
records and a search of his medical records showed no sign of
him having been at Central Prison. "The med records section
staff would testify it would be nearly impossible for Hall to
have been at Central without there being written documentation
of the fact," Talbert wrote. "However, as a former
prosecutor, I would argue that the absence of written documentation
does not preclude the possibility that Hall was at Central."
Lyon sat on these records.
Munsey's lawyers poked some holes in Hall's testimony; Central
Prison had no orange jumpsuits or picnic tables. The lawyers
did not win over the jury. Munsey was sentenced to death. Soon
after, the real killer came forward. Oid Michael Hawkins, formerly
a brother-in-law of Munsey, summoned two Wilkes County deputies
to a prison where he was incarcerated and confessed. Two months
later, after nothing happened, Hawkins wrote the Munsey family
to say Munsey was not the killer -- Hawkins was.
Munsey 's family told his appeals
attorney. The case began to unravel. Hawkins confessed in a sworn
affidavit.
On Jan. 5, 1998, a Monday,
a trial judge ordered Lyon to turn over all his files and all
police files.
Six days later, after church
services, he went home and hanged himself. The files contained
Talbert's memo and Hall's medical records from prison.
Ben Dowling-Sendor, Munsey's
appeals attorney, said that Lyon's wrongdoing was greater than
Talbert's.
"Randy Lyon sat on the
medical records," Dowling-Sendor said. "He's hiding
records. He's lying. Talbert counseled the prosecutor to make
a factual argument -- that he knew was not true -- with virtual
certainty." Talbert declined to comment.
At a subsequent hearing, Hawkins
testified how he bludgeoned Walker to death. Hall, the jailhouse
informant, swore he could not remember his earlier testimony.
When asked whether he had perjured himself, he refused to testify
by invoking the Fifth Amendment.
Superior Court Judge Tom Ross
tossed out Munsey's conviction and ordered a new trial.
While in prison, Munsey had
started smoking -- up to six packs a day, said his son, Bobby.
Four months after he won a new trial and while his lawyers were
negotiating a deal to free him, Munsey died of lung cancer in
a hospital in New Bern. He was still in custody.
Copyright 2003 by The News
& Observer Pub. Co.
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
