Olmedo Hildago was one of two men wrongfully convicted in the notorious Palladium night club murder of a bouncer in New York. He served 14 years in prison. There were years of twists and turns and much resistance by DA Morganthau's office before his vindication.

The New York Times reports New York City and State have settled lawsuits with Hildago, who now lives in the Dominican Republic, for $2.6 million.[Hat tip to Blogger Mike.]

The lawsuits of the second defendant, David Lemus, who was retried and acquitted in 1997, are still pending.

The two men had some help establishing their innocence, from unlikely sources: A former prosecutor, a former detective and the jury forewoman.

A Texas politician finally had a good idea in the realm of criminal justice. Responding to more than fifty wrongful convictions around the state, State Sen. Royce West introduced a bill that would increase the penalty from a misdemeanor to a felony when a prosecutor withholds evidence that is favorable to a defendant. The bill also lifts the statute of limitations on "official oppression" cases.

Of course, even if the law is changed, the toothier law will be meaningless unless prosecutors are willing to charge other prosecutors who withhold evidence. How often do you expect to see those prosecutions?

To be fair, other politicians in Texas have had other good ideas that would help address the problem of wrongful convictions: [more ...]

Via MikeB30020, in Jefferson City, Missouri, Josh Kezer has been ordered released from prison by Judge Richard Callahan. There won't be a new trial. Case over.

A man who spent half of his life in prison for a 1992 slaying was freed Wednesday after a judge ruled that he was wrongly convicted and had to be retried or released.

Joshua Kezer, 34, left the Jefferson City Correctional Center on Wednesday afternoon when Scott County prosecutor Paul Boyd said he would not seek a new trial.

TChris wrote this post about Kezer a few months ago. Kezer was prosecuted by Kenny Hulshof, who went on to become a Republican congressman from Missouri and last year made an unsuccessful bid for MO Governor.

The key witness changed his story and Hulshof didn't disclose it to the defense. [More...]

Bump and Update: As noted in the comments, Tim Cole was exonerated. Grits for Breakfast was there.

original post:

Kathy Gill examines the case of Timothy Cole, convicted of rape in Lubbock, Texas in 1985 on almost nonexistent evidence. Ten years later, the actual rapist confessed in writing to the District Attorney who prosecuted the case. The DA ignored the confession and Cole died in prison.

Cole's only "crime" was flirting with an undercover cop. Flirting. The audacity, a black man flirting with a white woman. That's what put him in a line-up.

Cole's family is seeking a posthumous exoneration. Whether or not they succeed, Gill points to the need for political action to reform the criminal justice system in places like Lubbock. [more ...]

The grapes are sour in the McLean County (Illinois) State's Attorney's Office but life is sweet for Alan Beaman. As TalkLeft discussed last summer, the Illinois Supreme Court vacated Beaman's 1995 murder conviction after concluding that the prosecution withheld evidence of his innocence. At the time, blustering prosecutors vowed to bring Beaman to trial again.

On January 29, prosecutors quietly filed a motion to dismiss all charges.

"After ignoring our phone calls and messages [the State's Attorney's Office] handed us a motion indicating they were dismissing the indictment," Jeff Urdangen, Beaman's defense lawyer for the last 12 years, said. "We are elated that Alan no longer has the cloud of a wrongful prosecution over his head."

The prosecutor, refusing to rule out Beaman as a suspect, said only that the case remained under investigation and that "all options for future prosecutions remain available." Those options being: (1) prosecute the innocent guy again; (2) try to prosecute the guy implicated by the concealed evidence despite repeated prosecutorial claims that Beaman is the murderer; or (3) never close the investigation and hope the public forgets what happened. The smart money is on option (3).

A study of wrongful convictions in New York cites human error as a leading cause of mistaken guilty verdicts.

It determined that the root causes of the convictions included errors by a prosecutor, judge or member of law enforcement, as well as the misidentification of the accused by victims or witnesses. The mishandling of forensic evidence and a reliance on false confessions from the accused or false testimony from jailhouse informants were also to blame.

Some of the examples cited in the linked article go well beyond "human error." When the police or prosecutors withhold evidence that casts doubt on a defendant's guilt, their willful misconduct isn't a simple mistake. False confessions usually result from deliberately coercive interrogations. A refusal to be fair in the investigation and prosecution of crime isn't just error -- it's malicious, or reckless at best.

This is the life that too often follows a wrongful conviction:

"In Durham, I feel like I'm already labeled," [Erick] Daniels said. "You can be pardoned, get your record expunged, get compensated, but in some people's minds I'm always going to be guilty. If I'm stopped for anything, even driving 10 miles over the speed limit, I'll make the front page of the newspaper. I don't have room to be guilty of anything."

A casualty of Durham's criminal justice system at age 15 (years before lawyers for the Duke lacrosse players exposed its dysfunction), Erick Daniels did about 7 years of adult time for an armed robbery he didn't commit. A judge recognized his innocence and set him free in September, but by that time Daniels had served most of his sentence. Now Daniels lives with and cares for his disabled grandmother. He hopes to be hired for a $10-an-hour job that might also send him to community college.

Good luck and best wishes, Erick.

Bite mark identification evidence is "sham science and glorified guesswork."

Critics say human skin changes and distorts imprints until they are nearly unrecognizable. ... Since 2000, at least eight people in five states who were convicted largely on bite-mark identification have been exonerated, according to the Innocence Project.

In the case of Robert Lee Stinson, "two forensic odontologists testified that Stinson's teeth were a match [with bite marks on the homicide victim's body], even though Stinson was apparently missing a tooth in a place where the bite marks indicated a tooth." Nonetheless, Stinson would likely not have been freed from his life sentence (imposed in 1985) if not for new DNA evidence. DNA on the victim's sweater didn't match Stinson's.

Stinson has been awarded a new trial, although there's some likelihood that the case will be dismissed. Kudos to the Wisconsin Innocence Project for its diligent work on Stinson's behalf.

Joseph White, found guilty of participating in the rape-murder of 68-year-old Helen Wilson in Beatrice, Nebraska in 1985, was awarded a new trial in October after new DNA testing failed to connect White to the crime scene, while pointing to the likely involvement of Bruce Smith from Oklahoma City. Prosecutors have since dismissed the charges against White.

In the wake of that decision, five defendants who pled guilty to the same crime (presumably to avoid the death penalty) will receive pardons. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning told the State Board of Pardons that the "Beatrice 6" are "100 percent innocent." [more ...]

Ricardo Rachell deserves a break. A shotgun blast to the face left Rachell severely disfigured. Neighborhood kids called him "Scary Man." And then he served six years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. His is the injustice that Houston's new DA talked about in this post.

Who knows if Rachell's facial deformities played a role in his conviction. But such taunts, rejection and deep humiliation often cause those with disfiguring injuries, burns and deformities to live in isolation and depression. Suicide rates are high.

Rachell will be undergoing a series of cosmetic surgeries, thanks to the kindness of Dr. Joseph Agris, who will perform the surgeries at no cost to Rachell. Dr. Agris deserves the public's appreciation for his generosity.

For those of you who like to think about ethics, the linked editorial asks whether face transplants to correct profound disfigurements that are not life-threatening should be considered cosmetic procedures. It's difficult to take issue with the editorial's concluding paragraph.

Does this sound familiar?

Out of the blue, ... [Darryl] Burton (age 22) was fingered by two individuals claiming to be witnesses. There was no physical evidence linking him to the murder; a slug was found at the murder scene, but no weapon was ever recovered. A jealousy motive for Burton regarding a girlfriend was investigated by police, but not presented at trial. Prosecutor Anthony Gonzales presented no motive at all.

A witness who testified in exchange for a reduced sentence lied about his criminal record. That witness' testimony varied drastically from the story he told the police. New evidence shows that the other witness "was a chronic liar who was not at the crime scene at the time of the shooting and had vision so poor that he could not have seen the shooting from where he claimed to be sitting had he in fact been sitting there."

Other witnesses identified Jesse Watson as the shooter, a likely suspect given that Watson took a shot at the same victim at the same location a year earlier. The police didn't bother to investigate Watson. [more ...]

Cody Davis had nothing to do with the robbery of the Foster's Too pub in West Palm Beach, but witnesses identified him as the robber. Why?

Witnesses said the robber had a tattoo on his neck. One witness described the tattoo as resembling "Chinese characters." Davis had his name -- "Cody" -- tattooed on his neck, and an informant told the police they should take a look at him. That was good enough for the police.

Investigators put together a photo lineup. Six mug shots included Davis, who was the only one with a tattoo distinctly visible on his neck.

A judge who cared about fair play would have tossed the tainted identifications, given the suggestiveness of the photo array. That didn't happen, and jurors convicted Davis, despite his alibi, despite the dissimilarity of his appearance to witness descriptions of the robber. [more ...]