Michael Harold Chapel

Michael Chapel was convicted for the 1993 Armed Robbery and Murder of a Sugar Hill Grandmother, Emogene Thompson.

Officer Chapel had been profiled by Internal Affairs due to a rash of dirty cops in south metro Atlanta shortly before the murder occurred.

Chapel was eventually cleared of any involvement related to the dirty cops and the circumstantial case against him literally fell apart. However, he had already been arrested and the District Attorney and Brass at PD had gone out and declared him a horrible murderer.

One of the dirty cops in his department, who was likely involved in the murder, killed himself immediately after an investigation was triggered by statements Michael Chapel and his Defense Attorney made in connection to his wrongdoings.

Another officer went into the suicide scene, to secure what the Chief Detective said was a suicide note, and others believed to be a confession. Instead he deleted the note, and what would later be described as two hard drives full of incriminating evidence against multiple officers.

An Open Records request has revealed that the Chief of Police and numerous other leaders in the Police Department were present when all this evidence was destroyed. Most of the same leaders, including the Chief and under Chief were present when the lead Investigator on the case wrote in his case notebook that “We may want to manufacture witnesses”.

The record proves that evidence was illegally withheld by the DA, and evidence was “lost,” destroyed, manipulated and manufactured to convict Officer Chapel.

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Eric Anderson

Eric Anderson was wrongfully convicted of a crime he did not commit! His conviction was due to “Outrageous Government Misconduct” that goes beyond Prosecution Misconduct! He has been sitting on San Quentin’s Death row for the past 15 years! He is still on a waiting list just to be appointed a State Habeas Appeal lawyer.

The Prosecution (through crime stoppers) paid the first witness, a female $10,000, which $9000, came from the victim’s family, before Preliminary Hearings. Then after this reward was paid, this same witness not only changed her story 7 times, but also failed the polygraph exam, beyond that there’s the evidence given to show she was lying. We believe once it became clear she was lying, it was too late for the Prosecutor to say “oops, we made a mistake”, and explain to the victim’s family they gave away $9000 of their money to a liar, and on top of that, hamper any case going forward on the others. They doubled-down on her lies and it is why they gave a self admitted guilty co-defendant a Plea Deal, even after knowing this second witness was lying. The prosecutor had multiple sources of evidence to know he was lying!

The prosecutor also lied in closing arguments, to the Jury the facts of a second witness Plea Deal, and claimed he was free to say “Martians came down and did it, and he would still get his deal-when the facts were he was locked into his statement he gave in his “Free Talk”.

The Prosecutor’s Investigator got on the stand to lie about evidence that doesn’t exist. Two weeks later a Stipulation was forced to recant, but the purpose and importance of this Stipulation-clearly was missed by the Jury.

The same Prosecutor’s Investigators also show the first witness a “Photo line up” which all 6 photos were of Eric Anderson and had his parole information on them. Then she claims to identify Eric by his prison issued glasses, which were replaced 2 years beforehand. There were other issues with her claim of identifying Eric as well.

The victim before dying gave his description of the shooter: Salt and pepper hair, with a full beard. Age about 45! No mention of glasses. Eric wears glasses and was in his 20’s, with dark brown hair!

The Prosecution’s Investigator changes witness’s statement reports and when these same witnesses testified, this isn’t what they said, they were pressed into agreeing what was written on a report and when at least 4 witnesses didn’t agree, the Prosecutor Impeached his own witnesses, in order to get in false statements found in these reports.

Eric Anderson’s cell phone records alone prove both of the State’s main witnesses perjured themselves, and that whole stories about what Eric did was false, because it shows he was somewhere else, in a different city, then where they claimed he was.

[ Case description taken from this petition: https://www.change.org/p/gavin-newsom-eric-anderson-needs-your-help-to-fight-against-his-wrongful-conviction-and-win-his-freedom ]

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Wayne Grimes

In 2002, Wayne Grimes was a rural alderman in Grundy County TN, who stood up against drug thugs taking over the board and the region. He was soon indicted for a five-year-old murder that most knew the wife had done, even the prosecutor and State investigator who admitted to this.

The trial was stunning, had no evidence, just the fabricated and changed story by the wife, coerced by the state.

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Austin T Burke

Austin T Burke was charged at 18 years old of murder and an unrelated robbery that were tried in the same case In Trumbull County Ohio. He was convicted by jury and sentenced to 58 years in prison.

The family of Charles Lorraine (who is sitting on death row from Trumbull County Ohio) pointed the finger at my son and had him convicted of murder through hear say in collaboration with the victims heroin addicted best friend. They are the kids who are products of this man and the Roupes of Niles, Ohio. Even though the victim’s family, And the detective knew that the victim and best friend were heroin addicts, They allowed him to lie on the stand in front of the jury. They knew that the victim had contacted his heroin dealer every 8 hours for a month, And the same dealer was the last person he talked to before never being seen again.

They told lies to the jury. The detective told lies to the jury that were directly contradicted in his own detective’s report, And the prosecutor indicted my son with no physical evidence whatsoever. A couple weeks later they used an unrelated robbery of a Pizza Joes, to frame my son and make him look more likely to have done this (Even though the 2 girls that were robbed, described the robber as being bi-racial with green eyes).

My family was demonized and de-humanized by Assistant Prosecutor Christopher Becker, and local media. The prosecutor personally called individuals that were friends or family of my son and other witnesses, and told them lies as if he had actually known us. And then he framed my son while he was incarcerated and awaiting trial – with ridiculous accusations of a deadly weapon in detention (broken plastic spoon), an absurd escape plan (through a 5th story, 6 inch by 6 inch, steel barred window), and threats to other inmates (that were disproved through video evidence during interior investigations).

This prosecutor still uses these ridiculous claims regard less of whether he was charged or actually convicted of any of these circus acts – In order to have him incarcerated in a maximum security prison. This teenage boy was forced and tricked into a plea bargain on the broken plastic spoon, And then subsequently given the maximum time (because the prosecutor said that the plea bargain was not “on the record”).

Website: https://justiceforaustintburke-trumbul.godaddysites.com/

[ Case description supplied by relative ]

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John Brookins

On December 20th 1990, John Brookins visited his friend Sheila Ginsberg’s house, to help her clean before the arrival of her son from out of town. Around 5 PM, John left to give his friend a ride to work. When he returned, he found Sheila’s daughter, Sharon, standing over her with a pair of scissors, stomping them into her chest, screaming that she had to die. Sharon fled the scene shortly after John’s arrival. John, a black man standing over a dead white woman, panicked and left the scene.

Months later, John was arrested for the murder of Ms. Ginsberg. The case was permeated by police misconduct, an ineffective display of counsel, and a clear absence of morality. Based on witness testimony from Sharon Ginsberg (a prostitute who had consistently harassed her mother for money to fuel her meth & crack cocaine addiction) and suspected planted DNA evidence, John was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. He has been in prison for 28 years for a murder he did not commit.

The students of Georgetown University under the direction of Marc Howard and Marty Tankleff have created a documentary to bring awareness to Johns case:

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Toforest Johnson

Just after midnight on July 19, 1995, Jefferson County, Ala., deputy William Hardy was moonlighting as a security guard for the Crown Sterling Suites hotel in Birmingham.  Around 12:30 a.m., Hardy must have heard something in the parking lot that got his attention, because he stepped away from his post to investigate, and was shot dead.

At the time William Hardy was killed, Toforest Johnson, then 22, and his friend Ardragus Ford, 21, were partying at a nightclub called Tee’s Place on the other side of Birmingham. Johnson’s appellate attorneys would later provide 10 witnesses who saw him at the club.

Over the next few years, six young black men and one black girl would be arrested for crimes associated with Hardy’s murder. Four were charged. Two were tried — one was acquitted;  Johnson was convicted and sentenced to die.

Law enforcement officials threatened witnesses with incarceration and the loss of custody of their children if they didn’t tell authorities the story they wanted to hear.

Yolanda Chambers, age 15,  was threatened with arrest if she did not implicate anyone, and was responsible for Johnson’s arrest. At one point, prosecutors themselves conceded that since William Hardy’s murder, Chambers had told more than 300 lies about who was involved and what she knew. Chambers was never a credible witness, she told many different stories and at various points admitted she knew nothing.

At trial, the principle prosecution witness was Violet Ellison who claimed to have heard a phone confession from an inmate who identified himself over the telephone as Toforest ( who she did not know ). This alleged confession allegedly occurred the day after a $10,000 reward was announced by the governor. In 2003, Johnson’s appellate attorneys learned that the state of Alabama paid Ellison $5,000 in 2001 for her assistance to the prosecution. DA David Barber wrote that Ellison came forward “pursuant to the public offer of a reward.” even though the jury was told she came forward solely because of “her conscience” and so that she “can sleep at night.”

At Johnson’s first trial, the jury hung. After a second trial he was convicted and sentenced to death.

Full Article here : https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/09/05/an-alabama-man-has-been-death-row-years-he-is-almost-certainly-innocent/

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James Evans

Nekemar Pearson allegedly went missing on June 25, 1995. James Evans was subsequently convicted of his murder on that date, on the basis of confessions he purportedly made to jailhouse informants, who claimed that Evans confessed that he beat Pearson so severely that he broke his hand in the process. However a medical examination established that in fact his hand had not been broken after a documented fracture in 1993. The trial testimony of the state’s witnesses changed from their grand jury testimony.

State witnesses Tommie Rounds, Demond Spruill, and Larry Greer testified that Evans had confessed. Spruill was a serial informant according to an appeal ruling. Greer was a drug addict and admitted liar, who police officials paid cash for his false testimony, and threatened him with arrest if he didn’t cooperate.

Further, in 2001 a state appellate defender discovered highly exculpatory Brady evidence  : a police officer observed Pearson and another youth walking down the street on July 3,  1995 (ten days after Pearson allegedly went missing). The officer was certain that it was Pearson, because he was a liaison officer at the Alton high school  where Pearson attended, and the officer had several encounters with him.

Source

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Jeremy Bamber

Jeremy Bamber was convicted of the murder of his adoptive parents, his sister Sheila Caffell, and Sheila’s two children on 7 August 1985. After initially being sentenced to 25 years, the sentence was later increased to a whole-life order.

Initially, police believed it was a case of murder-suicide by his sister who had a history of severe mental illness, but a month after the shootings he was arrested and charged with murder.

The critical evidence that convinced the jury of Jeremy’s guilt was a flake of blood found on a silencer found in a cupboard. At trial, the jury was told that the discovery of an enzyme from the blood was clear evidence that the blood found on the silencer came from Sheila. However the jury never knew that this blood could have been from animals. The rifle and the silencers were used to shoot game and could have been carried alongside rabbits when returning from a shoot. Had the jury known that two types of animal blood were found on the outer surface of another silencer, they would have known that the blood was more likely animal blood than Sheila’s blood.

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Omar Benguit

Korean English language student Jong-Ok Shin was stabbed to death in the early hours of July 12, 2002 in Bournemouth, UK.

Omar Benguit was arrested 6 weeks later, after being named by a  heroin addict Beverley Brown. He was eventually convicted after three trials, but a co-defendant was acquitted at the second trial after Brown’s account was contradicted by a speed camera and CCTV evidence.

Although many other drug addict witnesses eventually partially corroborated Brown’s story ( which changed substantially ), none of these witnesses seem credible, and several have retracted, explaining they were pressured by police.

There is a plausible alternate suspect, serial killer Danilo Restivo, who lived just two streets away from the victim.

In a six-part BBC documentary, a journalist and retired detective found that the conviction was unsafe.

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Curtis Flowers

On the morning of July 16, 1996, a retired employee of Tardy Furniture entered the store and found four bodies: the owner and three workers at the store; they had all been shot. Curtis Flowers was suspected after police learned that he had been fired from the store 13 days prior to the murders.

Flowers has been tried six times. The first three convictions were overturned on appeal, the next two trials had hung juries, in the 6th trial he was convicted and sentenced to death.

There is evidence that witnesses were coerced, and three jailhouse informants who were persuaded to testify that Flowers confessed to them have retracted.

Flowers, age 26 at the time of the quadruple murder, had no criminal record and was known in the community as a gospel singer. His family assert that he could not have committed the murders.

Flowers’ case was the subject of an 11-part podcast by American Public Media, in which one of the jailhouse informants retracted his testimony, and other witnesses say they were coerced.

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September 4, 2020: charges dropped.

Krishna Maharaj

Krishna ‘Kris’ Maharaj was sentenced to death in 1987 for two murders he didn’t commit.

Full case description  at http://www.reprieve.org.uk/case-study/krishna-maharaj/

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Don Roberts and Glynn Simmons

On December 30, 1974, two men held-up the Edmond Liquor Store and and in the process shot clerk, Carolyn Sue Rogers, who was killed, and a customer, Belinda Brown, who was wounded but survived.

Don Roberts and Glynn Simmons were subsequently convicted of the murder. There was no physical evidence to link them to the crime, only a questionable eyewitness identification by Belinda, and a juvenile who identified Don in a lineup.

Don and Glynn were strangers the day of the murder, they had only met once at a party, weeks after the murder. Police say their alibis didn’t check out.

Police reports indicate detectives recovered at least one usable finger print, and a bullet, but police said in court there were no fingerprints lifted from the scene of the murder.

Carolyn’s sister, Janice Smith, later wrote a letter to Glynn, and became convinced of his innocence.

Source : http://kfor.com/2014/05/15/prosecutor-family-believe-convicted-murder-could-be-innocent/

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Emerson Stevens

Emerson Stevens was convicted after two 1986 trials of abducting a mother of two from her home on August 22, 1985, while her children were asleep in the house. Five days later, her body was found in shallow water near Belle Isle Marsh, off the Rappahannock River. Stevens was sentenced to 164 years and a day in prison.

In December 2016 the Innocence Project of the University of Virginia School of Law filed an amendment asked for the conviction to be vacated.

According to the amendment, withheld evidence was found including an FBI report identifying a number of additional viable suspects; several witness statements in interviews that conflict with their court testimony; disclosure of witnesses whose statements could have impeached the testimony of prosecution witnesses; and, evidence of coercion of witnesses by the state’s chief investigator. “Mr. Stevens was convicted of a crime he did not commit…The Commonwealth’s failure to disclose the exculpatory evidence on which those false testimony claims are based violates its obligations in Brady versus Maryland”.

Source: http://rrecord.com/innocence-project-casts-doubt-on-stevens-1986-murder-conviction/

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News: ( August 16, 2021 )

 

https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/08/16/virginia-governor-pardons-man-wrongly-convicted-of-1985-northern-neck-murder/

 

Emerson Stevens, the man at the center of a two-part Washingtonian investigative story from 2019, was granted an absolute pardon on Monday by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam. Stevens was convicted in 1986 of murdering Mary Keyser Harding, a 24-year-old mother of two, in a small fishing town on Virginia’s Northern Neck. The Innocence Project at the University of Virginia had been working to exonerate him since 2009.

George Powell

George Powell III was convicted of armed robbery in 2009, and sentenced to 28 years in prison.

A jailhouse informant who claimed Powell confessed to him has recanted, admitting that everything he said was a lie.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission, a state agency that reinvestigated — and called into question — the key piece of evidence against Powell. Powell’s conviction hinged on a dispute over the height of the robber. The clerk at the 7-Eleven told police that the man wearing sunglasses and a ball cap who pointed a gun at her was about 5-foot-6. Powell, however, stands 6-foot-3.

To account for the discrepancy, prosecutors called to the stand an expert who examined video footage of the robber as he walked past the height-measurement strip next to the store exit. Michael Knox, introduced as an expert in forensic video analysis, testified that the 7-Eleven surveillance video showed a suspect at least 6-foot-1.

Although Knox “had never before estimated height based on photos or videos,” the appeal said, jurors convicted Powell of aggravated robbery.

In 2014, however, the Texas Forensic Science Commission voted to examine Knox’s determination as part of its role in helping judges, prosecutors and lawyers better use forensic evidence at trial.

The commission hired a national leader in forensic video analysis who — using industry-standard methods that Knox did not, including three-dimensional laser scanning and measurement scale analysis — determined that the robber was no taller than 5-foot-9, and could have been as short as 5-foot-6.

In its report on the Powell case, the commission concluded that Knox’s analysis was flawed and that his determination about the robber’s height was “unsupportable,” Powell’s appeals said.

Add it all up, defense lawyer Mike Ware said, and “this is an obvious case where they simply arrested and convicted the wrong man”.

Source: “Was the conviction of a Central Texas man built on bad science, lies?” American-Statesman, Nov. 18, 2016

Featured case 156 | Proposal Post

 

Trevin Gamble

Wrongfully Convicted Of Murder Although His Mother & Siblings Swear He Was At Home With Them Doing Time Of Shooting Incident That Took A Young Girls Life

My name is Trevin Gamble. I was wrongfully accused of being involved in a shooting back in 1993 that resulted in a young girl’s life being taken.  The shooting was triggered by a gang rivalry between kids from my neighborhood and the neighborhood several blocks away.

Trevin on a visit with his mother at South Correctional Center

 

I have always maintained my innocence.  I had no involvement in the crime that took place that I have been convicted of, nor did I have any foreknowledge that the events were going to take place.  I was home with my mother and siblings the night of this incident.

I was arrested with 3 older guys from my neighborhood and accused to have been with them when the shooting took place.  Each of my co-defendants were older than I but I believe, because the state did not have a good case against my co-defendants, their plan all along was to use me against them.  One of my co-defendant’s, Kevin Smith, was nearly 20 years old, had served several years in the penitentiary already, and since his release…had been implicated in a number of crimes including murder.  Kevin was who they really wanted.  The police had been wanting to send Kevin back to prison since his release.

There was no physical evidence connecting me to the shooting.  The shooting incident happened at nearly midnight.  I was at home with my mother and siblings, and no where near where the crime I am locked up for took place.  My family members who were present that night all attested to the fact I had not been gone away from the house during the time the shooting allegedly occurred.

The primary evidence used to connect me to the crime was the testimony of a witness that knew me from the neighborhood.  The incident occurred during the wee hours of the night. It was pitch dark and there was bad lighting.  The shooters were allegedly shooting from the shadows of a dark vacant lot which sat approximately 50-60 ft from where the victim was struck.  I am a very dark-skinned individual – there is no way someone could positively identify me from 50 fee away at midnight!  There were approximately 20 people lingering around the street when the shots were fired and none of the witnesses positively identified me as the shooter but the one girl who misidentified me.  Moreover, there were numerous individuals standing out with the victim when the shots were fired.  People that knew me personally, yet none of them placed me on the crime scene.

I have served 22 years of a JLWOP sentence.  Recently the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole has to allow juveniles sentenced to life parole eligibility after serving 25 years.  Recently, the Governor signed this new legislation into law.  As a result of this, I do have some hope of maybe regaining my freedom in the not too distant future.

Nevertheless, I am innocent!!!  I was not involved in the crime I was accused and ultimately convicted of.   I have exhausted my appeals, but not my resolve of proving my innocence.  Currently, I do not have legal representation and my family no longer has funds to help me retain an lawyer.  I am seeking “pro bono” assistance to challenge my case on the basis that I am innocent!

Source

Featured case #151 | Proposal Post

Lamonte McIntyre

17 year old Lamonte McIntyre was wrongfully imprisoned for a 1994 double murder. Attorney Cheryl Pilate is fighting to exonerate Lamonte with the help of Centurion Ministries, a national innocence project that fights to free the wrongfully convicted.

At trial, there was no gun, no motive, no evidence that McIntyre knew the victims. No fingerprints from the shotgun shell casings left at the scene. No blood-spattered shoes, socks, pants or shirt. No physical evidence of any kind linking McIntyre to the crime.

There were two eyewitnesses to the murder. Ruby Mitchell told police she thought it was “Lamonte something” – who would come by to talk to her niece. This led the police to Lamonte Mcintyre, however he was not the person she was referring to. When Mitchell informed the prosecutor, he threatened to have her children taken away.

The other witness Niko Quinn has now signed an affidavit stating that McIntyre was not the killer.

Pilate, in her recently filed motion, maintains that lead detective Golubski manipulated facts and witnesses leading to the false identification of McIntyre. She maintains that throughout the investigation and trial, two chief players — the lead detective and an assistant Wyandotte County prosecutor — not only “failed to seek the truth” but also “consistently subverted and concealed the truth — manufacturing evidence and presenting testimony that they knew to be false.”

More than 15 affidavits — from criminals and their cronies to police — point to the detective, Roger Golubski, who retired as a captain in 2010 after 35 years on the force. Using terms like “crooked” and “dirty,” the sworn statements speak of a detective who preyed on black women, some of them prostitutes, using his access to illegal drugs and the power of his badge.

Full Article and Video  Here Oct 25, 2016

Featured case #150 | Proposal Post

October 13, 2107 DA agrees motion for new trial and drops charges.

 

David Shelton

David Shelton has been in prison for more than 23 years for crimes that he did not commit, sentenced to 40-60 years for two counts of breaking and three counts of criminal sexual conduct.

The jury never saw evidence that proves David, aged 27 at the time, could not have committed the crimes.

1. DNA evidence found in one victims’s home and found in the mask that both victims said the criminal wore rules out all African-American men, including David.

2. Neither victim could identify David out of a lineup.

3. One victim originally stated that perpetrator was a white man, but later said it was a  black man. DNA evidence proves that her first description was correct.

4. The Michigan State Police who did the testing were never called to testify about the lab reports that prove David innocent.

5. The lead detective, Robert Aeileo only turned over 3 pages of the lab report, including a cover sheet, while 10 pages were concealed.

6. Head Deputy Cecil Dawson fabricated  a confession which David never made to obtain the conviction.

7. Cecil Dawson and Sergeant Christine Bursey who were in charge of the case were later both sent to prison for selling drugs, and the police department was shut down due to corruption ( see extract from news report below ).

8. David’s defense lawyer has been reprimanded and suspended numerous times.

David’s son has made two videos explaining the above points in more detail:

In 2004, the Innocence Project took on the case, and re-opened it in 2012, however so far all appeals have been denied.

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From a 2013 news report:

Last year former Township Supervisor William Morgan pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy in federal court and admitted to conspiring to accept a $10,000 bribe, defrauding the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Renewal and making a false statement in violation of the federal Clean Air Act. Morgan admitted taking the bribe in an attempt to steer a HUD demolition contract to the man who gave him the bribe.

While Gatewood was police chief in the late 1990s, his deputy chief, Cecil Dawson, was sentenced to seven years in prison for protecting drug houses in the township.

The Dawson case caused many in the community to vote against continuing with their own police department and in favor of sheriff’s patrols.

After 14 years, the sheriff’s department terminated its contract with the township this month over $300,000 in unpaid police service bills. Sheriff Michael Bouchard said funds from a voter-approved millage to support sheriff patrols weren’t making it to his department.

From Detroit Free Press, December 23, 1998

His cooperation with the DEA, FBI and other law enforcement agencies eventually led to charges against more’ than 25 people, including the former deputy chief of the Royal Oak Township Police Department and one of the township’s former officers, and two Highland Park public safety officers. For federal prosecutors in Detroit, Rodriguez, who was sentenced this fall to more than 17 years in prison, was a rare find, being so well connected with major drug traders. By the time Rodriguez’s reign ended, the federal government had agreed to pay more than $150,000 to move 40 of his relatives from Colombia and California to unknown locations in the United States. Rodriguez has expressed hope his cooperation will lead to a shorter sentence.

Rodriguez certainly changed the lives of the four metro Detroit officers. Three of the four pleaded guilty to charges related to cocaine trafficking. A fourth stood trial and was convicted. Former Royal Oak Township Deputy Chief Cecil Dawson, 49, of South-field was sentenced Dec. 8 to 10 years in prison; former Highland Park officer Albert Bursey, 47, was Sentenced to the same term Dec. 17. Krwin Heard, 46, a former Highland Park officer, was sentenced in May to 15 months in federal prison. Albert Bursey’s wife, Christine Bursey, 47, a former Royal Oak Township police officer, stood trial, was convicted and was sentenced Dec. 17 to 15 years and eight months in prison. lawyers for Dawson and Christine Bursey could not be reached for comment recently. But Dawson apologized at his sentencing.

Jerome Morgan

Jerome Morgan was convicted of a 1993 murder, and was granted a new trial in 2014, due to two witnesses being pressured into identifying him as the killer. The director of the Innocence Project New Orleans, which represents Morgan,  says “there is no evidence against him and only evidence that he is innocent.”

Quote

In a ruling that could severely hamstring Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro’s office in its bid to retry a 23-year-old murder case, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled Friday that the trial testimony of two key witnesses who have since recanted their identifications of the alleged killer can’t be used at his new trial.

Jerome Morgan, 40, is slated to stand trial again June 13, two decades after a jury convicted him of murder in the 1993 slaying of 16-year-old Clarence Landry during a birthday party at a Gentilly motel ballroom.

Criminal District Court Judge Darryl Derbigny overturned Morgan’s conviction and life sentence and granted him a new trial in early 2014. Derbigny said he believed the claims of the two witnesses, Hakim Shabazz and Kevin Johnson, that New Orleans Police Department detectives pressured them to identify Morgan as Landry’s killer.

Since then, Cannizzaro’s office has charged Shabazz and Johnson with perjury for their conflicting statements, rendering them silent as a new trial for Morgan approaches.

Both men, fearing additional charges, are invoking their Fifth Amendment right and refusing to take the witness stand, in what Morgan’s attorneys argue was a calculated move by prosecutors to keep them from testifying.

In lieu of their testimony, Judge Franz Zibilich, who will preside over the new trial, ruled that the jury could read transcripts of both their original testimony, identifying Morgan, and their recantations in 2013.

Assistant District Attorney Donna Andrieu has acknowledged that how the jury views those conflicting accounts stands at the heart of the case against Morgan. In court, Andrieu has claimed that Innocence Project New Orleans attorneys coerced false recantations from the two men.

The state’s high court ruled Friday that Zibilich was correct in barring from the trial the men’s initial identifications of Morgan to police butmistaken in allowing their 1996 trial testimony to be read at the new trial.
The ruling came on a 4-2 vote, with Justices Marcus Clark and Scott Crichton dissenting and Chief Justice Bernette Johnson not voting.

The Supreme Court vacated Zibilich’s ruling, though it said the judge could revisit the admissibility of their statements — both to police and to the jury that convicted Morgan — “if these witnesses testify at the retrial.”

Emily Maw, director of the Innocence Project New Orleans, which represents Morgan, hailed the ruling Saturday, saying she hoped it would prod Cannizzaro “to finally dismiss the charges against Jerome Morgan, because there is no evidence against him and only evidence that he is innocent.”

She said Morgan “has been fighting to clear his name since the moment he was arrested by police. He has never wavered from that fight, and it has been a long, hard ordeal for Jerome Morgan, and a long ordeal for the Landry family. It’s time to end it.”

Morgan was 16 when he was arrested and charged with the killing.

A spokesman for Cannizzaro’s office did not immediately comment on the high court’s ruling. The office has a policy against discussing open cases.

Shabazz and Johnson had been with Landry at a May 22, 1993, birthday party in the ballroom at the Howard Johnson motel on Old Gentilly Road. A fight broke out between two groups, and someone pulled a gun and opened fire. Landry was hit in the neck and shoulder, Shabazz in the side and another youth in the thigh.

When police arrived at the party, Morgan was there. Prosecutors alleged at his initial trial that he had managed to run away, hop a fence, stash the gun and return before police arrived.

The jury in the 1994 trial never heard evidence that police reached the scene just six minutes after the shooting started and locked down the ballroom. Instead, the jury heard that it took more than a half-hour for police to arrive. Morgan’s attorneys with the Innocence Project argued that prosecutors withheld the evidence of a quick arrival.

Johnson had testified that he chased the shooter out the door and down an alley. In 2013, he took the stand again, saying Landry had been his best friend and that he was pressured by police to identify Morgan as the shooter.

He first dismissed Morgan’s picture from a photo lineup and did so again seven months later, but he said a detective then pushed the picture back into the mix.

“Are you sure it’s not this guy right here?” the detective asked him, according to an affidavit Johnson signed.

He said the detective told him the photo was of Morgan. Johnson said he figured everybody else must be right, so he fingered Morgan as the killer.

Shabazz spent 10 days in the hospital recovering from his wounds, then got a call from a detective who asked him if he knew who had shot him. Shabazz said he didn’t. According to Shabazz, the detective then said, “Jerome shot you,” and asked Shabazz to come to the station to give a statement.

There, the detective pressured him to point out Morgan and made him feel he would be doing a public service if he did so, Shabazz said in 2013. “It’s almost like they painted this picture for me, that it was him,” he said on the witness stand, adding that he’d been wracked with guilt for years. “What I did, it just wasn’t right.”

Derbigny ruled that the “evidence presented before this court is wrought with deception, manipulation and coercion” by the NOPD.

Soon afterward, prosecutors filed perjury charges against Shabazz and Johnson. The law doesn’t require Cannizzaro’s office to prove on which occasion — in 1994 or in their recantations two decades later — the two men lied on the witness stand.

Cannizzaro’s office, meanwhile, has accused Maw, IPNO attorney Kristin Wenstrom and an investigator of coercing the recantations from Shabazz and Johnson, though no charges have been filed against the lawyers.

In postponing a May 2 trial date to let the higher courts rule, Zibilich pledged to stick to the June 13 trial date.

From Louisiana Supreme Court deals blow to prosecutors with key ruling on upcoming retrial for 1993 teen killing May 14, 2016

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Case dismissed May 31, 2016

Humberto Sanchez-Rengifo

Humberto Sanchez-Rengifo was convicted of the sexual assault of a 15 year old girl  on June 16, 1997, and sentenced to life without parole.

Huberto claims this was a case of mistaken identity. The attacker allegedly sexually assaulted the victim for two hours, raping her after threatening her with a knife.

A semen stain found on the sheet of the bed where the assault took place was found to be from another man. A fingerprint expert testified that none of the latent fingerprints recovered from the scene connected Humberto to the offense.

Huberto claims an identification card with his picture on it was found in the victim’s mother’s bedroom, where the rape occurred. According to Huberto, officers displayed the card to the victim and inquired if that was her assailant. The victim gave a vague and inconclusive response. However, by the time of the jury trial, her story changed and she was now certain Huberto was her assailant.

Sources:

• 7th circuit ruling August 2014
• Appeal September 2002

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Kevin Cooper

Kevin Cooper has been on death row in California for 30 years and is set to be the next person executed by the state. Cooper was convicted of murdering a mother, father, and two 10-year-old children in a crime that horrified prosecutors in 1983. However, the execution is drawing some criticism, as five federal judges say that Kevin Cooper may be innocent and that evidence suggests that the man may not have committed the terrible murder. Despite an unprecedented 103-page dissent letter signed by five federal judges in the Kevin Cooper appeal case, noting that “the State of California may be about to execute an innocent man,” the lethal injection is still scheduled to take place unless Governor Jerry Brown intervenes.

Source: Inquisitor.com Jan 31, 2016

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