Arkansas Blog: New trial sought for Damien Echols

The stepped-up legal and investigative effort on behalf of those convicted in the West Memphis Three case continues. A motion was filed today for a new trial for Damien Echols, sentenced to die in the slayings of three young boys. The motion cities DNA evidence (or, rather, absence of any pointing toward guilt) and alleged juror misconduct. These issues have been discussed previously and dismissed by the state.

Read all about it on the jump.

NEWS RELEASE

DAMIEN ECHOLS SEEKS NEW TRIAL IN ARKANSAS SUPREME COURT

New DNA and Forensic Evidence and Juror Misconduct Cited in Plea to Overturn Wrongful Conviction

Prominent Arkansas Attorney Files Sworn Affidavit Stating Jury Foreman Urged Other Jurors to Convict Based Upon False Confession

(Little Rock AR, March 26, 2009) – DNA testing and other powerful forensic evidence - combined with a sworn affidavit that the original jury foreman engaged in blatant misconduct that contributed to the jury’s decision - proves that Damien Echols was wrongfully convicted of three notorious 1993 murders in West Memphis, Arkansas, according to legal papers filed today in the Arkansas Supreme Court asking to overrule a lower court decision and grant Damien Echols a new trial.

Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were convicted in 1994 for crimes they did not commit, and have served 15 years in prison. There was no credible physical evidence, eyewitness testimony or motive tying the three local teens to the murders. Damien Echols was sentenced to death and Jason Baldwin to life imprisonment at their joint trial. Misskelley was tried separately and sentenced to life in prison.

Case History

Three eight-year-old boys were found dead in a drainage ditch in Robin Hood Hills, a local wooded area near their homes in West Memphis, on May 6, 1993. Less than a month later, 17-year-old Jessie Misskelley “confessed” to the crime and claimed that Echols and Jason Baldwin sexually abused and beat the victims. Misskelley, a mentally handicapped boy with an IQ of 72, believed he would get a reward for confessing; many of the details of his confession (including the time of day the crimes were committed and the claim of sexual abuse) did not match the facts of the crime. Misskelley was tried and convicted of first-degree murder in February 1994. Baldwin and Echols were tried together after Misskelley’s trial, and were convicted of three counts of first-degree murder. The following day, Echols was sentenced to die, and he has been on death row ever since.

At the time of Damien Echols’s trial, there was no scientific evidence to support the prosecution’s case and a poisonous atmosphere during trial contributed to his wrongful conviction. The prosecution alleged that Echols and two other teenagers committed the crimes as part of a satanic ritual and provided testimony from a faux “expert” whose words created a Salem witch trial atmosphere.

Echols was 18 years old and penniless at the time of his trial, and a court-appointed attorney representing him failed to challenge a pattern of inaccurate and inflammatory statements made by prosecutors and others during the trial, failed to engage forensic experts who could have refuted the testimony that was used to convict Echols, and entered into a contract with documentary filmmakers prior to the trial which improperly influenced legal decisions in the defense.

Crime Scene DNA Does Not Match Echols, Baldwin or Misskelley

Dozens of pieces of evidence found at the crime scene conclusively show that no DNA from the murders matches Echols or the other two men. DNA testing, however, links Terry Hobbs, stepfather of one of the murdered children, to the crime scene, and other evidence has emerged implicating him in the crimes. [Editor's note: Hobbs has denied such charges in the past.]

A hair found in the knot used to bind the victims matches Terry Hobbs. Tests also show foreign DNA – from someone other than Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley – on two of the victims. DNA matches a hair at the murder scene to another man who was with Hobbs on the day of the crimes. This places Hobbs at the scene of the crime, since it refutes any theory that the Hobbs hair was there before the crime. DNA testing linking Hobbs to the crime scene was not available at the time of the trial.

In addition, scientific evidence from the nation’s leading forensics experts demonstrates that most of the wounds on the victims were caused by animals at the crime scene, after their deaths – not by knives used by the perpetrators, as the prosecution claimed and was the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case. Moreover, evidence presented that a knife recovered from a lake near one defendant’s home caused the wounds was completely discredited by the pathologists. As well, the testimony of a jailhouse informant and a faux “expert” who testified that the knife wounds were part of a satanic ritual was deemed incredulous by these forensic scientists.

Jury Foreman Engaged in Shocking and Illegal Activity During Trial

Echols’s brief also informs the Supreme Court that a prominent Arkansas attorney who is a former prosecutor and state official filed a sworn affidavit with the trial court detailing the contents of improper conversations that the jury foreman held with the attorney while the original trial was in progress, clearly violating the law and the rights of Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin to a fair and impartial trial. In those conversations, the jury foreman indicates that he had prejudged Echols’s guilt and was trying to convince other jurors to convict based upon news reports of the false confession of Jessie Misskelley, which was barred from admission at the Echols-Baldwin trial.

During one conversation, the jury foreman told the attorney that the prosecution had presented a weak case, and that the prosecution had better present something powerful the next day (the end of the prosecution’s case) or it would be up to him to secure a conviction.

The Arkansas Attorney General has opposed placing the affidavit, originally filed in May 2008 in the Circuit Court that tried the three defendants, in the record before the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Lower Court Decision Denying New Trial Based Upon DNA Law is Flawed and Narrows Legislation’s Intent

In 2001, the Arkansas Legislature passed a law granting post-conviction access to DNA testing. The law passed partly as a result of widespread doubts about the convictions of Echols, Misskelley and Baldwin. The lower court’s decision denying Damien Echols a new trial based upon its narrow interpretation of Arkansas’ new scientific evidence statute (DNA law) was flawed and limits the possibility of any wrongfully convicted defendant of obtaining justice using DNA results. In denying Echols a new trial, the state essentially declares that unless the new DNA establishes absolute exoneration it is not relevant. The judge’s decision would not grant relief, “no matter how scientifically conclusive that a petitioner is not the source of relevant DNA, if not legally conclusive in favor of innocence.”

In fact, according to the Arkansas law (Ark.Code 16-112-201,et seq.) “A person is entitled to a new trial insofar as he can demonstrate that the DNA test results, when considered with all other evidence in the case, regardless of whether the evidence was introduced at trial, establish by compelling evidence that a new trial would result in an acquittal.”

Dennis Riordan and Don Horgan, Echols’s lead counsel, assert in their brief before the Supreme Court that “the evidentiary showing made by petitioner completely undermines the state’s evidence and convincingly points in the direction of alternative suspects. Every reasonable juror hearing Echols’s new evidence would doubt his guilt; indeed, any such juror could be confident of his innocence. Petitioner has more than satisfied the standard for relief set forth in Arkansas’ new scientific evidence statutes.”

New Evidence Confidential Tip Line - 501-256-1775

For more information, please see www.freewestmemphis3.org, and www.WM3.org

Comments

Why can't the state "man up" and admit that this case is "Christians Gone Wild," a trumped-up Satanic whatever with ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE whatsoever, except of course that these boys weren't "conforming to the norm" for Arkansas's youth behavior profile (snuff-dipping, Bible-thumping, pickup driving dismisser of women)? It is bizarre beyond the pale and chillingly illustrates what could happen to YOU if "the man" gets you in his sights.
|

Posted by: Larry | March 26, 2009 03:35 PM

I challenge people to read Mara Leveritt's "Devil's Knot" before opposing a new trial for Echols.

Posted by: durangokid | March 26, 2009 03:41 PM

The Devils Knot is certainly a book that will make you think hard on these boys guilt or innocence.

This subject is highly inflammatory in the West Memphis - Marion area and I try very hard to steer clear of any and all conversations on it.

I don't think that this it a case of "Christians gone wild" as another poster suggested. I believe that there was a public outcry for justiice. There was very real fear in our communities...if this could happen to those little boys, what was keeping OUR kids safe? There was a mad rush to solve the case and to see justice done for those babies. People held their kids a little tighter and worried about every person who looked their way.

Do I think Damien, Jessie and Jason are guilty? That isn't for ME to decide since I wasn't on the jury. I don't believe, as a parent, that I could have withstood the evidence presented during the trials though.

We are like every small town that has a horrible crime happen in it. We are shell-shocked to this day. No one thought it could/would happen here. This is something horrible that happens somewhere/anywhere else, not to your neighbors, or your friends or your children. And that statement is true no matter which side of the tragedy you happen to be on.

Posted by: Hmmmm | March 26, 2009 07:06 PM

Who was with Terry Hobbs the day of the murders?

Posted by: kizzy | March 26, 2009 08:10 PM

"Hmmmm" . . . to anybody relocating here after living in any major city elsewhere, your post is so quintessentially southern it's like hearing confession.

Yours is THE major issue non-southerners confront when we embrace this otherwise wonderful region as home.

You state so succinctly what's collectively, sadly, self-defeating about Arkansas, the Bible Belt, and the South.

You say, "The Devils Knot is certainly a book that will make you think hard on these boys [sic] guilt or innocence.

"This subject is highly inflammatory in the West Memphis - Marion area and I try very hard to steer clear of any and all conversations on it."

Mara Leveritt's thoroughly documented work on this case has magnetized numerous legal scholars and deeply concerned celebrities around the country. These are thoughtful and outspoken people seeking justice.

The three West Memphis boys have been incarcerated for 15 years. One is sentenced to death.

Their "guilt or innocence" is impossible to determine from the Christian fundamentalist hysteria and shoddy "legal" treatment of this case.

"Satanic" elements were immediately introduced and constantly highlighted, though the only shred of evidence for "Satanism" was the boys' rebellious preference for Goth clothes and music. Religious fundamentalism here in the Bible Belt, and its undeniable and utterly irrational appeal here, was introduced and maintained up to and through sentencing . . . to this day.

So OF COURSE the poster is justified in calling this a case of "Christians gone wild."

Small town rural religious fundamentalism, fear, superstition, persecution of non-conformists, ignorance, subservience to good-ol'-boy authorities - ALL that permeates this case from the get-go.

At its least, "Devil's Knot" is a devastating indictment of a religiously bigoted southern "legal" system that prejudged and mistried these youths. Contemporary witch burning.

ARE they guilty? We'll never know from this particular trial. "Devil's Knot" objectively paints a sickening picture of miscarried "justice" directed against youthful rebellion and non-conformity -- quite apart from the boys' actual guilt or innocence.

This is what happens to you if you don't shut up and conform, here.

Southern religious fundamentalism was injected from the beginning with the "satanic" accusations . . . and carried through to Mara Leveritt's brilliant choice of title, "Devil's Knot," acknowledging the "Christian" and "Satanic" religious fundamentalism that TRUMPED impartial justice in West Memphis.

Legal experts have been crying for a retrial ever since. To no avail, so far.

What's important here is NOT justice but protecting the good-ol'-boy network that conducted this tragic judicial farce. As long as the participants live, nobody will budge. Not if they can help it.

You, Hmmmm, are the Voice of the South in cases like this.

No matter the subject - racial discrimination, stem-cell research, women's reproductive and health-care freedoms, same-sex equality - "conversations" and knowledge and facts will be persecuted in the south by religious fundamentalism. Even today you can lose everything and be run out of town if you speak up or ask questions.

It took 45 years, after J. Edgar Hoover's FBI purposefully withheld evidence in the Birmingham, AL bombings trial back in the '60s, before even a SEMBLANCE of justice was reached.

Remember the innocent children purposefully killed (by members of the KKK) in THAT case? CLICKY.

It's precisely because southerners "steer clear of any and all conversations on" topics that don't "conform" to the power wielded by religious fundamentalists that the south and Arkansas maintain rankings at or near the bottom of every social and economic indicator.

Too bad. We've such a beautiful region full of wonderful people and potential. People here aren't stupid. They may not all be the best educated and informed but they're not dumb.

Still, for often valid personal reasons, southerners are AFRAID - to speak up, ask questions, demand answers - to grow or change. Unlike, say, their counterparts in larger more influential centers like New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, Paris, etc.

Maybe there's safety in numbers, but people in the western world's major cities enjoy one trait that's in short supply in places like Arkansas: genuine freedom and courage to speak up and speak out, question and protest without fear of shunning, persecution or death.

That's changing, slowly, thanks perhaps to the internet - love it or hate it.

But as long as Arkansans, and southerners, are essentially afraid and "steer clear" of conversations that challenge the status quo and lead to enlightenment and progress and change . . . those of us who are not from here, but who love living here nonetheless, will shake our heads sadly at what might have been and what might could be.

The "West Memphis Three" is as shameful as "Central High" fifty years ago.

Like it or not, deny it or not, live elsewhere for a time and these are the sound bite "hick" episodes that characterize Arkansas.

If you don't like it, change it.

Speak up here and in daily life. Start having those "conversations" the south is still so desperate to silence.

_____________

Off to Pilates, Razorbabies!

Posted by: NormaBates | March 27, 2009 11:01 AM

I have been watching, reading and listening. I leaned toward John Mark Byers at one time, now I hear about the hair of Terry Hobbs in the ligature. BUT......I always keep going back to part of Jessie Misskelly's testimony that went like this: "the Moore boy ran away and I went and caught him and brought him back........." Sorry, this in no way sounds made up to me. Also he related exactly what he had been drinking and what he did with the bottle afterward and it was found exactly where he said. People (especially those prone to be eccentric and with a strange bent) who drink too much are capable of some bizarre things, as we all know. But the hair...that does throw me a bit. I too would like to know who was with Terry that day. Terry always looked like a scared rabbit in the headlights each time I saw him. And what about his accounted-for alibi? Did it exist?

Posted by: Brodiecat | March 28, 2009 12:42 PM

I have read the previous comments regarding Mr. Echols' trial. It is sad that we have juries and prosecutors who are so quick to convict even when they do not have the evidence to support a conviction. I wonder how they would feel about doing that if they were made to serve the same sentence as the person who is convicted of something he did not do after that accused person was found innocent of what the prosecutors convicted them of commiting. My husband is also sitting on Death Row waiting for the long appeal process in the State of Arkansas. I still to this day do not understand how a jury could convict someone to death in 20 minutes without having been presented corroborating evidence to support a conviction. Without being granted a change of venue I am sure that the local people in the little town of Ash Flat, AR made up their minds from all the talk and rumors which still existed even after 23 years. You see the murders that my husband was convicted of took place 23 years ago in a little town in which the local people have always believed that he committed the double murders that took place there. My husband, like Mr. Echols, had an attorney who did not do his home work, who did not present evidence that should have been presented at trial and who basically was not even close to being ready for trial but yet he was glad to take our money. I sat through 2 weeks of trial testimony and I never saw or heard any evidence which would have made me want to convict someone to death. Do jurors not realize that not everyone who is accused of crimes are guilty?

Do they not understand that when a crime scene is so contaminated before the crime scene investigators even get there that the investigators are not fully able to piece together exactly what happened? That crime scene was contaminated by the Mother of one of the victims who proceeded to not only walk in and out of the crime scene once and move and disturb evidence, but again a second time with her son in-law. There were several things presented at trial which, if the jurors had listened closely to the testimony they would have realized it was impossible for my husband to have commited the murders he is accused of commiting.

Please people try to put yourself in the accused shoes. Would you want to be put in prison for life or be sentenced to death for something you did not do? I think not. We as a society should be
demanding more proof before we convict someone to death or life in prison. There is way too much of this going on today.

The other thing I wanted to talk about today is the horrible conditions that prisoners on Death Row endure every day. The guards taunt them trying to insight them to commit a wrong and they are fed meals that most of us would not want to give as slop to pigs. The Wardens look the other way and there are drugs and other things smuggled every day into the prison, not by visitors, but by guards who take money for getting it to the prisoners. If you don't believe it just try writing someone on Death Row and ask them what they go through just to be seen by a doctor when they need to or get medications when they need them. At least 2 times that I know of, my husband was made to stay in a cell for many hours while sewage was flooding his cell and yet when he tried to get a guard to move him to another cell, the guard just laughed at him. Some times he can't even get the attention of a guard because the guards are asleep somewhere while on their shift. We don't even allow people to mistreat animals but we will allow our prison staff to taunt prisoners, ignore them when they need something. I am so happy that the State of Arkansas prisons are now coming under some scrutiny by outsiders. IT IS ABOUT TIME.

I will never understand the minds of the thinking of the people in AR. I don't understand why their State legislators do not vote that the criminal justice system have a Grand Jury system. A lot of these cases where people are being convicted of crimes would never get to trial because a Grand Jury would look at the evidence or the lack of evidence and tell the prosecutor that there is not enough evidence to take the case to trial. That is the way it works in most states and I believe AR may be one of the only states which still do not use the Grand Jury system. Without any type of safe guard to protect the innocent from being convicted and totally having their lives screwed up, years of their lives wasted in prison, away from their families and friends, there will continue to be people sentenced to death or life in prison for crimes they did not commit.

If you want to know more, try doing some research for yourself. You will be amazed at what you find.

Thank you for your time.

Posted by: J Wertz | August 7, 2009 12:03 PM

Arkansas Blog

New trial sought for Damien Echols

Comments

Post a comment