I was the 100th person to be exonerated and released after being sentenced to death. Can we doubt there are more of us?
A Maricopa County judge sentenced me to death in 1992.
At the time of the murder for which I was convicted, the actual perpetrator, Ken Phillips, was on probation for a violent sexual offense. Three weeks after the crime for which I was sentenced to die, he sexually assaulted and choked a 7-year-old girl. He matched the description of a man seen near the location of the murder; it was later determined that shoe prints, palm prints and blood found at the scene matched him as well. Read More »
On March 25, 2015, the case against Seattle native Amanda Knox and her one time Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, will be heard by the Italian Supreme Court in what may be the pair’s final attempt to set right a miscarriage of justice reminiscent of the infamous Dreyfus Affair of the nineteenth century.
To briefly recount, the sorry saga began on November 1, 2007, when Knox’s housemate, Meredith Kercher, was found murdered, her throat slashed, in the cottage she shared with Knox and two Italian women in the Umbrian hill city of Perugia. On scant evidence, Knox and Sollecito were convicted of murdering Kercher in December 2009 following a year-long trial. A third man, Rudi Guede, was convicted of the crime in a separate abbreviated trial in which evidence was not contested. The conviction of Knox and Sollecito was overturned two years later, when an appellate court found them innocent. The prosecution appealed and the Italian Supreme Court annulled the acquittal in March 2013, ordering a re-trial by a different appellate court. As a result Knox and Sollecito were once again convicted, setting the stage for yet another, possibly final, appeal to Italy’s high court. Parallels between Italy’s case against Knox and Sollecito and the Dreyfus Affair are compelling. Continue reading →
Brian Peixoto was convicted in 1996 for the murder of his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son Christopher Affonso, Jr., and sentenced to life in prison in Massachusetts. Peixoto’s supporters state that the child died from injuries sustained during a fall, not from child abuse, and they have four nationally and internationally recognized medical experts that support their claims. New expert evidence makes it clear that Brian Peixoto was wrongfully convicted.
Visit the Free Brian Peixoto Facebook Page to keep up to date with current events.
Boston Magazine Investigative Report
Boston Magazine takes an in-depth look at the Brian Peixoto case, in an investigative report titled: “Brian Peixoto’s Final Appeal”, which is published in their February 2016 issue. The report is also available online here: www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2016/02/07/brian-peixoto-final-appeal.
“I do not think that you can get a fair child abuse trial before a jury anywhere in the country…I do not care how sophisticated or law smart jurors are, when they hear that a child has been abused, a piece of their mind closes up, and this goes for the judge, the jurors, and all of us.”
– Abner Mivka, U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit 1990
Rodney Lincoln is currently serving two life sentences for the murder of JoAnn Tate and the assault of Tate’s two young daughters in April of 1982 in St. Louis, Missouri. Evidence shows that Lincoln was wrongfully convicted based on a hair found at the crime scene that was wrongly attributed to him and a questionable line-up conducted by police. The victim who was shown the faulty line-up has now recanted her ID that ultimately put Lincoln in prison.
Change.org petition: Amanda Knox & Raffaele Sollecito were framed for Meredith Kercher’s murder. Investigate Italian corruption.
Advocates for Meredith Kercher, Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito
After years of watching Italian judges try to fit Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito into a scenario in which they played no part, we feel that outside intervention is needed. We are respectfully asking the governments of Italy, Great Britain and the United States to launch investigations into the mishandling of the Meredith Kercher murder inquiry and the subsequent framing of two innocent people.
Russell Faria was wrongfully convicted in 2013 of murdering his wife Betsy in 2011. Faria was convicted despite the fact he had a rock solid alibi. Four witnesses testified that Faria was with them watching movies at the time of the murder. Gas station security cameras and a fast food receipt also confirm Faria’s whereabouts on the evening of the murder.
In 2014, Faria’s defense team filed a motion with the Missouri Eastern District Court of Appeals, requesting a new trial based on newly discovered evidence. Their request was granted, leading St. Louis Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer to throw out Faria’s conviction in June of 2015, and order a new trial. Faria’s appeal was successful, and we was freed in November of 2015.
Learn more about this case on the Free Russ Faria websites:
David Thorne was convicted in January of 2000, and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, for allegedly hiring an acquaintance to kill his son’s mother, Yvonne Layne, in March of 1999.
Thorne has proclaimed his innocence from the beginning, and evidence shows that he was falsely arrested and wrongfully convicted.
Please visit the Injustice Anywhere Free Charles Erickson website to view extensive analysis, court transcripts, and to keep up to date with recent updates on this compelling case.
Charles Erickson and Ryan Ferguson were wrongfully convicted in 2005 for the 2001 murder of Columbia Daily Tribune sports editor Kent Heitholt in Missouri. There were no witnesses, no physical evidence, no DNA, no motive, in fact nothing tying either of them to the crime.
Thankfully, Ryan Ferguson is now rightfully a free man. Unfortunately, Charles Erickson remains wrongfully convicted, and is currently serving a 25 year prison sentence in Missouri for the murder of Kent Heitholt. Anyone that supports Ryan Ferguson should support the release of Charles Erickson.
Charles Erickson had absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Kent Heitholt. It is understandable that many of Ryan’s supporters may feel that Charles bears some responsibility for Ryan’s wrongful conviction. People really need to take the time to learn about false confessions before passing judgment. The police are responsible for extracting a false confession out of a young man that was in no position to give a proper statement. Charles must not be held accountable for the egregious misconduct of the police investigating the Heitholt murder. Charles must not continue to be punished for a murder he did not commit. The Heitholt family deserves justice. The continued incarceration of Charles Erickson brings no justice and no real closure for the family of the victim.
Injustice Anywhere launched FreeCharlesErickson.org in 2014. The website was created to help bring a better understanding to Charles Erickson’s case. It is now blatantly obvious that Charles Erickson had absolutely nothing to do with the murder of Kent Heitholt. This case continues to highlight the terribly flawed Missouri justice system. It is time for the nonsense to end.
Social Media
Supporters of Charles Erickson have created a Facebook cause page to help bring more attention to his case. Please visit the Charles Erickson Facebook page to learn more about this case and to keep up with current events.
“The trial itself was a miscarriage of justice, but the appeals process to which I am entitled proved even more alarming”
“I’m not a guilty person looking for a legal loophole. I’m an innocent person looking for justice.”
Arizona Supreme Court declines review of appeal that freed Debra Milke
Arizona Supreme Court refuses to let Maricopa County retry Debra Milke for the 1989 murder of her son, and refuses to compel testimony from a controversial detective. Read More »
Arizona woman released after decades on death row
An Arizona woman who spent more than two decades on death row was released on bond Friday afternoon after a judge ruled there’s no direct evidence linking her to the death of her young son. Debra Milke walked out of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s jail after supporters posted $250,000 bond. Read More »
On Saturday, December 2, 1989, Christopher Milke, Debra Milke’s 4 year old son, was shot to death in the desert, in an area just North of Phoenix, Arizona. It was a horrible, senseless crime. Despite little to no evidence she had anything to do with Christopher’s death, Debra Milke was convicted of his murder, sentenced to death, and is currently awaiting execution in an Arizona prison. After suffering the ultimate horror of any parent, the murder of her only child, Debra has faced the further trauma of being convicted, jailed for the past 22 years, and sentenced to death for a crime she didn’t commit.
The only evidence against Debra Milke for the murder of her son is a confession that she allegedly gave to Armando Saldate, a detective with the Phoenix police department. After her son’s body was found, Saldate had Debra called in to the Pima County Jail, and interviewed her in a small room with just the two of them present. Debra denies that she ever confessed to Saldate, and no record of the interview exists. Saldate did not record his interrogation of Debra, and claimed later that the notes he took had been destroyed. There was no statement ever signed by Debra, as is normal procedure when the police interview someone in a murder case. Yet Debra Milke was convicted almost exclusively because of the testimony that Armando Saldate gave about what he has claimed took place in that interview room.
In the time leading up to her son’s murder, Debra was sharing an apartment with a friend, a Viet Nam veteran named James Styers. She had been having a series of problems with her ex-husband, Mark Milke, who was also Christopher’s father. Mark was a drug addict and had been in prison, and Debra had gotten a restraining order against Mark so she could have control over when and where he saw Christopher. While working and trying to save up enough money to get a new place to live for her and her son, she moved in with Styers on a temporary basis. It was an arrangement of convenience for both of them – she could have a safe place for Christopher to stay while she was working, and Styers got help with the rent. She was planning to move out after Christmas to her own place with Christopher, but tragedy interjected and that move never took place.
On the day of the murder, James Styers asked Debra if he could use her car to go to the Metro Center Mall to do some shopping. Christopher begged his mother to let him go along, because he wanted to see Santa Claus again. Debra asked James if that was OK, and he agreed to take Christopher to the Mall with him while Debra stayed home to do some chores. Later that afternoon, Styers reported Christopher as a lost child to the mall security, and called Debra, telling her Christopher was missing. To support his story, Styers told the police who had come to investigate that he had a friend, Roger Scott, who had seen him at the mall with Christopher.
Throughout the night police questioned both men, Styers and Scott. Styers was released in the morning hours of that Sunday, whereas suspicions against Scott increased due to his inconsistent statements. When homicide detective Armando Saldate took over that interview at around 1 p.m. he threatened to ransack the apartment of Scott’s elderly mother. Eventually, according to police, Scott admitted that he knew that Christopher was dead and he agreed to show them where the dead body was. Detective Saldate reported that, en route to the murder scene, Scott made the claim that the boy had been killed because Debra Milke wanted it done. The report from another detective, who was driving the car, does not mention any such claim by Scott. James Styers has denied Debra was involved in Christopher’s death, and Roger Scott never accused her in his court testimony. Yet Scott’s alleged statement in that patrol car is what led police to suspect, and ultimately charge, Debra Milke with ordering the murder of her son.
Debra Milke was subsequently arrested, jailed, and charged with Christopher’s murder, with the only real evidence against her being the brief charge by the person who is most likely the actual killer, Roger Scott, and Detective Saldate’s testimony that she “confessed” to being involved. She was subsequently caught up in a whirlwind of crazy media stories, negative public opinion, and what appear to be out and out lies by both the police and prosecutors. Detective Saldate had a court-documented history of tainting confessions, committing perjury under oath, and lying to his supervisors. The prosecutor in Debra’s case has wrongfully convicted two other defendants who were later exonerated by DNA evidence.
With little money, and even less support from most of her family, Debra was stuck with substandard legal representation, and never had a chance at the trial. There were many key details about the case that were never told to her jury that might have affected the verdict. As a result, Debra Milke faces execution in the near future if something is not done.
I was the 100th person to be exonerated and released after being sentenced to death. Can we doubt there are more of us?
