I know it’s been far too long since I have written. I apologize for the long silence. Life has been very difficult, and I’ve avoided talking about it. Nevertheless, I sincerely thank you for your steadfast support. You make a difference, and I’d like to say thank you so much.

This medium of expression is here for my voice, so my long silence may seem apathetic, maybe even notoriously so for some, but I really regret my lapse.

To be forthright, life has not been the same since my grandfather passed away. My grandparents have been the constant. So, naturally when this nightmare began, the support and confidence that I had because of this devotion became immeasurable, to say the least.

Before my grandpa passed away, and ever since, my grandma’s health has been fragile. Just a few weeks ago she had a really bad health scare. She had an acute pancreatitis attack. For me, the gloom and the uncertainty of the days that followed were difficult. A fearful and helpless time, where, at best, hours felt like days, and at worst, time seemingly stood still.

Gratefully, she slowly improved from critical to a more stable condition. Sadly, though, more than half of her pancreas will likely never function. Considering this frightful prospect, the severity of the attack, and how it just came from nowhere, it serves as a cruel remains under of how close she came to dying. Read more >>

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/93304472/mark-lundys-latest-appeal-could-be-heard-in-october

Convicted double killer Mark Lundy is expected to have his next appeal heard in October.

On April 1, 2015, Lundy was found guilty, for the second time, of murdering his wife Christine and daughter Amber in Palmerston North 15 years earlier.

Within four weeks of the verdict, it was indicated he would appeal, and on Friday relatives were told his hearing would be held in October. Read more >>

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/20170526/tentative-settlement-reached-in-portion-of-ryan-fergusons-lawsuit-against-police

A tentative settlement has been reached in a portion of a federal civil rights suit Ryan Ferguson filed against local officials after his conviction in a 2001 killing was thrown out.

Parties in the case held a telephone conference May 19 in which U.S. District Judge Judge Nanette Laughrey was told of the pending settlement on the liability portion of the case. A bench trial is scheduled for June 26 in Jefferson City on damages. According to the docket entry in online court records, the bench trial is expected to begin at noon and last no more than four hours.

Details of the settlement have not been made public. A settlement typically does not include any admission of guilt or liability.

The suit was filed in early 2014 and originally included the city of Columbia; Boone County; circuit Judge Kevin Crane, who prosecuted Ferguson; several police officers; and other investigators who worked on the case. All defendants except for retired Columbia Police Department officers Bryan Liebhart, Jeff Nichols, Jeff Westbrook, John Short and Lloyd Simons and current Officer Latisha Stroer have since been dismissed. Read more >>

http://courtjunkie.com/ep-23-charles-erickson-murder-kent-heitholt/

It’s a story that has been told numerous times before – On Halloween night in 2001, Kent Heitholt, a 48-year-old sports editor, was brutally murdered in the Columbia Tribune parking lot as he was leaving work.

Ryan Ferguson and Charles Erickson were arrested years later and charged with murder, although none of the forensic evidence at the scene matched either of the men. The case would slowly fall apart, amid witness recantations, and accusations of corruption. Read more >>

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-knox-trump-loyalty-20170504-story.html

Donald Trump supported me during the worst crisis and most vulnerable moment in my life, defending my innocence when I was on trial in Italy for murder. He is now the president of the United States and reportedly “very upset” with me because I didn’t vote for him.

Do I owe him my loyalty?

Trump’s remarks were reported by the New York Times in a profile of his neighbor George Guido Lombardi. Yet I received negative backlash from his supporters even before Lombardi’s comments were published. They felt that I owed Trump my allegiance and were outraged at columns I wrote in which I criticized his policies and explained my reasons for endorsing Hillary Clinton. One person commented:

“I’m sorry I ever supported you. You have turned into a left wing lunatic. I see your experience in Italy has left you completely ungrateful to be an American. … Donald Trump stood by you, but now you turn around and indirectly attack him? You should be ashamed of yourself.” Read more >>

http://blog.freejamiesnow.com/jamie-snows-federal-appeal-given-new-life/

When a Northern Illinois District Court judge denied Snow’s federal habeas petition right before Christmas, she also summarily denied his request to appeal the decision to a higher court by issuing a denial of Snow’s Certificate of Appealability (COA) at the same time.

The Exoneration Project immediately appealed the denial of the COA, and was granted the right to appeal to the Seventh Circuit on February 18th. Read more >>

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, courts in the United States overturned 165 wrongful convictions in 2016, which broke 2015’s record of 149 corrected wrongful convictions. It is promising to see that the numbers continue to be on the rise. If you look at data over the past 25 years, we are now seeing substantial progress.

Over the past quarter century, America has incarcerated more people than any civilized nation on earth. A disturbing number of those incarcerations have been wrongful convictions. Hundreds of exonerations can be credited to advanced DNA technology. But research on topics like, bite mark evidence, fire investigation technology, and shaken baby syndrome, have all played a significant role as well. The ability to distribute information via the internet has also proven to be an invaluable resource when fighting wrongful convictions.

Exoneration statistics show that we are on the right track, but we have a long way to go. We need to correct the mistakes we have made, all while working to reforming the system which allowed those mistakes to occur in the first place. Sadly, the wrongful conviction problem is far more pervasive than most people realize, and even with increased interest, most cases continue to lack the attention they warrant. Many innocent people remain in prison. They need others to be their voice. They need you. Please join us in the fight to free the innocent.

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A gofundme account has been set up to help Paul and Cheryl Calusinski, the parents of Melissa Calusinski. Paul and Cheryl have suffered financial hardship as they have fought to free their daughter from prison.

Melissa Calusinski was convicted of murder in 2011 and was sentenced to 31 years in prison in Illinois. Calusinski was accused of throwing a child to the floor, causing fatal injuries, while working as a teacher’s aide at a day care center.

Calusinski has long maintained her innocence, and evidence now shows that she was wrongfully convicted based on false medical testimony and a coerced confession. In 2013, Eupil Choi, the pathologist who performed the autopsy on the child, stated in a sworn affidavit that he had missed an old injury. Choi’s statement was a major breakthrough in the case, because it supported Calusinski’s defense team’s longstanding argument that the child’s death was the result of a pre-existing injury. But the real bombshell came last year, which blew the case wide open. Lake County’s coroner, Dr. Thomas Rudd, reclassified the child’s death from a homicide to undetermined, after a new set of X-rays was discovered by his office. These X-rays show no sign of fresh injuries on the child at the time of death.

Calusinski is currently being represented by Kathleen Zellner, a high profile defense attorney who is credited with overturning eighteen wrongful convictions to date. Calusinski’s supporters are hopeful that Zellner will soon be adding one more case to her long list of successful exonerations.

Zellner’s involvement has been a blessing for the Calusinski family. Unfortunately, even with the best representation, the wheels of justice turn very slowly. The vast majority of wrongful convictions which are overturned go through multiple appeals over the course of many years before being corrected.

Paul and Cheryl Calusinski will continue to fight for their daughter for as long as it takes. And they have a strong group of supporters who are determined to make sure that they never have to fight the battle alone.

Please visit the Official Justice for Melissa Calusinski Family Page on Facebook to learn more about the Melissa Calusinski case.

If you would like to make a donation to help the Calusinski family, you can do so here: https://www.gofundme.com/paulandcherylcalusinski

Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flom is a podcast about tragedy, triumph, unequal justice and actual innocence.  Based on the files of the lawyers who freed them, Wrongful Conviction features interviews with men and women who have spent decades in prison for crimes they did not commit – some of them had even been sentenced to death.  These are their stories.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/darryl-pinkins-roosevelt-glenn-convicted-in-1989-rape-guilty-until-proven-innocent/

HAMMOND, Ind. — For nearly two decades, Sally Glenn went to prison every other weekend to visit her son, Roosevelt.

“It would hurt me. And when we’d leave there I would cry,” she told “48 Hours” correspondent Maureen Maher.

Roosevelt Glenn’s daughter, Darniese, who was just 7 when her father went to prison, was often by her grandmother’s side on those visits.

“I was nervous for him due to the fact I knew he was a very innocent man behind bars with very bad criminals,” she said.”I had suicide all over me … for a while,” Roosevelt Glenn said in tears.

“And what stopped you?” Maher asked.

“I believe it was the power of God,” Glenn said. “I was a good man before I went to prison, but I wasn’t a man of faith.  Prison changed my way of thinking and it made me a man of faith.”

Darryl Pinkins was also in prison.

“How do you survive in that environment?” Maher asked Pinkins.

“You have to become … colder, as far as emotions,” he said, “because I don’t trust people like I used to.”

“I don’t know if they realize you’ve pretty much taken the most valuable thing people have… time,” Pinkins’ son, Dameon, said. “I feel like I’ve lost the most important time of my life, where — a son bonds with his father and becomes a man.” Read more >>