As of today, bite mark evidence has led to more than two dozen wrongful arrests or convictions. Two men sentenced to death on bite mark evidence were later exonerated by DNA testing. Multiple proficiency tests have shown that bite mark analysts can’t even agree on whether marks on human skin were made by human teeth or teeth at all, much less agreement on which set of teeth made them. There are two underlying assumptions that need to be true in order for bite mark evidence to be valid — that the marks we make when we bite are unique to us and that human skin is capable of recording those marks in a way that allows analysts to distinguish them. So far, there is no scientific research to support either assumption, and the research that has been done suggests both claims are false. Bite mark evidence has been strongly criticized by several scientific bodies, including the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and, most recently, by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). The Texas Forensic Science Commission, a body convened specifically to review the validity of questionable fields of forensics, recommended a moratorium on the use of bite mark analysis in court. Read more >>
Hank Skinner was convicted on March 18, 1995, for the murder of his girlfriend and her two sons in Pampa, Texas on New Year’s Eve, 1993. Skinner was given the death sentence for his alleged crimes.
Skinner has maintained his innocence from day one. At the time of the murders, Skinner was living with the victims, Twila Busby and her two sons, Randy Busby, and Elwin “Scooter” Caler. He admitted being in the house at the time of the murders, but claims he was passed out on a couch in a comatose condition from a near lethal dose of alcohol and codeine.
According to Skinner, he was awoken by Elwin Caler after Caler had already suffered mortal wounds. Caler then left the house and died on a neighbor’s porch, apparently trying to get help. Skinner left the house as well, going four blocks away to the home of Andrea Joyce Reed, an ex-girlfriend of Skinner’s. Skinner was arrested hours later in Reed’s home wearing blood spattered clothing that tested positive for two of the victims.
This was an easy case for the authorities. The blood spattered clothes put Skinner at the scene and Reed testified that Skinner threatened her and told her not to call the police. Why would anyone believe Skinner’s steadfast pleas of innocence?
Let’s take a closer look at the case as it has unfolded over the past 17 years. Then you can decide if Hank Skinner should be put to death.
Was Hank Skinner in any condition to commit the horrendous crime? The defense’s toxicology expert at trial indicated that Skinner was nearly comatose at the time of the murders from a near-lethal mixture of codeine and vodka. Skinner had a blood alcohol level of .2 (more than twice the legal limit), and .44 grams of codeine per 100 ml. of blood.
Dr. Harold Kalant, professor emeritus of Toxicology and Pharmacology at the University of Toronto, reviewed the case in 2010 and had this to say: “I wouldn’t be surprised if the heavy drinker would be able to move about somewhat, but he would be very confused and badly impaired, and would have difficulty standing or walking in a coordinated manner”
Hank Skinner is 5’9″ tall and weighed 140 pounds at the time of the murders. Skinners right hand is severely handicapped due to an accident causing nerve damage. When looking at Skinner’s physical stature along with his impaired condition, one has to ask if it was even remotely possible that he committed the crime. Keep in mind that Elwin Caler was 6’6″ tall and weighed 265 pounds.
Skinner was convicted based on the clothing he was wearing along with the testimony of Andrea Joyce Reed. If we look at the case today, we see that Reed has recanted her testimony and that numerous pieces of evidence were never properly analyzed.
Reed recanted her testimony in an 1997 affidavit. Reed states in the affidavit that her testimony was false. She admits that Skinner was unable to stand when he arrived at her home and that she had to practically carry him wherever he went.
Why did Reed Lie? Reed claimed that she feared that she was being looked at as a suspect. She said that comments were made to her at the police station that she could be arrested and charged with being an accessory to capital murder after the fact, and for harboring a fugitive. Here are a couple of excerpts from her affidavit:
“Officers were constantly questioning me as I was giving my statement, which resulted in ameliorations of the facts of what actually occurred that night. Things were suggested to me and I complied, out of fear of arrest and the police taking my children away, which was mentioned several times.”
“At trial I stated that, in my opinion, he was capable of committing the crime with which he was charged. The truth is that, in my opinion, and as a matter of fact, he was incapable of committing any physical act against any person. He could not even use the bathroom facilities on his own. I had to hold him up and help him.”
The evidence that has been left untested or completely ignored is shocking. It was never revealed at trial that two of the murder weapons could not be traced to Skinner. Bloody fingerprints found on a pick ax handle and knife did not belong to Skinner, yet they were not discussed at trial. A second knife was also recovered from the scene, along with a bloody towel and jacket. None of these items have been tested.
Blood and skin were found under the fingernails of Busby indicating that she put up a fight. Tests were never conducted on Busby’s fingernail clippings. Hair found in Busby’s hands along with vaginal swabs taken at the time of her autopsy have also never been tested.
Why did Skinner’s attorney allow this evidence to be ignored at trial? Harold Lee Comer was Skinner’s appointed counsel. Comer was a former district attorney that had lost his job after pleading guilty to embezzling seized drug money. On top of losing his job, Comer was hit with a $90,000 bill from the IRS for unpaid income taxes. Times were tough for Comer. Thankfully he had a good friend in Judge M. Kent Sims, the judge presiding over Skinner’s murder trial. Judge Sims appointed Comer to represent Skinner, awarding him with a $86,000 payday. This was the largest paycheck given to a court appointed attorney in Texas history.
It gets better. Comer had twice tried to convict Skinner for non violent felonies while he was district attorney. This caused an obvious conflict of interest. Judge Sims knew of the conflict and by law should have given Skinner an opportunity to request new counsel but Sims never did so.
Whether the details of Comer’s arrival had anything to do with his poor performance in court is anyone’s guess. He failed miserably when it came to presenting the evidence. He didn’t even request for additional DNA testing and left out crucial details when suggesting another possible suspect, Twila Busby’s uncle, Robert Donnell (Donnell died in an automobile accident in 1997). According to eyewitness reports, Busby had been harassed at a New Year’s eve party by Donnell shortly before she was murdered. Critical information regarding Donnell was never heard at trial. One witnesses affidavit wasn’t collected until 2 1/2 years after the trial concluded. You can read more about Robert Donnell at TheSkepticalJuror.com.
Hank Skinner is now represented by Rob Owen, co-director of the University of Texas at Austin School of Law’s Capital Punishment Clinic. All DNA that Skinner’s defense team seeks to have analyzed, was available for testing at Skinner’s first trial. Skinner’s attorney, Harold Comer, chose not to have it analyzed believing it could further incriminate his client. Skinner contends that he never agreed with the decision made by Comer.
All requests for additional DNA testing have been denied on the grounds that Skinner’s trial attorney, Harold Comer, did not seek the analysis during the first trial. Should Hank Skinner be put to death because he was given inadequate counsel?
Skinner’s life is now in the hands of the Supreme Court. Do defendants have the right to request DNA testing? When the sentence is death, should we not take extra precautions?
Do I believe that Hank Skinner is innocent? Much like the Troy Davis case I cannot say that I know the answer. What I do know is that there are too many unanswered questions in both cases to put either of the two to death. Unfortunately it is too late for Troy Davis. We cannot allow for this to happen again. Test the DNA! Answer the Questions!
Like Hank Skinner Says: “all the District Attorney’s gotta do is turn over the evidence, test it and let the chips fall where they may. If I’m innocent, I go home, if I’m guilty I die…”
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that six Columbia police officers who worked on the case against Ryan Ferguson are not entitled to immunity from the remaining counts of Ferguson’s civil rights lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Nanette Laughrey issued the order about three months after the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had sent the case back, instructing her to clarify whether the officers should be entitled to qualified immunity. The order clears up the issue and allows the case to go to trial on several claims of constitutional violations, pending any further appeals at the Eighth Circuit level.
Qualified immunity protects government officials from legal liability unless their conduct clearly violates a person’s rights and an official acting reasonably would have known the conduct was unlawful. The doctrine is meant to shield officials from frivolous lawsuits.
Kathleen Zellner, Ferguson’s lawyer, did not respond to a message seeking comment. Brad Letterman, attorney for the officers, declined to comment. Read more >>
The 911 operator heard a woman refusing to get into a vehicle and begging for help. Gunshots—loud and staccato—cut through the confusion of noises. A smoke alarm shrilled.
When police arrived, a 33-year-old man lay dead inside an O’Fallon, Missouri, house. The caller said the man had climbed into her SUV, held a knife against her throat, and demanded that she take him to a bank to get “Russ’s money.” Terrified for her life, she said, she’d knocked the knife away, run inside through the garage door, dashed into the master bedroom, and grabbed a .38 Ruger revolver from her nightstand. He came after her like “a madman.”
The 911 caller—a 58-year-old woman named Pamela Hupp—was questioned and released.
Seven days later, she was arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
Before being booked, she asked to use the restroom and stabbed herself in the neck and wrists with a ballpoint pen.
St. Louisans squinted at their TV screens, trying to fathom this blond woman, her square jaw set hard, her face impassive. This was the same woman who’d testified three years earlier in a murder trial after her friend was stabbed 55 times. The friend’s husband was convicted and later acquitted. In the meantime, Hupp’s mother had died in a suspicious fall from a third-floor balcony.
The only possible motive connecting all three cases was money. Hupp, who’d held several jobs in the insurance industry, was the beneficiary of both her friend’s and mother’s policies. But would somebody really stab a sick friend and shove her own mother off a balcony to get cash she’d receive in a few years anyway, then shoot a perfect stranger just to twist the plot?
“Even Hollywood,” one St. Louisan tweeted, “doesn’t write scripts this convoluted.”
Pamela Neumann Hupp grew up in an orderly Catholic household in Dellwood, the third of four kids, their mother a schoolteacher, their father a union man who worked for decades at Union Electric. Pam rode bikes with her friends, went Christmas caroling, occasionally skipped Sunday school. At Riverview Gardens High School, she was a blond pompommer with a laugh that burst forth like a geyser, no stopping it.
Pam was always ready for fun, friends recall—no moodiness or drama, no talking behind people’s backs. Her grades could’ve been higher, one friend guesses, “but she was boy-crazy.” By senior year, she’d made a real catch: a boy who was soft-spoken and well-liked, a member of the soccer team, golf team, and National Honor Society. They went to their senior prom together. Three months later they “had to get married.”
Pam’s devout mother couldn’t have been pleased about the pregnancy. Pam did the responsible thing, but her friends sensed a wistful resentment: Everybody else was caught up in the whirl of college, while here she was, sitting in a cheap apartment spooning strained beets.
The marriage lasted six years. Soon after her divorce, Pam married Mark Hupp, a quiet, easygoing guy who played minor-league baseball for the Texas Rangers and, when he didn’t get drafted, fell back on carpentry. They gave Pam’s daughter a little brother, and in 1989 moved to Naples, Florida. When they returned in 2001, they settled in O’Fallon, Missouri, and started flipping houses on the side.
Pam also took a clerical job in a State Farm office, and Betsy Faria was the first person she met there. Eleven years younger than Pam, Betsy was warm-hearted and bubbly and scatterbrained, always short of cash but shored up emotionally by dozens of friends who adored her. Even at 32, she looked like a greeting card illustration—round face, curly hair, pink cheeks, bright-blue eyes—and in her part-time gig as a DJ, she could coax anybody onto the dance floor. Read more >>
The legal record shows that Jerry Hartfield’s first murder conviction was thrown out on appeal, and for the next 32 years, he was not officially guilty of anything, not sentenced to anything. Yet he spent that time in Texas prisons, in what an appellate court now calls “a criminal justice nightmare.”
He was finally tried and convicted again in 2015, but on Thursday, Mr. Hartfield moved closer to freedom than he has been in decades. A state Court of Appeals ruled that he was not only denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial, but to a degree the court had neither seen nor imagined before; it noted that the important precedents dealt with delays of three years, six years, eight years — not 32.
The three-judge panel dismissed the indictment against Mr. Hartfield, who is developmentally disabled, in effect erasing the recent conviction. But it is still not clear whether, or when, he will get out of prison. Read more >>
David Thorne was convicted on January 25, 2000, and sentenced to life without parole in Ohio, for allegedly hiring an acquaintance to kill his son’s mother Yvonne Layne in 1999. The problem is that evidence clearly shows that David Thorne is an innocent man.
The appeals system in the United States operates at an incredibly slow pace, making it difficult to correct a wrongful conviction no matter how strong the case for innocence may be. And, as seen in Thorne’s case, the system often fails to recognize wrongful convictions even when presented with overwhelming evidence of innocence. As a result, an estimated 100,000 innocent people remain in our prisons today, all but forgotten by society.
Thorne has proclaimed his innocence from the beginning, and evidence has come forward since his trial showing that egregious misconduct took place during the investigation and prosecution of his case. Investigators displayed a bad case of tunnel vision by failing to pursue other possible suspects. They also obtained a coerced false confession from a young man with a cognitive deficiency, who not only implicated himself but also implicated Thorne. The prosecution furthered the misconduct by withholding exculpatory witness evidence from the defense which could have greatly benefited their case. Sadly, two innocent people are now in prison, while the perpetrator remains free.
Thorne, who has an iron-clad alibi, was implicated by a mentally and emotionally impaired man named Joseph Wilkes. After being interrogated and threatened with the death penalty, Wilkes told his interrogators that he was hired by Thorne to commit the murder. The problem was that Wilkes was unable to provide accurate details of the crime scene. Forensic Scientist Brent Turvey analyzed the case for Thorne’s defense during his appeals. According to Turvey, Wilkes got every detail of the crime wrong, except the type of weapon used. Shockingly, the jury bought the flawed confession, despite its glaring inconsistencies, putting Wilkes and Thorne in prison for the rest of their lives. Wilkes has since recanted his confession and implication of Thorne, stating that he recited everything the police told him because he was fearful of being put to death. Continue reading>>
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 Rodney 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 Rodney in prison. There isn’t one shred of evidence linking Rodney to the crime. He is clearly an innocent man.
There is currently a clemency request pending in Missouri Governor Jay Nixon’s office for Rodney Lincoln. The request was filed by Melissa Neal DeBoer. DeBoer, now forty-two, was the seven-year-old victim who testified against Rodney at trial. DeBoer has now fully recanted her testimony which worked to convict Rodney, and she is now lobbying for his release. You can read her very moving letter in support of Rodney here.
Governor Nixon is expected to make a decision regarding the clemency request by January 8, 2017. Rodney’s supporters are asking for a strong showing of support in the final week leading up to Nixon’s decision. Rodney needs as many people as possible to call, fax, email, tweet, and write to Governor Nixon’s office to express their support for the clemency request. Support for Rodney Lincoln can be seen worldwide. He has this widespread support because he is an innocent man. If all of Rodney’s supporters speak out this week, we can all make an impact.
Freeing the wrongfully convicted is no easy task. The Midwest Innocence Project has been fighting to free Rodney Lincoln for over eleven years. In a recent press release, Rodney’s attorney said, “Mr. Lincoln’s case highlights the mountains we have to move to correct an injustice. As members of a society that allow this to happen, it’s our obligation to do everything we can to correct it.”
Ryan Ferguson, who spent nearly a decade in prison in Missouri as an innocent man, said after his release in 2013 that, “It takes an army” to free the wrongfully convicted. Ryan was right. It does take an army. And Rodney has just that. An army of supporters have been calling for Rodney’s release for a long time, and his supporters will remain vigilant for as long as it takes. If you support Rodney Lincoln, who is undeniably an innocent man, please spend the next seven days bombarding Governor Nixon’s office through social media, telephone, fax, and postal mail. When reaching out to Governor Nixon, please remember to be respectful. Strong factual statements will have a far greater influence than inappropriate language.
According to Rodney’s daughter, Kay Lincoln, all forms of contact are welcome and helpful, but hard copy letters are the best and most persuasive. If you prefer email, feel free to email your letter to freerodneylincoln@gmail.com. Kay will format, print, and mail the letters for you. If you are writing a hard copy letter, you need to act fast. Please get your letters in the mail in the next day or two if possible.
Let’s do this! Get those letters in the mail! Make Rodney Lincoln a trending topic on Twitter! Keep Governor Nixon’s fax machine running nonstop! Call Governor Nixon’s office! All calls are documented and are included in the clemency request file . Rodney has been in prison for far too long. It’s time for him to come home!
Governor Nixon’s contact information:
Mail: MO Governor Jay Nixon
PO Box 720
Jefferson City, MO 65102
Rodney Lincoln is incredibly grateful for the support he receives. Thank you to all who are actively advocating for this release. Please share the information in this article with your friends and family. Sharing on Facebook only takes a minute. Just visit Rodney Lincoln’s group page and share the group’s posts with your Facebook friends.
What we think in this situation,” said the first detective, “the other babies are screaming, crying, whatever. You’re taking care of them by yourself. You have Ben in your hands, he starts acting up and, you get mad at him and you throw him on the floor.”
“You threw him on the floor?” asked the second detective.
On January 14, 2009, 16-month-old Benjamin Kingan was discovered unresponsive in his bouncy chair at the Illinois daycare where 22-year-old Calusinski worked. Initial examination showed he had suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Two days later, detectives George Filenko and Sean Curran walked out of a nine-hour interrogation at the Lake Zurich police department with a detailed videotaped confession. Calusinski first denied knowledge of how Kingan could have sustained his injuries, but eventually admitted, under sustained questioning, that Kingan had a habit of flinging himself backwards and hitting his head on the floor. Eventually, Calusinski confessed to throwing Kingan violently to the ground. Read More>>
I didn’t get my old life back. No one does. Condemnation doesn’t stop once you’re found innocent.
Every day for the past nine years I’ve been called a slut and murderer by total strangers. In prison, it was hate mail. Outside of prison, it’s social media and hate mail. “Teach me how to get away with murder.” “I hope you will be alone forever.” “Murderess.” “Psychopath.” “Whore.” One person promised, in a comment on my personal website, to kidnap me in broad daylight, rip out my teeth and fingernails, electrocute me, and carve Meredith Kercher’s name into my body.
Meredith was a kind and outgoing British student who was murdered by Rudy Guede. She was my roommate, and I was accused of her murder by a prosecutor whose insane theories and disregard for evidence landed me in prison for four years. Italy’s highest court ultimately exonerated me, finding “stunning flaws” in the investigation and “an absolute lack of biological traces” connecting me to the crime.
While the TV version of my life would end there, I have learned that condemnation doesn’t stop once you’re found innocent. From the moment I walked out of prison, my family and I have focused on healing and rebuilding our lives. But the beast of media sensationalism wasn’t satisfied. Tabloids snapped pictures of my every move, speculated on everything I did, and spun everything I said out of context. I was accused of buying my supporters, the media, and my freedom. I was shamed for having friends, opinions, fun — a life. Certain people made it their hobby to torment me and anyone close to me, so that we might never feel safe. And despite all the objective evidence confirming my innocence, the predominant narrative and subsequent discussion about my case still revolved around the question, “Did she do it?” Read more >>
