By Bruce Fischer

This past week, Injustice Anywhere recorded a podcast discussing the Brendan Dassey case. I was pleased to have had the opportunity to discuss the case with Jax West and Jim Lovering. Jax is a wrongful convictions advocate who has taken a strong interest in the Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey case in Wisconsin. She contributes to the Injustice Anywhere website www.freebrendan.org and she also runs our Free Brendan Dassey Facebook page.

Jim Lovering is a staunch advocate for the wrongfully convicted. I met Jim back in 2010, when I was looking to get involved with the Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito case in Perugia, Italy. We ended up working closely on that case for several years and we have now gone on to work together on a number of cases including Jeff Havard and Brendan Dassey. Jim is on the Injustice Anywhere Advisor Board, and he is also on the Board of Directors for another outstanding organization called Judges for Justice.

Brendan Dassey

Brendan Dassey was wrongfully convicted of murder in 2007 on the basis of a coerced false confession to the rape and murder of Teresa Halbach in 2005. No other evidence supports his conviction, and physical evidence flatly contradicts the statements in which he incriminated himself. Dassey’s uncle, Steven Avery, was also convicted of murdering Halbach, but the two were tried separately.

The recent debut of the Netflix documentary “Making A Murderer”, which details the murder of Teresa Halbach and the controversy surrounding her death, has brought renewed attention to the decade-old case. In 2014, Dassey filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. A ruling on his petition is still pending.

Family members, friends, and supporters of Missouri’s wrongfully convicted came together to spread their message at Columbia Missouri’s Earth Day 2016 festival this past Sunday.  The event was a powerful showing of unity between all who participated. The video below was filmed by Matt Akins. It provides a nice recap of the event.

For more information on the cases represented at the event, please visit the links below.

Free Charles Erickson:
Facebook: http://bit.ly/1MWibTg
Website: http://bit.ly/1VUHFTC
Petition: http://chn.ge/26rtedn

Free Rodney Lincoln:
Facebook: http://bit.ly/1T2iGal
Website: http://bit.ly/1VUHKGX
Petition: http://chn.ge/11KapV6

Free Jesse McKim:
Facebook: http://bit.ly/1qPRC7M
Website: http://bit.ly/233FAE2
Petition: http://bit.ly/1pBLyin

Free Reggie Ewing:
Facebook: http://bit.ly/1XUPiap
Petition: http://bit.ly/1NwKIi0

Citizens For Justice:
Facebook: http://bit.ly/1NPuM5s
Youtube: http://bit.ly/1NwMI9W

Historically, the wrongfully convicted have been largely ignored in the United States, but over the past decade the landscape has been slowly shifting. New exonerations regularly flood our news feeds, making the topic difficult to ignore. A week rarely goes by without hearing the news that another victim of wrongful conviction has been set free, often after spending decades of their lives locked in a cage as an innocent person.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 2015 was a record year for correcting wrongful convictions. The registry recorded 149 exonerations in the United States, which broke the previous year’s record of 125. Fifty four of the exonerees on the 2015 list were wrongfully convicted of murder. Disturbingly, five of those exonerees were on death row.

Due to the record number of exonerations in recent years, many people are just now coming to realize that wrongful convictions are a reality. This newfound surge of attention got a big boost this past December when Netflix debuted Making a Murderer, a ten-part documentary which details the murder of Teresa Halbach and the controversy surrounding her death.

This groundbreaking project, which was written and directed by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos, details the trials and convictions of both Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach, in Wisconsin. Avery is the primary focus of the series, based on his past history with the law. Avery served 18 years in prison as an innocent man for the sexual assault and attempted murder of Penny Beerntsen, before being fully exonerated in 2003. His exoneration came just two years prior to being charged with the murder of Halbach, in the same county, by the same sheriff’s office that had previously caused him to lose nearly two decades of his life. The series leaves viewers to wonder if the authorities who wronged Avery the first time, set out to frame him once again in an attempt to avoid paying out millions of dollars to settle a civil suit resulting from his wrongful conviction.

Only time will tell, but there is no doubt that the Netflix series currently looks to be a major boost for both defendants in this case. The documentary has certainly given Steven Avery an entirely new outlook on his future, as it has worked to convince powerhouse defense attorney Kathleen Zellner to take on his case. Zellner has made a career out of correcting wrongful convictions. She has currently won the exoneration of 16 wrongfully imprisoned men. Her statements on the Avery case show that she is not only determined to exonerate her new client, she also plans on finding the real killer or killers. Read More »

A man who served more than two decades in prison after being wrongfully convicted of rape was set free on Monday.

In 1991, Darryl Pinkins, of Gary, Indiana, was was convicted of raping a Hammond woman in the pre-dawn hours of December 1989. He has always said he was at home in bed with his wife when the attack occurred, and DNA evidence later cleared him.

Pinkins, 63, walked out of the Lake County Jail in Crown Point shortly before 11 a.m., a month shy of having spent 25 years behind bars. He was greeted by his wife and two sons, including 24-year-old Darryl Jr., who wasn’t yet born when Pinkins was incarcerated.

“It feels good. It feels good. I’m proud of both of them, and who they are,” said of seeing his sons for the first time in eight years. Read More »

Attorneys for a former suburban day care worker found guilty of murder in a child’s death appeared in Lake County court Tuesday morning as a judge considers whether to advance their efforts to overturn her conviction.

Judge Daniel Shanes, who oversaw the 2011 trial that ended with Melissa Calusinski being convicted of first-degree murder, did not rule on whether he will allow a hearing on what her lawyers say is new evidence in the case.

Shanes said he has a stack of legal filings “a foot and a half” high to go through before he rules, but he set another hearing for June 13.

Calusinski’s attorneys say X-rays discovered in the Lake County coroner’s office last year show that the boy who died in 2009 after being in her care — 16-month-old Benjamin Kingan, of Deerfield — passed away as a result of pre-existing head injuries. Read More »

What society owes the exonerated.

By JARRETT ADAMS

The recent and tragic suicide of my friend and fellow exoneree Darryl Hunt is a stark reminder that no monetary compensation can make up for the psychological toll of wrongful conviction. When a wrongfully convicted person is released from prison, it’s often to a throng of reporters clamoring to capture images of an emotional reunion with his smiling family and friends, and lawyers. These images instill a sense of vindication and a happy ending. But what is too often unseen is how difficult it is to re-enter society after years or decades of confinement — especially if you are innocent. These are the unseen scars, and too many states pay them inadequate attention, or none at all.

In 1984, when he was 19, Darryl, an African-American man, was convicted ofa crime he didn’t commit, the rape and murder of a young white woman in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on the basis of a tentative eyewitness identification and the pressured testimony of a girlfriend who later recanted. It was a racially charged trial. Darryl consistently professed his innocence, even refusing a plea that would have set him free years before his 2004 exoneration. After DNA evidence exonerated him, Darryl had to file a lawsuit to win compensation; he was awarded a settlement of $1.7 million in 2007. North Carolina has since updated its compensation statute to provide job-training and college tuition for exonerated inmates, but compensation is now capped at $750,000, an inadequate amount for someone who paid for another man’s crime with 20 years of his life. Read More »

An Illinois lawmaker want teenagers accused of murder to have a lawyer present when questioned by law enforcement.

The popular Netflix documentary “Making a Murderer” has turned the public’s attention to issues like false confessions and wrongful convictions. “Making a Murderer” was based on a Wisconsin true-crime story.

But State Sen. Patricia Van Pelt, D-Chicago, said it’s a problem for kids in her city and across Illinois.

“The one thing about Chicago,” she said. “It is the false confession capital of the whole United States.” Read More »

Jamie Snow Petition: Allow DNA testing that could prove innocence

Update

April 13, 2016 — Recall, in the DNA motion (and petition), we have asked for discovery in addition to the request for testing. This is because we have continued to discover documents through Freedom of Information Act requests that were not disclosed to Jamie prior to his trial. This will assist his attorneys greatly in further defining their requests for DNA testing. Here is what the judge ordered:

1) The judge is allowing the Exoneration Project to subpoena the Illinois State Police and Bloomington Police Department for all items that relate to the existence, collection, storage, forensic examination, chain of custody, and/or destruction of the following:

– Fingerprints (full and partial, suitable and unsuitable)
– The victims clothing
– Bullets collected from the scene
– Blood collected from the scene
– ALL documents relating to blood sample “2A” to include (storage, transfer, the discovery of, and all communications between the ISP and BPD in reference to sample 2A.

Documents will include: police reports, photographs, notes, diagrams, electronic or written correspondence, inventory reports, worksheets, laboratory reports, memoranda and evidence receipts.

2) Additionally, the judge ordered that all available photographs, including originals, of the crime scene be made available for copy by Jamie’s attorney.

You can read the full order at the link below. It is not very long, but it sure packs a punch!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lgife1mbw6hz4hi/Order_DNA_Discovery_033016.pdf?dl=0

PLEASE KEEP SIGNING AND SHARING! We ARE making a difference!! Thank you!!!

https://www.change.org/p/mclean-county-state-s-attorney-jason-chambers-allow-dna-testing-that-could-prove-innocence

By Jim Lovering April 6, 2016

In 1961, a Yale scientist carried out an experiment that quickly achieved notoriety verging on infamy. No one suffered direct harm, but test subjects learned something about themselves they might not have wanted to know.

To perform the experiment, Stanley Milgram recruited dozens of volunteers, ordinary people from all walks of life. He told them they were participating in a study to assess how punishment affects learning. Test subjects believed they were doling out electric shocks to a volunteer who was physically restrained in another room. They were told to increase the voltage with each wrong answer.

Only later did these subjects learn the setup was rigged, and no one really got shocked. The purpose of the Milgram experiment was to test obedience to authority, and the results were alarming. No less than 65 percent of the subjects completed the experiment, turning up the voltage and flipping the switch until they were told to stop. They continued even after the man in the other room began to shout, complain of a heart problem, and beg to be released. They continued even after he fell silent and did not respond at all to the questions.

No one forced them to go on. They did it simply because the man directing the experiment told them to continue.

Milgram’s research followed from an earlier study that was designed to test social conformity. Groups of people assembled in a room, where an examiner held up simple diagrams and asked a question for which the correct answer was obvious: which two lines are the same length?

Only one member of each group was a test subject, although he or she did not know that. Everyone else played a scripted role.

The researcher found that when scripted participants all gave the same wrong answer, many of the test subjects gave that answer too. Over many rounds of questioning, only about 25 percent of the test subjects consistently defied the group by giving the correct answers.

In the wake of this early research, similar experiments have confirmed how easy it is to manipulate someone in a controlled setting, without resorting to force or intimidation. People will do things that seem baffling to anyone who did not go through the experience.

It is not really surprising, therefore, that Brendan Dassey confessed to a crime he did not commit. He was a 16-year-old kid with an IQ of about 70. Who could possibly be more susceptible to trickery?

Police realized they were dealing with an easy mark, so they used a subtle but effective form of psychological coercion. Instead of browbeating Dassey, they pretended to be his friends. They began the interview by saying “how are you doing, buddy?”

They told Dassey his best interests lay in cooperating with them, and they led him to believe he had nothing to fear.

“BY YOU TALKING WITH US, IT’S HELPING YOU.”

“WE’RE ON YOUR SIDE.”

“WE’LL STAND BEHIND YOU NO MATTER WHAT YOU DID.”

They stressed the importance of honesty, but they also told Dassey, over and over, that they already knew the truth – they had the right answers.

“WE ALREADY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THAT DAY.”

“WE’RE GOING TO BE ABLE TO TELL WHEN YOU’RE NOT BEING HONEST.”

In fact, Dassey did not help himself by talking to police. They were not on his side, and they did not stand behind him. Police used a framework of lies and deception to play a dull-witted teenager against himself, to coax him into telling the fable they wanted to hear. It worked exactly as a social scientist would have predicted. Read More »

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