Backlog

When I started this blog, I was under the impression that there must have been some kind of physical evidence collected at the very beginning of the investigation; I assumed (not unreasonably, I think) that when Jane Doe was taken to the hospital that there would have been a rape kit completed, and I tried to find out why it had not been used at trial.

Unfortunately I was unable to get a hold of the police report, and as far as anyone knows, there was no evidence of this kind taken. However, Harris County has been storing thousands of untested rape kits for years, and has only recently gotten around to clearing the backlog.

I think it’s great that it’s finally done, and that the DA’s office is using the evidence collected to put rapists away. I still wonder, though, if there isn’t a kit somewhere from Coy’s case. While it’s great to compare the DNA to the national database to find matches nationwide, I wonder if the District Attorney will see fit to notify those that were convicted that there may be new evidence available in their cases; are they even testing the kits that belong to cases which have already been decided? Will the defense attorneys be notified? What will be done if the DNA from the kit does not match the DNA of the individual convicted of the crime?

"Though the technology to analyze DNA has been around for decades, hundreds of thousands of sexual assault kits all over the country went untested because investigators didn’t consider them important."

The thought that a kit could be shelved just because an investigator decided it would be is extremely unnerving; not only were rapists able to continue their crimes, but innocent people may have been convicted because no steps were taken that could have proven their innocence.

http://www.texasobserver.org/hpd-leads-the-way-in-testing-backlogged-rape-kits-but-texas-has-a-long-way-to-go/

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/02/850-dna-matches-in-houstons-rape-kit-backlog.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/24/houston-rape-kit-backlog_n_6742588.html

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/HPD-eliminates-rape-kit-backlog-4750990.php

Current Events

The case of Rodney Reed has been much in the news lately; convicted of murdering a police officer’s fiancée back in 1996, Reed is slated for execution this March. There are quite a few great articles out there with details about the case but long story short, he was convicted mainly because his DNA was found inside Stacey Stites’ body.

After going through the lengthy appeals process Reed is scheduled to die on March 5. As early as 2002, questions have been raised about the reliability of his conviction. It appears that Stites and Reed were involved in a clandestine relationship, which could explain why there was evidence of sex but nothing else linking Reed to the murder.

Misinterpretation of an expert’s testimony regarding the time of death and incorrect testimony about the life of the DNA found contributed to the conviction.

“…there is one essential piece of physical evidence that Reed's defense attorneys say they never even knew existed. A state DPS lab report, dated May 13, 1998, analyzed DNA taken from two beer cans found near Stites' body. For reasons never satisfactorily explained, that lab report was never provided to the defense prior to or during Reed's trial. The analysis excluded Reed, but two other potential suspects -- former Bastrop Police Officer Ed Salmela (now dead, apparently by suicide), and former Giddings Police Officer David Hall, a good friend and neighbor of Fennell -- could not be excluded. Had they been aware of that DNA evidence, Clay-Jackson said, it would have enabled the defense to offer an adequate explanation of how Fennell could have traveled from Giddings to Bastrop and then back home by 6:45am without the pickup truck, when the call came from HEB reporting that Stites had never arrived for work.”

Jimmy Fennell, the fiancé, is currently incarcerated for the raping a woman while on duty. It will be interesting to see how this case turns out, and whether Texas will be willing to take a closer look at another potentially wrongful conviction.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2002-05-24/93214/

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/17/texas-death-row-inmate-rodney-reed-new-evidence

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/15/knew-wrong-new-investigation-reveals-texas-may-execute-innocent-man-march-5/

http://www.myfoxaustin.com/story/28116131/cousin-of-stacey-stites-believes-rodney-reed-is-innocent

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/02/15/knew-wrong-new-investigation-reveals-texas-may-execute-innocent-man-march-5/

Grand Standing

We’ve talked about the Grand Jury system here before, and how prosecutors are allowed to present evidence to get an indictment without a word from a defense lawyer; the case then proceeds and a trial jury is left to assume that the defendant wouldn’t be the defendant if the courts didn’t have a good reason to charge him or her.

Well, it looks like Devon Anderson, of all people, is advocating for a reform of Texas’ ‘key-man’ system, wherein the head of the grand jury is picked by the judge, often from that judge’s friends and colleagues.

From one of the articles linked below:

“Texas law still allows grand jurors to be chosen in a method that has been outlawed in all but one other state and banned from federal courts since the 1960s. Judges may choose pals, or commissioners, to suggest other pals as grand jurors. The system often results in homogeneous grand juries with substantial ties to the criminal justice system.”

You may recall the case of Alfred Dewayne Brown, in which a Grand Jury bullied his girlfriend into changing her testimony that he was at her house at the time of the crime. After veiled threats against herself and her children, she wound up testifying against him. Imprisoned since 2005, Brown is now awaiting a new trial after the Grand Jury transcript was made public.

The Judge in that case was Judge Ellis, the same one responsible for Coy’s trial; one can only assume that he picked the ‘Key Man’ for both Brown and Coy’s Grand Juries. It is heartening indeed to see the Harris County D.A. standing up and advocating reform of this sytem.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/columnists/falkenberg/article/A-disturbing-glimpse-into-the-shrouded-world-of-5626689.php

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Harris-County-DA-calls-for-grand-jury-reform-6069745.php#/0

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/columnists/falkenberg/article/Let-s-get-grand-jury-reform-right-6073841.php

The Why

There is a fantastic article in the Baltimore Sun about the record number if exonerations last year; it talks a little about why they continue to happen, especially after the advent of DNA testing:

"At one level, the answer is that DNA was never the cure-all some expected. In 2014, only 18 percent of the reversed convictions (22 out of 125) occurred after DNA testing proved innocence. This reflects the reality that relevant DNA is available only in a tiny minority of cases. CSI dramas are fantasy; in real life, science can't solve most crimes. At the same time, risk factors that we now know lead to wrongful conviction — eyewitness misidentification, junk science, false confession, ineffective assistance of counsel and police misconduct — are present in thousands upon thousands of cases that pass through our system every year."

I highly recommend reading it, sharing it, etc. In Coy’s case, as far as we know, no DNA samples were ever taken. The D.A. didn’t bother to collect the physical evidence that the assault he was accused of would have left. At one time I believed finding something like that, hidden or lost, would be the only way to exonerate him.

But it’s not. I appreciate that so many of you send in letters to the government with me, asking for a new trial. I hope that our persistence will one day pay off.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-wrongful-convictions-20150203-story.html