Police Officers & False Confessions

Austin, Texas

Christopher Ochoa was 22 when he was arrested for the rape and murder of a young woman. There was no evidence linking him or his friend Richard Danziger to the crime…So the police made some. They interrogated him twice, for twelve hours each time. They told him Danziger was ready to turn on him. Finally he broke.

He confessed to the crime, and said his friend Danziger was involved.

Ochoa had been in prison for eight years when another convict sent letters to several Texas government officials confessing to the crime, and telling them that they had imprisoned two innocent men. By this time, Danziger had been beaten into brain-damage by a fellow inmate, but they sent someone to interview Ochoa…Guess who they sent? That’s right, Austin PD, the agency that would be most embarrassed by Ochoa & Danziger’s exoneration. Needless to say, Ochoa stuck by the story they had given him.

Three years after this, he contacted the Wisconsin University Innocence Project. They put their students to work and soon discovered DNA evidence that freed the two men. Danziger was put into a hospital, as he was now unable to care for himself. Way to look out, TDC.

Ochoa followed the Innocence Project back to Wisconsin, and got his law degree. He’s now a practicing defense attorney.

This goes back to the justice or conviction question; do the cops want justice, or do they want someone to go to prison? Is the satisfaction of being able to ‘close a case’ worth the cost of years of an innocent person’s life? Carlos Coy has maintained his innocence since day one, probably because he believed he had the resources to fight a bullshit case. What he obviously did not count on were the 'investigative methods' of the police, not just in Houston but state-wide.

What methods were used to round up eight women to accuse Coy of molesting them? I've heard that the DA's office advertised for victims, and we tend to assume that anyone that shows up to accuse a rich person is doing so for the money, but what if there were coercion involved?

What if the police involved threatened to have CPS remove a woman’s child unless she testified against Coy? What if they picked up someone with a bag of weed and told her they would drop the charges if she co-operated? What if the police offered a broke woman a chance at a profitable civil suit if she’ll just help them put away a guy they’re convinced is a total monster? A year ago, if someone suggested to me that the police were capable of these acts, I would have laughed in their faces. After researching TDCJ the past few months…What can I say? My faith in the judicial system is completely destroyed.

The great and mighty have decided that we don’t need to know how they get convictions.

“Trust us…It’s for the children.” What people forget is that the man they toss into prison with no evidence is someone’s child; someone’s husband, someone’s brother, someone’s father.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/12/eveningnews/main1616355.shtml

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/cwc/exonerations/txOchoaSummary.html

http://www.news.wisc.edu/12591

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_confession

Get your own 'Free Spm' T-shirt

Looking for an SPM shirt? These are great; good quality, dirt cheap, and with a nicely designed logo.
I didn't want to reccommend them until I had a chance to order one myself; it arrived within four days, that's super fast shipping. Go to http://www.canttrustthesystem.com/ to order.
A statement from the sellers:

"This is a movement that many around TEXAS have already contributed to but we just feel it is not enough and would like to help spread the word in a even bigger way. So we are continuing the FREE SPM movement and will keep on untill this innocent man is set FREE.

The profits from all shirts will be used to print up more T-Shirts. We are trying to spread the word and hopefully it will plant a seed that will eventually set SPM FREE. So if you are a true fan and you want to help support this movement show your love for SPM by buying a shirt. Every shirt bought and worn is a step closer to justifying a corrupt system." SPM needs a physical presence on the streets, and you need a way to show your support and get people talking.  You can view the Facebook page here , check out their photo gallery, and order here. I don't make a dime off these shirts, but I hope you'll get one and help us spread information about SPM's case.

Prosecutors

The Texas Code of Criminal Procedure Title 1, Chapter 2, Article 2.01 states:

It shall be the primary duty of all prosecuting attorneys, including any special prosecutors, not to convict, but to see that justice is done.

Someone should probably have notified the DA’s office back in 2001. “Hey guys, bad news; it looks like it’s not actually your job to convict every poor bastard whose name crosses your desk…You’re supposed to be going after the people that committed the crime.”

Prosecutor: “Fuuuuuuuuuuck…that sounds like a lot of work.”

And I’m sure it is, but do you know what takes even more work? Getting a hearing for a retrial. You don’t get a new trial just because you have evidence that your first one was a miscarriage of justice. No, you have to schedule a hearing to present your arguments to the judge, but before you get THAT, you have to dodge all the objections and procedural complications the prosecutors are going throw at you.

See, for people who are duty-bound to promote justice, they sure hate it when people expect to get it. Take the case of Lawrence Napper. He was out on parole (for raping 2 woman in the 80's) when he was convicted and sentenced to life in 2001 for kidnapping and raping a little boy. After it became known that the HPD scientist gave false testimony about the DNA identifying Napper as the rapist, the DA’s office fought for years to keep him from getting a hearing for a retrial. They fought because they did not want the question to even be considered, but eventually he did get his hearing. Not a new trial, just a hearing to see if he should get a new trial. His lawyer presented evidence that Joseph Chu, an HPD scientist who now has a bunch of tests that were proven wrong, had lied or just been seriously incompetent by testifying that the DNA positively identified Napper as the rapist.

The prosecutor, Jack Roady, admitted that although the lab work may have been sloppy Napper didn’t deserve a new trial because…get ready for this…The fuck-up wasn’t done on purpose.

Yeah, who cares if the evidence that got you a life sentence was screwed up and misrepresented? We didn’t do it to be mean! This is a prime example of the breathtaking, mind-boggling arrogance of the TDCJ.

At the 2009 hearing, the judge decided that Napper should receive a new trial. I guess that recommendation got sent to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, because in 2010 they issued an opinion that basically said “Just because the state of Texas lied to get you convicted does not mean that you can have a new trial.”  And that’s it. Back to prison he goes.

Why not just break out all the evidence they had the first time and take another crack at it? If they truly removed all reasonable doubt of his guilt the first time, it would be a goddamn pleasure to do it again. If it was a righteous conviction, why do all this work to avoid proving it?

Prosecutors (as far as I know) don't get paid extra for winning cases, but it would be foolish to deny that getting a conviction is a positive thing for them. It justifies their existence, proves that they were right, and is probably a career builder. At some point, you'd have to be able to make yourself believe that even when you are hiding evidence or allowing testimony that's not exactly true, you're still doing the 'right' thing. I am sure that even the most crooked prosecutors think they're the good guys...All the best villains do.

When SPM gets a new trial (and I do believe it’s ‘when’, not ‘if’) we must not allow TDCJ to screw around like this. Although I have great faith in the new administration's good intentions, there are holdovers from previous times whose careers and reputations are built on these shoddy, bullshit convictions. They will use every trick in the book to keep Carlos Coy silent; I believe they fear public exposure more than anything else. We need to let them know now that we are watching, and we demand a fair hearing.

Keep your eyes open.

http://truthinjustice.org/napper.htm

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Convicted-rapist-s-outburst-highlights-case-1731990.php?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:7602312d-4b4b-4670-8c63-c301344f11b7

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132116&page=1

http://www.allbusiness.com/crime-law-enforcement-corrections/law-forensics-forensic/13071920-1.html

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Convicted-Houston-rapist-loses-bid-for-a-second-1694882.php

Weekend Reading 10

Well, this is interesting.

Under section 264.408 of the Family Code, “A videotaped interview of a child made at a center is the property of the prosecuting attorney involved in the criminal prosecution of the case involving the child.”

http://www.tarrantcountylawoffice.com/fc/fa.005.00.000264.00.htm

You have got to be shitting me. The tape of the interview, apparently officiated over by the goddamn investigating officer, is the personal property of the prosecutors. They don’t have to share it unless the court orders it. If the defense doesn't know of it's existence, they can't ask for it.

ETA:
I'm going to develop this a little more; what this means is, if there were some kind of exculpatory evidence on the tape, it would be up to the prosecutor to decide whether or not to hand it over to the defense. They are required by law to do so, but there's no one to check and make sure that they're actually doing it. We're just supposed to trust them. To use a bit of hyperbole, you could have a tape of an interviewer literally beating an accusation out of a child, but if the prosecutor decided not to share it with the defense, then that's it, unless the defense lawyer a) somehow knew about the existence of the tape b) mistrusted the prosecutor enough to doubt their adherence to Brady, and c) knew that they could ask the court to order the prosecution to hand over the tape.

The Assessment Interview

When HPD sent their letter to the AG’s office asking them not to release the police report to the public, they made a special point of saying that if the ‘investigative methods’ used were known it would compromise the case. While I have different theories about what they meant, here is what I suspect they were trying to hide.

When the Children’s Assessment Center begins treating a child who they believe to have been abused, they do an interview. This interview is taped, and can be used as evidence in the eventual court case. You may remember the story of Colleen Taft, who was more concerned with gathering evidence for the prosecution than with really caring for the children she interviewed.

We know that Denise Oncken, by her own admission, seems to prefer to allow defense lawyers to ‘discover’ these tapes on their own, instead of handing them over as required by law. After all, it’s ‘not her job to hold their hands’.

In Coy’s case, the child was interviewed by Fiona Stephenson, an interviewer who had already got a paraplegic who couldn’t even feed himself locked up for supposedly molesting three girls. ALSO in the room was Heidi Ruiz, the investigating officer who was so biased against Coy that the appeals court made a special mention of it in the 2007 appeal denial. Possibly in the room was Susan Szczygielski, a therapist who according to her own statements in court did not believe in the possibility that nothing had happened, but I’m having trouble tracking down some documents verifying her presence.

I have included links to several guidelines for doing sexual assault interviews. They are long, but worth the read. They all stress how important it is to 1) keep an open mind, because there might have been no abuse at all and 2) not ask ‘leading’ questions, which are questions that encourage a specific answer. Why is this important? Because children, especially those younger than 11, are very susceptible to suggestion. With enough prodding, they can be lead to believe that they were abused, even if they were not. This belief can last all the way into adulthood. If you doubt this, check out the Daycare Sex Abuse Hysteria. Some of those people are STILL in prison.

Obviously an assessment interview is a very delicate thing. Why the hell would you have the investigator in charge of a case present for it? Kids can pick up on little things, a shake of the head, a smile when they answer the way they are ‘supposed’ to answer…Why would you risk tainting the interview with the presence of a person that’s being paid to find proof of a certain outcome?

Well, according to documents available at the District Clerk’s website, Officer Ruiz had a little pre-interview-interview at the police station. She interviewed the child, apparently all by herself, a few days before the interview at the CAC. Was THAT interview recorded? Probably not.

 See CARLOS COY, Appellant v. THE STATE OF TEXAS, Appellee NO. 01-02-00593-CR

Had she already formed her opinions about the case at that time? Had she been trained in the delicate art of getting information without creating ideas in a child’s mind? Was this addressed at all during the trial?

A description of the CAC from the American Academy of Pediatrics website indicates that they assist…”District Attorneys, Children's Ad Litem attorneys, family attorney, CASA volunteers”…but there is no mention of defense attorneys. Did they turn over information to the defense, or did they leave that up to the prosecuting attorneys? How can a defense team ever be sure that the prosecutor has fulfilled the requirement to turn over exculpatory evidence?

\
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33106215/Coy-Trial-Habeas-Corpus

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Child-agency-halts-video-of-sex-assault-exams-1513136.php

http://www.lexisone.com/lx1/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=OCLGetCaseDetail&format=FULL&sourceID=bcdba&searchTerm=eCai.dgWa.aadj.eeOb&searchFlag...

http://www.aap.org/sections/childabuseneglect/Texas.cfm

http://www.elinewberger.com/articles/archive/clinical-mgmt/pedinterview.html

Bribing a judge

If y'all are not reading Grits For Breakfast, you should be. Mr. Henson is posting today about an Austin defense lawyer named Marc Garrett Rosenthal who was just indicted for bribing a goddamn JUDGE.
I don't yet know if Marc is related to Chuck Rosenthal, but I'm going to try to find out.

This corruption is not just a Harris county problem; the rot is deep, and I'm beginning to believe that it's state-wide.

Correction

...I'm getting deeper into these documents and it appears that Susan Szczygielski was the child's therapist; her mother's was another CAC therapist named Julia Wulf...