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

Exonerations in 2014

Please allow me to draw your attention to this article via the Huffington post, entitled, “Exonerations Of The Wrongfully Convicted Hit Record High In The US In 2014”.

This is great news and, as the writer points out,

“Of the total known exonerations in 2014, more than half were obtained at the initiative or with the cooperation of law enforcement - the highest number in a single year, the report found. Most of these were the work of "conviction integrity units" set up by prosecutors to review questionable cases.”

A large percentage of these exonerations were out of Houston, thanks to what appears to be the ongoing fuckwittery of the Houston Crime Lab. Numerous drug cases have been and continue to be overturned. I may post up a letter to Harris County’s Post Conviction Review unit in the coming weeks, although we have heard from them before. http://www.spmaftermath.com/2011/09/post-conviction-writ-review.html

Although these units rely primarily on DNA evidence to overturn cases, there are a few that were decided because of coerced confessions and recanting witnesses. My hope is that by more closely examining the case and the investigative methods, which Harris County refuses to reveal, something like this can shake loose in Coy’s case.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/27/exonerations-record-high-2014_n_6551918.html

Letter to Greg Abbott 1

New tack, ladies and gentlemen. Greg Abbot recently took the governor’s office, and it’s time we approached him about SPM’s case. As always, please feel free to copy this letter, write one of your own, or just send one of the downloadable flyers to your right.

Greg Abbot 

Office of the Governor

P.O. Box 12428

Austin, Texas 78711-2428

Sir,

            Congratulations on your recent swearing-in to the office of governor; I hope you are able to accomplish your goals over the next four years. I’m writing to you today about the case of Carlos Coy, #908426. A local celebrity in Houston, he was convicted in 2002 of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child and sentenced to 45 years.

            Many people, myself included, do not believe that his trial was just; he was convicted on very shaky evidence, contradicted by the complainant several times during the trial. It seems that this young girl’s family was allowed to change their testimony outside the presence of the jury, and the prosecutor, Denise Oncken, was later found to have committed a Brady Violation against a different defendant.

            I know that none of these things alone are enough to prompt a new trial for Mr. Coy; although I believe that there were several other problems with the case against them, I have no new evidence that would exonerate him. However, I urge you to take a look at his case. Please, put asde the severity of the charge against him for a moment and consider the methods used to convict him. If you do, I think you’ll agree that he did not receive justice.

            Ideally, we would like to see him receive a new trial, but that may not be within your powers as Governor. However, a pardon is. Please, investigate his case and consider it; Coy has a large fan base, in Texas and around the world. We would like very much to see justice done.

My name, my address, etc.

NonUpdate

Alot of y'all have requested updates, but I'm afraid I don't have any. Last I heard SPM had an appointment set for January, but I don't know how that's turned out.

I've also been told that he received a case related to the amount of phone calls received by the prison health service. I don't know what he's being charged with, and I honestly can't even begin to guess. It will be interesting to see if TDCJ is, in fact, willing to charge an inmate for attempting to access medical care.

I wish I had more for y'all, but at the moment that's it. Hang in there, hopefully there will be news soon.

Internet Crimes

Coy’s conviction could not have happened without the strange willingness to believe any accusation of molestation, no matter how little evidence there may be. I found an interesting, six-part series out of Florida about an internet sex-crimes task force that’s been baiting men on adult dating sites in order to get these same types of convictions.

It’s an interesting read, and I feel like it gives an insight into the mindset of those that believe the only way to protect children is to aggressively, sometimes randomly target any stranger they can get ahold of.

“10 Investigates showed how the Central Florida ICAC task force, under the watch of Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, started reaching out to men who simply posted legal ads on legal dating sites. And a number of judges had criticized officers' overreach, their "failing to follow procedures" during sting operations, as well as methods to provoke "a law-abiding citizen to commit a crime."

"It's important to put actual sex offenders in jail," Pheneger said. "Law enforcement should be going after those people, not trying to entice people who have shown no disposition to any kind of criminal behavior toward children."

It's an interesting read, and brings into focus why the argument that if you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about simply doesn't cut it.

http://www.corrections.com/news/article/38434-addressing-the-impact-of-wrongful-convictions-on-crime-victims