Innocence Project

A new report issued on Friday by the Oklahoma Justice Commission made recommendations to improve the criminal justice system and prevent wrongful convictions.

"It's not an indictment against law enforcement," Oklahoma Police Chief and commission member Bill Citty said at a press conference. "It's just that you always want to try to do things better."

The Oklahoma Innocence Project worked closely with the 33-member Justice Commission on a two-year study of wrongful convictions. According to the Oklahoma Innocence Project, more than a dozen people were exonerated last year in the state for crimes they didn't commit, several after a decade or more of prison time.

The commission's suggestions include allowing post-conviction access to DNA testing. Oklahoma is the only state in the nation without a DNA testing law, but a bill authored by State Rep. Lee Denney (R-Cushing) has already been approved by the House and goes to the Senate to await a committee hearing. Other recommendations include videotaping interrogations, police lineup reform, training for all criminal justice professionals and post-release services for the exonerated.

Drew Edmondson, a former Oklahoma attorney general and the commission's chairman, said that although many of the recommendations could be voluntarily adopted by police departments and courts, the report pushes for legislative reform. Most of all, the report underscored the benefits the recommendations could have for both the public and law enforcement.

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The Black Academy of Arts and Letters presents "TESTED... How Twelve Wrongly Imprisoned Men Held Onto Hope," Saturday, March 2 as part of its Roundtable Writers' Breakfast at the Dallas Convention Center Theater Complex. "TESTED..., " by Peyton Budd and Dorothy Budd reveals how twelve Texas DNA exonerees kept their faith and sanity intact despite years of wrongful imprisonment. Their stories illuminate the shortcomings of the criminal justice system and the virtue of hope.

The event begins at 10 a.m. and includes breakfast and discussion.

For more information, visit The Black Academy of Arts and Letters.

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By Edwin Grimsley, Case Analyst*

Editor's Note: In honor of Black History Month, we present a two-part series examining historical wrongful conviction cases of African-Americans and highlighting stories of racial injustice, both then and now.

Racially disparate treatment has permeated the United States criminal justice system throughout history. During the Jim Crow era, blacks were legally barred from voter rolls in several southern states and were therefore barred from serving on juries. In this era of racial strife, the police, prosecution, defense attorneys, judges and jurors were almost always white. Cross-racial misidentifications, forced confessions, all-white juries, and blatant racism led to the wrongful convictions of countless innocent black people.

Between the 1870's and 1960's, a significant number of black defendant/ white victim allegations never made it to trial. The Tuskegee Institute Archive estimates approximately 3,500 lynching deaths of blacks. How many of the lynched were actually innocent will forever be a mystery.

The presumption of innocence barely arose in the case of Ed Johnson, arrested for sexually assaulting a white female in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1906. The victim was allegedly knocked unconscious with a leather strap. Johnson became a suspect when a witness claimed that he saw him carrying a leather strap, though Johnson denied owning one. Johnson provided numerous alibi witnesses at trial. Nevertheless, he was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to death. While the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution, a mob broke through the jail and brutally murdered Johnson in a public hanging. Johnson's tombstone reflects his professed innocence, "God Bless you all. I AM a Innocent Man." In February 2000, his conviction was finally posthumously overturned.

A quarter century later, the Scottsboro Boys convictions raised public awareness about racial injustice and galvanized the Civil Rights Movement. In 1931, a fight occurred between black and white boys on a freight train traveling through the town of Scottsboro, Alabama. The police rounded up all black boys riding on the train and ultimately arrested nine black boys, ranging in ages from 12 to 19 years old. Two white girls then came forward alleging that they were gang raped on the train. All nine defendants claimed innocence. After four separate one-day trials with all-white juries, eight of the nine were convicted and sentenced to death.

Their appeals would last over 20 years. On re-trial, one of the rape victims testified that the rape was fabricated, yet all-white juries again returned guilty verdicts. In the end, after facing multiple re-trials, all of the Scottsboro boys had their convictions dropped or were sentenced to lesser charges. The Alabama Legislature recently introduced a bill to posthumously exonerate the nine Scottsboro Boys.

Meanwhile, a landmark Supreme Court decision in the Brown v. Mississippi case addressed concerns about confessions obtained through violence. In 1934, after a white farmer was killed in Mississippi, three black sharecroppers were arrested for the crime. Ed Brown, Arthur Ellington, and Henry Shields were all beaten and tortured into confessing. Even more ludicrous, the police did not dispute torturing the defendants, who appeared visibly in pain as they sat through their trial. An all-white jury convicted the three and sentenced them to death by hanging. In 1936, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions, arguing that coerced confessions cannot constitute evidence in a court of law. This historic ruling paved the way for the Miranda rulings to come decades later. Ellington, Shields and Brown were never fully exonerated because they took short plea deals for fear of facing another unjust re-trial.

Black women were also subjected to the same unequal treatment in the criminal justice system. In 1945, the state of Georgia executed Lena Baker for killing a white man who had kidnapped and assaulted her. She claimed that she had shot him in self defense. Baker was convicted by a jury of white men and became the only woman ever executed by electrocution in Georgia. In 2005, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles granted Baker a pardon saying that the state had committed a grievous error.

Finally, wrongful convictions based on racial bias were not just a Southern phenomenon. In 1948, the "Scottsboro Boys of the North," also known as the Trenton 6, were arrested for the killing of a white furniture store owner in Trenton, New Jersey. Witness descriptions of the assailants ranged from "two to three black men" to "two to four light-skinned teenagers." The six black men who were arrested did not match the descriptions. Five of the Trenton 6 signed inconsistent confessions, which they maintained at trial were coerced. All provided rock-solid alibis. Nonetheless, an all-white jury convicted the Trenton 6 and sentenced them to death. On appeal, their convictions were overturned due to weak evidence and the perjury of the medical examiner. After multiple re-trials, four of the Trenton 6 were acquitted, and two were found guilty of lesser sentences.

These cases, and many others, showcase decades of racial bias in the criminal justice system. Because media reports and public outrage expose only the most prominent wrongful convictions, we will never know how many innocent African-Americans were falsely convicted or executed. My part-two blog post will illustrate similarities of these historical injustices to contemporary stories of DNA exonerations of African-Americans.

*with research assistance from Communications Intern Angel Whitaker

A Vermont crime lab questions its blood alcohol testing results, a massive case review will be delayed in St. Paul, and recent lab problems in Massachusetts affect the state budget. Here's this week's round up of forensic news:

Blood alcohol testing machines in a Vermont state crime lab were not properly maintained or calibrated, leading to inaccurate results. In a recent trial, two lab analysts testified about submitting complaints about the faulty testing equipment to the lab supervisor.

Thousands of past drug convictions are still pending review in St. Paul after a judge delayed her decision in a related case. The hearing is now rescheduled for May 3. The lab's drug testing unit has been shuttered.

City Council members allocated money to hire more staff for the Austin, Texas Police Department crime lab to deal with a serious backlog of cases. Criminal judges and defense attorneys are urging the lab to hire more staff immediately.

At a recent state budget hearing in Massachusetts, lawmakers discussed how two recent scandals affected the backlog of crime lab testing. These cases, specifically the one at Hinton State Lab, significantly impact nearly every budget within the criminal justice sector.

The disagreement between the Denver district attorney and the police chief over lab personnel became a public sparring match recently. Accusations over a lack of professionalism have criminal justice experts wondering if the departments can still work together effectively.

Saturday's episode of the CBS investigative show '48 Hours' reexamined a Missouri man's fight for freedom. Ryan Ferguson was convicted in 2005 of committing a 2001 murder and sentenced to 40 years in prison after being implicated by former classmate Charles Erickson who testified against him and pled guilty to his part in the murder. Erickson had read a newspaper article about the crime and allegedly had a dream about possibly killing the victim. Four years after Ferguson was convicted, Erickson said he lied, and Ferguson didn't commit the murder.

Ferguson remains behind bars despite an absence of witnesses and a lack of physical evidence connecting him to the crime. His father started a petition with Change.org that will be delivered to the Governor and Attorney General seeking a new trial. According to '48 Hours,' it will be Ferguson's 13th attempt to overturn his conviction.

Watch the full episode.

Sign the Change.org petition asking for a new trial.

A Virginia man who plead guilty in juvenile court to a 2007 rape and breaking and entering charge on the advice of a court-appointed lawyer will have a chance to clear his name at a hearing in July to determine if the lawyer violated his right to effective defense.

The Free Lance Star reports that on June 4, 2007, 15-year-old Edgar Coker had consensual sexual relations with his 14-year-old neighbor in the girl's bedroom. At the time, the girl claimed rape to avoid getting into trouble with her mother. But two months after Coker was sent to juvenile detention, she admitted the fabrication. Now, both families want to clear Coker's record.

Now 21, Coker was released from custody three years ago, but was required to register as a sex offender. Since then, a team of attorneys, including the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia Law School, has been trying to get his name removed from the registry.

The hearing is scheduled for July 16 and 17.

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