The standard for granting a new trial is: would a reasonable juror presented with evidence not available at the original trial come to a different conclusion from the one which convicted the defendants? Given all the compelling new evidence in the West Memphis 3 case, is there any doubt that Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley deserve a new trial? Apparently!
“The circuit court correctly denied Echols’s relief because his testing results are inconclusive as to his claim of actual innocence because they do not show a reasonable probability that he did not commit the offenses…..” So states Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel in his final legal response to the Arkansas Supreme Court in Damien Echols’s appeal for a new trial. McDaniel denies that there is a reasonable probability that Damien, Jason and Jessie did not commit these crimes for which they have been wrongfully convicted. The AG also fails to even review the new evidence in any cohesive manner, much less accurately comment upon its “reasonableness.” Therefore, allow me to do so.
Is it reasonable to assume that Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley were not at the crime scene considering that not one microscopic piece of their DNA was found there?
Is it reasonable to assume that the people whose DNA was found at the crime scene had a higher probability of being involved in these heinous crimes than Damien Echols, Jason or Jessie?
Is it reasonable to assume that the man whose hair was found bound in the knots tying one of the boys either before or after his murder – Terry Hobbs, the stepfather of one of the murder victims – could possibly be involved in this crime?
Is it reasonable to assume that the prosecution’s original case, based upon a knife as the murder weapon, has been completely refuted by the country’s leading forensic pathologists, who recently testified that wounds found on the boys, which appeared to the untrained eye to be knife marks, were actually post mortem animal bites and scratches?
Is it reasonable to assume that Jessie Misskelley, whose IQ was tested at 67/72, was coerced into making a series of statements that were deemed a confession even though the facts he gave police did not match anything at the crime scene, the most revealing being that he stated that the boys were killed at 9:00 a.m. when, in fact, they were all in school?
Is it reasonable to expect impartiality from a man whose father’s law firm was intimately involved in this case? Phillip Wells of McDaniel & Wells was appointed ‘court liaison’ by Judge Burnett. Within days of the appointment, the law firm unethically issued press statements claiming that there was a new witness who would bolster the prosecution’s case. Of course, the witness never appeared. Shockingly, McDaniel Wells was also involved in the prosecution’s failed attempt to convince Jessie Misskelley to testify against Damien and Jason. Jessie refused to do so because he knew they were innocent. A matter of little concern to the McDaniels.
Is it reasonable to assume that Attorney General Dustin McDaniel has added nothing substantive in his brief (see www.westmemphis3.org) to lead any reasonable jurist to conclude that Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley deserve anything less than to have their convictions overturned and be granted a new trial?
If reasonable jurists were to review the new evidence in this case, including the sworn statements of three new witnesses who place Terry Hobbs with the three boys immediately before their disappearance and murder, I would expect them to stand up and finally do the right thing: throw out these convictions, get Damien Echols off death row and right a terrible wrong.
Lonnie Soury, Arkansas Take Action
Damien Echols defense team is scheduled to file its final brief to the Arkansas Supreme Court on November 30, 2009. The court is expected to hold oral arguments in early 2010.