FROM: Arkansas Take Action
Contact: Lonnie Soury – (212) 414-5857, (917) 519-4521. Lsoury@aol.com
For Immediate Release
Attorneys Request New DNA Testing and Review of Previous Evidence Presented in Hearings
(Little Rock, Arkansas- February 18, 2011) The attorneys representing Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley today filed legal briefs reviewing the breadth of evidence they wish to present in upcoming evidentiary hearings before Craighead County Court Judge David Laser. Two briefs were filed by defense attorneys; one on behalf of Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, and the other on behalf of Damien Echols. The office of the District Attorney was also expected to file briefs with the court. It is expected that Judge Laser will review the briefs and issue directions impacting the scope of new DNA testing, scheduling, and other matters raised by the defense and prosecution.
Among the issues the court will be asked to review in establishing whether Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley deserve a new trial include DNA evidence, both existing and new material to be tested, alibi evidence, false confession evidence, juror misconduct evidence, forensic evidence covering cause of death and cause of injuries (animal predation), new witness statements, motive evidence, night of murder evidence, etc.
The attorneys also ask the court to review existing evidence already presented during the previous court proceedings including the Rule 37 hearings for all the men, as well as materials presented to the Arkansas Supreme Court. New expert forensic witnesses will likely be called.
Attorneys for Echols opened their brief by addressing the key issue before the court, as well as in any wrongful conviction proceeding, the standard necessary for overturning a conviction and what they believe was the intent of the Arkansas Supreme Court’s unanimous decision ordering a new evidentiary hearing in the case.
“In other words, as the Supreme Court put it, the question is whether a new jury would find Echols guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That ‘question’ ultimately turns on this Court’s determination whether, in light of all of the evidence, a hypothetical new juror would have a single reasonable doubt as to Echols’s guilt.
Thus, from the defense side, the focus of this hearing will be the presentation of documents, test results, witnesses and other information compellingly evidencing the many patent doubts and uncertainties surrounding the theory on which Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were convicted almost eighteen years ago now.”
In the brief filed on behalf of Damien Echols, the attorneys requested that the court enable additional DNA testing, in addition to the existing “undisputed” DNA evidence. “The Arkansas Supreme Court also remanded for this Court’s consideration a pending request by Baldwin and Misskelley for DNA testing of certain hairs and animal hairs. There are additional items which Echols would like to request be DNA tested, or scientifically tested otherwise as noted, now as well.”
- The victims’ clothing should be DNA tested, especially the waistbands and pockets of the victims’ pants. The victims’ shoes should be DNA tested.
- The victims’ shoelaces should be measured to determine which black shoelace was apparently cut in half to be used as a ligature. The remaining, non-ligature portion of that cut shoelace should then be fiber tested for comparison to other fiber evidence in the case.
- All remaining biological extracts, including ”skin cuticles” from the ligatures, should be DNA tested.
- Various items of physical evidence from the crime scene should be checked for prints and DNA tested: sheriff”s badge, bike reflector lights, bicycles, ice pick, cigarette packets (or other containers) and cigarette butts, child”s wallet, hook and rope, and all wooden sticks.
- All hair retrieved from the crime scene should be DNA tested. With respect to the two auburn beard hairs recovered, we request that only one of them be tested in order to preserve the other one for future testing, if necessary.
- The white sheets in which the victims’ bodies were transported to the Medical Examiner’s Office, and the white paper on which the victims’ clothing was dried before being examined, should be DNA tested.
- Certain undigested food-like substances found in the digestive tract of Stevie Branch during his autopsy.
Baldwin/Misskelley Defense Asks Court to Adopt Existing Rule 37 Hearing Testimony as Factual Basis for Relief
The Baldwin/Misskelley brief asks the court to accept the extensive evidence and testimony presented in both the Baldwin/Misskelley Rule 37 hearings conducted in 2008 as well as the Echols Rule 37 hearings conducted in 1998.
During the Rule 37 hearings, attorneys for Baldwin, Misskelley, and Echols presented, among other evidence of innocence, forensic evidence from some of the country’s leading forensic experts and board certified pathologists. They are now asking the court to accept that evidence for review.
“Misskelley and Baldwin called a series of forensic science experts who addressed cause of death, and cause of injury matters. These included board certified forensic pathologists Dr Werner Spitz; Dr. Michael Baden; Dr. Janice Ophoven. They also called Dr. Richard Souviron, Chief Odontologist for the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s office. Dr. Baden was then current Medical Examiner for the New York State Police, having been Chief Medical Examiner in New York City for many years prior to that. Dr Werner Spitz, the author of an authoritative and widely-issued book on forensic pathology had also been a Chief Medical Examiner in several jurisdictions, including the city of Detroit, and the city of Baltimore
All of these experts on forensic pathology (all of whom are board certified) testified that in their view many of the injuries to the three victims were post-mortem. The most egregious, including the area of genital mutilation of the victim Chris Byers, was in their unanimous view a result of animal predation. In this opinion they agreed with other forensic pathologists whose materials had been submitted as exhibits.”
Defense Intends to Call Terry Hobbs and David Jacoby to Testify, Citing Suspicious Actions on Night Of Murder Create Reasonable Doubt of Echols’s Guilt
“Echols’s defense team presently expects to call Terry Hobbs, his friend David Jacoby (who is the DNA-indicated likely source of another hair recovered at the crime scene and who was with Hobbs on the day the victims disappeared) and a fair number of other witnesses to testify about Hobbs’s and Jacoby’s actions on the night of May 5, 1993 and in the days that followed. Those actions are suspicious in the extreme and would, in and of themselves, we submit, cause any new and impartial juror to have a reasonable doubt about whether three unsophisticated teenagers who were never seen in the presence of the three victims and whose DNA was not found at the crime scene committed these murders rather than two sophisticated adults whose DNA was found at the crime scene and one of whom was the last adult seen with the victims on the day they disappeared.”
False Confession Evidence
“The State’s theory of prosecution also relied on the testimony of two teenage girls who claimed to have overheard Echols loudly “confess” to the murders to a group of many bystanders at a softball game. At trial, the two girls contradicted each other on the details of what had supposedly happened at the softball game, and despite the supposedly large crowd of bystanders at the time, the State called no other witnesses from that softball game to testify to any such confession by Echols. In addition, Echols’s supposed statement contained no details whatsoever that could be compared for corroborative purposes to the factual circumstances of the crime. It was, thus, the most unreliable form of “confession” imaginable.”
Echols will demonstrate that the “so-called” confession he is alleged to have made to the two teenage girls at the softball field was not accurate and could not possibly have been corroborated by the factual circumstances of the crime. And Echols will introduce other factual evidence that further undermines the credibility of the “softball girls” testimony.
Attorneys will also present the court with the latest research on false confessions and provide testimony from the country’s leading legal and forensic experts in the field.
Juror Misconduct Evidence
The record before this Court already contains evidence showing that jurors, and in particular the jury foreman, improperly considered and discussed the “confession” by Jessie Misskelley in finally deciding on their verdict against Echols and Baldwin. In addition, the record contains a sealed affidavit from a prominent local attorney containing previously unavailable evidence of misconduct by the jury foreman both before and during the trial. In the course of conversations with the attorney-affiant, the jury foreman disclosed his intense interest in the Misskelley confession and the manner in which he would place his knowledge of that forbidden matter before other jurors in order to ensure that the defendants were convicted at trial. The jury foreman apparently did so because the prosecution’s proof at trial was “scanty” and “extremely circumstantial.”
This is also precisely the type of evidence that the Court should, indeed must, consider as part of its overall determination of whether the newly supplemented record before the Court would necessarily leave an impartial new juror with a reasonable doubt as to Echols’s guilt.”
For more information about this case see:
www.wm3.org