For Immediate Release
Study of Prosecutorial Errors in Arkansas Found Fogleman Engaged in Questionable Behavior in Three Separate Cases
(Little Rock, AR, June 9, 2009) Judge John Fogleman, the lead prosecutor in the conviction of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, who today announced his intention to seek a seat on the Arkansas Supreme Court, is unfit for that position, according to Arkansas Take Action, a group seeking to overturn their wrongful convictions. Many believe the actions of Fogelman, as lead prosecutor, were a blatant abuse of power that led to the wrongful convictions of the three teens, including Damien Echols’s death sentence.
The Center for Public Integrity, a D.C. based investigative journalism think tank, conducted a national study of criminal appeals from 1970 to the present, in which they identified 54 Arkansas cases where the defendants made prosecutorial error or misconduct accusations. Out of those 54 cases, prosecutor Fogleman was involved in at least three. See http://projects.publicintegrity.org/PM/states.aspx?st=AR
According to the 2003 report, “Former Crittenden County deputy prosecuting attorney John Fogleman took part in at least three of the 54 cases. In one, the court found his conduct to be so prejudicial as to require a new trial. In another, a dissenting judge would have reversed a murder conviction because of Fogelman”s tactics.”
The WM3 case is Fogleman’s most well known. Fogleman’s actions during the trials, as well as highly questionable tactics in a failed effort to manipulate Jessie Misskelley into testifying against Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, were outlined in motions to overturn their convictions. “Echols and Baldwin alleged, among other things, that Fogleman abused his subpoena power, failed to disclose evidence, conducted improper communications with the judge and made an improper display by cutting a grapefruit with a knife during closing arguments,” the Center for Public Integrity report noted.
During the closing arguments for the Echols/Baldwin trial, Fogleman engaged in outrageous actions in front of the jury. He brandished a knife that could not be linked forensically to either the victims or the accused, and made crude cuts into a grapefruit he held in his hands. The experiment was supposed to show the jury that the cuts made by that knife on the grapefruit were consistent with the cuts on the victims. Not only was this false, but leading forensic experts have now confirmed that the injuries Fogleman attributed to knife marks were actually post-mortem injuries caused by animal predation. vFogleman also engaged in prosecutorial misconduct in a failed effort to convince Jessie Misskelley to testify against Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin, whose trial followed Misskelley’s. Fogleman and other officers of the court repeatedly tried to convince Misskelley to testify in the Echols/Baldwin trial and introduce the confession that he had previously repudiated. Numerous attempts were made over a period of weeks prior to the second trial to secure incriminating statements from Misskelley. The discussions with Misskelley were held without the consent of his lawyer and without any legal representation.
“This impropriety represents a conscious, calculated and ongoing attempt by the Prosecution to interfere with the attorney/client relationship between Jessie Lloyd Misskelley, Jr. and his court appointed attorneys and to circumvent Jessie Lloyd Misskelley, Jr”s. Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights as guaranteed him by the U.S. Constitution,” stated Misskelley’s attorney Dan Stidham in a motion to suppress.
Brent Peterson, spokesman for ATA, stated, “During the 1986 murder case of Marian Mullins, Fogleman did not disclose to the defense that the state’s main witness changed his testimony more than once. Fogelman would decide what was important to his cases and ignore or neglect the rest of the information, even if it was exculpatory. To elect such a man, who tailors the law and its procedures to his own advantage for a State Supreme Court Judge position, would be like his grapefruit experiment – ridiculous and completely untrustworthy.”
For more information, see www.Freewestmemphis3.org