Tag: wrongful convictions

Hawaii Governor Signs Bill Creating Expungement Task Force That’s Expected To Consider Marijuana Conviction Relief

Hawaii’s governor has signed into law a bill to create a task force charged with crafting legislation that would expunge certain criminal records, likely including some past marijuana arrests and convictions.

Gov. Josh Green (D) signed the so-called Clean Slate Expungement Task Force bill on Tuesday, a day before a signature deadline for measures passed this session by lawmakers. The legislation does not explicitly mention cannabis, but marijuana-related offenses are widely expected to be included in the task force’s discussions, and organizations named as members of the new body have focused significantly on cannabis this session.

Reform advocates welcomed the news, saying that removing blemishes from peoples’ criminal records would help remove barriers to housing, education and employment.

“I believe in redemption. I believe in second chances,” Rep. David Tarnas (D), the bill sponsor, said at a press conference alongside the governor on Tuesday. “And in Hawaii, we have a system for record clearance and expungement, which is very challenging. There are tens of thousands of individuals who qualify to have their records expunged, and yet it is so difficult to do that. Very few people do it.”

The new law will “bring together people in a task force to figure out what is the best way for us to have a comprehensive framework for all clemency efforts in the state, including pardons, expungement and record sealing, so that we make it more accessible to people.”

Carrie Ann Shirota, policy director for ACLU of Hawai’i, told Marijuana Moment that the group strongly supports Clean Slate laws that expand expungement and record-sealing through the use of technology.

“SB 2706 creates an Expungement Task Force that brings us one step closer to ensuring that all people have access to opportunity,” she said. “Having a record should not be a barrier to helping individuals provide for themselves and their families, nor should it be a life sentence to poverty. At its heart, Clean Slate is about a shot at redemption and facilitating workforce development.”

Research shows that a year after record clearance, people are more likely to be employed and earn higher wages, Shirota added.

The new body will include state officials—including the attorney general, chief justice, public defender and some prosecutors—as well as representatives from various advocacy groups, including ACLU, the Last Prisoner Project (LPP), the Hawaii Innocence Project and others.

In a statement to Marijuana Moment, LPP said it’s “honored to be part of the expungement task force to ensure all Hawaiians with cannabis charges have their records expunged.”

“Our appointment to the Clean Slate task force will help ensure the state-initiated cannabis expungement bill signed by Governor Green is implemented with fidelity,” said LPP Policy Manager Adrian Rocha, “and can serve as the foundation for broader record relief moving forward.”

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MISSOURI’S ATTORNEY GENERAL IS WAGING WAR TO KEEP THE WRONGLY CONVICTED LOCKED UP

WEARING A CRISP gray suit, Christopher Dunn walked into the Division 18 courtroom just blocks west from the famed Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, on May 21. He took his seat at a long table crowded with binders of legal exhibits and surrounded by a half-dozen lawyers working to free him from prison.

It was the same courthouse where Dunn, now 52, was convicted in July 1991 and sentenced to life in prison for the murder of 15-year-old Recco Rogers. According to the state, under the cover of darkness Dunn opened fire on Rogers and two other boys while they were sitting on the front steps of a friend’s home.

There was no physical evidence linking Dunn to the murder; he has always maintained his innocence and says that on the night of the shooting he was at home with family watching TV and talking to a friend on the phone until after midnight. The state’s case against Dunn was built solely on the testimony of the two boys sitting with Rogers: 12-year-old Michael Davis and 14-year-old DeMorris Stepp. During truncated police interviews, each boy named Dunn as the shooter. At Dunn’s trial, the prosecutor boldly leaned into the lack of physical evidence: The boys’ testimony was “all the evidence in the case,” he told the jury.

As such, when Davis and Stepp later recanted their stories about Dunn being the assailant, there was nothing left to prop up the prosecution’s case. Although the situation was about as straightforward as they come, thanks to quirks of Missouri law, Dunn found himself in a legal quagmire. He had no way to effectively challenge his conviction. And so it was — until 2021, when a new law offered prosecutors an avenue to overturn convictions they believe were wrongly obtained by their office. In February, Gabriel Gore, St. Louis’ appointed circuit attorney, asked a court to exonerate Dunn. “Both witnesses … now state that it was too dark to see any shooter on May 18, 1990,” Gore wrote in a motion to vacate the conviction. “The recantations alone are enough to show clear and convincing evidence of actual innocence.”

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Can This Woman Sue the Rogue Prosecutor Who Allegedly Helped Upend Her Life?

The job of the prosecutor is to hold the public accountable. But when the tables are turned—when the prosecutor is the one who allegedly flouted the law—it is, paradoxically, enormously difficult for victims to achieve recourse. Lawyers yesterday sparred at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit over one such barrier preventing someone from suing a former assistant district attorney accused of misconduct so egregious that one judge on the 5th Circuit described it last year as “utterly bonkers.”

At the center of the case is Ralph Petty, whose yearslong career included work as both an assistant district attorney and a law clerk—at the same time, for the same judges. In practice, that means his arguments as a prosecutor were sometimes performance art, because, as a law clerk, he had the opportunity to draft the same rulings he sought in court. It doesn’t take a lawyer to deduce that the set-up presents troubling implications for due process.

One of Petty’s alleged victims, Erma Wilson, would like the opportunity to bring her civil suit against him before a jury. In 2001, she was convicted of cocaine possession after police found a bag of crack on the ground near where she and some friends were gathered. Law enforcement offered to let her off if she implicated the guilty party; she said she didn’t know.

Years later, that conviction continues to haunt her. Most notably, it doomed any chance of her fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming a nurse, because Texas, where she lives, does not approve registered nursing licenses for people found guilty of drug-related crimes.

Wilson’s conviction coincided with the beginning of Petty’s dual-hat arrangement in Midland County, Texas. Though he was not the lead prosecutor on her case, she alleges he “communicated with and advised fellow prosecutors in the District Attorney’s Office” on her prosecution while simultaneously working for Judge John G. Hyde, who presided over her case, giving him “access to documents and information generally unavailable to prosecutors.” (Hyde died in 2012.)

“Further undermining confidence in Erma’s criminal proceedings, Petty and Judge Hyde engaged in ex parte communications concerning Erma’s case,” her lawsuit reads. “Consequential motions, such as Erma’s motion to suppress, were resolved in the prosecution’s favor throughout trial. And despite the weak evidence against her, Erma’s motion for a new trial was not granted. Any of these facts by itself undermines the integrity of Erma’s trial. Together, these facts eviscerate it.” 

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New York appeals court overturns Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction from landmark #MeToo trial

New York’s highest court on Thursday overturned Harvey Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction, finding the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced the ex-movie mogul with “egregious” improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case.

The state Court of Appeals ruling reopens a painful chapter in America’s reckoning with sexual misconduct by powerful figures — an era that began in 2017 with a flood of allegations against Weinstein. The court ordered a new trial. His accusers could again be forced to relive their traumas on the witness stand.

Weinstein, 72, has been serving a 23-year sentence in a New York prison following his conviction on charges of criminal sex act for forcibly performing oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and rape in the third degree for an attack on an aspiring actress in 2013.

He will remain imprisoned because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Weinstein was acquitted in Los Angeles on charges involving one of the women who testified in New York.

Weinstein’s lawyers argued Judge James Burke’s rulings in favor of the prosecution turned the trial into “1-800-GET-HARVEY.”

The reversal of Weinstein’s conviction is the second major #MeToo setback in the last two years, after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of a Pennsylvania court decision to throw out Bill Cosby’s sexual assault conviction.

Weinstein’s conviction stood for more than four years, heralded by activists and advocates as a milestone achievement, but dissected just as quickly by his lawyers and, later, the Court of Appeals when it heard arguments on the matter in February.

Allegations against Weinstein, the once powerful and feared studio boss behind such Oscar winners as “Pulp Fiction” and “Shakespeare in Love,” ushered in the #MeToo movement. Dozens of women came forward to accuse Weinstein, including famous actresses such as Ashley Judd and Uma Thurman. His New York trial drew intense publicity, with protesters chanting “rapist” outside the courthouse.

Weinstein is incarcerated in New York at the Mohawk Correctional Facility, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Albany.

He maintains his innocence. He contends any sexual activity was consensual.

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Teacher sues after he’s convicted of putting ‘For Sale’ sign in truck window

A retired Pennsylvania teacher is suing his local government after he was convicted of a criminal charge for putting a “For Sale” sign in his truck window.

Will Cramer teamed up with the Institute for Justice last week to take legal action against the borough of Nazareth over its ordinance, claiming that it’s a violation of his First Amendment rights, according to the nonprofit law firm.

Cramer had put the sign in his 1987 Chevy Deluxe last October and received a ticket stating that parking a vehicle in public “for the purposes” of selling it was illegal.

“It made no sense to me that I could park my truck on the street legally, but as soon as I put a ‘For Sale’ sign in the window, it became illegal,” said Cramer, who was found guilty by a judge after trying to fight his ticket.

“This lawsuit is bigger than me, it’s about standing up for the free speech rights of everybody in Nazareth.” 

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South LA Man Is 13th To Be Exonerated For Murder In LA County Since 2020

It took only a single eyewitness testimony to convince a jury to wrongfully convict Stephen Patterson to a 50-year life sentence for shooting and killing 16-year-old Yair Oliva in 2005. That witness was 200 yards away, inside her home in South Los Angeles and peering through closed blinds.

Other witnesses contradicted that testimony or could not identify Patterson, who was only 19 at the time. Investigators also ignored that the gun used in Oliva’s killing showed up at another crime scene six weeks later.

But on Wednesday, Patterson was declared innocent after spending nearly half his life behind bars. His exoneration marks the 13th under Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s tenure. According to his office, those 13 people collectively add up to nearly 300 years of wrongful incarceration.

Gascón is running for reelection and touting his work on criminal justice reform that his competitors have criticized as being soft on crime.

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Three Pennsylvania men who have spent decades in prison for rape and murder of elderly woman in her home have their convictions overturned

Three Pennsylvania men who were imprisoned for decades in the 1997 slaying of a 70-year-old woman – despite their DNA never matching that found at the scene – have had their convictions overturned by a judge.

The Delaware County judge threw out the convictions for Derrick Chappell – who was 15 when he was arrested – and first cousins Morton Johnson and Sam Grasty. The District Attorney is now reviewing the case to see if a new trial is necessary.  

Chappel, Johnson, and Grasty were each convicted in separate trials for the murder of Henrietta Nickens, a 70 year old woman who was brutally killed at her home in Chester, Pennsylvania, on October 10, 1997.

Nickens was savagely beaten and had had her underwear removed. Investigators found her home ransacked and blood on the walls and bedding. 

A mysterious green jacket, in the pocket of which was cocaine, was found on top of Nickens’ television set.

Investigators discovered semen in the woman’s rectum. They tested the semen and found that it didn’t belong to any of the three arrested individuals.

The prosecutors, who have been characterized as pugnacious, sought to separate the recovered semen from the crime. They affirmed that the semen might have originated from consensual intercourse and was unrelated to the murder. 

Nickens had been chronically ill and had no known sexual partners. 

The prosecution’s case against Chappel, Johnson, and Grastly hinged on the testimony of key witness Richard McElwee, who was 15 years old at the time of the crime.

McElwee testified that he functioned as a lookout while the three older boys pilfered Nickens of $30.

In exchange for his testimony, McElwee pled guilty to third-degree murder, as well as other charges. He was sentenced to serve six to 12 years in prison in 1999.

In 2000 and 2001, Chappel, Johnson, and Grasty were each convicted of second-degree murder, and they were sentenced to life in prison.

Over the course of their more than two decades-long prison stint, the three men have continued to protest their innocence.

Each of them filed pro se petitions in federal court over the years saying they were wrongly convicted, but their petitions were denied.

The fate of Chappel, Johnson, and Grasty drew the attention of many organizations dedicated to freeing wrongly convicted men and women.

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California woman’s 2001 conviction for murdering her husband is OVERTURNED after two decades in prison as evidence used against her is discredited

More than two decades ago, a California woman was convicted and sent to prison for 25 years to life for murdering her husband.

Jane Dorotik has always maintained that she did not kill her husband of 30 years, Bob Dorotik, and over the years she has filed many motions requesting new testing be done on the evidence used in her case.

Dorotik, now in her mid-70s, was finally able to get her message through to the courts that the evidence evaluated against her in 2001 needed further assessment.

During the summer of 2020, when jails were overcrowded and COVID-19 was a concern, Dorotik was temporarily and conditionally released from prison.

Her legal team hoped that release would become permanent pending a court overturning her jury’s verdict.

During a remote hearing, that is exactly what happened when, much to Dorotik’s surprise. The state requested that her murder conviction be overturned. The judge agreed to the ask.

But the good news was followed shortly by the San Diego County DA’s attempt to retry her. A judge allowed the retrial to proceed, but said some of the central pieces of evidence used against her 20 years ago would not be admissible.

Then, in May 2022, as jury selection was about to begin again, the deputy district attorney walked in and said the state no longer felt the evidence they had was ‘sufficient to show proof beyond a reasonable doubt and convince 12 members of the jury. So we are requesting that the court … dismiss the charges at this time.’

Dorotik was once again, unconditionally, a free woman. 

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PROSECUTORS BURIED EVIDENCE AND MISLED THE COURT. TEN YEARS LATER, THEY GOT A SLAP ON THE WRIST.

AFTER RULING THAT federal prosecutors withheld key evidence resulting in a defendant’s wrongful imprisonment, D.C.’s top court took nearly a decade to decide on an appropriate sanction. In December, after extensive hearings, the D.C. Court of Appeals gaveOpens in a new tab two prosecutors a year of probation plus a stern warning not to commit any further misconduct, or they would be suspended from practicing law for six months.

Both prosecutors, Mary Chris Dobbie and Reagan Taylor, still work for the Justice Department, according to media reportsOpens in a new tab and other records. One of their former supervisors, Jeffrey Ragsdale, currently leads the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which oversees investigations into alleged prosecutorial misconduct.

Under the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors have a constitutional obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence to defense attorneys. At the trial for two defendants accused of assaulting an officer during a jailhouse brawl, Dobbie and Taylor withheld unequivocal evidence that their lead witness, a corrections officer, had a history of filing false reports. Based on the officer’s testimony, one defendant was imprisoned for more than four years before his conviction was reversed.

In 2021, the D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, a disciplinary panel appointed by the appeals court, unanimously recommendedOpens in a new tab a six-month suspension for Dobbie and Taylor. But in a divided opinion, the court ratcheted down the sanction to probation based on “one overriding mitigating circumstance”: the “deficient conduct” of Ragsdale and another supervisor, John Roth, who later served as inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security. There were no ethics charges or misconduct findings for either supervisor.

Reached by phone, Roth declined to comment, saying that he was not aware of the decision. Attorneys for Dobbie and Taylor did not respond to multiple requests for comment, nor did Ragsdale. The Justice Department also failed to respond.

The dissenting judge, Joshua Deahl, argued that Dobbie and Taylor “should face real consequences for their actions.”

“The board comes to us — despite innumerable favorable inferences drawn in respondents’ favor — with the rare recommendation of an actual suspension that at least comes close to reflecting the gravity of this serious prosecutorial misconduct,” Deahl wrote. “Yet this court balks.”

Deahl noted a dissonance between how courts treat prosecutors’ ethical violations versus misconduct by private attorneys, who are routinely disbarred or suspended for actions like dipping into client funds.

“That is too harsh a result, the majority concludes, when prosecutors intentionally suppress evidence in violation of the Constitution and thereby secure felony convictions resulting in years of unjust imprisonment,” wrote Deahl, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019 and served as a public defender before joining the bench.

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LA Innocence Project took wife-killer Scott Peterson’s case because of key evidence including blood spatter that might have exonerated him but was withheld from trial and other suspects ‘who were were overlooked’

The Los Angeles Innocence Project decided to take Scott Peterson’s case with a view to revisiting previously ‘withheld’ evidence that may exonerate him, court records reveal. 

The organization – which is separate from the more acclaimed Innocence Project – was contacted by Peterson’s team in March last year. 

Its attorneys have not publicly discussed the case nor vouched for Peterson’s absolute innocence.

A spokesman today told DailyMail.com: ‘The Los Angeles Innocence Project (LAIP) represents Scott Peterson and is investigating his claim of actual innocence. 

‘We have no further comment at this time.’ 

Paperwork submitted to the Superior Court of California in San Mateo however highlights why they think he may have a shot at clearing his name. 

Lawyers point to ‘blood spatter’ in the home where Peterson is accused of murdering his pregnant wife Laci, but insist it does not belong to him. 

They also say no other suspects were considered. 

Laci was 27-years-old and eight months pregnant when she disappeared on Christmas Eve, 2002. 

Peterson led the search for his wife but was arrested months later when her body later washed up in the San Francisco shoreline in 2003.

He has always claimed that she was killed by a panicked burglar after catching them ransacking the couple’s home. 

A jury however convicted him of the killing, deciding he was motivated by an affair he was having at the time with Amber Frey, a 20-year-old massage therapist. 

Peterson was sentenced to death, but the decision was overturned in 2020 by the California Supreme Court, citing potential juror bias that prosecutors failed to account for. 

In December 2022, Peterson’s request for a new trial was rejected. 

Now, the L.A. Innocence Project is spearheading his case.  

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