Judge frees man facing execution

Oklahoma District Court Judge Twyla Mason Gray ruled that the case against Curtis E. McCarty was tainted by the actions of former Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist, whose work has been called into question in a host of other death penalty cases.

Citing the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Arizona vs. Youngblood, Gray said she was dismissing the charges because Gilchrist had acted in "bad faith," and "most likely did destroy or intentionally lose" hair that was crucial evidence in McCarty's trial in the 1982 stabbing and strangling of Pamela Kaye Willis.

According to several people at Friday's hearing, Gray said she still thought that McCarty may have been involved in the murder but that the law required her to throw the case out.

Innocence Project attorney Colin Starger, who has represented McCarty since 2003, said, "Every piece of evidence in this case, including evidence [that] was used improperly to secure convictions, now shows Curtis McCarty's innocence."

Free after nearly 22 years behind bars, McCarty said Friday that he had been out for "only a few hours" and had not "had time to digest" everything that occurred: "I am happy not just for myself but for my family and all the people who worked so hard" for his release.

"But for the Innocence Project, Judge Gray would not have done what she did today. I don't think she had cause to take a dig at me, but I join her in her condemnation of Gilchrist," McCarty said in an interview.

McCarty was first convicted of the murder and sentenced to death in 1986. The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the verdicts, saying that Dist. Atty. Robert H. Macy Sr. had acted deplorably during the trial, and that Gilchrist had omitted key information from her forensic reports.

McCarty was convicted and sentenced to death again in 1989. That conviction was upheld on appeal but the death sentence was reversed. A new penalty phase trial was conducted in 1996, and McCarty was sentenced to death a third time.

Five years later, serious questions surfaced about Gilchrist's conduct in many cases, including that of Jeffrey T. Pierce. In May 2001, Pierce was freed from an Oklahoma prison after serving 15 years for a rape that DNA tests ultimately showed he did not commit.