Wrongful Conviction

GEORGETOWN, Texas--A Texas judge who prosecuted a man wrongfully convicted of murder and freed after serving 25 years in prison faces an unprecedented court hearing Monday on whether he should be prosecuted for mishandling the case. Williamson County District Judge Ken Anderson faces a “court of inquiry” to address allegations that he lied and concealed evidence - in violation of the law and a judge's order - that could have cleared Michael Morton, who was convicted in the 1986 beating death of his wife, Christine, at their Williamson County home.

Re "A lament in a history lesson," March 12 California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye could also have given a brief accounting lesson on the effect of imprisoning people who have inadequate legal representation. For every prisoner incarcerated, it costs taxpayers about $50,000 per year. Illustrating the importance of a properly funded judiciary, Cantil-Sakauye tells the story of Clarence Gideon, the Floridian whose wrongful conviction in 1961 and five years in prison resulted in the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Gideon vs. Wainwright.

HOUSTON - In what's becoming a familiar scenario in Texas, a man has been freed after spending years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. David Lee Wiggins, 48, of Fort Worth was imprisoned in 1989 for rape, largely because the 14-year-old victim picked him out of photo and live lineups. His fingerprints did not match any at the crime scene. Still, he was sentenced to life in prison. But this month DNA testing excluded Wiggins, and on Friday, State District Judge Louis Sturns in Fort Worth approved a motion overturning his conviction and freed him. Before Wiggins is officially exonerated, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must accept the judge's recommendation or the governor must grant a pardon.

Shatter a basketball backboard in college or the NBA and you'll probably end up on the evening's ESPN highlight reel. But all Jacob Valline got was a really bad headache and a nasty knot on his forehead. That's because Valline's feat was cracking shatterproof glass while being held in a jail cell in Elko, Nev. Elko County Sheriff Jim Pitts told the Los Angeles Times that the 29-year-old Valline continually bashed his head into an Elko County Jail holding cell's glass until it broke.

Lawyers for a Texas man officially exonerated Monday after serving 25 years of a life sentence in connection with his wife's murder requested a special judicial inquiry into alleged misconduct by the lead prosecutor. After Michael Morton, 57, was released in October, his lawyers continued investigating the lead prosecutor in the case, former Williamson County Dist. Atty. Ken Anderson, now a District Court judge. On Monday, they filed a report summing up their investigation and argued that Anderson acted improperly while prosecuting Morton for the fatal 1986 beating of his wife, Christine, at their home in the Austin suburb of Georgetown.

Prison took a lot from Lenny Callace, but he walked out from behind bars holding tight to his innocence and his life. For a while, at least. He lost nearly six years to prison for a crime he didn't commit. He missed the chance to say goodbye to his dying mother--"my heart" he called her. He couldn't trust anyone anymore, his father said. The mother of his children left him. Callace himself, trying to describe it, said: "I'm not right. I snap. Last night, I had to go for a walk--2 o'clock for a walk!"

The Assembly Public Safety Committee cleared three bills Tuesday aimed at preventing wrongful convictions, but the governor might veto the measures because of law enforcement opposition. All the measures stem from the recommendations of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, which the state Senate created in 2004 to study problems in the criminal justice system that have put innocent people in jail.

California does a bad job of compensating people wrongfully convicted in its courts, a blue ribbon commission said Friday. Men and women imprisoned for years, even decades, for crimes they didn't commit are offered fewer benefits than convicts released on parole, the commission said.

Gigi Gordon, a crusading criminal defense lawyer who battled corrupt police and overzealous prosecutors to free dozens of prisoners who had been wrongfully convicted, committed suicide after struggling with multiple sclerosis and depression. She was 54. Gordon, who had been sinking deeper into despair over the last year as her debilitating illness eroded her intellect and medication failed to alleviate her pain, overdosed on pills and died Jan. 18 at a Brentwood park, her friends said.

Former Newport-Mesa Unified School District Supt. Jeffrey Hubbard took to Twitter last week in a quest to clear his reputation. After being convicted of two felony counts of misappropriation of public funds related to his post as Beverly Hills schools chief, Hubbard confirmed that he was using social media to expose what he termed a wrongful prosecution and conviction and to call attention to others suffering similar circumstances. "In coming weeks I will be exposing the lies and hypocrisy of the BHUSD, a greedy ex-superintendent, outright lies by the LA DA — bye for now," he tweeted Wednesday afternoon.

GEORGETOWN, Texas--A Texas judge who prosecuted a man wrongfully convicted of murder and freed after serving 25 years in prison faces an unprecedented court hearing Monday on whether he should be prosecuted for mishandling the case. Williamson County District Judge Ken Anderson faces a “court of inquiry” to address allegations that he lied and concealed evidence - in violation of the law and a judge's order - that could have cleared Michael Morton, who was convicted in the 1986 beating death of his wife, Christine, at their Williamson County home.

NEW YORK - They were five men - boys, really - accused of a violent rape. They were prosecuted aggressively by district attorneys and vilified by a tabloid press, then sent to prison for as many as 13 years. In 1989, the case of the Central Park Five, as the attack on a 28-year-old white investment banker in uptown Manhattan has come to be known, roiled the country, touching on race and class and fears about crime. But the defendants - all black or Latino, none older than 16 - didn't commit the attack on the Central Park jogger.

Kirby Dick's "The Invisible War," and Malik Bendjelloul's film "Searching for Sugarman" are among the five feature-length documentaries nominated by the International Documentary Assn. for its 2012 IDA Documentary Awards. "The Central Park Five" by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon also received a nomination. The film recounts the high-profile trial and wrongful conviction of five young men in one of New York's most sensational criminal cases. Lauren Greenfield's nominated film "Queen of Versailles" is a portrait of a billionaire couple and their downfall during the economic crisis.

A Los Angeles man who spent 19 years in prison for murders he did not commit will be able to sue the LAPD, a panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Monday. Harold C. Hall should be permitted to amend his complaint against the city to allege that officers coerced his confession, which the court said was made as a result of "desperation, fear and fatigue," in possible violation of the 5th Amendment. The majority in the 2-1 decision said "the extraordinary circumstances" of Hall's conviction justified the court's unusual action "to prevent a woefully unjust result.

HOUSTON - In what's becoming a familiar scenario in Texas, a man has been freed after spending years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. David Lee Wiggins, 48, of Fort Worth was imprisoned in 1989 for rape, largely because the 14-year-old victim picked him out of photo and live lineups. His fingerprints did not match any at the crime scene. Still, he was sentenced to life in prison. But this month DNA testing excluded Wiggins, and on Friday, State District Judge Louis Sturns in Fort Worth approved a motion overturning his conviction and freed him. Before Wiggins is officially exonerated, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must accept the judge's recommendation or the governor must grant a pardon.

WASHINGTON - More than 2,000 people have been freed from prison since 1989 after they were found to have been wrongly convicted of serious crimes, according to a new National Registry of Exonerations compiled by University of Michigan Law School and Northwestern University. Its sponsors say it is by far the largest database of such cases, and they hope it will help reveal why the criminal justice system sometimes misfires, prosecuting and convicting the innocent. "The more we learn about false convictions, the better we'll be at preventing them," said Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor.

A man who spent nearly 20 years in prison for an Orange County murder he probably did not commit has set a price on his lost freedom: $10 million. In a federal lawsuit filed Friday, DeWayne McKinney said his wrongful conviction was the fault of Orange police, who arrested him, and the Orange County public defender's office, which represented him at his trial.

What if the state executes an innocent person? That's a central question in the debate over the death penalty that David B. Rivkin Jr. and Andrew Grossman did not address in their Oct. 26 Op-Ed article defending capital punishment on constitutional grounds, says Thomas Wright of Oak Park, Ill.: "Rivkin and Grossman have good arguments but miss an elephant: the likelihood of irreversible error. There being no appeal from the grave, we have to accept the certainty of a mistaken execution when we accept the death penalty.

DALLAS - On the way to witness his first execution in the town known as the "Execution Capital of the World," the Dallas County district attorney stopped at the prison cemetery to find his great-grandfather's grave. Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery in Huntsville is the final resting place of inmates whose families could not afford burial anywhere else. Tall pines guard the grassy expanse nicknamed "Peckerwood Hill," where many gravestones bear prison identification numbers, not names.

Frank O'Connell sat in the same Pasadena courtroom where more than a quarter of a century ago he was sentenced to life in prison for a murder he insists he did not commit. In front of him, a new judge on Friday delivered the words he had long awaited: He could go free on bail. Behind him, his relatives sobbed with relief. His lips trembling and with tears in his eyes, O'Connell turned to look at his son, who was just 4 when a judge convicted him of gunning down a maintenance man at a South Pasadena apartment complex.