The Prison Thread

[Nat]

Miss. judge tosses out 31-year-old rape, murder convictions

HATTIESBURG — Two men imprisoned since 1979 for a rape and murder that DNA evidence now shows was committed by someone else are free men today.

Forrest County Circuit Judge Bob Helfrich this morning threw out the convictions of Phillip Bivens and Bobby Ray Dixon and ordered evidence be presented to a grand jury on Andrew Harris, whose DNA matches that of evidence from the crime scene. Harris already is serving a life sentence at the State Penitentiary in Parchman for another rape in Forrest County two years after Eva Gail Patterson was raped and murdered on March 4, 1979.

“Thank God, thank God,” Bivens said after Helfrich’s ruling.

Dixon, 53, who is out on medical release given inmates who have a terminal illness, said, “It feels good. It feels real good. I thank God. I feel blessed.”

Dixon has advanced lung cancer and a brain tumor and is undergoing chemotherapy.

The third man convicted of the crime, Larry Ruffin, died in prison in 2002.

Helfrich said he will take up the posthumous exoneration of Ruffin after the grand jury meets.

He appointed District Attorney Jon Mark Weathers as special prosecutor in this case. Weathers has been investigating Harris ever since he found out the DNA at the crime scene matched Harris.

The Innocence Project pushed for the DNA tests that ended up clearing Ruffin, Dixon and Bivens in Patterson’s rape and murder.

Ruffin’s case is the first time in Mississippi and the second time nationally that DNA has cleared an inmate posthumously, according to the Innocence Project. The first was last year in Texas when DNA tests cleared Tim Cole, who died in 1999, of the 1985 rape of a Texas Tech University student.

Dixon and Bivens had pleaded guilty and fingered Ruffin as the rapist after allegedly being beaten.

Of the 259 DNA exonerations since 1989, 63 have involved false confessions and 19 have involved false guilty pleas, according to statistics kept by the Innocence Project.


Phillip Bivens (left) is hugged by Teresa Strickland , the sister of Larry Ruffin, after Forrest County Circuit Judge Bob Helfrich ordered the release of Phillip Bivens and Bobby Ray Dixon, and said the two will be fully exonerated pending a presentation of DNA evidence to a grand jury. (Matt Bush/Hattiesburg American)


Dixon (George Clark/Hattiesburg American)

[Nat]

Lawyers for relatives of Cameron Todd Willingham, executed for the 1991 arson murder of his three young daughters in Corsicana, on Friday petitioned a judge in Travis County to hear evidence and determine whether Willingham was wrongly convicted.

---------------

Willingham’s execution has caught national attention for the specter that Texas may have killed an innocent man. Several arson experts in recent years have rejected the science that the investigators who testified at Willingham’s trial used to determine that the fire that killed his daughters was intentionally set.

-------------

Willingham, above right, was convicted of murder in 1992 in the deaths of his children —1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron and 2-year-old Amber — who died of smoke inhalation after a fire at the family’s house in Corsicana, about 55 miles northeast of Waco.

He maintained his innocence until his 2004 execution.

Willingham’s lawyers have claimed that local and state fire investigators relied on faulty scientific methods in concluding that the fire at Willingham’s house had been intentionally set.

-----------------

Willingham was executed during (Governor) Perry’s tenure (February 16, 2004) and Perry was accused of playing politics with the case last year when he replaced three members of the nine-member Texas Commission on Forensic Science, including the chairman, Austin defense lawyer Sam Bassett. The members, whose terms had expired, were replaced just days before the commission had been scheduled to hear the findings of the expert they had hired to evaluate the case. That presentation was postponed indefinitely.

[Nat]

Originally Posted by Nat

Lawyers for relatives of Cameron Todd Willingham, executed for the 1991 arson murder of his three young daughters in Corsicana, on Friday petitioned a judge in Travis County to hear evidence and determine whether Willingham was wrongly convicted.

---------------

Willingham’s execution has caught national attention for the specter that Texas may have killed an innocent man. Several arson experts in recent years have rejected the science that the investigators who testified at Willingham’s trial used to determine that the fire that killed his daughters was intentionally set.

-------------

Willingham, above right, was convicted of murder in 1992 in the deaths of his children —1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron and 2-year-old Amber — who died of smoke inhalation after a fire at the family’s house in Corsicana, about 55 miles northeast of Waco.

He maintained his innocence until his 2004 execution.

Willingham’s lawyers have claimed that local and state fire investigators relied on faulty scientific methods in concluding that the fire at Willingham’s house had been intentionally set.

-----------------

Willingham was executed during (Governor) Perry’s tenure (February 16, 2004) and Perry was accused of playing politics with the case last year when he replaced three members of the nine-member Texas Commission on Forensic Science, including the chairman, Austin defense lawyer Sam Bassett. The members, whose terms had expired, were replaced just days before the commission had been scheduled to hear the findings of the expert they had hired to evaluate the case. That presentation was postponed indefinitely.

a follow-up on this - I read a while back that his wife is saying he confessed to her that he'd done it.

[Nat]

Ex-inmate's name cleared in rape

He now can pursue $2 million from the state

Nearly three months out of prison, Michael Anthony Green on Wednesday received news he's long been waiting for — that the state of Texas said he was actually innocent for the crime that kept him behind bars for 27 years.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals' unanimous ruling is an enormous weight lifted off of the Houston man's shoulders.

"I almost feel like crying from the joy," Green, 45, said. "It's great for the state to acknowledge something I tried to tell them from the get-go."

The court's decision clears the way for Green to work toward a settlement of more than $2 million from the state, his attorney, Bob Wicoff said.

Green is expected to be taxed on the money, which he may get by the end of the year, Wicoff said.

He said legislators may change that law in the next session, which could be retroactive and make Green's money tax-free.

Wicoff said Wednesday's ruling was not a surprise because no one objected to the trial court's finding that Green was actually innocent.

Wicoff said he also expects to ask for an official pardon for Green.

Wrongly identified
Faulty eyewitness identification in 1983 sent Green to prison for 75 years for the rape of a Houston woman.

Prosecutors working on the case found the victim's jeans to be tested.

He was freed July 30 after DNA evidence cleared him from any involvement in the case.


Michael Anthony Green holds a photo earlier this year of his mother, Mary Ann Strait, who died while he was in prison.

[Nat]

Prisoner ordered free from Texas' death row

After 18 years of incarceration and countless protestations of innocence, Anthony Graves finally got a nod of approval from the one person who mattered Wednesday and at last returned home — free from charges that he participated in the butchery of a family in Somerville he did not know and free of the possibility that he would have to answer for them with his life.

The district attorney for Washington and Burleson counties, Bill Parham, gave Graves his release. The prosecutor filed a motion to dismiss charges that had sent Graves to Texas' death row for most of his adult life. Graves returned to his mother's home in Brenham no longer the "cold-blooded killer," so characterized by the prosecutor who first tried him, but as another exonerated inmate who even in the joy of redemption will face the daunting prospect of reassembling the pieces of a shattered life.

Graves was convicted of assisting Robert Earl Carter in the slaying of Bobbie Davis, 45; her 16-year-old daughter, Nicole; and Davis' four grandchildren, ages 4 to 9, on Aug. 18, 1992. Carter was executed in 2000. Two weeks before his death, he provided a sworn statement saying that his naming of Graves as an accomplice was a lie.

He repeated the statement while strapped to the gurney minutes before his death: "Anthony Graves had nothing to do with it. ... I lied on him in court."

Graves' youngest brother, Arthur Curry, testified in vain at his 1994 trial, telling jurors that Graves had been at home sleeping at the time when the murders occurred. Jurors did not believe him, so his brother's return home carried a deep, personal significance.

"The sun couldn't shine any brighter," Curry, now 37, said. "It's just like celebrating a resurrection, almost, because it was almost like a death in our family. But it was a slow death, continuously, just waiting for that demise."



This was Anthony in 1985

[katsarecool]

Nat, I don't have the link handy but it can be found on ABCNEWS Nightline and World News Tonight. The story is about a man who was accused of murder and spent over 25 yrs in prison. Recently someone else cofessed to this Cold Case. the board of clemency in AZ reccommended to Gov Jan Brewer that he be released. She has refused and said "I made my decision and that is final!" I will come back with the link but wanted to report this miscarriage of justice in the great state of Arizona. More trash on that bitch! Excuse my language but I detest that woman.

[katsarecool]

here it is http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/gove...arris-11988234

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by katsarecool

Nat, I don't have the link handy but it can be found on ABCNEWS Nightline and World News Tonight. The story is about a man who was accused of murder and spent over 25 yrs in prison. Recently someone else cofessed to this Cold Case. the board of clemency in AZ reccommended to Gov Jan Brewer that he be released. She has refused and said "I made my decision and that is final!" I will come back with the link but wanted to report this miscarriage of justice in the great state of Arizona. More trash on that bitch! Excuse my language but I detest that woman.

GeeeeZussssss!!

Now, please tell me this man can get help with this! Due process is in the US Constitution! And, wouldn't Brewer be subject to legal charges for this? OK, we need the attorney members to speak to this. Wouldn't federal jurisdiction supercede her in a case such as this?

I am mortified about this! Not that I don't know that there are many miscarriages of justice in the US as well as quite a divide between POC and the ruling class in terms of arrest, conviction and incarceration- guilty or not.

Most people don't give a damn about these kinds of things until or unless it happens to someone they love or a good friend or family member. They just think a verdict of guilty is it and have no problem with innocent people serving time.

Frankly, after seeing some of the coverage of Brewer during election debates, I think she suffers from dementia. I am not being cruel- have a brother-in-law with Alzheimer's and it is an awful disease. Brewer shows many of the symptoms. Let us not forget that Ronald reagan also displayed symptoms while in office. geez, and he was just the person that had the codes for that briefcase to use nukes!