POPULAR NEWS: DNA

State of Florida will ask for the death penalty at Pablo Ibar retrial

Pablo Ibar The Spaniard of Basque descent has already spent 16 years on death row, after a conviction in the 1990s for a triple-homicide The...

Baca selengkapnya »

Texas judge voices doubts on death penalty

04.41 Unknown 0

Abolition DNA Ethnic minorities Exoneration Innocence Inordinate delay Race Texas USA Texas judge voices doubts on death penalty

Judge Elsa Alcala A judge on the state’s highest criminal court, which has the last word on Texas death penalty cases, believes it’s time to...

Baca selengkapnya »

Former death row inmate Kerry Max Cook fires lawyers, threatens to undo exoneration deal

07.30 Unknown 0

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7-LRf_9ehrCnJcNs96Ovuqta-wWTtMWEajD1pxh5UnWkQpgRvXkjsRU_kWtOnH_D7Vion796Axn74X_5tw94Sg07Q1LHLUNw78xED6Ka8k8qYoSivwhBOtgXaYLSp1ygKDiNthd6NfeU/s1600/Kerry+Cook+TX.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Kerry Max Cook (center) and his team of lawyers" border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7-LRf_9ehrCnJcNs96Ovuqta-wWTtMWEajD1pxh5UnWkQpgRvXkjsRU_kWtOnH_D7Vion796Axn74X_5tw94Sg07Q1LHLUNw78xED6Ka8k8qYoSivwhBOtgXaYLSp1ygKDiNthd6NfeU/s400/Kerry+Cook+TX.jpg" title="Kerry Max Cook (center) and his team of lawyers" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kerry Max Cook (center) and his team of lawyers</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">Two days after his legal team secured <a href="http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.fr/2016/06/texan-spent-20-years-on-death-row-and.html" target="_blank">an agreement that could lead to his exoneration in a high-profile 40-year-old murder case</a>, former death row inmate Kerry Max Cook fired the very lawyers who set him on a path that could finally clear his name.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In a series of Facebook missives and incensed email screeds, Cook accused lawyers from the New York-based Innocence Project and the Innocence Project of Texas of betraying him by accepting a deal with Smith County prosecutors that he never agreed to. Cook maintains that the deal lets prosecutors escape accountability for years of repeated misconduct that kept him behind bars and nearly resulted in his death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now, the 60-year-old former inmate says he plans to represent himself in court and prove to both the judge and Smith County prosecutors that he didn't brutally kill Linda Jo Edwards in 1977.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I am completely devastated by what has been done wirh [sic] my 40 year struggle for truth & justice," Cook wrote in an email to his former lawyers. "This corporate take-over of the truth of my story has left me still publicly convicted and the district attorneys office exonerated."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's the latest strange twist in a case that has been marked by continued oddities over 4 decades.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cook was convicted in 1978 in the gruesome slaying of Edwards, a 22-year-old who was found beaten, stabbed and mutilated in her Tyler apartment bedroom. Through 3 trials that courts said were tainted with prosecutor misconduct, 20 years on death row and even since his release in 1999, Cook has maintained his innocence. DNA tests also have revealed the DNA of another man - Edwards' married lover - on the panties she wore the night of her death.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Smith County prosecutors, however, remain resolute that Cook is guilty. Last week, they agreed to drop the murder charges only after a key witness admitted he lied during Cook's trials. Cook's lawyers struck a deal with Matt Bingham, the Smith County district attorney, in which they agreed to drop claims of misconduct by previous prosecutors in exchange for the state dismissing the long-standing murder charges. Bingham, however, said he would continue to oppose Cook's claims of actual innocence, which would allow him to receive compensation for the 2 decades he spent on death row.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A hearing on the actual innocence claim is scheduled for June 29.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In court last week, Cook told the judge that he had agreed to the deal, which would require final approval from the state's highest criminal court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But in dramatic emails and Facebook posts in the days after the hearing, Cook said that agreement "exonerated" the prosecutors who helped secure his wrongful conviction. He accused his lawyers of bullying him into taking the deal and said he would rather die than accept it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cook ordered Innocence Project lawyers who have helped exonerate hundreds of inmates in Texas and across the country to withdraw from the case. He wants the agreement he signed with Smith County prosecutors nullified. And he has vowed to represent himself going forward, a move many equate with legal suicide.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"This stress may kill me," Cook wrote in an email Saturday to his former lawyers. "But as I have told you repeatedly during the course of your representation if [sic] me, some things are worth dying for and the truth about how I wound up on Texas death row completely innocent in a case that has become known as the worst case in America, is one of them."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even if a court were to rule that prosecutors engaged in misconduct in Cook's case - a move that is rare - it's unclear what consequences, if any, the former state lawyers might face.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In unusual, high-profile cases like those of Michael Morton and Anthony Graves, the prosecutors who oversaw their wrongful convictions were punished by the State Bar of Texas. But under state law, complaints like those must be filed within 4 years of an innocent person's release from prison. Cook was released in 1999.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Innocence Project lawyers said they made the agreement with Cook's best interests in mind and an eye toward securing his exoneration. Nonetheless, they agreed to withdraw from the case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It is our firm belief that Kerry is innocent of this murder and that he has finally received justice and a recognition from Smith County that his prosecution was based on false testimony and he never had a fair trial," Innocence Project lawyers said in an emailed statement. "The attorneys who have worked on Kerry's behalf for many years hope that whatever course of action he ultimately pursues will end in his complete exoneration."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bingham declined to comment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">George Kendall, a defense lawyer who has represented inmates who spent decades behind bars, including former Texas death row inmate Delma Banks, said it's not unusual for those who've spent years in prison to have rocky relationships with their lawyers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Having gone through what he's gone through," Kendall said, "it would surely be understandable for him to have some real problems trusting people connected with the criminal justice system."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But, he said, Cook should reconsider his plan to represent himself in court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Our legal system makes resolution of the kind of case Kerry has much more difficult than it needs to be," Kendall said. "The issues involved in his case are complicated and they are tricky."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: Dallas Morning News, June 15, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

Former death row inmate Kerry Max Cook fires lawyers, threatens to undo exoneration deal

DNA Exoneration Facebook Innocence Prosecution misconduct Texas USA Former death row inmate Kerry Max Cook fires lawyers, threatens to undo exoneration deal

Kerry Max Cook (center) and his team of lawyers Two days after his legal team secured an agreement that could lead to his exoneration in a h...

Baca selengkapnya »

For 50 Years, You've Had "The Right to Remain Silent"

03.27 Unknown 0

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdVmFCt7PAgeu2hgUBVMfBd0VGk1JlbDYYPDagm2068K11g4skJNevhnx7grENhBCDYWgRaAbVjtTgVZbqRjHe1UAryGv0rfWzxAZBi2Yvef3wZLV1Z588ypKKyg_7r0LJNvTT9uUVBKo/s1600/Police+interrogation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdVmFCt7PAgeu2hgUBVMfBd0VGk1JlbDYYPDagm2068K11g4skJNevhnx7grENhBCDYWgRaAbVjtTgVZbqRjHe1UAryGv0rfWzxAZBi2Yvef3wZLV1Z588ypKKyg_7r0LJNvTT9uUVBKo/s400/Police+interrogation.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>So why do so many suspects confess to crimes they didn't commit?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"You have the right to remain silent."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you've ever watched any of the tens of thousands of hours of television devoted to crime dramas, you know the 1st warning given to suspects who are arrested and questioned. And the 2nd: "Anything you say can and will be used against you." The Miranda warnings - named for<i> Miranda v. Arizona</i>, the 1966 Supreme Court decision that required them - celebrate their 50th anniversary on June 13. In that period, they have become so ubiquitous that it's easy to forget their origin and purpose.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Miranda </i>was the culmination of 30 years of Supreme Court cases that were designed to protect criminal suspects from abuse in police interrogations. The earliest of these decisions prohibited violence and torture. The 1st concern was to prevent confessions that are "unreliable"- that is, false.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1966, false confessions seemed like a rare problem. 50 years later, we have seen hundreds of exonerations of innocent defendants who confessed to terrible crimes after they received Miranda warnings.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's a good time to take stock.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Do innocent people really confess without torture?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Why would an innocent person ever confess to a murder or some other terrible violent crime?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Torture would explain it. That was the issue in <i>Brown v. Mississippi</i> in 1936, the 1st case in which the Supreme Court excluded a confession from a state court prosecution. 3 suspects had been tortured for days. Asked how severely one defendant was whipped, the deputy in charge testified: "Not too much for a Negro; not as much as I would have done if it were left to me."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Between 1936 and 1966 the use of torture to extract confessions declined greatly, a major accomplishment by American courts and criminal justice reformers. When <i>Miranda </i>was written, a shift was underway to more "modern" methods of interrogation: isolation, deception, manipulation and exhaustion rather than beating. Without torture or threats of death or violence, it seems implausible that an innocent suspect would confess to a serious crime. That is precisely why confessions are such powerful evidence of guilt. But we know it happens, time and again.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The National Registry of Exonerations has collected data on 1,810 exonerations in the United States since 1989 (as of June 7, 2016). They include 227 cases of innocent men and women who confessed, 13 % of the total, all after receiving Miranda warnings (at least according to the police). Nearly 3/4 of those false confessions were homicide cases.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But these exonerations deeply understate the extent of the problem.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">First, most suspects who falsely confess - probably the great majority - are never convicted at all. In a classic 2004 study, Steven Drizin and Richard Leo identified 125 proven false confessions in the United States from 1971 through 2002. Only about 1/3 were cases of exoneration after conviction. In most, charges were dismissed before trial or never filed at all because of indisputable proof of innocence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">2nd, few convictions based on false confessions are cleared by exoneration. That's true for all wrongful convictions, but especially for those based on confessions. It's very hard to convince people that a defendant who confessed is innocent. We see this in the cases: Exonerations of defendants who confessed are more likely to depend on the most unassailable evidence, DNA, to overcome the weight of a confession. 42 % of exonerated defendants who had confessed were cleared by DNA tests, compared to only 21 percent of exonerees who had not confessed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In some cases, even exculpatory DNA evidence doesn't help. In October 1992, after a grueling four-day interrogation, 19-year-old Juan Rivera falsely confessed to the rape-murder of an 11-year-old girl in Lake County, Illinois. In fact, he confessed twice. His 1st confession was so riddled with factual errors that the detectives made him do it again to "clear up" the inconsistencies, even though Rivera was plainly in a state of mental collapse.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Rivera was convicted of murder in 1993, and again in 1996 after his 1st conviction was reversed for a host of legal errors. In 2005, DNA tests proved that a different man was the source of semen recovered from the body of the victim. Rivera's conviction was vacated but the prosecution took him to trial again, and in 2009, despite the DNA evidence, Rivera was convicted a 3rd time. Finally, in 2011, the Illinois Appellate Court ruled that River's conviction was "unjustified and cannot stand" and dismissed the charges.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Juan Rivera barely overcame his false confession even with conclusive DNA evidence of innocence. Without it, he'd be in prison today - together with other innocent defendants who confessed but did not have DNA tests to rescue them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>False confessions by co-defendants</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In many cases, innocent suspects who confess implicate others who are also innocent. Some do it because that's the story their interrogators want to hear. John Kogut, for example, not only falsely confessed to his own involvement in murder, he also said he did it with 2 friends Dennis Halsted and John Restivo, both of whom (like Kogut) spent 20 years in prison before they were exonerated in 2005.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And some innocent suspects who confess blame others to deflect responsibility and reduce their punishment. Richard Ochoa, for example, was facing the death penalty for the murder of Nancy DePriest in Austin, Texas in 1988. He confessed, named his roommate Richard Danziger as the actual killer and agreed to plead guilty and testify against Danziger. Both were convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Both were exonerated by DNA in 2002.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Registry includes 195 exonerations with confessions by co-defendants who implicated the exonerees, 11 % of all exonerations. The net result is that in 19 % of all exonerations in the United States - and in 34 % of homicide exonerations - the innocent defendant confessed or was implicated by a false confession of a co-defendant, or both.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Who falsely confesses?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">All sorts of people falsely confess, but two groups are particularly vulnerable: young suspects and those with mental disabilities.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1983, for example, Earl Washington, a 22-year-old black man with an IQ of about 69, was arrested in Culpeper, Virginia, for burglary and malicious wounding. Over 2 days of questioning, Washington "confessed" to 5 separate crimes, 4 of which were not pursued because his confessions did not match the actual crimes and the victims could not identify Washington as the criminal.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Washington's 5th confession, however, was to a murder, that of Rebecca Lynn Williams. His initial version - before police officers cleaned it up - was riddled with errors. He did not know the race of the victim (white), the address where she was killed, or that she was raped. Nonetheless, Washington was convicted and sentenced to death in January 1984. He was exonerated by DNA 16 years later, in 2000.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Overall, of exonerees with reported mental illness or intellectual disability, 72 % had confessed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Young suspects fared almost as badly. 40 % of exonerees who were under 18 at the time of the crime falsely confessed, including 53 % of 14- and 15-year olds, and 86 % of the few who were 13 years old or younger. By comparison, only 7 % of adult exonerees without reported mental disabilities falsely confessed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Why do all these innocent defendants confess?</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Innocent suspects confess because they are terrified and confused and exhausted; because they are deceived or tricked; because they don't understand what they are doing; because they feel hopeless and helpless and isolated. But what leads to this desperate predicament? <i>Miranda </i>sets the stage.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In part, <i>Miranda </i>was a step in the Supreme Court's campaign to eliminate violence in interrogations. But <i>Miranda </i>also ratified the "modern practice of in-custody interrogation [which] is psychologically, rather than physically, oriented." <i>Miranda </i>described how this is done:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The officers who conduct "modern" interrogations may lie about the evidence and tell the suspect that his fingerprints were found at the scene; that a codefendant already confessed and put the blame on him; that he was seen by an eyewitness. They routinely say that they already have him dead to rights and that this is his only chance to tell his side of the story and help his cause; that the victim must have provoked him; that what he did is understandable. They may describe dire consequences if he does not come clean, perhaps the death penalty, and imply leniency if he does. This can go on for days, in isolation, with police officers constantly repeating that they know the suspect is guilty, that the evidence is overwhelming, that this is his only chance to help himself.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Supreme Court recognized that this process "exacts a heavy toll on individual liberty, and trades on the weakness of individuals," but it did not forbid any of these practices. As a result, <i>Miranda </i>is regularly cited as authority for the legality of all of these coercive techniques.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Instead of regulating the process of non-violent interrogation, the court required police to give warnings before they start, and then only continue if the suspect waives his right to silence. But most do waive their rights at the outset of the ordeal; it's hard to tell an officer who has you under arrest that you won't talk to him. After that, the issue almost never comes up again.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">By the time they confess, <i>Miranda </i>is a distant memory, if not entirely forgotten. The process works. Many suspects confess after <i>Miranda </i>warnings and most are guilty; that's why these techniques are used and trusted. But some are innocent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Can we do better? Here again, <i>Miranda </i>is a good starting point.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The court noted that it's difficult to regulate interrogations because we don't know what goes on: "Interrogation still takes place in privacy. Privacy results in secrecy, and this, in turn, results in a gap in our knowledge as to what, in fact, goes on in the interrogation rooms."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That's changing. 50 years ago almost no interrogations were electronically recorded. The FBI, for example, prohibited recording. Now the FBI requires it, as do 23 states and many local police forces, at least in homicide cases. It should be universal. Recording greatly helps us evaluate any claim that a confession was false, and it has taught us how to improve the conduct of interrogations. It's a good start.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: The Marshall Project, Commentary, June 2016. Samuel Gross is the editor and co-founder of the National Registry of Exonerations and a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. Maurice Possley is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and senior researcher at the registry.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

For 50 Years, You've Had "The Right to Remain Silent"

DNA Exoneration False confessions FBI Innocence Mental Illness Mental retardation Miranda Police Torture USA For 50 Years, You've Had "The Right to Remain Silent"

So why do so many suspects confess to crimes they didn't commit? "You have the right to remain silent." If you've ever wat...

Baca selengkapnya »

Spaniard Pablo Ibar taken off Florida death row

07.30 Unknown 0

<div style="text-align: justify;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdcad9-F3va0eAgzSIq_HTXL1m7pVDyGc0J8RXO_ulajtDdBLNsyGiWFd3Zf_20X8lSRC3jHuFzV1V_4StAwITS_SYB0BH2Cpp6GWfDIqXgHtkPCvqYxlTzodfUm8brhZYcVxfhCwaQC0/s1600/Pablo+Ibar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Pablo Ibar" border="0" height="249" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdcad9-F3va0eAgzSIq_HTXL1m7pVDyGc0J8RXO_ulajtDdBLNsyGiWFd3Zf_20X8lSRC3jHuFzV1V_4StAwITS_SYB0BH2Cpp6GWfDIqXgHtkPCvqYxlTzodfUm8brhZYcVxfhCwaQC0/s320/Pablo+Ibar.jpg" title="Pablo Ibar" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pablo Ibar</td></tr></tbody></table>Pablo Ibar, whose death sentence was overturned in February by the Florida Supreme Court, has been transferred to a regular prison</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Florida Supreme Court vacated Ibar's sentence and ordered a new trial, citing several flaws in the state's arguments against him.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">45-year-old Ibar, who is of Basque descent, will appear before Judge Jeffrey Levenson in a Fort Lauderdale court, in Broward County, on Friday. Levenson presided over his case in 2009, nearly 10 years after the Spaniard was sentenced to death for the triple murder of a nightclub owner and 2 models.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ibar, who has served 22 years in prison, 15 of them on death row, has always maintained his innocence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Ibar is already listed as being transferred to a jail in Broward County," said Andres Krakenberger, a spokesman for the Pablo Ibar Association Against the Death Penalty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Florida Supreme Court underscored one of the most important arguments used by the defense: the fact that "Ibar's DNA was not found on a blue T-shirt recovered from the crime scene" and which was allegedly "[used] by the perpetrator to partially cover his face."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Benjamin Waxman, Ibar's lawyer, filed 7 motions in Broward County questioning the basis of the prosecution's case. He argued against the strength of a key piece of evidence, a "soundless, blurry, grainy" home surveillance videotape that a facial identification expert said could not prove "with certainty" that the killer was in fact the defendant.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ibar will appear before Judge Levenson on Friday for a short hearing to decide "future steps to be taken in the procedure leading to the retrial."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ibar, who has served 22 years in prison, 15 of them on death row, has always maintained his innocence. The defense will ask the court to release him on bail and under the supervision of his family while awaiting the new trial.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">During the 1st trial, which began in 1998, a Broward County jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict and the judge threw out the case because there were no fingerprints or DNA linking Ibar to the murders. But he was convicted on August 28, 2000 after a 2nd trial. Ibar is the only Spanish citizen to have been sentenced to death in the United States.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: el pais, June 10, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Spain's Pablo Ibar, newly off death row, appears in court ahead of retrial</span></b></div><br />Spanish former death-row inmate Pablo Ibar appeared Friday before the new judge assigned to his case, who expressed his desire to expedite a retrial after the Florida Supreme Court earlier this year vacated the defendant's 2000 murder conviction.<br /><br />The brief hearing in Judge Raaj Singhal's court in Fort Lauderdale, north of Miami, lasted just over 10 minutes and was open to the media.<br /><br />Singhal asked the defense attorneys how much time they would need to prepare for the retrial of their client, who is accused of killing 48-year-old nightclub owner Casimir "Butch Casey" Sucharski and two female models, Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers, both aged 25, during a June 1994 home invasion in the South Florida city of Miramar.<br /><br />The judge also scheduled a new hearing for July 1.<br /><br />"It's been a long journey and we've waited a long time for this moment to arrive. It's a wonderful day, and we're going to be able to demonstrate Pablo's innocence," Ibar's wife, Tania, told EFE, visibly moved by this week's developments.<br /><br />Though acknowledging that "no one knows what will happen," Tania said she was hopeful that her husband would be acquitted.<br /><br />Ibar's defense team is expected to request during the July 1 hearing that he be released on bail ahead of the retrial, with one of the attorneys saying they were "very optimistic" that petition would be granted.<br /><br />The 45-year-old Ibar was initially tried for the triple homicide along with co-defendant Seth Penalver in 1997, but a mistrial was declared.<br /><br />Penalver was convicted two years later and sentenced to death, but that conviction was subsequently annulled and he was acquitted in a new trial in 2012.<br /><br />Ibar was convicted in 2000, but the Florida Supreme Court overturned that verdict by a 4-3 vote in February of this year based on, among other things, the fact that his DNA was not found on a T-shirt that was recovered from the murder scene and which one of the perpetrators had used to partially cover his face.<br /><br />The Spaniard's attorneys also successfully argued that the quality of the grainy and soundless security camera footage found at Sucharski's home was inadequate and that Ibar had been poorly represented by trial lawyer Kayo Morgan, who passed away in 2014.<br /><br />Morgan's most blatant error was his failure to "present a facial identification expert to explain the physical differences between Ibar and the perpetrator alleged to have been him in the video and to demonstrate that the quality of the images were so poor that they were inadequate to make a reliable identification," the majority of Florida Supreme Court justices wrote.<br /><br />Ibar had been on death row at the Union Correctional Institution near the northern Florida town of Raiford, but he has been moved to a regular cell at a prison north of Miami, his attorneys told EFE on Thursday. <br /><br />Source: Latino Fox News, June 10, 2016<br /><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

DNA Facial recognition Florida Innocence Pablo Ibar Spain Spaniard Pablo Ibar taken off Florida death row

Pablo Ibar Pablo Ibar, whose death sentence was overturned in February by the Florida Supreme Court, has been transferred to a regular priso...

Baca selengkapnya »

Texan Spent 20 Years On Death Row And Got Cleared After 37 Years

08.18 Unknown 0

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpLKO5ap3nwsf1-Di4iWEC8Of1fJVfBZ1kRvSWYeYVK5b1ycxlOuic5djOqw0h3RrgmHlFKPTcacVvsFae083KMaG04ptlXuS_qIgP-1ghziH1JfC1pJ9QCkwFZAyW1l5Y9N0Y2Huiucc/s1600/Kerry+Cook+TX.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Kerry Max Cook (center)" border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpLKO5ap3nwsf1-Di4iWEC8Of1fJVfBZ1kRvSWYeYVK5b1ycxlOuic5djOqw0h3RrgmHlFKPTcacVvsFae083KMaG04ptlXuS_qIgP-1ghziH1JfC1pJ9QCkwFZAyW1l5Y9N0Y2Huiucc/s400/Kerry+Cook+TX.jpg" title="Kerry Max Cook (center)" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kerry Max Cook (center)</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">A former Texas prisoner who was released in 1999, after serving about 20 years on death row for charges of committing rape and murder of a 21-year-old, was finally cleared Monday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Officials said that an East Texas state court judge approved of an agreement between prosecutors and attorneys to exonerate Kerry Cook, 60, so that he could overturn the capital murder conviction that accused him of killing Linda Jo Edwards in 1977. He had maintained his innocence for 40 years.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cook has always been an activist protesting the death penalty and speaking against it across the United States as well as Europe.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He has written <i>Chasing Justice</i>, recording his battle. It had been nominated for the Edgar Award, by Mystery Writers of America. Former FBI Director and Federal Judge William S. Sessions noted: "Kerry Max Cook has written a brutal but compelling account of his 22 years on Texas's death row for a murder he did not commit. The book depicts his struggles against all odds to free himself from an inept justice system that would not let go, despite mounting and eventually overwhelming evidence of his innocence. What is perhaps most amazing is the grace with which he now lives his life as a free man, determined to prevent others from suffering the horrors he endured."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The new evidence proved his innocence and held another man guilty, said a statement from the Innocence Project of Texas, representing Cook.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Though prosecutors have agreed to drop the murder charges, they still continue to oppose his claims of real innocence. On June 27, Cook will appear again in court and clearance from charges would gain him $2 million or more to make up for the traumatic period of imprisonment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cook's case got national attention and stirred a lot of questions regarding the death penalty prosecutions in Texas. The state has sent most prisoners to their death, since the U.S. Supreme Court brought up the death penalty again in 1976.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In 1999, there was a "no contest" plea to murder, permitting Cook to be released from prison. It however, did not call for any admission of guilt.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He had been convicted in 1978. However, his case was appealed and retried. But in 1996, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals put down his conviction and death sentence owing to "prosecutorial misconduct."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The 21-year-old bartender had no bad record of violence. It became clear that he lived in exactly the same east Texas apartment complex as Edwards.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It was only later that DNA tests proved him to be innocent.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"It is long past time for the state of Texas to admit that it got the wrong man and that it prosecuted the wrong man repeatedly and sought the death penalty against the wrong man repeatedly," said Kathryn Kase, executive director of the Texas Defender Service, which represents death row inmates.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is "shameful," Kase said, that prosecutors continue to challenge Cook's efforts to prove his innocence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Source: newseveryday.com, June 8, 2016<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">After nearly 40 years, murder charges dropped against Kerry Max Cook in East Texas case</span></b></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPrRDWtolgHPNttVt0hg5XZwVsFkxSQkOGnqUQSem5ZumiEGlw5PiPNj5deECHWR9bNFlo11Zpd7gmDZEbBPBvDTPbfF7G0UTBZ5zzLLVJuZUU0b0ndI3CQkxs3z2GELdioNXL9WqNoXY/s1600/DNA+Testing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPrRDWtolgHPNttVt0hg5XZwVsFkxSQkOGnqUQSem5ZumiEGlw5PiPNj5deECHWR9bNFlo11Zpd7gmDZEbBPBvDTPbfF7G0UTBZ5zzLLVJuZUU0b0ndI3CQkxs3z2GELdioNXL9WqNoXY/s320/DNA+Testing.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>TYLER – In a shocking reversal, Smith County prosecutors agreed Monday to throw out murder charges against Kerry Max Cook, a man they’ve insisted for nearly 40 years was guilty of one of the small East Texas county’s most notorious killings.<br /><br />Cook and his lawyers declined to speak with reporters after the court hearing. But the former death row inmate, who has been fighting for decades to clear his name, celebrated outside the courthouse, sharing hugs with his wife, Sandy, his legal team and a group of Texas exonerees who came to support him.<br /><br />Cook was convicted in 1978 in the gruesome slaying of Linda Jo Edwards, a 22-year-old who was found beaten, stabbed and mutilated in her apartment bedroom. From the outset, through three trials that courts said were tainted with prosecutor misconduct, 20 years on death row and even since being released in 1999, Cook has maintained his innocence.<br /><br />His quest to prove it gained worldwide attention. But his saga is not over. Now, at age 60, he can move toward a full exoneration. Prosecutors agreed to drop the murder charges, but they will continue to oppose Cook’s claims of actual innocence, which would allow him to receive compensation for the two decades he spent on death row.<br /><br />“Under no standard was Kerry treated fairly,” said Marc McPeak, who represented Cook from 2008 to 2013. “I don’t know if there is justice at this point, but hopefully there is peace.”<br /><br />Smith County District Attorney Matt Bingham, who declined to comment after the hearing, agreed to drop the murder charges after the latest revelation in the case destroyed one of the few remaining pieces of the state’s case against Cook.<br /><br />James Mayfield, Edwards’ married lover at the time of her death, admitted in an April deposition that he had lied during previous trials when he said that it had been weeks since he had sex with the young woman. He admitted that he and Edwards had sex the day before she was killed – his birthday.<br /><br />Mayfield was at the courthouse Monday. He left the courthouse using a walker and declined to speak with reporters.<br /><br />Mayfield, a former university library dean who worked with Edwards, denied killing her, and prosecutors agreed to give him immunity in exchange for his deposition. But several DNA tests have identified his semen in the panties Edwards wore the night of her death.<br /><br />In addition, Edwards’ roommate, Paula Rudolph, initially told police that it was Mayfield, a man with medium-length silver hair, whom she saw in their apartment the night of the murder. She changed her story at trial and implicated Cook, though he had longer, dark hair at the time.<br /><br /><b><a href="http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2016/06/murder-charges-dropped-against-east-texas-man-after-nearly-40-years.html/" target="_blank">Click here to read the full article</a></b><br /><br />Source: The Dallas Morning News, Brandi Grissom, June 6, 2016</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">- Report an error, an omission:<a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com" target="_blank"> deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a></span> <span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <span style="font-size: small;"> - Follow us on <b><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Death-Penalty-News-206848499362906/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> </b>and <b><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b></span></div></div>

DNA Exoneration Financial compensation Innocence Texas USA Texan Spent 20 Years On Death Row And Got Cleared After 37 Years

Kerry Max Cook (center) A former Texas prisoner who was released in 1999, after serving about 20 years on death row for charges of committin...

Baca selengkapnya »

State of Florida will ask for the death penalty at Pablo Ibar retrial

Texas judge voices doubts on death penalty

Former death row inmate Kerry Max Cook fires lawyers, threatens to undo exoneration deal

For 50 Years, You've Had "The Right to Remain Silent"

Spaniard Pablo Ibar taken off Florida death row

Texan Spent 20 Years On Death Row And Got Cleared After 37 Years

Populer News