Innocent Man Freed by DNA in Connecticut

I wonder how many more it will take before everyone realizes the system is flawed.

“You can take the handcuffs off,” Judge Richard Damiani said. And with that, a man who has been in jail for 21 years — and was supposed to spend decades more behind bars — walked away a free man.

DNA set him free.

The dramatic release took place Wednesday morning in Connecticut Superior Court on Church Street.

Kenneth Ireland went to jail in 1988, at the age of 20, convicted of raping and killing a woman named Barbara Pelkey of Wallingford. The sentence: 50 years.

His case was taken up by the Connecticut Innocence Project, which uses DNA evidence from crimes to prove that people have been wrongfully accused. They did that in this case to buttress Ireland’s longstanding claim that someone else, not he, committed Pelkey’s rape and murder. The Project petitioned for a new trial, and the petition was granted.

Read More: New Haven Independent: DNA Frees Accused Killer, Rapist After 21 Years

Technorati Tags: wrongful conviction, connecticut, innocence project, innocence, wrongfully convicted, exonerated, dna testing, prison, crime, law, murder

Corrupt Judge Pleads Guilty

New Orleans-based Innocence Project attorneys overturned the wrongful conviction of Jackson resident Cedric Willis after Willis spent 12 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. DeLaughter, a former Hinds County prosecutor at the time of Willis' conviction, convinced Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Breland Hillburn to toss DNA evidence and witness testimony that would have proved Willis' innocence.

Read more: DeLaughter Pleads Guilty

Technorati Tags: innocence project, bobby delaughter, judge, corruption, law, crime, wrongful conviction, prison

John Waters on Leslie Van Houten

Very interesting first part of a 5 part series on Manson family member serving life for murder, Leslie Van Houten by filmmaker John Waters

In 1976, Leslie's original conviction was thrown out due to "ineffectual counsel" (her original lawyer drowned in the middle of her trial and was replaced) and she was given a new trial in 1977. This time, she was all by herself as a defendant in the courtroom. Remorse had started to creep in soon after she was imprisoned away from Manson. Locked away forever, Leslie, Susan, and Patricia were of no further use to Charlie and he dropped them quickly. The outsider voices of reason from the prison social workers started to seep in and Leslie began to see the holes in Manson's brainwashing. "When I'd be questioned," she later told author Karlene Faith for her very insightful and intelligent but little known book The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten, "I'd go blank and become frustrated like when a machine jams and just sits there making noise. In my head nothing was functioning. I was trying to understand, breaking down stiff little slogans that had been drilled into me." When two other "Manson girls", Mary Brunner and Catherine Shaw, a.k.a. "Gypsy", were sent to jail and placed with Leslie, Susan and Patricia, Leslie grew tired of listening to their Manson talk and confided to Patricia that "I've changed. I'm not into this." "It took three years to understand" and five or six years of therapy to "take responsibility" for the terrible crime she had helped commit.

Leslie finally had a good lawyer for her second trial. Taking the witness stand truthfully for the first time, she tried to explain her state of mind through the Manson madness and his control techniques. And the jury listened, too. After about twenty-five days of deliberation there was a hung jury; seven voted for guilty of first-degree murder, and five for manslaughter due to her cult domination and uncertain mental health at the time of the crime.

Refusing to offer a plea bargain, the prosecutor took her to trial for a third time in 1978 and added a felony robbery motive (clothes, a wallet and a few coins had been taken from the La Bianca home), a crime that now couldn't legally be excused by state of mind. But this time Leslie made bail and was released from prison. She found employment as a law clerk and lived in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles. She was free for six months and lived quietly, unnoticed by the press. When a few of her new neighbors found out who she really was, after they already thought they knew her, all were "supportive" and "protective" of her anonymity.

When Leslie's third trial finally began, she came to court every day on her own. Long gone was the shaved head, and the X on her forehead was covered by bangs. No more trippy little riot-on-Sunset-Strip, satin miniskirt outfits either, like the ones she and her female co-defendants wore to the first trial. This time she was dressed tastefully and looked lovely, something that obviously didn't sit well with Stephen Kay, the prosecutor who had inherited all the Manson-related cases from Vincent Bugliosi. "All dolled up", Mr. Kay cracked to the press, giving Leslie one of her first, but definitely not last, opinionated fashion reviews. When she was finally convicted of first-degree murder at the end of the trial, life imprisonment suddenly became very real.

Read more: John Waters: Leslie Van Houten: A Friendship, Part 1 of 5

Technorati Tags: leslie van houten, charles manson, manson family, sharon tate, tate murders, prison, crime, law, murder

Featured Prison: Halawa Correctional Facility, HI

Halawa Correctional Facility is a medium security and special needs prison in Hawaii. Maximum security inmates, closed custody inmates, inmates who need to be in protective custody, mentally ill inmates and other inmates that cannot be placed in the general population are housed in the special needs unit of Halawa Correctional Facility. The medium security unit is the newest in Hawaii.

In June, 2004 HCF started housing some of it's medium security male offenders in other states in an effort to slow down overcrowding, including Arizona, Oklahoma and Mississippi.

This prison was in the television series Lost, in episodes Live Together, Die Alone and Every Man for Himself.

Recently it was announced that the State of Hawaii would close Kulani Correctional Facility to save money. The inmates from that prison are to be relocated to HCF.

Halawa Correctional Facility — Department of Public Safety

Halawa Correctional Facility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Halawa Correctional Facility: Lost Virtual Tour Hawaii - Filming Locations

Halawa Correctional Facility (HCF) - Prison Talk

Aleph Institute - Halawa Correctional Facility

State Will Close Big Island's Kulani Prison

To submit a little known fact about this or any other prison, or to suggest a prison for next week's featured prison, please email me at vlu777@gmail.com

Archive of all Featured Prisons on Genpop.org

Technorati Tags: halawa correctional facility, hcf, kulani correctional facility, hawaii, lost, prison, crime, law, inmate

Massive Prisoner Release in California?

U.S. judges on Tuesday told California to prepare to release more than 40,000 of its 150,000 inmates to reduce overcrowding in state prisons, which suffer from massive healthcare problems.

The cash-strapped state already plans to release ailing and short-term inmates for budget issues. That would clear up to 37,000 beds over two years, estimated California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Matthew Cate.

Read more: California told to prepare massive prisoner release | Reuters

Technorati Tags: california, state budget, prison, inmate, release, crime, law

The Affects of Wrongful Convictions on Crime Victims

Timothy Cole spent almost two decades in prison for a rape he did not commit. He died in prison and was later exonerated by DNA evidence. Michelle Mallin, the victim in the rape case, writes about how this affected her:

Later, I learned that I was the fifth victim of a serial rapist on campus. A man named Timothy Cole was convicted of raping me and sentenced to 25 years in prison. I was relieved that he had been apprehended, that he would pay for what he did to me, and that our criminal justice system had gotten him off the streets. But I also knew my life would never be the same again. I spent years in counseling and tried to move on with my life.

Then, last summer, I was forced to relive the entire nightmare — this time with the added tragedy of knowing that Timothy Cole had been innocent and died in prison before he could be exonerated. New DNA testing proved that another man, not Cole, raped me. I was stunned. And I was determined to get answers.

I put my faith in the criminal justice system, and it failed me. I am back in counseling to grapple with the renewed trauma of the rape and the knowledge that I played a role in Cole's wrongful conviction by identifying him as the man who attacked me.

She then goes on to talk about faulty forensics:

One of the most troubling things I've learned is that juries often hear evidence that is not as solid as it sounds.

In case after case, scientists testify that a hair from a crime scene is similar to the defendant's hair, or that markings on a bullet match a particular gun. These and other forms of forensic science can be persuasive to a jury, but nobody knows how accurate the science is (including the forensic analyst who conducted the tests).

Michelle also talks about the real rapist and how he spent the time he remained on the streets because the wrong man was serving time for his crimes:

One of the most troubling things I've learned is that juries often hear evidence that is not as solid as it sounds.

In case after case, scientists testify that a hair from a crime scene is similar to the defendant's hair, or that markings on a bullet match a particular gun. These and other forms of forensic science can be persuasive to a jury, but nobody knows how accurate the science is (including the forensic analyst who conducted the tests).

Read More: Forensic science institute could spare future victims

Yet another case where wrongful convictions, prosecutorial misconduct and false eyewitness identification caused two other human beings, one a teenaged girl, to become victims of violent crimes.

Technorati Tags: wrongful conviction, wrongfully convicted, innocence, exonerated, dna evidence, forensics, timothy cole, michelle mallin, crime, law, rape, prison

Amnesty on The Death Penalty

Technorati Tags: death penalty, capital punishment, execution, abolition, amnesty international, colin firth