Wrongly Convicted in Two Different Trials

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Justice for Willie

On the same day that Willie Manning was exonerated in his 1993 case (April 20, 2015) the FBI published a report relevant to his 1992 case. The report confirms the gist of Flawed Forensics, last year’s Al Jazeera program featuring Willie, that the scale of flawed hair testimony presented by FBI experts was shockingly widespread.

Peter Neufeld, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, sums up the FBI’s conclusions:
“These findings confirm that FBI microscopic hair analysts committed widespread, systematic error, grossly exaggerating the significance of their data under oath, with the consequence of unfairly bolstering the prosecutions’ case.”

The report cites mistakes in 33 of the 35 capital cases investigated so far. One of these was Willie’s 1992 case; the errors in hair testimony for this case were announced very publicly shortly before he was due to be executed in May 2013. The admission was shortly followed by an admission that FBI ballistic testimony in the case was also flawed. Hours before the execution was due, it was stayed by the Mississippi Supreme Court. The judges gave no reason for the stay. Later that year they gave Willie permission to pursue his request for DNA testing.

The Daily Beast quotes the view of Tucker Carrington, founding director of the Mississippi Innocence Project and law professor at the University of Mississippi:
“In my mind, the state had written Willie off. Who gives a fuck about this guy? He’s already condemned. We know he’s the type of person who’s capable of doing this. It’s him.”

The preliminary DNA testing for Willie’s 1992 case was due to have been completed last week; the results have not yet been announced. Fingerprint matching has not even begun. But Willie’s exoneration in his other case provides his lawyers with additional arguments. The Daily Beast article includes a statement by one of his lawyers, Robert Mink:
“Even if the DNA and fingerprint evidence is inconclusive, we’re not finished arguing about whether he’s entitled to a new trial. The fact that he’s essentially been exonerated from the other two murders should make everyone concerned about the reliability of convictions like this—especially when the convicted person is going to be killed at the behest of the state.”

Announcing that Willie is the 153rd person added to the Death Penalty Information Center’s (DPIC’s) Innocence List, Robert Dunham, the DPIC’s Executive Director, expressed his concern:
“It is always stunning when a man is exonerated from death row with evidence of his innocence, but Mr. Manning’s case presents the unimaginable possibility that an innocent man may have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in two different trials for two different offenses.”

To Willie this is not an ‘unimaginable possibility’: it is the nightmare that he has lived with for nearly two decades. Now that he has been exonerated in his 1993 case, it is our hope that his 1992 case will also soon be brought to a just conclusion.

Posted in African American, capital punishment, death penalty, Death Row, exonerations, flawed forensic hair testimony, Fly Manning, Innocent, Mississippi, USA, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning, wrongful convictions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Facing Execution

Posted on May 7, 2015 by Justice for Willie

Exactly two years ago today, on May 7 2013, Willie Manning faced execution. His younger brother, Marshon, must be remembering the turmoil of that day. Interviewed by Joe Berlinger for an Al Jazeera America program in 2014, he describes the agony of waiting for Willie to be taken from him:

“Oh. (His head sinks to his shoulder.) [That was] one of the hardest days of my life, you know. I was making that the execution was going to go through. It was, like, you got three hours (he laughs nervously), you know. And I was crying, and he told me not to cry. And he, like, ‘Man, don’t do that.’ He said, ‘Look at me,’ and he put his face in front of me, to the glass, and he said, ‘Look at me.’ He said, ‘You see any tears in my eyes? Don’t do that, man. You’re going to make me weep – don’t do that’.”

The experience left Willie struggling mentally, as he explained in letters soon afterwards:

“ Going through that whole process had left me in a way mentally that I could not explain. I still can’t. I knew that I was blessed and I was appreciative of everyone in my life, as well as those who came into it and showed their support. But I just did not have words, and I really needed some time to myself in hopes that I could get back to myself…

“That was truly an experience and I actually felt I had gone through it pretty well until I was on the other side of it. Then everything felt outta body…

“Now if we can just get these DNA tests done so that I can prove that I had absolutely nothing to do with harming anyone and come home to my family and friends – that would be the real blessin’!”

Willie’s wish has not been granted yet, though by May 15, 2015, he should know from the results of preliminary DNA testing whether further tests are viable. He must wait even longer for fingerprint analysis because of the state’s unexplained objection  to the fingerprint experts proposed by Willie’s lawyers: each of their lengthy and researched proposals has been dismissed with a curt sentence, viz.: “We object to Mr Moses” and “We oppose the use of Stoney.”

This is not good enough: Willie has had too much suffering already. The Oktibbeha County Circuit Court, to which Willie’s lawyers have turned in exasperation, should authorize the shipment of fingerprint evidence to one of the experts. Justice should finally be done.

Posted in African American, capital punishment, death penalty, Death Row, executions, flawed forensics, human rights abuse, Mississippi, prosecutorial misconduct, torture, USA, victims, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning, wrongful convictions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Doubt Cast on Officials’ Integrity

Posted on April 23, 2015 by Justice for Willie

At last Willie Manning has only one death penalty case to fight!

On Monday, April 20 2015, a Mississippi judge signed an Order of Nolle Prosequi (not wanting to prosecute) for Willie’s Brookville Garden case involving the murders of two elderly women, Emmoline Jimmerson and Alberta Jordan. The Oktibbeha County Court order effectively closes this case.

Willie has to remain incarcerated while his request for DNA testing and fingerprint comparison in his other case is processed; he still has a conviction and death sentence for that case. Nonetheless, his overriding desire to clear his name is now halfway to being realized.

The state’s key witness in the Brookville Garden case, Kevin Lucious, recanted his trial testimony over 13 years ago, through an affidavit given on January 10, 2002. His recantation assigned no blame to Willie, but did cast doubt on the integrity of Sheriff Dolph Bryan, Police Captain Lindley, and District Attorney Forrest Allgood. The legal process is such that it is only now that the affidavit has proved crucial in helping Willie.

Points made by Lucious in that affidavit are listed in Monday’s Nolle Prosequi order:

  1. His motivation for committing perjury was fear of being charged with the two murders.
  2. Sheriff Bryan and Captain Lindley prepared a false statement for him.
  3. He signed the statement only because District Attorney Forrest Allgood had told him he would not be charged with capital murder if he cooperated.
  4. He did not see Willie enter the victims’ apartment near the time of the murders.
  5. He never told Sheriff Bryan that he had seen Willie going into the apartment.
  6. He told Sheriff Bryan that Tyrone Smith had confessed to the murders and that Smith had disposed of the murder weapon near the crime scene.
  7. Willie never told him “he would not have killed the old ladies if he had known the [sic] didn’t have money”.
  8. Willie never told him “he went into the ladies’ apartment or did anything to them”.

The court concludes,

“…Due to the fact that a material witness for the state has now changed his testimony in this case on a number of material issues, the State is unable to meet its burden of proof”.

Better late than never.

Posted in Brookville Gardens murders, capital murder, capital punishment, death penalty, Death Row, Fly Manning, Injustice, Mississippi, police misconduct, prosecutorial misconduct, snitch testimony, USA, Willie Manning, wrongful convictions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Willie’s Suffering – a Central Election Issue

Posted on April 16, 2015 by Justice for Willie

Rick Halperin was far from circumspect about capital punishment when he spoke on a United Nations panel last week (see video at 19.00). He condemned the death penalty as ‘state sponsored revenge’, ‘physical and psychological terror and torture’, and a symptom of an ‘infantile’ and immature country acquiescing in the ‘preposterous myth’ that executions can be carried out humanely.

Nor was Halperin polite about those who condone this atrocity:  he decried the ‘outrageous’ decisions of the US Supreme Court judges, all of whom vote for the systematic  extermination of human beings; and he denounced the culture that permits a Presidential election where candidates all support this violation of human rights. To Halperin (and many others), the death penalty should be the one central human rights issue of the election.

There is no doubt that Willie Manning agrees with all of Halperin’s analysis. But one comment in particular must strike a chord at the moment. Halperin insists that the death penalty is far, far more than a single action of execution: it is, rather, a process that begins the moment the state announces its intention to seek a death sentence, and continues day in, day out, year after year, until the moment of death. It entails appalling conditions and violative acts and the terror and distress of being confined in close proximity with many human beings who are noisy and violent.

As in both Willie’s cases, the evidence used to secure a conviction may have been extremely suspect, but no-one with influence cares. Some on death row, including Willie, have suffered the ordeal of drifting to within hours of obliteration, only to be returned to the horrors of incarceration by a stay of execution. Nobody could remain unscathed after such trauma. And, as has happened to Willie, courts may overturn convictions, but then reinstate them, depriving inmates of any vestige of peace, security or hope.

It is no wonder that Willie remains unable to celebrate the recent reversal of one of his convictions by the Mississippi Supreme Court. As he wrote recently,

“I realize that the court’s most recent ruling is a huge victory for us. It’s just that, I can’t get excited as everyone until I’m riding out of this place. As of now it feels as if nothing has changed. I’ve seen the Supreme Court Mandate, so I know they’ve closed the book on the Brookville Garden case. But I guess when you’ve been burnt – that never leaves you.”

Posted in capital punishment, death penalty, Death Row, Fly Manning, human rights violation, Mississippi, Presidential election 2016, torture, United Nations, US Supreme Court, USA, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Very Big Beast in Mississippi

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Justice for Willie

Mississippi’s Attorney General, Jim Hood, who was so vociferously in favour of Willie Jerome Manning’s execution two years ago, is embroiled in a battle to suppress the identity of people involved in executions and of those providing drugs for lethal injections. The battle was precipitated by a request from the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center for information about Mississippi’s procedure for carrying out executions; Hood’s office responded, but with information redacted, leading the Justice Center to file a complaint with the Hinds County Chancery Court.

So far things have not gone Hood’s way. On March 6 2015 Judge Denise Owens gave Hood’s office a stern rebuke, stating that secrecy is unwarranted:

“MDOC [The Mississippi Department of Correction] and entities like it respond to these requests declaring the information to be confidential and privileged, when in reality the information is simply put, controversial…

Four words come to mind regarding the MDOC’s reasons to protect this so-called sensitive information: nature of the beast. …that is the nature of the very big beast that we face as citizens of Mississippi where the death penalty is legal… All that is present in this case is fear. There is stone cold fear that if names are released threats will be made and ultimatums will be given and people and entities will suffer harm. But that’s all that’s present here. Fear.”

Hood’s office plans to appeal the judge’s decision.

At the heart of the controversy is the State’s eagerness to continue procuring the drug, pentobarbital, for use in executions. A previous source, Brister Brothers compounding pharmacy, stopped supplying the drug for lethal injections once its name was made public.

The c0-director of the MacArthur Center, Jim Craig, asserts that transparency regarding drugs is particularly needed now:

“More than ever, after the visible torture of several condemned prisoners in other states last year in botched executions, the origin, integrity, and composition of lethal injection drugs is a matter of serious public concern.”

Hood earlier encouraged state lawmakers to introduce House Bill 1305, to exempt from disclosure lethal injection drug suppliers, and the identities of people assisting in executions and witnesses to executions. The bill is reported to have ‘died in committee’ on March 3 2015.

Hood is being pushed into an increasingly tight corner. Last month, on March 24 2015, the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists advised its members to avoid supplying drugs for lethal injections;  this was followed a week later by similar advice from the American Pharmacists’ Association . The advice aligns pharmacies with other health care associations, who have long advised against participation in executions.

It is starting to look as if Hood will have to give up his wish to continue using ‘hastily thrown together human experiments’ using unregulated supplies of drugs to kill those on Mississippi’s death row. And hurray for that!

Posted in capital punishment, compounding pharmacies, criminal justice, death penalty, Death Row, execution drugs, executions, Fly Manning, Injustice, Jim Hood Attorney General, lethal injections, Mississippi, Mississippi State Penitentiary, North America, Parchman, pharmaceutical companies, United States of America, USA, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Forensic Evidence: Slow Progress

Posted on March 21, 2015 by Justice for Willie

Two years ago this month, in March 2013, the Supreme Court of the United States declined Willie Jerome Manning’s request for a review of his 1992 case involving two students. Things then moved quickly for a few weeks, during which Willie was very nearly executed with his request for DNA and fingerprint testing unmet. Eventually his execution was stayed and he was allowed to pursue the testing.

Unfortunately, since then procedures seem to have slowed. In April 2014 searches for forensic material were conducted, but it was not until last month (February 2015) that the Mississippi Supreme Court issued a status request to find out if the search was successful.

With a new trial granted for his 1993 case, Willie must be hoping that DNA and fingerprint testing can now be completed as soon as possible, so he can clear his name in both cases. We sincerely wish that his hope for a speedy resolution is fulfilled.

Posted in African American, capital punishment, criminal justice USA, death penalty, Death Row, DNA testing, fingerprint comparison, Injustice, Mississippi, USA, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning, wrongful convictions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

More Propaganda against Willie

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Justice for Willie

It’s happened again – Willie Manning has been the victim of extremely negative media propaganda within Mississippi.

Ignoring the Mississippi Supreme Court’s ruling that the state suppressed significant, potentially exculpatory evidence at Willie’s trial for his 1993 case, a Mississippi journalist has instead used several local news outlets to publicize an earlier tirade against Willie by a policeman whose opinion should now of rights be treated with great caution.

Writing on behalf of the court, Justice Randolph wrote that the “prosecution team … includes both investigative and prosecutorial personnel”. The italics suggest that the police are at least included in the court’s judgment that “the State violated Manning’s due-process rights by failing to provide favorable, material evidence” that could have confirmed that the key witness in the case was lying. The witness has recanted his trial testimony in full.

What the court judgment does not say is that the state’s suppression of evidence has had a hugely adverse impact on Willie himself: he knew that this second double murder conviction would have confirmed in many people’s minds that he was guilty in both his cases. It may well have contributed to painful media hype about him, for instance, when his prosecutor vilified him as Beelzebub, the Devil’s lieutenant.

The journalist disseminating the current propaganda, Sid Salter, also refers to the Mississippi Supreme Court’s changed decision regarding Willie’s 1992 case as if it was somehow wrong for the judges to reconsider a ruling that was very close in the first place (5:4).

Mr Salter further proposes that selling stolen items related to the crime was ‘damning’ for Willie (but surely if selling stolen items was conclusive evidence of homicide, death rows throughout the USA would be overflowing).

The journalist’s final ploy is to describe the gruesome details of both murders, leaving it to the reader to associate these with the subject of the article, Willie Manning.

Instead of harking back to past assertions about Willie, Mr Salter would be well advised to listen to what the Attorney General is now saying about Willie i.e. nothing.  There is a lesson to be learnt from that.

Posted in death penalty, Death Row, due-process rights, Fly Manning, Injustice, media bias, miscarriages of justice, Mississippi, Mississippi judicial system, Mississippi Supreme Court, perjured testimony, police, recanting witness, suppressed evidence, USA, Willie Fly Manning, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning, witness testimony, wrongful convictions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A New Trial for Willie Manning!

Posted on February 15, 2015 by Justice for Willie

The anxious wait is over: on Thursday Willie Jerome Manning was granted a new trial for his case involving the 1993 murder of two elderly African American ladies, Emmoline Jimmerson and Alberta Jordan (the Brookville Garden murders). The Mississippi Supreme Court opinion reverses Willie’s denial of post-conviction relief, reverses his conviction and sentence, and remands the case to the Oktibbeha County Justice Court for a new trial.

Willie’s conviction was based almost entirely on the testimony of convicted murderer, Kevin Lucious, who waited until more than a year after the Brookville Garden murders before claiming that he had seen Willie entering the victims’ apartment. Lucious has since recanted his trial testimony in full, saying that he gave it when under pressure from law enforcement. Recantation by Lucious, and by Lucious’s former girlfriend, did not sway the court to overturn Willie’s conviction. We recall that Troy Davis was executed in Georgia in 2011, despite the recantation of trial testimony by seven witnesses.

It is therefore lucky in terms of Willie’s appeal (though very unlucky for him at the time of his trial) that the State failed to provide crucial police canvass notes for the trial. These notes showed that Lucious did not live where he had said he lived, nor, indeed, anywhere in the complex where the victims lived. So he could not have seen Willie entering the victims’ apartment: his testimony must have been false.

The Starkville police chief testified in 2011 that he copied the whole file, including the canvass notes, and gave it to the District Attorney (see October 2014 oral argument video, 1:10.25). Despite this, the court felt that:

“The record supports that neither the district attorney’s office nor the defense attorneys were aware of the evidence”.

The court’s decision to overturn Willie’s conviction hinged on whether Willie satisfied the four legal requirements which demonstrate a violation of due process rights (a Brady violation). Seven of the judges believed that he did, viz.:

  1. The government possessed evidence favourable to Willie.
  2. Willie did not possess this evidence and could not have obtained it for himself with any reasonable diligence.
  3. The prosecution team (investigative and prosecutorial personnel) suppressed the evidence.
  4. There is a reasonable probability that the outcome of the trial would have been different if the evidence had been disclosed to Willie.

The two dissenting judges speculated that Lucious may have been squatting in the apartment. As one blogger comments:

“So, apparently, the proposed standard of review is that if a justice on appeal can imagine a scenario that might have persuaded the jury to convict, then no Brady violation.”

Fortunately, this standard is not shared by the majority of the judges.

For Willie the jubilation at being granted a new trial must be mixed with anger and sadness: if the State had provided those canvass notes at the trial the outcome would likely have been different. We hope that he will soon be able to consign the past to the past, and instead focus on the new trial that now lies ahead of him.

 

 

Posted in American justice, Brookville Garden murders, capital punishment, criminal justice USA, death penalty, Death Row, Emmoline Jimmerson and Alberta Jordan, Fly Manning, incentivized witness testimony, Injustice, jailhouse snitch, law enforcement USA, miscarriages of justice, Mississippi, Mississippi judicial system, Mississippi Supreme Court, perjured testimony, police misconduct, prosecutor misconduct, suppressed evidence, USA, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning, witness pressured, wrongful convictions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ripples from Oklahoma

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Justice for Willie

The news from Oklahoma is encouraging: the US Supreme Court has allowed the appeals of three death row inmates regarding the legality of the drug, midazolam, as a sedative in state executions. The decision could impact all death penalty states. The Atlantic points out:

“The Supreme Court has never struck down an existing method of execution as unconstitutional. A ruling that forbids midazolam would reverberate even throughout states that do not use the sedative. No execution chamber in the U.S. currently uses the Baze cocktail[1], and no pharmaceutical company currently provides its key ingredient to American death rows. Even states like Texas, which uses a single-drug protocol with pentobarbital in its lethal injections, could find themselves on unsure constitutional footing.”

So despite its different protocol [2], Mississippi must now be wondering if it can ever legitimately use its own chosen drugs for executions. For supporters of Willie Jerome Manning and his fellow death row inmates, this news is welcome indeed.

The decision in Oklahoma attracted controversy because it came too late for a fourth plaintiff, Charles Warner, who was executed the previous week with his petition undecided, following a court ruling with a majority of only one (5:4).

This must be an unwelcome reminder for Willie of the 5:4 ruling against him that so nearly resulted in his own execution in May 2013. He must surely endorse the views of law professor, Eric M. Freedman, who argues:

“The first needed step is for the Court to stop permitting executions when four Justices object. It should take that step.”

We agree.

[1] ‘The Baze cocktail’ refers to the drug protocol sodium thiopental (a sedative), the paralytic pancuronium bromide (a paralytic), and potassium chloride. This protocol was reviewed and accepted as lawful by the US Supreme Court in 2008.

[2] Mississippi’s current drug protocol is pentobarbital, vecuronium bromide and potassium chloride.

Posted in capital punishment, death penalty, death penalty constitutionality, Death Row, execution drugs, Fly Manning, Injustice, judges, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Supreme Court, US Supreme Court, USA, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Death Penalty: No Place in the Twenty-First Century

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Justice for Willie

The USA is in an increasingly isolated position in tolerating the death penalty: 117 countries last month voted for a global death penalty moratorium, with only 38, including the USA, voting against this. In its opposition America keeps strange company; the only three countries that regularly execute more prisoners than the USA have questionable human rights records (China, Iran and Saudi Arabia). The vast majority of countries now view capital punishment as backward and illogical – a penalty that ‘has no place in the 21st century’.

18 USA states have abolished the death penalty, but Mississippi, where Willie Manning languishes on death row, retains it. On Martin Luther King Day Mississippi citizens would do well to recall Dr King’s opposition to the death penalty:

“Capital punishment is against the better judgment of modern criminology and above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.”

Many compelling arguments weigh against the death penalty. For instance, it creates new victims. Innocent people often experience lifelong trauma after an execution: family members and friends of the person executed, prison staff and defense attorneys are all likely to be affected. And it is quite possible that some of those executed are innocent: the USA constitution does not guarantee otherwise.

Instead of continuing with an outdated and barbaric means of punishment, Mississippi should show leadership in embracing the inevitable future. The death penalty in Mississippi should be consigned to the past.

Posted in American justice, capital defense lawyers, criminal justice, death penalty, Death Row, defense attorneys, family of executed, Fly Manning, Injustice, innocence, Martin Luther King, Mississippi, Mississippi State Penitentiary, moratorium on death penalty, prison staff, US constitution, USA, USA constitution, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment