It Doesn’t Make Sense – A Policeman’s View

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Justice for Willie

November is likely to be a busy month for Willie Manning’s attorneys. By the middle of this month they will be able to read the State’s response to Willie’s request for DNA testing and fingerprint comparison.* Meanwhile, they must also work on a brief on Willie’s other case, to be filed by November 22. They must, of course, work on each case separately.

Willie’s two cases are fortunately easy to distinguish, as the murders in each case were very different. In the case of the two students, the murder weapon was a gun, and the method appeared personal (in addition to the shootings, the female student’s underwear was pulled up, and the male student was run over slowly by a car). In the case of the two elderly ladies the murders were carried out very differently: the ladies were badly beaten with an iron, and suffered slash wounds to the front of their necks.

This difference was noted and puzzled over by former policeman turned private investigator, Vincent Hill, on his radio program, The Other Side of Justice (starts properly at 4.00):

“It doesn’t make sense… People are creatures of habit. Even serial killers are creatures of habit. They kill the exact same way every time… You don’t go shooting someone and then the next day saying, ‘No, that was too noisy – I want to stab them’.”

Hill raised additional questions about the case of the two students, in particular that the slow, deliberate method of assault and execution indicated murders of passion and jealousy by someone who was familiar with the victims, rather than the brutal robbery attributed to Willie.

In May the Mississippi Supreme Court’s original decision in the two students’ case found conclusive, overwhelming evidence of Willie’s guilt that made DNA testing unnecessary. Hill’s experience would seem to contradict this. Yet again we are reminded how critical it is that the Oktibbeha County Circuit Court should grant Willie’s request for fingerprint comparison and DNA testing.

* Willie filed his request on October 14; the State must file a response within 30 days.

Posted in African American injustice, American justice, Brookville Gardens murders, capital punishment, criminal justice USA, death penalty, Death Row, DNA testing, fingerprint testing, Injustice, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, law enforcement USA, Mississippi, Mississippi Supreme Court, murders, Oktibbeha County Circuit Court, police usa, post-conviction DNA evidence, serial killers, USA, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Wardens’ Bloodied Hands

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Justice for Willie

On October 14 Willie Manning took the next step in his quest for justice by filing his request for DNA and fingerprint testing in the Oktibbeha County Circuit Court.

On the same day the Mississippi newspaper, the Clarion Ledger, published an article about the former Mississippi State Penitentiary warden, Donald Cabana, who died the previous week. Cabana was known nationally for his opposition to the death penalty, developed following his responsibility in carrying out executions:

 “There is nothing commonplace about walking a healthy young man to a room, strapping him into a chair, and coldly, methodically killing him.” (from Cabana’s memoir, ‘Death at Midnight: The Confession of an Executioner’)

In 1995, Cabana described the process by which he became convinced of the abhorrence of the death penalty, in part because of the danger of executing an innocent person:

“…you — and when I say you, I mean, generically, Americans — do not have the right to ask me, or any prison official, to bloody my hands with an innocent person’s blood…

If we execute an innocent person by mistake, what is it we’re supposed to say, ‘Oops?’”

As friends and abolitionists mourn Cabana, his question continues to resonate. Let us hope that the circuit court takes note of it when reaching its decision in the case of Willie Manning.

Posted in African American, African American injustice, capital murder, capital punishment, criminal justice system, death penalty, death penalty abolition, death penalty injustice, Death Row, Death Row Injustice, death row wardens, DNA testing, executions, fingerprint testing, Fly Manning, Injustice, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, Mississippi, Mississippi State Penitentiary, Oktibbeha County Circuit Court, USA, Willie Fly Manning, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Al Jazeera Documentary

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Justice for Willie

Willie Jerome Manning is to be the subject of a documentary by Al Jazeera scheduled for broadcast later this year.

In May, Al Jazeera sent a team to Mississippi to interview one of Willie’s attorneys and a local social activist, thereby giving air time to people whose views were not generally heard in the media.  Soon afterwards they made a program (Inside Story Americas: The flaws in the US justice system)  that highlighted Willie’s narrow escape from execution and asked, “What does this case reveal about capital punishment in the United States?”

The new documentary about Willie promises to ask searching questions that should make for interesting and uncomfortable viewing.

Meanwhile, we have received a letter from Willie in which he has written to everyone that has left him a message:

“I’m very, very grateful for your words of encouragement, your inspiring messages and all of your support”.

If you would like to send Willie more messages, using justice4willie@gmail.com, we will continue to pass them on to him. No matter how short, every message of support is valuable to Willie, and helps him to survive another challenging day on death row.

Posted in African American, Al Jazeera, American justice, ballistics testimony, capital murder, capital punishment, conviction, criminal justice system, death penalty, death penalty injustice, Death Row, DNA testing, execution, Fly Manning, forensic hair testimony, hair testimony, Injustice, Jim Hood Attorney General, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, junk science, Manning, media bias, Mississippi, Mississippi judicial system, Mississippi State Penitentiary, Mississippi Supreme Court, no physical evidence, post-conviction DNA evidence, racial discrimination, racism, stacked jury, United States of America, USA, Willie Fly Manning, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning, Willie Manning documentary, wrongful convictions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Transparency, Integrity and Accountability

Posted on September 26, 2013 by Justice for Willie

A new book has been reviewed this month that tells a true story not unlike that of Willie Manning. The book, ‘The Corruption of Innocence: A Journey for Justice’, by Lori St John, tells how the author tried to prevent the execution of Joseph O’Dell. As in Willie’s case, Joseph’s request for DNA testing was turned down; but for Joseph there was no temporary reprieve such as Willie has had, and he was executed without DNA testing in 1997.

Joseph O’Dell’s case is compared to Willie’s:

“Joseph O’Dell’s case highlights… why Willie Manning was denied DNA testing by the Mississippi state supreme court and the governor”.  

The review mentions several underlying reasons for continuing wrongful convictions:

“The use of jailhouse snitches, questionable witnesses, suppressed evidence and junk science made to undeniably point a finger at a suspect are among them.”

 All these feature in Willie’s cases.

St John concludes:

“If we unite to underscore the importance of transparency, integrity and accountability, the underlying causes of wrongful convictions will begin to decline.”

Joseph O’Dell’s case demonstrates just how important this unity of purpose is for Willie’s supporters, as Willie Manning continues to ask for justice from the courts.

Posted in American justice, Brookville Gardens murders, capital punishment, conviction, Corruption of Innocence, criminal justice system, death penalty, death penalty injustice, Death Row, DNA testing, execution, Fly Manning, Forrest Allgood, Injustice, jailhouse snitch, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, Joseph O'Dell, junk science, justice, Lori St John, Manning, Mississippi, Mississippi Governor, Mississippi Supreme Court, murders, Oktibbeha County Circuit Court, Parchman, Phil Bryant, post-conviction DNA evidence, prosecutors presented false evidence, prosecutors withheld evidence, questionable witness, suppressed evidence, USA, Willie Fly Manning, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning, wrongful convictions | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A History of Racial Disparities

Posted on September 12, 2013 by Justice for Willie

In his speech last month commemorating Martin Luther King’s famous oration, Barack Obama spoke of the need for vigilance, for instance, to ensure “the criminal justice system is not simply a pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails.” The previous month he spoke with personal insight about the continuing suspicion about African-American men: 

“There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me.”

Obama recommended training to counteract the “history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws, everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws”.

As an African-American on death row, Willie Manning is a victim of that history of racial disparities. His jury was ‘stacked’ by the prosecutor, who dismissed several African-Americans for reasons that were not race neutral. The only African-American judge of the Mississippi Supreme Court, Justice King, spoke out against this in his dissent to the Court’s order authorizing execution (see pages 14-19). King, supported by three of the eight other judges, reminded the Court of its obligations to review the entire trial to ensure the jury was not constructed so as to omit African-Americans. Yet the Court’s decision precluded this. There will therefore be no investigation of why the trial prosecutor was allowed systematically to refuse African-American jurors for reasons that were not obstacles for white jurors, and to exclude other black jurors for reasons such as reading magazines aimed at African-Americans.

The trial court had also failed to condemn this racism. After the defense’s fourth objection the court declined to act, promising to allow the defense to ‘develop that motion more fully at your leisure’; yet the very next morning, when the defense made its fifth objection, the trial court found that  it had ‘already ruled on this’ (ref: Response to Cross-Appeal and Reply Brief of Petitioner-Appellant, filed 15 Dec 2010).

Sadly, jury stacking is not unusual amongst prosecutors in trials of African-Americans; indeed, there is evidence that in Mississippi prosecutors’ training has included instruction as to how to disguise their ‘striking’ of black jurors (see the Equal Justice Initiative’s paper, Illegal Racial Discrimination: a Continuing Legacy, page 20). Such a practice, with its continued consequences for those convicted, is surely an example of the embedded racist practices that President Obama wants to end.

Racism may have tainted Willie Manning’s 1992 case in other ways: certainly the Oktibbeha branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) thought so when they organised a protest march to support Willie in 1994 (see News Coverage). And recently the FBI and DOJ admitted that an FBI agent had exceeded the limits of science when attributing hair found at the murder scene to an African-American.

If the criminal justice system allows racial prejudice to influence life and death decisions, then surely the system itself needs reform. It is not only the condemned who suffer. As Willie himself says of his own racially motivated jury selection, this

“violates not just his own rights, but the rights of the jurors themselves, casting a long shadow over the integrity of the judicial system of the State of Mississippi.”

Posted in African American, America, American justice, Barack Obama, capital punishment, conviction, criminal justice system, death penalty, death penalty injustice, Death Row, execution, Fly Manning, forensic hair testimony, hair testimony, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, justice, Justice King, Manning, Mississippi, Mississippi judicial system, Mississippi Supreme Court, NAACP, North America, Oktibbeha County Circuit Court, prosecutors, racial discrimination, racial prejudice, racism, stacked jury, Supreme Court, USA, Willie Fly Manning, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Extreme Danger Zones

Posted on August 31, 2013 by Justice for Willie

Last week the Mississippi newspaper, The Clarion Ledger, headlined ‘Miss. prisoners on death row lack air conditioning’. It states that in Mississippi State Penitentiary (MSP), where Willie Manning is incarcerated, no temperature records have been kept since March last year, with the expiry of a decree that obliged the prison to keep a temperature log. The Clarion Ledger report confirms that the maximum temperature allowed at MSP is 85 degrees. Yet without monitoring it is impossible to know if this maximum has been exceeded.

In neighbouring Louisiana, a lawsuit has been brought by three death row inmates of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, claiming that the extreme heat in their cells amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The Promise of Justice Initiative (PJI) explains that:

“The injunction, supported by declarations from two experts on thermoregulation and environmental safety, alleges that prisoners on death row have been exposed to heat conditions reaching into what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration considers the “Danger” or “Extreme Danger” zones (making heatstroke increasingly likely and even imminent), every day for two months straight. Conditions often remain in that range for hours on end and into the night.”

Mercedes Montagnes, PJI lawyer, is quoted in an earlier press release:

“Because they are confined to these block cells, their ability to take any step to maintain their health is severely limited.”

If conditions have been similar at MSP the inmates, including Willie, must be relieved that summer is now at last drawing to a close.

Posted in African American, air conditioning Mississippi State Penitentiary, conviction, death penalty, Death Row, Fly Manning, Injustice, justice, justice for Willie Manning, Manning, Mississippi, Mississippi State Penitentiary, Mississippi State Penitentiary Parchman, Parchman, Parchman temperature, Penitentiary, prison air conditioning, prison conditions, prison temperature, USA, Willie Fly Manning, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Punishment on Top of Punishment

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Justice for Willie

Last Thursday (15 August 2013) the Mississippi Supreme Court confirmed as mandatory Willie Manning’s right to ask a lower court for DNA and fingerprint testing (view mandate here). He has 60 days from 15 August in order to lodge his request at the Oktibbeha County Circuit Court.

 Willie, like so many on death row in the USA, will continue to be held in solitary confinement while he waits. Last month the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a report (downloadable here) that outlines the psychological damage inflicted by prolonged solitary confinement on death row. Below the report you can view a slide show of conditions for death row inmates in Texas, which are similar to those on the Mississippi death row. You can also watch a video by an exonerated former death row prisoner, Anthony Graves, who describes the terrible impact of removing prisoners from human contact as totally inhumane and unjust.

The ACLU report calls solitary confinement “punishment on top of punishment”, and includes the following statements:

  • “Solitary confinement is not part of the sentence. In order to build a criminal justice system that accurately reflects our values, we must end the routine use of solitary confinement of death row prisoners.”
  • “Empirical research consistently demonstrates that prisoners subjected to isolation suffer many of the same symptoms caused by physical torture.”
  • “The Supreme Court has never addressed whether prolonged confinement on death row before execution violates the Eighth Amendment” (prohibiting cruel and unusual punishment).

The report concludes:

“Especially as we move toward becoming a country without capital punishment, this human rights violation requires immediate attention.”

 Willie, locked in his tiny cell for most of every day and night, must surely agree.

Posted in Willie Manning | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Back from the Precipice

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Justice for Willie

Last week, an article appeared in The Root reminding us of Willie Manning’s brush with death in May. The article is headlined “The Death Penalty: How Long Will It Survive?” It goes so far as to say:

“In some ways, what’s happened to Manning is emblematic of American justice and the state of its most severe and irrevocable penalty: capital punishment.”

The article informs us that DNA testing has opened more people’s eyes to the very real possibility of killing people who are innocent (142 men and women have been exonerated after DNA testing proved their innocence). Richard Dieter, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, is quoted as suggesting that DNA testing is a crucial factor in decreased use of the death penalty:

“DNA testing has revealed to the public that in so many cases where people thought the right person was on death row, [it] turned out to be wrong. DNA has produced some growing awareness of the irrevocable and fallible nature of the death penalty.”

The article also gives shocking information about the racist component of the application of the death penalty: we are told that despite African American people comprising 13% of the US population, they constitute 41% of death row inmates, and 35% of those executed since 1976. And executions are unevenly distributed: last year 80% of all executions occurred in the southern states.

The Root gives an indication that things could change. It tells us:

“even in states such as Texas — the longtime national leader in executions — beginning this year, prosecutors will be required to make sure that any evidence that can be tested for DNA material undergoes that process before a jury is asked to impose the death penalty.”

If this change is introduced in Mississippi it will be too late for Willie, who has been seeking DNA testing for many years. The Mississippi Supreme Court allowed him to undergo the trauma of facing his own imminent death: his scheduled execution was halted only 4 hours before it was due, and he had to wait a further 2½ months to learn that he can request DNA testing. The strain has taken its toll on Willie: in a recent letter he wrote:

“I just did not have words and I really needed some time to myself in hopes that I could get back to myself.”

He must now attempt to recover from his experience in the hostile environment of death row.

Tucker Carrington, Project Director of the Mississippi Innocence Project (quoted in Yahoo News), spoke of his relief at the court’s eventual decision to permit DNA testing:

“I feel like Mississippi stepped back from the precipice, regardless of the results … by allowing the testing and avoiding becoming one of a few if not the first state ever to ignore … the probative value of post-conviction DNA evidence.”  

Willie has suffered enough. We trust that the circuit court judge will finally allow him to have the DNA testing that he has been requesting for so long.

Posted in African American, American justice, capital punishment, conviction, death penalty, Death Row, DNA testing, execution, fingerprint testing, Fly Manning, Injustice, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, justice, Justice4Willie, Mississippi, Mississippi Supreme Court, post-conviction DNA evidence, racism, USA, Willie Fly Manning, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

DNA and Fingerprint Testing: Permission to Proceed!

Posted on July 25, 2013 by Justice for Willie

The Mississippi Supreme Court today filed an order permitting Willie Manning to pursue his request for DNA and fingerprint testing in the Oktibbeha circuit court (see the Mississippi Supreme Court order here). The decision of the judges was unanimous, reversing their earlier 5:4 ruling which denied this request.

Unfortunately, the Court denied the other requests that Willie made. With a majority of only 5:4 the judges turned down Willie’s request for hearings to consider the reliability of expert testimony regarding ballistics analysis and hair analysis. Willie also requested that his convictions be set aside; the judges denied this unanimously.

The decisions are reported at Yahoo News.

Posted in African American, ballistics testimony, conviction, death penalty, Death Row, DNA testing, fingerprint testing, Fly Manning, forensic hair testimony, hair testimony, Injustice, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, justice, Manning, Mississippi, Mississippi Supreme Court, Oktibbeha County, Willie Fly Manning, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Agents for the Prosecution

Posted on July 21, 2013 by Justice for Willie

Willie Jerome Manning’s name and picture have reappeared in US and international newspapers over the last few days in connection with what a UK newspaper, The Independent, headlines as an ‘American Justice Scandal’, and another UK paper, The Daily Mail, calls a ‘Shock Report into FBI Errors’. This interest in the injustice inflicted on Willie and others does not appear to have been shared by the Mississippi press.  

The Washington Post reveals the FBI’s findings that as many as 27 death row prisoners may have had their trials tainted by forensic hair testimony that was unsound; Willie’s case is cited as one where the FBI has already admitted that such evidence was flawed. The article includes videos of two former prisoners speaking movingly of how flawed hair testimony at trial resulted in their spending many years on death row (both men have since been exonerated by DNA evidence). One of them asks, as Willie must now be asking himself, “Will my name be cleared?” The other expresses his gratitude for DNA, gratitude which Willie will be unable to share unless his own DNA testing is sanctioned.

In some of the 27 cases, testimony linked hair specifically to the defendants; in Willie’s case the (now discredited) testimony specified only a link with a person of African American origin. It was the prosecutor, Forrest Allgood, who extended the link to Willie himself, as Justice King noted in his dissent to Willie’s scheduled execution:

“The sole purpose of the prosecution’s emphasis on the fact that the hair samples found in Miller’s car were of African-American origin appears to have been to lead the jury to construct a faulty syllogism. That syllogism would be as follows: First, that hairs from an African American were found in Miller’s car. Second, Manning is an African American. Third, because Manning is an African American he must have killed Miller and Steckler.”

The Huffington Post’s report raises a further point when it quotes Denny LeBoeuf’s assertion that forensic scientists may be working as ‘agents for the prosecution’. The report questions the continuing use of the death penalty while ‘science (is) distorted to get a conviction at any cost’.

Perhaps the FBI’s investigation and admissions of error signal a change of attitude: it is certainly encouraging that in Texas, where the number of executions is particularly high, the Texas Forensic Science Commission has now directed labs to start scrutinizing hair cases. Let us hope that similar action will be taken in Mississippi, so that Willie can at last move forward in his quest for justice.

Posted in African American, conviction, death penalty, Death Row, DNA testing, Fly Manning, forensic hair testimony, Forrest Allgood, hair testimony, Injustice, justice, Justice King, Mississippi, USA, Willie Fly Manning, Willie Jerome Manning, Willie Manning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment