AZ - Timothy Romans, 39, & Vincent Romero, 29, slain, St Johns, 5 Nov 2008 - #5

[fran]

Missouri

http://www.theagitator.com/2009/02/18/this-week-in-innocence-4/

snip......................

Yesterday, Cole County, Missouri Circuit Judge Richard Callahan issued a stunning opinion in the case of Joshua Kezer, a 34-year-old man who has been in prison for 17 years for the 1992 murder of 19-year-old college student Angela Mischelle Lawless.

Kezer was convicted despite no physical evidence, DNA, or fingerprints linking him to the crime scene; no murder weapon; and no eyewitnesses to the actual murder. The evidence against him consisted of a witness who claimed to have saw him near Lawless’ car (that witness later recanted) and testimony from jailhouse informants who say Kezer confessed to them. Two of those informants have since recanted, and one has since testified for Kezer’s defense. Another says he made up his story about Kezer’s confession, but went on to testify for the state, anyway.

................snip....................

An AP investigation found that in four cases — excluding the latest Kezer decision — prosecutorial errors by Hulshof led to death sentence reversals.

Another accused murderer won acquittal by a new jury at a second trial after his Hulshof-prosecuted conviction was rejected on appeal. A seventh defendant sentenced to life in prison without parole briefly won his freedom when a federal judge tossed out the conviction, although it was later restored.

 

[fran]

Wow! this was just a few weeks ago.

fran


http://surftofind.com/wide2

by Jeff Falcon

Joshua Charles Kezer spent more than 14 years in prison for a murder that he insisted he didn't commit.

On February 17, 2009, Kezer was vindicated.

A Cole County judge overturned Kezer's conviction for second-degree murder and armed criminal action and affirmed Kezer's claim of actual innocence. The judge also concluded that the original prosecutor in the case, Kenny Hulshof, the former six-term Missouri congressman, withheld evidence.

 

[Salem]

Fran - I feel your frustration and support all your efforts. If there is anything I can do, let me know. I too, hope the child's mother will find some help from someone that can make a difference. I believe this child is being railroaded as evidenced by the underhanded tactics of Judge Roca's court and the failure to hold the competency hearing or include the GAL in the plea deal hearing. There are no excuses for these activities except that the saintly judge has his own agenda.

My opinion only,

Salem

 

[oceanblueeyes]

I didn't see Arizona on your list, Fran.

But imo they did give them many things that the defense could have used as exculpatory evidence.

They gave them all the witness statements.

Even the one about the gray primered car with a red door in the area and a guy getting into the car.
The criminal record of Tim Romans.
The witness who said a death threat had been made one week before his death.
Among many other things.

Of course they also turned over all evidence and that also included their investigation on the boy and that is what caused the boy and his attorneys to think it was in his best interest to plea, imo.

I see nothing that shows me that LE did not turnover anything they found when investigating this case. If this had gone to trial I am sure the defense attorneys would have used some of the discovery turned over, hoping it would create doubt in the Judge's mind but then the Judge would also consider all the evidence LE had uncovered that directly pointed to the boy, to then make his determination.




imoo

 

[fran]

Even exonerated former prisoners have a difficult time obtaining employment and fitting into today's society. You'd think after a guy is PROVEN innocent, people wouldn't still consider him guilty. :doh:

Where's the empathy?

fran

California exonerated accused


Wrongly convicted walk away with scars

http://www.truthinjustice.org/scars.htm

snip....................Employers were leery of hiring someone who'd spent so long in jail. When he landed a job at a tool company, co-workers left newspaper clippings about the crime at his workstation. Suspicions followed him like a shadow. Bloodworth got a door-to-door fundraising job, but a homeowner recognized him and began yelling "child killer" at him as Bloodworth stood on the front stoop.

"I never got a fair shake,"



snip...................
With the advent of DNA testing, more prisoners are being freed after wrongful convictions. The pace of exonerations has jumped sharply, from about 12 a year through the early 1990s to an average of 43 a year since 2000, according to a study by the University of Michigan. There have been at least 328 exonerations since 1989, and about half of those since 1999 were based on DNA evidence. There are at least 41 Innocence Projects in 31 states providing legal assistance to inmates.

But as the number of exonerees grows, concerns are mounting about the difficulties these former prisoners experience in finding employment once they're free. While prison parolees typically get free job placement assistance, temporary housing and counseling, the exonerated often are released into an employment no-man's land.

 

[fran]

The below article references a case in Arizona. It doesn't specifically claim 'withholding evidence' but I'm sure given enough time, I could probably find a number of Arizona cases. It happens everythwhere.

FWIW, impossible to 'prove a negative' so they say. I guess we'll never know IF they did in fact turn over all exculpatory evidence or IF the def attorney even looked at it. That is, IF there's no appeal of the conviction.

We'll wait and see.


JMHO
fran



Taken from the pages of Northern Arizona University online
http://jackcentral.com/news/2008/10/exonerated-death-row-inmate-embodies-gaps-in-justice-system/

Exonerated death row inmate embodies gaps in justice system

..............snip....................

Robert Schehr, president of the Northern Arizona Justice Project, said there is an error rate of 80 percent when it comes to the death penalty, and that Arizona is no exception to the problems.

“We have our own issues in Arizona,” Schehr said. “(They’re) structural issues.”

Krone was immediately accused of the crime by Phoenix police officers, thanks in part to teeth marks found on the victim’s body.

 

[fran]

Fran - I feel your frustration and support all your efforts. If there is anything I can do, let me know. I too, hope the child's mother will find some help from someone that can make a difference. I believe this child is being railroaded as evidenced by the underhanded tactics of Judge Roca's court and the failure to hold the competency hearing or include the GAL in the plea deal hearing. There are no excuses for these activities except that the saintly judge has his own agenda.

My opinion only,

Salem

Thanks Salem. I believe the first issue for the mom would be IF the plea deal is valid due to the competency issue for this child. I'm not sure it was legal to 'ignore' the hearing, avoid the GAL being at the plea hearing, and judging the child competent when it was already known the EXPERTS, BOTH said he was incompetent.

As for the judge,.............I THOUGHT he was supposed to handle the case as an impartial party, but he sure gave the impression of partiality towards the pros, .............at least to me.

Yeah, a just turned 9 yo child understands that by 'admitting' to his 'actions causing death,' isn't pleaing 'guilty of murder.' Then, because of the original double murder charge, because they (gave the appearance) removed his dad's murder charge, that he wasn't pleaing guilty to murder (twice!)?

I think we've seen the reactions from those that believe this child is guilty, that he's going to be looked at as a double murderer the rest of his life. He does NOT understand that, imo. But,...........he SHOULD!

IF he's in fact innocent, he SHOULD have the opportunity, WITH HIS EYES WIDE OPEN AS AN ADULT, to make the determination. I honestly don't think he does have the capacity. But, his mom or the GAL do............

Seriously, IF I was this child's mom and I knew in my heart that he was innocent, I would stop at nothing to have him exonerated. We don't know IF that's what she's doing or not. Speculating aside, of course.

JMHO
fran

 

[fran]

Colorado, 15 yo covicted of murder, because of 'doodles' and 'tunnel vision.'

JMHO
fran



http://edition.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/01/22/masters.case/index.html

Convicted by doodles, Masters is freed by DNA



http://blog.law.northwestern.edu/bluhm/2008/01/timothy-masters.html

...............snip..................

In a classic case of tunnelvision, local police and prosecutors (Fort Collins, CO) focused almost exclusively on Masters, who was only 15 years of age at the time of the crime, because he lived closely to where the crime occurred

 

[fran]

Virginia.............SOMETIMES, people just won't admit when they're wrong.:doh:

JMHO
fran


http://www.truthinjustice.org/inthenews.htm

Earl Washington spent almost 10 years on Virginia's Death Row, coming at one point only days from execution, for a crime he did not commit. He was exonerated by DNA and pardoned by the Governor. The same DNA test that cleared Earl, implicated a known serial rapist, yet law enforcement and prosecution continue to claim Earl is guilty -- apparently believing Earl raped the victim with another man's sperm.

 

[fran]

Wow! This is a troubling number. Toooooo many, IMHO

JMHO
fran



http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=207906;article=16179;title=Against Death Rows

...................snip......................

Texas has experienced 34 DNA exonerations - more than any other state - and
"these compounding exonerations," as State Senator Rodney Ellis says, "are
clear and convincing evidence that our criminal justice system is broken."

 

[Linda7NJ]

Can we stay on topic please? Is that too much to ask?

 

[fran]

Ok, this is very disturbing, IMO. This only talks about DP cases. I wonder how many people are in prison that aren't facing the DP, but 20, 30, 40 years?

JMHO
fran

PS......and I know this isn't a DP case, but admitting to murder, is a life sentence (of living it down)....fran

PPS......and I know it isn't Arizona, but from my previous posts, one can take away that this is a National problem and not just a State problem....fran

http://www.truthinjustice.org/halfcleared.htm


Half of state's death-penalty cases reversed

A variety of errors found in 130 trials

 

[fran]

Can we stay on topic please? Is that too much to ask?

Rather than using JMHO, I'm proving a point.

There's LOTS of reasons a guilty verdict can be appealed. These are examples.

It's a wide spread problem. Various ages, as well.

JMHO
fran

 

[fran]

It would appear to me, that the duress a child experiences under cross examination at trial, would be the same sort of feeling this child felt being questioned by these two, armed officers in that room, thus resulting in the reliability of the ALLEGED confession.

At first the child remembered what happened, not in as great a detail as the officers wanted, and as he was coaxed, he eventually changed his story into something the officers would accept.

They did jump around, changing the direction of the questioning moment, by moment, thus confusing the child.

I would say, IMHO, that the child's first statement the night of the crime and then the FIRST statement made to officers the next morning, which matched the child's previous statement (although not complete) was the truth. It was only when the two female officers started jumping around and suggesting, that the child's statement changed.

Course, that's a matter of interpretation. But, alas, the boy has finally found what the ADULT WORLD will accept, 'admitting' he was responsible for Tim's death.

Wow! Just imagine if the child is innocent and they talked him into saying he's responsible for Tim dying.

I guess the judge could always say he's sorry, IF they find the child didn't do the crime after all. :chicken:

JMHO
fran


Reliability of children's memory.

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/proceedings/08/oates.pdf

Memory in Children
There has been considerable research carried out on children's memory. As would be
expected children's visual attention, which is closely linked to memory, improves with age
(Enns & Cameron 1987). This concept is supported by Pezdek (1987) who argued from a
theory of schematic processing and showed that younger children, not having the necessary
schema on which to link memory, do not record in memory as much detail of a given
stimulus as do older subjects. This appears to be one of the differences in memory between
younger children and older children and adults.
However, while less detail is recalled, accuracy of recall seems to be less of a problem
(List 1987). Young children from six to eight years appear to be just as accurate as older
subjects in recall, but report significantly less information (Goodman & Read 1987). This
means that if a free recall technique is employed in obtaining information from children, the
age difference tends to relate not to accuracy but to the completeness of the account. It is
the experience of adults who talk to children that children often say little in response to
questioning. As it has been shown that children often remember more details than they
choose to report (Flavell 1970), more systematic interview techniques such as prompting or
questioning may be required. This technique raises its own problems. A recent Australian
study of court transcripts in child sexual abuse cases (Brennan & Brennan 1988) has shown
that children become quickly confused under cross-examination. This is partly because of
the language used in the court situation and also because of the way in which some questions
are multi-faceted - making a 'yes' or 'no' answer difficult. This study of transcripts also
showed that questions would move quickly from one time frame to another, requiring rapid
responses and an adult perception of time and events. This approach puts children at
considerable disadvantage in a witness situation (Rowe 1974; Benedeck & Schetky 1986).
The resulting confusion to the child by this type of questioning tends to confirm, to those
observing, the impression that the child is not a reliable witness.
There is also a popular feeling that children tend to confuse imagined

.................................

ory for events which were shown to the children on slides, in films or told to them as
stories. In these studies the child is not actively involved in the events but is merely a neutral
bystander. An

 

[fran]

Gosh, this link is interesting, LONG, but informative. Page 112 and 113 is interesting. Recall how in the child's alleged confession, even after he finally told the officers he had shot the gun? They asked him a few times where Tim was when he shot him? Where his dad was when he shot him? The boy said, 'on the ground,' 'he was laying there on the ground,' or something like that.

Well, IF you read these pages, they discuss how children of 6-8 can (be persuaded) change their 'memory' of events (not actually what happened) but their memory of the basic or main event remains the same, it's the non-central parts of the story that become confused. Like, IF the boy's original story is true, the victims were lying on the floor when he arrived, but they managed to get him to change the events surrounding him arriving and getting him to say HE shot them. However, even after he told them he shot them, HIS main memory of them 'lying on the floor' when he arrived stays the same.

Does that make sense? LOL
fran


http://books.google.com/books?id=dU...&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPA113,M1

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Can we stay on topic please? Is that too much to ask?

Since there are over 10,500 murders+ in the US each year there is bound to be some that were proven wrong for various reasons. Faulty eye witnesses, which is one of the main factors innocent people are found guilty or the lack of dna testing, especially if the cases were older, which most Innocent Project cases are and dna wasn't available at the time or prosecutorial misconduct.

But what does that have to do with this case? It seems backwards to me. Not one word has been spoken accusing anyone of misconduct in this case. Even the ones that disagree about the plea deal and competency issue has not said that the Prosecutor held back any exonerating evidence. The only place I have seen those accusations has been on internet message boards.

In fact I have seen no legal beagles even say this boy is innocent of these crimes but have believed that he is age incompetent to know what the plea deal encompasses or a trial. When it ended not even his own attorneys mentioned anything about him being innocent.

So where does this come from that the SJPD or the AZ. DPS withheld any exculpatory evidence? Just because some have means all do????:banghead: I haven't even seen the boy's own attorneys claim that and they would know if something is missing and they also had investigators themselves and the state witness list.

With 2.5 million inmates in our penal system today, I highly doubt that BS would devote his time to a case like this. He knows how tedious and time staking it is for it has taken the IP over 20 years+ and they have exonerated around 200+ out of that vast 2.5 million in prison system today. They seem to try to help the ones where DNA will clear them and where the inmate has been sitting in prison for a long time with a very harsh sentence, not out and about and home with mommy.

JMO

 

[oceanblueeyes]

Gosh, this link is interesting, LONG, but informative. Page 112 and 113 is interesting. Recall how in the child's alleged confession, even after he finally told the officers he had shot the gun? They asked him a few times where Tim was when he shot him? Where his dad was when he shot him? The boy said, 'on the ground,' 'he was laying there on the ground,' or something like that.

Well, IF you read these pages, they discuss how children of 6-8 can (be persuaded) change their 'memory' of events (not actually what happened) but their memory of the basic or main event remains the same, it's the non-central parts of the story that become confused. Like, IF the boy's original story is true, the victims were lying on the floor when he arrived, but they managed to get him to change the events surrounding him arriving and getting him to say HE shot them. However, even after he told them he shot them, HIS main memory of them 'lying on the floor' when he arrived stays the same.

Does that make sense? LOL
fran


http://books.google.com/books?id=dU...&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPA113,M1

This child was almost nine and his own attorney said he is trying to get him a scholarship so imo he is above average intelligence.

If the interrogation had been ongoing for hours on end or even a couple of days like Michael Crowe then, maybe I would agree. Only a small part of the hour long interview was even about the dead bodies he saw and what he did after then. I don't think anyone persuaded him. He seemed to be rather chatty and engaging from the very start. He certainly didn't sound like he was being coerced into anything. He did sound like a kid that realized at the end he had messed his story up and would be going to juvie.

I do think, like the PA boy, he did have his prepared story all ready to tell, but did not factor in that other questions would be asked of him. I think he fully thought they would buy his story of him being a victim and eye witness and then at the end he knew they hadn't.

imo

 

[Trino]

Gosh, this link is interesting, LONG, but informative. Page 112 and 113 is interesting. Recall how in the child's alleged confession, even after he finally told the officers he had shot the gun? They asked him a few times where Tim was when he shot him? Where his dad was when he shot him? The boy said, 'on the ground,' 'he was laying there on the ground,' or something like that.

Well, IF you read these pages, they discuss how children of 6-8 can (be persuaded) change their 'memory' of events (not actually what happened) but their memory of the basic or main event remains the same, it's the non-central parts of the story that become confused. Like, IF the boy's original story is true, the victims were lying on the floor when he arrived, but they managed to get him to change the events surrounding him arriving and getting him to say HE shot them. However, even after he told them he shot them, HIS main memory of them 'lying on the floor' when he arrived stays the same.

Does that make sense? LOL
fran


http://books.google.com/books?id=dU...&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPA113,M1

But, why hasn't the boy recanted his story? Why hasn't he said he was innocent?

 

[fran]

This child was almost nine and his own attorney said he is trying to get him a scholarship so imo he is above average intelligence.

If the interrogation had been ongoing for hours on end or even a couple of days like Michael Crowe then, maybe I would agree. Only a small part of the hour long interview was even about the dead bodies he saw and what he did after then. I don't think anyone persuaded him. He seemed to be rather chatty and engaging from the very start. He certainly didn't sound like he was being coerced into anything. He did sound like a kid that realized at the end he had messed his story up and would be going to juvie.

I do think, like the PA boy, he did have his prepared story all ready to tell, but did not factor in that other questions would be asked of him. I think he fully thought they would buy his story of him being a victim and eye witness and then at the end he knew they hadn't.

imo

Sorry, OBE, but there is NO comparison between the PA boy and this child. The PA boy is 11, this child was 8, almost nine. NOT apples and apples, but apples and oranges. There's a reason why, when comparing studies on childhood development, they class 6-8, 9-10, etc..........

FWIW, the Crow boy was ALMOST TWICE the age of this child when LE talked him into falsley confessing. Again, apples and oranges.

I haven't seen any accusations of withholding evidence, YET...........ehhhh....the files sealed.

I expect to see more about this case in the future. I'm sure the people who know this child is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt won't mind. Heck, they don't even need to watch, as they're so sure there's no exculpatory evidence not as yet revealed.

JMHO
fran

 

[fran]

But, why hasn't the boy recanted his story? Why hasn't he said he was innocent?

Oh, he's guilty, haven't you heard? His attorney explained it to him THREE times. :doh:

JMHO
fran