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JD Features:
Welcome to Archived Volume 2 Issue 5
Contents:
Directly from the desk of Clara Thomas Boggs The Race to Publish and Why it May Interest YOU
Maryland Witness Takes Conviction One Day at a Time... The Steven Joseph Schmitt Story. Steve's 17-year-old daughter, Heather, has unfailingly stood by him through his ordeal. She has run ads on the Internet asking for help for her father. Steve has written a myriad of organizations asking for help. Read his story. Decide for yourself.
No Evidence, Crooked Prosecutor -- The Elmer E. Ahart Jr. Story. There is no evidence that places Elmer Ahart Jr. at the scene of the crime and the prosecutor in Elmer's case sits in prison for fixing convictions. A new trial is needed to find out what happened the night of June 21, 1992.
Witnesses Don't Count! -- The Troy Bradford Story. Eight witnesses said Troy Bradford wasn't guilty. Others said he wasn't guilty, then changed their stories. There was no physical evidence against Troy. Why was he convicted?
The Christopher Nelson Case. Christopher used the Freedom of Information Act and found out more information in 30 days than his attorney did in 8 months of represention. Why does an 18 year-old man have to be a detective and investigate his own case?
A miscarriage of justice... The Cy Greene Story. Trial judge concerned about the jury's verdict in Cy Greene's case.
Four Men Exonerated of 1965 Murder After FBI Frame-up is Exposed For more than a third of a century, Joseph Salvati and Peter Limone steadfastly asserted their innocence of Edward Deegan's 1965 murder. Finally, after having spent 30 and 33 years respectively of their life sentences in prison, they have been vindicated.
Updates in this issue:
Eugene Casey and Philip Workman.
Feature Articles:
The Dark Ride, By Anthony Mungin this month in Voices From Behind the Bars.
Prison by the Senses By Frank McEvoy, Kyle Moran, and Craig Salathe. Descriptions of prison as the senses receive them (or are assaulted by them).
Truth in Justice Foundation This information is provided in hopes some readers may benefit.
Snitch Culture, a new book by Jim Redden, is reviewed by Hans Sherrer.
East-West, starring Catherine Deneuve, reviewed by Hans Sherrer.
The Race to Publish and Why it May Interest YOU
As our faithful readers know, we gave back our grant money to the Aigner Foundation with the understanding that if we could get it together to publish, they would give it back.
Happily, our Anne Good, public relations lady extraordinaire, has taken on the publishing project. She boiled it down to the simplest formula. We will collect the best of our stories and use those. It also just so happens that JD Team member Barbara Jean McAtlin has a graphic arts business, so she will be doing all photos and artwork.
Almost the entire JD Team has come forward to participate in distributing the published magazines to libraries, law schools, lawyers, and others who may be interested in future subscriptions. This is where you may be interested.
We are offering FREE advertising to a limited number of organizations, businesses and groups. First-come, first-served. If those of you who want free advertising would also help us by helping to distribute, you would not only get your ad in front of many people, but also assure JD of the distribution it needs to succeed.
If you are interested in helping the Hard Copy Project, please write to JDGeneralMail@aol.com, C'Rene Dana, who will see that your email gets to both Anne Good and Barbara Jean McAtlin to make arrangements.
You may want to offer your talent in some other capacity to this project, so please do. We will welcome you. You will be joining our Hard Copy Team. If you can simply take a good number of magazines for distribution, that would be a wonderful help. We owe great thanks to the Aigner Foundation, and especially to Joy Baldwin who is our liaison with them. They have showed faith in us, and we deeply want to justify that faith. Not only did they reinstate the $6,000 grant, but they also added $500 to it. We also have a JD Team member who has contributed $1,500 toward anything not covered by the grant. Our Team benefactor has asked to remain anonymous, and we will respect that (not even the other team members know who it is).
CLIMB ABOARD! Our hopes are high, our energy is there, and in just a few months, we hope to present Justice: Denied -- The Magazine for the Wrongly Convicted to the world.
High HOPES from the entire JD Team.
Clara A. Thomas Boggs, for the Team
Updates in this issue:
Exciting development in the Freddie Eugene Casey case
By Barbara Jean McAtlin, Justice: Denied Staff
In our previous edition of Justice: Denied Magazine we brought you the story of Freddie Eugene Casey (Victim's Family Fights For Justice In Casey Case, Volume 2 Issue 3).
Recently, Chris Duffy of Centurion Ministries notified our staff that the Innocence Project of Washington, D.C. has decided to formally take up Eugene's quest for freedom and justice.
Although justice for Eugene is still uncertain at this point, his chance for vindication is far greater now than it was before his story was featured in Justice: Denied. With the help of the highly skilled staff of the Innocence Project, we hope to be able to bring you another exciting update sometime very soon.
Special thanks go out to the following people:
* Tamela Carey for her tireless work for justice and freedom for Eugene.
* Chris Duffy of Centurion Ministries for his never failing faith in Eugene's innocence.
* Page Kennedy and Dave Bos of the Innocence Project in D.C.
* The readers and staff of Justice: Denied Magazine.
By Stormy Thoming-Gale
Philip's lawyers had been asking the federal courts for years, without success, to grant a full hearing on newly discovered evidence in his felony murder case.
When Philip's defense team presented the same request to the Tennessee Supreme Court, a few hours before his scheduled execution, the court finally agreed -- in a three-two-split decision.
It was past midnight when the state's highest court stayed Philip's execution indefinitely and ordered a trial court judge in Memphis to let Philip's lawyers present the exonerating evidence. A majority of the Supreme Court agreed that laws restricting the use of new evidence should sometimes be stretched "to prevent a miscarriage of justice."
The court also said, in an apparent clarification of Tennessee law on killings that occur during the commission of a felony, "If he did not fire (the shot that killed Lt. Ronald Oliver), he is not guilty of the crime for which he is scheduled to be put to death."
Philip's newest attorney, Robert Hutton, presented several legal theories as grounds for reopening Workman's case to look at evidence discovered years after the original trial, including the autopsy X-ray and the recantation of key prosecution witness, Harold Davis, in 1999.
There was no oral argument, but the Supreme Court considered a flurry of faxes and e-mails before three of its members decided, around 11 p.m. an hour before the scheduled execution, that new evidence in this case could be considered, despite statutes sharply limiting how long after trial new evidence can be introduced. The justices said the serious nature of Philip's case and the fact that the evidence could not have been found earlier justified the extension.
"This was a new ruling, but we think it's an appropriate extension of what the court has done in other areas of the law," said Mr. Hutton.
Judge Colton immediately set a date for two weeks after the execution date for a full hearing on recently discovered evidence. Philip's lawyers appealed.
The Court of Criminal Appeals said Shelby County Criminal Court Judge John Colton Jr., who has been the judge presiding over Philip's case in recent years, acted too quickly when he gave Philip's lawyers only two weeks to prepare for a hearing on new evidence, it sent the case back to Colton to set a new hearing date.
The appeals court said that Judge Colton ''had no jurisdiction to act'' on Philip's case at the time he set the hearing. The appeals court also said Colton should not have ordered Mr. Hutton to turn over copies of videotaped statements that Philip's lawyers took in 1999 from Harold Davis, a key prosecution witness who has recanted the testimony he gave at Workman's trial in 1982. Prosecutors will be entitled to see those tapes only after Mr. Davis testifies, the appeals court said.
In an expected move prompted by Judge Colton's order for Philip's attorneys to be ready for a full hearing with only two weeks to prepare, Philip's attorneys asked Judge Colton to remove himself from ruling on Philip's petitions.
Defense lawyers contend Shelby County Criminal Court Judge John Colton is biased against Philip.
Judge Colton is set to preside over a hearing on Philip's latest claim that he did not kill Memphis police Lt. Robert Oliver in 1981.
Philip was thirty-five minutes from death in March when the Tennessee Supreme Court overturned a ruling by Judge Colton and stopped the execution. Judge Colton had rejected a petition for the new hearing.
Philip's attorneys are now asking that Judge Colton remove himself from the case and allow it to be assigned to another judge. Judge Colton set a May 14, 2001 hearing on that request.
Philip's new petition says Judge Colton's eagerness to set an early hearing date indicates bias against Philip.
If Judge Colton grants the request, the case will be assigned to another judge. If he rejects it, Philip can file another appeal.
Sources:
The Tennesean
Associated Press
The Dark Ride
Edited for Anthony Mungin by JD Staff
Struggling against the intoxicating rage
The feud contaminated my blood;
Eye impregnated with predatory gaze,
The effects of solitary are, alas, to bud.Evil finds lodging in the pessimist
Misery sought to infect the meek;
Petition the Mediator to redeem the notorious,
To regurgitate its malicious deceit.Haunts of violence fill the atmosphere
While the storm of uncertainty threatens the sane;
Yet the battle isn't against my fellow prisoner here,
It's against barbaric justice and the unethical political game.My shoulders cringe from the weight of the death sentence,
This soul of mine awaits for hope abroad; awaits hope
May thine heart convince thee I'm neither killer nor menace,
But a career stepping-stone for a political god.Anthony Mungin
1/13/2001
© Justice Denied
Previous Snapshots have been archived by issue when possible. The rest are here: Previous SnapShots.
