Wrongful convictions brought about by stupidity and dishonesty in Arkansas.

 

There are a great many instances where innocent persons have been convicted of crimes they didn’t commit and even executed for those crimes. Sometimes these convictions are the result of mistaken identity but far too often these miscarriages in justice are the direct result of sloppy police investigations, dishonest prosecutions and false confessions. This case I am going to tell you about encompasses the last three causes of injustice brought against three innocent teenagers. The victims of the charade of justice were three teenagers referred to as the Memphis Three.

Three eight-year-old boys, Steve Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers, were reported missing on May 5, 1993. The first report to the police was made by Byers' adoptive father, John Mark Byers, around 7:00 pm. The boys were allegedly last seen together by three neighbors, who in sworn affidavits told of seeing them playing together around 6:30 pm the evening they disappeared, and saw Terry Hobbs, stepfather of Stevie Branch, calling them to come home. Initial police searches made that night were limited. Friends and neighbors also conducted a search that night, which included a cursory visit to the actual location where the bodies were later found.        

The autopsies, by the forensic pathologist Frank J. Peretti, indicated that Byers died of multiple injuries, while Moore and Branch died of multiple injuries and also by drowning.  

Around 1:45 pm, juvenile Parole Officer Steve Jones spotted a boy's black shoe floating in a muddy creek that led to a major drainage canal in Robin Hood Hills. A subsequent search of the ditch revealed the bodies of three boys. They were stripped naked and had been hogtied with their own shoelaces: their right ankles tied to their right wrists behind their backs, the same with their left arms and legs. Their clothing was found in the creek, some of it twisted around sticks that had been thrust into the muddy ditch bed. Their clothing was mostly turned inside-out; two pairs of the boys' underwear were never recovered. Christopher Byers had lacerations to various parts of his body, and mutilation of his scrotum and penis.

To say that the small community of West Memphis was frightened is an understatement. They were terrified that a monster was living amongst them and that he might strike again. Many parents wouldn`t let their children outside after school until the monster was captured.                                    

The police were desperate. They had to solve this multiple crime as soon as possible. The pressure to solve it was increasing by the day. As we all know, when police officers are under pressure, sometimes, their eagerness to solve crimes results in sloppy police investigations. That is what happened in this case.                                                                                            

The first s0-called break they got was after they questioned Jessie Misskelley, Jr. a 17-year-old teenager who had a low IQ of only 72. A normal person has an IQ of at least 100. This means that he was mildly mentally retarded. When questioning anyone with a low IQ, an investigator should go out of his way to make sure that he isn’t encouraging his suspect to make up his story. In this particular case, Jessie was questioned by Inspector Gary Gitchell. What the suspect did was tell his story to the inspector and it was a whopper.

He said that he was with two other teenagers,   Jason Baldwin who was then 16 years old, and Damien Echols who was then 18 years old. He then said that the three young 8-year-old victims showed up in the forest. He said that later when it was getting dark, Damien and Jason tied the boys up and later, both Damien and Jason pulled the three boys into the nearby creek.   He also said that Damien raped Myers and both Jason and Damien [anal] raped           

Now the worst thing you can do as an investigator is to lead a witness who has a low IQ into saying something that he didn’t do or see. Unfortunately, this is what the inspector did. He asked Jessie, “Did anyone have oral sex with the boys?”

Now there was no physical evidence that anyone had oral sex with the boys but when Jessie was asked that question, his confused mind conjured up a distorted image of something he didn’t see. He replied, “Yes, Damien and Jason.” He later said that Damien and Jason had oral sex with Branch and Byers. He later said that to keep the boys quiet, the two teenagers stuck their penises in the mouths of the three boys.                                                           

This mentally challenged teenager finally admitted that he also beat one of the boys in his face with his fist. He also said that he saw one of the teenagers cut one of the 8-year-old boys with a knife and seeing blood fly. He implied that the teenager had castrated the boy.       He further said that the teenager used a folding knife. That statement plays an interesting aspect of their trial. He also said that the other two teenagers dragged the boys into the water hog-tied and that’s when they drowned.

All three teenagers were arrested and charged with first degree murder. In Arkansas, a conviction of first degree murder can be punishable by death. Unfortunately for them, they were entirely innocent of having anything whatsoever to do with the beatings, sexual assaults, mutilation and deaths of the three boys. That is because the defining evidence in this case was the false confession of Jessie Misskelley Jr. The police inspector was simply too stupid to realize that he was making suggestive inferences to a partially mentally challenged teenager who was too dense to realize that his images he spoke of where coming from an addled brain.

During their trial, the family members of the victims sat perplexed as the prosecution presented a procession of expert witnesses who testified that a battery of tests on hair, cloth fibers and other items failed to produce any physical evidence linking the accused to the crime.

After divers searched an area of a lake behind Baldwin's house, a knife was recovered and was submitted to the court as evidence. It was a large hunting knife with a serrated edge, just as the coroner had testified was the kind of knife used on the victims. However, Jessie said that the knife that was used on the boys was a small folding knife. Dr Frank Peretti testified that some of the wound patterns on the three victims were consistent with, and may have been caused by, a serrated edge knife. This testimony becomes questionable when new evidence available after the trials is considered. Apart from testimony of Damien's ex-girlfriend, Deeana Holcomb, that Damien had once owned a knife similar to the one found in the lake except it had a compass on the handle; there was no substantive evidence that proved either Damien or Jason had owned the knife. Later, with the exception of one of the boy’s being castrated, all the so-called knife cuts later turned out to be determined as scratches by animals on the bodies of the victims.

A witness from the State Crime Laboratory testified that she found fibers on the victims' clothing which were microscopically similar to four fibers found in Jason and Damien's homes. None were found in Jessie's. A red fiber found on Jason's mother's robe was microscopically similar to fibers from James Moore's shirt. A green polyester fiber on James's cap was of a similar structure to those found on a blue cotton-polyester shirt, belonging to a child relative, found in Damien's home. That doesn’t necessarily mean that those fibers actually belonged to the accused although it is highly suspicious. I will concede to that.  Nevertheless, those fibers could have been matched to any number of items available for purchase at a local department store. Keep in mind that the community was a small one so any number of people could have bought items comprising of that same fiber.

Despite the fact that those fibers showed inconclusive results, they were still presented as evidence to tie Jason and Damien to the crime.

Actually, none of those articles of clothing belonging to the accused could be definitely linked to the crime with fiber or blood samples. The sole purpose of the prosecutor seemed to be to confirm Jessie’s confession and to highlight the boys' preference for wearing black clothes, supposedly an indication of Satanic tendencies in teenagers. Damien's books and writings were used as evidence of his delving into the occult, an important aspect of the prosecution's case in Jason and Damien's trial as the only motive they could put forward was that the murders were Satanic ritual killings. You should pray to whatever god you pray to that you never ever be prosecuted by a wretched prosecutor like the one that prosecuted those three innocent teenagers.

During the separate trial of Jason and Damien, the confession of Jessie was entered as evidence against the two teenagers. Without that evidence, the two teenagers would have been acquitted since the other evidence was purely hypothetical at best. Their constitutional rights were also infringed when the judge hearing their case permitted Jessie’s confession to be presented to the jury. While you are praying to your god that you aren’t prosecuted by that stupid prosecutor, give your god another prayer that you don’t appear before that same judge who heard the case who is best described as a dumb jerk who pushes the United States Constitution aside when hearing a case.

Jason Baldwin received life in prison, Jessie Misskelley received life plus forty years, and Damien Echols received the harshest sentence of all, the death penalty.

In July of 2007, a status report about new DNA evidence was issued by both the Defense and the State of Arkansas that said, “Although most of the genetic material recovered from the scene was attributable to the victims of the offenses, some of it cannot be attributed to either the victims or the defendants.”  This led to a Writ of Habeas Corpus, filed on behalf of the defendants in October of that year, but Echols petition for a retrial was thrown out by original trial Judge David Burnett.  After numerous appeals, the Arkansas Supreme Court, in 2010, threw out Judge Burnett’s decision, and ordered a new judge to reconsider the case.

Besides there being no DNA evidence to link any of the defendants to the crime, other problems had arisen.  One so-called witness completely recanted her statements to police, claiming they were coerced from her by the police.  Another witness had her veracity questioned by none other than her own mother, and the behavior of the original jury foreman was also brought into question when it was revealed he used inadmissible evidence during jury deliberations.  Despite all these factors, prosecutors were loath to reopen the case.

Then, on August 19, 2011, a plea deal was reached under the Alfred Doctrine, in which defendants are allowed to plead guilty while still maintaining their innocence, and all three were sentenced to time served and immediately released.  They had served a total of 18 years and 78 days.  One of the defendants, Jason, did not want to agree to the deal on principle, claiming total innocence, but at the last second relented for the sake of Damien.  If a new trial was not granted, or if another trial again led to their conviction, Damien would be executed.  So they took the deal.  Now the three innocent men are free men.                                               

 

Unfortunately, I don’t think they can sue the state or anyone else for their unfortunate imprisonment since they have agreed to plead guilty even though the Alfred Doctrine permitted them to say at the same time that they were entirely innocent.  

It is a sad commentary of our society in this and in the past that innocent people who are charged with crimes must suffer so horribly. Damien had been on death row for over 18 years, and that can’t be easy time—if any time behind bars can be called easy. So far, he and the others haven’t been given any compensation for the injustice that was done to them. Further, it isn’t likely that they will be given compensation considering the fact that they pleaded guilty of a crime they really didn’t commit.