softheart
01-08-2003, 03:41 PM
(this is not a death penalty case scenario, but it shows the horrifying
mentality of members of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals)
Texas high court frees an innocent man on a 5-4 vote
They must have been under the influence of the season.
Exactly one week before Christmas, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
known in this space as the Smallest Lynch Mob in Texas ruled that people
should not be held in prison if they are actually innocent.
Even if, under pressure, they pleaded guilty.
The margin of the revolutionary vote was 5-4.
That's right. 4 members of the state's highest court for criminal matters
ruled that a person who pleaded guilty should pay the price even if it
turned out he or she was innocent.
The case involved a Dallas man named Wesley Ronald Tuley who was tried in
1997 for aggravated sexual assault of his girlfriend's daughter. The jury
deadlocked 10-2 for acquittal.
Prosecutors offered Tuley a deal. If he pleaded guilty, he would be given
a 10-year probation and deferred adjudication. If he completed probation
without incident, the charges would be dropped.
Tuley had been in jail for 10 months. He had no money to pay his attorney
for a second trial. He took the deal.
More than 2 years later he violated his probation with an unrelated
offense and went to prison for the remainder of the 10-year sentence.
He later learned that his alleged victim had repeatedly recanted her
story, both before and after the trial. She said she had created the
story in anger at the way Tuley had treated her mother.
What's more, an ex-boyfriend was ready to testify that the daughter had
told him she had made the story up at the time she pressed charges.
Tuley won a hearing before the district judge who had presided over his
trial. After hearing the new evidence, she ruled that it "unquestionably
established" Tuley's innocence.
Writing for the majority, Judge Tom Price agreed: "We are convinced by
clear and convincing evidence that no rational juror would convict the
applicant in light of the new evidence."
Those of you who have followed the court will not be surprised to learn
that one of the 4 was Presiding Judge Sharon Keller.
You may recall her as the one who ruled that the conviction of a man in a
rape/murder should not be overturned just because DNA showed the semen
belonged to someone else. Her reasoning: The rapist may have worn a
condom.
But sadly, Keller is getting support these days from San Antonian Barbara
Hervey, who two years ago went to the high court directly from her job as
an assistant Bexar County district attorney. Hervey wrote the minority
opinion.
Hervey argues that "we have to recognize that applicant freely and
voluntarily confessed his guilt to the offense of aggravated sexual
assault." She adds that Tuley "accepted the benefits of this bargain."
Perhaps because she spent her entire career as a prosecutor, Hervey does
not recognize how heavily the deck is stacked in favor of the state in
negotiating "this bargain" as though a penniless, incarcerated Tuley was
on a level playing field.
Guilty pleas in such circumstances are no more reliable than confessions.
Ironically, Hervey's opinion was released the day before a judge freed 5
men who had confessed as teenagers under intense police pressure to
raping a woman in New York's Central Park. But the fact that the
Manhattan district attorney had asked for their release in the wake of
DNA evidence showing another man did it had played heavily in the news
for weeks.
Not that Hervey and her colleagues needed a New York example. 2 years
ago, 2 young Austin men were released from prison on 1988 rape and murder
charges after another man confessed to the crime and DNA showed he was
telling the truth.
One of the convicted men, 22 at the time, falsely confessed after police
grilled him for 2 days, threatened him with the death penalty and lied
that his friend had already confessed and implicated him.
False confessions aren't rare. The Miami Herald recently comprehensively
reviewed murder confessions in South Florida since 1990 and found 38
false or questionable confessions had been thrown out by judges, rejected
by juries or abandoned by prosecutors in Broward County alone.
"The Herald found repeated examples of illegal interrogation, coercive
questioning and flawed fact-checking," the newspaper reported. "In at
least 6 cases, innocent people languished in jail while likely killers
escaped detection."
In the fantasy world of Hervey, Keller and 2 of their colleagues,
heavy-handed tactics by police and prosecutors never produce false
confessions or guilty pleas.
Happily, 5 of their colleagues know better.
mentality of members of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals)
Texas high court frees an innocent man on a 5-4 vote
They must have been under the influence of the season.
Exactly one week before Christmas, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
known in this space as the Smallest Lynch Mob in Texas ruled that people
should not be held in prison if they are actually innocent.
Even if, under pressure, they pleaded guilty.
The margin of the revolutionary vote was 5-4.
That's right. 4 members of the state's highest court for criminal matters
ruled that a person who pleaded guilty should pay the price even if it
turned out he or she was innocent.
The case involved a Dallas man named Wesley Ronald Tuley who was tried in
1997 for aggravated sexual assault of his girlfriend's daughter. The jury
deadlocked 10-2 for acquittal.
Prosecutors offered Tuley a deal. If he pleaded guilty, he would be given
a 10-year probation and deferred adjudication. If he completed probation
without incident, the charges would be dropped.
Tuley had been in jail for 10 months. He had no money to pay his attorney
for a second trial. He took the deal.
More than 2 years later he violated his probation with an unrelated
offense and went to prison for the remainder of the 10-year sentence.
He later learned that his alleged victim had repeatedly recanted her
story, both before and after the trial. She said she had created the
story in anger at the way Tuley had treated her mother.
What's more, an ex-boyfriend was ready to testify that the daughter had
told him she had made the story up at the time she pressed charges.
Tuley won a hearing before the district judge who had presided over his
trial. After hearing the new evidence, she ruled that it "unquestionably
established" Tuley's innocence.
Writing for the majority, Judge Tom Price agreed: "We are convinced by
clear and convincing evidence that no rational juror would convict the
applicant in light of the new evidence."
Those of you who have followed the court will not be surprised to learn
that one of the 4 was Presiding Judge Sharon Keller.
You may recall her as the one who ruled that the conviction of a man in a
rape/murder should not be overturned just because DNA showed the semen
belonged to someone else. Her reasoning: The rapist may have worn a
condom.
But sadly, Keller is getting support these days from San Antonian Barbara
Hervey, who two years ago went to the high court directly from her job as
an assistant Bexar County district attorney. Hervey wrote the minority
opinion.
Hervey argues that "we have to recognize that applicant freely and
voluntarily confessed his guilt to the offense of aggravated sexual
assault." She adds that Tuley "accepted the benefits of this bargain."
Perhaps because she spent her entire career as a prosecutor, Hervey does
not recognize how heavily the deck is stacked in favor of the state in
negotiating "this bargain" as though a penniless, incarcerated Tuley was
on a level playing field.
Guilty pleas in such circumstances are no more reliable than confessions.
Ironically, Hervey's opinion was released the day before a judge freed 5
men who had confessed as teenagers under intense police pressure to
raping a woman in New York's Central Park. But the fact that the
Manhattan district attorney had asked for their release in the wake of
DNA evidence showing another man did it had played heavily in the news
for weeks.
Not that Hervey and her colleagues needed a New York example. 2 years
ago, 2 young Austin men were released from prison on 1988 rape and murder
charges after another man confessed to the crime and DNA showed he was
telling the truth.
One of the convicted men, 22 at the time, falsely confessed after police
grilled him for 2 days, threatened him with the death penalty and lied
that his friend had already confessed and implicated him.
False confessions aren't rare. The Miami Herald recently comprehensively
reviewed murder confessions in South Florida since 1990 and found 38
false or questionable confessions had been thrown out by judges, rejected
by juries or abandoned by prosecutors in Broward County alone.
"The Herald found repeated examples of illegal interrogation, coercive
questioning and flawed fact-checking," the newspaper reported. "In at
least 6 cases, innocent people languished in jail while likely killers
escaped detection."
In the fantasy world of Hervey, Keller and 2 of their colleagues,
heavy-handed tactics by police and prosecutors never produce false
confessions or guilty pleas.
Happily, 5 of their colleagues know better.