|
Location |
Defendant(s) |
Date of Alleged Crime |
| Morgan County,
AL |
Daniel Wade Moore |
Mar 12, 1999 (Decatur) |
|
Daniel Wade
Moore was
convicted in 2002 and sentenced to death for the murder of Karen Tipton. In
2003, Moore's conviction was overturned due to the prosecution's withholding
of exculpatory evidence. In 2005, the prosecution's conduct was found to be
so egregious that a retrial was barred under Double Jeopardy laws. On
hearing of this ruling, a juror declared, “I'm happy with it. I felt that
Daniel didn't do it.” Moore was released, but was reimprisoned four days
later by the court hearing the state's appeal. In 2006, the appeals court
reversed the trial court's ruling and gave Moore the right to a retrial, but
not a dismissal of charges. In Feb. 2008, Moore was retried, but a
mistrial was declared after jurors were unable to agree on a verdict after 6
days of deliberation. In May 2009, Moore was acquitted at his third
trial. (JD32
p18) (WHNT
19) [12/06] |
| Cumberland County, NC |
Dr. Jeffrey MacDonald |
Feb 17, 1970 |
|
(Federal Case) Army Captain
Jeffrey MacDonald was convicted of the murder of his wife
Collette, 26, and the murders of two daughters, Kimberly, 5, and Kristen, 2.
According to MacDonald, he and his family were attacked by intruders to
their home at 544 Castle Drive in Fort Bragg, a U.S. military base. MacDonald survived with wounds including a collapsed lung.
MacDonald was acquitted of the murders at a Ft. Bragg Army hearing and probably
would not have been tried again had he not angered the prosecution by
criticizing them during interviews on national TV. MacDonald's Army
acquittal meant that he could not be court-martialed, but he could still be
tried in federal court and he was. Before his federal trial MacDonald
invited author Joe McGinniss on his defense team to write a book and
hopefully help to establish his factual innocence. At that trial MacDonald
was unfortunately convicted.
Read More by Clicking Here
|
| Summit County, OH |
Denny Ross |
May 1999 |
|
Denny Ross was tried in Akron for the murder of 18-year-old Hannah Hill.
Hill appeared to have been raped before she was severely beaten and then
strangled. Her body was found stuffed in the trunk of her Geo Prizm
six days after her death.
At jury trial deliberations, in Oct. 2000, a juror stated that an alternative suspect,
Brad O'Born, had
passed a lie detector test, and that therefore Ross had to be guilty.
He subsequently changed his position on Ross's guilt to agree with the group because
he had a problem at home and needed to finish his jury service that day.
The judge considered the evidence of the juror's misconduct and consulted
with the prosecution and the defense. The prosecution agreed to a
mistrial but the defense opposed it unless it was declared with prejudice,
which the judge refused to do. Knowing that the jury was likely to
acquit, the judge then declared a mistrial without prejudice. However, by the time of his ruling the jurors
had filled out verdict forms acquitting Ross of the three most serious
charges he was facing, including murder. A new judge then barred a
retrial on double jeopardy grounds. That decision was subsequently reversed
in late 2002 by a state appellate court. In 2005, a federal judge
reinstated the decision barring a retrial. However, in 2008, a federal
appeals court reversed his decision. Ross's attorneys plan to appeal to
the U.S. Supreme Court. The case
was featured on an American Justice episode entitled, Who Killed Hannah
Hill? (LVRJ)
[6/08] |
|
Philadelphia County, PA |
Walter Ogrod |
July 12, 1988 |
|
Walter Ogrod
was sentenced to death for the 1988 murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean
Horn. The murder occurred near her house at 7245 Rutland Street, close to
Cottman Avenue. Four witnesses had seen a man carrying a TV box in which
Horn's body was found. One of the witnesses, David Schectman, told police
he'd interacted with the box carrying man for 11 minutes on St. Vincent St.
Read More by
Clicking Here
|
| Harris County,
TX |
Robert Angleton |
Apr 16, 1997 |
|
Robert Angleton, also known as
Bob, was a bookie who took bets on sporting events. He was charged with
murdering his 46-year-old wife, Doris. Following the murder, Bob told
police that he suspected his brother Roger was the killer. Despite Roger's
checkered past, Bob had employed him in 1989. He fired him less than a year
later. After being fired, Roger felt Bob owed him $200,000 and even tried
to rob him of it at gunpoint. Roger then threatened to put Bob out of
business, by reporting him to the IRS. Bob ignored him, but Roger started
making phone calls to customers, posing as an IRS agent.
Read More
by Clicking Here
|
Note for
next entry: Canadian
law allows the prosecution to appeal acquittals.
It only bans double
jeopardy after such appeals are complete.
| Ontario, Canada |
Guy Paul Morin |
Oct 3, 1984 |
|
Guy Paul
Morin was
tried twice for the killing of nine-year-old Christine Jessop, his next door
neighbor. Jessup was abducted from her Queensville home on Oct. 3,
1984. Her lifeless body was found on Dec. 31, 1984 some 33 miles away
in the Durham Region. The body's decomposition was consistent with her
death occurring near the time of her abduction. Morin was
arrested in Feb. 1985, and acquitted at trial in Feb. 1986. The
prosecution, however, appealed the acquittal and had it overturned. Morin was again arrested 5
months after his acquittal and convicted at retrial in 1992. At both
trials the crown employed jailhouse informants to fill in gaps in its
case. DNA tests
exonerated Morin in 1995, and he was later awarded $1.4 million in
compensation. A book was written about the case entitled Redrum The
Innocent by Kirk Makin. (Champion) (IB)
[12/05] |
| Japan |
Govinda Mainali |
Mar 9, 1997 |
|
Govinda Mainali, a Nepalese
migrant worker, was convicted of the rape and murder of a Tokyo woman.
The victim, though a prostitute by night, was a respected
economist for the Tokyo Electric Power Co. Although Mainali initially
denied knowing the victim, he later admitted to investigators that he twice
paid her to have sex with him. Mainali said he had not seen the victim
for days prior to her murder. There were no witnesses to dispute his
statement. A condom found at the scene of the crime contained Mainali's semen. After reviewing an expert's analysis of the semen,
the trial judge ruled that the semen found was too old to have been produced
on the day of the murder. The judge then stated there was no evidence of Mainali's guilt and acquitted him.
Following
Mainali's acquittal, he was held in detention for over eight
months while prosecutors sought a court more receptive to their case. In
Dec. 2000, the Tokyo High Court reversed Mainali's acquittal and sentenced
him to life in prison. The presiding judge, Toshio Takaki, was the same
judge who had granted the prosecution's request to keep Mainali imprisoned
pending appeal. After a few brief hearings that introduced no new
evidence, he wrote that the record from the Mainali's first trial left no
doubt of his guilt. (Japan
Times) (Legal
Affairs) [8/09] |
|