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John and Coke Brite, brothers, were convicted of the murders of deputy sheriffs Martin Lange and Joseph Clarke, as well as the murder of Captain Fred Seaborn, a U.S. Navy officer. The Brites, who were gold prospectors, returned to a cabin on their rented land, where their parents stayed, and then headed out again. At nightfall they set up camp on the land of a neighbor, B. F. Decker, and went to bed. Two intruders then entered their camp, another neighbor, Charley Baker, and his friend, Fred Seaborn. At trial, Baker alleged they were looking for a strayed horse that Baker owned. It was later learned that Baker had been using the cabin on the Brites’ property for rent-free storage and had motive to drive the Brites from their land. Baker and Seaborn picked a fight with the Brites, which proved to be a mistake as the Brites made quick work of them. Baker then went to a judge and talked him into issuing warrants charging the Brites with assault.

Baker got the deputy sheriffs to depart from normal procedure and serve the warrants by sneaking into the Brites’ camp the same night at 1 a.m. Later, the brothers said they fought for their lives, thinking Baker had brought a gang to attack them. Neighbors reported hearing a “roar of gunfire.” The deputies and Seaborn ended up dead, but Baker escaped unharmed.

Following the killings there was great local sentiment against the Brites. A posse was sent to find them with orders to “shoot on sight and shoot to kill.” Even if the brothers escaped the posse, it seemed most likely they would be lynched. After interviewing Baker and other witnesses, the district attorney, James Davis, did not like what he was hearing. He concluded that even if everything Baker had told him was the truth, the brothers had acted in self-defense. Davis then arranged for the brothers to turn themselves in and spirited them out of the county.

Davis refused to prosecute the brothers. However, a grand jury indicted them and appointed a special prosecutor. The Brites were convicted of first-degree murder and initially sentenced to death. Baker gave many inconsistent and contradictory statements about the night of the killings. However, all his stories indicated that the deputies successfully snuck up on the Brites and were on top of them, clubbing them with blackjacks. It was not clear how the Brites could have resisted. The brothers did not remember anything about the killings other than the initial clubbing and finding dead bodies around them later. The brothers' report seems especially credible in the case of John Brite whose behavior immediately following the killings indicated he was clubbed somewhat senseless.

The case later came to the attention of a program called “The Court of Last Resort” in which wrongfully convicted prisoners’ cases were studied and reported on in Argosy Magazine. In its investigation Argosy found evidence that Baker never mentioned and took some steps to deny. The brothers had a good-sized dog with them named Smoky. Both the Brites and a neighbor, B. F. Decker, stated that the dog was in the Brites’ camp. Decker distinctly remembered the dog barking shortly before the shooting. It was a peculiar growling bark that a dog makes when it is engaged in some sort of struggle.

During the assault, the dog grabbed hold of the back of Deputy Clarke’s coat while he was blackjacking Coke Brite. The dog brought Clarke to his knees and pulled the end of the coat over his head. At this point, Clarke’s rump was higher than his head. In an attempt to stop the dog, a member of the Baker party apparently fired a shot at the dog and missed. The bullet entered the base of Clarke’s spine and exited out his right shoulder.

At the Brites’ trial it was alleged that all bullets fired in the melee were fired from the Brites’ rifle. However, recovered shell casings indicate that only two bullets were fired from the rifle. In addition, the base of the rifle was used as a club, indicating the Brites had run out of ammunition. The bullet that hit Seaborn and the bullet that hit the leg of Officer Lange could have come from the Brites’ rifle. At trial the Brites were convicted of first-degree murder for firing two shots though Officer Lange’s forehead as he lay on the ground. Evidence, however, indicates that these shots could not have been fired from the Brites’ rifle, nor could the shots have been fired while Lange was on the ground. Evidence also indicates that another shot, from a rifle, had been fired from outside the Brites’ camp towards the location of the Brites.

After Argosy magazine printed its investigation of the Brites’ case, it became clear to authorities that the brothers could not be guilty of first-degree murder. In Sept. 1951 the Brites were released on parole.  (CLR) (Sacramento Bee) (People v. Brite)  [6/08]

Patrick Eugene "Hooty" Croy was sentenced to death for the murder of Bo Hittson, a Yreka police officer. A weekend of partying led to an ill-fated shoot-out between police and a group of Native Americans, including Croy. Croy was convicted of attempted robbery, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, assault, and the murder of the police officer.

In 1985, California Supreme Court overturned most of Croy's convictions. The Court found that the trial judge had read the wrong instructions to the jury, allowing the jury to convict Croy of robbery even if he did not intend to steal. Because the murder conviction was based on the theory that Croy had intentionally committed a robbery that had caused the officer's death, the murder conviction was reversed.

At retrial in 1990, Croy’s defense presented evidence that Croy acted in self-defense during the shoot-out, including evidence that Croy himself was shot twice during the altercation, expert testimony regarding the antagonistic relationship between law enforcement and local Native Americans at the time of the crime, and that Officer Hittson had a blood alcohol level of .07 at his time of death. Croy was acquitted of all charges for which he was tried, based on self-defense. The trial court entered a finding that, if the conspiracy and assault charges had been included in the retrial, Croy would have been acquitted of them as well. Croy was resentenced on these charges and was released on parole.

In 1997, Croy violated parole and was given an indeterminate life sentence. In 2005, Croy’s original conspiracy and assault convictions were also overturned. The state decided not to appeal and Croy was freed in Mar. 2005. He had served 19 years in prison, 7 of them on death row.  (Source)  [6/08]

Thomas Berdue and Joseph Wildred were convicted of robbery.  The victim, Charles Jansen, was the proprietor of a wholesale dry goods establishment on Montgomery Street.  Jansen was struck on the head with a bar of iron and robbed by two men of several thousand dollars in coin and gold dust.  Police recognized from Jansen’s description that one of the robbers was James Stuart, the leader of a feared band of escaped Australian convicts.  Stuart was also wanted for the murder of a sheriff in Yuba County.

The following day, Australian immigrants, Berdue and Wildred were arrested.  A mob wanted to lynch them, but to avoid that fate, the authorities reluctantly agreed to a “Lynch Court,” composed of individuals voted on by the mob.  Jansen positively identified Berdue as the robber who struck him.  Many other witnesses testified that Berdue was Stuart, some of whom spent months in the same mining camp as Stuart.  Because the defense attorney believed Berdue and pleaded for time to check out Berdue’s identification, the jury could not agree on a verdict.

Berdue and Wildred were turned over to a regular court, which sentenced them to 14 years of imprisonment.  Berdue was sent to Marysville, Yuba County for the murder of their sheriff.  Under the name “James Stuart,” he was convicted and sentenced to be hanged in three weeks.  A week later, the real James Stuart was arrested and brought to San Francisco.  Stuart confessed to the crimes and everyone realized the mistake that was made.  While visiting San Francisco, the California Governor interviewed Stuart, and afterwards sent a pardon to Berdue.  The pardon reached him two days before his scheduled hanging.

Berdue returned to San Francisco in time to witness the hanging for which he was sentenced.  Stuart was hanged on the California Street wharf on the scheduled day.  After viewing Berdue and Stuart together, a reporter noted, “I never before or since saw such a resemblance.  Stuart was, perhaps, a trifle the stouter; but, having seen either one, I think I should have unhesitatingly, at any time thereafter, been willing to swear to the other as that one.  It scarcely seems possible that the men could have so perfectly resembled each other.”

According to a different, seemingly more reliable account (CTI), a few witnesses who knew Stuart well had little trouble recognizing that Berdue was not Stuart at his Marysville trial.  These included a Yuba County judge and another individual before whom Stuart was often brought to face charges.  Stuart’s movements were reportedly much quicker than Berdue’s.  The witnesses also stated that Stuart was more than an inch taller.  However, even by this account, these trial witnesses were outnumbered by others who swore that Berdue was Stuart and stated they could not be mistaken.

Along with Berdue, Wildred was also pardoned.  Since neither of them was willing to run the risk of another such adventure, both returned to Australia.  (The Galaxy, Feb 1868) (CTI)

Along with Sonia "Sunny" Jacobs and Walter Rhodes, Jesse Joseph Tafero was convicted of murdering Florida highway patrolman, Phillip Black, and visiting Canadian constable, Donald Irwin, at an I-95 rest stop.  The conviction was based largely on the testimony of Rhodes, who named Tafero as the shooter.  The state withheld from the defense results of a polygraph that indicated Rhodes had failed.  The state also withheld gunpowder test results that indicated Rhodes was the only person to have fired a gun.

Rhodes recanted his testimony on three occasions in 1977, 1979, and 1982, stating that he, not Tafero, shot the policemen.  A statement from a prison guard corroborating Rhodes’ recantations was suppressed and found years later.  Rhodes has since reverted to his original testimony.  The trial judge, "Maximum Dan" Futch, had been a highway patrolman three years before the trial and wore his police hat to work.  He kept a miniature replica of an electric chair on his desk.  He did not allow Tafero to call witnesses, nor would not allow him hearings on this decision.  Two eyewitnesses, testifying for the state, said that while the shots were being fired, one officer was holding Tafero over the hood of the car.  Tafero was executed in the electric chair on May 4, 1990.  Officials interrupted the execution three times because flames and smoke shot out of his head.

Like Tafero, Jacobs was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1981.  In Jacobs’ 1992 appeal, the new evidence was presented which resulted in the reversal of her conviction.  Had the evidence been found before Tafero’s execution, it is highly probable that his conviction would have been likewise overturned.  Jacobs later accepted a plea bargain in which she did not have to admit guilt and was released.  She affirms her innocence.  A 1996 movie was made about the case entitled, "In the Blink of an Eye."  (NL)  [6/05]

Timothy Brown, a mentally retarded man, gave a garbled confession to the murder of Broward Sheriff's Deputy Patrick Behan for which he was convicted.  In 2001, the Miami Herald questioned the conviction in a series of investigative articles.  In 2003, a judge threw out Brown's confession and Brown was released on low bail.  It seems unlikely that he will be retried.

Brown's co-defendant, Keith King, also gave a confession after being coerced, threatened, and punched by detectives.  King served a reduced sentence on a plea bargain to manslaughter and was free at the time of Brown's release.  (Miami Herald) (AP News)  [9/05]

Jones, a black man, was convicted of the sniper killing of white police officer Thomas Szafranski, 28, and sentenced to death.  The main witness against Jones later recanted.  Two key officers in the case had left the Jacksonville Police Department under a cloud, and allegations that one of them beat Jones before he supposedly confessed had gained credence.

A retired police officer, Cleveland Smith, came forward and said Officer Lynwood Mundy had bragged that he beat Jones after his arrest. Smith, who described Mundy as an "enforcer," testified that he once watched Mundy get a confession from a suspect by squeezing the suspect's genitals in a vise grip. He said Mundy unabashedly described beating Jones.  Smith waited until his 1997 retirement to come forward because he wanted to secure his pension.

More than a dozen people had implicated another man as the killer, saying they either saw him carrying a rifle as he ran from the crime scene or heard him brag he had shot the officer.  Even Florida Supreme Court Justice Leander Shaw, who formerly headed a division of the state attorney's office, wrote that Jones' case had become "a horse of a different color."  Newly discovered evidence, Shaw wrote, "casts serious doubt on Jones' guilt."  Shaw and one other judge voted to grant Jones a new trial.  But a five-judge majority ruled against Jones.  Jones was executed one week later in the electric chair on March 24, 1998.  (DPI)  [11/05]

After Thomas Revels, an off-duty deputy sheriff, was murdered during a robbery of Luke’s Grocery store, Tallahassee police charged five black men from Quincy, Florida with the crime.  One of these men, David Keaton, was an 18-year-old star football player with plans to enter the ministry.  Although he had an alibi, Keaton was held in custody for more than a week.  During that time he maintained he had been threatened, lied to, and beaten until he confessed.  He believed that despite his confession, no jury would convict him when they heard his alibi.  He was wrong.  At trial his coerced confession was buttressed by the false testimony of five eyewitnesses.  Keaton was convicted and sentenced to death.  In his confession Keaton implicated Johnnie Frederick, who was “clean as a whistle,” in the belief that a judge and jury would see that his confession was false.  Frederick was convicted as well and sentenced to life in prison.

David Charles Smith and two other Quincy defendants still awaited trial.  In the meantime, a witness arose, Benjamin Franklin Pye, who knew the actual men who committed the crime.  The men were from Jacksonville, not Quincy, though Pye knew only their street names.  But he knew the motel where they had stayed, the dates, and the rental car they drove.  He was with them when they cased Luke's to rob it later.  Pye gave this information to his attorney, who in turn relayed it to Smith’s attorney, Will Varn.  Varn was a former U.S. attorney, and he was able to get funds from the judge to hire an investigator who came up with names to fit Pye’s story.  The names also fit the crime scene fingerprints that had not matched any of the Quincy Five.  The three Jacksonville men were tried and convicted.

Despite the new evidence, the state continued to insist the Quincy Five were guilty as well.  When Smith came to trial, five white eyewitnesses swore he was guilty.  But Varn had the conflicting fingerprints and convictions, Pye's testimony, and a good alibi for Smith.  An all-white jury acquitted him.  The Florida Supreme Court took note and ordered new trials for Keaton and Frederick.  The prosecution soon dropped charges against Keaton and Frederick, as well as against the remaining two Quincy defendants.  Keaton and Frederick were released in 1973.  (SP Times) (TWM) (FLCC)  [3/07]

Troy Anthony Davis, a black man, was sentenced to death for the shooting murder of Mark Allen MacPhail, a white police officer.  At the time MacPhail, 27, was working off-duty as a security guard for a Greyhound bus station.  A homeless man, Larry Young, was being harassed by an assailant for the can of beer that Young held in a paper sack.  A crowd of bystanders, some of whom spilled out a pool hall, followed the fight as it progressed up Oglethorpe Ave. toward the bus station.  The assailant then pulled a pistol out of his pants and used it beat Young on the head.  Fearing for his life Young yelled for someone to call the police, and Officer MacPhail responded.  He was shot twice and died.

At trial Young identified Davis as the man who both assaulted him and murdered MacPhail.  Young has since recanted.  "After I was assaulted that night … some police officers grabbed me and threw me down on the hood of the police car and handcuffed me.  They treated me like a criminal; like I was the one who killed the officer … They made it clear that we weren’t leaving until I told them what they wanted to hear.  They suggested answers and I would give them what they wanted.  They put typed papers in my face and told me to sign them.  I did sign them without reading them."

There was no physical evidence against Davis and the murder weapon has never been found.  The case against him depended entirely on the testimony of nine prosecution witnesses.  Since the trial seven of the nine witnesses, including Young, have recanted their testimony.  Many of the witnesses cited police pressure as the reason for their false trial testimony.

Davis said he was one of the bystanders who came out of the pool hall and watched the assailant torment Young.  He stated he left after the assailant threatened to shoot Young and he never looked back.  He also stated he did not have a gun and that the assailant was one of the remaining prosecution witnesses, Sylvester Coles.  Coles was known as a neighborhood bully.  Davis’ appeals lawyers could not locate the other remaining witness.  Georgia planned to execute Davis on July 17, 2007, but on July 16 he was granted a 90-day stay of execution.  Davis’ attorneys say they have affidavits from three new witnesses showing that Coles was the shooter.  (www.troyanthonydavis.org)  [7/07]

Joseph Majczek and Theodore Marcinkiewicz were convicted in 1933 of murdering Chicago police officer William D. Lundy.  The case came to the attention of a Chicago Times reporter in 1944 after Majczek's mother placed a classified ad offering a $5,000 reward for information on Lundy's killers.  The Times did a front-page human-interest story on how the mother scrubbed floors on her hands and knees six nights a week for over a decade to raise the money.

A Times researcher got a statement from Joseph Majczek, that said his trial judge met privately with him and promised him a new trial.  Normally the researcher would dismiss as preposterous a claim that a judge would host a private conversation with a convicted cop-killer, but the story reporter wondered aloud to him why Majczek was not sent to the electric chair, the usual sentence for a cop-killer.  Further research produced a compelling case for innocence.  The judge had not carried through on his promise because prosecutors had threatened him that granting new trials would end his career in politics.

The Times crusaded for Majczek's exoneration and he was pardoned in 1945.  Marcinkiewicz was seemingly forgotten, but in 1950, he was legally exonerated through a state habeas corpus proceeding.  The legislature later awarded $24,000 to Majczek and $35,000 to Marcinkiewicz.  The case was the subject of the movie Call Northside 777 (1948) starring Jimmy Stewart.  (NL)  [12/05]

Hankins was convicted in 1933 of participating in the murders of three people in the course of a bank robbery.  The robbery occurred at the Third Northwestern Bank in Minneapolis.  Two police officers, Ira L. Evans and Leo Gorski, were killed when they responded to the robbery.  A passerby was also killed.  Following the robbery, Hankins walked into a rooming house where one of the robbers had been seized.  Several witnesses said Hankins resembled the lookout man, although one witness denied Hankins was the lookout man.  Hankins claimed he was getting a haircut at the time of the robbery.  A barber corroborated that claim.

The FBI later captured one the bank robbers, Jess Doyle, who said Hankins had nothing to do with the robbery. Other members of the gang also said Hankins had nothing to do with the robbery.  In 1935, the FBI advised the Minneapolis police of Hankins' innocence, but the local authorities refused to release him because the FBI would not give them its file on Doyle.  Hankins spent another 15 years in prison before being pardoned in 1951.  In 1954, the state legislature awarded Hankins $300/month for life for his wrongful imprisonment.  [11/07]

Maye, a black man, was sentenced to death for the murder of a white police officer.  One night while the 21-year-old Maye was drifting off to sleep in front of a television, a violent pounding on his front door awakened him.  It sounded as though someone was trying to break it down.  He retrieved his handgun and went to the bedroom where his 14-month-old daughter was sleeping and got down on the floor next to the bed.  He hoped the noises would go away, but they shifted around to the back of the house, where after a loud crash, Maye’s rear door was violently flung open, nearly separating it from its hinges.  After someone kicked open the bedroom door, Maye fired three shots.  The next thing Maye heard is someone scream, “Police!  Police!  You just shot an officer!”  Maye then dropped his gun and surrendered.  The shot officer, Ron Jones, was wearing a bulletproof vest, but one of Maye’s bullets hit him just below the vest and proved fatal.  Jones was the son of the town’s police chief.

Maye was severely beaten after his arrest.  Police denied this charge, but a press photo shows him with a swollen black eye.  Maye’s family was prohibited from seeing him for more than a week -- long enough for his bruises to heal.  Police had raided Maye’s duplex because a reputed drug dealer – a person Maye had never met – lived in an adjoining half of the duplex.  A confidential informant said there were large stashes of marijuana in both halves of the duplex.  Only the remains of a smoked joint were found in Maye’s duplex.  Maye had no criminal record and police did not know his name prior to the drug raid.  Maye’s conviction has provoked outrage not only by liberals concerned about racially charged Southern Justice, but also by conservative supporters of the right to bear arms.  Maye’s death sentence was overturned in Sept. 2006.  (Reason)  [4/07]

Chambers was convicted of the murder of Sonny Liberty, a police officer.  Two Woodville police officers, James Forman and Aaron "Sonny" Liberty, tried to arrest a local youth named C. C. Jackson at Hayes’ Café, a bar and pool hall on First West St.  However, a crowd of 50 to 60 people gathered who frustrated their arrest attempt.  Forman radioed for backup and Liberty removed his riot gun, a 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun, from his patrol car.

After three deputy sheriffs arrived, the officers again attempted to make the arrest.  In the commotion, five or six pistol shots were fired.  Officer Liberty was shot four times in the back with .22 caliber bullets.  Before he died, he turned around and fired both barrels of his riot gun into an alley in the area from which the shots appeared to have come. The first shot was wild and high and scattered the crowd standing at the face of the alley. Liberty appeared, however, to take more deliberate aim before the second shot and hit a man in the back of the head and neck as he ran down the alley. That man was Leon Chambers.

One deputy would later testify that he saw Chambers shoot Liberty.  Another would testify that he could not see if Chambers had a gun, but saw him “break his arm down” shortly before the shots were fired.  However, officers at the scene made no effort to secure Chambers or search for the murder weapon.  The deputies said they thought Chambers was dead and attended to Liberty, who was taken to a hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.  Three of Chambers friends brought him to the same hospital to which Liberty was taken.  Chambers was later charged with murder.

At trial a defense witness testified that he was looking at Chambers when the shooting began and was sure that Chambers did not shoot Liberty.  There was also no proof that Chambers had ever owned a gun.

Besides this defense, Chambers’ attorneys tried to introduce evidence that another man, Gable McDonald, had shot Officer Liberty.  McDonald had left his wife and moved to Louisiana within days of the shooting.  When he returned to Woodville five months later, an acquaintance, known as Reverend Stokes, convinced him to give a sworn statement to Chambers’ attorneys that he had shot Officer Liberty.  Once McDonald’s confession was signed, he was turned over to police who put him in jail.  A month later, at a preliminary hearing, McDonald repudiated his confession.  The local justice of the peace accepted the repudiation and released him from custody.  The local authorities undertook no further investigation of his possible involvement.

McDonald had once owned a .22 caliber pistol, but claimed to have lost it many months before the shooting.  A lifelong friend of McDonald’s was willing to testify that he had seen McDonald shoot Liberty.  One of Liberty’s cousins was willing to testify that he had seen McDonald with a pistol in his hand immediately after the shooting.  Three other witnesses were willing to testify that McDonald had confessed to shooting Liberty prior to his confession to Chambers’ attorneys.  There was also another witness who disputed a recantation statement by McDonald that he was at a café several blocks away at the time of the shooting.

The trial judge largely thwarted attempts by Chambers’ attorneys to introduce evidence against McDonald.  The attorneys were able to call McDonald as a witness, but he stuck to his recantation.  They were not allowed to impeach his testimony by questioning him adversely.  The judge ruled that McDonald was not an adverse witness because he did not implicate Chambers in the murder.  The attorneys were also not allowed to call witnesses who heard McDonald confess to the murder, as their testimony was considered unreliable hearsay.  Chambers was convicted.

On appeal, the defense asserted that Chambers was denied due process because the trial judge barred much of the evidence that McDonald had shot Liberty rather than Chambers.  State courts denied Chambers’ appeal, but his appeal eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court.  In Feb. 1973 the Supreme Court ruled in Chambers’ favor.  It ruled that McDonald was an adverse witness because his exculpatory recantation was inculpatory of Chambers and that Chambers’ right to confront and cross-examine an adversary did not depend on which side, prosecution or defense, happened to first call him as a witness.

The Court also noted prohibitions against hearsay were premised on preventing the introduction of unreliable testimony.  However, the proposed testimony in Chambers’ case was heavily corroborated and did not consist of self-serving statements of McDonald, as they were against his self-interest.  The state had asserted that allowing exceptions to the hearsay rule would subvert justice even when given against self-interest.  It gave the following hypothetical:

"If the rule were changed, A could be charged with the crime; B could tell C and D that he committed the crime; B could go into hiding and at A's trial C and D would testify as to B's admission of guilt; A could be acquitted and B would return to stand trial; B could then provide several witnesses to testify as to his whereabouts at the time of the crime.  The testimony of those witnesses along with A's statement that he really committed the crime could result in B's acquittal.  A would be barred from further prosecution because of the protection against double jeopardy.  No one could be convicted of perjury as A did not testify at his first trial, B did not lie under oath, and C and D were truthful in their testimony."

The Court noted that B's absence at trial was critical to the success of the justice-subverting ploy.  In Chambers’ case McDonald was present to testify.  The Court allowed exceptions to the hearsay rule in Chambers’ case.  It is not known if any attempt was made to retry Chambers, but he was reportedly released in 1973.  (Chambers v. Mississippi)  [7/07]

Vincent James Landano was convicted of the murder of Police Officer John Snow.  On Aug. 13, 1976, two gunmen robbed the Hi-Way Check Cashing Service in Kearny.  One went inside, while the other waited in a getaway car.  As the robbery was in progress, John Snow, a Newark police officer, arrived in his patrol car with an attaché case containing $46,000 to be delivered to the business.  Before Snow could get out of his car, the outside gunman walked up to the patrol car and shot Snow at point-blank range.  The gunman then took the attaché case and got into his car, while the the other gunman left the check-cashing service with a cash drawer containing about $6,000.  This gunman put the drawer on the roof of the car and jumped into the back seat.  The car sped away leaving $6,000 fluttering in the air behind it.

A man arrested for the crime, Allen Rollo, admitted being the inside gunman, and identified Landano as his partner, the one who shot Snow.  Centurion Ministries discovered a hidden police report in which the only eyewitness to the murder identified another man as the shooter.  When the case was retried, the jury deliberated for less than an hour and acquitted Landano in 1989.  Jurors later celebrated with him at a victory party.  (NYT) (CM)  [4/08]

Late in the evening, Wilmington police officers Henry Adams and Emory McCreight were patrolling an alley skirting the post office on Main Street when they heard a racket at the back of the Murphy and Benham hardware store.  After approaching the area, the officers saw two shadowy figures against the building.  Unbeknownst to the officers, the two were cutting their way through the rear door of the hardware store.

Adams called out, "What are you doing here?"  "Looking for a dog," came the reply.  "You are liable to get in bad in here," answered Officer McCreight, as Adams flashed his light full in the face of the nearest figure.  Pistols then flashed as the two mystery men fired bullets into Adams and McCreight, before escaping in a waiting automobile.  McCreight was mortally wounded and died the following afternoon.

A witness named Smalley later came forward.  He said he had seen two Cincinnati men that he knew with a flat tire on the morning following the murder.  The men had several gallons of whiskey in their car, which was illegal under then existing Prohibition laws.  As the witness was leaving, one of the men said to him, “Smalley, don't you never say a word you saw us on this road this morning.”  Smalley identified the men as Clarence McKinney and Jim Bill Reno.  The two were arrested.

Officer Adams said that the shooter he saw had on a sheepskin coat and a toboggan cap.  These articles of clothing were put on McKinney.  The lights were then turned out and Adams flashed his light in the suspect's face, as he had done on the night of the shooting.  Adams identified McKinney as the shooter whose face he had seen.  Other witnesses provided testimony that McKinney and Reno were in town on the night of the murder.

Both McKinney and Reno were initially tried and convicted of illegally transporting liquor.  When tried for murder, McKinney provided alibi witnesses, but these witnesses were not especially effective, in part because McKinney’s alibi was falsified to avoid possible conviction on liquor charges.  McKinney was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.  Reno was not tried for murder, but held in jail while he served out a sentence for his liquor charge.

About a year after the shootings, two other men were implicated in the crime.  Both confessed not just to the murder of McCreight, but also to a number of other burglaries in Clinton and Greene counties.  The men led investigators to some of their stolen loot.  After these men pleaded guilty, McKinney’s conviction was vacated and he was released.  As a form of restitution, the fines in the liquor cases against both McKinney and Reno were suspended.  (CTI)  [11/07]

Thrower was convicted of the shotgun murder of Columbus Police Officer Joseph Edwards.  In 1978 the Internal Affairs Bureau of the Columbus Division of Police determined that Detective Tom Jones Sr. had acted egregiously during the investigation of Thrower. Thrower was released from prison in 1979.  [12/06]

Philadelphia patrolman James T. Morrow was murdered while tracking down a suspected robber who had been terrorizing the northeast section of the city.  Police, in efforts to solve the murder, arrested and extracted confessions from three different men over a several year period.  Two of the men were convicted and sentenced to life in prison before being exonerated.

During the first few months of the investigation, police arrested Joseph Broderick and quickly extracted a confession from him.  A few days later Broderick recanted.  When it became evident to officials that the confession was coerced, Broderick was released.

Approximately one year later police arrested another suspect, George Bilger, for Morrow’s murder.  Bilger then became the second man to confess to Morrow’s murder.  In his confession Bilger implicated a Philadelphia patrolman as an accomplice in the murder.  At his trial Bilger repeated his confession and the jury promptly found him guilty and recommended that he receive the death penalty.  However, the case against the patrolman Bilger had implicated quickly fell apart and that trial ended in an acquittal.  Bilger’s trial judge then became suspicious of the confession and ordered a new trial for Bilger.  At the second trial Bilger again pleaded guilty and the judge had no alternative but to sentence him; still unsure of the “confession”, the judge sentenced him to life in prison instead of giving him the death penalty.

Two years later the same type of robbery that had been attributed to Bilger began to reoccur in northeast Philadelphia.  Police received a tip that the robber was a known criminal named Jack Howard.  When police tracked Howard down, they mortally wounded him in a gunfight.  In Howard’s possession was the murder weapon that had been used to kill Officer Morrow.  Although police had no reason to believe that Howard had an accomplice, they staked out the hospital room of a friend of his, Elizabeth Morgan, to see if any of Howard’s acquaintances might visit her.  When Morgan’s brother, Rudolph Sheeler, came to visit his sister, he was immediately arrested and taken to police headquarters.  He was beaten for hours at a time over a two-week period.  He finally confessed to aiding Howard in the murder.  At trial Sheeler pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.  Bilger, who by this time had spent two years in prison, was pardoned and transferred to a mental hospital.

Twelve years passed until proof surfaced that Sheeler was at work hundreds of miles away at the time of Morrow’s murder.  A judge reviewed the case and found that key details of the case were contradicted by his confession, and that his confessions and court statements contradicted each other.  The judge concluded that Sheeler had been forced to confess because police were eager to free Bilger and therefore clear the reputation of the officer he had implicated – even though that officer had been acquitted.  The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, calling the case “a black and shameful page in the history of the Philadelphia police department,” overturned Sheeler’s conviction and ordered his immediate release.  Four detectives and two superior officers were suspended for their roles in Sheeler’s coerced confession.  (Ramsey Dissertation) (Time)  [10/07]

Workman robbed a Wendy’s restaurant with a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol.  On leaving, police officers gave chase and Workman tripped on a curb.  He yelled, “I give up!” and tried to pull his gun from his pants to give to officers.  As he tried to surrender his weapon, he was hit on the head with a flashlight.  At that moment his pistol went off, aimed straight up at the sky.  Suddenly he was surrounded by gunfire, and he tried to run again, but tripped and his gun went off, firing another shot into the air.  Workman escaped the immediate melee, but a civilian found him hiding under a truck.  He was covered with blood from his head wound, and had a shotgun wound to his buttocks.

At the scene of the shootout, a police officer, Lt. Ronald Oliver, lay dying from a bullet that passed completely through his body.  Oliver would soon be dead.  Workman was convicted of Oliver’s murder and sentenced to death.  In 1990, exculpatory ballistic evidence was discovered that showed that Oliver was not shot by a bullet from Workman’s gun.  Instead, Oliver must have been killed by “friendly fire.”  An eyewitness at trial, Harold Davis, recanted testimony that he had seen the shooting.  The police report on the crime scene never noted Davis’ presence and five other people near the scene do not remember seeing Davis.

A civilian eyewitness, Steve Craig, who never testified at trial, said he saw Officer Parker fire a shotgun at Workman.  Craig also stated that police told him, "There was no need to talk about this ... unless it was with someone from the department."  In the trial transcript, Officers Stoddard and Parker repeatedly testified that only two people fired guns, Workman and Oliver.  Ballistics and Craig’s statements imply Officers Stoddard and Parker committed perjury.  The new evidence caused Workman’s scheduled execution date to be postponed several times.  Workman was executed by lethal injection on May 9, 2007.  (JusticeDenied)  [1/07]

Herrera was sentenced to death for murdering two police officers, David Rucker and Enrique Carrisalez.  The murders occurred at separate locations along a highway between Brownsville and Los Fresnos.  Enrique Hernandez, Carrisalez’ patrol car partner, identified Herrera.  Hernandez also said Herrera was only person in the car that they stopped.  Carrisalez, who did not die until 9 days after he was shot, identified Herrera from a single photo.  A license plate check showed that the stopped car belonged to Herrera’s live in girlfriend.

In 1984, after Herrera’s brother Raul was murdered, Raul’s attorney came forward and signed an affidavit stating that Raul told him he had killed Rucker and Carrisalez.  A former cellmate of Raul also came forward and signed a similar affidavit.  Raul’s son, Raul Jr., who was nine at the time of the killings, signed a third affidavit.  It averred that he had witnessed the killings.  Jose Ybarra, Jr., a schoolmate of the Herrera brothers, signed a fourth affidavit.  Ybarra alleged that Raul Sr. told him in 1983 that he had shot the two police officers.  Herrera alleged that law enforcement officials were aware of Ybarra’s statement and had withheld it in violation of Brady v. Maryland.  Armed with these affidavits, Herrera petitioned for a new trial, but was denied relief in state courts.  One court did dismiss Herrera’s Brady claim due to lack of evidence.  Herrera’s appeal eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was argued in Oct. 1992.

In Jan. 1993, the Supreme Court ruled that Herrera's actual innocence was not a bar to his execution.  He had to show that there were procedural errors in his trial in order to gain relief.  Justice Rehnquist wrote that the "presumption of innocence disappears" once a defendant has been convicted in a fair trial.  Dissenting Justice Blackmun wrote:  "The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder."  Herrera was executed four months after the ruling on May 12, 1993.  (Herrera v. Collins)  [1/07]

Randall Dale Adams was sentenced to death for the murder of police officer Robert Wood.  Evidence in the case pointed to David Ray Harris.  However, Harris was for some reason an unsatisfactory suspect to police.  Police may not have wished to charge him because he was 16-years-old and under Texas law could not be sentenced to death.  At Adams' trial, Harris named Adams as the shooter, and Harris was soon back on the streets.  A prosecution psychologist, Dr. James Grigson, told Adam's jury that Adams would remain an ongoing menace if kept alive.  Grigson was known as Dr. Death, after having testified in more than 100 trials that resulted in death sentences.

In 1985, a young filmmaker, Errol Morris, came to Dallas to work on a documentary about Grigson.  When he met Adams, Morris thought he was an unlikely killer and decided to take a closer look.  Morris soon discovered that Harris had been compiling a criminal record of some magnitude.  Morris discovered other problems with several witnesses who testified at Adams' trial.  Because of such evidence, Adams was granted a hearing for a retrial.  At the hearing in 1989, David Harris admitted that he was the killer.  An appeals court overturned Adams' conviction, holding that prosecutor Douglas D. Mulder withheld a statement a witness gave to the police that cast doubt on her credibility and allowed her to give perjured testimony.  Further, the court found that after Adams' attorney discovered the statement late in Adams' trial, Mulder falsely told the court that he did not know the witness' whereabouts.  Adams' conviction was overturned and the prosecution dropped charges.  His case is profiled in the documentary "The Thin Blue Line."  (NL)  [1/06]

Guerra, a Mexican national, was sentenced to death for the murder of James D. Harris, a Houston police officer.  Harris was killed during a routine traffic stop.  The gun that killed Harris was found on Roberto Carrasco some hours later, after Carrasco was killed in a shootout with police.  Guerra, a 20-year-old acquaintance of Carrasco, was riding in the car with Carrasco when Harris was killed.  Police theorized that Guerra shot Harris and later traded guns with Carrasco.  Guerra’s fingerprints were not found on the gun, but five eyewitnesses identified him as the shooter.

Beginning in 1994, evidence emerged that police and prosecutors had systematically intimidated and manipulated the eyewitnesses into identifying Guerra as Harris’ killer.  During a federal appeal, these witnesses testified that they had perjured themselves because they feared police and prosecutors.  Guerra’s conviction was overturned in Nov. 1994.  The state delayed justice by appealing the ruling, but ultimately released Guerra in Apr. 1997, as they had no intimidated witnesses with which to retry him.  Upon release, Guerra returned to Mexico where he was the subject of a book, a feature film and at least one popular song and music video.  (NC Reporter)  [2/07]

Rogers was sentenced to death for the shooting murder of Robert B. Hatchell, a police officer.  Two police officers chased a stolen car through Petersburg, VA and forced it into a ditch.  The driver escaped on foot and was pursued by one officer, R. B. Hatchell.  The other officer stayed behind to guard the car’s two passengers.  The passengers were two AWOL soldiers.  A half-hour later, two shots rang out and Officer Hatchell was found dead.

Police then combed the area and picked up a black hitchhiker named Silas Rogers.  They got Rogers to confess that he had stolen the car in Raliegh, NC and had shot the cop.  A judge would not allow Rogers’ confession to be used at trial because there was clear evidence that it was obtained through third degree methods.  However, at trial the soldiers identified Hatchell as the man who picked them up in the stolen car.  Rogers was convicted.

The NAACP reviewed the case and thought the evidence was weak.  They found a witness who corroborated Rogers’ story that he arrived in Petersburg by train.  As a result Rogers’ death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.  Then a fellow convict told Rogers of Argosy magazine’s “Court of Last Resort,” an investigative agency that worked to free wrongfully convicted inmates.  Rogers wrote to Argosy and got them to work on his case.  Jack Kirkpatrick, an editorial writer for the Richmond News-Leader also began an investigation.  Working with Argosy, Kirkpatrick assembled a mass of evidence and affidavits to show the two soldiers had perjured themselves at Rogers’ trial.

The soldiers testified that they shared cigarettes with Rogers in the stolen car.  However, Kirkpatrick proved that Rogers never smoked.  He also proved that Rogers could not have driven the stolen car, as he had never learned to drive.  The only remaining piece of evidence against Rogers was testimony that his coat was found in the stolen car.  When an Argosy investigator found and questioned the witness who gave that testimony, the witness quickly changed his story and acknowledged that Rogers’ coat was brown while the coat found in the stolen car was blue.  Virginia Governor Battle pardoned Rogers on Dec. 23, 1952.  (Time)  [7/07]

In 1918, a black coal miner named Cleveland Boyd was convicted on vagrancy complaints.  He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $25.  The judge who convicted him, Squire H. E. Cook, and a deputy sheriff, A. M. Godfrey, then prepared to take him to the jail at Matoaka.  Boyd, however, pleaded to stop at his home about 100 yards away where he could exchange his new shoes for older, more comfortable ones.  On stopping at his home, Boyd retrieved a revolver and shot the judge twice, mortally wounding him.  The deputy sheriff fled for his life.  Boyd fled into the hills and escaped capture.

In 1924, a black man, using the name Payne Boyd, was arrested for a minor offense in Richmond, Virginia.  Because his description seemed to match that of Cleveland Boyd, Richmond police mailed his photograph to authorities in Mercer County.  The authorities then came and took the defendant to West Virginia, after identifying him as Cleveland Boyd.  At trial in Feb. 1925, the defendant was convicted of Cook’s murder, but the conviction was overturned, and the defendant was retried in April 1925.  Eight prosecution witnesses testified that the defendant was Cleveland Boyd.  Two of them testified that Cleveland had a scar over his left eye.  The defendant had a remnant of a scar over his left eye.  Three of the witnesses testified that Cleveland had a scar under his left jaw, as did the defendant.  Sixteen other prosecution witnesses, who had known Cleveland, testified that the defendant resembled Cleveland, but they were not certain enough of their identification to swear to it.  Four of these witnesses entertained doubt.

Thirty-one defense witnesses testified that the defendant was not Cleveland.  Many of these were blacks who had known Cleveland intimately.  Some testified to points of dissimilarity between the two as to height, weight, complexion, hair, lips, and feet.  Six additional witnesses from North Carolina also testified that the defendant was Payne Boyd and stated he had only lived in Winston-Salem and Roanoke, North Carolina.  The defendant also testified, denying that he had ever been in Mercer County before, or had ever been in a coal mine, or had ever met anyone who knew Cleveland Boyd.  Documents were also produced showing that a Payne Boyd of North Carolina had filled out a draft registration card before the date of the murder and had enlisted in the Army a month and a half after the date of the murder.  Despite this strong defense, the retrial jury convicted the defendant.

The defendant’s second conviction was overturned and his third trial was moved to Cabell County.  A fingerprint expert at the Huntingdon Police Department became interested in the case.  He took the defendant’s fingerprints and compared them to those of the Payne Boyd on record in the War Department.  He found an exact match.  Other information was also received that corroborated the defendant’s story.  At the third trial in Oct. 1925, the defendant, Payne Boyd, was acquitted and released after spending a year and a half in custody.  (CTI)  [11/07]

Lawrencia Bembenek, also known as Bambi, was convicted of murdering Christine Schultz, her husband's ex-wife.  Bambi's husband Fred Schultz was a police officer as was his ex-wife.  Bambi had become a police officer and was stunned by the amount of graft going on in the department: officers selling pornography from their cars, accepting oral sex from hookers, frequenting drug hangouts, and harassing minorities.

When Bambi was fired for supposedly knowing that another officer had marijuana at a rock concert, she filed a lawsuit, charging discrimination.  In Oct. 1980, she came into possession of photos of male police officers dancing nude in a public park.  She gave them to Internal Affairs.  She was also at the heart of a federal investigation into the misuse of department funds.

Bambi, then 21, had once posed in a slinky dress for a beer calendar and had worked for a few weeks as a waitress at a Playboy Club.  Because of this, the crime became a media sensation.  Fred owned an off-duty gun that was stored in his and Bambi's apartment.  Shortly after the murder, Fred had his partner check it out.  The partner determined that the gun had not been fired, but he did not record the serial number.  Two weeks later, it was determined that the murder was performed with Fred's gun.  Fred had an alibi for the time of the murder.  Although three other people had access to the apartment, Bambi was charged with the murder because she claimed she was at home sleeping that night.  Bambi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.  Years later, it was discovered from autopsy photos that the murder weapon could not have been Fred’s gun.  The barrel of the murder weapon left a burn mark when it was fired at point-blank range into the victim.  This burn mark could not have been produced by Fred’s gun.

After Fred divorced her, Bambi became engaged to the brother of a fellow inmate.  With his help, she escaped prison in 1990, and the two ran north to Thunder Bay, Ontario.  Many people in Milwaukee sided with her and supported her escape.  Most said that, should they see her, they would not turn her in.  People protested openly on her behalf and even came up with a song, “Run, Bambi, Run.”

Three months later, a tourist who had seen a story about Bambi on "America's Most Wanted" recognized her fiancé and turned the couple in.  The Canadian police arrested the couple just minutes before they were set to flee again.  On Bambi’s return to Wisconsin, a judicial inquiry was convened that excluded the district attorney.  The inquiry detailed seven major police blunders during the investigation.  Bambi cut a deal in 1992 that let her off with time served in exchange for a no contest plea.  (CrimeLibrary)

In Feb. 1973, 200 American Indian Movement (AIM) activists launched a 72-day occupation of Wounded Knee, SD (Site of an 1890 American Indian massacre) to protest living conditions at the Pine Ridge reservation.  During the next three years, the FBI carried out intensive local surveillance, as well as the repeated arrests, harassment, and bad-faith legal proceedings against AIM leaders and supporters.  In 1975, two FBI agents entered the reservation and with tensions being high managed to provoke a firefight between themselves and local Indians.  Both FBI agents as well as Indians were killed.  To avenge the death of the two agents, the government issued arrest warrants against four men, including Leonard Peltier.  It dropped charges against one and tried two, but during the trial a key prosecution witness admitted that he had been threatened by the FBI and as a result had changed his testimony upon the agents' instructions, so as to support the government's position.  The two defendants were acquitted.

Peltier was in Canada and to get him extradited the government submitted an affidavit from a mentally unstable woman who claimed to have been Peltier's girlfriend, and to have been present during the shootout, and to have witnessed the murders.  In fact, she did not know Peltier, nor was she present at the time of the shooting.  She later confessed she had given the false statement after being pressured and terrorized by FBI agents.  At Peltier's trial, the government withheld thousands of documents.  It presented coerced witnesses; though none placed Peltier at the murder scene before the murders occurred or claimed Peltier shot the two agents.  Peltier was convicted and sentenced to two life sentences.

Peltier's case is detailed in In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, a 1983 bestseller, and in Incident at Oglala, a documentary produced by Robert Redford.  (www.freepeltier.org) (AJ)  [6/05]

William Habron was convicted of the murder of Constable Cock, a local lawman.  Habron was a patron of the Royal Oak, a pub near Manchester that was on the constable's beat.  Habron was frequently getting into fights with other patrons, which Cock had to break up.  After one fight Cock threatened to arrest Habron the next time he got into a fight.  Habron replied, "It'll be a sorry day for you, the day you arrest me."  The next time Cock passed the pub and heard sounds of a fight, he entered without waiting to be called and saw Habron and another patron in the midst of a fight.  Cock arrested Habron.  However, Habron had actually been on his best behavior.  The other patron had interpreted Habron's behavior as a sign of weakness and, inspired by liquor, decided that it was a good time to pick a fight.

The next day a magistrate dismissed the case against Habron as it was well substantiated that Habron was blameless in the fight.  In the courtroom following the dismissal, Habron reportedly walked up to Cock and told him, "I promised you a sorry day if you ever ran foul of me. I'll do you in for this." Near midnight the same day Cock was shot to death.

Habron was arrested for the murder.  At trial, the circumstantial evidence against Habron was supplemented by testimony about the perpetrator's boot prints.  A police officer testified that boot prints left by the murderer matched Habron's boots.  The soles of Habron's boots had a row of nails on each side as well as two rows of nails down the center.  The officer testified that the number and the position of nail marks in the boot prints matched Habron's boots.  However, no photographs or casts were made of the prints, so the judge and jury had to rely solely on the officer's testimony.  The defense argued that Habron's style of boots and nails was common.  Habron was sentenced to death by hanging. However, the crown accepted the jury's recommendation of life imprisonment and commuted Habron's sentence.

Two years later, in Oct 1978, another constable was shot while interrupting a burglary in the London suburb of Blackheath.  While this constable was not killed, the suspect was caught.  He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the attempted murder of the constable.  Following conviction, the suspect was identified as Charles Peace, wanted for the murder of Albert Dyson.  Peace was then convicted of this murder and sentenced to death.  Following his sentencing, Peace confessed to the murder of Constable Cock.  He said that Cock had interrupted him during a burglary.  Peace gave sufficient details of the crime that authorities were fully convinced of his confession.  Habron was pardoned and Parliament awarded him £500.  (CTI)  [6/08]