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A security guard at the Sears store in Lincoln Park stopped a woman leaving the store on April 15, 2002 with $1,300 in unpaid merchandise.  In an attempt to get away, the woman severely bit the guard.  After being arrested, the woman was taken to a police station where she told police her address, her phone number, that she was 15-years-old, and that her name was Dominique Brim.  She was allowed to leave without being booked.

Two weeks later, 15-year-old Dominique Brim was charged with retail fraud and felony assault.  She claimed she had not been at the store on April 15 and that she had not been arrested.  In court, several Sears employees, including the security guard, identified her as the person who was apprehended and who bit the guard.  The judge did not believe Brim’s mistaken identity defense and convicted her on both counts.

However, Brim’s vehement claim that she was the wrong person did impress Sears officials enough to review their store videotape of the April 15 incident.  They discovered that Brim was not the person who was involved in the incident.  After the prosecutor and Brim’s lawyer were contacted, the judge vacated her conviction before she was sentenced.  The woman on the tape was later identified as Chalaunda Latham.  She was not 15-years-old, she was 25.  Latham was able to pass herself off as Brim because she was a friend of Brim’s sister.  Prosecutors decided not to charge Latham because the Sears employees had already given sworn testimony that Brim was responsible for the theft and security guard assault.  (JD29 p4)  [3/07]

Cuyahoga County, OH

Anthony Michael Green

May 29, 1988

Green was convicted of raping a terminally ill nurse who was receiving treatments for liver cancer.  The crime occurred at the Cleveland Clinic Center Hotel.  The perpetrator had told the victim his name was Tony.  Green had worked at the hotel for a short time, but was fired in March 1988 for getting into a fight with another employee.  Green's clinic ID badge was among a group of badges shown the victim.  The victim identified him at trial.  The trial also featured faulty and falsified forensics.  DNA tests exonerated Green in 2001.

Following Green's release, the Plain Dealer newspaper wrote an article series about Green's ordeal.  The real perpetrator, Rodney Rhines, who had become a Christian and was living at the City Mission, happened to read the series.  He had not known that anyone had been convicted for his crime.  After reading the series, Rhines, feeling remorse, confessed to mission personnel that he had done the crime and wanted to turn himself in.  The Rev. Brent Reynolds told him, "You won't be coming back out once you walk into that police station."  "Yes, I know," said Rhines.  Rhines had once worked for the Cleveland Clinic in the hotel kitchen.  Even though the victim identified Green, Green does not resemble Rhines.  Rhines' skin and eyes are darker and his face wider.  Green was awarded $2.6 million in 2004 for 13 years of wrongful imprisonment.  (Plain Dealer) (IP089)  [5/08]

Brown was sentenced to life in prison for the robbery and murder of Rubin Danziger, a Dallas fur-store owner.  The crime occurred in Danziger's store, Fine Furs By Rubin, in Preston Center on Northwest Highway.  After the getaway car used by the two female robbers was discovered, police found a car rental agreement in it signed by a Joyce Ann Brown.  However, the car had been rented to a different Joyce Ann Brown.  Police and prosecutors discovered the error before trial, but proceeded with the prosecution anyway.  The victim's wife, Ala, had identified Rene Michelle Taylor, as the robber who shot her husband, and Brown as her accomplice.  Taylor later revealed that another woman, Lorraine Germany, was her accomplice.  Germany reportedly has a startling resemblance to Brown.  Investigation also showed that a jailhouse witness, Martha Jean Bruce, had lied to convict Brown.  Brown was featured on "60 Minutes" and was freed in Nov. 1989.  (CM) (NL) (Google)  [5/08]

Giles was convicted of participating in a gang rape with two other men.  Police knew before Giles’ trial that the real perpetrator was a teenager with an almost identical name, James Earl Giles.  He lived across the street from the rape victim.  Police withheld two sworn statements identifying him.  James Earl Giles died of cancer in 2000.  James Curtis Giles was released in 1993 and is on parole until 2013.  He must register as a sex offender.  In early 2007, prosecutors are joining with defense attorneys to get the wrong James Giles cleared.  (Dallas Morning News)  [3/07]

Gilbert Amezquita was convicted of aggravated assault after Kathy Bingham was severely beaten at the Houston plumbing company where he worked and which her family owned.  Shortly after coming out of a 10-day coma, the still-hospitalized Bingham whispered to police that it was “Gilbert” who had assaulted her.  Amezquita was a U.S. Army reservist with no prior criminal record.  His appellate attorney, Roland Moore, found that prosecutors had failed to consider that a second Gilbert - Alonzo Gilbert Guerrero - also worked at the plumbing company.  Moore discovered that Bingham and Guerrero had argued a few days before the attack and that Guerrero had Bingham's cell phone after the beating.  Guerrero, who is now serving a seven-year prison sentence for burglary, did not have a good explanation for how he came to possess Bingham's phone.

In 2007, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended a pardon based on innocence for Amezquita.  News of the Board's action did not please Bingham, who maintains that Amezquita attacked her. Governor Perry has granted pardons in all 13 previous recommendations by the Board.  (Houston Chronicle)  [6/07]

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]