*** West Memphis 3 News Updated: 8.18.11 ***
Kat
Posts: 4,871
Update 11.4.10 CNN article about the new hearing.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/04/ark ... his.three/
original post below
Dear Friends,
If you feel overwhelmed by the volume of newsletters we've sent, dear supporters, keep in mind that we try to disseminate a varied sampling of coverage when events happen affecting the case. Between these events, we promise to limit our dispatches to a bare minimum.
Memphis newspaper and TV stations have taken the lead among high-circulation outlets in the area by providing in-depth coverage of the WM3 case. Post-hearing coverage from FOX-13 and The Commercial Appeal, which ran this front-page lead story with a large color photo, follow:
http://wm3org.typepad.com/blog/2010/10/ ... m3.html#tp
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... artner=RSS
We can offer no explanation to our worldwide supporters as to why the state's largest newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, commonly provides flaccid and perfunctory coverage of anything WM3-related.
We are delighted to share another significant article by Gerard Matthews of the Arkansas Times. It contains commentary from the former legislator who wrote the DNA statute--the most debated subject in Damien's oral arguments before the Arkansas Supreme Court--and includes space to post your opinion. And another article follows from Matthews and Mara Leveritt.
http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/origin ... id=1325144
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/ar ... g-underway
You will want to read the post-hearing coverage from the AP's Jill Zemen Bleed that went viral globally, including to this South Carolina newspaper:
http://www.thestate.com/2010/09/29/1488 ... al-in.html
The following from the ABC national news site--more by Zemen Bleed and the AP's Adrian Sainz--includes prominent quotes from Mark Byers, Pam Hobbs and Damien: "In hindsight, it just seems kind of ridiculous, I guess--when you're saying that basically you've got this redneck trailer park devil cult going around, killing children for no apparent reason?" ... "It was one of those things where ... I couldn't believe it was happening." --Damien Echols
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wirestory?id=11782521&page=3
Mara Leveritt strikes again with more powerful case coverage on TruTV:
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/noto ... ncies.html
NBC in Little Rock aired these post-hearing news videos:
http://arkansasmatters.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=356035
http://arkansasmatters.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=356385
Suzi Parker again delves inexorably into the case and explores Lorri Davis and Capi Peck's impact as ATA co-founders:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/30 ... free-them/
CNN's Anderson Cooper's AC360 coverage was bumped from the 9:00 PM CDT slot on the night of the arguments. We set DVRs to record the next few nightly airings only to learn it showed at 4:30 PM the next day. From the CNN website here is an article by the reporter interviewing Damien:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/29/r ... interview/
Lastly, you won't want to miss this solid video coverage of the vigil and pre-hearing commentary from LR's Fox News:
http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/V ... px?rss=315
Thanks for your interest and support!
Sincerely,
Arkansas Take Action
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/04/ark ... his.three/
original post below
Dear Friends,
If you feel overwhelmed by the volume of newsletters we've sent, dear supporters, keep in mind that we try to disseminate a varied sampling of coverage when events happen affecting the case. Between these events, we promise to limit our dispatches to a bare minimum.
Memphis newspaper and TV stations have taken the lead among high-circulation outlets in the area by providing in-depth coverage of the WM3 case. Post-hearing coverage from FOX-13 and The Commercial Appeal, which ran this front-page lead story with a large color photo, follow:
http://wm3org.typepad.com/blog/2010/10/ ... m3.html#tp
http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... artner=RSS
We can offer no explanation to our worldwide supporters as to why the state's largest newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, commonly provides flaccid and perfunctory coverage of anything WM3-related.
We are delighted to share another significant article by Gerard Matthews of the Arkansas Times. It contains commentary from the former legislator who wrote the DNA statute--the most debated subject in Damien's oral arguments before the Arkansas Supreme Court--and includes space to post your opinion. And another article follows from Matthews and Mara Leveritt.
http://www.arktimes.com/arkansas/origin ... id=1325144
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/ar ... g-underway
You will want to read the post-hearing coverage from the AP's Jill Zemen Bleed that went viral globally, including to this South Carolina newspaper:
http://www.thestate.com/2010/09/29/1488 ... al-in.html
The following from the ABC national news site--more by Zemen Bleed and the AP's Adrian Sainz--includes prominent quotes from Mark Byers, Pam Hobbs and Damien: "In hindsight, it just seems kind of ridiculous, I guess--when you're saying that basically you've got this redneck trailer park devil cult going around, killing children for no apparent reason?" ... "It was one of those things where ... I couldn't believe it was happening." --Damien Echols
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wirestory?id=11782521&page=3
Mara Leveritt strikes again with more powerful case coverage on TruTV:
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/noto ... ncies.html
NBC in Little Rock aired these post-hearing news videos:
http://arkansasmatters.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=356035
http://arkansasmatters.com/fulltext/?nxd_id=356385
Suzi Parker again delves inexorably into the case and explores Lorri Davis and Capi Peck's impact as ATA co-founders:
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/30 ... free-them/
CNN's Anderson Cooper's AC360 coverage was bumped from the 9:00 PM CDT slot on the night of the arguments. We set DVRs to record the next few nightly airings only to learn it showed at 4:30 PM the next day. From the CNN website here is an article by the reporter interviewing Damien:
http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/29/r ... interview/
Lastly, you won't want to miss this solid video coverage of the vigil and pre-hearing commentary from LR's Fox News:
http://www.fox16.com/news/local/story/V ... px?rss=315
Thanks for your interest and support!
Sincerely,
Arkansas Take Action
Falling down,...not staying down
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
'Raupp argued that since the testing did not conclusively prove the three convicted men innocent, they should not be granted a new trial.'
The testing also didn't conclusively prove that that the three men were guilty either, as none of the forensic evidence links them to the scene of the crime.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/09/30 ... free-them/
'If the Supreme Court refuses to grant a new trial, lawyers plan to fight the case in federal court. The Supreme Court will likely rule on the case in the next two to six weeks.'
Jury foreman in West Memphis Three trial of Damien Echols accused of misconduct
Former lawyer says Kent Arnold steered a guilty verdict in the murder case
* By Beth Warren
* Memphis Commercial Appeal
* Posted October 13, 2010
Arkansas real estate developer Kent Arnold seemed determined to send Damien Echols, 18, to death row despite an unsettling lack of evidence in the case against him, according to Arnold's former attorney.
Arnold manipulated his way onto the jury, improperly discussed the case with jurors and others before deliberations, and made up his mind to "get his guy" with a conviction before defense attorneys had a chance to present Echols' case, according to an affidavit by Little Rock attorney Lloyd Warford, who was an Arnold family attorney.
As jury foreman, Arnold convinced others to convict based on inadmissible evidence and his belief that if you looked into Echols' eyes, then "you knew he was evil," Warford alleged.
Echols was one of the defendants known as the West Memphis Three, convicted in the 1993 murders of three 8-year-old West Memphis, Ark., boys.
Echols' attorneys are now lobbying for a new trial, in part based on actions they say amount to jury bias and misconduct.
Arnold did not return calls seeking comment left last week and this week at his Jonesboro office.
Warford declined comment about his affidavit.
Arnold didn't want the details of the dozen or so conversations he had with Warford about his jury service to be disclosed and assumed they were confidential, according to the affidavit.
However, Arnold publicly talked about his jury service in the trial of Echols and co-defendant Jason Baldwin, 17, prompting Warford -- a defense attorney and former prosecutor -- to attempt to set the record straight for Echols' defense team.
Warford said because he was hired by Arnold for an unrelated criminal case and business dealings, he doesn't think Arnold's comments about his jury service are protected under attorney-client privilege.
Still, Warford asked a judge to seal his affidavit, originally filed in December with the trial court.
Since an appeal of Echols' conviction is now being considered by the Arkansas Supreme Court, the justices have a record of Warford's affidavit and a pending motion filed by Warford asking for a ruling on the privilege issue.
Months ago, a court clerk showed the sealed documents to Arkansas author Mara Leveritt, who took photographs, said Stephanie Harris, a spokeswoman for the high court.
Harris declined a request last week to release the document. She said: "I think that there was some confusion initially about what was sealed in this case and I believe that the affidavit was provided inadvertently."
The affidavit began circulating to those who are fighting for Echols' release. An Echols supporter forwarded the photographed documents to The Commercial Appeal. The newspaper verified their authenticity through official sources.
The 10-page statement describes a foreman on a mission to send two defendants to prison regardless of the evidence at trial. Echols, who remains on death row, and Baldwin, who is serving a life sentence, maintain their innocence in the murders of the three boys.
Co-defendant, Jessie Misskelley Jr., 16, was convicted at a separate trial after he confessed to helping his friends, Echols and Baldwin, kill the boys during a satanic ritual. Misskelley, who had tested low enough on an IQ test to be considered borderline retarded, later recanted and refused to testify in exchange for a reduced sentence.
His confession, which was inconsistent with some of the evidence, was not allowed at the subsequent trial of Baldwin and Echols.
But Arnold had read news reports detailing the confession and made it a focus of deliberations, according to Warford's affidavit.
In Warford's sworn statement, he claims this is what happened:
Arnold hired Warford in early 1994 to defend his brother, Gerald, who was accused of sexually abusing a girl.
Soon, Arnold told Warford about his jury summons in the Echols case. Warford assured him that prosecutors would cut him after he told them of his brother's pending case.
Warford said: "I tried to explain that the defense would not want him, either, because he knew way too much about the case.
"... I also thought Kent would be struck because he seemed to have made up his mind the defendants were guilty and he had a disdain for our justice system and the due process rights of defendants, which he could hardly contain."
Arnold was upset that he might not end up on the jury.
"He thought that it was crazy that informed people like him who read the paper every day should be excluded from jury duty in favor of 'stupid people who couldn't or didn't read,' " Warford said.
Warford, a former prosecutor, was in disbelief at learning that Arnold was chosen for the jury.
Warford said: "He laughed when I was surprised and made a joke about the stupid lawyers and judges not asking specific questions."
Arnold claimed he avoided answering questions that could get him kicked off the jury.
As the testimony got under way, Arnold grew frustrated at the slow pace of the trial.
Warford wrote: "At one point, I remember him saying something to the effect that at least nine of us are ready to vote right now and asked, why don't the prosecutors just play the confession and get this over with."
As prosecutors continued with their case, jurors realized they didn't have fingerprints, hairs, blood, semen or saliva linking the defendants to the crime.
Warford said: "Eventually, Kent said this prosecutor has not done his job and that if the prosecution didn't come up with something powerful the next day, there was probably going to be an acquittal."
Arnold vowed: "If anyone is going to convince this jury to convict, it is going to have to be me."
Arnold asked Warford for tips on swaying a jury. When Warford told Arnold he couldn't discuss that, Arnold quipped: "What if I pay you to tell what I need to say to get this guy?"
Warford wrote: "Kent's attitude late in the trial could best be described as almost angry with the prosecutor and the lack of proof."
The confession was not allowed at trial, but a West Memphis police detective improperly made a reference to something Misskelley said, prompting defense attorneys to request a mistrial. The trial judge ruled that the trial must continue, but he instructed jurors to disregard any mention of a confession -- which angered Arnold.
Warford said: "Kent would go on and on about how in business he always wants as much information before he makes a decision and he was offended that judges could keep jurors from getting all the information."
That didn't stop Arnold from considering the confession, key to a conviction.
"Kent told me if the confession had not been mentioned in court, then he might not have been able to convince the swing jurors to convict."
Warford said he told Arnold that, in rare cases, police obtain false confessions from innocent people. A year before Echols' trial, Warford had defended a man who falsely confessed to a murder. His client was exonerated after the true killers eventually confessed and were linked to the crime through DNA evidence.
Arnold said to Warford: "Your client must have been retarded." Warford responded that his client was "borderline intellectual functioning as is often the case with people police get to give false confessions."
Arnold was unmoved.
Warford wrote: "Kent clearly did not believe there was any such thing as a false confession. As far as he was concerned, the confession settled it."
Ruling due on DNA
The Arkansas Supreme Court is expected to decide within a few weeks whether to grant a new trial to Damien Echols based on new DNA evidence cited by defense lawyers and concerns about the jury deliberations in the case, among other issues.
Concerns raised in an affidavit about the way the jury reached its decision to send Echols, then 18, to Arkansas' death row may not result in a new trial, legal experts say.
Veteran Arkansas death penalty defense attorney William O. "Bill" James said state officials will be reluctant to grant a new trial.
"This is a huge case," he said. "A lot of people just want it to go away."
Howard Brill, a professor of legal ethics at the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville, said it's debatable whether conversations between jury foreman Kent Arnold and attorney Lloyd Warford were confidential because of attorney-client privilege, but even if those discussions can be cited, the court may avoid ruling on the issue.
"What happens inside the jury room is highly confidential and it would undermine jurors, in general, if they had to rehash what they talked about," Brill said.
Your worth has always been there...don't argue with those who see it.just accept you are valuable.
Your worth has always been there...don't argue with those who see it.just accept you are valuable.
http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2010 ... /?breaking
Your worth has always been there...don't argue with those who see it.just accept you are valuable.
The court said Circuit Judge David Burnett had erred in dismissing their requests to consider DNA evidence and other exculpatory evidence without a hearing. The ruling is a key interpretation of the state's relatively new DNA statute and a broad one. The court said the circuit judge must consider not only the DNA evidence the defendants want to submit, but any other exculpatory evidence, including evidence not presented in the original trials.
The court said Burnett had too narrowly interpreted the law passed since Echols' conviction that allows use of DNA evidence to establish ground for reversal of convictions. DNA testing found no trace of Echols' or two co-defendants' DNA in evidence submitted in the case. Some DNA of others was found, however. This isn't absolute proof of innocence, but that isn't the standard intended by the law, the Supreme Court ruled.
In a footnote, the Supreme Court also opened the door for Echols to raise his argument about juror misconduct in his case. A juror has told a lawyer that he told other jurors about a co-defendant's supposed confession that was inadmissible in Echols' trial. The order means the defendants will be able to raise, in conjunction with the absence of DNA, all exculpatory evidence that jurors should have been able to hear in their convictions in the 1993 slaying of three West Memphis children. Baldwin also was granted his request for further scientific testing of hair samples.
Here's the Echols opinion. Here's the Misskelley ruling. Here's the Baldwin ruling. The court was unanimous, with Justices Ronald Sheffield and Robert Brown and Chief Justice Jim Hannah writing the Echols, Misskelley and Baldwin opinions, respectively.
The further good news for all defendants is that Burnett, consistenty pro-prosecution in the case, will no longer be judge. He's been elected to the state Senate. He is no longer able to adjudicate the case, the Supreme Court said, and directed the senior judge of the circuit to reassign the case according to the district's assignment plan. Judge Ralph Wilson's office said he'd be reviewing the order and the schedule of 11 judges in the circuit before making a decision.
Your worth has always been there...don't argue with those who see it.just accept you are valuable.
Good news. Some progress at last then.
London, Copenhagen 07
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Truth of the matter is that I've always found it odd that Echols, basically, gets all the attention in this. (Yeah... I know he's the only one on death row). But the way I look at it, Jason Baldwin got totally fucked.
Now I'm not saying that Echols did it but I can see why they targeted him. (The dude admitted that he liked drinking the blood of his partner after sex. WTF! Talked numerous times about killing people and even admitted to it at the softball field) But Baldwin was convicted, basically, because he liked to wear Metallica shirts!
I'd say it was more about Jason Baldwin being best friends with Echols, and the person he was "inseparable" from at the time, than it had to do with Metallica shirts or music. I think the Metallica thing came more into play later after the movie was released, due to the music used in the Doc.
The real fear in West Memphis was over Satanic rituals. The reason Echols was first questioned was because of his past experiences with a social worker who was obsessed with the cult, and Echols fed into it like the asshole kid he was. "Yeh, I drink blood from my girlfriend", "yeh, I killed those boys" (according to some little girl at the baseball game who lated retracted her statement I believe), it was all teenage angst and mockery. (the books he was reading at the time (and yes possibly the music) helped add fuel to that flame)
I think the reason the attention is mostly on him, because if he is proven innocent, all three will be proved innocent, and there are only so much resources to go around for their defense.
On CNN Friday at 11:00pm ET and replayed Sunday at 8:00pm.
I'm not really sure, but I thought the appeals were based in some part on the idea that his lawyer sucked.
Beautiful.
http://www.wm3blackboard.com/forum/inde ... 5#msg64785
If you think they are innocent, please list the reasons why. hopefully its not something from the mockumentary's Paradise lost...
I would say it's very hard to brutally murder three young boys and not leave a shred of DNA. Not anywhere in the area.
and it bothers me too that the new hearings are set for December. WTF?
I think they had more on OJ Simpson. Look where that ended up. They have less on these Boy/Men Now.
DNA testing underway
DNA testing is currently underway on behalf of the defense for Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley. The three men were convicted as teenagers of the triple homicides of three 8-year-old boys in West Memphis, Arkansas.
In December, Judge David Laser is scheduled to preside over an evidentiary hearing for the three men. Damien Echols was sentenced to death row in 1994 and has sought an appeal based in part by DNA test results showing evidence at the discovery site does not match the three men.
Lonnie Soury, spokesperson for Damien, Jason, and Jessie, confirmed that within the past month Judge Laser approved the defense's requests for DNA testing. Soury stated that the defense is currently in the process of testing evidence. The defense is performing testing on the knots of the ligatures that were used to bind the three victims. The defense will also examine auburn hairs found at the crime scene that were originally untested due to the fact they would be destroyed in the process. A number of other items will be tested for DNA evidence as well.
The Echols' defense team is requesting donations to assist in the cost of paying for the new DNA testing. Lorri Davis wrote on the WM3's site, "Help us make this happen! We can finally see the light of day, but we need that final push. The good news is that this is no longer an endless need, we can reach our goal, but we need your help. Anything you can donate will help."