Freed Texas convict seeks compensation

[seamusTX]

Background: Texas has a remarkable law that gives up to $80,000 a year to a defendant who is wrongfully imprisoned and then found to be innocent.

A Mr. Anthony Graves was convicted in 1994 of capital murder and sentenced to death for killing family members. He spent 18 years in prison. A federal appeals court reversed his conviction on the basis of prosecutorial misconduct and false testimony. As is usual, the federal court sent the case back to the state, and the state dropped all charges.

The state is refusing to compensate Mr. Graves because he was not "found innocent."

He is suing the state to move things along.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 50620.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.austinchronicle.com/blogs/ne ... innocence/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/201 ... nightmare/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim

[WildBill]

I haven't been able to find the law that allows this compensation. I don't see how a court or DA can issue a document that declares Mr. Graves "innocent". A jury could find him "not guilty" if they tried him again, but without a new trial that won't happen. It seems like a Catch-22.

[seamusTX]

Yes, there is no such thing under common law as proving innocence. The best one can do is have an iron-clad alibi such as being on the International Space Station when the crime occurred.

There was a case in Galveston County where a man was accused of a crime that occurred when he was on a drilling rig in the Gulf. Of course all passage to and from these things is logged. He still spent time in jail before charges were dropped.

I don't know which section of law contains the compensation for wrongful imprisonment. I can't find it, and I have another pressing engagement.

- Jim

[jmra]

If I remember correctly, the law was passed due to a number of people being vindicated through DNA testing. The DNA results proved that they were not guilty of the crime for which they had been incarcerated.
This case appears to not qualify because the person inquestion has not been found to be not guilty.

[seamusTX]

It is Civil Practices and Remedies Section 103, known as the Timothy Cole law. Mr. Cole was wrongly convicted of rape and died in prison.

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/D ... CP.103.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- Jim

[WildBill]

It is Civil Practices and Remedies Section 103, known as the Timothy Cole law. Mr. Cole was wrongly convicted of rape and died in prison.
- Jim

In the Cole case, the real rapist was convicted and the judge stated that Mr. Cole was not guilty and ordered his record expunged.

[seamusTX]

Which did Mr. Cole a lot of good.

If I can treat this issue delicately enough, DNA does not prove a person innocent. It simply removes one avenue of evidence.

There have been cases where DNA evidence could not be found against a defendant, but the prosecutor tried to make the case that the defendant may have used a condom or otherwise managed not to leave DNA evidence.

- Jim

[jmra]

Which did Mr. Cole a lot of good.

If I can treat this issue delicately enough, DNA does not prove a person innocent. It simply removes one avenue of evidence.

There have been cases where DNA evidence could not be found against a defendant, but the prosecutor tried to make the case that the defendant may have used a condom or otherwise managed not to leave DNA evidence.

- Jim

Was there DNA available in the case of Mr. Cole? With in the last few years there have been a number of older cases where DNA evidence was collected and stored. At the time of trial technology did not allow for proper DNA testing. Later testing proved that the convicted's DNA did not match the DNA collected from the crime. I would say in those cases the convicted has at least reached the status of not guilty.

[pcgizzmo]

If they truly are innocent and are exonerated by say "DNA" then I think they deserve to get paid. They've given up however many years of their life and the system didn't work. They probably will still carry whatever it is they supposedly did with them because even though their innocent the public probably won't let it go.

[RoyGBiv]

The answer to the original post can be calculated easily...

Which is less... $1,440,000 (18 x $80K)?
or.
The cost to the state for a new trial?

The State has already decided that sufficient time was served (assuming another guilty verdict) not to warrant pursuing the matter further.

[ELB]

The closest I know of to a declaration of innocence was the NC AG stating the Duke Univ lacrosse players innocent of rape at a news conference, after the AG's office formally reinvestigated Nifong's mess of a "case."

[esxmarkc]

Yes, there is no such thing under common law as proving innocence. The best one can do is have an iron-clad alibi such as being on the International Space Station when the crime occurred

Hey! I saw that Monk episode. The astronaut used a garage door opener to hang the woman and had the remote (with the button pressed) delivered to her front door by UPS while he was in orbit.

Seriously though.... DNA isn't completely perfect. In theory it's perfect but in practice there are flaws with the LABS (remember the issues with the HPD DNA lab), with collection contamination, cross-contamination with multiple partrners, etc...

THEN throw in the new issues of chimeraizm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimera_(genetics) where people can have two absolutely distinct sets of DNA. We are yet to figure out the statistics on the occurrences of such people. Only a rare few have been discovered purely by accident. You have to test DNA from many different parts of their anatomy to figure it out.

In other words, such an individual could leave DNA evidence at the scene that when tested against a standard oral scraping from him/her later will show no match whatsoever thereby exonerating them.

[seamusTX]

Was there DNA available in the case of Mr. Cole?

It was a rape, and the deceased Mr. Cole was exonerated by lack of DNA correlation. Supposedly he was the first person pardoned posthumously in Texas.

Whatever criticism I have of the criminal justice system (which is plenty), the state has been doing better in this regard, and Governor Perry is on the right side on this issue.

http://www.exonerated.org/content/index ... &Itemid=71" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/08/12 ... el-on.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Which is less... $1,440,000 (18 x $80K)?
or.
The cost to the state for a new trial?

The terms "the state" and "the people" are legal terms of art. Most prosecutions are "The People versus Joe Blow."

However, in this case, the compensation would have to be paid from state general revenue. The retrial, if it occurred, would have to be paid by a county (Johnson, I think) from the county's funds (mostly real-estate tax).

Anyway, the prosecutors looking at the evidence found the entire prosecution to be a miscarriage of justice, and the judge agreed.

- Jim

[tacticool]

Did the federal court overturn the conviction or remand the case back to the trial court?

If they overturned the conviction, it seems he would be entitled to the compensation under the law, so I'm assuming they didn't.

[WildBill]

Did the federal court overturn the conviction or remand the case back to the trial court?

If they overturned the conviction, it seems he would be entitled to the compensation under the law, so I'm assuming they didn't.

This is what the news article said:

The 5th U.S. Court of Appeals overturned Graves' conviction in 2006 based on Sebesta's misconduct.

Federal courts overturn verdicts and many times the state will refile the charge, have a new trial and get another conviction. These people would not be entitled to compensation. I think the issue is that just because the state doesn't retry the case doesn't mean the person is not guilty.