Texas Forensic Science Committee Reviewing Willingham Case Today

To access the live stream of the committee hearing, go here: http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Texas_Forensic_Science_Commission__Watch_Live.php

(Courtesy of the Innocence Project)

Free After Thirty Years

This week Cornelius Dupree, Jr. was declared an innocent man after serving more than three decades for a crime he did not commit. Dupree was charged in Dallas, TX in 1980of rape and robbery. The conviction was based largely on a faulty witness identification. Earlier this year, DNA evidence from the rape proved that Dupree was not the perpetrator.

Dupree was represented by Innocence Project Co-Founder Barry Scheck and Senior Staff Attorney Nina Morrison. Morrison said “Mistaken identification has always plagued the criminal justice system, but great strides have been made in the last three decades to understand the problem and come up with fixes like those being considered by the state Legislature that help minimize wrongful convictions. We hope state lawmakers take note of the terrible miscarriage of justice suffered by Cornelius. When the wrong person is convicted of a crime, the real perpetrator goes free, harming everyone.”

Legislation is in the works in Texas to provide standards to law enforcement for administering lineups and photo arrays. These standards would help to prevent eyewitness misidentification by preventing influence of the witness and by imposing strict standards to increase the accurary and reliability of identifications.

Anthony Massingill was convicted with Dupree. He is expected to be exonerated later this month.

Innocence Blog. "Houston Man to be Declared Innocent After Serving 30 Years for a Dallas Rape and Robbery He Did Not Commit." January 4 2011.

Hilary Swank Nominated for SAG Award

Hilary Swank's portrayal of Betty Anne Waters in Conviction has earned her a SAG Award nomination for Best Actress. Swank said she was honored to be nominated by a group of her peers. She said, "I have to say, the real payoff in a movie like this is that Betty Anne Waters looks at you and says, ‘You did justice to my story.' When you go to the premiere and she looks over at you and has a sparkle in her eye and wells up and says, ‘Thank you,’ that’s the real honor. That’s the experience and the reason why I’m an actor. It’s to tell the stories."

The SAG Awards air Sunday, January 30th on TBS and TNT.
To see the full list of nominees, click here.


Kaufman, Amy. "SAG Nominations: Hilary Swank on 'Conviction'." http://entertainment.latimes.com/awards/2010/12/sag-nominations-hilary-swank-conviction.html

NEIP Board Member Featured in BU Law Webcast

Stanley Fisher, a NEIP board member and law professor at Boston University Law School, was featured with two of his former students in a short video. Check it out to hear him talk about the Innocence Project!

James Hebshie Released on Bail in Time for Thanksgiving

After spending more than four years in prison, James Hebshie left the federal courthouse with his family today after US District Court Judge Nancy Gertner granted his Emergency Motion for Bail and released him on personal recognizance. After a 5 day hearing last July, Mr. Hebshie's conviction was vacated by Judge Gertner last week. Gertner wrote, "this Court recognizes the importance of finality in criminal cases, particularly after time and resources have gone into the trial, and after a jury has pronounced guilt. But finality cannot trump fairness or justice."

The government did not oppose Hebshie's motion. Mr. Hebshie, in a brief but moving speech, thanked the Court and those who worked to help him gain his freedom. "I never thought I'd live to see this day," Mr. Hebshie said.

NEIP Thanks Jeanne Kempthorne & John Lentini

James Hebshie's case would most likely have been another wrongful conviction that never came to light without the help of Jeanne Kempthorne and John Lentini. Ms. Kempthorne took on Mr. Hebshie's case for appeal and, believing in his innocence, refused to give up after losing in the first circuit. She enlisted the help of NEIP for the habeas petition. Kempthorne was a U.S. attorney for ten years before opening her own firm. She focuses on appellate and post-conviction practice in state and federal court.

John Lentini, one of the nation's most prominent fire scientists, testified on Hebshie's behalf at the evidentiary hearing granted by Judge Gertner in this case. Lentini has testified in over 200 cases (both civil and criminal) and has conducted over 2,000 fire scene investigations. Lentini pointed out the shortcomings in the government's case, including the "scientific" testimony relating to the fire. Judge Gertner relied heavily on Lentini's testimony when issuing her order earlier this week.

James Hebshie's Conviction Vacated

On November 15th, Judge Nancy Gertner issued a 69-page ruling granting James Hebshie's habeas petition. Mr. Hebshie was convicted of starting a fire that destroyed an office building in Taunton, MA. The fire occurred in 2001, Mr. Hebshie was convicted in 2006. Mr. Hebshie ran a convenience store within the office building. The government's theory was that Hebshie burned his store to get $5,000 worth of insurance money. The government put on the following witnesses to tell their story:

1. David Domingos: (Cause-and-Origin Investigator) Domingos testified that the left-side wall in Hebshie's store was the most damaged (even though other parts of the store had collapsed). Domingos centered in on the store very early on in the investigation. Judge Gertner points out, "Domingos discounted the theory that the fire was an electrical fire starting in the basement, even though, as noted, his written report did not mention the basement at all."

2. Sergeant Lynch: (Canine Handler) Lynch testified at length about the "accelerant-detection" dog, Billy. Lynch discusses Billy's personality, his emotional attachment to the dog, and "the way her eyes shifted," "the way her ears shifted when she located stuff." Lynch vouched for the dog as 97% accurate, an assertion that was not corroborated by any evidence. Lynch only brought Billy into Hebshie's store, where she alerted the presence of a substance later classified as light petroleum distillate (LPD). When Billy alerted, Lynch took only one carpet sample; no control samples were taken. LPD is a substance that could have come from any number of sources, including the chemical makeup of the carpet itself. When asked why no control samples were taken, Lynch and Domingos both pointed the finger at each other.

3. Lieutenant Myers: Myers was the first firefighter on the scene. He testified to the thermal imaging. After the initial fire had been extinguished, the imaging camera showed "hot spots" along all four walls. Myers believed that this merely meant that the walls were hot from the fire that had been extinguished. In fact, the fire was inside the walls and continuing to spread.

Hebshie's counsel, John and Jay Spinale, did not challenge any of the aforementioned "scientific" evidence, despite the Court repeatedly asking them if they'd like to have a Daubert hearing. The Spinales also failed to object to the lengthy, and as Gertner puts it "mystical account," of the dog-sniff evidence.

These, coupled with numerous other deficiencies, caused Judge Gertner to order a new trial for James Hebshie. The conclusion of her opinion sums it up best:

As Larry A. Hammond, past president of the American Judicature Society, noted: "By routinely allowing into evidence expert testimony that we know should have been excluded, and by closing courthouse doors to claims for redress after conviction, the courts have contributed to the problems we face today." Larry A. Hammond, The Failure of Forensic Science Reform in Arizona, 93 Judicature 227, 2 (2010).

In fact, he suggested, one thing that each of the cases in which there have been wrongful convictions necessarily have in common is that each were presided over by a judge, an appellate court, and typically had post conviction habeas review. And then he concluded:

"One would hope that with the announcement of every exoneration, the judges across whose desks these cases passed would pause to ask, ‘what can we do to make sure that this doesn’t happen again?"

This Court recognizes the importance of finality in criminal cases, particularly after time and resources have gone into the trial, and after a jury has pronounced guilt. But finality cannot trump fairness or justice. If Hebshie’s defense of serious charges was fatally undermined by ineffective counsel, I am duty bound to say so. Therefore, Hebshie’s habeas petition is GRANTED.

For the first news article breaking the story, click here.
See below for Judge Gertner's full order.



US v. Hebshie