DNA points to new killer in '99 case
FORT COLLINS, Colorado (CNN) -- New evidence points to a different killer in the case of a Colorado man convicted in the sexual mutilation slaying of a woman when he was a teenager, the special prosecutor named to review the case said Friday.
Tim Masters was 15 years old when Peggy Hettrick was brutally slain in 1987.
Adams County District Attorney Don Quick recommended that Tim Masters, now 36, be freed pending a new trial.
Masters was convicted and sentenced in 1999 to life in prison for the slaying of Peggy Hettrick 12 years earlier. But Quick said DNA evidence found on Hettrick's clothing matched another man, casting further doubt on a case already under a microscope.
The new evidence surfaced after the Colorado Bureau of Investigation conducted new tests on DNA found on Hettrick's clothing, finding partial profiles that did not match Masters.
Masters' defense team pursued further testing with a laboratory in the Netherlands that ultimately provided a match with another man who had once been considered a suspect.
The CBI laboratory reviewed the Dutch lab's findings and "confirmed the results consistent with the alternate suspect and inconsistent with Tim Masters," Quick said.
He did not identify the alternate suspect.
Masters' defense attorneys are in court alleging police and prosecutorial misconduct and arguing for a new trial.
Hearings on the case were scheduled to resume Tuesday, when the two original prosecutors in the case -- both now judges -- had been expected to take the stand.
Quick, who has already backed defense contentions that key pieces of evidence were withheld during the original trial, said he would make his recommendations for a new trial Tuesday morning.
"We're going to go upstairs and see if there's anything that can be done this weekend" to get Masters out of prison, he said. "If not, it'll be done Tuesday morning."
The new defense team's claims of misconduct are supported not only by the attorneys who represented Masters in 1999, but also by former police officers, investigators and forensic experts, some of whom say police ignored other viable suspects.
Wrongfully convicted of a crime thread
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Buffmaster
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Re: Wrongfully convicted of a crime thread
Big Red died 23 NOV 2001
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
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Re: Wrongfully convicted of a crime thread
Murder conviction tossed; man freed after 9 years in jail
FORT COLLINS, Colorado (CNN) -- A Colorado judge Tuesday threw out Tim Masters' 1999 murder conviction after DNA evidence pointed to another suspect, and Masters was freed after spending more than nine years behind bars.
Tim Masters, center, walks out of a Fort Collins, Colorado, courthouse Tuesday with his attorney David Wymore.
1 of 3 more photos » Cheers and applause erupted as Masters walked out of court with his attorneys David Wymore and Maria Liu.
A jury convicted Masters 12 years after the discovery of the mutilated corpse of Peggy Hettrick, 37, in a field near his trailer. Masters was 15 at the time of the slaying.
Now 36, Masters wore new clothes bought by his lawyers for Tuesday's hearing. He appeared dazed and elated.
"They did a fantastic job," Masters said of his attorneys at a hastily convened news conference.
"I want to go see my family," he said.
Wymore said he would "urge the prosecutors to dismiss all charges as soon as possible." He added, "It's an opportunity to do the right thing."
Wymore thanked former Fort Collins investigator Linda Wheeler-Holloway, who came forward with her doubts about the conviction. He also thanked journalists "for not letting it sink into a dark hole."
Surrounded by police officers and his attorneys, Masters left the second-floor jury room and walked to the main floor of the Larimer County Justice Center amid a flurry of flashes and shutter clicks. Police cleared a path as the smiling Masters walked outside onto icy courthouse steps and squinted as the sunlight hit him in the face. He and his attorneys got into a waiting vehicle, which quickly drove away.
A special prosecutor who reviewed how the 1999 case was handled made the request to vacate the conviction, citing new DNA evidence that points to someone else in Hettrick's slaying.
Judge Joseph Weatherby quickly granted the request. Masters was freed on his own recognizance, which means his family does not have to put up any money or property. Watch the judge order Masters freed »
Masters had been under investigation for the slaying for more than half his life.
A passing cyclist discovered the mutilated body of Hettrick near Masters' home. Masters has said since February 12, 1987 -- the day after the killing -- that he did not commit the crime.
Police mounted an investigation that ultimately saw Masters jailed in 1998 and sentenced to life in prison for murder in 1999.
On Friday, after months of hearings in which Masters' new defense team alleged police and prosecutorial misdeeds in the investigation and trial, special prosecutor Don Quick delivered what was likely the best news of Masters' life.
A defense-commissioned DNA test -- subsequently backed by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation -- pointed to "a potential suspect in the early investigation of Peggy Hettrick's murder," Quick said in a news conference.
However, Quick did not say the evidence vindicated Masters, only that it met "the constitutional requirements" for a new trial.
After the special prosecutor announced Friday that new DNA evidence in the case warranted a retrial, District Attorney Larry Abrahamson issued a statement Monday explaining it might be unnecessary to try Masters again.
"In light of newly discovered evidence revealed to me on Friday," Abrahamson wrote, "I will be moving as expeditiously as possible to make the determination of whether all charges against Timothy Masters will be dismissed."
Abrahamson said he also will review all "contested convictions" in which advances in DNA testing may prove useful.
He said he wanted to review the discovery process and that he had met with the Fort Collins police chief and his officers "to discuss the critical flow of information with assurance that all information is available to our office and the defense."
The statement is noteworthy since Masters' attorneys allege Fort Collins police and prosecutors withheld evidence favorable to their client during his 1999 trial.
Quick filed a motion this month citing four instances in which police and prosecutors should have handed over evidence to Masters' original defense team. See the key players in the case »
Among them was a police interview with a plastic surgeon who said it was improbable that a teen could have made the meticulous cuts necessary to remove Hettrick's body parts. Also, according to Quick's motion, police failed to divulge that a renowned FBI profiler warned police that Masters' penchant for doodling gruesome horror scenes did not tie him to the crime.
Those sketches, along with a collection of narratives and knives, helped convince the jury of Masters' guilt. No physical evidence was found tying Masters to the crime.
With charges against Masters now dismissed, the investigation likely will focus on the new DNA evidence, Quick said. Authorities have the partial DNA profiles of three men, one of them matching a full DNA profile provided by the defense.
But even with the DNA evidence, many questions remain: To whom do the other partial profiles belong? How did the physical evidence arrive on Hettrick's clothing? How long has it been there? And ultimately, who killed her?
"I'm hoping for both Mr. Masters and the Hettrick family that we can answer those questions," Quick said.
FORT COLLINS, Colorado (CNN) -- A Colorado judge Tuesday threw out Tim Masters' 1999 murder conviction after DNA evidence pointed to another suspect, and Masters was freed after spending more than nine years behind bars.
Tim Masters, center, walks out of a Fort Collins, Colorado, courthouse Tuesday with his attorney David Wymore.
1 of 3 more photos » Cheers and applause erupted as Masters walked out of court with his attorneys David Wymore and Maria Liu.
A jury convicted Masters 12 years after the discovery of the mutilated corpse of Peggy Hettrick, 37, in a field near his trailer. Masters was 15 at the time of the slaying.
Now 36, Masters wore new clothes bought by his lawyers for Tuesday's hearing. He appeared dazed and elated.
"They did a fantastic job," Masters said of his attorneys at a hastily convened news conference.
"I want to go see my family," he said.
Wymore said he would "urge the prosecutors to dismiss all charges as soon as possible." He added, "It's an opportunity to do the right thing."
Wymore thanked former Fort Collins investigator Linda Wheeler-Holloway, who came forward with her doubts about the conviction. He also thanked journalists "for not letting it sink into a dark hole."
Surrounded by police officers and his attorneys, Masters left the second-floor jury room and walked to the main floor of the Larimer County Justice Center amid a flurry of flashes and shutter clicks. Police cleared a path as the smiling Masters walked outside onto icy courthouse steps and squinted as the sunlight hit him in the face. He and his attorneys got into a waiting vehicle, which quickly drove away.
A special prosecutor who reviewed how the 1999 case was handled made the request to vacate the conviction, citing new DNA evidence that points to someone else in Hettrick's slaying.
Judge Joseph Weatherby quickly granted the request. Masters was freed on his own recognizance, which means his family does not have to put up any money or property. Watch the judge order Masters freed »
Masters had been under investigation for the slaying for more than half his life.
A passing cyclist discovered the mutilated body of Hettrick near Masters' home. Masters has said since February 12, 1987 -- the day after the killing -- that he did not commit the crime.
Police mounted an investigation that ultimately saw Masters jailed in 1998 and sentenced to life in prison for murder in 1999.
On Friday, after months of hearings in which Masters' new defense team alleged police and prosecutorial misdeeds in the investigation and trial, special prosecutor Don Quick delivered what was likely the best news of Masters' life.
A defense-commissioned DNA test -- subsequently backed by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation -- pointed to "a potential suspect in the early investigation of Peggy Hettrick's murder," Quick said in a news conference.
However, Quick did not say the evidence vindicated Masters, only that it met "the constitutional requirements" for a new trial.
After the special prosecutor announced Friday that new DNA evidence in the case warranted a retrial, District Attorney Larry Abrahamson issued a statement Monday explaining it might be unnecessary to try Masters again.
"In light of newly discovered evidence revealed to me on Friday," Abrahamson wrote, "I will be moving as expeditiously as possible to make the determination of whether all charges against Timothy Masters will be dismissed."
Abrahamson said he also will review all "contested convictions" in which advances in DNA testing may prove useful.
He said he wanted to review the discovery process and that he had met with the Fort Collins police chief and his officers "to discuss the critical flow of information with assurance that all information is available to our office and the defense."
The statement is noteworthy since Masters' attorneys allege Fort Collins police and prosecutors withheld evidence favorable to their client during his 1999 trial.
Quick filed a motion this month citing four instances in which police and prosecutors should have handed over evidence to Masters' original defense team. See the key players in the case »
Among them was a police interview with a plastic surgeon who said it was improbable that a teen could have made the meticulous cuts necessary to remove Hettrick's body parts. Also, according to Quick's motion, police failed to divulge that a renowned FBI profiler warned police that Masters' penchant for doodling gruesome horror scenes did not tie him to the crime.
Those sketches, along with a collection of narratives and knives, helped convince the jury of Masters' guilt. No physical evidence was found tying Masters to the crime.
With charges against Masters now dismissed, the investigation likely will focus on the new DNA evidence, Quick said. Authorities have the partial DNA profiles of three men, one of them matching a full DNA profile provided by the defense.
But even with the DNA evidence, many questions remain: To whom do the other partial profiles belong? How did the physical evidence arrive on Hettrick's clothing? How long has it been there? And ultimately, who killed her?
"I'm hoping for both Mr. Masters and the Hettrick family that we can answer those questions," Quick said.
Big Red died 23 NOV 2001
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
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Buffmaster
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Re: Wrongfully convicted of a crime thread
Bite mark evidence disputed in murder cases
MACON, Mississippi (AP) -- At a small-town courthouse in one of rural Mississippi's poorest counties, Dr. Michael West swore under oath that a dead girl had bite marks all over her body and that they were made by the two front teeth of the man charged with murdering her.
1 of 2 Such testimony had become commonplace for West. The dentist considered himself an authority on forensic odontology and had taken the stand at numerous trials as a paid expert for the prosecution.
On the strength of West's testimony and little else, a jury in 1995 convicted Kennedy Brewer of raping and murdering the 3-year-old girl and sentenced him to death.
Three years earlier, West gave similar testimony in a nearly identical rape-and-murder case involving another 3-year-old girl from the same town. West testified there were bite marks on the victim's wrist and they were made by Levon Brooks. Brooks, too, was found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
Today, more than a decade later, both Brewer and Brooks are out of prison, and prosecutors have all but pronounced them innocent. The reason: A third man confessed to both killings after DNA connected him to one of the rapes, investigators say.
As for West, his analysis of bite marks in the two murders -- and in hundreds of other Mississippi criminal cases over the years -- is under attack.
A panel of forensic experts that examined the Brewer case says the wounds on the victim were not human bites at all, but were probably caused by crawfish and insects nibbling on the corpse, decomposition, and rough handling when the body was pulled from the pond where it was found. Brooks' lawyers say West got it wrong in their case, too, by identifying scrapes as bites.
The turn of events has shocked the community, especially the victims' families, and led to accusations that West deliberately falsified evidence.
"You have people who engaged in misconduct and manufactured evidence and we've proved it," said Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project, which has won the exoneration of more than 200 inmates nationwide and assembled the expert panel that examined the Brewer case.
"These two cases are going to be an eye-opener for the people of Mississippi about some of the problems they have in criminal justice and how easy it will be to make it right," Neufeld added.
West, a 55-year-old in private practice, did not return numerous calls to his Hattiesburg office.
Brewer, now 36, and Brooks, 48, were found guilty in the slayings, respectively, of Christine Jackson and Courtney Smith, who were killed 18 months apart. Both girls were daughters of the men's girlfriends, and both lived in Brooksville, a poor community of about 1,100 people. Both defendants were poor; Brewer is said to be mildly disabled mentally.
Forensic experts had testified for the defense at the trials of Brooks and Brewer that the marks on the victims were not made by human teeth. But the testimony seemed to make little difference.
Earlier this month, Justin Albert Johnson, a 51-year-old Brooksville man who had been a suspect early on, was arrested and charged in one of the murders. Investigators said he confessed to both killings after DNA analysis proved that his semen was in the victim in the Brewer case.
Brewer, who was released on bail last year, a few years after DNA tests excluded him as the rapist, was finally exonerated by a judge on February 15.
"I ain't worried about the past. I'm thinking about the future," Brewer said. But he offered some advice to prosecutors: "They need to get the truth before they lock up the wrong somebody. It doesn't feel good to be called a rapist and murderer."
As for Brooks, he has a court date on March 10, when prosecutors are expected to drop the case against him. He is already back home, living with his 83-year-old mother.
In its February 2007 report, the Innocence Project panel of top forensic odontologists from England, Canada and the U.S. concluded that West had misinterpreted the purported bite-mark evidence in the Brewer case.
Panel member Dr. David Senn, a forensic odontologist for the county medical examiner in San Antonio, told the AP that the experts were "scratching their heads to figure out how he could come to the conclusions he came to."
"Forensic odontology is a very sound science when it's applied properly. In our opinion, it was not applied properly," Senn said. Of West's theory that the purported bite marks were made by two front teeth, Senn said: "To bite someone, you have to bite with both jaws. The story doesn't make sense."
According to Senn, West resigned from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in 1994 and the American Board of Forensic Odontology in 2006 after ethics complaints were brought against him. Senn would not disclose details of the complaints.
The panel's report contained no suggestion that West acted deliberately. But the Innocence Project has called for a criminal investigation of West and state pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne, who had also concluded the marks on the bodies were bites. The organization is asking for a review of the hundreds of cases in which Hayne and West were involved.
"The truth is, if they'll do it in one, they'll do it in a dozen," Neufeld said.
Hayne said he has done nothing wrong, and he remains on the job. "All I did was present the facts that I saw," Hayne said. "I did the post-mortem examinations. I didn't link them or exclude them."
The district attorney who prosecuted both defendants, Forrest Allgood, disputed any suggestion that his office knowingly sent the wrong men to prison.
"It torments the innocent individual, undermines the public confidence in the justice system, and the bad guy is still running loose," he said. "Why people would believe that's something we would want to do is beyond me."
Allgood said he has not used West as a forensic expert since the mid-1990s. He said West was once considered one of the world's foremost authorities in his field, lecturing in China and England.
"Subsequently the whole situation turned into a train wreck," the district attorney said.
MACON, Mississippi (AP) -- At a small-town courthouse in one of rural Mississippi's poorest counties, Dr. Michael West swore under oath that a dead girl had bite marks all over her body and that they were made by the two front teeth of the man charged with murdering her.
1 of 2 Such testimony had become commonplace for West. The dentist considered himself an authority on forensic odontology and had taken the stand at numerous trials as a paid expert for the prosecution.
On the strength of West's testimony and little else, a jury in 1995 convicted Kennedy Brewer of raping and murdering the 3-year-old girl and sentenced him to death.
Three years earlier, West gave similar testimony in a nearly identical rape-and-murder case involving another 3-year-old girl from the same town. West testified there were bite marks on the victim's wrist and they were made by Levon Brooks. Brooks, too, was found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison.
Today, more than a decade later, both Brewer and Brooks are out of prison, and prosecutors have all but pronounced them innocent. The reason: A third man confessed to both killings after DNA connected him to one of the rapes, investigators say.
As for West, his analysis of bite marks in the two murders -- and in hundreds of other Mississippi criminal cases over the years -- is under attack.
A panel of forensic experts that examined the Brewer case says the wounds on the victim were not human bites at all, but were probably caused by crawfish and insects nibbling on the corpse, decomposition, and rough handling when the body was pulled from the pond where it was found. Brooks' lawyers say West got it wrong in their case, too, by identifying scrapes as bites.
The turn of events has shocked the community, especially the victims' families, and led to accusations that West deliberately falsified evidence.
"You have people who engaged in misconduct and manufactured evidence and we've proved it," said Peter Neufeld, co-director of the Innocence Project, which has won the exoneration of more than 200 inmates nationwide and assembled the expert panel that examined the Brewer case.
"These two cases are going to be an eye-opener for the people of Mississippi about some of the problems they have in criminal justice and how easy it will be to make it right," Neufeld added.
West, a 55-year-old in private practice, did not return numerous calls to his Hattiesburg office.
Brewer, now 36, and Brooks, 48, were found guilty in the slayings, respectively, of Christine Jackson and Courtney Smith, who were killed 18 months apart. Both girls were daughters of the men's girlfriends, and both lived in Brooksville, a poor community of about 1,100 people. Both defendants were poor; Brewer is said to be mildly disabled mentally.
Forensic experts had testified for the defense at the trials of Brooks and Brewer that the marks on the victims were not made by human teeth. But the testimony seemed to make little difference.
Earlier this month, Justin Albert Johnson, a 51-year-old Brooksville man who had been a suspect early on, was arrested and charged in one of the murders. Investigators said he confessed to both killings after DNA analysis proved that his semen was in the victim in the Brewer case.
Brewer, who was released on bail last year, a few years after DNA tests excluded him as the rapist, was finally exonerated by a judge on February 15.
"I ain't worried about the past. I'm thinking about the future," Brewer said. But he offered some advice to prosecutors: "They need to get the truth before they lock up the wrong somebody. It doesn't feel good to be called a rapist and murderer."
As for Brooks, he has a court date on March 10, when prosecutors are expected to drop the case against him. He is already back home, living with his 83-year-old mother.
In its February 2007 report, the Innocence Project panel of top forensic odontologists from England, Canada and the U.S. concluded that West had misinterpreted the purported bite-mark evidence in the Brewer case.
Panel member Dr. David Senn, a forensic odontologist for the county medical examiner in San Antonio, told the AP that the experts were "scratching their heads to figure out how he could come to the conclusions he came to."
"Forensic odontology is a very sound science when it's applied properly. In our opinion, it was not applied properly," Senn said. Of West's theory that the purported bite marks were made by two front teeth, Senn said: "To bite someone, you have to bite with both jaws. The story doesn't make sense."
According to Senn, West resigned from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in 1994 and the American Board of Forensic Odontology in 2006 after ethics complaints were brought against him. Senn would not disclose details of the complaints.
The panel's report contained no suggestion that West acted deliberately. But the Innocence Project has called for a criminal investigation of West and state pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne, who had also concluded the marks on the bodies were bites. The organization is asking for a review of the hundreds of cases in which Hayne and West were involved.
"The truth is, if they'll do it in one, they'll do it in a dozen," Neufeld said.
Hayne said he has done nothing wrong, and he remains on the job. "All I did was present the facts that I saw," Hayne said. "I did the post-mortem examinations. I didn't link them or exclude them."
The district attorney who prosecuted both defendants, Forrest Allgood, disputed any suggestion that his office knowingly sent the wrong men to prison.
"It torments the innocent individual, undermines the public confidence in the justice system, and the bad guy is still running loose," he said. "Why people would believe that's something we would want to do is beyond me."
Allgood said he has not used West as a forensic expert since the mid-1990s. He said West was once considered one of the world's foremost authorities in his field, lecturing in China and England.
"Subsequently the whole situation turned into a train wreck," the district attorney said.
Big Red died 23 NOV 2001
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
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Buffmaster
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Re: Wrongfully convicted of a crime thread
Court will hear wrongful conviction case
LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether a man who served 24 years in prison before his murder conviction was overturned can sue two former prosecutors for allegedly violating his civil rights.
Thomas Goldstein, now 59, was convicted of a 1979 murder on the strength of a jailhouse informant's testimony that Goldstein had confessed to the crime. The informant testified he received no benefit in return, but evidence that came to light later suggested he had struck a deal to get a lighter sentence.
Two federal judges and a federal appeals panel eventually ruled that Goldstein was wrongly convicted, and he was freed in 2004.
Individual prosecutors typically may not be sued for their decisions, but Goldstein sued former District Attorney John K. Van de Kamp and his former chief deputy, Curt Livesay, claiming that as managers they had a policy of relying on jailhouse informants even though it sometimes led to false evidence.
Goldstein's attorney, Ronald Owen Kaye, said this happened even though the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1972 that informant deals should be disclosed.
Van de Kamp later became California attorney general. He still practices law in Los Angeles and is chairman of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, set up by state lawmakers to look at ways of preventing wrongful convictions.
Van de Kamp and Livesay appealed to the Supreme Court after a trial judge and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Goldstein's lawsuit could proceed. The case will be argued in the fall.
"This is an issue that needs to be resolved," Van de Kamp said. "I don't draw any conclusions on how they are going to rule."
If Goldstein ultimately is successfully in suing, the case could lead to higher-ups in other prosecutors' offices being held liable for the conduct of their prosecutors in the courtroom, Van de Kamp said.
A message left at Livesay's law firm in Long Beach was not immediately returned.
Goldstein was a college student when he was arrested for the Nov. 3, 1979, shotgun killing of John McGinest in Long Beach. Goldstein lived nearby, but no physical evidence implicated him and the weapon was never found.
The informant, a convicted felon named Edward Floyd Fink, made a deal with prosecutors in which he testified that Goldstein told him in a jail cell that he shot McGinest because he owed Goldstein money.
Fink, who testified he had not received any benefit in return for his testimony, received 48 days in jail after pleading guilty to a grand theft charge, Kaye said. These details never emerged during Goldstein's trial.
"He made a baldfaced lie in front of the jury and said he got no benefit," Kaye said.
Fink had testified in more than 10 cases that people confessed crimes to him while sharing a jail cell. Another witness in Goldstein's case later recanted testimony identifying Goldstein as the gunman.
Kaye said Goldstein also is suing the Long Beach police officers involved in the murder investigation.
Goldstein now lives in Tustin in Orange County. He said he still hasn't fully adjusted to life outside prison and occasionally experiences anxiety-related flashbacks.
"I still feel some social isolation, but overall I am OK," Goldstein said. "I like sitting at home, I don't like going out."
While in prison, Goldstein trained as a paralegal and now helps with filings in his case. He said financial compensation was not the only motivation for his lawsuit.
Primarily, he said, he wants the legal system improved so other miscarriages of justice are avoided.
Van de Kamp is being represented by Los Angeles County in the case. He said he was unsure if he would be held personally financially liable if Goldstein prevails.
The case to be heard by the Supreme Court is Van de Kamp and Livesay v. Goldstein, 07-854.
LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether a man who served 24 years in prison before his murder conviction was overturned can sue two former prosecutors for allegedly violating his civil rights.
Thomas Goldstein, now 59, was convicted of a 1979 murder on the strength of a jailhouse informant's testimony that Goldstein had confessed to the crime. The informant testified he received no benefit in return, but evidence that came to light later suggested he had struck a deal to get a lighter sentence.
Two federal judges and a federal appeals panel eventually ruled that Goldstein was wrongly convicted, and he was freed in 2004.
Individual prosecutors typically may not be sued for their decisions, but Goldstein sued former District Attorney John K. Van de Kamp and his former chief deputy, Curt Livesay, claiming that as managers they had a policy of relying on jailhouse informants even though it sometimes led to false evidence.
Goldstein's attorney, Ronald Owen Kaye, said this happened even though the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1972 that informant deals should be disclosed.
Van de Kamp later became California attorney general. He still practices law in Los Angeles and is chairman of the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice, set up by state lawmakers to look at ways of preventing wrongful convictions.
Van de Kamp and Livesay appealed to the Supreme Court after a trial judge and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Goldstein's lawsuit could proceed. The case will be argued in the fall.
"This is an issue that needs to be resolved," Van de Kamp said. "I don't draw any conclusions on how they are going to rule."
If Goldstein ultimately is successfully in suing, the case could lead to higher-ups in other prosecutors' offices being held liable for the conduct of their prosecutors in the courtroom, Van de Kamp said.
A message left at Livesay's law firm in Long Beach was not immediately returned.
Goldstein was a college student when he was arrested for the Nov. 3, 1979, shotgun killing of John McGinest in Long Beach. Goldstein lived nearby, but no physical evidence implicated him and the weapon was never found.
The informant, a convicted felon named Edward Floyd Fink, made a deal with prosecutors in which he testified that Goldstein told him in a jail cell that he shot McGinest because he owed Goldstein money.
Fink, who testified he had not received any benefit in return for his testimony, received 48 days in jail after pleading guilty to a grand theft charge, Kaye said. These details never emerged during Goldstein's trial.
"He made a baldfaced lie in front of the jury and said he got no benefit," Kaye said.
Fink had testified in more than 10 cases that people confessed crimes to him while sharing a jail cell. Another witness in Goldstein's case later recanted testimony identifying Goldstein as the gunman.
Kaye said Goldstein also is suing the Long Beach police officers involved in the murder investigation.
Goldstein now lives in Tustin in Orange County. He said he still hasn't fully adjusted to life outside prison and occasionally experiences anxiety-related flashbacks.
"I still feel some social isolation, but overall I am OK," Goldstein said. "I like sitting at home, I don't like going out."
While in prison, Goldstein trained as a paralegal and now helps with filings in his case. He said financial compensation was not the only motivation for his lawsuit.
Primarily, he said, he wants the legal system improved so other miscarriages of justice are avoided.
Van de Kamp is being represented by Los Angeles County in the case. He said he was unsure if he would be held personally financially liable if Goldstein prevails.
The case to be heard by the Supreme Court is Van de Kamp and Livesay v. Goldstein, 07-854.
Big Red died 23 NOV 2001
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
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Buffmaster
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Re: Wrongfully convicted of a crime thread
Woman Cleared Of Poisoning Marine Speaks Out
April 18, 2008
SAN DIEGO -- A woman cleared of charges that she poisoned her Marine husband said Friday that she's looking forward to doing some "girl things" and seeing her four children after nearly two-and-a-half years in jail.
Prosecutors Thursday dismissed murder charges against Cynthia Sommer, saying tests performed on newly discovered tissues from the victim revealed no arsenic.
The discovery provided reasonable doubt that 23-year-old Sgt. Todd Sommer died of arsenic poisoning, said District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.
The case was dismissed without prejudice -- meaning charges could be re-filed -- and Cynthia Sommer was released from jail Thursday night.
The 34-year-old woman was convicted of first-degree murder in her husband's death, which happened in February 2002.
In November, Judge Peter Deddeh granted the defendant a new trial, saying her attorney made mistakes that affected the outcome of the first trial.
Her retrial was scheduled to start next month and she faced life in prison without parole if convicted.
Outside her attorney's downtown office Friday, Sommer was asked if she was angry about what happened.
"Would you be?" Sommer asked the reporter. "Yeah."
Sommer said she was looking forward to getting a haircut, facial, taking a bath and going shopping.
She appeared at a news conference wearing clothes that her friend had brought from San Francisco.
Sommer said the first thing she did when she got out of jail was to go to Starbucks for a cup of coffee, then to dinner where she had coconut shrimp.
The woman said she was also looking to seeing her 15-year-old daughter and sons ages 13, 12, and 8. The youngest boy came from her marriage to Todd Sommer.
Sommer said she wants to work for people who have been unjustly accused of crimes.
She said she will tell her children what happened to her.
"I'm not going to hide that from them," Sommer said.
From the day she was arrested, Sommer has maintained that she had nothing to do with her husband's death.
"I don't need to prove to anyone that I'm innocent," she told reporters.
If she could ask prosecutors one question, Sommer said it would be, "How'd they sleep last night?"
Her attorney, Allen Bloom, said justice was done but not because of the efforts of the district attorney's office.
"They only found these (tissues) when I made a request for everything," Bloom told reporters. "This is something that hit them in the forehead."
Bloom said he hoped to get the case dismissed with prejudice. Evidence of Sommer's behavior after her husband died, such as getting breast implants, having sex with other Marines and partying in Tijuana had "nothing to do with anything," Bloom said.
Dumanis said the case was handled exactly the way it should have been. She said the case was dismissed as soon as the new tests showing no arsenic in the victim's tissues were known.
Todd Sommer's death was originally found to be from natural causes and a possible fluttering heart.
In 2003, a military laboratory found high levels of arsenic in his liver and kidneys.
Prosecutors believe the defendant used something like ant stakes to kill her husband, but no evidence was presented in the trial that she bought arsenic.
Watch the videos below
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.p ... =undefined
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.p ... =undefined
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.p ... =undefined
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.p ... =undefined
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.p ... =undefined
April 18, 2008
SAN DIEGO -- A woman cleared of charges that she poisoned her Marine husband said Friday that she's looking forward to doing some "girl things" and seeing her four children after nearly two-and-a-half years in jail.
Prosecutors Thursday dismissed murder charges against Cynthia Sommer, saying tests performed on newly discovered tissues from the victim revealed no arsenic.
The discovery provided reasonable doubt that 23-year-old Sgt. Todd Sommer died of arsenic poisoning, said District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis.
The case was dismissed without prejudice -- meaning charges could be re-filed -- and Cynthia Sommer was released from jail Thursday night.
The 34-year-old woman was convicted of first-degree murder in her husband's death, which happened in February 2002.
In November, Judge Peter Deddeh granted the defendant a new trial, saying her attorney made mistakes that affected the outcome of the first trial.
Her retrial was scheduled to start next month and she faced life in prison without parole if convicted.
Outside her attorney's downtown office Friday, Sommer was asked if she was angry about what happened.
"Would you be?" Sommer asked the reporter. "Yeah."
Sommer said she was looking forward to getting a haircut, facial, taking a bath and going shopping.
She appeared at a news conference wearing clothes that her friend had brought from San Francisco.
Sommer said the first thing she did when she got out of jail was to go to Starbucks for a cup of coffee, then to dinner where she had coconut shrimp.
The woman said she was also looking to seeing her 15-year-old daughter and sons ages 13, 12, and 8. The youngest boy came from her marriage to Todd Sommer.
Sommer said she wants to work for people who have been unjustly accused of crimes.
She said she will tell her children what happened to her.
"I'm not going to hide that from them," Sommer said.
From the day she was arrested, Sommer has maintained that she had nothing to do with her husband's death.
"I don't need to prove to anyone that I'm innocent," she told reporters.
If she could ask prosecutors one question, Sommer said it would be, "How'd they sleep last night?"
Her attorney, Allen Bloom, said justice was done but not because of the efforts of the district attorney's office.
"They only found these (tissues) when I made a request for everything," Bloom told reporters. "This is something that hit them in the forehead."
Bloom said he hoped to get the case dismissed with prejudice. Evidence of Sommer's behavior after her husband died, such as getting breast implants, having sex with other Marines and partying in Tijuana had "nothing to do with anything," Bloom said.
Dumanis said the case was handled exactly the way it should have been. She said the case was dismissed as soon as the new tests showing no arsenic in the victim's tissues were known.
Todd Sommer's death was originally found to be from natural causes and a possible fluttering heart.
In 2003, a military laboratory found high levels of arsenic in his liver and kidneys.
Prosecutors believe the defendant used something like ant stakes to kill her husband, but no evidence was presented in the trial that she bought arsenic.
Watch the videos below
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.p ... =undefined
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.p ... =undefined
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.p ... =undefined
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.p ... =undefined
http://www.cbs8.com/flv/video_pop_hd3.p ... =undefined
Big Red died 23 NOV 2001
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
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Buffmaster
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Re: Wrongfully convicted of a crime thread
Big Red died 23 NOV 2001
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
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| Hide post links |
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Buffmaster
- Posts: 3570
- Joined: Fri May 12, 2006 11:37 am
- Location: The Alamo
Re: Wrongfully convicted of a crime thread
Screwed for Life
For a convicted rapist, the truth may not set you free.
By Patricia Calhoun
Published: August 18, 2005
No question, Kumbe Ginnane lied.
Kumbe Ginnane learned his lesson in the school of hard knocks.At least twice.
He lied when University of Colorado cops, and then the Boulder District Attorney's Office, asked if he'd had sexual contact with a coed on October 19, 1990. No, he said then, he hadn't had sex of any kind with her. He told that to a jury in October 1992, too.
And he lied in May 1993, when he told a judge that he'd actually sexually assaulted the woman -- an admission that got him out of Cañon City in exchange for eight years of probation. Or he lied in 2001, when he said he'd only confessed to the judge so that he could get out of jail, but then realized that eight years of probation as a convicted sex offender was really a lifetime sentence of never-ending hell, and that he'd rather go back to prison.
This is no lie: "Yes, I was an asshole," Ginnane writes in his self-published book, From Regret to Rape. "But I unquestionably did not deserve what was in store for thirteen years."
Here's what Ginnane says is the truth about that night in October 1990. His sophomore roommate, Detric Devonn Garvin, had gone partying at a sorority whose members were legendary for their sexual enthusiasms, then brought a female student back to their dorm room -- along with some tacos and condoms they'd picked up at a convenience store. "Threesome," Ginnane thought, every guy's fantasy. When Garvin went to get a condom, the woman -- who'd obviously been drinking but didn't seem that drunk -- put her hand down Ginnane's pants, then took his penis in her mouth. Fifteen seconds later, there was a knock on the door: Ginnane's girlfriend, Kristin. While his roommate ran interference, Ginnane collected his clothes and his books and then went to Kristin's room, where he spent the night.
It was because of his girlfriend that he didn't want to admit to even fifteen seconds of oral sex. So Ginnane was relieved when word seeped out that the woman had bragged to her sorority sisters about having sex with a black man but mentioned only Garvin, not Ginnane. She continued to occasionally stop by their room. Ginnane told her she was acting like a "ho."
Then, as now, casual sex is almost a rite of passage at college -- with a river of alcohol running through many of the stories. And then, as now, casual sex with athletes, often black athletes, is the stuff of constant campus conversation at the University of Colorado. In 1989, the year Ginnane left home in Denver to enroll at CU, everyone was talking about another football scandal -- this one involving then-coach Bill McCartney's teenage daughter, who was pregnant. Several football players took paternity tests; it turned out the baby's father was Sal Aunese, the Samoan quarterback who would soon die of cancer.
For black athletes -- or big black guys who looked like athletes -- sex was pretty free and easy in Boulder, and the identities of willing partners were common knowledge. "You were going to gain attention up there," remembers Greg Thomas, a football player who was in Ginnane's fraternity. "If you were an African-American male, people assumed that you were an athlete. Hooking up just kind of went with the territory."
But in the spring of 1991, right after Ginnane won a coveted spot as a resident advisor -- a job that the woman had also sought -- word began leaking out that what had happened in that dorm room six months before had involved more than hooking up. "I thought of how I wanted this fucking, spite-saturated, false rape allegation to go away as fast as possible," Ginnane writes. "I thought, 'What if I just deny the sex act?' I lied." He lied to a campus cop, he lied to his girlfriend. He told his mother that the cops were just interested in Garvin. He couldn't believe that what he considered clearly consensual could turn into an accusation of rape.
He talked to his brother, Tunde, who was two years ahead of him at CU, a resident advisor himself. Tunde couldn't imagine his brother getting in trouble for what seemed like common college behavior. "He wasn't the type of guy who'd force a girl to do anything," he says. "There are girls falling at his feet all the time."
And then one night in October 1991, Ginnane and Kristin went to Denver for his sister's eleventh birthday party, and "our phone started ringing," says JuJu Maisha Nkrumah, his mother. "People said that Kumbe was on the news. They were saying that he was wanted and 'at large.'" Not so "at large" that she hadn't been able to reach him at his dorm room earlier that day, but at large as far as the media was concerned.
She drove her son back to Boulder, to campus police headquarters. "They tried to minimize everything," she remembers. "I allowed them to talk to my son. If I had it to do over again, I would have had a lawyer be with him."
And a different lawyer than she wound up hiring after Ginnane, like Garvin, was charged with first-degree sexual assault. Ginnane kept going to classes -- he had to sue for the right to stay at CU -- and kept seeing his girlfriend, but it wasn't easy. "Boulder's reality was I had forced this innocent white virgin to suck on my dirty rapist penis," he says. He sold his motorcycle to pay his legal fees. "Don't let them break your spirit!" he remembers Garvin telling him. "If they can break your spirit, you are already conquered."
Ginnane went on trial in Boulder in October 1992. He'd been offered deal after deal -- some of which would have required testifying against Garvin, who'd been accused of holding down the victim's head for the oral-sex act with Ginnane, then assaulting her himself. The final offer was a plea to third-degree sexual assault, a misdemeanor that would have come with a deferred sentence, wiping Ginnane's record clean after a year if he behaved. But he refused the deal because it involved the word "sexual," and he believed he was innocent of sexual assault -- even if he still wasn't confessing to even consensual sex.
But Ginnane didn't feel too confident as he sat in the courtroom with the all-white jury, watching the white judge and the white prosecutors, listening to his white accuser say that she'd been forced to perform oral sex. Even as his defense committee -- several hundred members strong -- showed up to support him, feminist groups would come denounce him. Still, his lawyer had assured him that even if he were convicted, he'd get no more than probation.
And the jury did convict Ginnane -- the first instance of someone being convicted of acquaintance rape in Colorado, according to then-assistant DA Mary Keenan. The next day, Ginnane learned that the mandatory minimum for the crime was a sixteen-year prison sentence. It didn't matter that his victim would go to a case officer before sentencing to ask that Ginnane not be sent back to jail.
By the time he returned to court for sentencing, Ginnane had a new lawyer, David Lane, who says he tried to "unfuck the fucked." On the stand, Ginnane's previous attorney admitted that he'd done a bad job representing his client, failing to tell Ginnane of the consequences of a conviction or to put on much of a defense. He explained that he'd been handling personal problems -- including a divorce -- and had been basically homeless. (Later, it would come out that he was also addicted to coke.) After that, a parade of supporters -- friends and neighbors and community members -- testified on Ginnane's behalf, two days' worth, talking about his exemplary record, his supportive family, his work in the community. Judge Joseph Bellipanni sentenced him to eight years -- half of the mandatory minimum.
But even ninety days in prison -- fighting gangs, fighting homosexual advances, above all fighting boredom -- seemed like an eternity to the now 22-year-old. And at a sentence-reconsideration hearing that spring, Ginnane jumped through the loophole the judge had offered: He called himself a rapist. "He would have admitted to assassinating John Kennedy at that point," says Lane.
"I took the nuclear option, and I sold out," Ginnane says. "It hurt. The community was disappointed in me." (But when he told Garvin -- who'd also been convicted, and sentenced to ten years -- what he was going to do, Garvin had given him his blessing.)
Over Keenan's objections, the judge changed Ginnane's sentence to eight years' probation -- on the condition that he never deny his guilt or appeal the conviction. Ginnane was now out of jail, but in another sort of confinement: As a convicted sex offender, he had to comply with the state's stringent therapy requirements or risk being sent back to prison.
He finished college -- at the University of Colorado at Denver -- and started looking for a job. Not only did he want to get on with his life, but he had hefty, court-ordered-therapy bills to pay. Every time he admitted that he was a convicted sex offender, though, potential positions disappeared. He thought getting a master's in business might help, but it just prolonged the inevitable turn-down. At one point, modeling work kept him going -- but then someone called his agent and said that it was inappropriate for a date-rapist to be doing a cable ad for a dating program. Finally, he took a job moving furniture.
In sex-offender programs, he was lumped in with pedophiles, serial rapists. "We are the same," he writes. "I am grouped in the same category as the most horrible creatures out there. They tell you that in group, that all you guys are alike." To deny that he was like them was to be in denial.
At one point, Ginnane was put on the "peter meter," as Lane calls it, with an erection sensor placed over his penis while he lay in a reclining chair, watching graphic images overhead. "We began what consisted of an hour experiencing the most horrific, degrading, violent, sadistic, grotesque, morally reprehensible, sexually deviant, disease-infected perversions against women and children any sane man wouldn't wish on his worst enemy," Ginnane writes. "An eternal hour! I felt completely filthy.... At that moment, I truly believe I can understand, or at least relate, to what if feels like to be genuinely raped. Violated and filthy! But I had to pay several hundred dollars for it."
A few years later, he had to repeat the procedure. A few years after that, plathismographs were repudiated -- but the standards for sex-offender therapy in this state just grew more stringent. "I was really cooperative at first," he says, "because I thought I could complete this therapy. Then I realized that no one could complete this therapy."
Initially, he'd been able to have a beer or two, then those were forbidden. He had to report every sexual encounter. His new girlfriend had to report on their encounters. He could not be around children -- even his own nephew. Finally, after eight years, he realized that he would never be free -- that his probation was just another long guilty plea. "The way the sex-offender statutes are set up, if you are in denial, then you're a sex offender," Lane explains. "It's one size fits all. You can't be around kids, even if you've been convicted of touching an adult female. They were on his ass like a cheap suit. I must have gone to court a dozen times with Kumbe for bullshit violations of his probation.
"I got to the point," he remembers, "where I was leaving Boulder after a hearing, and I was going by the campus, and I was screaming, 'Don't have sex with anyone! You'll go to prison!'"
After yet another violation, Ginnane stood before a judge -- again. "I swear to God I've done my best," he said. "I've spent thousands of dollars. I've met with seven people a week. I've given it my best shot."
In 2001, at the age of thirty, Ginnane was sentenced to another four years in prison for that night back in October 1990.
"It's the biggest injustice I've seen in 25 years as a criminal defense attorney," says Lane -- and that includes ten years working as a public defender in New York City. "Once the beast gets awakened, it just runs its course. It's brainless political correctness gone amok."
Ginnane did his time and was finally released in March 2004. Now he's trying to get his life back on track. "He'd always been a very good student," his brother says. "He's done so many things in his life -- being a musician, racing motorcycles, modeling. He had such a promising future, and this has completely changed his life." He's still having trouble finding work, and is doing a driving gig right now. But Ginnane published the book he'd started during therapy, then picked up again during his second stretch in Cañon City (the mixed-up chronology makes it a convoluted read, but Ginnane never said he was Shakespeare -- just wronged). He founded a nonprofit, the Genesis:39 Foundation (genesis39.org), named after the first recorded instance of a false rape allegation -- in the Bible, and made against Joseph, when he spurned a married woman's advances -- with the goal of educating the public and minimizing false rape allegations. Date rape is a myth, he says. If it's rape, it's rape.
This past spring, he took his message and his books to the CU campus. "I did a brief reading," he says. "The Black Students Alliance received me with open arms. But some people wanted to spit on me. I was right next to a feminist student table. We got involved in a really intriguing debate."
To keep the debate going, he speaks everywhere he can -- before community groups, youth groups, athletic groups. Later this month he'll address the California college team now coached by former CU Buff Eric Bienemy. "I'll tell them that you need to be very careful about women coming on to you and wanting to have sex with you because you're popular and handsome, and there might be alcohol involved, and you have to be careful.... If you are going to have sex with women, don't be rude to them. Be aware of what can happen. What happened to me."
Although Ginnane is eager to talk about what happened to him, what could happen to anyone, he has yet to make an official appearance at CU -- where the talk has been all about sex, and student athletes, and racism, for the past several years. When he started out in Boulder, he remembers, the freshman class got a lecture on how to put a condom on a banana. Nothing about the dangers of mixing alcohol with sex. Nothing about how regret can turn to accusations of rape. "Guys need to practice safe sex," he says. "Use a condom and a camcorder." Record consent before engaging in a one-night stand.
His mother, who'd wanted her sons to go to all-black Howard University, offers more pointed advice. "I was raped," she says. "I know what it's like to have someone force you down and stick themselves in you. Some of us know what rape is. I would tell a young black man never to be in a room alone with a white girl.... I'd tell them to make sure there's someone in there who's white. I would tell them to keep their minds on their books, to study hard, to get all the knowledge, to ignore the racism. I would tell them not to give up who they are politically and culturally, but to be aware that they're in a hostile environment."
His own mother isn't the only one affected by his story. "I'm that guy you don't want to be like," Ginnane says. "Mothers all across the state tell me, 'My son needs to read this before he goes to college.'" Otherwise, he may get an unexpected education.
Kumbe Ginnane will always be labeled a sex offender. Under a new state law, he'll be included in Colorado's online sex-offender registry. He will never know what would have happened if he'd told the truth. Whatever it may be.
For a convicted rapist, the truth may not set you free.
By Patricia Calhoun
Published: August 18, 2005
No question, Kumbe Ginnane lied.
Kumbe Ginnane learned his lesson in the school of hard knocks.At least twice.
He lied when University of Colorado cops, and then the Boulder District Attorney's Office, asked if he'd had sexual contact with a coed on October 19, 1990. No, he said then, he hadn't had sex of any kind with her. He told that to a jury in October 1992, too.
And he lied in May 1993, when he told a judge that he'd actually sexually assaulted the woman -- an admission that got him out of Cañon City in exchange for eight years of probation. Or he lied in 2001, when he said he'd only confessed to the judge so that he could get out of jail, but then realized that eight years of probation as a convicted sex offender was really a lifetime sentence of never-ending hell, and that he'd rather go back to prison.
This is no lie: "Yes, I was an asshole," Ginnane writes in his self-published book, From Regret to Rape. "But I unquestionably did not deserve what was in store for thirteen years."
Here's what Ginnane says is the truth about that night in October 1990. His sophomore roommate, Detric Devonn Garvin, had gone partying at a sorority whose members were legendary for their sexual enthusiasms, then brought a female student back to their dorm room -- along with some tacos and condoms they'd picked up at a convenience store. "Threesome," Ginnane thought, every guy's fantasy. When Garvin went to get a condom, the woman -- who'd obviously been drinking but didn't seem that drunk -- put her hand down Ginnane's pants, then took his penis in her mouth. Fifteen seconds later, there was a knock on the door: Ginnane's girlfriend, Kristin. While his roommate ran interference, Ginnane collected his clothes and his books and then went to Kristin's room, where he spent the night.
It was because of his girlfriend that he didn't want to admit to even fifteen seconds of oral sex. So Ginnane was relieved when word seeped out that the woman had bragged to her sorority sisters about having sex with a black man but mentioned only Garvin, not Ginnane. She continued to occasionally stop by their room. Ginnane told her she was acting like a "ho."
Then, as now, casual sex is almost a rite of passage at college -- with a river of alcohol running through many of the stories. And then, as now, casual sex with athletes, often black athletes, is the stuff of constant campus conversation at the University of Colorado. In 1989, the year Ginnane left home in Denver to enroll at CU, everyone was talking about another football scandal -- this one involving then-coach Bill McCartney's teenage daughter, who was pregnant. Several football players took paternity tests; it turned out the baby's father was Sal Aunese, the Samoan quarterback who would soon die of cancer.
For black athletes -- or big black guys who looked like athletes -- sex was pretty free and easy in Boulder, and the identities of willing partners were common knowledge. "You were going to gain attention up there," remembers Greg Thomas, a football player who was in Ginnane's fraternity. "If you were an African-American male, people assumed that you were an athlete. Hooking up just kind of went with the territory."
But in the spring of 1991, right after Ginnane won a coveted spot as a resident advisor -- a job that the woman had also sought -- word began leaking out that what had happened in that dorm room six months before had involved more than hooking up. "I thought of how I wanted this fucking, spite-saturated, false rape allegation to go away as fast as possible," Ginnane writes. "I thought, 'What if I just deny the sex act?' I lied." He lied to a campus cop, he lied to his girlfriend. He told his mother that the cops were just interested in Garvin. He couldn't believe that what he considered clearly consensual could turn into an accusation of rape.
He talked to his brother, Tunde, who was two years ahead of him at CU, a resident advisor himself. Tunde couldn't imagine his brother getting in trouble for what seemed like common college behavior. "He wasn't the type of guy who'd force a girl to do anything," he says. "There are girls falling at his feet all the time."
And then one night in October 1991, Ginnane and Kristin went to Denver for his sister's eleventh birthday party, and "our phone started ringing," says JuJu Maisha Nkrumah, his mother. "People said that Kumbe was on the news. They were saying that he was wanted and 'at large.'" Not so "at large" that she hadn't been able to reach him at his dorm room earlier that day, but at large as far as the media was concerned.
She drove her son back to Boulder, to campus police headquarters. "They tried to minimize everything," she remembers. "I allowed them to talk to my son. If I had it to do over again, I would have had a lawyer be with him."
And a different lawyer than she wound up hiring after Ginnane, like Garvin, was charged with first-degree sexual assault. Ginnane kept going to classes -- he had to sue for the right to stay at CU -- and kept seeing his girlfriend, but it wasn't easy. "Boulder's reality was I had forced this innocent white virgin to suck on my dirty rapist penis," he says. He sold his motorcycle to pay his legal fees. "Don't let them break your spirit!" he remembers Garvin telling him. "If they can break your spirit, you are already conquered."
Ginnane went on trial in Boulder in October 1992. He'd been offered deal after deal -- some of which would have required testifying against Garvin, who'd been accused of holding down the victim's head for the oral-sex act with Ginnane, then assaulting her himself. The final offer was a plea to third-degree sexual assault, a misdemeanor that would have come with a deferred sentence, wiping Ginnane's record clean after a year if he behaved. But he refused the deal because it involved the word "sexual," and he believed he was innocent of sexual assault -- even if he still wasn't confessing to even consensual sex.
But Ginnane didn't feel too confident as he sat in the courtroom with the all-white jury, watching the white judge and the white prosecutors, listening to his white accuser say that she'd been forced to perform oral sex. Even as his defense committee -- several hundred members strong -- showed up to support him, feminist groups would come denounce him. Still, his lawyer had assured him that even if he were convicted, he'd get no more than probation.
And the jury did convict Ginnane -- the first instance of someone being convicted of acquaintance rape in Colorado, according to then-assistant DA Mary Keenan. The next day, Ginnane learned that the mandatory minimum for the crime was a sixteen-year prison sentence. It didn't matter that his victim would go to a case officer before sentencing to ask that Ginnane not be sent back to jail.
By the time he returned to court for sentencing, Ginnane had a new lawyer, David Lane, who says he tried to "unfuck the fucked." On the stand, Ginnane's previous attorney admitted that he'd done a bad job representing his client, failing to tell Ginnane of the consequences of a conviction or to put on much of a defense. He explained that he'd been handling personal problems -- including a divorce -- and had been basically homeless. (Later, it would come out that he was also addicted to coke.) After that, a parade of supporters -- friends and neighbors and community members -- testified on Ginnane's behalf, two days' worth, talking about his exemplary record, his supportive family, his work in the community. Judge Joseph Bellipanni sentenced him to eight years -- half of the mandatory minimum.
But even ninety days in prison -- fighting gangs, fighting homosexual advances, above all fighting boredom -- seemed like an eternity to the now 22-year-old. And at a sentence-reconsideration hearing that spring, Ginnane jumped through the loophole the judge had offered: He called himself a rapist. "He would have admitted to assassinating John Kennedy at that point," says Lane.
"I took the nuclear option, and I sold out," Ginnane says. "It hurt. The community was disappointed in me." (But when he told Garvin -- who'd also been convicted, and sentenced to ten years -- what he was going to do, Garvin had given him his blessing.)
Over Keenan's objections, the judge changed Ginnane's sentence to eight years' probation -- on the condition that he never deny his guilt or appeal the conviction. Ginnane was now out of jail, but in another sort of confinement: As a convicted sex offender, he had to comply with the state's stringent therapy requirements or risk being sent back to prison.
He finished college -- at the University of Colorado at Denver -- and started looking for a job. Not only did he want to get on with his life, but he had hefty, court-ordered-therapy bills to pay. Every time he admitted that he was a convicted sex offender, though, potential positions disappeared. He thought getting a master's in business might help, but it just prolonged the inevitable turn-down. At one point, modeling work kept him going -- but then someone called his agent and said that it was inappropriate for a date-rapist to be doing a cable ad for a dating program. Finally, he took a job moving furniture.
In sex-offender programs, he was lumped in with pedophiles, serial rapists. "We are the same," he writes. "I am grouped in the same category as the most horrible creatures out there. They tell you that in group, that all you guys are alike." To deny that he was like them was to be in denial.
At one point, Ginnane was put on the "peter meter," as Lane calls it, with an erection sensor placed over his penis while he lay in a reclining chair, watching graphic images overhead. "We began what consisted of an hour experiencing the most horrific, degrading, violent, sadistic, grotesque, morally reprehensible, sexually deviant, disease-infected perversions against women and children any sane man wouldn't wish on his worst enemy," Ginnane writes. "An eternal hour! I felt completely filthy.... At that moment, I truly believe I can understand, or at least relate, to what if feels like to be genuinely raped. Violated and filthy! But I had to pay several hundred dollars for it."
A few years later, he had to repeat the procedure. A few years after that, plathismographs were repudiated -- but the standards for sex-offender therapy in this state just grew more stringent. "I was really cooperative at first," he says, "because I thought I could complete this therapy. Then I realized that no one could complete this therapy."
Initially, he'd been able to have a beer or two, then those were forbidden. He had to report every sexual encounter. His new girlfriend had to report on their encounters. He could not be around children -- even his own nephew. Finally, after eight years, he realized that he would never be free -- that his probation was just another long guilty plea. "The way the sex-offender statutes are set up, if you are in denial, then you're a sex offender," Lane explains. "It's one size fits all. You can't be around kids, even if you've been convicted of touching an adult female. They were on his ass like a cheap suit. I must have gone to court a dozen times with Kumbe for bullshit violations of his probation.
"I got to the point," he remembers, "where I was leaving Boulder after a hearing, and I was going by the campus, and I was screaming, 'Don't have sex with anyone! You'll go to prison!'"
After yet another violation, Ginnane stood before a judge -- again. "I swear to God I've done my best," he said. "I've spent thousands of dollars. I've met with seven people a week. I've given it my best shot."
In 2001, at the age of thirty, Ginnane was sentenced to another four years in prison for that night back in October 1990.
"It's the biggest injustice I've seen in 25 years as a criminal defense attorney," says Lane -- and that includes ten years working as a public defender in New York City. "Once the beast gets awakened, it just runs its course. It's brainless political correctness gone amok."
Ginnane did his time and was finally released in March 2004. Now he's trying to get his life back on track. "He'd always been a very good student," his brother says. "He's done so many things in his life -- being a musician, racing motorcycles, modeling. He had such a promising future, and this has completely changed his life." He's still having trouble finding work, and is doing a driving gig right now. But Ginnane published the book he'd started during therapy, then picked up again during his second stretch in Cañon City (the mixed-up chronology makes it a convoluted read, but Ginnane never said he was Shakespeare -- just wronged). He founded a nonprofit, the Genesis:39 Foundation (genesis39.org), named after the first recorded instance of a false rape allegation -- in the Bible, and made against Joseph, when he spurned a married woman's advances -- with the goal of educating the public and minimizing false rape allegations. Date rape is a myth, he says. If it's rape, it's rape.
This past spring, he took his message and his books to the CU campus. "I did a brief reading," he says. "The Black Students Alliance received me with open arms. But some people wanted to spit on me. I was right next to a feminist student table. We got involved in a really intriguing debate."
To keep the debate going, he speaks everywhere he can -- before community groups, youth groups, athletic groups. Later this month he'll address the California college team now coached by former CU Buff Eric Bienemy. "I'll tell them that you need to be very careful about women coming on to you and wanting to have sex with you because you're popular and handsome, and there might be alcohol involved, and you have to be careful.... If you are going to have sex with women, don't be rude to them. Be aware of what can happen. What happened to me."
Although Ginnane is eager to talk about what happened to him, what could happen to anyone, he has yet to make an official appearance at CU -- where the talk has been all about sex, and student athletes, and racism, for the past several years. When he started out in Boulder, he remembers, the freshman class got a lecture on how to put a condom on a banana. Nothing about the dangers of mixing alcohol with sex. Nothing about how regret can turn to accusations of rape. "Guys need to practice safe sex," he says. "Use a condom and a camcorder." Record consent before engaging in a one-night stand.
His mother, who'd wanted her sons to go to all-black Howard University, offers more pointed advice. "I was raped," she says. "I know what it's like to have someone force you down and stick themselves in you. Some of us know what rape is. I would tell a young black man never to be in a room alone with a white girl.... I'd tell them to make sure there's someone in there who's white. I would tell them to keep their minds on their books, to study hard, to get all the knowledge, to ignore the racism. I would tell them not to give up who they are politically and culturally, but to be aware that they're in a hostile environment."
His own mother isn't the only one affected by his story. "I'm that guy you don't want to be like," Ginnane says. "Mothers all across the state tell me, 'My son needs to read this before he goes to college.'" Otherwise, he may get an unexpected education.
Kumbe Ginnane will always be labeled a sex offender. Under a new state law, he'll be included in Colorado's online sex-offender registry. He will never know what would have happened if he'd told the truth. Whatever it may be.
Big Red died 23 NOV 2001
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
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Buffmaster
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Re: Wrongfully convicted of a crime thread
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Big Red died 23 NOV 2001
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
You owe your success to your first wife. You owe your second wife to your success---Sean Connery
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