News & Innocence Issues

Call For More Utah Counties To Set Up Conviction Integrity Units

Only a few Utah counties have set up review boards to help free the wrongfully convicted, Michael Locklear of KUTV reports. As featured on KJZZ.com, Tuesday, August 26: This article includes:

Conviction integrity units
4 Utah counties have created them
A call for more counties to set up the units
Jensie Anderson’s response to Tuesday’s announcement

Excerpt: SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — The Rocky Mountain Innocence Center is calling for more counties in Utah to set up conviction integrity units, which are essentially review boards that work to free people who’ve been wrongfully convicted.

Jensie Anderson, legal director for the Center, said Utah is “a little behind the curve.” She said her nonprofit is willing to help smaller counties establish units.

“I think all of the counties ultimately should probably have one,” she said.

The first convictions to be overturned through this relatively new process are in the works, announced Tuesday by Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.

Read the rest of the article here: https://kjzz.com/news/local/only-a-few-utah-counties-have-set-up-review-boards-to-help-free-the-wrongfully-convicted

Clark County OKs Share Of $14.5M Payout To Wrongfully Imprisoned DeMarlo Berry

Beyond thrilled to share this great news: DeMarlo Berry was awarded $14.5M payout last week as a results of his wrongful conviction of which he served over 22 years. DeMarlo was sentenced to life in prison plus a consecutive 25 years in 1995. The conviction was vacated after Berry secured assistance years earlier from the Rocky Mountain Innocence Center and following a reopened investigation by the district attorney’s newly formed conviction review unit.

Read the article here:

Clark County OKs share of $14.5M payout to wrongfully imprisoned man

How Concealing Officer Misconduct Has Impacted Wrongful Convictions

Check out our legal director Jensie Anderson as she discusses how concealing officer misconduct has impacted wrongful convictions with KJZZ. You can read the article that details all of Utah’s previous legal proceedings to combat this issue.

Stamps For Monthly Correspondence With Clients

During the COVID-19 crisis, our mail output has been bigger than ever. Normally we are able to visit our clients, and we make every effort to do so at least once a year. With the health of our clients and other incarcerated individuals on the line, we’ve chosen to halt all prison visits until it is safe. This means an influx of mail. Our clients need to know we’re still out here, fighting for them, even if we can’t see them face-to-face.⠀

Every dollar you send us goes towards the extensive work we put into each case. With 60+ open cases, we work hard to give each case the attention and devotion it deserves. Please go to our website to read about our clients that we have helped exonerate, the legislative work we have done in Utah, Nevada, and Wyoming, or to donate to our cause today.

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Congratulations to Jensie Anderson, Public Service Award Winner!

We are pleased to announce that RMIC’s Legal Director and Past President, Jensie L. Anderson is one of the Honorees of Utah Philanthropy Day on November 19, 2019. She will be recognized with the Lt. Governor’s Public Service Award. Ms. Anderson served as RMIC President from 2001-2011 and is currently our Legal Director. She litigates innocence and wrongful conviction claims throughout Utah, Wyoming, and Nevada.

She also serves as director of the Innocence Clinic and administrative supervisor of the Criminal Clinic (both prosecutor and defender) at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at The University of Utah. Professor Anderson teaches legal methods, innocence investigation and post-conviction process, criminal process, lawyering skills, and introduction to law. Please help us in congratulating her for this great honor.

Three Strikes Law

What is 3 Strikes Law?

In many states, such as Utah, 3 strikes law increases the penalties enforced on an individual for a third time offense in certain cases. Three Strikes Law is meant to deter individuals who have been convicted of a crime from reoffending.

Criticisms of 3 Strikes Law

There is little evidence that 3 strikes law is effective deterrent and instead has been linked to the growing prison populations. For individuals who have commited repeated offenses in charges relating to DUIs, theft, domestic violence, violent felonies, the penalties for their third crime can be more severe. For example, under Utah law, a person who commits a petty theft can be charged with a 3rd degree felony if in the last 10 years an individual has twice been convicted of theft: a sentence of up to 5 years in prison and a fine of up to 5,000 dollars.

Shaken Baby Syndrome

What is shaken baby syndrome?

Shaken baby syndrome (SBS) is a critical brain injury that occurs when an infant or toddler is shaken very roughly by a caregiver. This often occurs as a result of a caregiver’s frustration with the child. Babies and toddlers are at risk for this injury because their neck muscles have not developed the strength to support heavy heads. If the infant is shaken, it is not able to stabilize their head and their fragile brain moves within their skull. The shaking can cause the brain to bleed, swell, and bruise, which can cause irreversible brain damage.

Diagnosis of Shaken Baby Syndrome

The 3 ‘tell-tale’ signs, or triad, of shaken baby syndrome are said to be; subdural hematoma, brain swelling, and bleeding behind the eyes.

Wrongful Convictions due to Misdiagnosis of SBS

At the moment, many medical practitioners believe SBS can be diagnosed with the triad of symptoms. Norman Guthkelch was the first to hypothesize that whiplash causes the 3 indicator symptoms of SBS. The mistake made by lawmakers was conflating his Guthkelch’s hypothesis as categorical evidence for SBS when there had not been sufficient nor conclusive evidence that the triad is associated with SBS. The Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services has reviewed SBS literature and found insufficient evidence to use the triad to diagnose SBS. Specialists in the field are now saying that there are other factors which can cause these symptoms to appear. Accidental falls, previous injuries, infections, perinatal problems, and birth trauma can be misdiagnosed as SBS due to the brain damage they can cause. The lack of reliability of the triad for diagnosing shaken baby syndrome emphasizes the need to combine medical evidence with other evidence that proves abuse occurred.

False Confessions/Testimonies

A person may confess to a crime they did not commit, but that confession is sometimes not an action of self-autonomy. Some factors can influence people to make false confessions or testimonies:

Interrogations

The Reid Technique is used to interrogate individuals by first asking non-accusatory questions to establish whether that person was involved in the crime, and secondly asking accusatory questions to people believed to be culpable. In the second stage, the officer is trying to get an admission of guilt from the suspect.

Issues with the Reid Technique Interrogations

The initial stage is based on largely on behavioral analysis to determine if someone was involved. This is problematic since non-verbal signs of lying are unreliable as indicators of deception.
Compliance is encouraged, therefore an innocent individual often gives up their Miranda rights to seem compliant and avoid suspicion. Miranda rights protect individuals from incriminating themselves with their own words and lack of legal advising.
Physical stressors, such as lengthy interrogations and lack of food or water, can wear down a suspect and coerce them to falsely admit their guilt.

Proof of a coerced testimony could be used to protect an innocent individual, therefore legislation that requires the recording of interrogations would help diminish punishment for false confessions extracted through coercion.

Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

What is Ineffective Assistance of Counsel?

By law, an individual has a right to assistance from a counsel. It is the job of a lawyer to investigate alibis and witnesses, ask experts to analyze evidence, and be present at the trials. When lawyers are ineffective at trials, the innocent individual suffers. Their vulnerability as civilians to the specialized practice of law can render them defenseless even if they have compelling evidence to support their innocence. When a lawyer is not a good vector to communicate the innocence of an individual, the convicted person may file a habeas corpus claim to prove ineffective assistance of counsel.

What constitutes Ineffective Assistance of Counsel?

The supreme court case Strickland v. Washington established that prove ineffective assistance of counsel, and a violation of the 6th amendment, a defendant must demonstrate the following

that their trial lawyer’s performance fell below an “objective standard of reasonableness”
“a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different”

Bite Mark Evidence

What is Bite Mark Evidence?

If a victim of a crime is bitten, the impressions of a suspect’s teeth can be taken and compared to the injuries sustained by the victim. Forensic dentists examine the victim’s bite mark for characteristics and arrangement of the teeth.

Criticisms of Bite Mark Evidence

Forensic dentistry has been heavily criticized for having some of the highest error rates amongst the forensic identification specialties. Upon review from the committee from the National Academy of Sciences, experts concluded that bite mark similarities are insufficient evidence to incriminate an individual to the exclusion of other suspects.

The suspicion over the accuracy of this evidence comes from the nature of our skin. The skin changes over time: it is elastic, responds to injury with swelling as it repairs, changes as it is moved, and is uneven. Additionally, there is no consensus that teeth are individual to a person. Furthermore, there is a limited sample size when forensic scientists make models of the teeth. All 32 teeth are not likely to leave a clear impression on a victim’s skin; it may be 4-8 biting teeth that leave an impression. From that limited sample size, 2 people are increasingly likely to have similar biting teeth. A bite mark made by one person, therefore, may be matched to another innocent individual due to the nature of skin and the similarities between individuals’ teeth.

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