Todd Willingham, A Man Of The State Of Texas With His Wife And Three Kids

Recently in Alabama a man by the name of Anthony Ray Hinton was exonerated from death row after already spending thirty years in prison. Hinton was convicted of two separate fatal shootings of fast food restaurant managers in Birmingham, AL. One on February 25, 1985 shooting a John Davidson, and the second occurrence was on July 2, 1985 making Thomas Vason the second deceased. The evidence brought against him was a revolver that somewhat matched the one Hinton had in his home. There was no physical evidence, no fingerprints and no eyewitnesses linking him to the crime. Also, the revolver was questionable at best due to the fact the gun belonged to his mother who he lived with. Ballistics could not accurately tell if the gun Hinton had was even the weapon used in the shootings because they could not tell if his gun had been fired out of recently. They also could not conclusively say that all the bullets used in the two shootings were fired from the same gun. All in all, Hinton was convicted by a possible bullet match to his gun; and an eyewitness’s testimony from a person who was present at a similar, but different crime that Hinton was never accused of. Hinton coming from an underprivileged area only had a $1,000 to hire a ballistics expert to disprove the allegations. Thus leading to a person whose proposed allegations were questionable. Hinton was found guilty and put on Death Row. After sitting in a jail cell for thirty years he was released after firearms experts

Think about how often people get arrested and how often trials are held every year, let alone every day. Oftentimes, innocent people are accused and charged for a crime that wasn’t their fault. This was the case for Adnan Syed, an innocent guy who was put in jail for a murder case. On January 13, 1999, Hae Min Lee was murdered at the age of 17. The evidence in this case was very unexplainable, but of course, the state went after Hae’s ex-boyfriend Adnan who really had nothing to do with the murder. Things that prove Adnan’s innocence are the breakup between him and Hae, how Adnan thought about and his feelings towards Hae, how the times and stories told with others didn’t suit well, and his alibi. Additionally, his DNA didn’t match with items

2. Case Facts: On October 13, 1979, George Schnopps fatally shot his wife of 14 years. The victim and schnopps began having marital problems six months prior, when schnopps became suspicious that his wife was seeing another man. A few days prior to the incident, Schnopps threatened to make his wife suffer. On October 12, 1979 while at work asked a coworker to buy him a gun, telling the worker that he had been receiving threatening phone calls. Schnopps paid his coworker for the gun and ammunition. On the day of the incident, Schnopps told a neighbor he was going to call his wife and have her come pick up some things, and asked if them to keep the youngest child with her so he could talk to with his wife. When the wife went over Schnopps tried to convince his wife to stay with him, in response the wife made some vulgar comments which triggered Schnopps. He then shot her and then shot himself. Shortly after he called the neighbor and told her what had happened and she called the police. The defense offered evidence from friends and coworkers who noticed difference in Schnopps physical and emotional health after the victim had left him. The Commonwealth’s expert

A man by the name of Darryl Hunt was apprehended at the age of 19. He was charged and convicted of a murder that he did not commit in the year of 1984 in North Carolina. During the trial, the testing of DNA results proved the innocence of Mr. Hunt in 1994, however it took an additional 10 years of legal appeals to free him. The death of Deborah Sykes, a 25 year old copy editor at a local newspaper, whom was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death is what Mr. Hunt was accused of doing. Until this day this crime still touches many including Mr. Hunt.

Tammy was the exoneree and was charged and arrested on November 23rd, 1993 for the second degree murder of her 2 ½ year old son Kenneth. Charles Smith the leading expert in Canada on performed Kenneth’s autopsy and insisted that the cause of death was asphyxia. Smith convinced the crown that Tammy was a young mother with limited financial resources, parenting and coping skills, and was involved in an unstable relationship with Rick and Tammy was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 10 years.

On 01/01/16 at approximately 0125 I was in Plano, Texas for a New Years Eve party. After the party my wife and I were driving back to our hotel room and saw a bunch of policemen at the corner of Preston Street and Hedgcoxe. I slowed down but continued the to drive back to the hotel. Later, that morning I turned the television on and the news anchor man stated that a 31-year-old Plano man has been charged with manslaughter after police said he fled the scene of an accident that killed a 10-year-old girl and injured four others on New Year’s Day, police said. The anchor man said the driver of the car name was Jason Jude Benoit and policeman believed Benoit caused the crash by running a red light before fleeing the scene on foot. A 10-year-old

Bryan Stevenson memoir “Just Mercy” is a story of Justice and redemption, Bryan Stevenson is a young, gifted, dedicated attorney defending the poor, the wrongly condemned, and those trapped in our criminal justice system. In Just Mercy, Bryan recounts some of the cases he took and transformed not just his but our understanding of mercy and justice. Just Mercy revealed how harsh our criminal justice system can be towards the poor,minorities, and our youth. Stevenson memoir raise the question and concern “Is Justice really being served.” The purpose of the criminal justice system is to punish those who committed a crime and to protect the innocent, the system failed to do so in the cases Stevenson reflect on in his memoir.

30 years after being convicted in the rape and murder of an 11 year-old girl, two mentally disabled half-brothers were declared innocent and released. McCollum, 50, had spent 30 years on death row and Leon Brown, 46 was serving a life sentence. McCollum and Brown who were 19 and 15 at the time were first arrested because of suspicion cast on them by a local teenager who had consider them outsiders. McCollum was questioned with no lawyers present and after 5 hours of questioning he eventually made up a story and signed a confession so that the investigators would let him go home. Brown, after being told that his half-brother had confessed and that he would severely punished if he didn’t cooperate he also signed a confession. They had both initially received death sentences but after new trials were ordered by the State Supreme Court, Mr. Brown was convicted only of

Cameron Todd Willingham – In 1992, Willingham was convicted of arson murder in Corsicana, Texas. He was believed to have purposely set a fire that killed his three kids. In 2004, he was put to death. The Texas Forensics Science Commission didn’t find out UNTIL AFTER his execution the evidence was misinterpreted, and they concluded that none of the evidence used against Willingham was valid. The fire was accidental. Maybe if they would have looked harder into it they would have found out that fires are started accidentally all the time! Fires are started by cooking, the heater, washing machines and dryers, air conditioners and fans, candles, electrical equipment, if its fourth of July your fireworks can start a fire, Christmas trees, sometimes your cigarettes are not all the way out like you think they are and they can start the fire (most things in the world can). Look at your facts and look over the crime scene

The book Monster, by Walter Dean Myers, tells the tale of two young men being on trial for felony murder. Sixteen year-old Steve Harmon and twenty-two year-old James King are accused of participating in a robbery that caused the death of an innocent man. That innocent man’s name was Aguinaldo Nesbitt, and he owned a drugstore in Harlem. The Prosecutor, Sandra Petrocelli claims that Steve Harmon served as the lookout in the robbery, and also says James King was the one who pulled the trigger on the gun that killed Aguinaldo Nesbitt. Steve Harmon’s Attorney Kathy O’Brien does a great job of making Steve appear as a regular, respectful, smart kid, and seems to have a great interest in film which his teacher George Sawicki points out in his testimony. James King’s attorney, Asa Briggs, tries her very best to make King look innocent, but there isn’t much evidence that doesn’t put him at the crime scene. The state calls two witnesses that are very significant in deciding whether James King is guilty, and why Steve is not, and those witnesses are Richard “Bobo” Evans and Lorelle Henry. And the defense ( Kathy O’Brien) calls George Sawicki to the stand and he preaches about how great of a student and person Steve is, so it makes him look even more innocent to the jury. All of these witnesses make James King look

On December 23, 1991 Willingham’s home caught on fire with his three babies stuck in the house. There was immediate suspicion about what happened because he did not go back in the house to find his children. All of his actions that occurred before and after the fire lead him into being a primary suspect. When Willingham was in prison an informant named Webber came forward saying Willingham admitted to setting the fire, he was sentenced to death. Later on toward his execution day Webber came forward again and admitted to lying. He said that Willingham never confessed to him and that he was innocent. February 17th came and that was Willingham execution date. After hiring an arson specialist evidence came back and showed that he was innocent but it was too late. This is a perfect example on how taking informants serious is not always a good idea. The informant lied just because he was being offered something by one of the police officers. Because of the informants lies this man was sentenced to death and died an innocent

On November 27th, 1976 Mr. Adams’ car ran out of fuel and he was forced to walk to the nearest gas station (Radelet, 2011). Shortly after this Mr. Adams was given a ride by local teenager David Ray Harris, who was driving a stolen vehicle. The two then spent the day together, even going to see a drive in movie. That night Mr. Adams returned to a motel where he was staying. Mr. Harris, now alone, was stopped by Officer Wood and his Partner Teresa Turko shortly after midnight. Officer Wood was shot and killed by Harris, who sped off too quickly for Officer Turko to get a plate number or a good look at the shooter. Directly after this Mr. Harris drove home and for the next few days, bragged to his friends that he offed a pig. Police questioned Harris upon learning of these statements. Harris however, feigned innocence, stating that he did not kill a cop and that he was just trying to impress his friends. Mr. Harris unfortunately pointed the finger at a hitchhiker that he had picked up, Mr. Adams. Police took Adams in for questioning, where he denied everything, but he did detail the events of the previous day. Mr. Adams was informed by the police that he had failed a lie detection test and that Harris had passed, but Adams still held that he was innocent. At this time the only actual evidence implicating Adams in the crime is the testimony that Harris gave to the police.

Sally Clark was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for killing her two sons. The death of her first child Christopher was ruled as a lung infection. When the second child Harry also died of SID’s the doctor examined the body and found signs that his death might have been the cause of shaking. This led to an investigation into the deaths of both children and even though there was no clear evidence to prove it, the doctor came to the conclusion that Christopher was smothered to death and Harry was shook to death. When in fact the cause of both their deaths was a lung infection. At the trail the jury was told that the chances of 2 babies from the same family dying of SID’s was 1 to 73 million. This statistic was “grossly misleading” because the jury wasn’t aware of how this was calculated, so they just assumed that it was correct and that dual cot deaths were extremely rare in a single family. After she did 3 years of her life sentence in prison her conviction was quashed on the basis that the medical evidence that could’ve cleared her was hidden. The discovery of the cot gene also helped in her

In 1987 in Texas, a prosecutor was faced with this dilemma. Michael Morton was convicted of murdering his wife based on circumstantial evidence. Morton’s defense attorney was never told about, or given access to, the police report in which Morton’s three year old son had told police that his daddy had not killed his mommy. After serving 25 years for murdering his wife, Morton was exonerated after attorneys were finally given access to the police report and DNA testing of a bloody bandana found at the scene of the murder matched a man who was serving a sentence for the murder of another woman.

Who is someone close to you? Someone you could not imagine living life without. What would you do if all of a sudden they were convicted of a crime they did not commit? On top of that, what if they were put on death row for 18 years only to be later found not guilty? Well, take that horrific image and make it into reality because for Damien Echols this was his reality. It was 1993 in West Memphis, Arkansas when three teenagers; Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley were all convicted of the murder and sexual mutilation of three eight-year-old boys. Due to their appearance and the widespread fear of rock music having relations with satanic worship, they were prime suspects in their small town.