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[ Music ]
>> Good morning.
I've, I've gotten to the age I had to go back into my bag
and get my reading glasses cause there's something I want to read to you later.
But I wanted to start with this slide because it's interesting that this slide came out,
or this quote came out in June of 1996 by Attorney General Janet Reno
when the NIJ published the Convicted by Juries,
Exonerated by Science that you heard about yesterday.
Our system of criminal justice is best described as a search for truth.
We had some discussion about that yesterday.
Increasingly, the forensic use of DNA technologies important ally in that search.
By highlighting the importance and utility DNA evidence,
this report challenges the scientific and justice community.
Among the tasks ahead are the following: Maintaining the highest standards for collection
and preservation of DNA evidence.
Insuring DNA testing methodology meets rigorous scientific criteria
for reliability and accuracy.
We've made some progress on those goals,
but I would say if we knew back 12 years ago the progress we would have made
in 12 years I don't think we would be very happy about it and I hope the progress we make
in the next 12 years will, will be a little more progressive.
So who am I and why am I here?
I am the executive director of The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence.
We are a non-profit organization.
We have 7 participating law school innocence projects in North Carolina
and the North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence coordinates all 7 projects.
So we have 200 volunteers that we are coordinating case work for.
We get 1200 claims a year and those are just North Carolina claims.
We get a lot of claims from other states that we do not take.
We run about a 90% rejection rate after initial review.
That means that we don't investigate, start and investigation
or what we call a further review on 90% of the cases that we get.
We have 130 active cases that means they are in any stage from initial,
beginning further review, to investigation and we have criteria for what cases we take.
And I wanted to show you this cause there was some discussion yesterday about the volume
of cases and the number of cases that would be subjected
to DNA testing and the flood gates opening.
And innocence projects take a lot of pride in, in maintaining their credibility
and we are very selective on the cases that we bring forward.
In North Carolina with 100 counties there are no more than 5 to 10 cases a year
that I would even approach a prosecutor or law enforcement about and that doesn't mean all 5
or 10 of those would need DNA testing.
So we're very selective and if we're reviewing that many cases
and where we're only bringing a handful forward then we would expect
that the ones we bring forward would cause some pause
and would get some review and some cooperation.
I went to a second meeting after our large meeting ended yesterday
and the question was posed; is there anybody in this room who's a defense attorney
and I you know I actually think of myself at the crossroads
between prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Sometimes I think of myself more as a prosecutor,
although I'm sure there's not a prosecutor in North Carolina
that would agree with that statement.
[Background laughter]In our work, in innocence work we are interested in freeing the innocent.
If someone is guilty I want them to stay exactly where they are
and that's why we are very selective about the cases.
So yes it is defense work but it is not your typical defense work.
It is not trial work and it is not typical post conviction work and so when we're talking
about the adversarial system I think it's important
to recognize the adversarial system really does not apply to this work because it,
it does not fit into the mold of the justice system we've been working with for so long.
[ Pause ]
>> North Carolina has had a history of some incredible DNA cases.
We have some incredible non-DNA cases too but I know that we're focusing on the DNA cases today.
But that's another question that gets raised is that with the volume of cases you're talking
about and we're only looking at 227 DNA exonerations
so far then justice system is doing pretty well.
We're only talking about DNA cases.
We're only talking about evidence that was 1 collected.
2 was preserved.
3 can still be tested.
4 where there is some cooperation or acceptance by the court for testing.
DNA is only 5 to 10% of cases.
But the things that cause wrongful convictions in DNA cases occur in non-DNA cases as well.
But I'll stick to the DNA cases because we, we have some great stories out of North Carolina.
You heard the first one yesterday.
Ronald Cotton was our first DNA exoneration case in North Carolina.
You heard from Jennifer and you heard from Ronald and you know their incredible story.
And there is a front line production called What Jennifer Saw, if you'd like to hear more
about that story, that was when she referred to when they documentary that's out there.
And they're also coming out with a book.
I'll do some free press for them called Picking Cotton.
That'll be coming out in a couple months I think.
The second case, Keith Brown is a fast eating case.
Didn't, it didn't get 1 lick of print in North Carolina, not 1 line.
It was a 2 people, *** and brutal beatings.
Keith took a plea for 35 years.
He was identified and there's a 17 page confession, it might be 16,
I don't want to exaggerate, 16 page confession with his initials on the bottom of every page
with some times corrected and some other corrections
on each page where he initials the changes.
Pretty solid evidence and there was a serial *** or what they suspected
to be a serial *** in Florida and they knew that the man who they were looking
at had spent some time in North Carolina and they asked for *** kits
for unidentified *** victims or unidentified *** suspects
to be sent down to Florida to be tested.
And the *** kit from Keith's Brown case was sent by accident.
And there was a hit on the serial rapists who was in Florida.
So the only problem with that 16 page confession was Keith didn't know any of those facts.
He was mentally challenged, he was very susceptible to suggestion and those facts had
to come from somewhere but they did not come from Keith being at the scene of the crime.
Leslie Jean another incredible story and you'll notice from Leslie
and Leo Waters summaries here, they're both from Oslo country.
You'll also notice that they both had hypnosis.
The memories of the witnesses
or victims involved were not quite as detailed as was needed.
So they used hypnosis to bolster those memories.
Leslie's case was over turned by the 4th Circuit
but because the witness testimony could no longer be used he was not retried.
He had been a solider at Camp Lejeune.
He was dishonorably discharged.
When he was released from prison they would not give him his military ID or his dog tags.
He was depressed; he could not find a job.
He fought for 10 years to find the evidence in his case to prove his innocence
because he was walking the streets as a *** and his evidence was found and tested
and he was exonerated in 2001 and the true perpetrator was identified.
Because of Leslie's depression, he became alcoholic.
After his exoneration he fell down some stairs and he is paraplegic.
Leo Waters is quite a character.
Leo was also convicted of ***.
A someone who came to look at a water bed for sale *** the women who was selling the bed
and Leo is our longest serving exauneree with 21 years.
He not lives out in a log cabin in the woods and does not want to be bothered by anybody.
Darrel Hunt; you saw some clips from Darrel's case yesterday.
The Trials of Darrel Hunt is an HBO documentary that is incredible story
and I also recommend that you watch that.
He is second longest serving, 19 years and again I won't go into the details
of Darrel's case you saw some of those clips yesterday but another incredible story,
and then Dwayne Dell who's my personal favorite.
I was his attorney in his exoneration case and my husband now refers to him as our 4th child.
The title about the session yesterday when Ronald and Jennifer spoke and the title
of this session today is Triumphs and Tragedies.
And had you asked me 6 months, 6 weeks ago what I would refer Dwayne's case
as I would have said it's a triumph.
He was basking in the glory of freedom.
He was so happy to be with his family and we have spoken to numerous groups
and I think people who have come away from hearing him,
his powerful talk would also agree it was a story of triumph.
In the last month or 2 it has turned into a story of tragedy.
He is not gonna be here with us today and I'm very disappointed for you and for me
that he is not going to be able to make it.
He lost 19 years of his life in prison and he gained 19 years of night mares.
19 years of brutality.
19 years of numerous rapes.
19 years of trying to understand why this happened to him and after a year and a half
of being out, the night mares have caught up with him and the bitterness has caught
up with him and he is trying to find his way.
I can stand up here and tell you the facts of his case and I will but I've struggled
with how I get you to feel Dwayne because it is these cases that bring to you the real people,
the real lives that are impacted by DNA.
The victims like Jennifer Thompson and the victims like Ronald Cotton and Dwayne Dale
and the other 225 DNA exonerations and their families, their sons and their daughters
and their sisters and brothers and mothers and fathers and friends and extended family
who have supported these people and believed in them and suffered along with them all the years
that they are incarcerated and then continue to suffer along with them after they are released.
Dwayne became a different person after 19 years in prison.
He became a person he does not want to be and he does not know how to become something else.
I will read you a few things that Dwayne has written
after I tell you some more facts of his story.
And yesterday Jennifer also returned talked about a journey, her journey
and how her journey began with the night of hell when she was *** and she is
on an incredible journey and I hope Dwayne will end
up after some years in a positive journey as well.
Before I take you on his journey though I'd like you to do something for me and that is
to close your eyes and think back to when you were 19 years old and I,
I know there's older people in the room will have trouble doing that but think back
to when you were 19 and think about the dreams and plans you had for your future.
Think about what you accomplished in the 19 years after that.
Maybe you got an education, maybe 2 degrees.
You got married.
You had family.
You bought your first home.
You bought furniture.
You went on vacations.
You had holidays.
You created memories.
You created friends.
Now take all that and wipe it out because that is what happened to Dwayne.
He had plans.
He had aspirations.
He was a good kid and he lost everything.
On September 4th 1987 at 2:30 in the morning a 12-year old girl was sleeping
in her bed in her apartment.
She heard something at the window and she saw someone cutting the screen out of her window
and someone climbed through the window.
She was shocked at what she was seeing.
She moved a little too slowly towards the door that was slightly open with a little bit
of light coming in through the hallway.
The man moved quicker across the room and held the knife to her throat and told her
to go back to the bed and shut the door.
He was with her for about a half hour.
He stole her innocence and then he left.
She lied in the bed for awhile petrified, afraid to move.
Eventually she went and found her mother and told her what had happened.
Of course her mother was, as a mother
of 3 children I can't imagine what the mother was going through.
She, the victim described the man as a medium height, shoulder length sandy brown hair,
Caucasian, no shirt, shorts, in his 20s, in a light beard that felt
like maybe he hadn't shaved for several days.
And the mother was absolutely focused on finding the man who had done this to her daughter.
3 weeks after the *** the mother saw a van drive by their apartment with someone in the van
who appeared to be looking up at the apartment window.
That was Dwayne.
He had friends who hung out at that apartment complex and he was driving
by in his sisters van to see if he could find anybody.
But he was driving by slowly and the mother found this very suspicious
and she took the license plate down and called the police
and the police said that's very interesting and thank you for letting us know
but you did not witness the ***, so we'll keep this information and we'll keep looking.
3 weeks after that, so 6 weeks after the ***, the mother was walking through the parking lot
and saw Dwayne in a crowd of kids.
She went inside and got her daughter and walked towards the crowd with the daughter
and the daughter seemed nervous and the mother said, is that him?
And the daughter shook her head yes and that Dwayne became the ***.
Police came the next day to see Dwayne.
He was not at home, they left a card.
He went down to the police station and they asked him where he was
at 2:30 the morning of September 4th.
He didn't remember it was 6 weeks earlier.
He said he thought he was probably sleeping.
A lot of times if you don't do anything wrong you don't know where you were.
He went home and really didn't think anything else of it until October 20th
so about a few days, 4 or 5 days after they presented him with a non-testimonial ID order.
He gave all the samples willingly.
He knew he was innocent.
He didn't object and again he didn't hear anything for a long time.
Not until May of the next year when he was reading the paper and he read
that he had been indicted for 1st degree burglary, 1st degree sex offense,
1st degree ***, indecent liberties with a minor and lewd and lascivious acts.
He went down to the paper; I mean to the police station,
went to sheriff's department first, nobody knew who he was.
Went to the police station.
He remembers very specifically it was Friday the 13th and he was arrested.
He spent 4 1/2 days in prison, in jail.
He thought that was the worst thing he was ever going to go
through because he knew he was innocent.
Before trial he was offered a plea bargain.
He was offered 3 years probation if he would plead guilty to a misdemeanor.
He refused to take that plea and that's a decision I'm sure he questioned many times
over the years that followed.
But he refused to take a plea he said because he knew, not only did he not do anything wrong
but that someone had hurt that girl, someone had *** that girl
and if he took a plea, she would never get justice.
He was checked he went to trial in March of 1989.
The trial was Monday, a Monday and a Tuesday.
On Wednesday he was found guilty.
On Thursday he was sentenced to 2 life sentences plus 18 years
and he was taken to central prison.
He was 20 years old.
He was shackled on his hands and on his ankles and around his waist.
He was put into a holding room with other inmates
and they started telling him how lucky he was he wasn't going to Polk Youth Institute
because that was a terrible place and at least they'd brought him to Central.
Then the guards came in, asked him how old he was.
He said he was 20 and they said we got to transfer you to Polk.
When he got to Polk he was crying, he was shaking, he was scared and they put him
into protective custody which was probably the thing that saved him for the next about year
and a half he stayed in protective custody.
He was in a cell alone 23 hours and 45 minutes a day and eventually he decided that he needed to,
he was going to go crazy with himself and he needed to go ahead
and get out of protective custody.
He was transferred to a new prison that actually he says was much better
than the youth prisons because things were calmer.
The youth prisons were terrible and he became very comfortable,
let his guard down a little bit.
Met some people, was trying to deal with what was happening to him and he became too trusting
and he was *** by 2 men and that wasn't the last time that that happened to him.
He's a small, good looking guy who went in as a child ***, a child *** of a,
of a 12- year old girl, a 12-year old black girl and he was a white man and when they checked him
into prison they took his card that had spelled out what he was convicted of and they passed it
around to all the inmates so that everybody knew what he was there for
and he suffered the consequences of that for the next 19 years.
Dwayne knew the power of DNA.
He read the papers and in 1999 he read about the case of David Vasquez in Virginia
and he wrote his attorney and he said I want you to find the evidence
in my case and I want you to preserve it.
I want you to make sure they don't destroy it and I want you to test it.
And she said, told him that he needed to wait
until his appeal was final before he could have DNA testing.
In 1992 his appeals were final, everything had been denied and he wrote her again
and said please find my evidence, please get it tested.
She wrote back and said she was in the middle of a very busy, a very hard case it was going
to be several weeks but after that she would get on finding the evidence and getting it tested.
He wrote her several times after that.
In 1995 his family learned that the evidence in his case had been destroyed.
It was destroyed in 1994.
The attorney did not get around to looking for the evidence
for 3 years after he made that request.
With the destruction of the evidence went the destruction of his hopes.
He knew the power of DNA, he knew what it meant to his life and they hoped,
his family hoped and prayed for something.
Along the way you'll see in the picture on the far side here, he's hugging a young boy.
That boy was born 7 months after Dwayne went into prison.
That's Dwayne's son.
His girlfriend was a couple months pregnant when he was convicted.
So he spent years of despair thinking his evidence had been destroyed having his son grow
with a few visits over time, not knowing who his father was and visiting his father at a prison.
Dwayne over the years Dwayne wrote letters to everybody, from governors to senators
to the president to the president's wife, to Oprah Winfrey.
There's no one who didn't get a letter from Dwayne and many got one every day.
The Center on Actual Instance got its letter, its first letter in 2000.
Dwayne sent his completed questionnaire in in 2001.
The case had all the signs that trigger us to have specific interest in a case.
The misidentification had all the red flags of a misidentification
of course it was just an ID then.
A young victim awoken in the middle of the night.
Limited time, limited exposure, limited light, weapon focus, trauma, cross race,
had all the factors that can lead to a misidentification.
The plea of course is very interesting for someone to be offered 3 years probation.
If they've committed against a 12-year old girl
and they're offered 3 years probation, that's a really attractive plea.
And the only forensic evidence presented at trial was microscopic hair comparison of 1 hair.
The throw rug in front of the girls bed had been vacuumed and the debris collected.
There were 40 Negroid hairs, 3 Caucasian, 2 *** hairs, that did not match Dwayne
and 1 head hair they determined was microscopically consistent.
So it was a very attractive case for us.
The victim at that point was an adult.
We do not contact victims, very, very rarely and when we contact them,
we contact them very, very carefully.
We have a letter that goes out that I've had reviewed from several,
several district attorney's to make sure that it's worded appropriately.
I've shown it to victim advocates.
I do have cases where victims have responded to my letters and said it never happened.
I made it up.
My mother was being beaten.
My parents were going through a divorce
and I was afraid my father was gonna get custody, it does happen.
But in this case we did try to contact the victim and she did not want to talk to us
and if they say they don't want to talk that's it, we're done.
We I think over the years tried 12 different times in the hope that the letter
from the county saying everything had been destroyed was not accurate.
We made phone calls, we made visits to try and find evidence in Dwayne's case and over
and over again we were told county only keeps evidence in *** cases.
Everything from *** cases is destroyed.
In 2004 we had to make the difficult decision to tell Dwayne we were closing his case.
There were no avenues for us to pursue and we closed it with him so he could move on,
but we never closed it in our office because we believed in his innocence and I do not say
that very often in these cases with the 1200 letters we get a year, most of them are guilty.
In July of 2007 we were cleaning out our old files.
With all the rejected cases we run out of room and we used to shred them
and about 5 years ago we decided we would box them up and now my attic looks a little
like that warehouse picture you saw yesterday.
But before we box them up we go through them by name and we make sure
that there's not specific cases we want to go ahead and leave in the office
and Dwayne's was one we all knew and we said that's not going in the attic,
that one stays in the office and we said let's just make 1 more phone call, just for grins.
In July 2007 we made a phone call, talked to the evidence room manager and he said no,
we only keep evidence in *** cases; no *** cases back that far,
there's no way there's anything here.
Same answer we always got and then right before he was going to hang
up the phone he said unless, unless it was one of these officers
because we just were doing an inventory and we found
that they were putting evidence in the wrong place.
And Dwayne's case was handled by one of those officers
and the *** evidence had been put on shelves with *** evidence.
And thank God they put it in the wrong place cause had they put it
in the right place it would have been destroyed and had they done an inventory
in 18 years, it would have been destroyed.
So there's a silver lining for incompetence.
From that point on this case is absolutely a miracle case.
Branny Vicory [assumed spelling] who is the district attorney
in Lane county North Carolina is my hero.
He epitomizes cooperation and he is a tough prosecutor but he's fair.
And this case I think set records in how quickly Dwayne was released from prison.
We found the evidence in mid July 2007.
Dwayne was released from prison on August 28th 2007; 6 weeks after we found the evidence.
The SBI lab worked with us and allowed us to bring in our own expert
so that we could talk together about how 20 year old evidence should be handled,
what type of testing should be done, the bags were sealed
so we didn't know exactly what was in there.
We hoped the *** kit was in there.
We opened; we were able to witness them as they opened the bags.
It turns out all the evidence that was admitted at trial which was the *** kit was destroyed
in 1994 when it went to the clerks office but what was left
in the bag was the bed sheets and the childs night gown.
We didn't know what type of evidence was going to be on that, that material
and we didn't know what testing would yield.
I knew what testing would yield and part of the reason I knew that is cause when I went
to prison to tell Dwayne we'd found evidence I said to him you're going to be up for parole
in a few years, if we test this and it matches you, it will hurt you,
it will hurt your chances for parole.
He had refused to go through the *** predator treatments, he had refused to express remorse,
he had refused to acknowledge his guilt
and if the evidence had matched him it was gonna hurt him.
And I looked him in the eyes and said
if there's any chance this is gonna match you don't do it, don't have me do it.
And he said you take everything you can find and you test it against everything they can find.
I am innocent and those are powerful words.
They did find *** on the inside seam of the childs nightgown.
I was asked some interesting questions during the testing in that case.
I was asked how do you know that she didn't have sex with somebody else?
And I said she was 12 and she was a ***
and they said how do you know somebody else didn't have sex in the bed?
These questions were being asked to me by the scientist.
The scientist who looks at the evidence objectively,
who is supposed to be interested only in the results, not the investigation
and at that point I said let the police and the DA do their job and you do yours.
And it was not only an exclusion of Dwayne but it was a hit and I love when there's a hit.
And I know there's a lot of people out there who object DNA being taken
from everybody but I say give it at birth.
So there was a hit and there was a hit on someone who had been charged with other rapes
who was in prison on 11 breaking and entering and there was a hit on August 27th 2007.
We went to court on August 28th, 2007.
And the District Attorney said Dwayne Dell will only walk out 1 set of doors in this courtroom
and we will stay here until he walks out as a free man.
He was Dwayne was pretty happy for a long time even though he was,
he was met with some hardships.
A month after he got out he was hit with a lawsuit for 18 years of back child support.
The mother of the child had read that he might be receiving some compensation from the state
and she felt she was entitled to that.
The other hardship for Dwayne was hearing
that the prosecutor had worried about this case over the years.
Hearing that while I was at a conference the sheriff for the county came up to me
and pulled me into a corner so that no one else would hear
and said you need to look into this case.
And of course we were already looking into it but he did not want anybody to know
that he was mentioning this to me.
To hear that defense attorneys had been concerned about his case.
To hear that the victim had often wondered had she gotten the right person?
To hear that the victim had said
to law enforcement I'm worried I didn't get the right person
and they said you did great, you did it.
That is what's painful to him.
To know that there were questions out there that people were afraid to ask
because they were the prosecutor, because they were the police.
To hear that in 1992 when he asked for DNA testing the evidence was sitting on a shelf
and 2 years later the evidence that he, the *** kit was destroyed
but the other evidence sat on a shelf for 16 years.
Those are the things that cause him pain.
Those are the things that cause him to look for answers and those are answers I can't give him.
He's angry now because no one's responsible, no one's responsible for what happened to him.
No one's responsible for the 18 years that he lost with his son.
I tell him that his story inspires others and that was enough
for awhile but it's not enough anymore.
Last week he was in my arms crying saying why did you get me out?
Leave the others that are applying that you think are innocent, leave them there.
And he called me a couple of days later and said I thought
about what I said and I want to take it back.
Don't get them out for them, get them out for the and I won't use the words, SOBs that did it.
Get them out so you can prosecute the people who do these crimes and sit back while we're
in prison rotting for what they did.
He's also angry about the lack of respect for his pain.
He's angry about the rubber stamp that was on his pardon.
He wanted a signature, he wanted a phone call.
He offered to help Department of Corrections;
he said maybe what I can do is I can give them some insight on what happens in prisons.
And the response was is this a publicity stunt?
Are you criticizing our work?
And that was the end of that offer.
Yesterday John Morgan asked Ronald and Jennifer how their families and friends felt
about what happened and I can tell you Dwayne has 5 brothers
and a sister and they are all suffering.
They suffered everyday he was in prison and they're all suffering with him now
and they're all at a loss what to do to help him.
I did want to read a few things that have Dwayne's actual words.
This letter was written in 1989 right after he went to prison about 2 months later.
I'm really losing my mind here at Blanch.
Being in a cell alone for 23 hours a day is wearing on my stability.
I know that you are doing the best job that you can; this was written to his attorney.
I really do appreciate that.
Please understand I'm here with other guys that are telling me that the court
of appeals will deny my appeal in a matter of minutes.
I try not to listen but it's always in the back of my mind.
I might not ever get out of here.
I can't handle Blanch any more I'm gonna have to get
out of protective custody and go to open compound.
I don't know what to do.
I can't fight.
I could never try to really hurt someone.
It just seems that eventually I'm gonna have to hurt someone or I will be killed.
I know I can't stand to be alone anymore all of the time.
I have become my own worst enemy.
I need to speak to a psychiatrist but there isn't one here.
I need somebody to talk to now that will listen and understand.
Nobody will.
I can't talk to my family.
All that does is upset them.
They are going through hell too.
Meanwhile I'm carrying the weight of the world on my back.
I can't go insane then I'd never get back to court.
The only place it will get me is to Central Prison
and the violence inside of the psycho ward.
I'm finding impossible to stay sane.
It's so lonely and dark and small in here.
I don't know what's going on out there.
All that I know is that I'm alone, I'm scared and I've been left behind.
I can't live like this.
I never dreamed that my life would be like this.
I'm living a constant hell.
What is a person supposed to do?
I'm stuck between sane and insane, live or dead?
Either way it's a no win situation.
How much is a person expected to take?
I can't believe that this has happened to me.
This supposedly great free, fair country of ours has done this to me.
A few weeks later; if my appeal does not come through
or I do not receive a new trial can I request the death penalty?
I would rather have that than what I have now.
I have seriously thought about this.
It's give me life, give me liberty or give me death.
I want North Carolina to be responsible for my death and not another inmate.
This was written 6 months after he got out.
I guess I'm starting to really get angry and I'm misdirecting my anger.
I'm starting to really see what has been done to me, just a taste of it I'm afraid.
I'm not doing good.
I've been used to being by myself or at least having that option to just be alone.
Right now I could use 30 days in the hole.
That's sad but I swear it's true.
I'm losing it bad.
I'm confused from top to bottom.
I'm not at peace at all.
I have no structure to my day.
I have no idea how to put any into it.
I have no idea what to expect in the next 15 minutes much less the rest of my day.
I'm used to having a lot of structure in my days.
I got used to prison.
The adjustments I made to myself so I could survive are unimaginable but I did and that is
who I became and now I have to adjust to who Dwayne is again and I don't know who that is.
I need help.
My family can't deal with that and be expected to know how to deal with it.
I'm not getting any better as time goes on.
It's only getting worse.
You told me that it would, but I had no idea.
And this is from the day before yesterday.
My shattered life and my shattered family take no constellation
to the fact that I can now die free.
I am a social cripple who is unable to bridge the 20 year gap.
[ Pause ]
>>We had a meeting yesterday after the large meeting and there was this discussion
about the scope of the problem and we can talk about the numbers,
we can talk about how many the 227 makes up, but the real bottom line is there are solutions
and if there are solutions, 1 person is too many.
1 person is too many to be in prison who's innocent.
1 guilty person out on the street convicting more crimes while the guilty person is
in prison is too many.
And so I will join in debates about the numbers but in the end it doesn't matter
if there's solutions that could be put into place.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> One thing, I, I, we get this question and I want to show you a picture.
That's the true perpetrator and that's Dwayne now.
I don't have a picture of the perp when the crime was committed but that's them now.
There's some resemblance.
The problem, the problems were at trial that Dwayne was 19 years old
and he couldn't even grow stubble.
He didn't shave for weeks and weeks before trial to show that all
that he had was a very light shadow and some hairs growing out of a mole.
He had a Billy Idol haircut.
I know some of you are old enough in this room who know Billy Idol is.
Bleach blonde haircut and the lab analysis of the hair that was collected
from him actually says bleached on the ends.
The, their, I know we don't like to go back and look because it's kind of like pointing fingers
but there was a lot of tunnel vision in this case, not just by law enforcement.
The person who committed the *** lived a few blocks from Dwayne
and he was known as the peeping Tom.
He had been arrested for peeping into the window of an NC State student and a few weeks
after this *** was arrested for raping a NC State student.
There was tunnel vision on the part of law enforcement.
There was tunnel vision on the part of prosecution and there was tunnel vision
on the part of the defense attorney.
Someone brought the name of the true perpetrator William Neal to the defense attorney right
after Dwaynes conviction and she never followed up.
She had her own theory of the case that she presented at trial
which was completely based on tunnel vision.
So it is important to go back and look at these cases, not to point fingers but to learn
about what we do in each of the areas as law enforcement, prosecution and defense.
Because I'm, I'm a believer in any affect of assistance of counsel is something
that leads to a lot of these convictions.
Anyway that's my last thought.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Morning.
I'm right on the edge so be careful.
[Laughter]
>> Actually this is a comment and not so much a question but I wanted to speak really on behalf
of the crime lab community and as President of ASCLAD, I just felt compelled to say a few words
and it's only in relation to a couple of comments that you made that were in your slides
that I'm bringing this up for the open group so not directed
to you Christine but to the general group.
And it's very difficult for me to discuss because I don't want to take away from the power
of the presentation you just gave but I'm struggling
with the non-scientific community constantly addressing what I see the term always,
which is unreliable science and that's what I want to address.
[Applause] I would submit to you that it's the progress and advancements in science
that are the very reasons why we are all in this room today.
>> Absolutely.
>> And when I see terms like unreliable science up on a board or on presentations
and we've seen it from a few speakers during this meeting it troubles me in that regard,
particularly because during your presentation clearly there was struggles with the prosecutor,
the defense, even the victim, perhaps there's even signs
of reservation about decisions that were made.
You even spoke to the fact of tunnel vision and what I'd like to suggest to the group
as you move forward in working in collaboration with one another
as different groups is we stop looking this as an issue of unreliable science
but perhaps an issue of unreliable justice and the reason why I say that is
that there are solutions and I believe that many
of those solutions are not looking to crime lab reforms.
I think a lot of it has to do with reforms of what happens within the courtroom.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Well I've never been one to not comment.
The, what science is teaching us that what we thought was science and it doesn't all come
out of crime labs is not science.
In Ronald Cotton's case there was a piece from the insole of his shoe that was matched
to the insole from his sole and it was not until he was exonerated that there was no match.
Ray Chrone [assumed spelling] case, the bite mark analysis and the comparison the match
between his teeth and the bite mark.
We are learning that what we called science is not the science that we thought it was.
That's not a comment on today's science.
That's a comment on what we're learning from these cases
and that's not an accusation against everyone or anyone.
It's the same as the standards for counsel on who should be appointed
and what kind of training they should have.
The person who was appointed in Dwayne's case should never have been trying that case.
The defense bar is contining to learn the prosecution is continuing to learn,
law enforcement is continuing to learn and so is the science.
[ Applause ]
>> One more comment.
You're presentation was excellent but since I ran the meeting last night that you referred
to I want to ensure the people here that from a law enforcement perspective we are
as concerned as you are about these mistakes.
We want to do what's right and the meeting last night was about resources.
It's not about what's right or wrong, it's not about the numbers.
It's about getting the job done.
We sincerely believe in what Project Innocence is doing.
We appreciate what's what you've done, but we have to find a way
to make it work within our restricted resources.
It's not about science, it's not about defense attorneys, it's not about prosecutors.
It's about doin the right thing and law enforcement wants to do the right thing.
Ok Thank you.
[Applause]
>> You're a popular person.
>> Thanks for the presentation.
I'm a scientist but I also run the Idaho Innocence Project and just as a you know
because of the comment from the Director
of ASCLAD what I suggest what I've seen the best way to question the science is when experts
who are actually employed in crime labs in other states are allowed to come in on cases
to be consultants and I, I do private consulting but I don't work in a crime lab
and I really think that's the best system because then you get an honest view
from within the field from within the actual professional community that's doing the work.
The unfortunate thing is a lot of states prevent their people from consulting and in fact
that should be encouraged as an academic 20% of my time can be consulting.
That's probably the most important thing that I do because I go all over the country
and see how things are done other places.
We both, we get to criticize.
I get crossed very heavily so I have to very careful about what I say and my friends
in crime labs in other states who I can send cases to do excellent work
and I recommend them every chance I get.
But so many states will not allow their scientists to consult on cases even outside
of the state and I think that that leads to a very divided community within the science group.
So I would just encourage states to pursue policies that allow some percentage of time
to be for consulting on cases outside of state.