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Justice in the Midwest

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Justice in the Midwest NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY NOT GUILTY JusticeNOT in the Midwest GUILTY NOTInmate, Jefferson City Correctional Center, Missouri GUILTY FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR What this project means to me... “There are no innocent people in prison,” said my professor of Criminal Justice during my freshman year at San Antonio College. He went on to explain how there are few tenets held in higher regard than the American people’s mandate to keep the innocent out of prison. “Our criminal justice system works so diligently to keep innocent men and women out of prison, that we accept the number of guilty that go free.” MISSION I took him at his word. And over the next couple of decades I heard that sentiment reiterated time and again. I felt comforted to know this. The mission of the Midwestern Innocence Project (MIP) is to Not only has that principal been proven patently false over the last 10 years, it is the very principal provide pro-bono investigative that has landed many innocents in prison. and legal assistance to prisoners with persuasive actual innocence While we certainly don’t have an “average” case in innocence work, we do have a fairly common story we find repeated time and again; a high profile murder often in a small town, a great deal of pressure on the claims, provable through scientific police and prosecutor to solve the case with swift and sure justice and the inevitable “rounding up” of the evidence or otherwise. usual suspects. WE ACComPLisH THis BY: It’s not long before a completely innocent 19 year-old who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, or who perhaps looks similar to the description of the assailant, finds himself in a small room with two police n reviewing requests from prisoners, officers trained in advanced interrogation techniques. They’ve found their man. n selecting cases with substantial innocence claims, and After an 18-hour barrage of disconnected lies, coercion, promises of leniency then threats of bodily harm, n working with lawyers, investigators, a brand new thought creeps into this man’s mind. “I have to do whatever they ask to get out students, law schools, volunteers TAKE A MOMENT of this room.” You see, like me and like you, he also knows that innocent people don’t go to prison. and other justice programs to He knows all he has to do is get out of that room so he can tell his story to the right people. So he takes the paper and the pen from the officers and writes down just what they want to hear. “I killed her.” He signs obtain the release of innocent the paper knowing he will be found innocent soon enough, but completely unknowing that his signature, prisoners through judicial on the bottom of his confession, was likely his undoing. proceedings or executive TO STOP AND THINK... clemency. You see it’s nearly impossible for a jury to accept that any reasonable person would confess to a crime they did not commit. And just as impossible for a defense attorney to convince a jury that is exactly what happened. It is for these men and women and for the hundreds of others sitting on their bunks with their heads in their “What if it happened to me?” hands waiting for us to investigate and litigate their case; waiting for us to prove their innocence that we endeavor to persevere. As we continue our mission to free those wrongly convicted, we ask you to take a moment and think: The Midwestern Innocence “What if it happened to me?” Project is a 501(c) 3 non- profit corporation that fills the Midwest’s need for a broad-based Jay Swearingen Innocence Project. The MIP Executive Director reviews and accepts cases from Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Iowa. innocenceprojectmidwest.org Dennis FRitZ, Ron WILLIAmson And “I cannot think of two CHERYL PiLAte It took more than 11 years for Kansas City’s Dennis Fritz to be proven innocent of a murder he didn’t better examples of why it is commit and released from an Oklahoma prison. It took three more years and the help of Kansas City attorney and MIP Board member Cheryl Pilate to obtain the compensation which Fritz and fellow exoneree Ron Williamson deserved for their important to allow inmates wrongful convictions and years of incarceration. Fritz and Williamson were arrested, tried and con- “It made me feel like that if I had to go through this, DENNIS FRITZ victed in the sexual assault and murder of 21-year- there was some purpose,” said Fritz. In 2002, the (LEFT) AND RON with provable and justifiable old Debra Sue Carter, who was found strangled in City of Ada and the State of Oklahoma settled the WILLIAMSON UPON THEIR December 1982 in Ada, Oklahoma. In 1988, Fritz lawsuits brought by Fritz and Williamson for a and Williamson were convicted in separate trials RELEASE FROM significant amount, which cannot be disclosed AN OKLAHOMA based partially on microscopic hair comparisons, because of a confidentiality agreement. PRISON IN 1999 done as part of a scientific testing method which claims of innocence to have has since been largely discredited. Fritz and Fritz has remained active with the Innocence Williamson were also convicted based on testimony Movement in Kansas City, helping the Midwestern of witness Glen Gore, an informant who was later Innocence Project with fund-raising projects and proved through DNA testing to be the real killer. keeping in touch with other local exonerees who are Gore has since been convicted of the rape and readjusting to society. their day in court.” murder of Carter. Williamson has not fared as well, however. Fritz received a sentence of life in prison, — Cheryl Pilate, Attorney while Williamson was given the death penalty. Upon his release in 1999, he continued to experi- At one point, Williamson came within five days ence mental health problems. Once an aspiring of execution before a court intervened. baseball player, Williamson deteriorated dramati- cally in prison and was moved to an Oklahoma innoCenCE PRojeCT stAtistiCS AS OF LAte 2004* If not for DNA evidence saved from the scene and psychiatric hospital. Sadly, in 2004, Williamson later tested, Fritz might still be incarcerated for the passed away. AVERAGE YEARS SPent in PRison BY 146 dnA EXoneRees rape and murder. Both he and Williamson were in THE U.S.: 12. totAL YEARS SPent in PRison BY ALL: 1,652. exonerated and released from an Oklahoma prison “I cannot think of two better examples of why it is in 1999 based on the results of DNA testing. important to allow inmates with provable, justifiable * As supplied by the Innocence Project in New York claims of innocence to have their day in court,” said Fritz was incarcerated from 1988 to 1999, during Pilate. “Science has progressed to a point where a large part of his daughter’s childhood — time he if physical evidence still exists in cases that are can never get back. “That makes his story even five, ten, 15 years old, the key to proving actual more tragic,” said Pilate, who helped Fritz seek innocence is likely at the justice system’s fingertips. financial compensation for his wrongful incarcera- We need to make the appeals process easier for tion. “Dennis not only had to live through the horror those inmates who can legitimately claim innocence of prison, but he also missed out on watching his through previously unavailable scientific evidence or daughter grow up.” For his part, Fritz is philosophi- testimony from witnesses who may not have been cal about his time in prison and the subsequent brought to the attention of the court during trial.” legal fight to gain his freedom and compensation. The publicity generated by the case helped focus 2 attention on the wrongful incarceration issue. 3 JOHnnY Lee WILson And “We have locked up DAVid EVERson Johnny Lee Wilson was never a troublemaker in school. He had no history of violence. But accord- ing to mental disability professionals in Missouri, Johnny Lee Wilson functions at the lowest one an innocent, percentile of the U.S. population. Wilson’s mental retardation was the principal reason he spent nine years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit. retarded man who is In April 1986, the body of Pauline Martz was found inside her burned home in Aurora, Missouri. She had been beaten, bound and gagged; her home was ransacked. Town resident Gary Wall told evidence to convict him — at his trial in 1987. He WILSON HUGS HIS authorities that Wilson had told him he knew about was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in MOTHER AFTER not guilty.” the crime. Five days later, local police arrested BEING paRDONED prison without parole. However, Wilson continued Wilson and began to interrogate him. BY MISSOURI GOV. to maintain his innocence. In 1988, convicted mur- MEL CARNAHAN derer Brownfield told authorities at a Kansas prison AND RELEASED Aurora police only focused on Wilson despite cred- — Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan, that he had murdered Martz. Despite this fact and FROM PRISON ON ible information from sources pointing to other sus- others, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld Wilson’s SEPT. 29TH, 1995 in granting a pardon to Johnny Lee Wilson, 1995 pects. Local school officials said Wall was a “decep- sentence, ruling that Wilson knew what he was PHOTO: tive liar.” An eyewitness saw someone other than THE KANSAS CITY StaR doing when he entered his plea. Wilson enter the Martz home. Leads were provided by Joplin, Missouri, authorities that a career criminal According to documents sent to Governor named Chris Brownfield was known to have tied up Carnahan’s office in 1993 by Wilson’s attorney, and robbed elderly women in the past.
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