[CUADPUpdate] FW: Curtis McCarty Exonerated After 21 Years in Prison -- 16 on Death Row

[Abraham J. Bonowitz]

Hello All,

To all you mothers out there, and especially to 
my mom and the mother of my son, Happy Mothers 
Day!  I share this 
link:  http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/05/10/commentary.noor/index.html

Thanks also to those of you who wrote in response 
to my post about New Jersey - in a bi-partisan 
victory the bill was released to the floor of the 
NJ Senate by a vote of 8 to 2.

And finally, Congrats once again to the Innocence 
Project, and welcome to freedom Mr. Curtis Edward McCarty.

Have an excellent weekend.

--abe

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News from the Innocence Project

Press Release: May 11, 2007
Contact: Eric Ferrero; 
<mailto:eferrero at innocenceproject.org>eferrero at innocenceproject.org; 
212-364-5346

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After 21 Years in Prison – including 16 on Death 
Row – Curtis McCarty is Exonerated Based on DNA Evidence

Oklahoma City case is one of the worst cases of government misconduct
in the history of the American criminal justice system, Innocence Project says

(OKLAHOMA CITY, OK; May 11, 2007) – Curtis Edward 
McCarty, who was convicted twice and sentenced to 
death for the same murder in verdicts that were 
both thrown out based on evidence of his 
innocence and an extraordinary pattern of 
government misconduct, was released from prison 
this morning after a judge dismissed the 
indictment against him that would have led to a 
third trial.  The prosecution said today that it 
will not appeal the decision – finally clearing 
McCarty after 21 years of wrongful incarceration, 
more than 16 of them on death row.

In 1986, McCarty was convicted of a 1982 murder 
in Oklahoma City and sentenced to die.  Citing 
misconduct by the prosecutor and a police lab 
analyst, the Court of Criminal Appeals overturned 
the conviction, and McCarty was retried in 
1989.  He was again convicted and sentenced to 
death.  In 1995, the appeals court upheld his 
conviction but threw out his death sentence; in 
1996, he was sentenced to death again.  In 2005, 
the Court of Criminal Appeals again overturned 
his conviction, citing the continued pattern of 
government misconduct – and new DNA tests showing 
that semen recovered from the victim did not come from McCarty.

“Every piece of evidence in this case, including 
evidence that was used improperly to secure 
convictions, now shows Curtis McCarty’s 
innocence,” said Colin Starger, the Innocence 
Project Staff Attorney on the case who argued the 
motion to dismiss the indictment in a three-hour 
hearing yesterday afternoon.  “Semen recovered 
from the victim, material under the victim’s 
fingernails and a bloody print the perpetrator 
left on the victim’s body all come from someone other than Curtis McCarty.”

Robert H. Macy, who was the Oklahoma County 
District Attorney for 21 years, prosecuted 
McCarty in both of his trials.  Macy sent 73 
people to death row – more than any other 
prosecutor in the nation – and 20 of them have 
been executed.  Macy has said publicly that he 
believes executing an innocent person is a 
sacrifice worth making in order to keep the death 
penalty in the United States.  Macy committed 
misconduct in the manner that he prosecuted 
McCarty and presented the case to the jury.  His 
misconduct was compounded when he relied on Joyce 
Gilchrist, a police lab analyst who falsified 
test results and hid or destroyed evidence in 
order to help secure McCarty’s 
convictions.  Gilchrist was the lead forensic 
analyst in 23 cases that ended in death sentences 
(11 of the defendants in those cases have been executed).

“This is by far one of the worst cases of law 
enforcement misconduct in the history of the 
American criminal justice system,” said Barry 
Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, 
which is affiliated with Cardozo School of 
Law.  “Bob Macy has said that executing an 
innocent person is a risk worth taking – and he 
came very close to doing just that with Curtis McCarty.”

Macy’s conduct in prosecuting McCarty was singled 
out in the Court of Criminal Appeals ruling that 
overturned McCarty’s first conviction; that 
ruling noted that the case was “replete with 
error” and referred to Macy’s conduct as 
“improper” and “unprofessional.”  In each of its 
rulings overturning McCarty’s convictions, the 
appeals court noted that Gilchrist initially said 
hairs from the crime scene definitely did not 
match McCarty, then changed her records and 
testimony to say they definitely matched him 
(years later, Gilchrist either hid or destroyed 
those hairs when they were sought for DNA 
testing).  The prosecution also claimed that 
semen on the victim’s body came from McCarty, 
while DNA testing now shows that it did not.  The 
prosecution maintained that McCarty acted alone 
in the crime, until evidence began to emerge that 
he was not the perpetrator; at that point, the 
prosecution began to say McCarty had an 
accomplice (though no evidence of multiple 
perpetrators was ever found or introduced).

McCarty was charged in 1985 with stabbing and 
strangling 18-year-old Pamela Kaye Willis three 
years earlier in Oklahoma City. Willis, an 
acquaintance of McCarty’s, was found dead in the 
kitchen of a friend’s home on December 10, 1982. 
Hairs and other biological evidence were 
collected by police at the crime scene. 
Gilchrist, who testified in both of McCarty’s 
trials, was fired in 2001 for fraud and 
misconduct in McCarty’s case and others.  DNA 
testing conducted on post-conviction appeal in 
2002 showed that sperm recovered from the 
victim’s body did not match McCarty and the Court 
of Criminal Appeals overturned the second 
conviction in 2005. The Innocence Project became 
involved in the case in 2003; attorneys Perry 
Hudson and Marna Franklin also represent McCarty.

“For anyone who believes the death penalty is 
being carried out appropriately in this country, 
and anyone who believes that prosecutors and 
government witnesses can always be relied on to 
pursue the truth, this case is a wake-up call,” 
said Peter Neufeld, Co-Director of the Innocence 
Project.  “Three separate times, an innocent man 
was sentenced to die because of the actions of an 
unethical prosecutor and a fraudulent analyst.”

McCarty is the 201st person in the United States 
exonerated through DNA evidence – and the 15th of 
those 201 who has served time on death 
row.  McCarty is the ninth person to be 
exonerated by DNA evidence in Oklahoma and the 
third to be exonerated from the state’s death 
row. Robert Miller was exonerated based on DNA 
evidence in 1998 after serving more than 9 years 
on death row in Oklahoma for crimes he didn’t 
commit.  Macy prosecuted Miller, and Gilchrist 
provided forensic testimony leading to his wrongful conviction.

##

To see legal papers filed earlier this year in 
McCarty’s case, go to: 
<http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/McCarty_Motion.pdf>http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/McCarty_Motion.pdf 
and 
<http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/McCarty_Brief.pdf>http://www.innocenceproject.org/docs/McCarty_Brief.pdf 


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SENT BY:

--abe
"Talk is cheap.  It's the way we organize and use our lives
every day that tells what we believe in."
                                     -- Cesar E. Chavez