12 December 201420 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Debra Jean Milke has murder charges dismissed

source: Daily Mail Online
published: 12 December 2014

In a scathing critique of Arizona’s criminal justice system, a state appeals court on Thursday ordered the dismissal of murder charges against a woman who spent 22 years on death row in her son’s killing.

The Arizona Court of Appeals said the charges against Debra Jean Milke in the 1989 death of her son Christopher can’t be refiled. A three-judge panel said it agrees with Milke’s argument that a retrial would amount to double jeopardy. The court held that prosecutors’ failure to turn over evidence that could have helped Milke’s defense was egregious, calling the actions ‘a severe stain on the Arizona justice system.’

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30 March 201420 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Soul-searching as Japan ends a man’s decades on death row

source: New York Times
published: 27 March 2014

Iwao Hakamada was a wiry former boxer in his 30s when he was thrown in jail for the killing of a family of four that shocked 1960s Japan. On Thursday, he limped from his cell on death row, a bewildered-looking 78-year-old who, his family fears, may have lost his mind in prison.

It took the courts nearly half a century to conclude that the evidence against him may have been fabricated by police investigators, and to order the retrial he sought.

The decision on Thursday to release Mr. Hakamada, thought to be the world’s longest serving death row inmate, underscored the dark side of a criminal justice system that boasts a near-100 percent conviction rate and immediately led to calls for reform.

29 December 201317 December 2022 4WardEverUK

Wrongly convicted King County man released after 10 years in prison

originally by: The Seattle Times
published: 23 December 2013

A man who spent 10 years in prison for robbery and burglary has been released after the Innocence Project Northwest persuaded King County prosecutors to re-examine the man’s conviction, which was based solely on eyewitness testimony.

The case of Brandon Olebar came to the attention of the Innocence Project Northwest (IPNW), based out of the clinical law program at the University of Washington Law School, in 2011.