Pennsylvania Innocence Project Weblog

Freedom…30 Years Later

Rickey Dale Wyatt is a free man after 30 years in prison. Photo via the Dallas Observer.

After having served three decades behind bars for a crime that he says he did not commit, a Dallas man finally had his conviction vacated on  January 4.

Ricky Dale Wyatt was charged with aggravated sexual assault in a series of connected rapes that occurred in South Dallas and was given a 99 year sentence at his trial in 1981. However, Innocence Project lawyers discovered that essential evidence was suppressed in his 1981 trial.

Wyatt was 25-years old when he went to prison. He emerges a 56-years old grandfather, having his first opportunity to hold his granddaughter in his arms.

Researchers for the Innocence Project along with the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office discovered that one witness claimed that Wyatt weighed much less than her attacker and had facial hair, unlike her clean-shaven attacker. This information was not presented at the trial to defense attorneys.

Wyatt went to prison protesting against his sentence and advocating his innocence. He even refused to take a plea bargain for a crime that he did not commit.

After a long three decades of his life lost behind bars, his protests were finally heard.

Click here for powerful video of the court proceedings that sent Wyatt to freedom.

By Julian Fowler

Help Protect Conviction Integrity in Pennsylvania.

Senator Stewart Greenleaf has introduced bills in the Pennsylvania Senate that would put in action the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Wrongful Convictions.  The first bill, SB 1337, would create a Committee on Conviction Integrity, which would examine any proven exoneration case to determine what factors led to the wrongful conviction of an innocent person. Further, it would review whether or not changes to the Pennsylvania criminal justice system could prevent future injustices.

The second bill, SB 1338 calls for necessary improvements to methods used by law enforcement, including

• Requiring all law enforcement agencies to abide by known best practices when conducting photo arrays and physical lineups.
• Mandating that suspect interrogations be recorded from the point at which Miranda warnings are first given.
• Requiring that all public forensic labs be accredited and that their technicians pass competency exams.
• Compensating those who have been wrongfully convicted of crimes in the amount of $50,000 per year of wrongful incarceration.
• Mandating that law-enforcement agencies preserve biological evidence collected for crimes of criminal homicide, sexual assault, arson, kidnapping, robbery and burglary for the length of time for which the convicted person is incarcerated.
• Creation of a Forensic Advisory Board to oversee forensic science labs and investigate alleged errors or incompetence.
• Revisions to Pennsylvania’s Post-Conviction Relief Act, which would 1) extend the length of time during which an inmate may bring a claim of innocence based upon new evidence, and 2) overhaul the Post-Conviction DNA Testing law to allow inmates who either “confessed” or pled guilty to a crime to have access to testing; allow for a comparison to CODIS and the Pennsylvania DNA database when an unknown profile is discovered; to permit judges to discharge an inmate without further proceedings; and other important revisions.
• Requiring that the Commonwealth disclose all prior dealings with informants and, in capital cases, holding pre-trial reliability hearings.

You can support this legislation by

• contacting your Legislator and asking them to support the bills; to find your legislator click here ;
• writing letters to the editor of your local paper explaining why these measures are necessary and calling on others to support the bills
  • get our comprehensive White Paper on Conviction Integrity Proposals in Pennsylvania here.
• hosting a teach-in or forum at a community organization and invite lawmakers and Project staff to participate;
• joining the Pennsylvania Innocence Project Policy Committee by sending us an e-mail at innocenceprojectpa@temple.edu.

Working together, we can bring comprehensive change and reform to Pennsylvania.  For more information or questions, please call Marissa at the Project office.

San Francisco Moves to Change Eyewitness Identification Procedures

In an effort to address challenges presented by traditional eyewitness identification procedures, San Francisco is changing its methods.

Under the present system in the city, witnesses are presented with so-called “six-packs” of photos of suspects. Or, less commonly, physical lineups of six people are presented. Critics of these procedures cite a tendency for witnesses to compare the individuals presented with one another, rather than the memory of  the person that they actually saw.

To address this issue, and in an overall effort to lessen convictions based on erroneous eye witness testimony, San Francisco Police Chief George Suhr recently announced that the city will adopt a model that utilizes sequential lineups. The new protocol was developed in conjunction with the Public Defender’s office. Says Suhr, “The chances for a false positive on an identification go down dramatically, it’s been shown in studies, and we believe eventually that’s going to be the standard across the state.”

Under the new system witnesses will still be presented with multiple suspects, but not all at the same time. Whenever possible, the procedure will be double-blind, meaning that the officer presenting the suspects will not be affiliated with the case in order to avoid providing any subtle cues to the witness.

San Francisco hopes to have the new policy in place by January 1, 2012.

District Attorney George Gascón applauds the progress represented by the change in eye witness identification procedures.  “Eyewitness identification evidence is often crucial in criminal investigations. We need to do everything within our power to assure there is no undue or suggestive conduct in the identification process.”

Sequential lineups are not without their challenges. The San Francisco Examiner notes that studies question their effectiveness “in cases involving children, the elderly and cross-racial identification.”

Police commander  Mike Biel acknowledges the questions presented by sequential lineups, but believes it is still a positive step for San Francisco and, the department hopes, for California as a whole. “There’s no perfect way to do this. The idea is to make it as objective as possible.”

Tankleff Uses His Experience to Fight for Others

How much would it take to stand up and fight for the lives of those who have been wrongly accused? Martin Tankleff fought for 20 long, hard years for his own freedom, and seeks to devote the rest of his life to helping others to do the same.

On September 7, 1988, Martin Tankleff was accused and wrongly convicted for the murders of both of his parents based on a confession handwritten by a detective that Tankleff repudiated and never signed.  He was only 17 years old at the time, ready to begin his senior year of high school. After being found guilty of double murder, Tankleff was sentenced in 1990 to serve 50 years to life in prison.

From the time he was sent to jail, Martin Tankleff never stopped fighting for his freedom. “Instead of starting school, I started fighting for my life.” While incarcerated, he attended college and worked in a law library. Tankleff did this not just  to occupy his mind and find information about his own situation, but also with the goal of preventing others from wrongful imprisonment or perhaps worse. He knows all too well the fact that, “Serving time in prison when your innocent is a living hell,” and knew that he wanted to spare others from experiencing what he endured for twenty years.

Despite the hardships, Martin Tankleff always had faith that he would be found innocent.

Several attempts to appeal his case, including to the U.S. Supreme Court, proved unsuccessful. Finally, in 2007, the New York State Supreme Court voted 4-0 in favor of overturning Tankleff’s conviction after thirty-one former federal, state and local prosecutors argued in a friend-of-the-court brief earlier that year that Mr. Tankleff  “has presented persuasive evidence” that he was wrongly convicted and deserve a new trial. His relatives posted the $1 million bail that allowed Tankleff to walk to free.

Since Tankleff regained his freedom, he enrolled in Hofstra Law School. His intention is to defend the wrongly accused. Despite the pain of his past, Tankleff has his eyes set on moving with his life. “It’s important to tell my story, but I don’t want to make it my life story,” he said.

Thank you, Martin Tankleff, for turning a dark situation into light that will illuminate the paths of others in the near future.

Martin Tankleff speaking at Hofstra University. Photo via the Long Island Report