Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Judges Gone Wild: Revised

I want to revise my previous post, Judges Gone Wild. First, the numbers are in error. I left out a term in my calculation. That term was near unity, so it won't make a huge difference. That term belonged in the denominator, however, so the corrected answer I will soon present below is actually more distressing.

I also decided that I tried to do too much with a single plot. I've therefore created two to replace the one. I now present them below, one for the judges ... 

 ... and one for the juries.

Before I started this, I would have been appalled by the thought of an innocent person having more than a 25% chance of wrongful conviction. I'm still appalled, but I'm now admittedly distracted by calculations that suggest an innocent person has substantially more than a 50% chance of of being convicted during a bench trial. The odds range from a "low" of 50% for forcible rape to nearly 84% for muder/manslaughter. Since judges convict 86% of all defendants in the murder/manslaughter category, the number indicates that judges are incapable of distinguishing cases of innocence from cases of guilt.

WARNING: Mathematical Addendum

At least with respect to the plot for the juries, Spencer and I agree reasonably well on the overall chance of being convicted by a jury despite being innocent. He calculates 25% for all trials combined. I calculate 28%. 

We disagree substantially, however, with respect to the overall chance of being convicted by a judge despite being innocent. He calculates 37% for all trials. I calculate 62%. The discrepancy can be understood by looking at the terms that go into the calculation.

The first term is the convictions per trial. We extract that number directly from the judge / jury agreement table. For Spencer and the NCSC data, that number was 80%.  For my work and the Kalven-Zeisel data, the number was 83%.  The two sets of data were close on this number, despite being separated in time by half a decade. 

The second term was the percentage of innocent defendants. Spencer calculated 28%. I calculated 26%. Again we are close. 

The third term was the wrongful conviction rate. Recall that the wrongful conviction rate is the number of wrongful convictions divided by the number of convictions. It is one of the primary results from our analysis of the judge / jury agreement data.  Spencer calculated 13% for judges from the NCSC data, using his methods. I calculated 20% for judges from the Kalven-Zeisel  using my methods. That's our largest discrepancy. The comparison is not great, but not terrible.

When we perform the final calculation, however, the differences combine in such a fashion as to amplify the difference of the results.

Using Spencer's numbers:  0.80 x 0.13 / 0.28  =  .37  =  37%

Using my numbers:  0.83 x 0.196 / 0.26  =  0.64  =  64%

As it turned out, when my numbers were larger, they were in the numerator. When my number was smaller, it was in the denominator. The result was a substantial difference between our calculated values for the chance of being convicted by a judge despite being innocent.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Michael Ledford: Confession Falsified by Thermodynamics

"Before I left, I lit a candle and threw it in the chair. I never wanted to hurt my family. ... I just hope my family and friends and God can forgive me."

Those words constitute the heart of Michael Ledford's spoken confession that he set fire to his apartment and was therefore responsible for the death of his one-year-old son and the serious burn injuries suffered by his wife.

Though Michael recanted those words, and his entire confession, those are the words that convicted him of first-degree murder and spared him the death sentence. The jury believed both the part about starting the fire and the part about not meaning to hurt anyone.

A confession is as good as a conviction, or quite nearly so. Those people who confess, recant, and then go to trial are almost always convicted. Jurors, i.e. the American people, simply cannot imagine themselves confessing to a heinous crime they did not commit. Since they cannot imagine they would do so, they will not believe anyone would do so.

Jurors, i.e. the American public, are wrong on both counts.

One completely logical, but amazingly ineffective means of convincing a jury that a confession is false is to show that the confession is inconsistent with the facts of the case. If the confession violates space, time, and thermodynamics, that's even better. It's better, but it's probably not good enough.

During Michael's trial, the defense tried to show that Michael's confession was inconsistent with the data. They did a poor job of it, in my opinion, but they did make a try. I'll try to do better in this post.

The photo below shows the chair into which Michael confessed to throwing a candle. The photo was taken on the same day as the fire. That day was Zachary Ledford's first birthday. In the photo, Zachary is sitting in the lap of a family friend. I wish to intrude as little as possible into their privacy, even as I publicly discuss the most tragic portion of their lives, so I have redacted the people from the photo. Click to enlarge.


Let's examine the photo carefully. We will soon compare it to a couple of photos taken after the fire to see what we can learn.

The chair is an upholstered swivel rocker. Given that the fire occurred in Virginia in 1999, it is almost certain that the upholstery fabric was not fire-retardant. (My understanding is that California was the only state then requiring fire-retardant upholstery.) The cushions themselves consisted of polyurethane foam, a petroleum product. I've seen polyurethane referred to as solid gasoline. When burning it releases, among other gases, hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. Both are deadly.

There is an ottoman sitting in front of the chair. The ottoman burned but is not particularly relevant to the story.

Behind the chair and at the right of the photo is the sole entry door to the apartment. Virginia argued that Michael set the fire near the front door to block escape, and that proved intent to murder. Because the victim was under 14 years of age and Michael was more than 20 years of age, the location of the fire near the door proved not only intent to murder, it proved capital murder. Virginia therefore asked the jury for permission to execute Michael Ledford.

To the left of the door is a light switch. It controls an outlet near the floor behind the couch. That outlet will be critical to the story. I will speak of it again in future posts.

Directly behind the chair is a quilt rack. It has several quilts and an Afghan draped across it. The quilts and the Afghan will soon burn and add substantially to the fuel load.

Above the quilt rack is a picture hanging on the wall. The photo captures just the very bottom of the picture frame. That picture will provide a clue. It will try to tell us something. I'm not yet sure what it's trying to tell us, but time and effort will reveal its clue.

To the left of the chair is an end table, of sorts. The end table is actually a portion of the sofa in which the back cushion can be folded forward to form the end table as shown.

On the table is a lamp with a glass base and a hooped shade that seems to be made of paper. The lamp is plugged into the outlet behind the sofa. If the lamp switch is in the "On" position, flipping the light switch near the door will turn the lamp on and off.

There are several framed pictures on the table. I assume they are family photos. There is also a doily resting there.

At the front of the table are two drinking vessels of some sort. They look to me to be one bottle and one tall can. I think they are inconsequential. They will be gone by the time of the fire.

Not seen on the table are two taper in candle holders. They should have been there at the time of the fire if Michael's confession is to be believed.

Michael said the candles were long and slender rather than short and stubby. "White ones about this high, this big around ... " [indicates by forming circle with his thumb and index finger] "... and probably about that tall." [indicates by separating hands by approximately five inches]

He said they were in candle holders. "They were candle holders that we got for a wedding present."

He said they were on the corners of the table. "We're always careful of where we put the candles, but we just set them on the corners that night. ... We both did. I set one on the corner and she set the other."

He said he then threw the candle in the chair and left. "After Elise went to bed, I turned the light on in the living room, and I told her that I would blow out the candles. I blew out the one, made sure that Zach’s door was closed -- that way he wouldn’t get hurt. I even made sure that our bedroom door was closed. I lit -- I kept the candle lit, and I threw it in the chair."

We know that Michael was talking about the table beside the chair, because early in the interrogation, he suggested the candles must have fallen off the table and into the chair when he shut the door. "When I left, I shut the light, I turned the light back on and I'm pretty certain, up to this point in time, now mainly, because I was scared, that I did blow out the candles. But now I'm thinking that apparently I didn't and something caused one of the candles, at least one them to fall. That's the God honest truth."

Perhaps the candles were placed on the table after the birthday party was over but before Michael left the apartment. We'll look at the photos taken after the fire to see if we can find evidence of them there.

Below, I've included a photo taken after the fire. This photo was taken by the insurance investigator two days after the fire. The police investigator had moved the chair and quilt rack to photograph behind them. The police investigator or the insurance investigator had also removed almost everything from the table. The insurance investigator returned the chair and quilt rack to their positions during the fire, based on the markings left on the carpet. He also returned the lamp to the table before taking this picture.

I've edited the photo only by making it lighter and brighter than the one I received. Click to enlarge.


The tops of the cushions are burned, as are the tops of the end table and the coffee table. The front and the sides of the sofa and chair, at least those portions shown, are not burned. The polyurethane foam in the seat cushions is generally intact, unconsumed by the fire. The seat back, however, is completely gone. You can see right through where the back cushion used to be, and see the quilt rack. The rack remains. The quilts and Afghan are mostly consumed.

The white case, possibly a sewing machine case, is out of place. The front door is open. The picture that had been hanging on the wall has fallen to the floor and is visible through the now empty quilt rack.

There is no water damage from the fire-fighting effort. This fire burned rapidly and self-extinguished before the fire company arrived. It was an October night and all the doors and windows were closed. The fire used up the oxygen it needed to grow, that oxygen wasn't replaced, and the fire died out.

Zachary was at that time laying in his crib in the children's bedroom. He was unburned but died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Elise was at that time lying on the floor in the master bedroom. She had been badly burned as she twice tried to get to the front door. She retreated to the bedroom, called 911, and collapsed to the floor just as the connection was made.

One more photo and my point will be made. This is a closeup of the area taken the day after the fire by the police investigator. We can see the chair with the missing back, the quilt rack with the missing quilts, and the picture that has fallen from the wall.


We can see what is left of the family photos.

We can see the glass base of the lamp. It fractured from the heat. We can see a metal hoop from the shade and the remnants of the doily.

The bottle and can that were in the previous photo had been replaced prior to the fire by two plastic drinking glasses. We can see them in the photo. They melted in the heat.

The insurance investigator saw in person pretty much what we can see in the photo. From his report, we find this description.
Examination of the debris on the table show the remains of a crocheted doily, a picture frame, the remains of two plastic drink cups, which are melted, a television or VCR remote control and various paper and debris.
What we don't see in the photo, what the insurance investigator did not see when he stood there and looked directly at that table are candle holders, or melted candles, or candle wax. Neither fire investigator mentioned finding any candle, any candle wax, or any candle holder anywhere in the apartment.

One might argue that the candles were consumed during the fire and that no candle wax would remain. Virginia made that argument to the jury, and the jury apparently accepted it as fact beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't believe the argument is valid, and neither does Pat Ledford, so we will be conducting testing to resolve this issue. We'll report early next year on the results.

What is not at issue, however, is that candle holders do not burn up in a fire while plastic cups sitting immediately adjacent only melt. There should be two candle holders on the table. One should be near each of the front corners of the table, where they would interfere with (and possibly burn) anyone reaching for a plastic cup. That's where Michael said they were, but I can't see them. Neither of the investigators could see them either.

If Michael's confession was factual, where are the candle holders?

Michael Ledford's confession began as denials that he had anything to do with the fire, that he had no idea how it started.
I am telling you, I did not start the fire.
I didn't do it.
I don’t know, but it wasn't me.
The only thing I can say, sir, is do what you need to do but I am going to claim my innocence ‘til the day I die.
I did not set the fire that took the life of my son and damned near took the life of my wife. There is no way in hell I'd have done that.
If I deliberately set that fire, may God strike me dead now. I did not set the fire.
I didn't set the fire. I didn't know where the fire was, plain and simple.
No. I want you to leave here knowing that I'm telling the truth. I didn't set the fire.
No, because I didn't set the fire.
I think the fire was set accidentally.
You can go to hell sir!
For hours, Michael's story did not include any mention of candles, or candle holders. He was not the first to introduce those items into the interrogation. His interrogators suggested them, and Michael acquiesced, bit by bit.

As his interrogators suggested various means and motives, as they lied about evidence tying him to the fire, as they promised to help him if he would only confess, Michael's story evolved to include a candle he thought he blew out, to a candle he might not have blown out, to a candle that might have fallen into the chair as he shut the door. Each time he tried to better explain what might have happened, the interrogators pushed harder and harder.

Suddenly Michael seemed to accept that he had tossed a candle into the chair before he left. It was shocking to behold. He figured he must be crazy. He asked to be put in a mental institution. He lost all sense of reality. He believed he needed help, and he believed they were offering help. He was, at this point, clearly delusional.
Okay. I want the agreement that I will be sent for, I want the agreement that I will be put in a psychiatric, a psychiatric hospital, to get the evaluation that I need. That's all. And afterwards, maybe help me get a trade -- not necessarily to make a good living at, but something where I will be away from people.
At that point, and only at that point, did the interrogators elect to believe him.

However, Michael's acquiescence became demonstrably false at the point when he began incorporating candles and candle holders into the events of that evening. One of his interrogators was, in fact, the very person who photographed the last picture I just presented. That interrogator / investigator absolutely did know (or should have known) that Michael was confabulating rather than confessing. Instead, that interrogator / investigator charged Michael Ledford with the first degree murder of his own son.

And that is why I am interested in helping.

Stay tuned for the next post in this series, when I show that Michael Ledford's confession violates not only basic thermodynamics, but space and time as well.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Everything's Amazing and Nobody's Happy

It's Thanksgiving morning and I'm thankful for my many, many blessings. Not the least of them is my freedom.

We all fail to appreciate what we have. It's simply human nature. At least one day each year, we're reminded to think about how lucky we really are, to take stock of the miracles of everyday life that surround us.

I coincidently ran across this video this morning. It's a clip from the Conan O'Brian show, an interview with a comedian I never knew by name previously. His name is Louis CK. He talks about how everyone fails to appreciate what they have. It's funny, and like all good comedy, it makes a point.

It really gets rolling when he talks about "the crappiest generation" becoming frustrated when they don't get an immediate response on their cell phone, and it peaks when he talks about the guy in the airplane who gets pissed because he lost his internet connection at 35,000 feet above the earth.



I wish you all a grateful Thanksgiving

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Judges Gone Wild

CAUTION: This post contains plots corrected in Judges Gone Wild, Revised.

As I work on the summary chapter for my monograph Regarding the Rate of Wrongful Conviction, I keep finding new stories in all the data I've compiled and created. I frequently find myself in awe of what is unfolding before me. I'm still wrestling with the significance of the figure I displayed in Burden of Proof As a Legal Fiction. The one I am about to show you is equally revealing and equally troubling.

I wanted a way to display the odds an innocent person faces when tried for a crime. I knew the numbers Bruce Spencer calculated from the NCSC judge-jury agreement data. (He only had one number for the judge and one number for the jury, since the NCSC data were not broken down by crime.) I also had a sense of the numbers I had for the jury on a crime-by-crime basis. I had derived them from the Kaven-Zeisel judge-jury agreement data. My jury numbers (plural) corresponded reasonably well to Spencer's jury number (singular).

I only recently (as in today) got around to deriving my judge numbers from the Kalven-Zeisel data.

Whoa!

Here you go. Click to enlarge. We'll talk after you pick yourself up off the floor.

Professor of Statistics Bruce Spencer calculated you stand a 25% chance of being convicted by a jury if you are innocent. That value corresponds to the bottom of the green horizontal bar. My calculations show that the value is sensitive to the type of crime, and is slightly less than Spencer predicted. My values are indicated by the bottom of the brown vertical bars. They range from a high of 32% for drugs to a low of 14% for forcible rape. For a substantial majority of the trials, excluding drugs, the number is around 16%. That's one chance in six. That's bad enough, but better than the one chance in four predicted by Spencer.

Bruce Spencer and I, however, disagree on the risk an innocent party faces at the hands of a judge. Spencer predicts that judges (during bench trials) convict 37% of the innocents who come before them. That's horrible, but not nearly as horrible as I calculate. My calculations indicate that those people wrongfully charged with murder are convicted in 73% of the bench trials. Instead of slightly more than one time out of three, I calculate they are convicted three times out of four.

I'm discouraged.

The best of a bad crime-category lot is forcible rape. I calculate that judges convict "only" 35% of those people wrongfully charged with and tried for forcible rape. The judges' performance for every other crime category is worse.

Worse than a 35% chance of convicting an innocent person.

Worse.

As bad as a 73% chance of convicting an innocent person.

ERRATA: This post contains plots corrected in Judges Gone Wild, Revised

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Burden of Proof as a Legal Fiction

In this post, I intend to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that the concept of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" is nothing more than a legal fiction. This shouldn't take too long.

I begin by asking you to consider the burden of proof in a civil case. That burden is usually described as the "preponderance of the evidence."  It's a 50-50 type decision. If the evidence favors the plaintiff even by a  teensy weensy bit, the jury is to find in favor of the plaintiff. If, on the other hand, the evidence favors the defense even by a smidgeon, then the jury is to find in favor of the defense. It's so simple.

I present the idealized concept of preponderance of the evidence in the figure below. Click to enlarge.
Matters are a little more confusing for jurors in a criminal case. They are asked to decide if the evidence proves the State's case beyond a reasonable doubt. The jurors must figure out how heavily the evidence favors the prosecution AND they must figure out what the hell the term reasonable doubt means AND they must decide whether the weight of the evidence provided by the prosecution exceeds the reasonable doubt threshold.

Courts are of almost no help in determining the meaning of reasonable doubt. One thing they absolutely will not do is apply any numeric value to reasonable doubt. They never suggest anything such as "you must be 90% certain."

Never. Ever.

Not now. Not ever.

Instead, they give you a reasonable doubt instruction something along the line of:
The question naturally is what is a reasonable doubt. The words almost define themselves. It is a doubt based upon reason and common sense. It is a doubt that a reasonable person has after carefully weighing all of the evidence. It is a doubt which would cause a reasonable person to hesitate to act in a matter of importance in his or her personal life. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt must be proof of such a convincing character that a reasonable person would not hesitate to rely and act upon it in the most important of his own affairs.
There you go. I'm sure that clarified things.

Legal scholars, and I've been reading a lot of their scholarly work on this issue recently, recognized that if you are to quantify the number, it should be greater than 50%. That after all is the standard for civil cases, and the burden of proof in criminal cases is supposed to be substantially greater. Legal scholars tend to throw out a value of 90% as a starting point. This corresponds roughly to William Blackstone's 250 year old claim that it is "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer."

That traditional view is portrayed in the figure below.
Those legal scholars who believe that figure portrays reality are full of scholarly beans.

When Rita Simon and Linda Mahon asked 106 judges to put a non-legally-binding number to proof beyond a reasonable doubt, those judges gave a number (presumably on average) of 89%. Since that's almost identical to the number the full-of-beans legal scholars provided, I declare that judges too are full of judicial beans, at least with respect to this concept.

Simon and Mahon also asked 25 jurors to put a number to the concept. Those jurors put the number at 79%. That number is not far from a couple other studies I've seen where jurors put the number around 75%, assuming they are asked before they deliberate in a mock trial. If they are asked after they deliberate, the put the number closer to 55%. The suggestion is that they wanted to convict, the evidence didn't support conviction at even a 75% standard, so they reduced the standard.

Even though the students eventually put the standard just barely above a civil suit "preponderance of the evidence" standard, I declare my fellow jurors to be full of deliberative beans, at least with respect to this issue.

I'll allow the judges and jurors to make my point for me. During the NCSC judge-jury agreement study used by Bruce Spencer to establish a wrongful conviction rate around 10%, the judges and jurors were asked to provide their estimate of the strength of the evidence used to convict (or acquit) a defendant. I'll simply provide a summary plot of the results below, and move away from the keyboard a bit as you study the plot and say "What the hell?" Click to enlarge.
Okay. I'm back. The first thing the Skeptical Spouse said when I showed her this plot was "That's not right!!?"  She was pointing to the portion where the jurors voted more frequently to convict when the strength of evidence was 1 than when it was 2. I replied with something equally as scholarly, something along the lines of "Screw that. They're voting to convict a third of the time when by their own admission the evidence strongly favors the defense."

Even when the evidence favors neither the prosecution nor the defense, both judge and jury are voting two out of three times to convict. Anyone who studies the chart for more than a minute and  still believes that we presume defendants to be innocent, or that we burden the prosecution with proof beyond a reasonable doubt, is full of blog-reading beans.

This one simple plot, based directly on data provided by judges and juries, demolishes dozens of scholarly works I've read regarding quantifying reasonable doubt. This plot causes me to propose an alternative hypothesis of jury behavior. It may not be scholarly, but it better explains the data. Here goes.


Besides destroying much scholarly work and putting the lie to some of the most fundamental principles of our judicial system, the plot also tells you that those who guess and those who divide are pretty much wrong when they arrive at wrongful conviction rates of 1 or 2 or 3%. There is no way that the behavior portrayed in the chart would result in such low error rates.

I'll add one final chart, then I'll step away from the keyboard. In the chart below, I simply overlay the idealized and realized worlds of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I'll allow the chart to speak for itself.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Michael Ledford: An Overview

Stuarts Draft, Virginia
October / November 1999

One month after an apartment fire took the life of his one-year-old son and seriously burned his wife, Michael Ledford signed a document stating:
Around 8:00 P.M. we put Zach to bed then Elise went to bed at 8:30 P.M. I told Elise that I was going to put gas in the car and put my name on the EVAC sheet at the firehouse then write the check for Pied Piper then go to bed. Before I left, I lit a candle and threw it in the chair. I never wanted to hurt my family. I was tired of trying to live up to Elise's parents' standards. I now wish I had took my mom's advice and moved back to Pennsylvania. I agree I need help, and willing to get -- and willing to get help. I just hope my family and friends and God can forgive me.
Two fire investigators confirmed the arson.

A jury convicted Michael Ledford of first-degree murder and arson of an occupied dwelling.

A judge sentenced him to 45 years for the murder and 5 years for the arson. The sentences are to be served consecutively. There is no parole or early release in Virginia.

The appellate courts either affirmed the verdict or disallowed each appeal on technical grounds. Michael has no appeals left to him.

Michael's wife, having been informed that he confessed to setting the fire that burned her and took the life of her son, divorced him.

<<>>

Pat Ledford has been working to free her son Michael for eleven years. Despite the bleak outlook, she won't give up. Despite more than a decade of discouragement, she won't give up.

I started speaking with Pat in August. I asked if she would be willing to provide every scrap of information she had on the case. She agreed. It turned out she had a lot of scraps; it took me a month or so to go through everything. During that time, we communicated only as necessary to have more and more information sent my way.

She never balked. I consider that a good sign. I won't work with someone who wants to control the data I can see. For me it's all about the data, at least in the beginning. That way, it's not as painful when I decline to help a mother (and it seems usually to be the mother) who is trying to free a son or daughter.

I don't work to free people from prison unless I am convinced they are factually innocent. When I begin, I don't know the people involved. I cannot take them at their word; I must see the data. I must have time to go over the data, to absorb it, sleep with it, wear it, and breathe it until it becomes part of me.

I have been through that process with the Michael Ledford case. I am absolutely confident that Michael  is factually innocent of the crimes for which he was convicted. I realize the outlook is bleak. Nonetheless, I hope I'll be able to help.

I'll discuss Michael's case in an extended series of posts here, in this blog. There will be lots of time for details later. Right now, in this first post, there is something more important to address than the details of the fire.

A child died that night, a woman was seriously burned, and a man lost his freedom. Parents lost a child, and grandparents lost a grandchild. It is too late to be of any good, but I offer my condolences to all parties personally affected by this tragedy.

The ex-wife and her parents have good reason to hold Michael responsible for all that has transpired. Michael confessed, and two fire investigators confirmed that the fire was arson consistent with that confession. I have no desire to cause the ex-wife and her parents any further distress.

I believe, however, that a grave injustice has been done to all those personally touched by the fire and its aftermath. I expect I will be able to show that Michael's confession was false, that the fire reports were tainted by that false confession, and that the fire started as a result of an electrical problem in the apartment.

Join me.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

On the Rate of Wrongful Conviction: Summary Plot for Your Consideration

Here's a summary plot I've been working on for the last chapter in my impending monograph Regarding The Rate of Wrongful Conviction. It's my third try. I rejected my first, the Skeptical Spouse rejected the second, and I'm giving you, my faithful readers, the opportunity to reject or commend the third.

Constructive criticisms, blathering praise, and cleverly worded slams would all be appreciated. Append your comments to the bottom of this post. I'll consider them all.

Click on the image to enlarge.


ADDENDUM

I've generated a fourth version.  I include it below.


Monday, November 15, 2010

The Mysterious Case of Stanley Faulder’s Cerebral Cortex

When Joseph Stanley Faulder was only three years old, he fell from a moving car and banged the right side of his head.

When Joseph Stanley Faulder was sixty-one years old, he was strapped to a Texas gurney and injected with lethal chemicals.

Whether the two events were related, I’ll never know. What is clear to me, however, is that Stanley Faulder is unlike any other execution case I have reviewed. There was something going on in his head that makes him stand out from all the others.

An Ever Increasing IQ

Consider his IQ. In his first year of high school, Stanley’s IQ was 99. Three years later it was 116. Not long before his execution, it had climbed to 130. A neuropsychologist who testified at his habeas corpus hearing explained that such large IQ increases are rare. They indicate the brain is struggling to compensate for damage. Despite his IQ, however, Stanley had difficulty distinguishing categories of objects. Though he could hear from each ear, only the right ear responded when both were simultaneously stimulated. He had also suffered numerous injuries to his left side, including injuries his left knee, left arm, and left shoulder blade. These findings suggest damage to the right hemisphere of Stanley’s cerebral cortex.

By comparison, the IQ scores for death row inmates (most of whom have never fallen out of cars) are well below average. I’m certain there are multiple reasons for the low IQs, but I’ll guess at only a few. First, it is much easier to extract a confession from someone who scores low on an IQ test. Second, people who are mentally retarded cannot be executed. Some of the death row inmates weren’t stupid going in, but they got stupid really fast after arriving. Stanley was an exception. He got smarter.

A Non-Violent History

Consider next Stanley’s violent history. He had none. That is, he had none if you exclude the bashed-in-head of Inez Phillips and the large kitchen knife protruding from her chest.

It’s not as if Stanley had been a model citizen. He started stealing things at a young age. According to an Royal Canadian Mounted Police crime report (he was born and raised in Alberta), from age six Stanley was “constantly admitting petty thefts from his parents and friends.” The thefts would sometimes, perhaps frequently, be accompanied by a lapse into an hour-long, blank-eyed daze or a deep sleep lasting way too long for comfort.

At fifteen, Stanley stole a watch and spent six months in a boys’ home. At seventeen, he served six months in jail for another theft. At twenty-three, he served thirty days for yet another, and was caught in a stolen car within a week of his release. He served three years for that one.

During that three-year stay, Stanley asked for psychiatric help and volunteered for an experimental treatment involving the stimulant Methedrine, an injectable form of methylamphetamine. According to Wikipedia, “effects of this drug include substantial perceptual changes such as blurred vision, multiple images, vibration of objects, visual hallucinations, distorted shapes, enhancement of details, slowed passage of time, and increased contrasts.” It’s hard to imagine that didn’t help.

Just days before the home-invasion robbery in Gladewater, Texas, Stanley disappeared from his most recent job at a gas station, along with a few hundred dollars that weren’t actually his.

Stormy Summers

Stanley reappeared at the Hurricane Club in Longview, Texas. There he met Stormy Summers, and things went from bad to worse. Stormy’s given name was Lynda. In fact, I believe her given name was Lynda Ziegler. She would become better known as Lynda McCann, but that night she was using her professional name, Stormy Summers. Stormy was (or at least had been) a member of the oldest profession.

As more evidence of his brain damage and low self-esteem, Stanley was smitten by this minimally-attired, 240-pound biker chick with a swastika tattooed on her hand.

Though Stormy was more frequently found in the company of Ernie McCann, a member of the outlaw club Destiny’s Legion, she was that night in the company of James Moulton. Moulton was a carpet and tile layer. He explained that he had recently worked in the house of Inez Phillips. Inez was the widow of a former Gladewater mayor and the matriarch of a substantial oil family. Inez had a floor safe added to a new wing of her house, and the safe was full of money and jewels.

In between beers, Moulton sketched the floor plan of the house. The three of them then drove the twelve miles to Gladewater to reconnoiter the residence. They did not, however, rob or make any attempt to rob Inez Phillips that night. Only after twelve days of frolicking, cavorting, and being smitten did Joseph Stanley Faulder and Lynda “Stormy Summers” Ziegler, soon to be McCann, stage a home-invasion robbery of the Inez Phillips residence. In the course of doing so, they killed her.

At least, that’s what they say. While I absolutely believe Stormy Summers when she claims to have been involved in the robbery, I don’t trust much of anything else she has to say. On the other hand, I have some doubts about Stanley’s confessions (note the plural) that he killed (or even robbed) Inez Phillips.

Now, I realize some of you are figuring that I must have finally and completely lost my mind and / or objectivity. How else could anyone explain my unwillingness to accept as undisputed fact the claim that Stanley Faulder murdered Inez Phillips, despite Stanley’s his two confessions, despite his two convictions, and despite his absolute refusal to deny his involvement even before any of his ten appointments with death?

I understand. Allow me to proceed.

Stormy's Story

After the murder of Inez Phillips, her family put up a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction, etc. Being an upstanding citizen only wanting to do his civic duty, James Mouton (carpet layer and sketcher of future crime scene layouts) called the hotline and blamed Stormy Summers and Stanley Faulder for the crime. Stormy was arrested quickly and she sang like a bird.

It was all Stanley’s fault, she explained, at least the real bad stuff was. She knocked on the door that night and claimed she had car trouble. When the door opened, Stanley forced their way inside at gunpoint. He gave her the gun and told her to keep an eye on Inez as he opened the safe. Stormy had such an aversion to guns and violence that she placed the gun on the end table. Inez lunged for the gun and grabbed it. As biker-girl Stormy and 75-year-old Inez grappled for control, the gun fired once inadvertently, hurting no one. Stanley heard the shot, charged into the room, and then hit Inez on the back of the head with a homemade blackjack consisting primarily of a hunk of metal. (I’m guessing it was in a sock. That’s what I use for all my homemade blackjacks.)

The blow knocked Inez unconscious. According to the medical testimony at the trial, that injury alone would have eventually killed Inez Phillips. Stanley and Stormy, however, were not trained medical practitioners. They feared she might wake up and cause another ruckus. They therefore placed her on the bed, taped her hands together, and placed tape over her mouth. Then, without explanation, Stanley went to the kitchen, retrieved a large knife, and plunged it into the center of Inez Phillip’s 75-year-old chest.

Stanley's Story

Stanley was arrested somewhat later in Colorado and returned to Texas. At first, he denied his involvement. They asked him if he would agree to a polygraph test. He agreed. I assume he figured he would pass and the police would let him go because he wasn’t involved. (I said he had a high IQ. I didn’t say he was smart.) Before the polygraph test, however, the examiner informed him the test would not only determine whether he was involved, but would determine as well (here’s the kicker) if he knew who else might have been involved.

At that point, Stanley balked. He decided he did not want to take a polygraph exam. He claims he asked for an attorney. Everyone involved (including the three cops) agree he asked for a few days to consider what he might say, who he might inculpate. The police didn’t cease their questioning, as they were legally obliged to do. Instead they continued for approximately three hours, discussing subjects such as what an electric chair does to a human being.

Though Stanley was not physically tortured, and though his interrogation was only three hours long (which is short as false confessions go), and though he had an IQ of 130 and climbing, he confessed. According to each of the three policemen, he wrote out one long paragraph in his own handwriting. (The appellate court noted that as an odd claim, since the handwritten confession the court had was in two short paragraphs. We’ll simply ignore that oddity just as they did.) That handwritten confession ended with Stanley hitting Inez with the blackjack.

Someone, a cop I suspect, typed up a longer and more thorough confession which Stanley signed. Stanley explained that they had a .38 caliber pistol and:
a homemade blackjack made out of a piece of flat iron, and a roll of white tape. … Stormy took the gun and went to the door pretending her car had broken down. Mrs. Phillips came to the door and let Stormy in. Stormy then held the gun on Mrs. Phillips and let me into the house. I talked to Mrs. Phillips for a couple of minutes and she got the combination to the safe from a drawer where she had it tucked away. The safe is located in the closet next to the rear entrance. Mrs. Phillips told me that there was no money in the safe, but I didn't believe her. I opened the safe and it was empty.
While I was opening the safe I heard a shot and went back to the bedroom where Stormy had taken Mrs. Phillips.
Mrs. Phillips was struggling with Stormy but stopped when I came into the room. We attempted to get her to lie down on the bed and stop struggling long enough to tie her up. She continued to fight so I hit her with the homemade blackjack. I was standing behind her when I hit her. The blow knocked her unconscious. We put her on the bed and tied her hands with tape. We also put tape across her mouth. We proceeded to go through the house. We found some costume jewelry and a fur cape.
I went back to check on Mrs. Phillips. She was moaning and groaning and kicking. I felt the back of her head and the skull felt crushed. I went to the kitchen and got a knife. I went back to the bedroom and stabbed Mrs. Phillips. I stabbed her in the center of the chest.
The knife punctured the aorta. Each heartbeat would pump her blood into her chest cavity rather than through her circulatory system. Within a minute, Inez Phillips would die in her own bed, gagged and bound, the back of her head crushed in.

My Doubts

The state’s evidence would indeed show that a gun had been fired inside the bedroom that night. The State would not find, however, any physical evidence that Stanley Faulder had ever been in the room. And therein lies the rub.

The police apparently never recovered the homemade blackjack. They never established that the hunk of metal had Stanley’s fingerprints all over it, that the sock matched another found in Stanley’s possession.

The police apparently never recovered the .38 caliber pistol, never dusted it for fingerprints to discover Stanley had grasped it in his hand. If they dusted the one casing that must have been left in the room, they must not have found Stanley’s thumbprint from when he pushed it into the cylinder or the clip.

The police apparently never found a boot print that looked evenly vaguely like Stanley’s boot, or a tire track that came close to matching one of his tires, or even a hair that a confident forensic hair analyst could confidently proclaim was consistent with Stanley’s hair.

More significantly, the police apparently found not even a single fingerprint on the floor safe, the door, or all the drawers that had been pulled out in search of valuables. They found not one of his fingerprints in the new wing recently added to the house, or the bedroom in which she was found. They didn’t even find his fingerprints on the knife which they found protruding from her chest.

Even if the police for some dumb-ass reason had failed to search long and hard for latent prints, there’s no way they could have missed the bloody prints that must have been there had Stanley been truthful in his confession. “I felt the back of her head and the skull felt crushed. I went to the kitchen and got a knife.” Surely there must have been some bloody fingerprints or some evidence of someone washing blood from his hand.

The confession is also suspicious on its face. Stanley confessed that he sapped her only after they were unable to get her to stop struggling long enough to tie her up. For one thing, a small thing admittedly, they didn’t tie her up. They taped her hands together and put tape over her mouth. For another thing, a much bigger thing, I’m skeptical that a 75-year-old lady is going to be able to mount much of a defense against a 240-pound, swastika-bedazzled biker chick and a 37-year-old auto mechanic with a 130 IQ and an abnormal brain.

The reason I might doubt a confession is the same reason I might doubt an accusation: it doesn’t comport with the evidence. Michael Ledford’s confession that he killed his one-year-old son by setting fire to his apartment, for example, does not comport with the evidence from scene. In case of Michael Ledford, I am working with Michael’s mother Pat to see if we can free him from his imprisonment. In the case of Joseph Stanley Faulder, I can only write of doubts about a case long ago and irretrievably resolved.

Dr. Death

Stanley also confessed a second time, apparently, and this time to none other than Dr, James Grigson, aka Dr. Death. Grigson’s specialty was seeing that people convicted of capital murder in Texas were sentenced to death. For a fee, he would testify that the convicted person would forever pose a threat to the safety of Texas citizens, even if incarcerated for life. Grigson didn’t need to even interview the defendant, though he would be pleased to do so. Grigson wasn’t even limited by the limits of mathematical certainty. On several occasions, Grigson testified that he was 1000% certain the defendant would again do harm to others.

Grigson helped put the needle in the arm of Cameron Todd Willingham. I include below an excerpt from my book on that case.
Dr. James Grigson is rightfully known as Doctor Death. Dr. Grigson would eventually testify against 167 defendants facing the death sentence. Only a few escaped with their lives. Former Texas Criminal Court of Appeals Judge Marvin Teague summarized Dr. Grigson’s effectiveness: “[W]hen Dr. Grigson testifies at the punishment stage of a capital murder trial … the defendant should stop what he is then doing and commence writing out his last will and testament because he will in all probability soon be ordered by the trial judge to suffer a premature death.”
Nonetheless, Stanley apparently confessed to Dr. Death as well as to the police. (As I said, high IQ does not necessarily equate with smart.) Stanley would never again confirm or deny his guilt. For the rest of his life, he would always refuse to talk about the case. He would eventually not grant any interviews to anybody. Nonetheless, back then, he talked to Dr. Death.

According to Dr. Death’s notes, Stanley explained “Nothing went right in the whole thing. ... The woman of the house was not supposed to be there. ... The woman put up a big fight. ... I had to hit her and I hit her too hard. ... I was disappointed that there was nothing in the safe." He then explained he was "panicky and fired up.” He didn't know why he stabbed her except that "she was moaning and groaning and I knew that I had done damage to her. ... I thought I was putting her out of her misery."

Stanley’s second confession does nothing to ease my doubts. It only increases them. If the “woman of the house was not supposed to be there” as Stanley claimed in his second confession, why did he take with him a gun, a blackjack, and tape (to bind her) as he claimed in his first confession? If the “woman of the house was not supposed to be there,” how did he plan to open the safe?

Two Trials

During Stanley’s first trial, the State relied almost exclusively on the confession. They didn’t call Stormy Summers, and they didn’t need to. When a jury hears a confession they convict, pure and simple. Disappointingly for Texas, the appellate court ruled the confession was improperly obtained since Stanley had said multiple times he didn’t want to say anything at that time, that he wanted to wait for a few days. The first verdict was overturned.

Without the confession, the state had a serious problem. They had no confession and they had no physical evidence. They only had the statement of an accomplice, and that is not admissible unless corroborated by something or someone who was not an accomplice. Texas was slow to pursue a second trial, so Inez’ family hired private prosecutors. Surprisingly, that is allowed as long as the State “retains control” of the prosecution, whatever that means.

The family paid the private prosecutors $100,000 according to one report I read, $155,000 according to another. The private prosecutors knew they needed Stormy Summers. Stormy was serving ten years for conspiring to rob (not murder) Inez Phillips. Amazingly, her conviction was soon overturned by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeal because the State mentioned Inez Phillips was killed.

It turned out Stormy had not been convicted of conspiracy for the events of that deadly night. She was convicted instead of conspiracy for the night at the bar where she looked at the sketch drawn by James Moulton and drove to the house that she would later rob. The court deemed that a different conspiracy than the one where she, Stanley, and apparently her soon-to-be husband planned to rob the Inez household. Mentioning the murder of a 75-year-old woman when Stormy was only charged with looking at sketches and driving by houses was absolutely, positively improper.

Stormy's conviction was reversed, she walked out of jail after serving only four years, and the State of Texas declined to prosecute her a second time. It may smell like crap to you, but it smelled like roses to Stormy. To celebrate, she covered her swastika tattoo with a rose tattoo. The new prosecutors wouldn’t want the new jury to get the wrong idea.

After Stormy was somehow freed from jail, and after the innocent looking rose tattoo appeared on her hand, she was paid $15,000 by Inez’ family to testify against Stanley. The money was allegedly to cover the cost of her re-location expenses should Stanley be acquitted and thereby force her into hiding. (Hahahahahah. Good one.) She would lie about the payment during her testimony, but the appellate court would find it wasn’t really all that bad a lie if it was a lie at all.

Now all the private prosecutors had to do was find some way to corroborate Stormy’s story. No problem. They paid Stormy’s new husband, Ernie McCann, $2,000 for his testimony. That payment was allegedly to cover the cost of biker Ernie’s wages while he testified. (Hahahahahah. Another good one.) Ernie suddenly recalled that he had overheard Stormy and Stanley talking about the robbery, and that was all the State and the jury needed to convict Stanley for a second and final time.

(After the trial, Stanley’s defense attorneys learned that the prosecution had evidence that Ernie was involved in the robbery, at least in the planning of the robbery. That made him an accomplice, and his testimony should have never been allowed. In Texas Criminal Court of Appeal, that is deemed a “harmless error.”)

Death Row

Joseph Stanley Faulder spent 22 years on death row. He refused the participate in the prison work program because he refused to work for a government that planned to kill him. Instead, he remained in his 6’ x 9’ cell fixing other prisoners’ radios free of charge, using nail clippers and glue to build domino boxes, using popsicle sticks to build clock frames.

His record shows no outbursts during his tenure, despite Dr. Death’s confidence that Stanley was certain to harm again. In more than two decades, Stanley had only three minor infractions. His record also shows that once, in February of 1987, the guards had great difficulty in awakening him, so much so that they made a record of the event.

Unlike many others who found God while on death row, Stanley stopped praying after failing to “get the answers I wanted.”

He survived nine dates with death, and succumbed only after the tenth. By that time, he had found his peace. Prior to one scheduled execution, he said: "There's an afterlife, as far as I'm concerned, and I expect to be part of it. It's that simple." Before the last he said: "I'm at peace with my maker. … I'm ready to go."

Actual Innocence Scorecard

I’ve included Stanley’s Actual Innocence Scorecard at the right. Click on it to enlarge. Click on the enlarged image to make it more clear.

I scored him Joseph Stanley Faulder at 22. That means I calculate that there is less than one chance in four he was actually innocent. Most people would score him at zero, and I would understand. I can’t score him that low primarily because of the lack of physical evidence tends to falsify his confession, and I don’t believe Lynda and / or Ernie McCann. The score also means that I think there is better than three out of four chance that Stanley at least participated in the robbery, the planning of the robbery. By my definition of Actual Innocence, in those cases he would not be innocent.

With respect to Stanley’s cerebral cortex, one former inmate described him as "the most intelligent man on death row." I suspect at one point in his life Stanley must have hoped for something more. He failed constantly, however, to live up to his own expectations and the expectations of others. He failed to earn the love and respect he so desperately sought and needed. He spent much of his life as an insecure, lonely, and depressed human being. In those regards, he differed from most of us only as a matter of degree.

Stanley felt his biggest accomplishments were the two daughters he fathered during a troubled seven year marriage in Canada. The daughters never really forgave him for abandoning them after the divorce, but they did visit him briefly before he was executed.

He described those visits as the happiest time of his life.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

In Search of 54: An Update

Time for an update on my search for the 54 innocent people executed by Texas. This update incorporates results from the The Grainy Case of Kia Levoy Johnson and The Three-Gun-Monte Sack O' Fertilizer Conviction and Execution of Frances Elaine Newton. It also incorporates revised scoring for The Despicable Claude Jones.

There's been a whole lot ink and pixels expended on Despicable Claude since the DNA results showed the 1" hair segment used to convict him came back negative. By the time I was done looking at all the new information I learned about the case, I ended up scoring him slightly downward, not significantly upward as I initially expected.

During my coarse filtering I first gave Claude a zero, meaning I didn't intend to consider his case any further. Then I learned about the potential DNA testing on the 1" hair and scored him at 52. The DNA results came back negative, I over-reacted and scored him at 82. By the next morning, I had regained my senses, worked through the score sheet more carefully and scored him at 48. I'm comfortable with that number but not the process by which I got there.

Charles Anthony Boyd, 1 

By my decimal accounting, I have so far located 11.5 people wrongfully executed by the State of Texas. I can't tell you exactly which 11.5 people were wrongfully executed, only that they are from the list above and  more likely located near the top than the bottom.

Stay tuned.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Mea Culpa

I have added a big time addendum to Update On the Surprising Case of The Despicable Claude Jones. If you haven't read that post, you should probably go there, read it and continue directly to the addendum added there. For anyone who has already read that post, I'll make it easy and post the addendum immediately below.

<<>>

ADDENDUM
Normally I spend at least a week working on a case, on and off, before I post on it. That's good since it allows me time to consider and weigh all the evidence. Last night, I posted the update regarding Claude Howard Jones as soon as I realized the DNA testing returned negative for Jones. I guess I was more concerned about the timeliness of my post than the thoroughness.

I did not, for example, account at all for some of the information provided in the Innocence Project timeline, the very timeline I linked to in the post. More specifically, I did not adjust my scoring to account for new information (at least new to me) that on the day of the shooting Claude Jones had been with Danny Dixon, Timothy Jordan, AND Terry Hardin. I hadn't uncovered that tidbit in my previous research, though I should have captured part of it earlier from the Attorney General's Media Advisory.

I believe I also gave insufficient weight to the seemingly well-established fact that Jones, Dixon, and Jordan participated in other robberies together.

Finally, I noticed in a new comment to my original post on Jones that Jordan's recantation consisted of saying that Dixon told him Jones confessed to him, rather than Jones confessing directly to Jordan That may or may not be true. If anyone can source Jordan's recantation so we can all read it directly, that would be great.

After considering and weighing everything I now know, here's what I believe happened that day.

Claude Howard Jones met with Danny Dixon, Timothy Jordan, and Terry Hardin (Jordan's girlfriend) at the home of Jordan's father. At least two of them decided to perform a robbery. Using Timothy Jordan's .357 revolver, which Terry Hardin had purchased for him as a gift, and Danny Dixon's pickup, at least two of them robbed the liquor store in Point Blank, Texas, and one of them shot and killed Allen Hilzendager.

A witness saw the pickup truck and that allowed police to arrest Dixon and Jordan. They did not initially arrest Jones. Dixon refused to cooperate but Jordan worked a deal with the cops and the DA. He claimed he only planned the robbery and provided the gun, but that Dixon and Jones were the two who actually committed the robbery. Not only that, Jones confessed to him that he did the shooting.

The state of Texas had a problem. The law does not allow a conviction based  solely on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. Jordan's story would have to be corroborated with something. The eyewitness testimony was troublesome, since neither of the eyewitnesses could actually identify Jones. The State could and did use Terry Hardin to buttress the eyewitness testimony, but she might have also fallen into the accomplice category. (I'm guessing she also struck a deal with the police.)

The State did, however, have that tiny 1" hair segment, and darned if the forensic lab didn't identify that segment as being consistent with Jones but nobody else. It was, as we now know, a bunch of crap, but it was the critical piece necessary to corroborate their purchased testimony.

Dixon, who refused to cooperate, got 60 years. Jones, who was fingered by Jordan and  Jordan's girlfriend Terry Hardin, got the needle. Jordan got off with ten years for that murder and another robbery combined. Hardin, best I can tell, walked.

When Jordan later recanted, Texas convicted him of aggravated perjury, not because they object to perjury (since they purchase perjured testimony by the crate) but because he made them look bad. They  also wanted to send a message to anyone who might think about recanting in the future. Texas was certainly not bothered that they might have needled the wrong man.

So this case completely and totally sucks. For the pro-death penalty folks who will never concede Texas might have made a mistake, they simply look foolish when they claim to be 100% confident that Jones was the shooter or driver. They simply can't know.  For the anti-death penalty folks who hope to find solid proof of an innocent person wrongfully convicted, they may not want to hitch their horse to this wagon.

I'm more comfortable scoring this case (and all such cases) as uncertain, as probabilities rather than certainties. I'm more comfortable changing my scoring as appropriate when new evidence comes my way. I fault myself in this case for researching too poorly and posting too quickly. I have revised my scorecard for a second time, and include it to the right. Based on everything I think I know now, I score Claude Howard Jones at 48.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Update On The Surprising Case of The Despicable Claude Jones

Previously, I described The Surprising Case of The Despicable Claude Jones. The case hinged in large part on the State's identification of a 1" hair segment as belonging to Despicable Claude. The mitochondrial DNA from that 1" hair segment has now been tested, the results are in, and [insert drum roll here] the hair segment did not come from the now executed Claude Jones. It came from the store owner who was murdered.

Imagine that. It seems as if the State's expert was absolutely confident  during his trial testimony that the hair segment did not belong to the store owner. Interesting.

Well, Texas still has its accomplice testimony, except for the troublesome issue that accomplice recanted his testimony and affirmed he only said what the State wanted him to say because they put the screws to him.

Okay so maybe the accomplice testimony wasn't that hot. But Texas still has their two eyewitnesses who never actually claimed they saw Despicable Claude

So Texas will continue to profess their absolute confidence that Claude Jones was the shooter no matter how much of their evidence falls apart. If they get tired of professing their absolute conficence in their conviction, they can fall back on the implicit suggestion that Claude Howared Jones was a despicable person and only got what he deserved anyway. What they can't do any longer is claim that Despicable Claude really got a fair trial before they strapped him down and shot him full of lethal chemicals.

Allow me to review the case quickly, assuming I'm even possible of a quick review. In November 1989, some despicable person (not necessarily Despicable Claude) entered Zell's liquor store in Point Blank, Texas. (Only Texas would have a city named Point Blank.) That person asked the owner, Allen Hilzendager, to retrieve a bottle for him. As Hilzendager turned to get the bottle, the shooter shot Hilzenager three times with a .357 Magnum revolver. The shooter took $900 from the cash register and fled in a getaway vehicle waiting outside.

Leaon and Wendy Goodson were across the street that night. They could not identify the shooter. The were confident however, that the man was of medium height, middle age, had a pot belly, and was wearing a gray sweatshirt.

Texas then had Terry Hardin testify that, while she was not at the crime scene that night, she knew Claude Jones, and the description kinda, sorta fit him. Hardin also testified that Jones had been wearing a gray sweatshirt that day. Hardin then conceded the description could also describe The Despicable Danny Dixon, the other man sentenced for the crime. But the Goodsons must have seen Despicable Claude and not Despicable Dan because Despicable Dan had only a small pot belly while Despicable Claude had a large pot belly. (Such is the substance of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in Texas.)

Enter Stephen Robertson, a forensics examiner employed by the Texas Department of Public Safety. He testified that a 1" hair segment found at the scene was consistent with Despicable Claude but absolutely inconsistent with the victim, Despicable Dan, or any of the other thirteen people who might have been in the store that day. He then explained to the jury what that all meant.
[W]e take a hair that we want -- that we’re worried about and we compare that hair to this person's hair. If that hair falls within the range of characteristics that the person has, then that could be the person's hair or it could be another person that has similar hair characteristics. Technology has not advanced where we can tell you this hair came from that person. Can't do that. We can tell you that this hair matches the person in all characteristics and could be his. ... [I]t’s impossible to put a percentage or a statistical study on these variations because each hair in your head varies a little bit. How do you put a number on something that varies like that? . . . So I can’t tell you, you know, this hair occurs in 10 percent of the population. Nobody can tell you something like that.
So the hair sample was consistent with Despicable Claude, and not with the store owner, and not with anyone else who had been in the store that day. Couple that with the rock solid eyewitness testimony and you've got yourself proof beyond all doubt.

Unfortunately, with the DNA results now in, we know for sure what the jury should have suspected from the beginning. Forensic Examiner Stephen Robertson was blowing forensic smoke up their backsides. But that's okay because Claude Howard Jones was in fact a despicable person who, among other despicable things, killed another inmate by dousing him with lighter fluid and setting him on fire.

Despicable Dan, by comparison, merely shot a young girl between the eyes and buried her in a cemetary. So let's talk a moment about Despicable Dan. He was also convicted of the crime. His pickup truck, or a pickup truck kinda like his pickup truck, was seen by one witness outside the liquor store that night. In fact, it was the pickup truck that led police to Despicable Dan. Dan refused to cooperate and got 60 years.

We now get to the person who actually admitted to being involved in the killing, Timothy Mark Jordan. One reason we might believe Jordan is that it was his .357 revolver that fired the bullets that killed liquor store clerk Allen Hilzendager. Jordan is facing the needle and finds that unnerving. But he's a pro and he knows how the game works. He knows that if he gives the Texas police someone else's head on a platter, they'll take his death penalty off the table, theyl'll charge him with a lesser crime, they'll give him reduced time, and they'll even provide punch and cookies.

But Jordan doesn't want to sell out Despicable Dan, because they're buds. Instead, he sells out Despicable Claude, who is just some run of the mill slup and not at all a good bud like Dan. So he tells the police that Despicable Claude confessed to him that he committed the robbery and killed the clerk, and he so testified during Claude's trial.

For his perfidy, Texas charges Jordan with capital murder and a separate robbery in another county, but  they allow him to plea both charges down to a 10-year sentence for a lesser offense.

Three years after Claude was executed, however, Jordon recanted. He explained that it was Dixon who confessed to the killing, not Jones.

To send a message to all those purchased witnesses who might change their story later, Texas charged, tried, and convicted Jordan of aggravated perjury for telling differing stories to grand and trial jurors.

So the State of Texas has neither hair evidence nor accomplice testimony to put Claude Howard Jones at the crime scene, much less to put the gun in his hand. All they have is a bizarre, compound, pass-the-baton eyewitness identification that hinges on whether Despicable Dan's pot belly was substantially smaller than Despicable Dan's.

Holy crap!

I said in my previous post that if the hair sample turned out to belong to someone other than  Despicable Claude, then I was going to revise my Actual Innocence Scorecard and give him an actual innocence score of 100.  I recant that claim. The revised scorecard is attached. I elevated his score from 52 to 82.

Note:
For a more coherent timeline of events, see the timeline prepared by the Innocence Project.

ADDENDUM
Normally I spend at least a week working on a case, on and off, before I post on it. That's good since it allows me time to consider and weigh all the evidence. Last night, I posted the update regarding Claude Howard Jones as soon as I realized the DNA testing returned negative for Jones. I guess I was more concerned about the timeliness of my post than the thoroughness.

I did not, for example, account at all for some of the information provided in the Innocence Project timeline, the very timeline I linked to in the post. More specifically, I did not adjust my scoring to account for new information (at least new to me) that on the day of the shooting Claude Jones had been with Danny Dixon, Timothy Jordan, AND Terry Hardin. I hadn't uncovered that tidbit in my previous research, though I should have captured part of it earlier from the Attorney General's Media Advisory.

I believe I also gave insufficient weight to the seemingly well-established fact that Jones, Dixon, and Jordan participated in other robberies together.

Finally, I noticed in a new comment to my original post on Jones that Jordan's recantation consisted of saying that Dixon told him Jones confessed to him, rather than Jones confessing directly to Jordan That may or may not be true. If anyone can source Jordans' recantation so we can all read it directly, that would be great.

After considering and weighing everything I know now, here's what I believe happened that day.

Claude Howard Jones met with Danny Dixon, Timothy Jordan, and Terry Hardin (Jordan's girlfriend) at the home of Jordan's father. At least two of them decided to perform a robbery. Using Timothy Jordan's .357 revolver, which Hardin had purchased for him as a gift, and Danny Dixon's pickup, at least two of them robbed the liquor store in Point Blank, Texas, and one of them shot and killed Allen Hilzendager.

A witness saw the pickup truck, and that allowed police to arrest Dixon and Jordan. They did not initially arrest Jones. Dixon refused to cooperate but Jordan worked a deal with the cops and the DA. He claimed he only planned the robbery and provided the gun, but that Dixon and Jones were the two who actually committed the robbery. Not only that, Jones confessed to him that he did the shooting.

The state of Texas had a problem. The law does not allow a conviction based  solely on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice. Jordan's story would have to be corroborated with something. The eyewitness testimony was troublesome, since neither of the eyewitnesses could actually identify Jones. The State could and did use Terry Hardin to buttress the eyewitness testimony, but she might have also fallen into the accomplice category. (I'm guessing she also struck a deal with the police.)

The State did, however, have that tiny 1" hair segment, and darned if the forensic lab didn't identify that segment as being consistent with Jones but nobody else. It was, as we now know, a bunch of crap, but it was the critical piece necessary to corroborate their purchased testimony.

Dixon, who refused to cooperate, got 60 years. Jones, who was fingered by Jordan and  Jordan's girlfriend Terry Hardin, got the needle. Jordan got off with ten years for that murder and another robbery combined. Hardin, best I can tell, walked.

When Jordan later recanted, Texas convicted him of aggravated perjury, not because they object to perjury (since they purchase perjured testimony by the crate) but because he made them look bad. They  also wanted to send a message to anyone who might think about recanting in the future. Texas was certainly not bothered that they might have needled the wrong man.

So this case completely and totally sucks. For the pro-death penalty folks who will never concede Texas might have made a mistake, they simply look foolish when they claim to be 100% confident that Jones was the shooter or driver. They simply can't know.  For the anti-death penalty folks who hope to find solid proof of an innocent person wrongfully convicted, they may not want to hitch their horse to this wagon.

I'm more comfortable scoring this case (and all such cases) as uncertain, as probabilities rather than certainties. I'm more comfortable changing my scoring as appropriate when new evidence comes my way. I fault myself in this case for researching too poorly and posting too quickly. I have revised my scorecard for a second time, and include it to the right. Based on everything I think I know now, I score Claude Howard Jones at 48.