The Impending Wrongful Execution of Eric King: 3

Eric King sits on death row. The people of Arizona plan to execute him on 29 March. Though I stand mute for most executions, I fervently oppose this one. I believe Eric King may in fact be innocent of the crime for which he is to die.

This is the third part of a five-part series. Prior to reading this Part 3 you should first read Parts1 and 2. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. A link at the each Part will lead you to the next, leading you right back to this post.

Armando Saldate

So far, I have based almost information relating to King's case on the appellate ruling King v. Schriro. From reading the appellate decisons, nothing particularly unusual pops out regarding Armando Saldate. Recall that he was the detective who built the case against King by extracting information from Michael Jones in exchange for Jones' freedom / life. In browsing the internet, however, Saldate's role in this case adds considerably to my unease about King's conviction.

Counting his role in King's case, Armando Saldate has played a central role in placing five people on Arizona's death row. That makes him an ace. Unfortunately, the convictions are remarkably shaky. I'll summarize those other cases in a bit. First, I'll discuss an issue reflecting poorly on Saldate's character and performance as a detective.

In 1973, 13 years before Armando Saldate was to become the key figure in the Eric King case, he was suspended for conduct unbecoming an officer. I quote below from the separation notice.

In accordance with the provisions of Rule 19A of the Personnel Rules of the City of Phoenix, Arizona, you are hereby suspended from duty, without pay, for five (5) working days, effective Wednesday, September 5, 1973, through Sunday, September 9, 1973, inclusive.

On August 15, 1973, at approximately 8:40 P.M. while on duty, you stopped a woman at 1100 East Mohave for a traffic violation; a faulty tail light. You then determined that she did not have a driver's license and commenced writing her two repair order citations for he violations.

You also learned there was the probability a traffic warrant for her arrest existed. You did not verify the warrant, nor did you make an arrest as she promised to take care of the warrant in the near future.

To show her gratitude for not going to jail on receiving moving vehicle citations, the woman offered to kiss you. You proposed that the two of you go to a less conspicuous place and suggested 300 East Maricopa Freeway. The woman agreed, and you followed her to that location. There, you leaned inside the car, kissed her and deliberately began making advances and took liberties which amounted to conduct unbecoming an officer. Therefore, you have subjected yourself to disciplinary actions under the provisions of Phoenix Police Department General Order 3.3.4(7). Conduct Unbecoming an Officer and General Order 3.3.4.

Officer Saldate, although your actions to this matter were encouraged by the woman involved, the situation became even more aggravated when she offered, and you agreed, to meet later for the purpose of engaging in an act of sexual intercourse. When you got off duty, you went to the meeting place, but left when you found she was not there.

When you were interviewed by your supervisors concerning this incident, you specifically denied going to meet the woman after completing your shift.

In addition, you omitted some of the details of the incident regarding the liberties you took with the woman. This was discovered later when you were given a polygraph examination. You then admitted the complete details of your involvement and now realize your actions were grossly improper.

Officer Saldate, your past performance as a police officer has been satisfactory. However, because of this incident, your image of honesty, competency, and overall reliability must be questioned. Therefore, so must your value to the department be questioned.

Actions such as those you have exhibited while on duty, in full uniform, not only demonstrates extremely poor judgement and lack of concern for your profession, but also reflects directly upon the Phoenix Police Department as a whole, and will not be tolerated.

This suspension is intended to impress upon you the seriousness of your actions and to serve as a reminder that future infractions of this nature will result in more severe disciplinary action or dismissal.

I hesitate to include such material, so remote in time. I do so, however, because Saldate's own employer ruled that his "honesty, competency, and overall reliability must be questioned." It must be questioned still because it seems as if Saldate continued to mix sexual improprieties with dishonesty. It must be questioned to this day because a man's life depends on the integrity of his performance and integrity.

As late as 1989, three years after his central role in King's conviction, Armando Saldate was interviewing Sandy Pickinpaugh, sister of Debra Milke, one of the people Saldate helped place on death row. During that interview, Saldate volunteered a bizarre story. He claimed that while interviewing Debra Milke she flashed her breasts at him in order to, to, ... well that part is not really clear.

Saldate: So me and her talking and I'm telling her I'm not going to tolerate that. She's not going to do it. She -- dress looked very nice. She wraps the front of her blouse and she pulls it up to her eyes, she didn't have no tears, to wipe her tears away but she didn't have any.

Pickinpaugh: (Inaudible). 

Saldate: Yeah. Which quickly exposed her (inaudible). I didn't really pay that much attention to -- I knew, you see, my job, in my position I know what she was doing to me. I knew what she -- (inaudible). But see, I'm there for information, okay. And she's like trying to see if I -- 

Pickinpaugh: It's working.

Saldate: It's working. If he's looking at my breasts then I may be able to talk myself out of this. Okay. So that's what I'm telling you. That's the type of manipulation she does.

We can't check the recording of Milke's interrogation to see if Saldate was telling the truth or lying, or simply fantasizing. We can't check the recording because there is no recording. Saldate explained variously that he forgot to turn the recorder on, or that Milke would not allow him to record it.

We can't check with any one of the other people in the interview room, because there was no one else in the room. Saldate had instructed everyone else to leave.

We can't check with anyone who monitored the interrogation through a one way mirror, since apparently no one monitored the interview.

We can't check his contemporaneous notes. He destroyed his notes.

We know that he did not mention the incident in his paraphrased report of the interrogation, nor when he was in front of the grand jury, nor when he was in front of the jury.

Best I can tell, Armando Saldate never mentioned this alleged incident again.

What we can do is examine a news photo (or video freeze frame) taken of Debra Milke in the custody of Armando Saldate. I link to the photo below.

From the photo, we can see that Debra Milke was not wearing a blouse, as Saldate claimed she opened. She was wearing a long sleeve sweater. The reference explains that Debra Milke was wearing a white cardigan sweater and a pink T-shirt. 

Saldate should never have been alone in the interrogation room with a female suspect without someone monitoring the interview. It was a violation police procedures. Such procedures are intended to prevent  sexual impropriety, or false allegations of such impropriety. Saldate orchestrated a situation in which he was alone with Debra Milke, without monitoring, without recording, without notes. He then, based on the photo, lied about Debra Milke exposing herself to him.

And, as an aside, he claimed she then confessed to murdering her son.

"Officer Saldate, ... because of this incident, your image of honesty, competency, and overall reliability must be questioned.

Debra Milke

In December 1989, two men known to Debra Milke took her four-year old son to see Santa Claus at the mall. They then took him to the desert and shot him in the back of the head.

Saldate arrested Debra Milke and interviewed her as just described. He claims she confessed to hiring the two men to murder her son so that she could collect on his $5000 insurance policy As noted previously, no one else was in the room, no one monitored the interrogation, the recorder was not turned on, and Saldate destroyed his contemporaneous notes.

Saldate claimed he arrested Milke because Roger Scott, one of the two men who murdered Milke's son, told him that Milke hired them to kill Christopher. Scott allegedly confessed this to Saldate in a car, as Scott was leading the police to the body. Scott's enroute confession is as questionable as Milke's flashing breast confession. The other officer in the car with Saldate and Scott somehow never heard Scott confess.

Scott did, however, later provide the State with evidence they wanted to hear in exchange for his life. Based on his purchased testimony and her alleged confession, the jury found Debra Milke guilty of capital murder. 

Debra Milke remains on Arizona's death row to this day.

Jim Styer 

Jim Styer is one of the two men who took Christopher Milke, Debra's son, to the desert. The other was Roger Scott. The big question was which of the two men was going to die for the shooting, and which was going to spend his life in prison. Because Roger Scott implicated Debra Milke, and because Jim Styer refused to do so, Roger Scott was sent to prison and Jim Styer was sent to death row.

[Debra Milke's supporters argue the wrong people are on death row. They argue that Debra's ex-husband (and Christopher's father) hired Roger Scott to commit the murder, that Roger is the one who shot Christopher, and that Debra was not involved in any fashion.]

David Hyde

Less than two years after extracting disputed and undocumented confessions from Debra Milke and Roger Scott, Armando Saldate extracted a confession of murder from David Hyde after six hours of interrogation. Once again, Saldate was alone with Hyde. Once again, the interrogation seems not to have been recorded or witnessed. Once again, everyone had to rely on Saldate's paraphrased recounting of the interrogation. Once again everyone was forced to rely on Saldate's "honesty, competency, and overall reliability."

David Hyde was convicted and sentenced to death. Unlike the others, however, David Hyde had his conviction reversed on appeal, in part due to the unlawful confession extracted by Armando Saldate. Hyde pled no contest to second degree murder rather than risk a retrial, and walked free.

Eldon Shurz

Eldon Shurz is on death row for pouring a gallon of gasoline on a man confined in a small chain link pen and setting him on fire. Shurz admits to knocking the man down during a fight, but claims he was walking away from the scene when someone else lit the man on fire.

From the appellate decision:

Bahe was on the ground and, in an attempt to get away, crawled under a chain-link fence into a small enclosed rectangular space between a stairwell and a brick wall. Schurz picked up the plastic jug, smelled its contents, and then splashed gasoline on Bahe. Using a lighter, Schurz ignited a small puddle of gasoline. When the flames failed to spread to Bahe, he kicked the burning puddle toward him. Bahe went up in flames. After Schurz and Allison fled, Bahe managed to crawl under the fence and out of the enclosed space.

The State's case is shaky indeed. The victim's clothes were never tested for residual gasoline, and they did not smell of gasoline when removed from their sealed bag before trial. The state was forced to call in a snitch to bloster their case. Worse yet, they had no confession from Shurz, even though Armando Saldate worked on the case.

In this case, however, Saldate assisted with the prosecution in another, and unbelievable fashion. The State's case was that the victim had crawled under the fence into the enclosed, locked area before he was burned, and crawled back out afterwards. It was necessary to explain to the jury why the victim was found outside the enclosed area. To accomplish this, Armando Saldate transformed himself from master interrogator into an arson expert. Though members of the fire department were involved in the case, it was Armando Saldate who testified as the State's arson expert, though he was clearly unqualified to do so.

Saldate assured the jury that there had indeed been fire inside the fenced enclosure. He figured that out based on charring along the sidewalk. Even though he was not an arson expert, or even a member of the fire department, and even though the sidewalk has been sprayed with a fire hose and fire extinguisher prior to his arrival, he somehow knew and testified that the victim had been burned while within the enclosure, just as the State wanted the jury to believe.

Conclusion

Armando Saldate played a key role in Eric King's conviction. He obtained the confession from Michael Jones that sent Eric King to death row. However, because of Saldate's history of unprofessional behavior, both before and after the King trial, Saldate's "honesty, competency, and overall reliability must be questioned."

In Part 4, we'll look at the prosecutor and the appellate court. 

ERRATA: Included as a separate post, here. 

The Impending Wrongful Execution of Eric King: 2

Eric King sits on death row. The people of Arizona plan to execute him on 29 March. Though I stand mute for most executions, I fervently oppose this one. I believe Eric King may in fact be innocent of the crime for which he is to die.

This is the second part of a five-part series. Prior to reading this Part 2 you should first read Part 1. You can do so here. A link at the end of Part 1 will bring you back to this Part 2.

Overview

In Part 1, I attempted to provide all the significant evidence heard by the jury. I also attempted to limit the discussion only to information heard by the jury. I then asked you to consider how you would have voted had you been on the jury. I asked you also to consider why you would have voted such. I promised to reveal my vote and my reasons in this Part 2.

My vote must be of no surprise to any of you, given what I have written so far. I would have voted not guilty. Hopefully, my reasons will also come as no surprise.

The evidence most damning to Eric King came from his alleged accomplice Michael Jones and Jones' girlfriend, Nekita Hill. The primary exculpatory evidence was that related to Eric King's height. I will discuss each in turn.

Richard Jones

As a juror, I am suspicious of any testimony from a snitch or an alleged accomplice. My expectation is that the testimony has been purchased. The currency for such a transaction is freedom rather than imprisonment. In some cases, such as the current case, the currency may be life itself. The payment is made in exchange for testimony in accord with the State's wishes.

It is an unseemly business at best. If a defense attorney were to secure a prisoner's testimony for cold hard cash, the State would suffer an apoplectic fit, the jury would disbelieve the tainted testimony, and the defense attorney would face disbarment and criminal prosecution.

As a juror, you are apt to be told, usually during the State's closing argument, that the State must, on occasion, reluctantly rely on the testimony of disreputable characters. That may be true. However, if the State asks me to relieve them of their burden of proof because their witness is a scoundrel, I will decline. I will instead weigh each witness's testimony against all the physical evidence and against the testimonial evidence of all other witnesses. And if the witness be a snitch or an alleged accomplice, I will consider the likelihood that the testimony has been purchased in exchange for testimony favorable to the State.

Not only would I expect that Jones' testimony had been purchased, I would have taken note of the Sergeant Switzer's testimony that Jones' initially claimed he did not know the person who had been with him, the person who ran away when ordered to "Halt!" by the sergeant.

I would also take note of Jones' frequent and convenient bouts of forgetfulness followed by his  bouts of recollection. I take additional note of  his alleged drunkenness against the sobriety described by Switzer and Saldate.

It seems clear that Jones lied about knowing King when Jones was in danger of arrest, and equally clear than Jones lied about not remembering when he wished not to testify. But we need not rely on ancillary testimony to suspect him of lying. Consider, if you will, his testimony about the crime itself.

Jones claims that went to the store with the shooter (King or another) to buy wine, then claims he waited outside while the shooter went inside. That's a bit unusual but not damning. Jones then claims he was surprised when the shooter shot the employees. He not only ran from the scene in fear of arrest, he ran from the scene in the company of the shooter. We can assume he then waited for the shooter as the shooter returned to wipe the guard's holster. Jones then walked from the crime scene in the company of the shooter.

Jones made no effort to assist those who had, to his surprise, been shot. He made no effort to inform the police or other emergency personal. He made no effort to separate himself from the person who had suddenly, and to his alleged surprise, shot two innocent employees. He even waited patiently as the shooter returned to clean the crime scene. Then he lied to the police about even knowing the person he had been walking with.

Jones' testimony, though reluctant, seems self-serving. He was merely an innocent bystander, surprised by the events of the evening. He remained in the company of the actual shooter after the fact, not because they were fleeing together, but because ... because ... well, I have yet to hear an explanation for that one.

The self-serving, almost-certainly-purchased testimony of a possible participant in the murders does not, in my opinion as a skeptical juror, advance the State's case very far.

Nekita Hill

While Jones' testimony was questionable, that of his girlfriend was absolutely incredible, in the sense of  absolutely not credible.

Most significant and astounding was her claim that she not only saw King throw a plastic bag into a dumpster, she saw could somehow see what was in the plastic bag, despite the opacity of  your standard plastic bag, and despite the darkness frequently occurring near midnight. She didn't apparently claim to have opened the dumpster, removed the bag and looked inside. She apparently claimed instead to have seen the gun, the sweater, and the pattern on the bundled up sweater through the conveniently thin bag, in the dark of night.

Even King's presence in that area at that time was extremely unlikely. Assuming King was the shooter, he ran from the crime scene, returned to wipe the guard's holster clean, returned to where Michael Jones waited for him, walked from the scene with Jones until spotted by the police, then fled south. Hill claims she then coincidentally walked the same path or similar path soon thereafter, when helicopters were circling overhead and presumably while police cars were racing about with sirens blaring.

Are we to believe that under those conditions, with police cars racing to and from the scene, with helicopters circling above, that King decided to return to the area of the crime so that he could dispose of the evidence, closer to the scene, where it would be more easily found? Are we to assume that after fleeing south to escape the police, King acquired a thin plastic bag, inserted his sweater and the gun, made a U-turn, headed back north to the area of the crime, and then deposited the bag in the dumpster, just as Jones' girlfriend was walking by?

The unlikelihood of Hill's testimony is compounded by her claim that she wanted to, but could not go to the store with Jones and King. Recall that she claimed to be unable to find a babysitter. Are we to believe that she suddenly, in the time it took for King shoot two people and clean a cash register, found a sitter and arranged with her best friend to walk to her friend's house, which was coincidentally near the crime scene?

Though Hill allegedly knew that Jones and King intended to go to the store, and though she knew a crime had been committed there, and though she knew her boyfriend had been arrested for that crime, and though she had seen King dispose of the murder weapon and distinctive sweater in a dumpster, she claims it did not occur to her to contact the police until she saw a blurry, low-quality photo of the shooter three days after the crime.

Are we, as skeptical jurors, expected to accept such piffle as proof beyond a reasonable doubt?

Height

The state presented no credible evidence that Eric King was involved with the robbery and shooting at the Short Stop convenience store. Their star witnesses, Richard Jones and Nekita Hill, boyfriend and girlfriend, were both obviously reluctant to testify, to repeat what they had earlier told the police. The stories they then told the jury were far from credible, especially so in the case of Nekita Hill.

None of the other witnesses identified King as the shooter. No physical evidence tied King to the scene. The State had bupkis, and clearly failed to meet their burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Though the defense had no requirement to prove the defendant innocent, I believe they may have done just that. I believe the issue of height exculpates Eric King.

To investigate the height issue, I employ below a 2-dimensional person named Sang. Sang is a reference  person provided in Google Sketchup, a three-dimensional modelling program. I used Sang previously in The Skeptical Juror and the Trial of Cory Maye. I needed to show multiple views of the Cory Maye duplex, both inside and out, so I constructed a three-dimensional model in Sketchup. I asked Sang to stand in front of the building for reference. You can see him in the image below.

Sang is described by Google as follows.

Sang is a member of the SketchUp development team. He enjoys rock climbing, pho and long walks on the beach.

For my fellow non-gastronomes, pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup. By default, Sang stands 5 feet 9 inches tall.

Frank Madden described the two men he saw as being a little over 6 feet tall. I therefore scaled Sang up to 6 feet in height, cloned him, and gave the clone a differently colored shirt. I show the unenlightening result below.

Jones and Shooter, as per Witness Madden

Sergeant Switzer confirmed Madden's observation. He described the man who fled as being slightly taller than Michael Jones. Jones was 6 feet 1 inch tall. I therefore scaled Sang to be 6 feet 1 inch tall and his clone to be 6 feet 2 inches tall. I show their comparative heights below. Again, there is nothing particularly interesting about the result.

Jones and Shooter, as per Sgt. Switzer

Eric King, however is only 5 feet 8 inches tall, according to the appellate decision. (He is listed as 5 feet 9 inches tall on his inmate record.)  I therefore scaled Sang's clone to be 5 feet 8 inches tall. Suddenly, the relative height comparison is striking.

Jones and King

Had I been in the jury room, I would have been unable to fall back on my computer to make my point. I would, however, have recruited volunteer jurors of various heights to stand side-by-side. Had the King jurors taken the trouble to do so, they would have seen exculpatory information staring them in the face. Had they weighed that straightforward evidence from the unbiased witnesses (with nothing to gain) against the unlikely testimony of the clearly biased witness (with Jones' very life at stake), I choose to believe they would have voted not guilty.

In Part 3 of the series, I will relay to you information critical to the case but kept from the jury. We'll see if it changes your thoughts on how you would have voted.

Continued in Part 3

The Impending Wrongful Execution of Eric King: 1

Eric King

This is the first in a 5 part series regarding the impending execution of Eric John King by the people of Arizona. The execution is scheduled for the 29th of this month. While I stand mute regarding most executions (since I find no chance of innocence in most cases), I fervently oppose this execution.

Around midnight on 27 December 1989, a black male, brandishing a pistol, entered the Short Stop convenience market at 48th Street and Broadway in Phoenix, Arizona. The robbery was captured on two time-lapse video cameras. The videos were of such low quality that the armed robber would be difficult to identify. The robber was, however, wearing a dark sweater with a band of light colored, diamond-shaped markings across the chest and arms.

At nearly the same time, Frank Madden was driving to the Country Kitchen restaurant, located near the Short Stop convenience market. As he drove past the Short Stop, he saw two black men walking in the parking lot. Each was a little over 6 feet tall. One of the two wore a blue or black and white sweater with "some pattern like pyramids." The other wore a "green sweatshirt."

Frank Madden continued past the Short Stop to the Country Kitchen. There he met his girlfriend in the parking lot. They discovered that the Country Kitchen restaurant was closed.

At nearly the same time, Kevin Harris and his friend David Dils were driving through the intersection of 48th Street and Broadway.

While Frank Madden was talking to his girlfriend outside the Country Kitchen restaurant, and while Kevin Harris and David Dils were passing through the intersection at 48th and Broadway, the armed robber shot the Short Stop clerk. On the security video, the clerk can be seen moving backward then falling to the floor. Though not shown on the video, the security guard was also shot. Though the clerk survived long enough place a phone call for help, both shooting victims would die.

Kevin Harris and friend David Dils heard the gunshots. Harris was looking in the direction of the Short Stop and saw two black men running away from the store. One of the men held a gun in his hand. Harris and Dils drove into a nearby parking lot, got out of the car, and approached the store.

Frank Madden and his girlfriend also heard the gunshots. Madden drove the short distance to the Short Stop, arriving before Harris and Dils. Madden exited his pickup and walked to the front of the store. He saw the security guard lying on the ground. He noticed that the guard's holster was empty. The guard was moaning. Madden saw blood on the right side of his stomach.

Madden noticed a black man, one of the two he had seen just a bit earlier (the one with the dark sweater) walking toward the store. Madden phoned 911. While Madden was calling 911, the man with the dark sweater went over to the security guard, pulled out a white cloth, wiped the guard's holster and belt, then left the scene.

Just then, Nolan Thomas, his son Derek, and Greg Hecky pulled into the Short Stop. As Nolan parked his car, Derek directed his dad's attention to the security guard lying on the ground. Nolan looked over and saw a black man with a mustache and goatee, wearing a black sweater with a white "logo," bending over the security guard. Like Madden, he saw the man wipe off the guard's empty holster with a white rag and then run off.

Harris and Dils arrived soon thereafter. Harris saw the security guard lying on the ground and Frank Madden using the phone. Dils checked the guard's pulse and found none. Harris and Dils then entered the store and saw the clerk behind the counter. The clerk had been shot in the right shoulder and stomach. He was holding a telephone yelling into the receiver. Dils and Harris assisted the clerk until the fire department arrived.

Phoenix Police Sergeant Richard Switzer received a radio call to go to the Short Stop. The call included a description of the suspects. While driving east on Broadway, he saw two black males walking west on Broadway across 44th Place. Sergeant Switzer made a U-turn and drove toward the men to determine whether they fit the suspects' descriptions. Switzer shined a spotlight on the two men, got out of his car, and walked toward them. Despite Switzer's order to "halt," one of the men (the one wearing a blue sweater with white markings on the upper sleeve) fled the scene running south. Switzer remembers the man who ran as being slightly taller than the man who did not run away.

The man who stopped identified himself as Michael Jones. After being asked about the man who ran away, Michael Jones told Sergeant Switzer that he had just met the man and did not know him. Jones was arrested and interrogated by Detective Armando Saldate.

Jones was staring at a capital murder charge. Eric King was arrested later that same day, 28 December.

Three days later, a savior stepped forward in the form of Jones' girlfriend, Nekita Renee Hill. Nekita Hill contacted the police and told them that she saw a picture from the Short Stop security video on the television. She recognized the man in the picture as Eric King. She recognized him, where others couldn't, because she knew Eric King. Eric King was a friend of her boyfriend, the endangered Michael Jones, and she had therefore encountered him frequently.

Once she realized that the armed robber was Eric King, she remembered that on the night of the murder, she was walking with her friend to her friend's house near 48th Street and Broadway, the very corner where the crime occurred. She remembers helicopters were flying overhead. As they approached her friend's house, she saw Eric King walking toward a dumpster. She saw him throw a light-colored, thin plastic bag into the dumpster. The bag contained a gun and a dark sweater with a white diamond pattern. She had seen Eric King wearing that very sweater on the night of the robbery.

At King's trial, Michael Jones testified that he had been to the Short Stop a couple of times on the evening of the crime, and was in fact there when the robbery and murders took place. He testified that he and Eric King had gone to the Short Stop to buy wine, and that he had remained outside while defendant went inside the store. He testified that while he was waiting outside, he heard gunshots. On hearing the shots, he turned toward the store and saw King leaving the store with a gun in his hand. He saw the security guard lying on the ground in front of the store with no gun in his holster, though (during an earlier visit) he had seen the guard armed with either a .44 or .357 magnum. Though he did not ever see King touch the guard, he believed that King took the gun from the guard.

Jones testified further that the next time he saw King, after they had both been arrested, King's hair was shorter and he had shaved his beard and mustache. When shown a photograph made from the surveillance camera inside the store, Jones testified that the person in the photo "looks a lot like" King and that "it seems like" King.

Jones made clear that he did not want to testify. On muliple occasions, he claimed to have forgotten events and conversations he described during his interrogation by Detective Armando Saldate. When pushed, however, he would often remember what he just previously claimed he could not. He attributed his lack of recollection to drinking that night, though Sergeant Switzer and Detective Saldate each testified that Jones did not appear to be intoxicated.

Detective Saldate was therefore called as a witness to describe what Jones had said during the interrogation.

Jones' girlfriend, the timely Nekita Hill, also testified for the state, but only reluctantly. She admitted that she did not want to be involved with the trial and that she was testifying only under threat of arrest. She testified that her boyfriend Michael Jones and his friend Eric King had gone to the Short Stop in the "middle of the night" on the night of the murders. She wanted to go with them but her mom would not babysit for her.

When Hill was shown a copy of the picture that was broadcast over the television, she admitted that the picture prompted her call to the police. She also admitted telling the police that the person depicted in the picture was Eric King. She tried recanting her earlier identification, however, by testifying that the person depicted in the picture did not look like Eric King. She confirmed that King had a beard and a mustache, and that his hair was longer and wilder at the time of the murders.

Pickup driver and eyewitness Frank Madden could not positively identify defendant as the man he saw that night, but he testified that the man he saw had "high cheekbones" like defendant's, that defendant looked very familiar, and the only difference was that the man he saw had facial hair and was not as nicely dressed as defendant.

Eric King did not testify. The only witness called by the defense was Sergeant Switzer, who essentially restated his earlier testimony concerning the height of the man who ran away when he stopped Jones.

During closing arguments, the defense attacked the credibility of the state's two key witnesses (Michael Jones and girlfriend Nekita Hill) and focused attention on his Eric King's height. King was only 5 feet 8 inches tall. Two witnesses, Frank Madden and Sergeant Switzer, testified that the person with Jones was over 6 feet tall.

The jury unanimously convicted Eric King of two counts of premeditated first-degree murder and one count of armed robbery, dangerous. Eric King is now scheduled to die by lethal injection in 17 days.

What do you think of this case?

Did the prosecution prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt?

If you had been on the jury, how would you have voted?

Why?

On a scale of 0 to 100, with 0 being positively innocent and 100 being positively guilty, what number would you assign to King's probability of guilt? 

Tomorrow, I'll explain how I would have voted.

And why.

Continue Reading Part 2

ERRATA:

1. There was not press converage of this case available on the net. I relied heavily on the appellate decisions,  as I frequently do. The appellate decisions did not include the date of arrest or the names of the victims. 

2. Incorporated the date of King's arrest into the post. King was arrested on 28 December 1991.

3. The store clerk was Ron Barman. The store security officer was Richard Butts.

4. Incorporated the question regarding the reader's assesment of King's probability of guilty.

5. Incorporated Eric King's middle name, John.

6. Approximately $72 was taken during the robbery.

7. Added photo of Eric King.

8. Added detail about Jones testimony, including his claim to have been drinking and his ability to remember what he had previously forgotten.

Tragedy

 

8.9 magnitude earthquake near northeast coast of Japan. 33 foot tall tsunami.

Live feed from BBC here.

Stunning pictures from the NY Times here.

Test the Damn DNA

The Supreme Court has recently ruled that Hank Skinner has a constitutional right to pursue DNA testing under civil rights legislation. Given that Texas desperately wants to execute him, one can understand Skinner's interest in the testing.

Texas, via DA Lynn Switzer, claims that Skinner is indisputably guilty and had a chance to test the DNA before his trial. Switzer claims she opposes the testing because it will only delay justice.

When I investigated this case one year ago this month, I made a detailed graphic summarizing the DNA that has been tested and remains to be tested. I re-post that graphic here, so that readers will have a better understanding of what all the fuss is about.

It's a large graphic. Click on it to enlarge. Once it appears as a separate image, click on it again to enlarge it even further.

The DNA items shown as "Tested" were tested after Skinner's trial, in the expectation that they would confirm his guilt and shut people up. The results instead exonerated Skinner and increased the furor over his impendng execution.

The DNA items shown as "Not Released" were sent for testing with the items which were tested. The "Not Released" items were either tested without releasing the results, or were not tested though sent for testing.

The remaining DNA items have never been sent for testing, as far as I can tell. They were tested neither before or after his trial. They should be tested. Before we execute anyone, we should test all the relevant DNA. 

Period.