The Absolutely Astounding Case of Larry Swearingen: Part 2

Larry Swearingen was within weeks of being executed by the people of Texas for the kidnapping / rape / murder of Melissa Trotter. The evidence against him is seemingly overwhelming. Nonetheless, I claim that, had I been on his jury, I would have (hopefully) voted Not Guilty.

To understand what follows in the post, and the one remaining post in the series (when it's up), you really should read the initial post. I'll make it easy for you. Just click on the hypertext button below, it will take you to the initial post, and at the end of that post, there will be another hypertext button to bring you back here. It will be easy, convenient, and well worth your time.  I'll wait here.

Part 1

[Killing time, he said inappropriately.]

Okay. You're back.  Let's continue. 

In this post, I'm going to cause you to dislike Larry Swearingen more than you already do. Then I'm going to tell you why I would have (hopefully) voted not guilty. In the next post, you'll find out whether or not my hunch was right.

Court TV did an multi-part series on Larry Swearingen. As part of that series, they summarized his abusive treatment of women prior to the case of Melissa Trotter.  I found the summary on the Charles Smith Blog. I repeat it below.

But Swearingen says the drugs had an adverse effect on his relationship with his family and his commitment to school. By his junior year, his girlfriend was pregnant with his son. He dropped out of school to work various odd jobs.

The relationship did not last, and shortly after his son's birth in 1990, Swearingen married a woman who later gave birth to their daughter.

But the relationship quickly soured as Swearingen's violent streak emerged, according to the woman.

"[Swearingen] would wait for her at the door of their home and when she arrived he would begin hitting her, and sometimes strangled her with hands," court documents state.

After the two separated in 1992, according to the woman, Swearingen showed up at her job and harassed her. During Swearingen's penalty phase, the woman testified that she never reported the incidents for fear of losing custody of her daughter.

In one instance, Swearingen allegedly abducted her at knifepoint and drove her to a wooded area, where he raped her.

Another ex-girlfriend testified at his sentencing that she met him in 1994 at a Florida strip club and moved back with him to Texas. When she told him she planned to leave for California, he tied her up and threw her in a closet, she said.

He then allegedly beat and threatened her with a knife as both her child and Swearingen's son played in the yard.

The woman testified that he freed her when his mother arrived. She fled the state and did not return to press charges or tell her story until her appearance at Swearingen's sentencing.

Less than three months before 18-year-old Melissa Trotter disappeared, another ex-fiancée complained to police that Swearingen had assaulted and raped her.

According to court documents, Swearingen allegedly broke into her home, wrestled her to the ground, stuffed her mouth with newspaper and handcuffed her before beating and raping her.

One week later, the woman testified, Swearingen fired a bullet through her window and forced her into his car at gunpoint.

"[Swearingen] made [her] drive to a location within the Sam Houston National Forest that was approximately one mile from where Melissa's body would someday be discovered," court documents state. "She was able to appease Swearingen, and he eventually let her go."

Swearingen was arrested on the allegations and released on bond.

That ought to do it. Not only does the evidence make him look guilty as hell, his history of abusing women reinforces the certainty of his guilt. Also, it turns him into an utterly despicable character that we don't have to feel sorry for when we send him off to death row. Who in their right mind would consider releasing such a person back into society? Who would not be compelled to vote Guilty?

I assure you it can be no fun trying to fulfill your juror's oath under such a circumstance. I argue, however, that if you believe the State has not proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, you have a moral and constitutional obligation to vote Not Guilty. You must do so even if you believe the defendant might be guilty; even if you believe the defendant is a sleazeball.

I'm not naive. I know I'm in the minority. I know from experience how people behave behind the jury room door. On this point, though, I will not budge. If you are a prosecutor and you impanel me on the jury, and you have me take an oath, you had better prove your case to me beyond a reasonable doubt. If you do not, I will not save you. I will vote Not Guilty. I will attempt to convince my fellow jurors to vote Not Guilty. And, if I cannot compel all of them, I will hang the jury.

Furthermore  ....

If I believe the defendant is factually innocent, I might actually volunteer to assist the defense in the retrial, assuming the State decides to re-try him, which they will. I've been known to do that.

So what's my beef with the State's case in the trial of Larry Swearingen? I guess it's time to come clean.

I'm really bothered by the testimony of the medical examiner. First thing that hit me was that the ME estimated the time of death as approximately 25 days prior to discovery.  That's a bit too convenient and a bit too cozy. Trotter was last seen with Larry Swearingen on December 8. Her body was discovered on January 2. That's 25 days. That's coincidently the same number of days the ME testified to, while cautioning us that it was an approximate number. (I'm inferring this from the appellate decision.)

When someone has been dead for about a month, establishing time of death to a specific day is not possible. A less biased estimation would have been "about a month."  That still would have made it possible that Swearingen had murdered Trotter, and it has the added benefit of being intellectually honest. Assuming the ME instead said "approximately 25 days" (as indicated by the appellate decision), that's a red flag to me. It tells me that the ME is willing to tailor her testimony to match the prosecution theory. It tells me I can't trust her to tell me the unvarnished truth. I don't like that.

That alone certainly would not make me believe that Larry Swearingen might be innocent. I concluded he was innocent because of something else the ME testified about. The ME testified that "Trotter's stomach contained not only what appeared to be a form of potato, but also what appeared to be chicken and a small amount of greenish vegetable material."

Uh, oh.

I realize most people believe that is evidence of Swearingen's guilt. After all, Trotter was killed before she could digest her last meal, and she met with Swearingen after 1:30 PM on December 8 when he bought some tater-tots, and the ME probably saw the remains of the tater-tots. That's why the prosecution brought it up. The jury bought it hook, line and tater tot.

I certainly could be wrong on this but I don't believe that stomach contents are going to be recognizable 25 days postmortem, assuming any contents remain at all.

Try this. Throw a few tater-tots in the woods, and some chicken, and maybe some greenish vegetable material, and come back in 25 days. Do you think you'll find anything recognizable? Do you think you'll find anything at all?  I don't.

Perhaps, you may claim, the body actually protected the food from decaying. As a lay jury person, I would disagree. The stomach is not designed for food preservation or long term storage. It's not a tupperware container. It's a garbage disposal. It is designed to accelerate the decay of food. The stomach is a place of vicious acids and conspiring enzymes that won't go away simply because someone dies. Not only that, the body itself will decay substantially by 25 days postmortem, if left exposed and unrefrigerated. The same microbes that are consuming the body are not likely to eat around the food in the stomach.

As a juror, I would have disagreed with the ME. I would have concluded that Melissa Trotter did not die sometime near December 8. I would have concluded she died much closer to January 2 than December 8. Then I would have become even more troubled by the ME's approximate but convenient 25 day estimate, and dismissed her completely as an untrustworthy witness, one more eager to do the State's bidding than to tell me the truth.

And then I would have argued to my fellow jurors that they should remember that the body was not discovered during the first three searches of the area, though the searchers had come within 20 feet of the spot she was eventually found. I would have stood at one end of the jury room and pointed to the far end, and then I might have said:

"That's about 20 feet. Now, if I'm a searcher, I assume I have another searcher on my left and another on my right, and we are spaced apart such that nothing will pass between us unnoticed. If there are bushes there, we'll peak in the bushes. If there's a tree, we'll look all around the tree. Heck, we'll even look up the tree. Now Texas is asking us to believe they searched the area not just once, not just twice, but three times and they never saw the body?  I'll tell you why they never say the body. Because it wasn't there. There was no body at that point. Melissa was still alive. She wouldn't be dead until later, until sometime shortly before the New Year."

"If they want me to believe the body was there during the three searches, they should have brought the searchers in to testify. I want to know how far apart they were spread. Was it 10 feet, 20 feet, 40 feet? They would have us believe it was 40 feet, wouldn't they, since the searchers allegedly came no closer than 20 feet to where she was found. That seems pretty far apart for a search team?"

"Why didn't they bring in the six searchers to testify? There could have been as many as six searchers who passed within 20 feet or so. It could have been one searcher passed on each side of the spot, two searchers per search, three searches, six searchers total. And no one saw, or smelled, a decaying body? Everyone coincidentally walked around the body, three times in a row?"

"They could have asked each of the searchers, do you just look for what's in the open or do you check behind rocks, and bushes, and trees, and woodchucks?'

"The reason this matters, of course, is that if Melissa Trotter died any time after December 11, then Larry Swearingen is absolutely, unassailably innocent. Remember?  They arrested him on December 11 for unrelated charges, and they have yet to let him out. We'll I believe it's time to let him out. Unless someone can explain to me what I'm missing, I have no choice but to vote Not Guilty. You can argue all the other evidence you want to argue, but unless you can convince me that she was indeed killed before December 11, I have no choice but to vote not guilty."

In the next post in this series, you'll find out if I would have been right.

Or wrong.

ADDENDUM:
Part 3 is now available.

The Absolutely Astounding Case of Larry Swearingen: Part 1

Larry Swearingen had been scheduled for execution by the people of Texas just two days from today, on August 18, 2011.  I did not list him on my navigation page as scheduled for execution because he had already been granted a stay. I took a peek at his case nonetheless, and then another, and then another.

And then another.

I hereby declare that the case of Larry Swearingen is absolutely the most astounding criminal case I know of, and I know of a lot. I'm not going to just give everything away, however. I'm going to commit the grievous writer's sin of burying my lead. I'm going to tell his story in three parts and keep the surprise ending for the last part. You're welcome to come along for the ride.

In this part, I will provide the summary of Larry Swearingen's case from Swearingen v. State (2003), one of his many appellate court decisions. 

The evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the State, shows that Swearingen became acquainted with Trotter on Sunday, December 6, 1998, talked with her at length, got her phone number, and made plans to see or talk with her again the next day. The next day, she failed to show up for lunch after Swearingen had bragged to his coworkers about his plans to have lunch with Trotter. His coworkers teased him about being stood up even after he had told them that he called Trotter and she said that she had been taking a test. Swearingen appeared to be angry the remainder of the day.

Later that evening, while using his truck to help transport some furniture, Swearingen commented to Bryan Foster and William Brown that he was going to meet a young lady named Melissa for lunch the next day, and if everything went right, he was going "to have Melissa for lunch." Brown noticed various items of clothing in the backseat of Swearingen's truck. Swearingen called Trotter from Foster's house and talked about meeting for lunch and helping her study for an exam.

On Tuesday, December 8, Swearingen met Trotter in the college library around 1:30 p.m., after Trotter had purchased some tater-tots from the school cafeteria. After sitting by the computers and talking amicably with Swearingen for some amount of time, Trotter left the library with Swearingen around 2 p.m. Trotter's vehicle remained in the college parking lot.

At 2:05 p.m., Swearingen returned a page he received and said he would have to call back later because he was at lunch with a friend.

Swearingen returned to his trailer sometime before 3:30 p.m. and left between 2:00 p.m. and 3:30 p.m., then returned again to the trailer sometime before 5:30 p.m., asked his landlord some questions, then left again between 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m., to pick up his wife, Terry Swearingen, from his mother's house. His neighbor, seeing Swearingen's truck come and go, was not able to see through the tinted windows or see who got in and out of the truck.

When Swearingen and his wife returned home, a package of Marlboro Light cigarettes and a red lighter were on top of the television. The evidence showed that Trotter smoked Marlboro Lights and that neither appellant or his wife smoked.

That evening, Swearingen called Phyllis Morrison, a former girlfriend, and told her that he was in trouble and the police might be after him.

On December 11, Swearingen was arrested pursuant to several outstanding warrants, and while being handcuffed, said that his wrist and ribs were sore from a bar fight he had been in the week before.

Trotter's body was found in the Sam Houston National Forest on January 2, 1999, with a piece of hosiery still tied, as a ligature, around her neck. The state of the body's decomposition was consistent with having been in the woods approximately 25 days, supporting December 8 as the date of death. The location where Trotter's body was found was heavily wooded, secluded, and remote. The police had previously searched the area three times without finding the body. One had to be within twenty feet of the body before seeing it. Swearingen knew his way around this area; he had driven a date around the vicinity a few months earlier in his red pickup.

Trotter's body was on its back in a pile of bushes, her right arm was above her head and slightly to the left. Her top and bra were pulled up under her arms, exposing her breasts and back. There were creases on her back from her neck to her waist that could have been caused by laying on the debris in the bushes for a period of time after she had died. Her jeans were on and the fly was closed, but the right rear pocket was torn downwards exposing part of her buttocks. She was wearing red underwear. There were no scratches found on her exposed skin as one would expect to find if she had been dragged to the location. However, there was no soil on Trotter's shoes. She had only one shoe on; the other shoe was lying nearby.

Trotter died from asphyxia, lack of oxygen, by ligature strangulation. The nylon ligature was a section cut from a pair of pantyhose; the matching complementary portion of the pantyhose was found in Swearingen's trailer. There also appeared to be a sharp-forced injury on Trotter's neck that would have been inflicted before Trotter died, while her blood continued to circulate. Although there was subsequent animal activity and tooth marks on the neck organs at that area, a cut with a sharp object, like a knife, could not be ruled out.

The lack of defensive wounds, such as broken fingernails, and the difficulty of tying an elastic piece of nylon around a struggling victim, suggested that Trotter may have been unconscious when the ligature was applied. Although the state of decomposition made it difficult to determine, the left side of Trotter's face was much darker and at a more advanced stage of decomposition, which could be consistent with having sustained a bruise on the left side of her face. Evidence showed that animals are drawn to blood and a bruise would collect blood close to the skin's surface. There was also a deep bruise on Trotter's tongue, like a bite or a cut, consistent both with being struck under the chin, which would push the lower jaw up onto the tongue, and with biting down on the tongue while being strangled or suffering a seizure. There was also discoloration on Trotter's vaginal wall, a bruise that could have been caused by sexual intercourse on the day of her disappearance.

There were fibers found on Trotter similar to fibers from Swearingen's jacket, others similar to the seat and head-liner in Swearingen's truck, and others similar to the carpet in Swearingen's master bedroom. There were also fibers found in Swearingen's truck that were similar to fibers from Trotter's jacket. There were hairs in Swearingen's truck that appeared to have been forcibly removed from Trotter's head.

An internal examination revealed that Trotter's stomach contained not only what appeared to be a form of potato, but also what appeared to be chicken and a small amount of greenish vegetable material.

While in jail awaiting trial, Swearingen sent a letter to his mother that the evidence showed Swearingen had written, with the help of an English-Spanish dictionary and had his cellmate copy. The letter stated it was written by a girl named Robin who could identify Trotter's murderer as someone other than Swearingen and who knew the details of the murder. The translation of the letter is as follows:

Larry
I have information that I need to tell you about Melissa and Wanda. I was with the murderer of Melissa, and with the one that took Wanda from work. I am not sure what he did with Wanda, but I saw everything that happened to Melissa. He was talking to her in the parking lot. They went to school together is what he told me. "We drove for awhile, and then we went and had breakfast. I began to talk about sex when she said she had to go home." He hit her in the left eye, and she fell to the floor of her car. He took her to the wood and began to choke her with his hands at first, then he jerked (jalar is slang) her to the bushes. He cut her throat to make sure that she was dead. Her shoe came off when he jerked (slang) her into the bushes. Her jabear (cannot make out/ no such word in Spanish) was torn. I am in love with him, and I don't want him in jail. The man in jail doesn't deserve to be in jail, either. To make sure that you know, I am telling you the truth. She was wearing red panties when R.D. murdered her. He choked her with his hands first, but he used A piece of rope the truck from his truck; he had a piece of black rope that he used in his boat to anchor it, or something, he said. When he dragged her from the car, he put her in the shrub on her back. I know that I should turn him in, but he told me that he would kill me, too, and I believe him. He has told about this murder to 3 other women in the past, will tell you that he smokes, and he smoked with her at the college at 2:30 and drove a blue truck. His hair is blonde and brown and lives here. His name is Ronnie, but that is all I can tell, if you want more information, say it on paper and I will continue to write, but I want to come in.
Robin

After a bit of chatter, the appellate decision then summarizes the evidence in favor of the defense.

The only significant independent evidence contrary to the verdict is the testimony of Swearingen explaining that he left Trotter at the college, while she was talking to another man, and went to see his grandmother, and his grandmother's testimony that Swearingen picked her up and took her to the post office around 2:30 p.m. on December 8, 1998 and left her around 2:50 p.m. The State on cross-examination, called into question his grandmother's memory of the date and time and also the credibility of her statement as she had not informed the authorities of her knowledge of Swearingen's whereabouts while he languished in jail awaiting trial. The jury could have reasonably disbelieved both witnesses' testimony. We must defer to the jury's judgment of the witnesses' credibility.

Other evidence tending to disprove or dispute guilt consists of testimony that the forensic evidence would also be consistent with other theories. For example, there was testimony that Trotter's shirt could have been pulled up in the process of dragging her body to the bushes. However, there was also testimony that no scratches were found on the body as would be expected if exposed skin were pulled across debris on the ground. There was testimony that the creases on her back could have been produced by laying on her clothing for a period of time after she had died, indicating that her top was pulled up post-mortem, but there was other testimony that the creases on her back could have been produced by her bare back laying on the debris from the time she died. There was also testimony that the vaginal discoloration could have been caused by an infection that her medical records indicated she had suffered.

That's about it. The jury voted Swearingen guilty of murdering Melissa Trotter by ligature strangulation in the course of committing or attempting to commit kidnapping or aggravated sexual assault. It seems to me there was almost no evidence whatsoever to support the kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault components of the State's case. I would likely have voted Not Guilty on those counts.

The evidence for the murder count, however, was substantial though circumstantial. Billy Sinclair, author of Capital Punishment: An Indictment by a Death Row Survivor, summarizes the evidence against Swearingen thus:

• Swearingen was the last person Trotter was seen with alive (she was seen with him by three witnesses)
• Two of Swearingen’s friends overheard Swearingen in a cell phone conversation on December 7 arranging a dinner meeting with Trotter on December 8
• Ms. Trotter had been in Swearingen’s truck where her forcibly removed hair follicles were found
• Trotter was in Swearingen’s house on the day she disappeared, the house was later found in disarray, and Swearingen falsely reported a burglary of the residence
• Documents belonging to Trotter were found near the residence of Swearingen’s parents
• Trotter’s cigarettes were found in Swearingen’s house
• Trotter was wearing the same clothes at the time of death as she wore on the day of her disappearance and a note given to her by a friend on December 8 was found in the back pocket of her jeans
• Swearingen’s cell phone records placed him near the location where Trotter’s body was found
• A half pair of pantyhose belonging to Swearingen’s former wife was found in Swearingen’s house while the other half was found wrapped around Trotter’s neck
• Contents from the last meal Trotter ate on the day of her disappearance were found in her stomach -- a meal eaten with Swearingen
• Swearingen lied about his whereabouts on the day of Trotter’s disappearance, fled from the police, tried to fabricate an alibi, and made false police reports
• Swearingen asked others to lie on his behalf and told other people the police would be after him
• Swearingen crafted a letter written in Spanish in jail designed to deflect attention from himself -- a letter which contained detailed specifics about Trotter’s murder which accurately corroborated the physical and medical evidence in the case
• Swearingen reportedly told other inmates, “fuck, yeah, I did it” and his only objective was to escape the death penalty
• Trotter’s body was found in an area of the Sam Houston National Forest where Swearingen had frequented

Sinclair suspects Swearingen is factually guilty: "I don’t know beyond a reasonable doubt whether or not Larry Ray Swearingen is guilty, but I do know there is a compelling body of evidence which is highly incriminating." I suspect most people wouldn't be as reticent about declaring Swearingen absolutely, unquestionably guilty.

However, ....

If I had been setting on the jury, I hope I would have had the courage to vote Not Guilty, and the persuasive powers to convince all the others to join me. I see something in the evidence just presented that makes me believe Larry Swearingen is factually innocent.

Had I been on the jury, I would have been pretty sure I was right, but not positive, about his actual innocence. If it turned out I was indeed right, and I voted guilty, I would have sent an innocent man to the needle. If it turned out I was wrong, I would have allowed my hubris to interfere with finding justice for Melissa Trotter.

As it turned out, I would have been correct in concluding that Larry Swearingen is factually innocent.

Can you, as a skeptical juror, see it?  Can you see why Larry Swearingen must be factually innocent based on the evidence just presented?

Stay tuned.

ADDENDUM:
Part 2 now available.

A Tale of Two (Wanton) Cities

In my last post bagging on the law enforcement agenices of Prince George's County, I showed their riot police beating with sticks a young man who had the temerity to dance in front of a police horse. I'll repeat that video below. (My apology if you are subjected to a 15 second commerical.)

The sheer wantoness of the police assault reminded me of one I had seen earlier, from New York City. In the NYC video, a cop went well out of his way to assault a bike rider.

Besides the similarity in wantoness, the parallel in both cases is that the those who were assaulted were charged with assault. In both cases, had it not been for the videos taken by private citizens, the victims of assault would have almost certainly been wrongfully convicted. Who would take the word of a defendant over the word of a whole bunch of police officers telling the same story. The police would have no motive to lie. Right?  And the defendant would. Right?

I'll present the NYC story in two videos. The first shows the assault most clearly. The second shows it less clearly from a different angle, but the second overlays the testimony, under oath, of the assualting officer. Watch them both for full effect, and be amazed.

And be terribly disappointed.

Perhaps as jurors we should consider granting defendants the presumption of innocence.

It's just a suggestion.

The Impending Execution of Jerry Terrell Jackson

Jerry Terrell Jackson sits on death row awaiting execution by the people of Virginia. He was convicted of the rape and murder of 88-year-old Ruth W. Phillips. I provide below the factual summary from the appellate decision Jackson v. Commonwealth, 2004.

Around 7 p.m., on Sunday, August 26, 2001, Richard Phillips discovered the body of his 88-year-old mother, Ruth Phillips, lying "twisted and exposed" on a bed in her bedroom. Phillips explained that his mother's "leg was twisted around, and her pubic region was exposed[; h]er breast was exposed[; and h]er nightgown was up around her neck." Mrs. Phillips lived alone in an apartment located in Williamsburg, and her son had become concerned about her well-being that day because she had not attended church and was not answering her telephone. After finding his mother's body, Phillips went outside and used a cellular telephone to call the "911" emergency number. While waiting for emergency personnel to arrive, he noticed that the screen on a bathroom window in the apartment had been removed.

A subsequent autopsy of Mrs. Phillips' body revealed a contusion on her nose and some hemorrhaging of minute blood vessels in her cheeks and eyes. There were also two lacerations to her vagina, one on the exterior area and the other one on the interior area. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy opined that the cause of death was asphyxia. Death by asphyxia, according to the medical examiner, occurs when the brain is without a supply of oxygen for four to six minutes although unconsciousness may come about within 15 to 30 seconds.

An investigator with the James City County Police Department, Jeff Vellines, went to Mrs. Phillips' apartment and collected several items of physical evidence. He found a window screen, mirror case, and cosmetic items outside the apartment near the master bathroom window. Inside, Vellines discovered a black pocketbook lying on the floor next to Mrs. Phillips' bed, and a brown wallet underneath the pocketbook. The wallet did not contain any money. However, a white square piece of paper found in the wallet contained one latent fingerprint of value for identification purposes. That fingerprint was later compared with the fingerprints of the defendant and found to be "one and the same."

Another investigator at the crime scene recovered a hair from Mrs. Phillips chest area and another hair on the bed below the stomach area. During the autopsy of Mrs. Phillips' body, additional hairs were collected from her left thigh area. Microscopic examination of those hairs by a forensic scientist revealed that one of the hairs recovered from Mrs. Phillips' thigh area and the other two hairs were pubic hairs, but they were not consistent with samples of Mrs. Phillips' pubic hair. These same three hairs along with samples of the defendant's blood and hair were later subjected to mitochondrial DNA analysis. According to the forensic scientist who performed the testing, Jackson could not be excluded as the source of the hairs found on Mrs. Phillips' body and bed. The "mtDNA sequence data" of each of those hairs matched the "corresponding mtDNA sequence of the blood" taken from the defendant.

In December 2001, Vellines and Eric Peterson, also an investigator with the James City County Police Department, interviewed Jackson in the James City County Law Enforcement Center. After waiving his Miranda rights, Jackson admitted entering Mrs. Phillips' apartment, searching through and taking money out of her purse, and then exiting through a back window. Jackson stated that he did not know that Mrs. Phillips was at home, and that, when he turned on the light and was going through her purse, Mrs. Phillips, who was lying in bed, confronted him and stated, "What do you want? I'll give you whatever, just get out." In the defendant's words, "[I]t just scared me and I covered her up[.]" Jackson acknowledged that he held a pillow over her face for two or three minutes and tried to make her "pass out" so she could not identify him. Jackson stated that, when Mrs. Phillips stopped screaming, that was his "cue that she [had] passed out." He also admitted that he inserted his penis into her vagina while he was holding the pillow over her face.

Continuing, Jackson stated that he took Mrs. Phillips' automobile when he left her apartment and drove it to another apartment complex, where he abandoned the vehicle with the keys lying on top of it. He also used $60 that he had taken from her purse to purchase marijuana. Throughout the interview, Jackson denied that anyone else was with him during this incident and insisted that he did not mean to kill Mrs. Phillips.

At trial, Jackson testified to a different version of the events that supposedly transpired at Mrs. Phillips' apartment. The defendant claimed that, on the day in question, he had been playing basketball until around midnight at the apartment complex where Mrs. Phillips lived. Jackson stated that, as he was leaving, he came in contact with Alex Meekins and Jasper Meekins. Jackson decided to participate in their plan to break into Mrs. Phillips' apartment. According to Jackson, Alex entered the apartment through a window and then let Jasper and the defendant in through the front door. While Jackson was looking through Mrs. Phillips' purse, she woke up and asked what was going on. Jackson testified that the following events then took place in Mrs. Phillips' bedroom:

Jasper Meekins, he put the pillow over her face and smothered her. While he was smothering her, I think she was struggling, but I told him at the end when I heard some sound, she was gurgling, I told him to stop. I pushed him off. As we were leaving, I pulled her nightgown down. I put the blanket over her, and I picked the pillow up initially and I didn't like what I saw, so I put the pillow back.

Jackson explained that he confessed to Peterson because he thought that was what Peterson wanted to hear, and because he just wanted to "get out of there as fast as [he] could." Jackson also explained that he never told the investigators about Jasper's and Alex's participation in the crime because he was "scared for [his] family on the streets" and had concerns about being a "snitch." At trial, Jackson denied raping or killing Mrs. Phillips. He also denied having any knowledge about who raped Mrs. Phillips or about how his pubic hairs got on her body.

Two footnotes from that decision are also pertinent to this post.

Footnote 2:  Jackson also testified at a hearing on a motion to suppress his confession. His testimony at that hearing also differed from his statement to the police.

Footnote 3: A mitochondrial DNA analysis of blood taken from Alex Meekins [the accomplice claimed by Jerry Jackson during his trial] showed that his [Meekins'] mtDNA sequence did not correspond to the mtDNA sequence of the three hairs recovered from Mrs. Phillips' body.

I find no claim that Jerry Jackson is factually innocent of the crime. Even Jackson himself admits to willfully participating in the break-in that led to the death of Ruth Phillips. The fingerprint and mitochondrial DNA match corroborate his admission / testimony that he was there. (I am skeptical of hair and fiber matching, but not mtDNA analysis of hair samples.)

Given the certainty of Jerry Jackson's commission or participation in the crime, I take no position regarding his execution. I stand mute.

Rick The Needle

Rick "The Needle" Perry has told the country he will tell the country this coming Saturday whether he intends to bless the country by running for President of the United States of America.  Color me surprised.

I doubt very few of you remember, but I predicted back in May that he was going to run. I'm not talking last May. I'm talking 16 May of 2010. 

I've pretty much kept my political thoughts to myself on this blog. I don't want to contaminate my basic message about our problem of wrongful convictions by dividing my readership along political lines. Given that caution, I guess I have no justification for now expressing a political opinion, especially one that might irritate readers from both sides of the political spectrum.  Nonetheless, Rick Perry's impending announcement that God has called on him to run and save us all has pushed me to the brink.

So here goes. My first political statement of this blog.

If the presidential election comes down to a choice of Rick Perry or Barack Obama, I would be unable to vote for either of them. There will certainly be a number of lesser-knowns on the ballot, and I would vote for any of them in a heart beat. If there is a libertarian candidate on the ballot, I would vote for that candidate.

Financially, we cannot afford another four years of Barack Obama. (We can't even afford the last three.) Socially, we could not afford four years of Rick "The Needle" Perry. (Cameron Todd Willingham, Frances Elaine Newton, Kia Levoy Johnson, and Lamont Reese couldn't even afford The Needle's two terms as governor.)

This blog post is, as they call it in our justice system, a statement against interest. Not only do I risk alienating my readership, I could be butching my big chance to become a despised millionaire jet owner. If Rick Perry were to get the Republican nomination, the Obama campaign would absolutely spend a good portion of its projected billion dollar war chest to dig up dirt on Rick The Needle. 

That kind of money can buy a lot of copies of The Skeptical Juror and The Trial of Cameron Todd Willingham and Inferno. I would be pleased to offer a special group discount.

Let's see what Rick thinks of that possibility.

Rick "The Needle" Perry