Court Denies Defense Requests In Boys Murder Case
Last updated Thursday, June 26, 2008 7:17 PM CDT in News
By Peggy Harris
The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK - The Arkansas Supreme Court denied requests Thursday from defense lawyers seeking to expand what a circuit judge can consider this fall in reviewing cases against their clients in the murders of three West Memphis boys.
Without comment, the Supreme Court denied the petitions from convicted killers Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley. But the ruling allows the defense to renew the requests later.
Baldwin, Misskelley, and Damien Echols were teenagers when the 8-year-old boys were found dead in a ditch near their neighborhood a day after they went missing May 5, 1993.
The boys, Steven Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers, showed signs of suffering severe beatings, and their hands were bound to their legs by shoelaces.
Baldwin and Echols were tried in Craighead County and convicted of capital murder. Baldwin was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Echols was given the death penalty.
Misskelley was tried in Clay County, convicted of first-degree murder in Moore's death and second-degree murder in the deaths of the other two boys. He was sentenced to life plus 40 years.
Circuit Judge David Burnett, the original trial judge, plans to review claims by the defense in September of new evidence that they say exonerates their clients. Burnett has ordered lawyers in the case not to talk about it to the public.
In the rulings Thursday, the Supreme Court denied two similar petitions from lawyers for Baldwin and Misskelley, asking that the court allow Burnett to consider evidence that they say was kept from trial lawyers and the jury.
Among that information, they say, is evidence that the police and possibly the prosecution considered that animals caused the injuries found on the victims' bodies that the prosecution says was caused by a knife; and that at least two witnesses told police the likely murder weapon was thrown into a lake before the murders - not afterward as presented at trial.
Also, the defense says, there was information that would have raised doubts about testimony from the prosecution's DNA expert, Michael Deguglielmo, but trial lawyers did not have that information. In addition, the DNA testing 15 years ago could not have produced the details needed to support the state's case against their clients, the defense lawyers said.
In Baldwin's petition, the lawyers claim that staff and inmates of a jail where Baldwin was held after his arrest now say they never heard him make incriminating statements that a prosecution witness said Baldwin made.
Misskelley's petition also alleges that the only witness who corroborated Misskelley's statements to police that he engaged in "cult" activities now says she was under duress and made up the story.
In responding to the petitions, Senior Assistant Attorney General David R. Raupp characterized the requests as "a fishing expedition" and said the defense had no proof but only "tentative allegations" that evidence was withheld from the trial lawyers.
Urging the Supreme Court to deny the petitions, Raupp wrote earlier this month: "There is no end to the kind of 'development since conviction' that could be cast as a withheld-evidence allegation after many years. The Court should end the petitioner's effort here."
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