Habeas Claims of Actual Innocence Require “Herculean” Burden by Clear and Convincing Evidence
By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
It was March 22, 1987. Near midnight. The Dallas Police Department received a report that a man was lying face down in the street. The man was Jeffery Young who was transported to an area hospital, unconscious and bleeding. Before regaining consciousness, Young died and a subsequent autopsy revealed he had died from what the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said was “severe skull fractures that were the result of multiple blows to the head.” The Dallas police then received another report about a BMW parked in an alley near where Young had been found mortally injured. The police quickly determined the BMW belong to Young.
Two days after Young’s murder a witness name Gladys Oliver went to the police to report what she had seen in the alley the night Young’s BMW was located. She informed the police that there were other witnesses besides her who also saw what transpired in the alley that night. She told investigators she belatedly decided to come forward with her information after learning they had arrested a man named Van Mitchell Spencer for stealing Young’s vehicle. She said the police had the wrong man in custody because she saw Benjamine John Spencer, not Van Mitchell Spencer, getting out of Young’s vehicle in the alley. Another witness, Charles Stewart, whose name was supplied by Oliver, told the police Benjamine Spencer got out of the passenger side of the vehicle, jumped Oliver’s fence, and went through her back yard. He said that when the car door of the vehicle opened a light came on and, besides Spencer, he saw a second man named Nathan Robert Mitchell in the vehicle as he was getting out on the driver’s side. A third witness named Donald Merritt told the police he saw a white man lying in the street, bleeding from the head and struggling to breathe. Merritt also saw the BMW in the alley with an individual named Nathan Robert Mitchell standing next to it. Finally, a fourth witness named Jimmie Cotton told the police that he was cooking dinner in his kitchen when he saw the BMW drive into the alley and Spencer exit the vehicle on the passenger side shortly afterwards.
Based on the information provided by these four witnesses, the Dallas police arrested Spencer and Mitchell for the murder/robbery of Young. All the witnesses testified at Spencer’s trial. Their testimony revealed that the alley in which the BMW pulled into ran behind Oliver’s residence. All the witnesses testified they could see everything in the alley because a nearby street light was on as well as a neighbor’s back porch light. Stewart added that in addition to these lights the light inside the vehicle came on when its doors were open, allowing him a clear view of occupants. Oliver also added that she did not provide the police with this information the day after Young’s murder when the police did a door-to-door canvassing because she feared for her life.
The conditions under which these eyewitness identifications were made are important in this case because, as the New York-based Innocence Project has reported, 75 percent of the 269 DNA exonerations in this country since 1989 involved eyewitness misidentifications. Dallas prosecutors bolstered these eyewitness identifications with testimony from a “jailhouse snitch” named Danny Edwards who was one of Spencer’s cellmates in the county jail. Edwards informed the police that Spencer had told him that he struck Young several times in the head with a pistol before placing him in the backseat of the BMW at which time he struck him several more times as Mitchell drove the vehicle. Edwards testified at Spencer’s trial that Spencer then kicked Young out of the vehicle. Spencer, according to Edwards, killed Young for the BMW which he planned to take to a “chop shop.”
motion for discovery of victim impact evidence; 9) request for notice of state’s intention to introduce punishment evidence pursuant to Art. 37.07 (Code of Criminal Procedure); 10) motion in limine (extraneous offenses); 11) request for notice of state’s intention to offer extraneous offenses pursuant to Rule 404(b)[Rule of Evidence]; 12) motion for pretrial hearing on admissibility of extraneous offenses; 13) written objections to admissibility of extraneous offenses and requesting for findings of fact and conclusions of law; 14) request for notice of extraneous offenses in child abuse case; 15) request for notice of state’s intention to use evidence of extraneous offenses or acts pursuant to Art. 38.37 C.C.P.; 16) request for notice of state’s intention to use evidence of impeachment pursuant to Texas Rules of Evidence 609; 17) request for notice of state’s intention to use certified copies of official documents or business records; 18) comprehensive request for notice of state’s intention to introduce evidence under rules of evidence and code of criminal procedure; 19) notice of intent to introduce evidence of extraneous offense; 20) punishment evidence or prior conviction information, motion for discovery of punishment evidence; 21) motion to list state’s witnesses [all persons contacted]; 22) motion for discovery of criminal records of all state’s witnesses; 23) motion to produce witness statements; 24) motion to require police to maintain personal notes; 25) motion to require police to maintain and produce recorded communications; 26) application to take deposition of witness and notice thereof; 27) application to take deposition of witness by written interrogatories and notice thereof; 28) motion for discovery of grand jury testimony; 29) motion for discovery of defendant’s previous trial; 30) motion for transcript of co-defendant’s trial, motion to reveal agreements entered into between the state and witnesses; 31) motion requesting disclosure of expert witnesses; 32) designation of expert witness; 33) motion for voir dire of expert witness and for pretrial ruling on admissibility of expert testimony; 34) motion for approval of expert witness funds, motion for independent forensic testing; 35) motion for defendant’s access to physical evidence; 36) motion for forensic identity testing; 37) motion for approval of funds for court-appointed investigator; 38) motion for approval of mitigation specialist funds; 39) motion for approval of forensic psychologist funds; and 40) motion for additional investigative funds.
Subscribe
