Dennis Riordan's West Memphis Three Presentation
March 31, 2005
Dennis Riordan's West Memphis Three Presentation
March 30-31, New York City
The presentations made by Attorney Dennis Riordan in New York City on March 30 and 31 were very encouraging. Along with a nicely presented overview of the case for those who weren't familiar with it, there were few interesting pieces of new information that had several of us in attendance writing as quickly as we could in our notebooks. It was good to finally meet Dennis Riordan and to have the opportunity to talk with him about the case and ask questions. He's a very powerfully intelligent fellow, and the points that he made seemed to have much more impact than some of the arguments in the past concerning things like the HBO documentary film crew. The points that Dennis brought up were undeniably heavy-duty, and well documented. Apparently Damien, Jason and Jessie have a good team of investigators working for them, too. All of you out there who have done WM3 benefits have helped to see this happen.
It was inspiring to see a presentation of the facts done in a way that summed up the absurdities of this case so succinctly. It was great to see a lot of young law students attending, and to hear their excellent questions answered by a guy who knows the real reasons why this case is so frustrating. Riordan is taking a stance on satanic panic, the conduct of the police officers and the irresponsible news media and how those things were completely out of control, and very much a part of why those trials were such failures.
Certainly the jury was tainted. We've all known that for years, but Riordan showed beyond all doubt that the Echols/Baldwin jurors were definitely aware of things they swore they weren't aware of. He showed photos of the large sheets of paper used by the jury to list their pros and cons during the trial. Near the bottom of these lists were large blacked out items. Not just crossed out, but blacked out with a marker. [Please click here to see the lists.] Keep in mind that these jurors were chosen because they lacked knowledge of the case, and more specifically of the trial of Jessie Misskelley. They were instructed not to discuss that trial, and more specifically the statements that the West Memphis Police irresponsibly pulled from Jessie. These statements were forbidden information according to the judge's orders and according to the law. The new investigators currently working on the case spoke with one of the jurors and obtained a page from a journal she was keeping at the time in which she drew a facsimile of the pros and cons chart. It shows that the item that had been crossed out was a reference to Jessie's so-called confession.
Riordan's presentation also put Jessie's so-called confession into a chronological order which pointed out how worthless it should have been. Riordan showed again how wrong Jessie's statements were and how clearly coerced they were. How the WMPD tried to use those completely wrong statements to get a warrant, and then when they were turned down (because Jessie's statements were so obviously a false confession), they returned to Jessie and pounded him some more. What happened while their tape recorder was off is a mystery, but it's obvious that they tried a little harder the second time to get Jessie to say exactly what they wanted to hear.
One particularly memorable thing that Dennis pointed out in Jessie's statements was the fact that he told WMPD officers that the victims had been tied with brown rope - but that one of them ran away. They asked him if the children were able to run despite being tied up and Jessie responded "They could run." That's just one of many wrong things that the police ignored about those statements. Anyone who has seen the post mortem and crime scene photos (or the crime scene footage at the beginning of Paradise Lost) can see very easily that the children were tied ankle to wrist (with their own black and white shoelaces - not brown ropes) in a way that would make running impossible.
Concerning the big question of DNA testing - its status is still pending, but getting closer to happening. Some of the problems have been due to ongoing discussions between the State of Arkansas and WM3 defense attorneys concerning the nature of the so-called "destructive" DNA testing. Apparently this type of testing will destroy some of the evidence, leaving it useless for further testing, so the State and the Defense must carefully agree on how to proceed. Damien, Jason and Jessie were also required to sign documents agreeing to this potentially destructive testing. Fortunately these DNA tests will be done at independent (and therefore neutral) crime labs and not at the Arkansas State Crime Lab. I've heard from many people who are concerned about the DNA testing, asking how such testing will benefit Jason, Jessie and Damien. The truth is that nobody really knows, but more information will certainly shed more light on the case, hopefully bringing us closer to solving this crime. The apparent lack of physical evidence in this case leads many people to wonder what can be learned from any kind of genetic testing. The encouraging news is that exonerations that result from DNA evidence happen because the new evidence can effectively exclude the person in question. This kind of evidence can show that it is very unlikely that a particular person was present or engaged in the perpetration of the crime, and more specifically it can show that someone else was present and perhaps responsible. Potential genetic material in this case that will be tested includes scrapings from under the fingernails of the victims, which could point directly to a specific perpetrator. There are many items on the list of things to be tested, including a hair found under the ligatures and various other items including the blood found on the Byers knife. None of these items have ever been subjected to DNA testing, and the results from these tests will be very difficult to ignore. Interestingly, according to Riordan, of the first 75 DNA exonerations 20% were false confession cases.
False confession convictions are often accompanied by false testimony, and Riordan pointed out how worthless the testimony made by Michael Carson and the "softball girls" was. There was absolutely no evidence against Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley or Damien Echols that would fly in a courtroom that wasn't bent on proving some crazy theory about satanic ritual human sacrifice (of which there was no evidence, either). He also talked about the worthlessness of the so-called "fiber evidence" and the statements made by the Hollingsworths and Vicki Hutcheson, who recently publicly admitted to making false statements which triggered much of the focus on Damien Echols. Riordan also read one of Damien's poems that was used as evidence, illustrating how such things can never be relied upon to provide evidence that the writer is capable of murder.
All of these things and more are demonstrably worthless and yet they were used as the only evidence in these trials. Add that to the irresponsible local media, and the ridiculous grandstanding of the West Memphis Police, and you get a heartbreaking abuse of the American Justice System. Dennis Riordan provided good, inspiring boost to everyone who believes that this terrible injustice needs to be confronted and corrected, and I'm hoping that this site will be offering more frequent reports on progress in the near future.
- Burk Sauls
April, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Association of the Bar of the City of New York
42 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
Murder, Witches, and Capital Punishment:
The Case of Damien Echols and The West Memphis 3
Thursday, March 31, 2005, 6:30 p.m.
In May 1993, three eight-year old boys, one sexually mutilated, were found murdered in a wooded area near West Memphis, Arkansas. A year later, a jury convicted three local teenagers on the theory that they committed the murders as part of a Satanic ritual. The oldest defendant, Damien Echols -- who was 18-years-old at the time of the crime -- was sentenced to death.
Since that time, two prize-winning HBO documentaries ("Paradise Lost I" and "Paradise Lost 2: Revelations") and a book ("The Devil’s Knot") have detailed the media frenzy surrounding the case and the lack of credible evidence against the three defendants. The case has been called a modern-day Salem witch hunt, in which young, long-haired outcasts were wrongly condemned to quell a community’s fear and anger.
Dennis Riordan, Mr. Echols’ present counsel, will discuss new developments in the case, the constitutional issues, the procedural hurdles to obtaining a new trial in federal habeas corpus proceedings, and the DNA testing that may help establish Mr. Echols’ innocence. The program will feature excerpts from the HBO documentaries.
Introduction:
Sara Darehshori, Esq.
Speaker:
Dennis Riordan
Riordan & Horgan, San Francisco
Sponsored by the Committee on Capital Punishment, Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier,
Chair
Recent News
LETTER FROM DAMIEN...
March 18, 2005
THE LAST PENTACLE OF THE ...
March 10, 2005
ECHOLS' POETRY...
March 10, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recent Events
WM3 WORLDWIDE AWARENESS D...
July 23, 2005
JACKSONVILLE, NC BENEFIT...
May 14, 2005
MURDER, WITCHES, AND CAPI...
March 31, 2005
Dennis Riordan's West Memphis Three Presentation
March 30-31, New York City
The presentations made by Attorney Dennis Riordan in New York City on March 30 and 31 were very encouraging. Along with a nicely presented overview of the case for those who weren't familiar with it, there were few interesting pieces of new information that had several of us in attendance writing as quickly as we could in our notebooks. It was good to finally meet Dennis Riordan and to have the opportunity to talk with him about the case and ask questions. He's a very powerfully intelligent fellow, and the points that he made seemed to have much more impact than some of the arguments in the past concerning things like the HBO documentary film crew. The points that Dennis brought up were undeniably heavy-duty, and well documented. Apparently Damien, Jason and Jessie have a good team of investigators working for them, too. All of you out there who have done WM3 benefits have helped to see this happen.
It was inspiring to see a presentation of the facts done in a way that summed up the absurdities of this case so succinctly. It was great to see a lot of young law students attending, and to hear their excellent questions answered by a guy who knows the real reasons why this case is so frustrating. Riordan is taking a stance on satanic panic, the conduct of the police officers and the irresponsible news media and how those things were completely out of control, and very much a part of why those trials were such failures.
Certainly the jury was tainted. We've all known that for years, but Riordan showed beyond all doubt that the Echols/Baldwin jurors were definitely aware of things they swore they weren't aware of. He showed photos of the large sheets of paper used by the jury to list their pros and cons during the trial. Near the bottom of these lists were large blacked out items. Not just crossed out, but blacked out with a marker. [Please click here to see the lists.] Keep in mind that these jurors were chosen because they lacked knowledge of the case, and more specifically of the trial of Jessie Misskelley. They were instructed not to discuss that trial, and more specifically the statements that the West Memphis Police irresponsibly pulled from Jessie. These statements were forbidden information according to the judge's orders and according to the law. The new investigators currently working on the case spoke with one of the jurors and obtained a page from a journal she was keeping at the time in which she drew a facsimile of the pros and cons chart. It shows that the item that had been crossed out was a reference to Jessie's so-called confession.
Riordan's presentation also put Jessie's so-called confession into a chronological order which pointed out how worthless it should have been. Riordan showed again how wrong Jessie's statements were and how clearly coerced they were. How the WMPD tried to use those completely wrong statements to get a warrant, and then when they were turned down (because Jessie's statements were so obviously a false confession), they returned to Jessie and pounded him some more. What happened while their tape recorder was off is a mystery, but it's obvious that they tried a little harder the second time to get Jessie to say exactly what they wanted to hear.
One particularly memorable thing that Dennis pointed out in Jessie's statements was the fact that he told WMPD officers that the victims had been tied with brown rope - but that one of them ran away. They asked him if the children were able to run despite being tied up and Jessie responded "They could run." That's just one of many wrong things that the police ignored about those statements. Anyone who has seen the post mortem and crime scene photos (or the crime scene footage at the beginning of Paradise Lost) can see very easily that the children were tied ankle to wrist (with their own black and white shoelaces - not brown ropes) in a way that would make running impossible.
Concerning the big question of DNA testing - its status is still pending, but getting closer to happening. Some of the problems have been due to ongoing discussions between the State of Arkansas and WM3 defense attorneys concerning the nature of the so-called "destructive" DNA testing. Apparently this type of testing will destroy some of the evidence, leaving it useless for further testing, so the State and the Defense must carefully agree on how to proceed. Damien, Jason and Jessie were also required to sign documents agreeing to this potentially destructive testing. Fortunately these DNA tests will be done at independent (and therefore neutral) crime labs and not at the Arkansas State Crime Lab. I've heard from many people who are concerned about the DNA testing, asking how such testing will benefit Jason, Jessie and Damien. The truth is that nobody really knows, but more information will certainly shed more light on the case, hopefully bringing us closer to solving this crime. The apparent lack of physical evidence in this case leads many people to wonder what can be learned from any kind of genetic testing. The encouraging news is that exonerations that result from DNA evidence happen because the new evidence can effectively exclude the person in question. This kind of evidence can show that it is very unlikely that a particular person was present or engaged in the perpetration of the crime, and more specifically it can show that someone else was present and perhaps responsible. Potential genetic material in this case that will be tested includes scrapings from under the fingernails of the victims, which could point directly to a specific perpetrator. There are many items on the list of things to be tested, including a hair found under the ligatures and various other items including the blood found on the Byers knife. None of these items have ever been subjected to DNA testing, and the results from these tests will be very difficult to ignore. Interestingly, according to Riordan, of the first 75 DNA exonerations 20% were false confession cases.
False confession convictions are often accompanied by false testimony, and Riordan pointed out how worthless the testimony made by Michael Carson and the "softball girls" was. There was absolutely no evidence against Jason Baldwin, Jessie Misskelley or Damien Echols that would fly in a courtroom that wasn't bent on proving some crazy theory about satanic ritual human sacrifice (of which there was no evidence, either). He also talked about the worthlessness of the so-called "fiber evidence" and the statements made by the Hollingsworths and Vicki Hutcheson, who recently publicly admitted to making false statements which triggered much of the focus on Damien Echols. Riordan also read one of Damien's poems that was used as evidence, illustrating how such things can never be relied upon to provide evidence that the writer is capable of murder.
All of these things and more are demonstrably worthless and yet they were used as the only evidence in these trials. Add that to the irresponsible local media, and the ridiculous grandstanding of the West Memphis Police, and you get a heartbreaking abuse of the American Justice System. Dennis Riordan provided good, inspiring boost to everyone who believes that this terrible injustice needs to be confronted and corrected, and I'm hoping that this site will be offering more frequent reports on progress in the near future.
- Burk Sauls
April, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Association of the Bar of the City of New York
42 West 44th Street
New York, NY 10036
Murder, Witches, and Capital Punishment:
The Case of Damien Echols and The West Memphis 3
Thursday, March 31, 2005, 6:30 p.m.
In May 1993, three eight-year old boys, one sexually mutilated, were found murdered in a wooded area near West Memphis, Arkansas. A year later, a jury convicted three local teenagers on the theory that they committed the murders as part of a Satanic ritual. The oldest defendant, Damien Echols -- who was 18-years-old at the time of the crime -- was sentenced to death.
Since that time, two prize-winning HBO documentaries ("Paradise Lost I" and "Paradise Lost 2: Revelations") and a book ("The Devil’s Knot") have detailed the media frenzy surrounding the case and the lack of credible evidence against the three defendants. The case has been called a modern-day Salem witch hunt, in which young, long-haired outcasts were wrongly condemned to quell a community’s fear and anger.
Dennis Riordan, Mr. Echols’ present counsel, will discuss new developments in the case, the constitutional issues, the procedural hurdles to obtaining a new trial in federal habeas corpus proceedings, and the DNA testing that may help establish Mr. Echols’ innocence. The program will feature excerpts from the HBO documentaries.
Introduction:
Sara Darehshori, Esq.
Speaker:
Dennis Riordan
Riordan & Horgan, San Francisco
Sponsored by the Committee on Capital Punishment, Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier,
Chair
Recent News
LETTER FROM DAMIEN...
March 18, 2005
THE LAST PENTACLE OF THE ...
March 10, 2005
ECHOLS' POETRY...
March 10, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recent Events
WM3 WORLDWIDE AWARENESS D...
July 23, 2005
JACKSONVILLE, NC BENEFIT...
May 14, 2005
MURDER, WITCHES, AND CAPI...
March 31, 2005