100th Man On Death Row ... Exonerated (Since Mid-1970s)
Bill Schenley
for the 1991 murder of a cocktail waitress in Phoenix has been
exonerated by DNA testing and freed from prison.
Ray Krone, 44, walked out of prison in Yuma, Ariz., late Monday
after being incarcerated for a decade.
FROM: The LosAngeles Times -
- (4/10/02) -
Krone has always maintained his innocence, despite being
convicted twice of stabbing Kim Ancona to death on Dec. 29,
1991. Krone was initially sentenced to death in 1992. That sentence
was overturned in 1995, but he was convicted again the following
year and sentenced to life. Although Krone was no longer on death
row, a bevy of capital punishment foes--including Sen. Patrick J.
Leahy (D-Vt.), the American Civil Liberties Union and the Justice
Project--described Krone on Tuesday as the 100th person in this
country who had been sentenced to death but eventually exonerated
since executions resumed in the mid-1970s.
For every seven people executed in the U.S. in the last quarter century,
one has been exonerated--an error rate that death penalty critics say
is unacceptably high.
"Our nation this week reached an infamous milestone: 100 known--and
goodness only knows how many unknown--cases of people being
sentenced to death, since the reinstatement of capital punishment, for
crimes they did not commit," Leahy said.
"The time for denial is over. . . . Ray Krone lost 10 years of his life
while
Arizona's women were endangered because the wrong man was in jail,"
said Leahy, the chief sponsor of the Innocence Protection Act, a
package of death penalty reforms.
"Justice has finally come," Krone said in a telephone interview Tuesday.
"The strength of knowing you are innocent" helped him get through
10 years in prison.
"And there was the strength I got from my friends and family. They
never doubted I was innocent. They did everything they could to help
me not get down."
Krone said his cousin Jim Rix, a Lake Tahoe businessman whom he had
never met before his murder conviction, came to visit him in prison and
soon thereafter launched efforts that ultimately led to his exoneration.
Krone, an Air Force veteran who was working as a letter carrier at the time
of his arrest, had no criminal record.
But Phoenix police focused on him within hours after Ancona's naked,
blood-spattered body with 11 stab wounds was found in a bathroom of
the ABC Lounge on the morning of Dec. 29, when the bar owner went
there for a meeting.
Krone lived just a few blocks from the bar and his phone number was in
Ancona's address book. Another woman who worked at the bar testified
that Ancona told her that a man named "Ray" was coming late the night
of Dec. 28 to help her close up.
Krone said he was home that night. His roommate confirmed that Krone
had gone to bed about 10 p.m. but said he could not say for sure whether
Krone had gone out later.
Krone frequently came to ABC Lounge to play darts. He testified that he
was acquainted with Ancona but did not know her well.
A bite mark was found on the victim's left breast and on her neck. Krone
agreed to give police a dental impression by biting down on a plastic foam
cup. Because of an earlier accident, Krone had a distinct bite pattern and a
dentist helping police at the crime scene said Krone's bite mark strongly
resembled the one found on Ancona. Krone was later referred to as the
"snaggletooth killer."
The bite mark was the critical evidence at the trial. There were no
fingerprints
and there was no semen on Ancona, although there was evidence she had
been sexually assaulted. All the blood at the crime scene was type O--the
same type as Ancona and Krone and that of millions of other Americans. No
DNA testing was done.
The key testimony in the case was presented by odontologist Ray Rawson,
who testified that Krone's bite mark matched the ones found on the victim.
A jury convicted Krone of murdering Ancona in 1992 but acquitted him of
sexual assault. A judge sentenced Krone to death, saying that the murder
had been committed in an especially "heinous or depraved manner."
Christopher Plourd, a San Diego attorney who specializes in cases involving
complicated forensics, filed an appeal. It contended that the prosecutors
had
failed to turn over exculpatory evidence--a test done by another forensic
odontologist that concluded Krone's bite mark was not consistent with the
one found on the victim.
The Arizona Supreme Court did not rule on that issue. Rather, in 1995, the
state's highest court reversed the conviction, saying that prosecutors had
failed to turn over critical information--a videotape on the bite mark
evidence
prepared by Rawson that played a key role in the trial--until right before
the
trial began.
Krone was retried. Rawson testified for the prosecution again. Plourd
presented contradictory testimony from other bite mark specialists, but
Krone
was convicted again in 1996. That time he got a life sentence.
Two years ago, Krone's family hired another attorney, Alan M. Simpson of
Phoenix, to work with Plourd. They requested DNA tests using sophisticated
new technology. The initial tests conducted on saliva found on the victim's
tank top concluded that Krone could not have been the source.
Then, further tests were done, seeking to match the DNA found on the tank
top with material in a state database of convicted sex offenders.
Those tests pointed strongly to Kenneth Phillips, 36, who already was in
prison
in Florence, Ariz., convicted of attempted child molestation.
On Monday, an attorney for the Maricopa County attorney's office told a
judge
in Phoenix that the odds were 1.3 quadrillion to 1 that the DNA came from
Phillips. In addition, prosecutors have found that Phillips, like the
victim, has type
O blood and that a dental expert has said he "cannot eliminate Phillips" as
the
person who left the bite mark, according to William Fitzgerald, a spokesman
for
the Maricopa County attorney's office.
Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Alfred Frenzel released Krone, subject
to a hearing scheduled for April 29 after police and prosecutors finish
other
testing. But Richard M. Romley, the Maricopa County attorney, indicated that
he strongly believes the wrong man was convicted.
"Modern technology that was not available at the time of Mr. Krone's
convictions
has provided new scientific evidence, which raise a serious question
regarding
Mr. Krone's guilt," Romley said.
Krone, who was a proponent of the death penalty before he was sent to
prison, said
he hopes his case will prompt people to reexamine the way the criminal
justice system
operates.
"I'm not the only one," Krone said. "To make a mistake is one thing. It's
another
thing how you correct it afterward."
There are more than 100 people on death row in Arizona, and a special
commission
has been examining capital punishment there for more than a year.
Of the 100 death penalty exonerations around the country, six came from
Arizona,
according to a report by the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington,
D.C.,
a group that opposes the death penalty.
And of the 100 exonerations, 12 came as a result of DNA testing. The
Innocence
Project at Cardozo Law School, co-founded by New York attorneys Peter
Neufeld
and Barry Scheck, played a key role in numerous DNA exonerations. Neufeld
and
Scheck said the Krone case showed both the power of DNA testing and the
faulty
nature of bite mark evidence.
Michael J. Saks, a professor at Arizona State University Law School, who
coauthored
a book on forensic evidence, said bite mark testimony is "classic junk
science." He
said a recent study by the American Board of Forensic Odontologists found
that 63.5%
of bite mark analyses generated "false positives" and that another 22%
turned out to be
false negatives.
"At an absolute minimum," Saks said, "jurors should be informed of the
relative
accuracy or inaccuracy of these tests so they don't think there is more to
them than
there is."
Ray Teale
"David Carson" <da...@neosoft.com> wrote in message
news:ub9oog6...@corp.supernews.com...
> >Although Krone was no longer on death
> >row, a bevy of capital punishment foes--including Sen. Patrick J.
> >Leahy (D-Vt.), the American Civil Liberties Union and the Justice
> >Project--described Krone on Tuesday as the 100th person in this
> >country who had been sentenced to death but eventually exonerated
> >since executions resumed in the mid-1970s.
>
> manufactured by DP opponents, rather than being the result of
> well-reviewed academic research.
>
So what's the real number? Just asking.
Ray
Ray Teale
> >row, a bevy of capital punishment foes--including Sen. Patrick J.
> >Leahy (D-Vt.), the American Civil Liberties Union and the Justice
> >Project--described Krone on Tuesday as the 100th person in this
> >country who had been sentenced to death but eventually exonerated
> >since executions resumed in the mid-1970s.
>
> manufactured by DP opponents, rather than being the result of
> well-reviewed academic research.
>
> >one has been exonerated--an error rate that death penalty critics say
> >is unacceptably high.
>
Saying 1 in 7 when the real figure is nearer (just) to 1 in 8 does not make
the original statement a "pile of bull crap". Most people
would be surprised that the figure isn't more like 1 in 100.
Ray
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, David Carson <da...@neosoft.com> wrote:
> It is unacceptably high. It is also a pile of bull crap. Even
> using the very dubious number of 100 exonerations, the actual ratio
> would be closer to 1 in 8. Not that 1 in 8 isn't also unacceptably
> high, but reducing 100:767 to "one in seven" underscores how little
> regard the anti-DP lobby has for the truth. Their statistic of 100
> exonerated people was produced using the same disregard for truth.
If there are 867 total cases, then it's either "1 to 8" or "1 in 9."
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
David Langlois
J.D. Baldwin
> count of how many of these men a reasonable person would consider
> exonerated -- that is, released because of substantial evidence of
> innocence. From what I do know of the cases, I would consider Adams
> and Brandley exonerated.
In a sense, Adams really shouldn't even be counted here, as he got a
commutation to a life sentence before he was "exonerated." Of course
the reason he got a commutation is that the men who put him in prison
realized that he was probably innocent and they didn't want the extra
scrutiny that comes with a death penalty case.
It is an interesting irony, as you note (and as has been noted
before), that if none of these guys had ever been sentenced to death,
far fewer (if any) of them would have been freed.
Bill Schenley
> That's 14 released defendants, which the DPIC and Senator Leahy would
> probably all consider "exonerated" without considering the merits of
> their cases Even using their loose standards and twisted counting
> system, that's 14 to 262 -- a ratio of 1 to 19. Not 1 to 7.
Okay, but that still means more than five out of every 100.
If I were a death penalty advocate, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable
with even *that* ratio.
I thought it was *much* higher.
As much as I like Texas ... they have had some pretty shoddy
capital murder trials.
David Langlois
departments it implicates (frame-ups, etc.)
JHall
And one lousy MLB team. Soon Bill soon, o.k. Afterall I am a canuck.
DGH
Anybody who has not seen the documentary movie, "The Thin Blue Line"
MUST watch it.
- - - -
David Carson wrote:
> 100 includes defendants who were convicted and sentenced under state
> laws that the Supreme Court later found unconstitutional. It also
> includes some convictions that were overturned due to procedural
> error. It even includes one person who was never even under a death
> sentence. Using the DPIC's criteria, Barabbas would have been
> considered "exonerated."
>
> In Texas, 903 people have been sentenced to death since capital
> punishment was resumed in 1974. 262 have been executed. The
> remainder have either been released, given reduced sentences, died,
> transferred to federal custody, or are still on death row. Those who
> have been released are:
> James Whitmore, 1979
> Randall Adams, 1980
> James Richardson, 1980
> Claude Wilkerson, 1983
> Jose Guzman, 1987
> Vernon McManus, 1987
> Clarence Brandley, 1990
> Mark Cass, 1993
> Jesus Munoz, 1993
> Frederico Macias, 1994
> John Skelton, 1995
> Charles Sonion, 1995
> Muneer Deeb, 1996
> Ricardo Guerra, 1997
>
> That's 14 released defendants, which the DPIC and Senator Leahy would
> probably all consider "exonerated" without considering the merits of
> their cases Even using their loose standards and twisted counting
> system, that's 14 to 262 -- a ratio of 1 to 19. Not 1 to 7.
>
> of how many of these men a reasonable person would consider exonerated
> -- that is, released because of substantial evidence of innocence.
> From what I do know of the cases, I would consider Adams and Brandley
> then again, I might not. I would definitely not consider McManus,
> Skelton, or Deeb to be exonerated. I don't know anything about the
> other seven.
>
> I'll even throw in another release that hasn't even happened yet. Max
> Soffar is currently on death row, but is probably innocent and stands
> a good chance of being released soon. He was convicted mainly on the
> basis of his own confessions, which he gave freely and voluntarily
> because of a self-proclaimed death wish. He recently succeeded in
> having his conviction overturned, and will probably either not be
> retried or will be retried and acquitted.
>
> So considering all of the above, the real number of exonerations in
> Texas since 1974 is somewhere between 3 and 12, out of 903 capital
> murder sentences.
>
> David Carson
> --
> Why do you seek the living among the dead? -- Luke 24:5
> Who's Alive and Who's Dead
> http://www.whosaliveandwhosdead.com
Ray Teale
> 100 includes defendants who were convicted and sentenced under state
> laws that the Supreme Court later found unconstitutional.
OK - fair enough. I initially didn't pick up were objecting to the word
'exonerated', (as opposed to 'acquited').
>
> So considering all of the above, the real number of exonerations in
> Texas since 1974 is somewhere between 3 and 12, out of 903 capital
> murder sentences.
>
> David Carson
> --
Which is still surprisingly high.
Not sure what this ratio (whatever it is) proves anyway, other than the
legal system is flawed which is hardly stunning news.
Ray
JHall
> ...
> > 100 includes defendants who were convicted and sentenced under state
> > laws that the Supreme Court later found unconstitutional.
>
> OK - fair enough. I initially didn't pick up were objecting to the word
> 'exonerated', (as opposed to 'acquited').
>
> >
> > So considering all of the above, the real number of exonerations in
> > Texas since 1974 is somewhere between 3 and 12, out of 903 capital
> > murder sentences.
> >
> > David Carson
> > --
> Which is still surprisingly high.
>
> Not sure what this ratio (whatever it is) proves anyway, other than the
> legal system is flawed which is hardly stunning news.
Flawed, yes we know & UNDERSTAND flawed, and that our systemS are flawed
but we moving beyond flawed to totally corrupt. Then again one of our
PILLARS of our society is our ??justice?? system.
Oh well.