Claude Jones Case: Video of Executed Man's Son and Former Texas Governor Mark White speaking about DNA tests that show Jones may have not been guilty

Watch at Houston Chronicle.

From Time.com:

For over two decades, the hair was stored in a plastic evidence bag in the courthouse in Coldspring, Texas, cataloged as belonging to Claude Jones, who was convicted of murder in 1990 and executed 10 years later. Now, it can be relabeled: a court-ordered DNA test found Thursday that the hair actually belonged to the murder victim Allen Hilzendager. The result casts significant doubt on the validity of Jones' conviction and his execution.
That single 1-in. (2.5 cm) strand of hair was the key to Jones' original conviction. A truck carrying Jones and Danny Dixon did pull up in front of Hilzendager's liquor store that night. One man got out, went inside and gunned Hilzendager down, according to two eyewitnesses across the highway (neither could see the murderer's face). Both Jones and Dixon were certainly capable of the crime — both were on parole after serving time for murder. But there was little other firm evidence of which one had done it. Dixon accused Jones, and Jones accused Dixon. The prosecution's star witness against Jones was a friend of Dixon's who later said that prosecutors had coerced him into testifying.

And from the beginning, the evidence was handled questionably. The hair expert at the Texas crime lab originally thought the small sample was "unsuitable for comparison" using the microscopy technology available at the time, but eventually changed his mind and decided to test it after all. Using that outdated technology — which essentially has two hairs examined side by side under a microscope — the expert then determined that the hair belonged to Jones and not Dixon.

That dubious determination went on to haunt all of Jones' failed appeals as well. Time and again, lawyers and judges pointed to the physical evidence against Jones as a damning factor.
Except, in the end, it wasn't. The fact that the hair was actually Hilzendager's doesn't mean that Jones was necessarily innocent, but it does mean that the jury convicted him — and did so quickly — based largely on false evidence. "What's crucial to understand is that the hair was critical evidence in the case," says Barry Scheck, whose Innocence Project, along with the Texas Observer, led the lawsuit demanding that the hair be subjected to DNA testing. "I have no doubt the conviction would've been reversed with these results."

Scheck points out the most poignant aspect of the story: Jones came very close to having a chance for that reversal just before he was executed. At the time, then Governor George W. Bush was on record stating that he would delay executions if there were relevant new DNA tests that could be performed. Jones' case seemed to fit that bill — mitochondrial DNA testing was not available during his trial but was in wide use before his final appeals in 2000. Jones' attorney at the time warned the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles that without Bush's intervention, "the state of Texas runs the risk of executing a man despite the availability of modern technology that might exonerate him."

The four-page memo that Bush received from his legal advisers on Dec. 7, 2000, however, made no mention of a possible new DNA test. It ended with the assertion that Jones "has had full and fair access to judicial review of his case." Bush denied clemency, and Jones was executed that evening.

"What I'm really hoping is that when President Bush gets an opportunity to look at this," says Scheck, "that he would acknowledge that he was blindsided and that an error was made."
The new DNA results come during a rough patch for capital punishment in Texas. After 18 years in prison — 12 of those on death row — Anthony Graves was exonerated and walked free in October based on the opinion of a special independent prosecutor who found in favor of a 2006 reversal (stemming from a lack of evidence) of his conviction. That case, in which Graves was convicted of slaughtering a family he didn't know based on the testimony of informants and co-defendants, had one striking similarity with the Jones case: the original prosecutors fought fiercely against any suggestions that the convictions might be invalid. As doubts over the evidence that had convicted Graves swirled in 2009, prosecutor Charles Sebesta took out full-page ads in local papers calling Graves "cold-blooded."

In Jones' case, prosecutor Bill Burnett fought hard to destroy the hair before it could be tested, and he took his fight all the way to his grave. The pastor at his funeral in June assailed TIME's coverage of the Jones case, in which I had argued in favor of testing, and lauded Burnett for being someone who "took a stand against some powerful people."
(Read TIME's coverage of the case.)

After the evidence findings were revealed Thursday, Hilzendager's brother Joe told the Associated Press that he still thinks Jones was the shooter, staying true to what he had told me in his living room almost a year ago, as he argued against testing the hair: "There's no doubt they executed the right person."

But Jones' son Duane has always believed his father was wrongfully convicted. He says the results aren't a relief and that it's just "disappointing" to see the missed opportunities for justice.

"It saddens me because you know they spend all the taxpayers' money fighting DNA tests," he says. "If you're so confident in your convictions, do the testing. You might find out something new."

Texas Observer: DNA tests undermine key evidence in 2000 Texas execution of Claude Jones

Observer Exclusive: Did Texas Execute An Innocent Man? DNA tests undermine key evidence in 2000 death penalty case. The Texas Observer is reporting today the results of DNA tests that raise doubts about the guilt of Claude Jones, the last Texan executed under former Gov. George W. Bush. The DNA tests were conducted on a single strand of hair--the key evidence that sent Jones to the death chamber on Dec. 7, 2000. At Jones' 1990 trial, prosecutors alleged the hair--recovered from the scene of a murder at an East Texas liquor store--"matched" Claude Jones. It was the only evidence that placed Jones in the liquor store. But the DNA tests--conducted at the request of The Texas Observer and the Innocence Project--show that the hair sample matched the victim of the shooting, and not Jones. The new evidence in the Jones case is the result of a three-year court battle by The Texas Observer and three innocence groups--the New York-based Innocence Project, the Innocence Project of Texas and the Texas Innocence Network. Observer editor Bob Moser will join Innocence Project director Barry Scheck, former Gov. Mark White and Claude Jones' son Duane Jones to release the test results and discuss the case at a press conference on Friday, Nov. 12, at 10 a.m. in the Bank of America lobby at 700 Louisiana St., Houston. In 2007, the Observer and the three innocence groups sued the San Jacinto County district attorney's office to obtain the hair, which had never been destroyed. In June, Judge Paul Murphy ruled in favor of the Observer and the innocence groups, and ordered the San Jacinto County district attorney's office to hand over the hair. Prosecutors decided not to appeal Murphy's ruling. After several months of negotiating, lawyers for the Innocence Project and the Observer reached an agreement with the San Jacinto County DA's office to transfer the hair evidence to private labs for mitochondrial DNA testing. The Observer and the Innocence Project were represented in the suit by the Houston firm Mayer Brown. Background of the Case On Nov. 14, 1989, Jones and Kerry Dixon stopped at a liquor store in the East Texas town of Point Blank, about 80 miles northeast of Houston. One of the two men waited in the pickup truck while the other went inside and murdered the store's owner, 44-year-old Allen Hilzendager, with a .357 magnum revolver. The question is which man committed the murder? Each man blamed the other. The only physical evidence that linked Jones to the murder was the hair found on the liquor-store counter. At Jones' 1990 trial, a forensic expert testified that the hair appeared to come from Jones. But the technology didn't exist at the time to determine if the hair matched Jones' DNA. Jones always maintained his innocence. By 2000, mitochondrial DNA testing had been developed. Jones requested a stay of execution to conduct DNA tests on the strand of hair. Two Texas courts rejected his request, as did then-Gov. Bush. Documents obtained from the governor's office show that attorneys never informed Bush that Jones was requesting DNA testing. "It is unbelievable that the lawyers in the General Counsel's office failed to inform the governor that Jones was seeking DNA testing on evidence that was so pivotal to the case," said former Governor and Attorney General Mark White.  "If the state is going to continue to use the death penalty, it must figure out a way to build safeguards in the system so that lapses like this don't happen again." Had the hair been tested a decade ago, as Jones requested, he might still be alive. "The DNA results prove that testimony about the hair sample on which this entire case rests was just wrong," said Scheck of the Innocence Project. "This is yet another disturbing example of a miscarriage of justice in Texas capital murder prosecutions. Unreliable forensic science and a completely inadequate post-conviction review process cost Claude Jones his life." With questions about the case and the Observer story, please call Dave Mann, Senior Editor, 512-477-0746 (mann@texasobserver.org) or Bob Moser, Editor, 347-891-4885 (moser@texasobserver.org). Read the full story at texasobserver.org Read the original Texas Observer story, Truth Hangs by a Hair.

Farouk Shami More Progressive on Criminal Justice Than Bill White

Former Texas Governor Mark White has said he supports a moratorium on executions, but the Texas Observer asked Democratic gubernatorial nominee candidate Bill White (no relation to Mark) and Bill said he does not support a moratorium. We will try to meet with him to explain why Texas needs a moratorium. The Texas Democratic Party endorsed a moratorium in the party platform in 2004, 2006 and 2008.

A moratorium is the best way to ensure that Texas does not execute an innocent person and that reforms are enacted to make sure that an innocent person is never again executed in Texas. If Texas had enacted a moratorium in 2003, then Todd Willingham would not have been executed in 2004.

The Observer did not ask Democratic gubernatorial nominee candidate Farouk Shami for his opinion on a moratorium, but Shami's website says that he does support a moratorium.

From the Texas Observer:

I’m sure you’re very familiar with the dustup last fall over the Forensic Science Commission. Do you believe that Gov. Perry was engaging in a cover-up when he moved to replace commission members right before they were starting hearings on whether Cameron Todd Willingham was wrongly executed? It certainly looks wrong, and there’s something inconsistent with a governor who now says that he’ll defer to experts on his plans to greatly expand the governor’s mansion and destroy its historical integrity, while at the same time saying that he won’t defer to experts on issues such as forensic science.

Given the information the governor had about questionable forensics that convicted Willingham, should he have halted the execution before he went forward? I haven’t looked at all the details on that case, but if I was governor I would appoint people to boards involving pardon and paroles, and the Forensic Science Commission, who would represent the values of this state—and in the case of forensic science, who are experts. And I would rely on the judgment of those people.

Do you support the death penalty? Yes.

Do you support a moratorium on executions, as former Gov. Mark White has suggested, until we can ensure that Texas is not executing innocent people? No. I think it ought to depend on a case-by-case basis and not be a moratorium across the board.

How would you handle your review of these cases differently from what Gov. Perry has done? Where there is a question about the forensic science, I would listen to the scientists.

----------------------------------------------
Farouk Shami's website says that he does support a moratorium.

FaroukFarouk Shami understands that a moratorium is the best way to ensure that Texas does not execute an innocent person and can enact reforms to protect innocent people from being executed, "If elected Governor, Farouk Shami would place a moratorium on the death penalty to evaluate these issues and convene a panel of experts to make recommendations on how to reform the death penalty to make it truly fair, if it can indeed be reformed."

Farouk Shami has also posted his position on major criminal justice issues, him the most progressive gubernatorial candidate on criminal justice.

A Comprehensive Approach to Fix the System

The criminal justice system in Texas is broken. The approach we’ve taken has ignored rehabilitation and instead focuses solely on retribution. We currently spend almost $3 billion dollars a year on criminal justice, up from almost $800 million in 1990. This approach has given Texas a 40 percent higher incarceration rate than the country as a whole, yet we still have a 21 percent higher crime rate than the country as a whole. Our approach is clearly costing us too much money for too little result.

We need a comprehensive plan that seriously evaluates how we can reduce recidivism, reduce costs, and focus our attention on cracking down on criminals the current system isn’t able to catch.

Reform Our Prison System

We cannot continue to treat our prisons as warehouses designed to store inmates. We must implement a new approach, particularly amongst non violent offenders, that instead treats them as places where people can go in as a criminal and emerge as a productive member of society.

Educate Inmates

Farouk Shami will put forth a policy that rewards all non violent offenders with time off of their sentence for completing a GED, associates degree, bachelor’s degree, and even a graduate degree. Study after study has proven that recidivism rates drop when inmates are educated.

Workforce Training for Inmates

Many inmates in prison have no marketable skills. Learning a trade allows the inmates to get a job after leaving prison and gives them the prospect of a good future. To that end, Farouk Shami will put Vocational/Technical schools in our prisons to teach inmates skills. Furthermore, with agriculture our state’s second biggest industry, we will create prison farms where we can teach inmates how to grow food and raise cattle. The state would compensate the prisoners for working on the farm at a rate of $2 an hour, which will be set aside in an account for them to use after leaving prison. This will train a workforce for our agriculture industry while giving inmates a real chance to put aside money to make a life for themselves after leaving prison. The food grown on these farms can be used in prisons, schools, hospitals and other government facilities, creating a cost savings that will subsidize the program.

Treat Mental Illness

Finally, mental illness is present in an extremely high percentage of the prison population. Some researchers cite a number as high as 37% of inmates suffer from a severe mental illness. They cannot become productive members of society until they have received treatment for their illness and have a plan for continuation of treatment upon leaving prison.

Common Sense Drug Laws

Drug laws in Texas are not working. We are incarcerating far too many people for using drugs and not treating them for their addictions. We need to redirect drug users to treatment facilities that can treat their illness verses just tossing them into the general prison population. That way, we can focus on the real problem of getting drug dealers and distributors in prison and not the end user.

Crackdown on Drug Trafficking Gangs

Highly organized gangs are tracking drugs from Mexico into the United States and they are using Texas as a major base of operations. We need to immediately put an end to checking immigration status of undocumented workers and instead work with the federal government to grant legal status to those undocumented workers that turn over the gang members living in their community. Breaking up these gangs is our state’s top criminal justice priority.

A Statewide Real Time Crime Center

Highly organized criminal groups, from drug smuggling gangs to identity theft rings, are operating in our state. We need a centralized command center that integrates information from every law enforcement agency in the state to track potential activities of these groups and help break them up. This command center would have the ability to look beyond a single municipality and would employ analysts who can see patterns that are otherwise ignored. Utilizing this data, we could significantly crack down on these groups.

Seriously Evaluate the Use of the Death Penalty

The death penalty, as it is currently implemented, has a number of serious problems. The most important of these problems is the potential that an innocent person could be put to death. We must absolutely ensure, at every stage of appeal, potentially exculpatory evidence, particularly forensic and DNA evidence, is admissible and taken very seriously. We must expand the power of the Governor’s office to act as a check on the judicial system and convert the sentence to life in prison with no chance of parole. Another problem with the death penalty as it currently is used in Texas is the racial bias in its sentencing. A black or Hispanic male is far more likely to receive the death penalty than a white male is for committing the same crime. If elected Governor, Farouk Shami would place a moratorium on the death penalty to evaluate these issues and convene a panel of experts to make recommendations on how to reform the death penalty to make it truly fair, if it can indeed be reformed.

Crackdown on White Collar Crime

For far too long, our state has ignored white collar crime and has not investigated it until it is far too late. Every time we see a corporate scam like Enron or a R. Allen Stanford ponzi scheme, we are reminded that politicians turn a blind eye to white collar crime until it’s far too late because the individuals perpetrating these crimes are also campaign donors. Since Farouk Shami is not accepting any money from any special interest or lobbyists and is largely self-funded, politics as usual are over. As Governor, Farouk will create a special investigative taskforce, with forensic accountants, whose sole job will be investigating corporations doing business in Texas and individuals conducting these crimes.

Strengthen Enforcement of Identity Theft Laws and Computer Crime Laws

Identity theft costs individuals millions of dollars in Texas each year and countless hours to repair their credit history. Computer hacking not only costs millions of dollars every year, but it threatens our state’s infrastructure and security. Farouk Shami will use his statewide real time crime center to fight identity theft as it is happening and capture the perpetrators wherever in Texas they reside. The center will also have trained computer security experts that will fight the hackers and help bring them to justice. This center will be able to eliminate jurisdictional issues and will have the qualified experts local law enforcement agencies simply cannot afford to keep on staff.

Reform the Texas Youth Commission

The Texas Youth Commission is out of control. Allegations of sexual abuse and mismanagement have completely eliminated any credibility it once had. As Governor, Farouk Shami will personally lead a taskforce that will fight corruption and completely change the culture of the TYC.

More importantly, Farouk Shami will refocus the TYC on helping these troubled youth reform their lives so they can receive a quality education, learn a trade and ultimately become productive members of society. If we can turn around these youth now, we won’t see them later on in our prison system.

Video from Death Row: Possibly Retarded Prisoner Faces Execution

Renée Feltz of the Texas Observer has the following article and video interview on the case of mentally retarded death-row inmate Bobby Woods. Woods is scheduled to be executed next Wednesday.

When Texas reopens its execution chamber after a Thanksgiving break, the first man set to die may be mentally retarded. A 2002 Supreme Court ruling bans the execution of mentally retarded prisoners. But after years of being represented by a discredited attorney who ruined any chance for an appeal based on his disabilities, the fate of Bobby Wayne Woods rests with the state Board of Pardons and Paroles which can recommend clemency or a reprieve to Gov. Perry. "It's a long shot at best," Woods' attorney Maurie Levin says of the clemency request, "but I think it's very important to do."

Test scores during his childhood and incarceration show Bobby Woods has an IQ that hovers at or below 70 — the cut-off point for mental retardation. He reads at a second grade level and writes childlike letters — many of which are photocopied and presented as evidence in his clemency request. Levin asked the board to grant a 60-day reprieve so that she can produce a videotape of Woods "to adequately present a full picture of his limitations." She has sued Texas prison officials over their refusal to allow her to record such a video herself. The Texas Observer captured Woods on tape last week during an on-camera interview, and now you can watch the video that Levin wants the clemency board to see.

Bobby Woods Describes Where He Grew Up

Woods was sentenced to die in 1998 for kidnapping, raping and murdering 11-year-old Sarah Patterson. He disputes his guilt, saying his cousin is responsible for cutting Patterson's throat. But the cousin committed suicide the week following Woods' arrest. Levin acknowledges "the facts of this crime are very difficult," but she notes the ban on executing the mentally retarded applies no matter how heinous the offense. Levin and students with the Capital Punishment Center at the University of Texas Law School began working on Woods' case just before he was scheduled to be executed in October 2008. Their efforts followed years of cringe-worthy legal representation by Richard Alley, one of just two attorneys the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has removed from its list of lawyers qualified to represent death row prisoners in their appeals. He visited Woods only once during the nearly 10 years he represented him.

"For the state of Texas to appoint a lawyer who they then removed from the list — who was being taken to task in a federal court at the very same time he's being appointed to represent Bobby in his federal proceedings, and then for Bobby — a mentally retarded man — to suffer the consequences of that appointment is atrocious. It infuriates me," Levin says.

Alley had a habit of recycling direct appeal claims in his state capital habeas cases. While he raised 28 issues in Woods' state habeas appeals, just two were actually new and neither was backed by useful evidence. In contrast, Levin and her students were able to contact family members who described how Woods was a slow child who suffered from learning disabilities and was called "retard" by his classmates, and "always needed to live with someone who could take care of him" when he was older. Their investigations revealed that while Woods had held a steady job as a short-order cook at Waffle House, he had to have the orders read aloud to him.

Alley did file an appeal claiming Woods was mentally retarded, but it was poorly put together and the court rejected it. Levin won a rare second chance to present new evidence in October 2008, but she was unable to reach a higher bar set by the court because it was his second time making the appeal. This second appeal had to overcome the previous legal record established on almost no investigation of Woods' mental capacity.

Levin could not claim that Woods suffered from ineffective assistance of counsel either. While a Texas statute guarantees Woods an attorney to file his habeas appeals, it doesn't require him to be competent. So Woods remains scheduled to be executed on Dec. 3 pending a decision by the Board to recommend that Perry have mercy and grant him clemency or a reprieve. Below are additional videos that may be used in evidence. Woods has reached the end of the legal process. His only opportunity now resides with Perry and the parole board.

Bobby Woods Describes His Previous Jobs


Bobby Woods Describes His Reading and Writing Abilities

Hear Texas Observer's Dave Mann on NPR

The Observer's Associate Editor talks to "All Things Considered" host Robert Siegel about Perry's astounding move to replace key members of the Forensic Science Commission.

Perry's move came one day before the commission was to examine a report on faulty arson science that almost certainly led to the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was condemned for setting a fire that killed his 2 children. Texas could become the first state in the nation to admit it executed an innocent man.

See Dave's articles in the series Burn Patterns on bad arson science and the resulting imprisonments of people who were likely innocent: I Was Just a Junkie, Victim of Circumstance?, and Burn Patterns.

Also, see editor Bob Moser's editorial and Mann's blog post on the issue.

Was an innocent man executed? TRUTH HANGS BY A HAIR!

The Texas Observer and the Innocence Project fight to preserve evidence that could show if an innocent man was executed.

One strand of hair, a piece of evidence crucial to determining whether Texas executed an innocent man almost seven years ago, is apparently at risk of being destroyed by San Jacinto County officials who are resisting a formal request by The Texas Observer, the Innocence Project, and other criminal justice organizations to make it available for independent scientific testing.

Observer lawyers are calling on San Jacinto County District Attorney Bill Burnett to preserve the hair until a lawsuit determines whether it must be released under state open-records laws. DNA testing might provide a strong indication as to whether Claude Howard Jones was, in fact, innocent of the murder for which he was executed.

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