(Little Rock, Arkansas- Jan 9, 2023) Damien Echols today filed an appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court asking it to reverse a decision by the Circuit Court for Crittenden County to dismiss his petition to use new technology to test certain evidence in the case for DNA results which might establish his innocence and identify the real killer(s). Echols’ petition was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. His appeal asks the Supreme Court to reverse that procedural determination and to remand the case back to the Circuit Court for a full hearing on the merits of Echols’ request for this new scientific testing.
In June 2022, Judge Tonya Alexander in West Memphis, AR, ruled Echols did not have the right to test forensic evidence as he was not currently incarcerated. Although the DNA Act 1780 nowhere mentions imprisonment as a condition for relief, the circuit judge noted that the statute is included within the Habeas Corpus Chapter of the Arkansas Code and that habeas relief can only be sought by one who is wrongfully imprisoned. Thus, the court concluded that it had no power to order the conducting of state-of -the- art DNA testing on the evidence in the murder of three children in 1993.
The Arkansas’ DNA statute clearly states,, “Except when direct appeal is available, a person convicted of a crime may make a motion for the performance of fingerprinting, forensic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing, or other tests which may become available through advances in technology to demonstrate the person’s actual innocence. Ark Code Section 16-112-202
Stephen Braga of Bracewell LLP, Echols’ attorney, writes, “Under the circuit court’s interpretation, innocent individuals wrongfully convicted of crimes in Arkansas with new DNA technology available that might exonerate them cannot use the Arkansas courts to access that DNA testing unless they are in prison. Innocent individuals wrongfully convicted who either completed service of their sentences or avoided sentences of imprisonment in the first place are left wholly without a remedy. They may be innocent, but in the eyes of the Arkansas criminal justice system they are ‘forever damned.’”
According to the brief, “Innocence is a state of being. It is not a state of location, in prison or not. One is either “free from guilt” or not. There is no in between. It is a binary determination. Why would anyone not want to encourage that determination to be made? Arkansas is “a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all, and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done . . . . guilt shall not escape, or innocence suffer.”
Damien Echols said, “Although I was released from death row, and Jason and Jesse were freed from their life sentences, we have never been free. We are convicted of murdering three children and, although we were allowed to maintain our innocence in the Alford Plea deal, we were never truly free, never declared innocent by the court, and the real killer (s) have never been brought to justice. I ask the Judges on the Arkansas Supreme Court, allow us to conduct state of the art DNA testing that might help identify those responsible for this heinous act, and hopefully exonerate the West Memphis 3.”
Jason Baldwin said, “This is a great opportunity for West Memphis, the State of Arkansas, Pam Hicks, The Byers Family and The Moore Family to have definitive proof of who murdered Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Stevie Branch. Justice demands all avenues be pursued to identify the murderer(s). From the beginning Jessie, Damien and Jason have cooperated to the best of their ability in the investigations of these murders not limited to providing DNA samples to the WMPD for comparison pre-trial. Pam Hicks and many others also cooperated in this fashion. We have all cooperated so that the identity of the murderer(s) be discovered.”
M-Vac DNA testing technology has been used or is currently being utilized in several Arkansas cases, including for the Craighead County Sheriff’s office and the Marion, AR Police Department.
The prosecutor has 30 days to respond to the Echols brief, upon which Echols can supply additional comments.
Echols is being represented. by Stephen Braga, of Bracewell LLP; John Elrod and Kerri Kobbeman of the law firm of Conner &Winters, LLP, in Fayetteville. AR., and Little Rock attorney Patrick Benca.
John Elrod and Kerri Kobbeman said, “ We are honored and excited to be part of the legal team of Damien Echols, part of the West Memphis Three, as he continues his decades-long effort to exonerate himself of capital murder. Today, Echols filed an appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court seeking reversal of a decision by the Circuit Court of Crittenden County finding that it did not have jurisdiction to order that certain evidence be submitted for testing using new and advanced DNA testing technology because Echols is no longer incarcerated. We will continue to support Echols as he seeks relief under the Act 1780, which allows a person convicted of a crime to move for testing of evidence using forensic methodologies that become available through advances in technology. “
Contact: Lonnie Soury, Lsoury@soury.com, (917) 519.4521, @lonniesoury