The legal community, nationally as well as in Arkansas, has emerged as an important ally in the effort to obtain a new trial for Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley.
The Arkansas Law Review, a publication of the University of Arkansas School of Law in cooperation with the Arkansas Bar Association, has published a lengthy and scholarly article reviewing the legal issues surrounding the innocence claims of Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley.
“Lock ’Em Up and Throw Away the Key: The ‘West Memphis Three’ and Arkansas’s Statute for Post-Conviction Relief Based on New Scientific Evidence” by David S. Mitchell, Jr., unequivocally calls upon the Arkansas Supreme Court to grant a new trial to Damien Echols, whose case is currently on appeal before the court.
The Arkansas Law Review article comes on the heels of the support of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Northwestern University School of Law’s Center on Wrongful Convictions, which jointly submitted an amicus brief to the Arkansas Supreme Court on behalf of Echols’s appeal for a new trial.
According to the Law Review, the circuit court employed a very narrow interpretation of the post-conviction relief (DNA) statute to deny Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley a new trial. “A close examination of the legal and factual issues presented by Echols’s motion for a new trial reveals the circuit court’s failures on each level, particularly the way the circuit court’s interpretation of the statute eviscerated its purpose.”
Echols’s case meets the standards set forth in the Arkansas statute as well as the intention of the legislature when the statute was passed in 2001. “The court may then grant a motion for a new trial or resentencing if the DNA test results, when considered with all evidence in the case regardless of whether the evidence was introduced at trial, would establish by compelling evidence that a new trial would result in acquittal. The new evidence is sufficient to establish that any reasonable juror would have reasonable doubt as to Echols’s guilt…”
Read article: http://lawreview.law.uark.edu/about.html
Lonnie Soury