As told before, I had a hearing set for Tuesday,
August 25th 2015. I had filed an extraordinary motion for a new
trial. Instead, on newly discovered evidence, the Georgia Innocence Project
took my case, after interns, Catherine O’Neill and Bryan Reines, went to the
district attorney’s office on July 30th 2015, to review the case
file. They expected to find documents saying the evidence in the case had been
destroyed or to find nothing at all. Either way, the case would be closed for
them. While digging through a box, they found a lumpy manila envelope and
peered inside at pieces of black and white fabric. Writing on the outside said
the envelope contained a bathrobe belt and neckties.
G.I.P. filed an amended motion asking the judge in
the case to allow testing for DNA. The assistant district attorney Brad
Bickerstaff asked for a 60 day delay since the amended motion was filed a week
before the August 25th hearing and the judge granted his request.
The motion for extraordinary motion for a new trial
was filed by me in 2010. In 2011 court
hearing I showed the court evidence that was not known to the defense;
confession of a white male, witnesses whom could place him running away from
the crime, others placed him at the mortuary, foundling the victim’s body.
Police officers, who mentioned they had no doubts that this person had commit
the crime and that this person knew what
he was talking about, when he confessed.
In 2002 a hearing was held to try to find any
evidence from the crime. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the Columbus
Police Department and the District Attorney all said that all evidence
was destroyed. Lawyers even asked for the belt and neckties. It was told they
were destroyed too. Judge Allen even stated in court any evidence shown up
after this case, someone will answer for it.
Life without parole, I was on my own to fight for
myself . In 2011 I brought the semen evidence. Semen that was found on the bath
robe the victim was wearing. The semen was tested in 1976. The semen blood type
was in the B-blood group. My blood is the O-blood group. The jury never heard
this. Why not? When you have someone charged with rape? It seems to me that,
you want to give the jury every piece of evidence, unless you know it doesn’t
match.
You got a white woman that has been raped, killed,
in the south, 1976. Charging a black man with the crime, get an all-white jury
and make them believe everything. Every piece of evidence match pointed to me. They
own the Public Defender office, whom gave me no defense at all.
In 2011 hearing, pointing out the semen on the
bathrobe and blood type. The assistant district attorney said to the court that
they were determined that the semen on the bathrobe belonged to the husband.
The defense wasn’t told of this. The D.A. withhold this from the defense with doing
trial in 1977. Doing this trial, everything pointed to me. That alone is a
Brady violation. The police, the state acted in bad faith. Now December 2015
court hearing, while asking for DNA testing on the bathrobe-belt and neckties,
assistant district attorney Brad Bickerstaff said in court that they had this
evidence in 2002 and that they gave in to the clerk. So, again another
violation of law Brady US Maryland 373 US 83, 835 CT 1194 (1963) a powerful
case.
I’m not nervous and I have no reason to be, because I’m
not guilty. Forty years ago I was sentenced to die because I was black. I’m
still black and not much has changed over the years. A black man is guilty when
he’s first charged with a crime and it takes too much to undo the injustice
that was done to a black man…
