TheAgitator.com
And Another One…
Monday, February 4th, 2008A man who spent more than two decades in prison for the slaying of an 89-year-old woman walked into the Vigo County Courthouse shackled to three other prisoners and walked out a free man after a judge agreed with prosecutors that DNA evidence exonerated him.
Scott, 39, had been serving a 50-year prison sentence for the 1984 murder of Loretta Keith, who was bludgeoned to death in her bed with a hydraulic jack. Authorities said that DNA testing not available in 1984 — including analysis of blood found on a nylon stocking at Keith’s home — cleared Scott.
Prosecutors said the DNA test results showed that Kevin Mark Weeks, 44, of LaGrange, Ky., was the person who killed Keith. Weeks was arrested Friday, and was still being held in the Shelby County, Ky., jail on Monday.
Note that in this case, Scott was convicted largely because of a taped recording of him admitting to participating in the crime. False confessions are much more common than you might think. They happen for a variety of reasons (police brutality, the desire to end a marathon interrogation, the belief that evidence will surface proving innocence), but tend to occur most frequently with young people (Scott was 15 at the time) and suspects with a low IQ or mental handicap (Scott was learning disabled). In this case, Scott appears to have been tricked into confessing by an investigator. What’s unforgivable is that not only was there evidence exonerating Scott that was never introduced at trial, but the DNA evidence could have been tested years ago.
Most people don’t care about Scott! He seems to be poor and retarded! This country fails to recognize the importance of the individual!
I’m just curious how severe a learning disability would have to be where an individual would be unable to resist “caving in” to aggressive interrogators (and I understand that people admit to crimes they did not commit for a variety of reason, but I imagine this is more frequent with the “learning impaired” or the mentally handicapped.)
I wonder if the types of activities Mr. Balko writes about were just as prevalent in the pre-internet era or if they have escalated in recent years. Regardless, keep up the reporting Mr. Balko; it’s depressing, but necessary.
Regards,
TDL
Does anyone know if there are statistics reporting what percentage of those exonerated by DNA evidence after conviction were convicted on the basis of false confessions and/or eyewitness testimony? It would be interesting to see if such factors–which I believe that jurors tend to credit more than “circumstantial” evidence–deserve the confidence that triers of fact often have in them.