Scott and Brenda Kniffen and Alvin and Debbie McCuan were convicted of child abuse and given centuries long sentences.  There was no physical evidence that any child abuse had occurred.  Prosecutors promised the children that testified against the four adults that if they lied they would be reunited with their parents.  The children recanted after they realized the prosecutors did not intend to keep their promises.  The convictions of the four defendants were reversed in 1996 and they were released after 14 years of imprisonment.  (RT)  [7/05]

John Stoll was convicted of 17 counts of child molestation involving six children including his five-year-old son.  Two of Stoll's codefendants won their state appeal 15 years before he did.  His own appeal was denied in part because of a mistake his lawyer had made during the trial—failing to introduce a psychologist's finding that Stoll showed none of the telltale traits of a pedophile.

Of the six kids who had testified against Stoll then, five—now grown— recanted at a hearing.  Only his son Jed continued to insist that his father had molested him, though under questioning he could give no details.  Stoll's conviction was overturned after he served 20 years of a 40-year sentence.  His charges were dropped.  (Justice: Denied)  [6/05]

In August 1985 Ricky Lynn Pitts, Marcella Pitts, Wayne Dill, Jr., Grace Dill, Wayne Forsythe, Colleen Forsythe, and Gina Miller were convicted of 377 counts of child abuse and conspiracy.  A total of 2,619 years of imprisonment was handed out to the defendants in sentences.  All convictions were reversed in 1990 because the trial and closing arguments were marred by prosecutorial misconduct that was unprecedented in the Court's experience.  By 1994, all of the child witnesses had recanted and claimed their testimony was coerced.  (Wash. Post) (People v. Pitts)  [7/05]

Jeffrey Modahl was convicted of sexually abusing his 9-year-old daughter.  Modahl's daughter, Carla Jo, now alleges that two Kern County sheriff's detectives tricked and forced her into testifying that her father, grandfather, grandmother, aunt, and others molested her.  Carla Jo said two cousins molested her, but from there the investigation mushroomed to wrongly include other family members.  She told a reporter, “They took me to lunch every day, they let me play with the computer and promised to take me to Magic Mountain when I was done testifying.  They called me their star witness.”  The conviction was eventually vacated, and the DA declined to retry.  Modahl served 15 years of a 48-year sentence.  (JD#1) (JD#2) (Website) (Rolling Stone)  [6/05]

Patrick Dunn was convicted in 1993 of murdering his wealthy wife, Sandy.  Sandy and Pat Dunn had threatened to sue Bakersfield city officials for legitimate reasons over an aborted real estate project.  Sandy also had despised most of her relatives and explicitly disinherited them in her will.  Some city officials and relatives found reason to falsely accuse Pat for their own benefit.  Pat stood to gain more financially if Sandy lived.  A heroin addicted informant lied about seeing Pat put a body in his truck in order to get a lenient plea deal.  Dunn is still imprisoned as of 2005.  The case is the lead story in Mean Justice, a 1999 book by Pulitzer Prize winning author Edward Humes.  [7/05]

(Federal Case)  William DePalma was convicted of on charges of being the sole gunman who robbed the Mercury Savings and Loan in Buena Park, CA.  Following the crime, Sergeant James David Bakken, an Identification Officer for the Buena Park Police, identified a partial fingerprint purportedly lifted from the bank counter as the fingerprint of DePalma.  A local warrant was issued, but it was subsequently dismissed and the case was tried in U.S. District Court.

At trial, Sergeant Bakken testified as a government witness.  An FBI latent print examiner also testified, but only in regard to whether the lifted fingerprint matched DePalma's fingerprint.  He gave no testimony on the source of the found fingerprint.  DePalma was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Some time later, presumably years, Sergeant Bakken was indicted in a completely separate matter for perjury and for manufacturing evidence.  Since DePalma had been persistent in his claims of innocence, authorities re-examined the partial fingerprint in his case.  They concluded that the partial fingerprint was not lifted from a bank counter, but from a photocopy of DePalma's fingerprint.  DePalma's conviction was vacated in Feb. 1974.  DePalma later sued the City of Buena Vista and in Aug. 1975 accepted “a sizeable settlement.”  (Source) (The Fingerprint That Lied)  [12/07]

Kevin Green, a Marine corporal, was convicted of bashing his wife, Dianna, and murdering his unborn child in the process.  Dianna was also raped and suffered some brain damage.  Following the assault, Dianna had no memory of it, but eventually she identified Kevin as her assailant.  Kevin spent 16 years in prison but was released due to a confession by serial killer Gerald Parker, who also confessed to five other murders.  Parker's confession was supported by DNA evidence.  Kevin's case inspired a 2001 law increasing allowable state compensation for the wrongfully imprisoned to $100 a day.  Kevin was awarded $620,000 for his 6200 days of wrongful incarceration.  (IP)  [7/05]

Dwayne McKinney was convicted of murdering a Burger King manager, Walter Horace Bell, 19, during an armed robbery.  He was identified in a police lineup after police lied to witnesses that McKinney had been caught with the proceeds.  In 1999, Willie Walker, a man who said he was the getaway driver, identified Raymond Jackett III as the murderer and said McKinney was not involved.  Two restaurant employees, Brian March and Donald Bulla, who had identified McKinney as the murderer, agreed with Walker after viewing pictures of Jackett.  The DA requested the conviction be vacated and McKinney was released.  McKinney served 19 years of a life without parole sentence.  (AP News) (InjusticeBusters) (JD)  [10/05]

Thomas Read Merrill was convicted of a double homicide committed during a robbery of the Newport Coin Exchange.  During the robbery, the owner, William D. King, 39, was shot four times, but survived, while his wife, Renee Ratoon King, 38, and a close friend, Clyde Oates, 45, were killed.  In exchange for a plea deal, Eric Jon Wick testified that Merrill participated with him in the robbery and was the actual shooter.  The coin shop owner said he was robbed by two men, one white and one black.  Wick was white and Merrill was black.  They were both Marines and former bunkmates at the same Marine facility.  Prosecutors failed to inform Merrill that the coin shop owner had emphatically excluded Merrill as the black robber.  Merrill was acquitted at his third trial.  He served 5 years of a life without parole sentence.  (Google)  [4/08]

Earl Henry Rhoney IV was convicted of the murder of 46-year-old Patricia Lea Pratt.  Pratt was beaten and strangled during a burglary at her home in the upscale Turtle Rock neighborhood of Irvine, CA.  Rhoney had committed a burglary with six other teenagers about a mile from the Pratt residence more than a week prior to the murder.  He was arrested for it two weeks after the murder.  Eight months later, police followed Rhoney with a bloodhound upon Rhoney's release from juvenile hall for the prior burglary.  Police had given the bloodhound, named Duchess, material extracted from Pratt's sweatshirt to sniff and videotaped the dog allegedly tracking the scent of Pratt's killer.  The scent material was removed from the sweatshirt using a Dustbuster type device that was called a Scent Machine.  This device was patented by the dog's handler, Larry Harris.
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After the robberies of an Irvine juice bar and a Costa Mesa Denny's restaurant, Arthur Carmona, a 16-year-old high school student, was walking to a friend's house when he noticed a helicopter circling overhead.  Police stopped him at gunpoint.  Witnesses to the robberies were brought to the scene of Carmona's arrest, but they could not identify him as the robber.  Police had found a Lakers cap and a dark jacket that was discarded by the robber and asked Carmona to put them on.  After he did so, witnesses then identified him as the robber.  Carmona was tried as an adult.  His defense counsel failed to pursue his strong alibi, and Carmona was convicted.  Carmona was released after serving 2 years of a 12-year sentence.  He had to sign a stipulation that he would not sue prosecutors or the police.  (Reference)  [4/07]

James Ochoa was accused of a robbing two victims of $600 and stealing their Volkswagen Jetta after a bloodhound followed a scent from a swab of the perpetrator's baseball cap to his front door.  The victims also identified Ochoa.  Ochoa had five family members to confirm his alibi.  Nevertheless, against his attorney's advice, he pleaded guilty to the crime in exchange for a two-year sentence after Judge Robert Fitzgerald threatened him with a life sentence if a jury found him guilty.  DNA tests exonerated him and implicated an unknown male.  Ochoa was released after a DNA match was found in Oct 2006 to a man entering the Los Angeles County Jail on an unrelated carjacking charge.  After Ochoa applied for compensation for his wrongful conviction under California law, the state attorney general opposed Ochoa's claim, by stating that Ochoa contributed to the wrongful conviction by voluntarily pleading guilty.  (IP) (L.A. Times)

Robert Rubane Diaz was sentenced to death for the murders of 12 hospital patients.  In early 1981, Community Hospital of the Valleys in Perris, California experienced an abnormally large number of deaths among its most elderly patients.  To gather evidence, the coroner exhumed or intercepted all the patients who had recently died and he collected tissue samples from them.  The coroner found that 11 patients had a supposedly lethal level of the heart drug lidocaine in their system.  Investigators focused on Diaz, a male nurse, who worked at the hospital during many of the deaths.  They also investigated his previous employment and came up with a 12th patient from another hospital whose exhumed body showed a supposedly lethal level of lidocaine.
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Lee Perry Farmer, Jr. was convicted of fatally shooting Erich Allyn Schmidt-Till, 18, during a Riverside apartment burglary.  Farmer was sentenced to death.  In 1997, a federal court reversed his conviction because he had incompetent counsel and he was acquitted in 1999 when evidence was presented that another man had committed the murder.  (DP Focus) (89) (97)  [7/05]

Herman Atkins was convicted of the robbery and rape of a clerk in Lake Elsinore shoe store.  The assailant had taken $130 in cash from the store, two rings from the victim, and had forced her to perform oral sex.  The victim saw Atkins face on a wanted poster for another crime, just before she identified him in a lineup.  At trial, Atkins claimed he had never been to or heard of the city of Lake Elsinore until he was charged.  His wife also testified, swearing that he had been in Los Angeles at the time of the crime and did not have access to a car.   A sheriff's deputy, Danny Miller, submitted a statement attributed to a man named Eric Ingram, saying that he knew Atkins to be a gang member and had seen Atkins in Lake Elsinore at the time of the crime.  Years later, an investigator tracked down Ingram who signed a sworn statement saying he did not know Atkins and had not told Miller that he had seen Atkins in the vicinity of the crime scene.

A crime lab analyst, James Hall, testified that a stain of saliva and semen found on the victim's sweater contained genetic markers shared by only 4.4 percent of the population.  Since Atkins and the victim both fell into that group, Hall acknowledged the victim alone could have accounted for the markers.  However, the lead prosecutor, Richard Bentley, misleadingly told the jury, “So, the evidence can't be used to say this is exactly him, but it excludes a large percentage of the people, and does not exclude him, and that's corroboration.”

Atkins served 12 years of a 45-year sentence before DNA tests exonerated him of the crime in 2000.  In 2007, a jury awarded Atkins $2 million.  It also filled out a special verdict form stating that Miller had fabricated and suppressed evidence.  Since Miller currently works for the FBI, the National Innocence Network has asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate him. (IP) (L.A. Times) (CWC)  [10/07]

In 1965 Antonio Rivera and his wife, Merla, were unable to support their seriously ill 3-year-old daughter, Judy Rivera, and abandoned her at a distant San Francisco gas station in the hope that she would receive better care.  The San Francisco Chronicle reported the finding of the little girl the next day.  In the years following, the couple divorced, and Merla remarried, becoming Mrs. Walpole.  In 1973, the body of a little girl was found near Fontana, about ten miles from where the couple had lived.  Authorities concluded the found body was Judy Rivera and that her parents must have murdered her.  When Rivera and Walpole were brought to trial, the jury did not believe their story and both were convicted of murder.  Before sentencing, the judge set aside the verdict and directed the prosecution to investigate the parents' claim.  An investigator located the girl mentioned in the newspaper story and after tests were performed, authorities were satisfied that the girl was in all likelihood Judy Rivera.  (CWC) (ISI) (NY Times)  [7/05]

Kevin Cooper was sentenced to death for the murders of Doug and Peggy Ryen, their daughter, Jessica, 10, and a houseguest Christopher Hughes, 11.  Another child, Joshua Ryen, 8, suffered a slashed throat and a skull fracture, but survived.  Two days before the murders Cooper, then 25, had escaped from a minimum security prison in Chino where he had been sent a month earlier on a burglary conviction.
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Sergeant Jackson was convicted of the robbery and murder of Robert Hoke, a gas station attendant.  A police informant, Victor Thomas, reported the day after the murder that Jackson had confessed to committing the crime with another man, Gilbert Andrews.  Thomas's identification of Jackson was at odds with the description of either assailant given by several witnesses and contrary to the statement of another witness who, after viewing a photo lineup, positively excluded Jackson.  After Jackson's arrest, the victim's wife incorrectly identified Jackson's wallet as belonging to her husband.

Jackson was sentenced to prison on April 8, 1974.  During his incarceration, another man, Clarence Blunt, came forward and implicated himself in the murder.  Blunt was convicted and Jackson was set free.  The charges against Jackson were dismissed on Oct. 29, 1974.  (Jackson v. San Diego)  [7/07]

Ken Marsh was convicted of murdering his girlfriend's two-year-old son, Phillip Buell.  Marsh maintained that Phillip had fallen from the back of a couch.  Homicide detectives considered Marsh innocent from the time he was questioned.  However, he was prosecuted at the urging of doctors who were not experts in forensic pathology and who had misdiagnosed Phillip's injuries.  At trial a doctor incorrectly claimed that Phillip's injuries could only have been caused by abuse.  Prosecutors ignored testimony from a homicide detective who came forward in Marsh's defense.  Marsh served 21 years of 15 years to life sentence.  Brenda Warter, the mother of the alleged victim, has stood by Marsh throughout his incarceration and the two married following his release.  In 2006, Marsh was awarded $756,000.  (InjusticeBusters) (JD) (FJDB)  [6/05]

Frederick Rene “Ricky” Daye was convicted, along with another man, of kidnapping a woman, raping her, and stealing her car.  The victim and a bystander identified Daye.  The victim initially said one of her assailants had a gold cap on his left front tooth.  Daye had a silver cap on his right front tooth.  There was a progression in the victim's identification.  In the photo lineup, she said, “That looks like the guy”; in the physical lineup, she said, “I think that's the one.”  But then in front of the jury, she burst into tears and said, “That's him!  I'll never forget that face!”  Daye had given a police officer a phony name, had a leaky alibi, and a prison record.

Daye's co-defendant, David Pringle, pleaded the Fifth Amendment when asked to identify Daye.  Tests revealed that the semen evidence was consistent with Daye's blood type.  Daye was sentenced to life imprisonment plus a term of years.  In 1990, Pringle issued a statement saying Daye was not involved in the crime and that he did not even know Daye.  DNA tests exonerated Daye in 1994 and implicated a man with a gold front tooth.  However, the victim still maintains that Daye was the rapist. Since she has refused to come forward and to testify against the other man, he has never been charged.  Daye's case was featured on PBS Frontline.  He was awarded $389,000 ($100/day) for wrongful incarceration.  (IP) (DNA) (Frontline) (News)  [8/07]

Cortni Mahaffy accused three men of raping her, including 18-year-old Kevin Baruxes.  She said that Baruxes, a skinhead, had shared his views about race with her.  “He told me that he liked me as a person, but when the race war came, he would have to kill me” because, as a Sicilian, she was not “pure white.”  Baruxes was convicted of rape, and because of the racist element, he was given an aggravated sentence for committing a “hate crime.”

Mahaffy's ex-fiancée, Mike Chaney, wrote an email to the DA's office saying he thought Mahaffy had helped to falsely convict Baruxes.  It is unclear whether a rape ever took place.  Baruxes received a court finding of factual innocence after many witnesses came forward to emphasize that Mahaffy was a habitual liar and after Mahaffy recanted.  Baruxes was awarded $265,000 ($100/day) for wrongful imprisonment.  [4/07]

David Genzler was convicted of the murder of Dusty Harless, 25.  In college, Harless was an AAU National Wrestling Champion.  He worked as a wakeboard (surfboard) salesman, and was a world-class wakeboarder.  He was apparently very popular as hundreds showed up at his funeral.  After midnight one Saturday night, Harless walked with his girlfriend, Sky Flanders, to a nearby liquor store with the intention of hailing a cab.  Because it was raining, Flanders ran up ahead to get out of the rain.  Genzler was driving by and stopped his car to ask if she needed a ride or, according to some, made a lewd comment.  He was not aware that she was with Harless.  Harless went around to the driver's side of the car to talk to Genzler and an altercation ensued.  Harless ended up with a four-inch stab wound that cut his aorta, the massive artery that carries blood from the heart.  He soon bled to death.  Genzler drove off.
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With little evidence, Jane Dorotik was convicted of murdering her husband Bob.  Though physically incapable of lifting her husband, the prosecution contended she carried her husband's body long distances and lifted it into and out of a large pickup truck.

The prosecution withheld evidence from the defense that two eyewitnesses had seen Bob twelve hours after he was allegedly murdered.  These witnesses placed him near or with two Hispanic looking men at a location that was close to where his body was found.  (Justice: Denied)  [9/06]

Cynthia Sommer was convicted of murdering her husband, 23-year-old Todd Sommer.  She was alleged to have poisoned him with arsenic.  Todd was a U.S. Marine Corps sergeant and died in February 2002 after collapsing at the couple's apartment at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.  A pathologist first suggested that Todd's death was due to a heart attack.  Months later, an examination of Todd's organs found large amounts of arsenic in his liver and kidneys.  At trial in Jan. 2007 there was a lack of evidence that Cynthia bought any arsenic or poisoned Todd.  Since the science of arsenic poisoning was fuzzy, defense experts were prepared to argue that Todd died of the effects of the now-banned weight loss pill Ephedra, or a prescription drug taken for diarrhea, or a rare, undiagnosed condition.

Cynthia's mother testified that, in the days after Todd's death, Cynthia curled into a fetal position on her bed and wept.  Cynthia got a tattoo with her husband's name, birth date, date of death and the Latin words Semper Fidelis, or “always faithful,” the Marine Corps motto.

However, prosecution rebuttal witnesses testified that Cynthia used her husband's life insurance money to have her breasts enlarged, have sex with three Marines, hold raucous parties, and perform in a thong and wet T-shirt contest at a Tijuana bar, flashing her breasts.

In Dec. 2007, Cynthia's conviction was overturned due to ineffective assistance of counsel.  After the prosecution performed new tests on tissue samples taken from Todd's body, experts could find no evidence of arsenic.  Because of the new evidence, the prosecution dropped charges against Cynthia in April 2008 and she was released from prison.  She had been imprisoned for more than two years.  (www.freecynthia.com) (L.A. Times)  [8/09]

Leonard M. Kirkes, a highway patrolman, was convicted in 1950 of the 1942 murder of 20-year-old Margaret Senteney.  Her body was found on the foothills above the town of Carpinteria.  The conviction was based on circumstantial evidence including the testimony of a key witness who said she saw Senteney get into Kirkes' car on the night of her murder.  In 1953 Kirkes was retried and acquitted.  The key witness at Kirkes' first trial had been sent to a mental institution, and doctors stated that she had been mentally disturbed even before she testified.  (Conviction) (Acquittal)  [7/07]

(Federal Case)  Kenneth Krause's cellmate, Jeff Milton, at USP Lompoc, challenged corrections officer Anita Pahnke after she mouthed off outside their cell.  Milton said, “That's tough talk behind a cell door.”  Against regulations Pahnke opened the cell door, at which point Milton punched her with such force that she fell down.  Although Krause never touched Pahnke, both he and Milton were dragged out of their cell and severely beaten before being stripped and chained hand and foot to a concrete slab for a solid week.  They were not only forced to lie naked in their urine and fecal matter for the week they were chained to the slab, but they were repeatedly brutalized by several guards who punched and kicked them.

Krause was convicted of assault despite corrections officers testifying in his defense against inmate informants testifying for the prosecution.  A videotape surveillance camera recorded the assault, but Krause's defense was not allowed funds to enhance the video.  Krause was also transferred to the top federal supermax facility, USP Florence, in Colorado.  (Justice: Denied)  [12/06]