Death Row is F'd Up

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09/24/19 • 78 min

F'd Up

Death Row is F’d Up

Recap

Written by Brandi Abbott

A truck driver named Allen Ray Jenkins was found murdered in his home on April 14th 1995. He had been shot at close range with his own shotgun. Two teenage girls admitted to being in his home at the time of his murder and claimed that a man named James Alan Gell, who goes by Alan, was the murderer. The SBI Special Agent Dwight Ransom and the Chief of Police locked on to Alan pretty immediately. Witness claimed to have seen Jenkins alive after the 3rd of April, but the police needed him to have been killed on the third for reasons that will be covered in a bit, so they pretty much coerced the witnesses into changing their statements to say they were unsure of when they last saw him alive. The police arrested Alan on August 1st 1995, and he was charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, armed robbery, and conspiracy to commit robbery. The girls testified at his trial saying that he had committed the murder, and Alan was convicted and sentenced to the death penalty. Because Alan wasn’t well off financially and had received the death penalty, the state had to supply him with two public defenders. Also, a law was enacted where they had to be supplied with the entire case file, whereas that wasn’t true for pre-convictions. Defense attorneys James Comey and Mary Pollard began working Alan’s case in 2002 and found the original witness statements wherein the witnesses said they had seen Jenkins alive after April 3rd which raised a lot of red flags. They brought in Marilyn Miller to help with this case and she went to the crime scene and examined the evidence and photographs from the crime scene. The bloodstain patterns were initially analyzed by an SBI Special Agent named Dennis Honeycut who was NOT a bloodstain pattern analyst. If he had been trained in bloodstained pattern analysis, like Marilyn, he would have been able to tell that the blood stain patterns did not match up with the girls’ story about where Alan and Jenkins had been standing. They changed their story six different times, getting closer and closer to what the police needed each time. The attorneys also called a professor of entomology who was able to determine that based on the maggots in Jenkins’ body, he died on April 8th, 9th, or 10th, but definitely not April 3rd. The reason the April 3rd date was so important to the investigators was because Alan had ironclad alibis for the 4th ‘til when Jenkins’ body was found. In 2002, Alan’s conviction was vacated and he had to be retried in the murder of Alan Ray Jenkins. Alan’s defense team at the retrial included Mary and James, but also Joe Cheshire and Brad Bannon who were Kirk Turner’s defense attorneys. After another two years, Alan was acquitted of all charges on February 18th, 2004.

The death penalty has been around at least since 18th century BC. King Hammurabi had about 25 different crimes that were punishable by death, and 5th century BC Rome would carry out the death penalty by crucifixion, drowning, beating, burning alive, or impalement. England in 16th century AD incorporated more methods including hangings, beheadings, burning at the stake, and drawing and quartering. Crimes punishable by death included: treason, not confessing to a crime, and more. The first known execution in North Carolina was a Native American man in 1726, likely in the form of a public hanging. Public hangings were treated more like a party than an execution and entire families would travel to attend, possibly with a small feast prepared. By 1910, the State of NC took charge of executions, whereas before, they were handled locally. There seemed to be a need for consistency and a more humane method, so the state decided that the electric chair would be less painful than hangings, and then in the 1930s replaced the electric chair with the gas chamber. In 1972, the US Supreme Court ruled the death penalty as cruel and unusual punishment and ruled that the jury would be able to use their discretion when imposing the death penalty. North Carolina enacted a law in response that certain crimes would be mandatory for certain crimes - which led to 120 condemned inmates. Four years after that, the US Supreme Court overturned the mandatory death penalty laws and those 120 condemned inmates had their sentences vacated, commuted, or were re-sentenced to life in prison. By 1977 in NC, the death penalty was reintroduced for first-degree murder. The 80s and 90s were a time recognized as “tough on crime” across the entire US and harsher punishments were handed out more freely. Between the years of 1984 and 2006, 43 people were executed in North Carolina. On October 29th, 1988, North Carolina officially made lethal injection the soul method of execution.

Alan Gell’s removal from death row and ultimate acquittal warranted a review of how death penalty cases were pursued by law enforcement. They should have taken the death penalty...

Death Row is F’d Up

Recap

Written by Brandi Abbott

Alan Gell’s removal from death row and ultimate acquittal warranted a review of how death penalty cases were pursued by law enforcement. They should have taken the death penalty...

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The Cost is F'd Up - Part Two

The Cost is F’d Up Part Two

Recap

Written by Brandi Abbott

On August 10th, 1984 the body of a woman who had been sexually assaulted and stabbed to death was found. A witness stated that he had seen the victim with a black man named Darryl Hunt the morning before she had been murdered. Another witness claimed they had seen her with another man who couldn’t have done it but then changed their statement to say they had seen her with Darryl after being pressed by the police. Darryl’s girlfriend was arrested for outstanding charges against her, but was most likely arrested so the police could get more information on Darryl. She told them that he had confessed to her that he had murdered the victim. Darryl maintained his innocence, but was tried for first degree murder. Many of the witnesses testified that he had either been seen with the victim or covered in blood, but he testified that he didn’t even know the victim. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. It’s possible that his jury was completely white but there are conflicting reports. One holdout on the jury prevented him from being sentenced to death.

When Darryl was convicted, the black community was upset to say the least. The black community thought he was innocent, whereas the white community thought he was guilty. The case was extremely racially charged, even in prison because the victim was a young successful white woman. Darryl told Larry that he was a target for the skinheads. After five years in prison, Darryl’s conviction was overturned because it was revealed that the prosecutors presented Darryl’s ex-girlfriend’s statement, which she had recanted even before the trial. He was released on bond while he awaited a new trial and was offered a plea deal that if he just pled guilty he could have time served and not spend another day in prison. As he was innocent, he refused.

Darryl was retried in front of all of all-white jury and, as well as the original witnesses, some jailhouse informants showed up to testify. Darryl was convicted for a second time and sentenced to life in prison. During all of this, the SBI had compiled a report that was thousands of pages long, but the trial court opted to not review it and the judge ordered it sealed so that no one would be able to read it. All requests from Darryl’s attorneys, Mark Rabil and Ben Dowling-Sendor, to get the report unsealed were denied. The attorneys requested DNA testing on a semen sample found on the victim because Ben found out that the SBI had more evidence than they were saying, including this sample. Prior to this, the SBI complained that the sample was too degraded to test. Darryl’s attorneys argued that there was witness tampering and evidence that the SBI was clearly concealing. The judge disagreed that there was anything shady going on, but allowed for testing of the semen sample.

In October of 1994, the test results came back and Darryl was not a match to the sample. The victim’s mother begged for there not to be a third trial as she had already been through it twice. The judge refused to exonerate Darryl, saying the case was only somewhat weakened by this evidence, and believed that Darryl could still be guilty. Darryl’s attorneys appealed many times but were continuously denied.

In February of 2003, Darryl was still in prison even though it had been 19 years since he was convicted and 10 years since he proved his innocence. Darryl’s attorneys requested that the semen sample be run through the state database and it got a match. The match was for a man named Willard Brown who confessed to the crime. He was allegedly in prison at the time of the murder, but according to the movie “The Trials of Darryl Hunt”, Mark Rabil found out he had been released prior to the murder. Mark also discovered that there may have been another victim who survived and the police may have coerced her into not pressing charges against Brown for some unknown reason and destroyed evidence of this crime. The DA tried to delay Darryl’s release because they were sure they had their man. However, with overwhelming evidence that he was innocent, Darryl was released from prison on December 24th, 2003. He had to go before a judge six weeks later and prove his innocence again, and Darryl Hunt was finally exonerated in 2004. He received a state payment of $300,000, and, when he sued the city of Winston-Salem, received a settlement of over 1.6 million dollars.

Every case F’d Up has covered has been settled which Jess says protects the system and prevents it from having to admit culpability. The Innocence Project and Center on Actual Innocence makes a difference by showing law enforcement and the public that there are people in prison who are actually innocent, which will go a long way towards helping these injustices. Prosecutors will sometimes do press conferences saying they just didn’t have enough evidence which places doubt in the public’s eye about the...

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Acronyms are F'd Up - part one

Acronyms are F’d Up Pt. 1

Recap

Written by Brandi Abbott

In 1992, George Goode was at his home with his brother Chris and friend Eugene DeCastro. The landlord, Leon Batton, came by for rent and a verbal fight broke out outside between Chris, Eugene, and Leon. George was still in his trailer. The argument escalated really quickly - to the point that Chris and Eugene attacked Leon physically and ultimately stabbed him to death. Leon’s wife, Margaret, got a call that someone was attacking her husband and she rushed over – Chris and Eugene turned their attention to her and inexplicably killed this poor woman as well. George who had remained inside for the entire altercation was in shock and terrified but Chris and Eugene snapped him out of it and all three men fled. For whatever reason, Chris handed Leon’s wallet to George at some point - so evidently they had robbed him as well. George was arrested very quickly, shortly followed by his brother, and Eugene the next day. As they had no time to pop home and take a shower or anything, Chris and Eugene were still covered in blood when they were picked up. George had absolutely no blood on him; and the SBI Crime Lab at the time even verified this, but a knife was found near where he was arrested and he had Leon’s wallet and somehow he was charged with murder. George’s trial began in 1993 when Duane Deaver was a young up and comer, and he testified at the trial that there was “invisible blood” on George’s boots. No one asked if this was his initial test or confirmatory test, because at that time, no one knew to ask. No one asked about the coveralls George was wearing which had been tested by a different analyst and received negative results because the defense didn’t have access to the files. George and Eugene were sentenced to the death penalty, whereas Chris received life in prison, but as he was actually covered in blood, we aren’t sure why he received a lighter sentence.

Diane Savage, who has been mentioned a few times so far in the podcast, was born and raised in New York and a bit of a troublemaker. She was kicked out of her family home at a very young age, but she was scrappy and got a job in a lab to provide for herself. After a few years of working there, the lab workers decided to unionize and she helped them. She also helped with community organizing. Stuff like this was what she really enjoyed and wanted to continue helping others. She decided law school was the way to go, and got in to Georgetown. During her time in Washington D.C., she met her now husband who received a job opportunity in North Carolina, so they relocated. When she first arrived in NC, she was told by a local that she had “three marks against her”. 1. That she was a Yankee, 2. That she went to a fancy school and, 3. That she was a woman.

Diane’s first case as an attorney in North Carolina was George’s appeal. As we learned in the last episode, if you’re sentenced to death row, you’re appointed two defense attorneys. He got Diane and Lisa Williams. As Diane was reading through the case file, she noticed that there wasn’t a record of confirmatory tests. She had hired forensic expert, Marilyn Miller, and also had her lab background – and both women found the lack of secondary tests concerning. Note: This case was Marilyn’s first experience with Deaver and his shitty science.

Phenolphthalein was the presumptive test that was used to confirm the alleged blood on George’s clothes. At the trial Diane questioned Deaver about his confirmatory tests, which were standard operating procedure in the SBI lab (even if reporting them was not), and Deaver claimed he didn’t do one. As evidenced throughout the podcast and in the Audit report, he always did a confirmatory test - so this was weird.

The judge in this case didn’t like that Diane Savage was “living up to her last name”, according to Priya, and the DA didn’t like the way she was treating Deaver. According to Diane, Judge Jenkins told her that she engaged in character assassination and maligned elected public officials. He also told her that if she were correct about Duane Deaver, a grand jury should be convened and people prosecuted for perjury. Diane said that the judge struck the pleading over what she said about Deaver and she would have to start over again. He also took what’s called judicial notice to basically declare as “fact” that Duane Deaver was great. To further prove his point, he reported Diane to the state bar for discipline. She was investigated and removed from her cases.Thankfully, she was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing. Priya pointed out that this was in 1997 and if people had listened to Diane then, they may have been able to shave 13 years off of a lot of people’s sentences and maybe even saved some lives (see: Death Row is F’d Up).

ASCLD LAB was the only agency that had accredited the SBI Crime Lab as of 2010, and as the News and Observer stated, had missed ...