Echols' Attorneys File New Motion Claiming Wrongful Conviction In 'West Memphis Three' Case

"DNA Tests and Other Scientific Evidence Prove Damien Echols Was Wrongfully Convicted in 1993 West Memphis Murders, Federal Court Filing Says.

Federal filing says Echols, on death row in Arkansas, must get new trial or be released, citing multiple DNA tests, analysis from several of the nation's leading forensic experts and other substantial evidence."

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"The evidence in today's filing includes:

* DNA test results that fail to link Echols or the other defendants to the crime scene; in light of the prosecution claim that Echols sodomized the victims, the lack of his DNA at the crime scene is exculpatory itself.

* DNA test results showing that a hair found in the ligature of one of the victims matches Terry Hobbs, the step-father of another one of the victims.

* DNA test results showing foreign DNA - from someone other than Echols or the two other men who were convicted - on the penises of two of the victims.

* DNA test results matching a hair at the crime scene to a man who was with Terry Hobbs on the day of the crimes. This places Hobbs at the scene of the crime, since it refutes any theory that the Hobbs hair (found in the ligature of one of the victims) was there before the crime.

* Scientific analysis from some of the nation's leading forensics experts, stating that wounds on the victims' bodies were caused by animals at the crime scene - not by knives used by the perpetrators, as the prosecution claimed. These wounds were the centerpiece of the prosecution's case, and evidence was presented that a knife recovered from a lake near one defendant's home caused the wounds. The conclusive expert analysis showing that animals caused the wounds after the victims died also completely undercuts the testimony of a jailhouse informant (who testified about Echols using a knife to cause the wounds) and a discredited "expert" who testified that the knife wounds were part of a Satanic ritual.

* Sworn affidavits outlining new evidence uncovered by Pam Hobbs (the ex-wife of Terry Hobbs) who found a knife in Terry Hobbs' drawer that her son (one of the victims) had carried with him at all times. After her son was killed, the knife was not among his personal effects that police gave to the Hobbs families, and Pam Hobbs always assumed that her son's murderer had taken it during the crime.

* New information implicating Terry Hobbs - including his own

statements to police in recent interviews where he acknowledged that several of his relatives suspect him in the crime. The filing also includes a chronology of Hobbs' activities on the night of the crimes, when he washed his clothes for no reason other than to hide evidence from the crimes.

* A sworn affidavit that refutes hearsay evidence from Echols' trial. The mother of one of two girls who testified that they overheard Echols admit to the crime at a softball game now says that Echols' statement was not serious and that neither she nor her daughter believes he committed the crime."


http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=41551



I don't know if any of you follow this tragedy of justice, but this is one hell of a breakthrough in the case.

Edited to add, John Mark Byers has come out as a supporter of the West Memphis Three.

that is amazing really

truly amazing

:shrug:

:woohoo:

:woohoo:

In case any one else is interested.