Citing extensive evidence that California death-row prisoner Kevin Cooper (pictured) may have been framed, New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof has urged Governor Jerry Brown to permit advanced DNA testing of evidence that could potentially prove Cooper's innocence. In a column electronically posted by the Times on May 17, 2018 and scheduled to appear in the paper's May 20 Sunday print edition, Kristof joins a former FBI agent, the American Bar Association, and Judge William A. Fletcher of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in calling for closer review of the case. In his column, Kristof calls Cooper's case "a failure at every level," and says that he believes Cooper was framed by the San Bernardino's sheriff's office, which had a history of planting and mishandling evidence. Cooper, who is Black, became the lead suspect in the 1983 killings of Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica Ryen, and 11-year-old neighbor Chris Hughes, in spite of statements by 8-year-old Josh Ryen, the sole survivor of the attack, who twice told investigators that three White men had committed the murders. The four victims had been stabbed or slashed a combined 140 times with an ice pick, a hatchet, and at least one knife—an assault, Kristof said, that a single perpetrator, much less the 155-pound Cooper, was unlikely to have been able to carry out. Multiple witnesses saw three White men driving a vehicle fitting the description of the Ryens' car—which had been stolen from their home—near the time of the murders. Other witnesses reported three White men in bloody clothes acting strangely at a nearby bar the night of the crime. When the car was found 30 miles away, Kristof writes, it "inconveniently had blood on the driver’s seat, the front passenger seat and the back seat—suggesting at least three killers." Cooper came under suspicion because he had escaped from a local prison, where he had been incarcerated for robbery, and had hidden in an empty house near the Ryen family's home. An initial police search of Cooper's hideout turned up no evidence, but the day after they identified him as a suspect, police "found" the sheath of a hatchet and a bloody prison-uniform button in a room they claimed—falsely, Kristof says—to have not previously searched. The hatchet itself was found in a different direction, near the path the Ryens' vehicle took the night of the murder, and the button later turned out to be a different color from the uniform Cooper had been wearing. Numerous leads pointed to an alternative suspect, a recently released convicted murderer whom Kristof identifies only as "Lee," but police destroyed key evidence—a pair of bloody coveralls given to police by Lee's girlfriend—before any testing took place. In 2004, Cooper was allowed to test a blood sample from a tan T-shirt that was found near the murder scene. The shirt was the same color, size, and brand as a T-shirt Lee's girlfriend said she had recently bought for him and that he had been wearing earlier on the day of the murders. The testing found Cooper's blood on the shirt, but his blood was contaminated with a chemical used in preserving blood samples, indicating that it had likely been planted on the shirt. The lab then tested the sample of Cooper's blood held by the sheriff's office and found multiple blood types, suggesting that Cooper's sample had been topped off with someone else's blood. Testing of other evidence, including the murder weapon and strands of hair found at the scene, could prove Cooper's claim that he is innocent. Kristof said, "[I]f we execute a man in so flawed a case without even bothering to test the evidence rigorously, then a piece of our justice system dies along with Kevin Cooper." [UPDATE: U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, who as California's Attorney General had opposed Cooper's requests for DNA testing and had initially declined to comment for the story, joined in Kristof's request for DNA testing. On May 18, she posted on Facebook: "As a firm believer in DNA testing, I hope the governor and the state will allow for such testing in the case of Kevin Cooper."]  

(Nicholas Kristof, Was Kevin Cooper Framed for Murder?, The New York Times, May 17, 2018.) See Innocence.

Texas executed Juan Castillo (pictured) on May 16, 2018, after its state courts stayed his execution to address whether his conviction and death sentence for a botched robbery and murder had been a product of false testimony, but then denied him an evidentiary hearing necessary to prove that claim. No physical evidence implicated Castillo in the murder, and he consistently asserted his innocence. To convict him, Bexar County prosecutors presented testimony from several admitted perpetrators who had been given favorable plea deals, corroborated by the testimony of prison informant, Gerardo Gutierrez, who claimed that Castillo had confessed to him. But in 2013, Gutierrez recanted, admitting in a sworn affidavit that he had lied "to try to help myself." With Castillo facing a December 2017 execution date, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted him a stay on November 28, and directed the trial court to resolve his claim that prosecutors had violated his rights by presenting false or perjured testimony from Gutierrez. Two days later, on November 30, the Bexar County District Attorney's office submitted proposed findings of fact and a proposed order to deny Castillo's petition without a hearing. The next day, on December 1, Judge Maria Teresa Herr adopted the prosecution's proposed findings and order verbatim—changing only the signature line on the order—without permitting Castillo's lawyers to submit proposed findings or to respond to the prosecution's submission. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the ruling, and with Texas prosecutors arguing that defects in the state-court process were not a basis for federal review because prisoners "ha[ve] no due process right to collateral proceedings," the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene. Castillo also asked the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Greg Abbott to stop his execution. Greg Zlotnick, who represented Castillo in his clemency proceedings, argued that the treatment of Castillo's case by the courts "had been marked by unfair and arbitrary decisions" and the courts had "rubber-stamped" the denial of Castillo's latest petition "with no regard for his opportunity to be heard." Zlotnick argued that Castillo’s trial lawyers "failed to actively investigate the case, speak with witnesses, question police, request additional evidence from law enforcement and district attorney offices, and properly plead legal claims in the courts" and that the post-conviction courts had denied without a hearing Castillo's "common-sense request for DNA testing on physical evidence that could have pointed to another perpetrator." Trial counsel's performance was so bad, Zlotnick said, that "Mr. Castillo even felt compelled to represent himself at sentencing." After the pardons board denied the clemency application, the Texas Defender Service (TDS)—which became involved in the case close to the execution date—sought a 30-day reprieve from Governor Abbott to further develop evidence in the case. In a May 15 letter to the governor, executive director Amanda Marzullo wrote that TDS had discovered additional evidence that contradicted the testimony given at Castillo’s trial, including a video of a woman telling police—contrary to her prior statements—that Castillo had never told her he was the triggerman. Abbott did not act on that request. Castillo was the eleventh person executed in the United States in 2018, and the sixth in Texas.

(Keri Blakinger, 'See y'all on the other side': San Antonio lovers' lane killer executed amid claims of innocence, Houston Chronicle, May 16, 2018; Jolie McCullough, Texas executed Juan Castillo, who said he was innocent, for 2003 San Antonio murder, Texas Tribune, May 16, 2018; Greg Zlotnik, Juan Castillo worthy of clemency by Texas board, San Antonio Express-News, May 9, 2018.) Read the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals pleadings and orders here and the U.S. Supreme Court pleadings and exhibits here. See Arbitrariness, Executions, Innocence, and Representation.