I don't know how to begin to help this guy - the AZ Justice Project apparently hasn't decided to pick up his case - at least, not yet. If you have any ideas or wish to spend some time helping Eddie get a reasonably fair shake, please drop Peggy Plews a note at arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com...
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Now for the good news about Debra Milke...
from CNN.com:
Arizona woman's murder conviction, death sentence overturned
updated 7:27 PM EDT, Thu March 14, 2013
(CNN) -- After 22 years on death row, Debra Milke is close to freedom.
A jury convicted the
Arizona woman, now 49, of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, child
abuse and kidnapping on October 12, 1990, less than a year after her
4-year-old son was found dead.
A judge sentenced her to death a few months later.
But those convictions and
the related sentence were tossed out Thursday by a federal appeals
court judge. In explaining his decision, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of
the federal 9th Circuit Court of Appeals chided the prosecution for
remaining "unconstitutionally silent" on the "history of misconduct" of
its key witness, a Phoenix police detective.
"The Constitution requires a fair trial," Kozinski wrote. "This never happened in Milke's case."
A day after seeing Santa
Claus at a mall, young Christopher Milke asked his mother if he could go
again. That was the plan, she said, when the boy got into the car with Milke's roommate, James Styers.
Styers picked up a friend,
"but instead of heading to the mall, the two men drove the boy out of
town to a secluded ravine, where Styers shot Christoper three times in
the head," according to Kozinski's summary of the case. Styers was
convicted of first-degree murder in the boy's killing and sentenced to
death.
The detective, Armando
Saldate, said the friend told him that Debra Milke was involved in a
plot to kill her son. But neither the friend nor Styers testified to
that assertion in court.
In fact, "no other witnesses or direct evidence (linked) Milke to the crime" other than Saldate's testimony.
"The trial was, essentially, a swearing contest between Milke and ... Saldate," said Kozinski.
The detective testified he "didn't buy"
Milke's reaction after he informed her that her son was dead. After
that, Saldate said he placed Milke under arrest. In a subsequent
interrogation, she confessed that her role in the murder conspiracy was a
"bad judgment call," the detective said.
But Milke offered a vastly different view of the interrogation and denied that she had confessed to any role in a murder plot.
There was no recording
of the interrogation, no one else was in the room or watching from a
two-way mirror, and Saldate said he threw away his notes shortly after
completing his report.
"The judge and jury
believed Saldate," said Kozinski of the verdict and sentence. "But they
didn't know about Saldate's long history of lying under oath and other
misconduct."
Specifically, the judge
noted that the detective had been suspended five days for taking
"liberties" with a female motorist and lying about it to his
supervisors; that judges had tossed out four confessions or indictments
because Saldate had lied under oath; and that judges suppressed or
vacated four confessions because Saldate had violated a person's constitutional rights.
"The state knew of the
evidence in the personnel file and had an obligation to produce the
documents," Kozinski said. "... There can be no doubt that the state
failed in its constitutional obligation."
The judge ordered "the state" to turn over Saldate's personnel records
to Milke's lawyers, after which "a police official" must state under
oath that everything has been disclosed and nothing has been "omitted,
lost or destroyed."
Once this is done, a
district court must order Milke's release unless prosecutors tell the
court within 30 days that they plan to retry her soon.
"In the balance hangs the life of Milke," Kozinski said, explaining the importance of his decision to overturn her convictions.
