Echols takes case to Arkansas Supreme Court

Twice-convicted killer requests modern DNA techniques be used on evidence

By DON WILBURN

donaldfwilburn@gmail.com

Damien Echols, known as one of the “West Memphis Three,” is taking his case to the state’s highest court, the seven member Arkansas Supreme Court, as his lawyers make use of every means possible to have modern DNA testing techniques used on the evidence from the 1993 triple murder to once and for all prove his innocence. The speci_c evidence in question being the knots and ligatures used to tie up the young victims in the grisly murder that shocked West Memphis and surrounding communities for decades.

In June of 2022, Circuit Court Judge Tanya Alexander denied Echols’ request citing that he did not have the right to forensic evidence if he was not currently incarcerated. Echols along with Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin who were also convicted of the murders in 1993 were released in 2011 after pleading guilty but have since always maintained their innocence.

From a release from Echols’ attorneys: (Little Rock, Arkansas- Jan 9, 2023) Damien Echols today _led an appeal to the Arkansas Supreme Court asking it to reverse a decision by the Circuit Court for Crittenden County to dismiss his petition to use new technology to test certain evidence in the case for DNA results which might establish his innocence and identify the

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real killer(s). Echols’ petition was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. His appeal asks the Supreme Court to reverse that procedural determination and to remand the case back to the Circuit Court for a full hearing on the merits of Echols’ request for this new scientific testing.

In June 2022, Judge Tonya Alexander in West Memphis, AR, ruled Echols did not have the right to test forensic evidence as he was not currently incarcerated. Although the DNA Act 1780 nowhere mentions imprisonment as a condition for relief, the circuit judge noted that the statute is included within the Habeas Corpus Chapter of the Arkansas Code and that habeas relief can only be sought by one who is wrongfully imprisoned. Thus, the court concluded that it had no power to order the conducting of state-of -the- art DNA testing on the evidence in the murder of three children in 1993. The Arkansas’ DNA statute clearly states,, “Except when direct appeal is available, a person convicted of a crime may make a motion for the performance of fingerprinting, forensic deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing, or other tests which may become available through advances in technology to demonstrate the person’s actual innocence. Ark Code Section 16-112-202 Stephen Braga of Bracewell LLP, Echols’ attorney, writes, “Under the circuit court’s interpretation, innocent individuals wrongfully convicted of crimes in Arkansas with new DNA technology available that might exonerate them cannot use the Arkansas courts to access that DNA testing unless they are in prison. Innocent individuals wrongfully convicted who either completed service of their sentences or avoided sentences of imprisonment in the first place are left wholly without a remedy. They may be innocent, but in the eyes of the Arkansas criminal justice system they are ‘forever damned.’” According to the brief, “Innocence is a state of being. It is not a state of location, in prison or not. One is either “free from guilt” or not. There is no in between. It is a binary determination. Why would anyone not want to encourage that determination to be made? Arkansas is “a sovereignty whose obligation to govern impartially is as compelling as its obligation to govern at all, and whose interest, therefore, in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done . . . . guilt shall not escape, or innocence suffer.”

Damien Echols said, “Although I was released from death row, and Jason and Jesse were freed from their life sentences, we have never been free. We are convicted of murdering three children and, although we were allowed to maintain our innocence in the Alford Plea deal, we were never truly free, never declared innocent by the court, and the real killer (s) have never been brought to justice. I ask the Judges on the Arkansas Supreme Court, allow us to conduct state of the art DNA testing that might help identify those responsible for this heinous act, and hopefully exonerate the West Memphis 3.”

Jason Baldwin said, “This is a great opportunity for West Memphis, the State of Arkansas, Pam Hicks, The Byers Family and The Moore Family to have definitive proof of who murdered Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Stevie Branch. Justice demands all avenues be pursued to identify the murderer(s). From the beginning Jessie, Damien and Jason have cooperated to the best of their ability in the investigations of these murders not limited to providing DNA samples to the WMPD for comparison pre-trial. Pam Hicks and many others also cooperated in this fashion. We have all cooperated so that the identity of the murderer( s) be discovered.”

M-Vac DNA testing technology has been used or is currently being utilized in several Arkansas cases, including for the Craighead County Sheriff’s office and the Marion, AR Police Department.

The prosecutor has 30 days to respond to the Echols brief, upon which Echols can supply additional comments.