Angola death row inmate who gave false confession released after 15 years
A Marrero man who spent 15 years on Louisiana's death row for his wrongful conviction of raping and strangling to death 14-year-old Crystal Champagne under the Huey P. Long Bridge in 1996 walked out of the Angola prison a free man Friday. (Photo by Scott Threlkeld, The Times-Picayune)
By on September 28, 2012 at 12:55 PM, updated September 28, 2012 at 1:54 PM
Thibodeaux, then a 21-year-old offshore deckhand, immediately recanted after he was fed and rested, but it was too late, his attorneys have said. He was convicted of first-degree murder by a Jefferson Parish jury and sentenced to die solely on the confession he gave then-Maj. Walter Gorman and then-Sgt. Dennis Thornton, who are now high-ranking officers in the Sheriff's Office, according to court records.
Thibodeaux's release was kept under wraps until a state judge in Jefferson Parish unsealed court records detailing the case Friday, an action timed with his being processed out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.
A press conference is planned in New Orleans this afternoon to announce and detail the exoneration.
In a joint statement, Thibodeaux's attorneys and District Attorney Paul Connick said an investigation had begun in 2007, after the defense team approached prosecutors with evidence they said showed the man was innocent. DNA testing was done, and witnesses were interviewed. Connick also consulted with Michael Welner, a nationally recognized forensic psychiatrist who concluded the confession was false.
Welner described Thibodeaux as being "of modest vulnerabilities who confessed falsely under an unremarkable police interrogation. The case illustrates how a suspect's acute guilty feelings and expression and clearly false statements in questioning can snowball with interrogators who would logically interpret these as signs of criminal responsibility."
Connick said in the statement that it is his "duty to make every effort to ensure that convictions are based on reliable evidence."
"I have concluded that the primary evidence in this case, the confession, is unreliable," Connick said. "Without the confession the conviction can't stand, and therefore in the interest of justice, it must be vacated.
"At this time, the collective thoughts are with the Champagne family, who has suffered a grievous tragedy," he said. "This case remains open and, in keeping with office policy, there will be no further comment."
In the statement, Thibodeaux said, "I'm grateful to Mr. Connick for studying my case and for his commitment to justice. I'm looking forward to life as a free man."
His defense team included Barry Scheck, co-director of The Innocence Project in New York. "There's no question that Mr. Thibodeaux has suffered terribly because of his confessing to a crime he did not commit," Scheck said.
Champagne left the Westwego apartment she shared with her little sister and parents on July 19, 1996, to walk to a local supermarket. She never returned.
The following day, Thibodeaux was being questioned by a Sheriff's Office detective in what was still a missing persons case. But just as the interview was beginning, the Sheriff's Office learned that Champagne's nude, bloodied body was found in the Mississippi River batture under the bridge, with a red wire wrapped around her neck.
Her skull had been fractured, and one of her teeth had been knocked out. She had been dead about 24 hours, according to testimony during the 1997 trial.
Thibodeaux denied knowing anything about her disappearance, and then her death, according to court records. But in a third statement he gave the detectives, he confessed, saying he and the teenager were driving around, and that "she wanted me to have sex with her," court records show.
Under the Huey P. Long Bridge, she said it hurt, and he became rough and she kicked, and he strangled her before returning to her apartment to joint in the search for her, according to his confession.
The boyfriend of a friend of Champagne's mother, then a Westwego resident who had been convicted of a sex crime, found the body while searching, court records show. Thibodeaux's appellate attorneys argued that his trial defense attorneys failed to uncover evidence that undermined that suspect's alibi, court records show.
Two women who were exercising on the river levee also told authorities they saw Thibodeaux "pacing and acting nervous." Thibodeaux's appellate attorneys said those witnesses later backed off their testimony.
His public defenders during the trial, Walter Amstutz - now an assistant district attorney in Jefferson Parish - and Cesar Vazquez, argued then that the confession was false, records show.
Prosecutors offered to let him plead guilty and receive a live sentence, but Thibodeaux refused, Vazquez said Friday. "He said, 'Mr. Vazquez, I cannot plead guilty to a crime I did not commit," Vazquez said.
"It's a great day for Damon, and it's a great day for justice," Vazquez said. "He never waivered."
Thibodeaux claimed that Thornton and Gorman provided him with details of the crime for the confession, and that he "parroted" back the information. Gorman also used hypnosis, he claimed.
When they told him a lie detector test showed deception, Thibodeaux told the detectives he had had a dream that Champagne had been strangled by a man.
In all, attorneys have said in court records, Thibodeaux arrived at the Sheriff's Office investigations bureau at 7:45 p.m., July 20, 1996. He confessed at 4:21 a.m., the following day.
During the trial, the prosecutors, Caren Morgan and Conn Regan, who is now a 24th Judicial District Court judge, argued it was a valid confession.
The state Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence, rejecting Thibodeaux's claim that he gave a false confession, records show. Justices noted that Thibodeaux did not allege his confession was coerced before the trial, and he never alleged he was beaten or forced to confess.
Since, his attorneys have argued he was psychologically vulnerable to giving a false confession, and that some details he provided did not match the evidence. For instance, he recollected during the interrogation that the wire he used to strangle Champagne was gray or black, and that he got it from his car. However, the wire was red and found at a nearby lean-to detectives found in the batture, court records show.
Other anomalies in the confession, his attorneys have said, include the lack of semen. Thibodeaux confessed he ejaculated, yet no semen was found. Thornton surmised that maggots ate it, attorneys have said in court records in recent years, in which they sought DNA testing on those maggots.
Although the scene was bloody, and Champagne's body showed signs of a struggle, no physical evidence was found linking Thibodeaux to the crime.
Court records show then-Judge Greg Guidry, now a state Supreme Court justice, granted a stay in the execution in 2001, to allow Thibodeaux's attorneys to test evidence. The case record at the 24th Judicial District Court shows no activity in the case in several years.
Thibodeaux was described during the trial as a high school drop-out at age 15, who had little to no contact with his biological dad and who was briefly abandoned by his mother.
Thibodeaux's defense team included Denise LeBoeuf and Caroline Tillman of the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana; Vanessa Potkin of The Innocence Project; and Steve Kaplan and Richard Kyle Jr., of the Fredrikson & Byron firm in Minneapolis, Minn.
Leboeuf, who represented Thibodeaux since 1998, now is director of the ACLU's Capital Punishment Project.
"The death penalty is a human rights violation in any case, for anyone," she said. "But there can be no stronger argument against capital punishment than the condemnation of a truly innocent man. The people of Louisiana should demand a moratorium on executions until they can be assured there are no more miscarriages of justice like the one that occurred in this case."
Paul Purpura can be reached at 504.826.3791 or ppurpura@nola.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment