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State courts will hear W. Memphis evidence
By Jon Gambrell
Associated Press
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
LITTLE ROCK -- A wide-ranging appeal on behalf of one of three teens convicted in the 1993 slaying of three boys in West Memphis should first be heard in state courts, a federal judge has decided.
U.S. District Court Judge William R. Wilson Jr. said lawyers representing death-row inmate Damien Echols need to present new DNA tests and other evidence to state judges first.
Dennis P. Riordan, a San Francisco lawyer representing Echols, filed a 188-page brief seeking to free one of the three men known by sympathizers as the "West Memphis Three."
"After reviewing your petition and memorandum, it appears that you have not yet exhausted your state remedies," Wilson wrote in a Nov. 21 letter to lawyers in the case. "Isn't it well settled that the state courts should have an opportunity to address a petitioner's claims of constitutional error before those claims are presented to the federal court?"
Wilson said he would delay any further action in the federal case until Riordan presented the evidence to state courts. He also asked Riordan to begin filing monthly status reports on the case beginning in January.
Echols, now 32, was sentenced to death in the slayings of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. Co-defendants Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley received life sentences.
The three victims disappeared while riding bicycles in their quiet, tree-lined neighborhood May 5, 1993. Their bodies were found the next day in a watery ditch near their homes.
The state Supreme Court unanimously affirmed Baldwin and Echols' convictions in 1996, citing what it called substantial evidence of guilt.
State courts will hear W. Memphis evidence
By Jon Gambrell
Associated Press
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
LITTLE ROCK -- A wide-ranging appeal on behalf of one of three teens convicted in the 1993 slaying of three boys in West Memphis should first be heard in state courts, a federal judge has decided.
U.S. District Court Judge William R. Wilson Jr. said lawyers representing death-row inmate Damien Echols need to present new DNA tests and other evidence to state judges first.
Dennis P. Riordan, a San Francisco lawyer representing Echols, filed a 188-page brief seeking to free one of the three men known by sympathizers as the "West Memphis Three."
"After reviewing your petition and memorandum, it appears that you have not yet exhausted your state remedies," Wilson wrote in a Nov. 21 letter to lawyers in the case. "Isn't it well settled that the state courts should have an opportunity to address a petitioner's claims of constitutional error before those claims are presented to the federal court?"
Wilson said he would delay any further action in the federal case until Riordan presented the evidence to state courts. He also asked Riordan to begin filing monthly status reports on the case beginning in January.
Echols, now 32, was sentenced to death in the slayings of Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. Co-defendants Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley received life sentences.
The three victims disappeared while riding bicycles in their quiet, tree-lined neighborhood May 5, 1993. Their bodies were found the next day in a watery ditch near their homes.
The state Supreme Court unanimously affirmed Baldwin and Echols' convictions in 1996, citing what it called substantial evidence of guilt.
