THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL
NO NEW TRIAL FOR ECHOLS, JUDGE RULES
Latest legal team 'failed to prove innocence'
Published on June 19, 1999
By Bartholomew Sullivan
Death Row inmate Damien Wayne Echols was not denied effective legal counsel and questionable new evidence does not establish his innocence, a judge reviewing the case has ruled.
Echols, convicted of capital murder in the May 5, 1993 bludgeoning deaths of three West Memphis 8-year-old boys, sought a new trial on grounds of ineffective legal services after his appeals to both the Arkansas and U.S. supreme courts were rejected.
Two other suspects were given life sentences after their convictions.
Represented by a legal team that included O. J. Simpson's attorney Barry Scheck, Echols tried to establish that his trial lawyers, Val P. Price and Scott Davidson, both of Jonesboro, had failed to adequately investigate the case, lost opportunities to impeach state witnesses, and ignored critical evidence.
Circuit Judge David Burnett of Osceola, who presided at the original trial, refused to recuse himself in ruling against Echols's petition. He released his long-awaited ruling late Thursday afternoon in Jonesboro. By state law, his decision not to step aside was discretionary.
Echols's new legal team sought to establish that bite-mark evidence showed someone other than the three suspects arrested in the case was involved in the killing.
But Burnett, quoting the testimony of Dr. Harry Mincer, president of the American Board of Forensic Odontology, said the mark on one victim was not a bite mark "within a degree of reasonable medical certainty.''
"The petitioner (Echols) has failed to prove a valid claim of actual innocence or to demonstrate incompetence of counsel,'' Burnett wrote.
Many of the issues raised by the new lawyers constituted nothing more than second-guessing Price's and Davidson's trial strategy, Burnett wrote.
The heinous child murder with its hints of a satanic motivation has gained national attention following a documentary film shot, in part, during the Echols trial. Whether Echols's trial lawyers prejudiced his defense in permitting the filming was another issue raised by the new legal team. Burnett ruled that it did not.
NO NEW TRIAL FOR ECHOLS, JUDGE RULES
Latest legal team 'failed to prove innocence'
Published on June 19, 1999
By Bartholomew Sullivan
Death Row inmate Damien Wayne Echols was not denied effective legal counsel and questionable new evidence does not establish his innocence, a judge reviewing the case has ruled.
Echols, convicted of capital murder in the May 5, 1993 bludgeoning deaths of three West Memphis 8-year-old boys, sought a new trial on grounds of ineffective legal services after his appeals to both the Arkansas and U.S. supreme courts were rejected.
Two other suspects were given life sentences after their convictions.
Represented by a legal team that included O. J. Simpson's attorney Barry Scheck, Echols tried to establish that his trial lawyers, Val P. Price and Scott Davidson, both of Jonesboro, had failed to adequately investigate the case, lost opportunities to impeach state witnesses, and ignored critical evidence.
Circuit Judge David Burnett of Osceola, who presided at the original trial, refused to recuse himself in ruling against Echols's petition. He released his long-awaited ruling late Thursday afternoon in Jonesboro. By state law, his decision not to step aside was discretionary.
Echols's new legal team sought to establish that bite-mark evidence showed someone other than the three suspects arrested in the case was involved in the killing.
But Burnett, quoting the testimony of Dr. Harry Mincer, president of the American Board of Forensic Odontology, said the mark on one victim was not a bite mark "within a degree of reasonable medical certainty.''
"The petitioner (Echols) has failed to prove a valid claim of actual innocence or to demonstrate incompetence of counsel,'' Burnett wrote.
Many of the issues raised by the new lawyers constituted nothing more than second-guessing Price's and Davidson's trial strategy, Burnett wrote.
The heinous child murder with its hints of a satanic motivation has gained national attention following a documentary film shot, in part, during the Echols trial. Whether Echols's trial lawyers prejudiced his defense in permitting the filming was another issue raised by the new legal team. Burnett ruled that it did not.
