Wrongly convicted man is set free [after serving 23 years]

St. Louis Post-Dispatch ^ | 07/20/2006 | William C. Lhotka

[newgeezer]

Johnny Briscoe is a free man today, after serving 23 years for crimes the state now says he didn't commit.

Briscoe walked out of a state prison in Charleston, Mo., on Wednesday after serving part of a 45-year sentence for convictions involving a 1982 sexual attack on a woman ...

Thanks to DNA testing, authorities confirmed ... that Briscoe was innocent and that the real rapist was already in another Missouri prison.

...

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch called him ... and "apologized to him on behalf of the county, particularly for the past six years."

...

There was no DNA testing in 1983 when Briscoe was convicted. In 2000 and again in 2001, McCulloch ... asked the crime lab to look for evidence in the Briscoe case and other cases where DNA could now be applied to existing evidence.

McCulloch said his office was told the evidence had been destroyed.

... The laboratory reported that the freezer where the evidence might have been kept was searched and that the evidence - cigarette butts - had presumably been destroyed.

In 2004, the crime lab "was inventorying and cataloging everything in the lab" and found the cigarette butts in the freezer, McCulloch said, but his office didn't learn about their existence until July 6.

...

Testing of the three cigarette butts confirmed that the victim's DNA was found on all three but that the third contained DNA that matched a different man than Briscoe - one who is also in the Missouri prison system ...

[MeanWestTexan]

"Johnny Briscoe was not proved innocent, only that he didnt leave the DNA that they found."

Since only the rapist and the victim smoked at the scene, that's a pretty big clue.

[stuartcr]

Yep. Since God creates us, knowing what we are going to do even before we're born, I don't see how it could be different.

[Strategerist]

I would suspect the face of a rapist would NOT be one a woman would forget....ever

This has happened repeatedly - witness IDs made in good faith shown to be wrong.

A few things going on...

1) Time and time again it's been shown in reality and in psychological experiments that eyewitness memory is often shockingly and amazingly wrong - so bad that personally if I'm on a jury I'd have trouble taking any of it seriously.

And this is WITHOUT the eyewitness lying, being crazy, on drugs, or being stupid. Perfectly intelligent, honest, sane, sober people can be absolutely 100% sure they witnessed someone or something and be completely and totally wrong on virtually every detail. And the more traumatic or horrifying the incident is, the MORE wrong the eyewitnesses are, not less wrong.

The problem is it's been ingrained in people that eyewitness testimony (especially from victims) is important and it's accurate unless the witness is lying.

Nothing could be further from the truth. And you'll NEVER see TV shows or movies where eyewitness testimony or an ID is wrong, without the witness deliberately lying - and the average juror's understanding of law and crime comes from TV shows and movies.

2) Studies have shown that "They really DO all look alike." A serious problem in eyewitness ID of people they don't previously know is that to people of one race, people of other races all look alike - and this is true of all races relative to the others - to a group of Masai tribesmen in Kenya, a random assortment of Swedes, Greeks, Italians and Russians would all look alike and be mistaken for each other. This is a somewhat un-PC fact so it's something you won't see noted in the mainstream media much.

If you look at all these bad victim ID cases in sex assaults where some guy gets released from prison after decades, they tend to mostly be white women victims and black perps.

3) Cops will lean on witnesses to pick the guy they're suspecting as the perp. They'll present the photographs or do the lineup in an unscientific, biased manner to lead the victim to choose the "right" guy.

Also the victim feels a desperate need to pick SOMEBODY. If they're shown a lineup or a set of photographs where NONE are the perp, they still want to pick one of them.

[traditional1]

"psychological experiments that eyewitness memory is often shockingly and amazingly wrong "

Flawed science?

I think it is obvious that an "expert witness" or "pshycological expert" can be found to take any side of an issue in ANY case, and believe he is right.

The "battle of expert witness testimony" occurs everyday in the courtrooms.

The notion that police force people to pick someone out of a lineup because they WANT to close the case or they WANT to get a certain individual off the street is more like what you mentioned, where people watch too much TV/Movies where this happens.

The jury heard the evidence, made thier decision on that evidence (hopefully), and convicted on that evidence. If that is not consistent with their duty and the law, then I am misguided.

[traditional1]

"Since only the rapist and the victim smoked at the scene, that's a pretty big clue."

That assumes no one else had previously smoked in the room, or afterward, before the evidence was even collected?

[MeanWestTexan]

Well, that's what the victim said.

I've read about this attack other places.

The rapist smoked cigs with the victim (an event that is stragely common).

[PLMerite]

"Just think if we'd shot him, like lots of freepers want to do?"


Just think if *she'd* shot him at the time; then there wouldn't have been any question about his identity.

[traditional1]

Well, then it's settled:

let the smoke-nazi's rejoice, as smoking was the cause of all of this and it's those damn smokers who are to blame, too.

The only problem is: they took the WRONG smoker off the street, this time !

[Sarah]

I still don't get it, why was his DNA on 3 of the cigarettes? If he smoked there she had to know him, and know that he wasn't the rapist, otherwise it should have been easy to clear him. Did the other guy steal his used cigarettes and plant them there? and then repeat this other guys name so she would name him? This is pretty weird.

[traditional1]

"Just think if *she'd* shot him at the time; then there wouldn't have been any question about his identity."

Yes, good point!

But then, in spite of ridding the world of one of those nasty smokers, we would have some ambulance-chaser suing the raped woman in civil court to collect damages for "wrongful death"....

[Sarah]

Oh shoot, I misunderstood the victim to be him! not her.
Sorry....nevermind...

[Tulsa Ramjet]

"Assuming you aren't being sarcastic, maybe he could trade places with you."

I was. I apologize. How many more are out there.

[Tulsa Ramjet]

"I assumed (or hoped) "jk" meant "just kidding." But, I guess I could be wrong."

It does, and I was. I try and drip it as much as possible. and I failed.

[stuartcr]

The perfect solution to violent crimes. Too bad not everyone is or can be armed.

[MeanWestTexan]

You're a victim of bad writing by the reporter.

The VICTIM's DNA was on the cigs. The guy in prison's DNA was on NONE.

ANOTHER guy --- a covicted rapists, in fact --- DNA WAS on one or more of the cigs.

[Strategerist]

I still don't get it, why was his DNA on 3 of the cigarettes? If he smoked there she had to know him, and know that he wasn't the rapist, otherwise it should have been easy to clear him. Did the other guy steal his used cigarettes and plant them there? and then repeat this other guys name so she would name him? This is pretty weird.

Wow, people are still confused on this.

There was NO DNA from the guy that was released from jail on ANY of the cigarettes. Two of them had the victim's DNA, and one had the DNA of the real rapist (who turned out to be in prison on other charges.

[Strategerist]

"Expert" testimony on technical matters is a whole 'nother ball of wax - nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

The reality is that a great deal of what juries believe comes from outside experiences; they've been lead to believe eyewitness testimony and eyewitness IDs are very reliable, and if you believe the witness is not lying, then their testimony is automatically correct.

The reality is, based on scientific study, and the history of these cases, is that there should be reasonable doubt about ALL eyewitness testimony. I'd have a hard time convicting someone when that was the only or almost the only evidence.

And the academic studies showing this aren't from "hired gun" expert witnesses - just scientists interested in studying human memory.

One famous demonstration done in large psychology lecture classes is the professor hiring an actor to come in and steal something (without telling the class beforehand.) The incident happens and the students are asked to write down what the actor was wearing, what happened, etc. When they're reviewed, everyone reports wildly different clothing, appearance, sequence of events, etc, with most of them being very wrong.

Another really interesting one is plane crashes - time and time again, eyewitnesses will report crashing aircraft being on fire, when they were not (and often there is a videotape clearly showing no fire on the aircraft.) It's apparently a phenomenon where the brain inserts a false memory to make sense of viewing a traumatic experience.

[Sarah]

Thanks to you both,
I kept re-reading, and interpreting the 'victim's' DNA to be the falsly imprisoned man's.

[traditional1]

"One famous demonstration done in large psychology lecture classes is the professor hiring an actor to come in and steal something (without telling the class beforehand.) The incident happens and the students are asked to write down what the actor was wearing, what happened, etc. When they're reviewed, everyone reports wildly different clothing, appearance, sequence of events, etc, with most of them being very wrong.

I've participated in that exercise myself, and while there were wide variations of what descriptions were voiced, there were certain traits/characteristics/observations that were observed by MORE than half the group, although ALL details were not consistent to that extent. This results basically from what individuals tend to focus on, as opposed to mis-interpretation (at least in the instance of my participation).

I also participated in a "mock jury trial" for a certain widely-recognized attorney, and as a Defense Attorney, the appeal to emotion and attacks on personal basis of witnesses is the same style I saw in a 3-month-sequestered trial I was a juror on, of 5 organized crime defendants. Although in both instances, I was somehow selected as the jury Foreman, it was consistent where individuals enacted their personal biases and attempts to empathize with either a defense character or a prosecution character, and this becomes abundantly obvious in the Jury Room.

The OJ verdict, I'm sure, would have been expected by more people had they been aware of the Jury composition. Hence, Jury Experts have become nearly as critical as the Defense Attorneys themselves.

The jury system has degraded to the social-engineering-opportunity to most who serve now on juries, and it shows clearly in the civil suit verdicts.

Criminal verdicts are so un-predictable that plea bargains have become the only mechanism the Prosecutors have now to assure SOME measure of penalty can be gained, rather that to risk a rogue jury verdict and gain no measure of Justice. There's only Appeal opportunity for Defendants, which further skews the process.

[ansel12]

I don't buy that, as the Houston PD said in the 80s, it more difficult for everyone to identify blacks over whites, even blacks found it more difficult.

In bad lighting black skin absorbs light, with dark hair and dark eyes, identifying clues are less prominent.


With whites a variety of hair colors, eye colors and skin which reflects light, highlighting features and grades of skin color.

This makes it easier for victims to say, he had light blond hair, green eyes, a freckled nose, a reddish mustache, and the light skin that burns instead of tanning.