Posted on 09/06/2009 9:55:07 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Mentally retarded suspect was coerced into confession, defense says
After serving 26 years in prison, it appears that Anthony Caravella did not rape and murder a 58-year-old woman in 1983.
A recent DNA test determined that the 41-year-old mentally retarded man with an IQ of 67 did not ejaculate his sperm into the victim.
So now Broward prosecutors are planning to ask a judge to release him under some form of supervision, according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Defense attorneys were not surprised by the findings, claiming the then-15-year-old boy was coerced into a confession. In fact, he gave five contradictory confessions before police were satisfied with their evidence.
Prosecutors were so confident he was guilty they demanded the death penalty. But the jury voted against it. The DNA found on Ada Cox Jankowski belongs to a still unidentified man. Investigators plan to run it through local and national databases to see if they find a match. This is not the first time DNA has cleared a mentally disabled man who served time in prison after questionable confessions for rapes and murders committed in South Florida.
In 1993, schizophrenic John Purvis, 52, was released from prison after serving nine years in prison after DNA cleared him of murdering a mother and her baby. In 1998, Jerry Frank Townsend, who has the mental capacity of an 8-year-old, was released from prison after serving 22 years when DNA testing proved he did not commit six murders and one rape.
And in 2000, a DNA test exonerated Frank Lee Smith, who had been sentenced to death for raping and killing an 8-year-old girl. However, he had already died of cancer in 1999 after serving 14 years on death row.
In fact, there have been many men throughout the country cleared of heinous crimes after DNA testing exonerated them, including the man who served 25 years in prison as Miami’s Bird Road Rapist.
God have mercy on their souls and mangled lives.
Horrific.
A lot of these old cases come from FloriDUH.
You think the water is FloriDUHted?
And Texas.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Thx.
There have been so many articles lately about corrupt prosecutors, I have changed my mind on the death penalty..I was for it, now I am moving away from that position...
I don’t know that the Innocence Project was involved in any of these cases, but I sure would like Ann Coulter to write a book about them. She has slammed them repeatedly and I’d like to know what they’re about.
It will open you're eyes to human fallibility. You may even be moved to send you're local chapter a few bucks.
I have often wondered if the DNA labs in these cases are above reproach. Remember the FBI lab scandal. And remember that the lab(s) were originally hired by anti=death penalty zealots who would do anything to overthrow a death penalty.
Any given lab could have a similarly unethical person employed. I HOPE the tests are completely honest.
OTOH I know that at least some prosecutors are completely corrupt, and/or stupid.
DG
DNA cannot prove innocence, only guilt.
If a woman has been raped by one man and the DNA sample taken from her at the time does not match the accused, then I would say that the DNA in that case proved the innocence of the accused.
In every trial, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution. But that does not mean that it is impossible for the evidence to prove innocence just as it is possible for the evidence to prove guilt. The jury is only charged with the task of deciding whether or not guilt has been proven. Just because proof of innocence is not required does not mean that it is not possible.
If there were 2 men,they break into a womans house and say one knocked the woman out. She never saw the 2nd man. Then the one who knocked her out raped her. Is the 2nd man not still guilty, even though he left no DNA?
THAT is my point. It can certainly be proven that he didnt rape her, cause the DNA doesnt match however, that doesnt mean he is innocent .
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