Posted on 03/30/2010 2:01:45 AM PDT by nickcarraway
A convicted killer from Newport News is hoping a Polaroid picture will prove his innocence.
Defense lawyers say the picture was kept secret from them until recently. And it shows something that might have shaken up Newport News' murder case against David Wayne Boyce.
It shows a haircut.
Lawyers working with the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project say a murder suspect in the 1990 slashing of a Newport News motel guest had shoulder length hair. And at Boyce's trial a year later, a police official testified Boyce also had long hair.
But this police Polaroid, taken by detectives on the day of the killing, shows clearly Boyce did not. To Boyce's new lawyers, it is a key piece of evidence among their hundreds of pounds of documents packed into boxes so numerous it took a small army of assistants to get them out of the building.
Although the crime and conviction happened in Newport News, Boyce was brought to a Norfolk court today, 20 years older and far grayer than he was in that picture snapped in a Peninsula police interview room. His new lawyers are demanding that he be set free, and they're tossing about damning accusations like "perjured testimony" and "prosecutorial misconduct."
Boyce's first defense attorney, now state Sen. Thomas Norment, said prosecutors assured him in 1991 they'd shown him all the evidence that could prove Boyce innocent.
But Norment said the picture wasn't in the file. And, he testified, several other documents that would've made a difference in the defense, never made it to him.
David Walters, Boyce's new lawyer, says he and others have been asking for this picture for years, and were repeatedly told it didn't exist. He said he was incredulous that the police only recently found this picture.
"It's somewhat surprising and shocking that documents have showed up," said Walters.
Also in court today were family members of Kurt Askew, the man murdered at the motel. They declined to speak on camera, but said every of of Boyce's appeals the past 20 years, including this one, have been a waste of taxpayer money. They remain convinced the jury got it right all those years ago.
Walters is not convinced. He wants to convince Norfolk Circuit Judge John Doyle to set Boyce free this week, or at the very least, order a new trial.
Walters said, "He remains hopeful and his faith in God is such that this will be worked out in the proper way and the truth will come out."
What evidence did they have that he was guilty?
If they had hard evidence the picture is less important, but never should have been hidden or “lost”.
If there is not actual hard evidence the picture is very important.
Right there is some chance his hair could have been cut between the time the crime was committed and when he was picked up. Certainly someone who committed such a crime had an incentive to change how they looked.
Still the failure to hand over the picture is outrageous. I agree the pricture is more important if the did not have strong evidence that the imprisoned person committed this crime or if the case was circumstantial if they did not have evidence that he cut his hair after the crime.
How is that photo exculpatory evidence?
Does some barber claim to have cut his hair before the murder?
.
Beware 21 years!!
What did he have in his drivers license picture, if he had one.
Still, I could grab a cup of coffee right now with my long hair, go in the bathroom, cut, dye it and finish my coffee.
I had long hair when I got my coffee, it was short and a different color when I finished my cup.
But yeah, evidence shouldn’t ever be hidden.
How do you figure the failure to turn over a booking photograph is "outrageous"? Sounds more like the defense seeking a pretext to me. The police obviously had other reasons to arrest him, and if the question of his change in hairstyle had been an issue they could have canvassed barber shops in the area. Hell, the fact he got such a haircut would have been incriminating, under the circumstances.
Notice his lawyer never said that he did not have access to witness statements and depositions. I think this is another guy trying to cheat justice via obfuscation. (The Saco and Vanzetti case is the template.) Or as the Innocence Project would say, he was "wrongly convicted".
Sounds like the cops were more interested in getting a conviction than in convicting the right person.
Because the defense is supposed to have all the evidence the prosecution has. Sometimes prosecutors pick and choose what they hand over in order to get that conviction.
If the police and the prosecutor had done their job this wouldnt be an issue.
Well of course he could have gotten a quick haircut, but that the Prosecutor hid the picture makes it near impossible to prove either way now.
Dumb Dumb move on the part of the state. If anything, the picture could have been dealt with then, but now it just creates doubt.
Guilty.
look at the photo. He had short hair and it doesn’t look like a fresh cut. if you were looking for a perp with long hair this would not be your guy. apparently the photo is not the only piece of withheld evidence. i’m not saying theguy is innocent but this is serious misconduct.
You have done nothing to persuade me that this isn't just one more instance of the murder groupies like the “Innocence” project resorting to obfuscation to spring on the objects of their perverse fascination. The ulitmate hope of a convicted murderer is the work of journalist and lawyer groupies aided and abetted by a nitwit judge.
“the defense could not possibly have been unaware of its existence. “
well if you read the article it says they requested the photo but were told it did not exist.
“You have done nothing to persuade me that this isn’t just one more instance of the murder groupies like the “Innocence” project resorting to obfuscation to spring on the objects of their perverse fascination.”
Thats not surprising since I haven’t tried. For me the justice system is important. When cops and prosecutors do a crappy job they should be fired.
Niphong was an exception in that he had to pay for some of his misdeeds
as long a lawyers make the law nothing will change
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An "eye-witness" is usually the LEAST reliable evidence.
There are many cases where positively ID'ed suspects were convicted and, later, another NEARLY IDENTICAL LOOKING criminal was identified as the culprit. There's more evidence in this case, no doubt. Maybe DNA?
Good points, we don’t know what the evidence was or whether this guy really did it. We do know that the prosecution withheld evidence that may have resulted in the conviction of an innocent person. The action of withholding that evidence may also result in a guilty person being released on a technicality.
I think it happens more often than we’d like to believe.
There is no way that I’d ever talk to the police without an attorney. You do NOT have to be guilty to go to prison.
I found this posted on FR a while back. A discussion by a law professor on why you shouldn’t ever talk to cops.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8z7NC5sgik
Why do you think that people involved in The Innocence Project are murder groupies?
To my knowledge they’ve been primarily involved in overturning convictions made prior to readily available DNA testing and IMO that’s a good deed.
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