Posted on 07/10/2017 11:59:55 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Darryl Howard, who was released from prison last year after a judge overturned his convictions in the 1991 murders of a Durham woman and her teenage daughter, is suing the city of Durham and a police officer he says fabricated and suppressed evidence.
The civil suit was filed in U.S. District Court last month and names the city, four then-employees of the Durham Police Department, and a Durham fire official as defendants. The lawsuit claims the defendants violated Howard's constitutional rights and seeks compensatory and punitive damages. Durham City Attorney Patrick Baker said the city is reviewing the suit and declined to comment.
Howard, now fifty-five, was convicted of arson and second-degree murder in 1995, about four years after Doris Washington and her thirteen-year-old daughter, Nishonda, were found raped and murdered in their apartment in Durham's Few Gardens neighborhood. The prosecutor on the case, Mike Nifong, was disbarred in 2007 for his handling of the Duke lacrosse rape case.
Howard served twenty-one years in prison before DNA evidence that exonerated him and implicated another man led Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson to overturn his convictions in September 2016. That same week, Durham District Attorney Roger Echols announced he would not pursue a new trial against Howard. Throughout his incarceration, Howard maintained his innocence. click to enlarge screen_shot_2016-09-02_at_2.55.32_pm.png The suit contends that DPD investigator Darrell Dowdy "ignored and suppressed early evidence" that members of a gang known as the New York Boys had raped and murdered Washington and her daughter, "recruited" witnesses to make false statements to ensure a conviction, and gave false testimony himself. The suit also says DPD failed for four and a half years to turn over a recording of the man implicated by DNA testing following Howard's conviction making incriminating statements.
"As a direct and proximate result of Defendants unconstitutional acts and omissions, Howard was prevented from having access to evidence that would have exonerated him, was prevented from benefiting from state statutes that afforded him the right to prove his innocence, endured a wrongful extension of his wrongful incarceration, and suffered physical, emotional, and pecuniary damages," the suit says.
According to the city, Dowdy worked for the police department from 1979 to 2007. E.E. Sarvis, Michele Soucie and Scott Pennica, also named as defendants in the suit, are still employed by the department.
The case was assigned June 1 to Judges Thomas Schroeder and Joi Elizabeth Peake.
You can read the full complaint here:
North Carolina
What was the basis for overturning the conviction? New evidence is not allowed, to prevent the defense from making endless appeals based on “new evidence”. Was it procedural based on the prosecution’s misbehaviour? Just wondering.
It sounds like the defense withheld DNA, and evidence of a sexual assault on the victims.
[ Dirty cops and corrupt prosecutors should be punished severely when they are caught manufacturing evidence and lying. We don’t want convictions at all costs, we want the guilty convicted. ]
Agreed. This is not a football game.
When they knowingly suppress evidence that would exonerate, they should be arrested and have to serve, at a minimum, FOUR times the maximum that was charged. That will put an end to this nonsense real quick.
They’ve done a couple on Forensic Files (granted not the majority) where the victim was absolutely certain of the attacker. In both cases, the victim was absolutely wrong. Now in those cases, there was NOT manufactured evidence and at least one happened before DNA was widely-used.
Good Ol Durham. Big bunch of crooks. All Democrats.
I'd just like to hear what the "term of art" used by the dismissing judge was.
Happens too often. Winning and not justice is the controlling sentiment.
Howard served twenty-one years in prison before DNA evidence that exonerated him and implicated another man led Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson to overturn his convictions in September 2016.
“The suit also says DPD failed for four and a half years to turn over a recording of the man implicated by DNA testing following Howard’s conviction making incriminating statements.”
Thats not ‘new’ evidence. Its suppressed evidence.
You guys have it all wrong. Nothing is as important as the political career of a brilliant and rising prosecuting attorney. If a few innocent people get caught in the net along the way, it’s a small price to pay for the rest of us to be safe, and to benefit from what will ultimately be a brilliant political career. /bitter sarc, on the off chance that it’s needed.
Yes. Governor McCrory was leading until Durham claimed a computer issue and was allowed to stay open until 11. That gave the crooks time to get a massive number of ballots electing Cooper. As AG Cooper refused to do anything to defend NC voters on issues. Definite bunch of crooks/Democrats. Violent corrupt city.
I think what you are saying is that his conviction was thrown out because of prosecutorial misconduct. That was all I was asking. Courts are not allowed to consider “new evidence” relevant to the crime, but evidence of a mistrial or prosecutorial misconduct is certainly in play. There is a huge difference.
Yep, that’s how they see it. Folks like that are as low as Obama and Hillary.
“[ Dirty cops and corrupt prosecutors should be punished severely when they are caught manufacturing evidence and lying. We don’t want convictions at all costs, we want the guilty convicted. ]”
Someone might want to whisper these facts into the ear of the Governor of Texas. He’s sitting there allowing that festering boil on Texas’ a$$ known as the City of Whacko to continue to flaunt Texas law.
Looks like suppression of evidence big time.
Can they dig up Niphong and charge him with another felony?
ALL the cases that Nifong was involved in need to be re-examined.
Niphong was only disbarred. He should have been tried and imprisoned for a significant term of years.
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