Sources say, perhaps The West Memphis Three (Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelley and Jason Baldwin) could be free by FRIDAY as sources state a deal has been struck. Echols, Baldwin, Misskelley were convicted in the 1993 murders of the three West Memphis Arkansas boys. "The West Memphis Three" maintained thier innocence citing lack of evidence and a biased anti metal, anti Wiccan jury and courtroom.
EDITORS NOTE: Thanks to Dan Stidham whom has worked the West Memphis Three case since 1993. Best news all day, and we all worked together to bring awareness regarding the WEST MEMPHIS THREE case.. Please, all try to meditate, remember the three young boys Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Stevie Branch, and wish peace and stability to Jessie Misskelley, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols as Echols sits on death row. The HBO documentaries PARADISE LOST: THE CHILD MURDERS AT ROBIN HOOD HILLS and PARADISE LOST 2 REVALATIONS (Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky) have to be two of the most disturbing documentaries ever, it's pretty disturbing, very disturbing, please catch the real killers.
"It's not an insane strategy decision," Levine said. But, she added: "It's incredibly troubling to us as a free society that people would plead guilty to something that they actually did not do."
A conference in the judge's chambers is set for 10:00 a.m. with a public hearing to follow at approximately 11:00 a.m.
FROM CRIME INSIDERS CBS:
CBS/WREG/AP) LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - An agreement has been reached to release two of the "West Memphis 3" -- three men convicted in the 1993 killings of three 8-year-old Cub Scouts in West Memphis -- CBS News affiliate WREG Memphis has learned. The three men were reportedly scheduled to be in court this Friday.
"A Cry for Innocence": Johnny Depp and the full story of the "West Memphis Three"
Sources, including a father of one of the victims, have confirmed the news, according to the report.
Steve Branch, father of victim Stevie Branch, told WREG that Damien Echols will be one of the men released. "There's supposed to be a gag order on this but they're not going to gag me. They can put me in jail if they want to. I'll go to jail to stand up for my son's rights."
The three convicted men will admit guilt to the crime, and two will be released with time served, say sources.
Craighead County Circuit Judge David Laser's office on Thursday said Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin will be in court Friday for a surprise hearing. A gag order issued by Laser in April prohibits attorneys from talking to reporters.
All three men were convicted in 1994 of killing Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore and leaving their bodies in a water-filled ditch in West Memphis. Prosecutors say the three men killed the boys as part of a satanic ritual. Echols was sentenced to death while Misskelley and Baldwin received life sentences, reports CBS affiliate KTHV.
Each of the men have asked for a new trial on the grounds that DNA evidence exonerates them, reports the station.
To date, none of the DNA gathered in the case has matched any of the defendants. That is in addition to the potential jury misconduct that prompted the Arkansas Supreme Court to order a new evidentiary hearing for December to decide if the three men will get new trials.
Until now, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel's office has stood by the convictions and fought against new proceedings. Because of the gag order, the attorney general's office cannot comment on this latest development.
A conference in the judge's chambers is set for 10:00 a.m. with a public hearing to follow at approximately 11:00 a.m.
We all also wish for justice for the victims and the real killers (s) will be found. This next week will be a BIG news week for the West Memphis Three.
FROM CNN.COM:
All three of the men -- Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin, dubbed the "West Memphis Three" -- are expected to attend the hearing in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Friday.
A source close to the case said a deal is in the works where the men can be freed Friday and maintain their innocence.
The deal involves a complicated legal maneuver in which the three men would have to acknowledge that the state has evidence it could use to try and convict them.
The case has drawn national attention, with actor Johnny Depp and singer Eddie Vedder trying to rally support for the men's release.
Presumed guilty: Murder in West Memphis Singers want 'West Memphis 3' released
Echols was sentenced to death and Misskelley and Baldwin were given life sentences in the May 1993 slayings of second-graders Steven Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers. The boys' bodies were mutilated and left in a ditch, hogtied with their own shoelaces.
Prosecutors argued that the men convicted, teenagers at the time, were driven by satanic ritual and that Echols had been the ringleader.
DNA later failed to link the men to the crime, and the state Supreme Court ruled in November that all three could present new evidence to the trial court in an effort to clear them.
The DNA tests were conducted between December 2005 and September 2007, according to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
The material included hair from a ligature used to bind Moore and a hair recovered from a tree stump near where the bodies were found, court documents said.
The hair found in the ligature was consistent with Branch's stepfather, Terry Hobbs, while the hair found on the tree stump was consistent with the DNA of a friend of Hobbs', according to the documents.
Police have never considered Hobbs a suspect, and he maintains that he had nothing to do with the murders.
FROM WM3.ORG:
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Three men imprisoned since 1994 for the brutal murders of three 8-year-old boys in eastern Arkansas could be released from custody as early as Friday if a deal with prosecutors goes as planned, victims’ relatives and a person familiar with the case told The Associated Press.
A tentative deal would include a legal maneuver allowing the men to maintain their innocence claim while admitting that prosecutors likely have enough evidence to win a conviction, the person familiar with the case said. That person spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a gag order barring parties in the case from speaking publicly about it.
“It’s a highly technical way to put an end to judicial proceedings in the case,” the person told the AP.
Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin were convicted in 1994 of killing Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore a year earlier and leaving their naked bodies in a ditch in West Memphis, Ark. Echols was sentenced to death. Misskelley and Baldwin were ordered to spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Defense attorneys, along with celebrities and legal experts, have long said the men were wrongly convicted. The three men, known to supporters as the West Memphis Three, won new hearings from the Arkansas Supreme Court in November, more than 15 years after they went to prison despite little physical evidence linking them to the crime scene. Their attorneys point to new DNA evidence that they say should help exonerate the three men.
The support for the West Memphis Three reaches some of the victims’ relatives who have questioned whether the right people were behind bars.
Byers’ adoptive father, John Mark Byers, said he believes Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley are innocent. He said prosecutors told him that they planned to reach a no-contest plea on Thursday.
“There’s certainly no justice for the three men that’s been in prison or my son and his two friends,” Byers said. “To me, this is just a cop-out from the state for not wanting to admit that they made a mistake.”
Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington declined to comment, as did defense attorneys and a spokesman for the state’s attorney general. They all cited a gag order issued by the judge overseeing the case.
Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were slated to appear in court for an evidentiary hearing in December. But on Thursday, Craighead County Circuit Judge David Laser announced that the men would be in court on Friday. He declined to release any further details about the hearing.
But the person familiar with the case said that the earlier verdicts would likely be set aside in order to go ahead with the tentative agreement. In what’s called an Alford plea, they would agree that prosecutors have a solid amount of evidence against them — likely enough to win a conviction.
Normally, when defendants plead guilty in criminal cases, they admit that they’ve done the crime in question. But in an Alford plea, defendants are allowed to insist they’re innocent, says Kay Levine, a former prosecutor who now teaches criminal law and criminal procedure at Emory University in Atlanta. She is not involved with the Arkansas case.
“It’s not an insane strategy decision,” Levine said. But, she added: “It’s incredibly troubling to us as a free society that people would plead guilty to something that they actually did not do.”
Some judges find the legal maneuver offense, Levine says, because they see no reason someone would not contest to a crime that they didn’t commit. But most prosecutors would take the agreement, she said.
“The prosecutors still get the deal that they have already struck,” she said.
Department of Correction spokeswoman Dina Tyler said the men were transferred from Arkansas prisons, along with their possessions, on Thursday, ahead of Friday’s hearing in Jonesboro. They’re being held in a county jail there until their court appearance.
FROM CNN.COM: Ark: - Three men imprisoned for nearly two decades for the brutal murders of three 8-year-old boys in eastern Arkansas could be released from custody as early as Friday if a deal with prosecutors goes as planned, victims' relatives and a person familiar with the case told The Associated Press.
A tentative deal would include a legal maneuver allowing the men to maintain their innocence claim while admitting that prosecutors likely have enough evidence to win a conviction, the person familiar with the case said. That person spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a gag order barring parties in the case from speaking publicly about it.
"It's a highly technical way to put an end to judicial proceedings in the case," the person told the AP.
Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin were convicted in 1994 of killing Steve Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore a year earlier and leaving their naked bodies in a ditch in West Memphis, Ark. Echols was sentenced to death. Misskelley and Baldwin were ordered to spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Defense attorneys, along with celebrities and legal experts, have long said the men were wrongly convicted. The three men, known to supporters as the West Memphis Three, won new hearings from the Arkansas Supreme Court in November, more than 15 years after they went to prison despite little physical evidence linking them to the crime scene. Their attorneys point to new DNA evidence that they say should help exonerate the three men.
The support for the West Memphis Three reaches some of the victims' relatives who have questioned whether the right people were behind bars.
Byers' adoptive father, John Mark Byers, said he believes Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley are innocent. He said prosecutors told him that they planned to reach a no-contest plea on Thursday.
"There's certainly no justice for the three men that's been in prison or my son and his two friends," Byers said. "To me, this is just a cop-out from the state for not wanting to admit that they made a mistake."
Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington declined to comment, as did defense attorneys and a spokesman for the state's attorney general. They all cited a gag order issued by the judge overseeing the case.
Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley were slated to appear in court for an evidentiary hearing in December. But on Thursday, Craighead County Circuit Judge David Laser announced that the men would be in court on Friday. He declined to release any further details about the hearing.
But the person familiar with the case said that the earlier verdicts would likely be set aside in order to go ahead with the tentative agreement. In what's called an Alford plea, they would agree that prosecutors have a solid amount of evidence against them — likely enough to win a conviction.
Normally, when defendants plead guilty in criminal cases, they admit that they've done the crime in question. But in an Alford plea, defendants are allowed to insist they're innocent, says Kay Levine, a former prosecutor who now teaches criminal law and criminal procedure at Emory University in Atlanta. She is not involved with the Arkansas case.
"It's not an insane strategy decision," Levine said. But, she added: "It's incredibly troubling to us as a free society that people would plead guilty to something that they actually did not do."
Some judges find the legal maneuver offense, Levine says, because they see no reason someone would not contest to a crime that they didn't commit. But most prosecutors would take the agreement, she said.
"The prosecutors still get the deal that they have already struck," she said.
Department of Correction spokeswoman Dina Tyler said the men were transferred from Arkansas prisons, along with their possessions, on Thursday, ahead of Friday's hearing in Jonesboro. They're being held in a county jail there until their court appearance.
Thanks-Stay Metal, Stay Brutal-\m/ -l-
I'll write a scathing editorial about the criminal justice system later, or someday, sparing no one.
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