Life After Death: The Shocking True Story of a Innocent Man on Death Row

by Damien Echols

  On August 17, Judge Laser announced that he would “take up certain matters pertaining to the cases of defendants Baldwin, Echols and Misskelley” at a special hearing on August 19.236 On August 18, Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley were transported from their respective prisons to the Craighead County Jail.237 When the morning of August 19 dawned, the parking lot surrounding the Craighead County Courthouse, where the hearing would be held at eleven a.m., was already filling up with satellite trucks, media representatives, and people who hoped to attend the public hearing or at least learn if the rumor that the men would be released was true. By seven a.m. there were hundreds of people outside the building, far more than the fifty or so that could fit in the small courtroom; by nine a.m. there were “easily a thousand” and “the parking lot was a circus.”238

  Meanwhile, inside the courthouse, the three prisoners and their attorneys met with Judge Laser for a “dry run” of the hearing that was to follow.239 After Laser was assured that everyone was in agreement with the plea as written, the public hearing began. The judge vacated the previous convictions, ordered new trials, then accepted the prearranged plea agreement that allowed both the prisoners and the State to avoid those trials. He then sentenced Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley to eighteen years and seventy-eight days, the amount of time they’d already served; imposed and suspended an additional ten-year sentence; and warned them that if they reoffended they could be sent back to prison for twenty-one years.240 In a few minutes, it was all over, and the West Memphis Three were free men.

  Although their case had reached a legal conclusion, the controversy surrounding it was far from over. In an article in The New York Times, Campbell Robertson noted that “the circumstances of the release were bizarre, divisive and bewildering even to some of those who were directly involved,” and he pointed out the irony that the West Memphis Three left prison “as men who maintain their innocence yet who pleaded guilty to murder” and “as men whom the state still considers to be child killers but whom the state deemed safe enough to set free.”241 Leveritt noted the additional irony that “they remain convicted felons, but they are not even on parole.”242

  Neither those who thought the West Memphis Three were innocent nor those who thought they were guilty were satisfied by the plea agreement. Most of the criticism of the agreement came from supporters of the West Memphis Three, who have long wanted them to be exonerated. Fran Walsh said, “The Alford plea was the out for the state. They’d get the case to go away and they didn’t have to pay a cent.”243 John Mark Byers said, “There’s certainly no justice for the three men that’s been in prison or my son and his two friends. To me, this is just a cop-out from the state for not wanting to admit that they made a mistake.”244 Stephen Braga defended the resolution while acknowledging its imperfect nature. “This is a compromise resolution,” he said. “Damien, Jason and Jessie maintain their innocence, but recognize that it was in their ‘best interests’ to accept a certain resolution like this before another eighteen years passed while they were fighting for their freedom in an imperfect criminal justice system.”245

  After the hearing, there was a brief press conference and then the men were released. In 1994, when they exited the same courthouse after their convictions, a huge crowd of people was waiting outside to curse and vilify them. But this time they were greeted with cheers and applause from the throng of spectators.

  A Conclusion in Progress

  The release of the West Memphis Three is not the end of the story. Their supporters have vowed to continue working for their exoneration. The website wm3.org has established an Exonerate the West Memphis Three Support Fund, and Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh have promised to continue to fund efforts to prove the convicted men’s innocence, including more scientific “evidence testing and further investigation which will hopefully lead to the unmasking of the actual killer.”246 Because the West Memphis Three were released before the evidentiary hearing could be held, the new evidence already gathered was never given its day in court. This evidence, in addition to the evidence that Misskelley’s confession was false, now constitutes the bulk of the West Memphis Three’s case for exoneration.

  Despite all of the new scientific evidence, which wholly discredits the Salem Witch Trial–like “evidence” used to convict them, Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley remain convicted murderers today. They are free of their prison cells, yet they remain imprisoned by their legal status as convicted murderers. Jason Baldwin once said, “I know one thing, and that is how long is too long to keep an innocent person in prison: one minute! One minute is too long to deny an innocent person his freedom.”247 When they were finally released, on August 19, 2011, eighteen years and seventy-eight days after they were arrested, Echols, Baldwin, and Misskelley had each spent 9,573,120 minutes too long in prison. How much longer they will have to endure the burden of being falsely convicted before they are exonerated and the true killer or killers are brought to justice remains to be seen.

  Endnotes

  1. Mara Leveritt, Devil’s Knot: The True Story of the West Memphis Three (New York: Atria Books, 2003), pp. 94, 215–216.

  2. Ibid., pp. 295–297.

  3. Ibid., p. 236.

  4. Ibid., p. 32.

  5. Ibid., p. 82.

  6. Ibid., pp. 212, 381.

  7. Arkansas Times staff, “WM3 Revelation,” Arkansas Times, Apr. 16, 2009, http://arktimes.com/arkansas/wm3-revelation/Content?oid=948533.

  8. Damien Echols Defense Team press conference, William H. Bowen School of Law, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Nov. 1, 2007, http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/press_conference.html.

  9. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 390.

  10. Marc Perrusquia, “Hollywood Directed Defense, Challenged Old Case Against ‘West Memphis Three,’” The Commercial Appeal, Aug. 28, 2011, http://commercialappeal.com/news/2011/aug/28/hollywood-directed-defense-of-three/celebrities’-deep-pockets-funded-new-probe-in-1993-slayings-of-three-boys.

  11. Mara Leveritt, “The Architect and the Inmate,” Arkansas Times, Jan. 9, 2004, http://arktimes.com/gyrobased/the-architect-and-the-inmate/Content?oid=1886039. For more information about Davis, her relationship with Echols, and her role in the effort to free the West Memphis Three, see Geoffrey Gray, “A Death-Row Love Story,” New York, Oct. 13, 2011, http://nytimes.com/2011/10/16/magazine/a-death-row-love-story.html?_r=2.

  12. Arkansas Take Action press release, “New Eyewitnesses: Three Boys Last Seen with Terry Hobbs,” Oct. 12, 2009, http://freewestmemphis3.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=77:new-eyewitnesses-three-boys-last-seen-alive-with-terry-hobbs-&catid=37:press-releases&Itemid=83.

  13. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 14.

  14. Martin D. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/enter_satan_2.html.

  15. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 64.

  16. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/enter_satan_2.html.

  17. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/ricky_climer.html.

  18. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/echols_vs_ridge_2.html.

  19. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, pp. 40, 45.

  20. Ibid., p. 43.

  21. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/damien_echols_2.html.

  22. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/damien_echols.html.

  23. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/enter_satan_2.html and http://jivepuppi.com/jivepuppi_the_discovery.html.

  24. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/west_memphis_confidential.html.

  25. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 341.

  26. Ibid., p. 58.

  27. Ibid., pp. 58–59.

  28. Ibid., pp. 65, 171–172, and http://westmemphisthreediscussion.yuku.com/topic/2221.

  29. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/rumors.html.

  30. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 65.

  31. Ibid., pp. 56–57.

  32. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/victims.html.

  33. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 26.

  34. Ibid., pp. 101–102.

  35. Tim Hackler, “‘They Messed with My Words,’” Arkansas Times, Oct. 7, 2004, http
://arktimes.com/arkansas/they-messed-with-my-words/Content?oid=964537.

  36. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 102.

  37. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/search_for_the_cult.html.

  38. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 204.

  39. Ibid., p. 165.

  40. Ibid., p. 66.

  41. Ibid., p. 72.

  42. Tim Hackler, “Complete Fabrication,” Arkansas Times, Oct 7, 2004, http://arktimes.com/arkansas/complete-fabrication/Content?oid=1886107.

  43. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 72.

  44. Ibid., p. 286.

  45. Ibid., p. 68.

  46. Ibid., p. 132.

  47. Laura H. Nirider, Steven A. Drizin, and Barbara Bergman, “Brief of Amici Curiae,” Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth and National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Sept. 17, 2009, p. 14.

  48. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/polygraph.html.

  49. Hill, “Identifying the Source of Critical Details in Confessions,” Forensic Linguistics 10, no. 1 (2003), p. 24.

  50. Nirider, Drizin, and Bergman, “Brief of Amici Curiae,” p. 16.

  51. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/polygraph.html.

  52. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 82.

  53. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/case_for_innocence_misskelley.html.

  54. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 90.

  55. Ibid., p. 127.

  56. Ibid., p. 76.

  57. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/case_for_innocence_misskelley.html.

  58. Hill, “Identifying the Source of Critical Details in Confessions,” p. 23.

  59. Ibid., p. 40.

  60. Ibid., p. 37.

  61. Ibid., p. 32.

  62. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/case_for_innocence_misskelley.html.

  63. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 187.

  64. James Morgan, “John Grisham, Meet Dan Stidham,” Arkansas Times, June 7, 1996, http://arktimes.com/arkansas/john-grisham-meet-dan-stidham/Content?oid=1886139.

  65. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/case_for_innocence_misskelley.html.

  66. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, pp. 187–189.

  67. Hill, “Identifying the Source of Critical Details in Confessions,” p. 32.

  68. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, pp. 226–227.

  69. Hill, “Identifying the Source of Critical Details in Confessions,” p. 32.

  70. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/case_for_innocence_misskelley.html.

  71. Hill, “Identifying the Source of Critical Details in Confessions,” p. 30.

  72. Ibid., p. 37.

  73. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/case_for_innocence_misskelley.html.

  74. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/exhibit_b.html.

  75. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, pp. 90–91.

  76. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/a_twilight_kill_part_twelve.html.

  77. Hill, “Identifying the Source of Critical Details in Confessions,” pp. 38–39.

  78. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 86.

  79. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/jivepuppi_jkm.html.

  80. Perhaps the most compelling suspect of all was one who was never identified or investigated, because of police ineptitude. The night of the murders, the manager of a Bojangles restaurant near the crime scene called police to report that a bloody, disoriented black man with mud on his pants had entered the women’s rest room and left “blood and feces on the floor, stall and walls,” and a roll of toilet paper “soaked to the core with blood.” Minutes after the man left, a police officer arrived and took a report, but even though the police were aware that the three boys were missing, the officer didn’t examine the rest room or investigate further. Instead, she left the restaurant to investigate a complaint about someone throwing eggs at a house. The rest room was not examined for evidence until the following evening, when the manager repeated his story to an off-duty police officer who happened to be eating at the restaurant. The officer found some blood that hadn’t been cleaned up and he called the police department, which sent Allen and Ridge to investigate. They took blood scrapings from the wall and a pair of sunglasses the bloody man had left in the toilet, but this evidence was lost and therefore never tested. In any case, once the police had Misskelley’s statement, they showed little interest in the so-called “Mr. Bojangles” or any other potential suspect. For more on this, see Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, pp. 6, 141, and 219, and Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/bojangles_man.html.

  81. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, pp. 82, 84.

  82. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/exhibit_b.html.

  83. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 208.

  84. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/exhibit_b.html.

  85. Damien Echols Defense Team press conference.

  86. Hill, “Identifying the Source of Critical Details in Confessions,” p. 35.

  87. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/exhibit_b.html.

  88. Supreme Court of Arkansas opinion, delivered Feb. 19, 1996, regarding Jessie Lloyd Misskelley, Jr. vs. State of Arkansas, CR 94-848, http://courts.state.ar.us/opinions/1996/cr94-848.txt.

  89. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 95.

  90. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/case_for_innocence_misskelley.html.

  91. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, pp. 212, 381.

  92. Ibid., p. 106.

  93. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/damien_echols_2.html.

  94. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 175.

  95. Beth Warren, “No False Confessions? Science Has Found Dozens, Often Wrung from Coerced Young Suspects,” The Commercial Appeal, May 22, 2011, http://commercialappeal.com/news/2011/may/22/plea-pressure-hours-of-threats-and-promises/. For more on false confessions, see Steven A. Drizin and Richard A. Leo, “The Problem of False Confessions in the Post-DNA World,” North Carolina Law Review 82, no. 3 (2004), pp. 891–1007, and http://innocenceproject.org/understand/False-Confessions.php.

  96. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, pp. 176–177.

  97. Misskelley trial transcript, http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/ofshe.html.

  98. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/exhibit_b.html.

  99. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/a_twilight_kill_part_five.html.

  100. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/echols_vs_ridge_3.html.

  101. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 161.

  102. Ibid., p. 163.

  103. Ibid., p. 167.

  104. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/a_twilight_kill_part_eight.html.

  105. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 120.

  106. Ibid., pp. 166–167.

  107. Ibid., p. 209.

  108. Ibid., p. 190.

  109. Ibid., p. 199.

  110. Ibid., pp. 212–213.

  111. Ibid., p. 195.

  112. Ibid., p. 218.

  113. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/jivepuppi_the_sticks.html.

  114. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/wax.html.

  115. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, pp. 136–137.

  116. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/recent_additions.html.

  117. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/jivepuppi_knives_2.html.

  118. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 137.

  119. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/jivepuppi_the_injuries.html.

  120. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 263.

  121. Damien Echols Defense Team press conference.

  122. Dennis P. Riordan and Donald M. Horgan, “Second Amended Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus,” Oct. 29, 2007, pp. 7–8.

  123. Damien Echols Defense Team press conference.

  124. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, pp. 94, 215–216.

  125. Ibid., p. 208.

  126. Ibid., pp. 209, 228.

  127. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/case_for_innocence_baldwin.html.

  128. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, pp. 209–210.

  129. Ibid., p. 196.

  130. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/case_for_innocence_baldwin.html.

  131. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 240.

  132. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/rumors.html.

  133. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 240.

  134. Dan D. Davison and John E. Moore, “Statement of Facts in Support of Defendant Natalie Pasdar’
s Motion for Summary Judgment,” p. 91, http://dpdlaw.com/pasdarfacts2009.pdf.

  135. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/echols_vs_ridge_2.html.

  136. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 349.

  137. Ibid., pp. 242–243.

  138. Ibid., pp. 232, 235, 239, 288.

  139. Ibid., p. 235.

  140. Ibid., pp. 232, 239.

  141. Ibid., p. 262.

  142. Ibid., p. 236.

  143. Ibid., p. 265.

  144. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/a_twilight_kill_part_seven.html.

  145. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/dale_griffis.html.

  146. Publishers Weekly, quoted at http://amazon.com/Secret-Weapons-Sisters-Terrifying-Sabotage/dp/0882821962/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1266264131&sr=1-2.

  147. Damien Echols Defense Team press conference.

  148. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 239.

  149. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/case_for_innocence_baldwin.html.

  150. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/a_twilight_kill_part_seven.html.

  151. Hill, http://jivepuppi.com/dale_griffis.html.

  152. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 237.

  153. Ibid.

  154. Ibid., p. 15.

  155. Ibid., pp. 237–238.

  156. http://callahan.8k.com/wm3/ebtrial/closefogleman.html.

  157. Leveritt, Devil’s Knot, p. 238.

  158. Mara Leveritt, “A Letter from Jason Baldwin, As He Contemplates Heading Back to Court,” July 21, 2009, http://maraleveritt.com.

  159. John Brummett, “Judging David Burnett’s Blunders,” Arkansas News, Dec. 29, 2009, http://arkansasnews.com/2009/12/29/judging-david-burnetts-blunders/.

  160. Arkansas Code, annotated sections 16-112-208(e) and 16-112-(e)(3). For a discussion of the DNA statutes and a critique of Judge Burnett’s ruling, see David S. Mitchell, Jr., “Lock ’Em Up and Throw Away the Key: ‘The West Memphis Three’ and Arkansas’s Statute for Post-Conviction Relief Based on New Scientific Evidence,” Arkansas Law Review 62, no. 3 (2009), pp. 501–532.