Saw a reference to an article by Karen Boudrie Greig, “Last Call From Death Row,” in the August issue of New Orleans Magazine. In it she recounts the trial of Carlos DeLuna, who would be executed in 1989 for a crime that he did not commit.
Our keynote speaker from last week’s event was Maurice Possley, and his work with the Chicago Tribune was critical toward exposing that wrongful execution.
Ms. Greig writes, “I was a young reporter assigned to cover his murder trial, one that would become the summer’s sensation, mostly because the dying woman’s heart-wrenching pleas were recorded on police tapes and ultimately released to the media.”
“At first, I didn’t think Carlos DeLuna looked like a killer,” she adds. “But once the prosecution laid out its case there would be little doubt in anyone’s mind that he brutally stabbed gas station clerk, Wanda Lopez, to death during a robbery just a few months earlier on Feb. 4, 1983.”
“Trouble was, we didn’t know what we were missing,” she writes. “Now, nearly 23 years after his execution, the ‘missing pieces’ are finally emerging and painting a picture of unconscionable indifference to the truth.”
I often hear that when a jury has convicted the individual, we have safeguards in place. And yet, we have people who were likely executed for crimes that they did not commit, and others like Franky Carrillo and Maurice Caldwell who spent years in prison for crimes they did not commit.
It is August. In August of 2009, I was called to the home of Ajay Dev. He had just been convicted of a multitude of counts of raping his adoptive daughter.
The family believed him innocent, but I was skeptical.
I have come a long way from that time, three years ago when I sat in the courtroom, stunned that they could sentence an individual to 378 years for a non-murder, no physical evidence, only testimony from the witness and an ambiguous pretext phone call meandering between English and Nepalese.
I have learned so much since that point about our legal system. We all have. The work that the Innocence Project has done has not only helped to free innocent people from prison, it has helped us actually start to collect data. We now have a registry of exonerations, allowing us to catalog what has gone wrong.
After a recent study by the US Department of Justice found between 8 to 12% of state prisoners are factually innocent, another study in Virginia shows a higher failure rate in cases of sexual assault.
That may not sound like a huge number, but it means that there are somewhere around 140,000 in prison in this country that are innocent.
Is Ajay Dev one of them? I do not honestly know. But I am skeptical enough about the conviction that I am willing to once again next week, for the fourth year, go to Woodland’s Freeman Park, Wednesday August 8, 2012 to cover the protest.
My skepticism has grown over the years, based on things I have learned about our system, and little facts that have been told to me by not only family members, but people at whose homes assaults were alleged to have occurred.
Last year they were able to get under the skin of Supervisor Matt Rexroad and Woodland Daily Democrat editor Jim Smith.
District Attorney Jeff Reisig took the trouble of putting together a lengthy response and summary of the case.
It is interesting to re-read the summary from the DA’s office, which, much like his op-ed from last week, was punctuated by an appalling number of erroneous statements.
For example, the DA’s office repeated misinformation about the viewing of child pornography, despite the fact that was one of the charges Mr. Dev was actually acquitted of.
Wrote the DA’s office: “The defendant and his wife brought the victim (a distant relative of the defendant) here from Nepal in January of 1999 when she was barely 15 years old to live with them and be educated in the United States because her family in Nepal was poor. The Victim testified that within weeks of her arrival in the United States, living with the Dev family in Davis, the defendant began touching her inappropriately and soon moved to forcing her to have intercourse with him on average three times a week.”
However, then it went on to say, “At some point during these assaults the defendant had the victim watch pornography with him, some of which included child pornography.”
The problem with that statement is that Mr. Dev was actually acquitted of any charges of showing the accuser pornography, and the child pornography that was on his computer was actually determined to have been downloaded by the accuser herself.
The facts surrounding her claims are in doubt, as well. For instance, the accuser testified that Mr. Dev showed her a pornographic movie in 1999 when she was 15; however, the laptop was not even purchased until 2001.
Investigators discovered, further, that the movie did not even exist until January 2002.
Last year Jim Smith wrote, “In my book, Ajay was found guilty by a jury after a trial. That decision…is being appealed. That’s how our justice system works. Until that appeal is heard and the jury’s decision is overturned, Ajay is guilty and must do the time as ordered by the judge.”
The case has been appealed finally. Shortly the Vanguard hopes to obtain a copy of the appeal for evaluation.
The appeal was three hundred pages in length, which required a special motion by the appellate attorneys in order to submit it.
It is a long and arduous process. Many appeals are not heard for years and most exonerations occurred after the appellate process has run out.
Hopefully we can gain an understanding about their case when we analyze the appellate brief. In the meantime, join the family at Freeman Park next week, Wednesday August 8th at 6 pm.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
“My skepticism has grown over the years, based on things I have learned about our system, and little facts that have been told to me by not only family members, but people at whose homes assaults were alleged to have occurred.”
Thank you for bringing to the attention of the people in this community how the court system does work. Too many people watch crime dramas on TV and think that is how things work. As you have shown that is not the case. There has been much in the news the past few years of how unjust our system is. It has become very politicized. Judges should not be elected, prosecutorial misconduct should be severely punished with prison time and cash penalties, police should actually have to investigate crimes, and jurors should not be allowed to badger and harass each other to come up with a conviction. If so many people are still behind Ajay Dev-I’m sure he is one of those innocents that are suffering for crimes of this unjust system.
David it is commendable that you took the time to investigate this case for yourself 3 years ago and as you mentioned your personal efforts have led you to know that there is enough evidence in Ajay’s favor to motivate you to continue looking further. All to often people feel that family members side with the convicted out of loyalty so they don’t give any credibility to what they say. I hope that more people will learn from your example and take some time to look further into Ajay’s case and not allow themselves to be guided by partial individuals whether it be the prosecution or the family of the convicted. We have always encouraged each person to look into the facts for themselves and when considered along with the continued exposure of the unethical behavior of Yolo County DA’s office it becomes overwhelming and then people can see how such a wrongful conviction of an innocent man can happen. Thank you for keeping Ajay in the public eye.
Thank you for bringing this case to light. Too many people want to believe that the judicial system is just fine. Most of the time I am sure that people that commit crimes are convicted.
Unfortunately in Ajay Dev’s case, the judicial system failed. Three years later people are still standing up and claiming his innocence. Over 1,000 people have signed a petition to have this case investigated. Usually you won’t find people supporting a convicted rapist, but Ajay Dev’s support keeps growing not diminishing. People want this wrongful conviction set right.
I met the Dev family at a coalition meeting after my own daughter had been arrested and charged with 2 felony strikes for firing a warning shot into he air during an armed late night home invasion attack by known gangsters. I have seen what the DAs can concoct out of thin air when they are hot to tally up convictions and beef up the budget with federal grants. Prosecutors have little regard for the truth and even less consequence for outright lying. As a person who is quite familiar with the case, I am outraged but not surprised that this husband and father was convicted based on fabrications spun out of thin air. It happens every day.
I met the Dev family at a coalition meeting after my own daughter had been arrested and charged with 2 felony strikes for firing a warning shot into he air during an armed late night home invasion attack by known gangsters. I have seen what the DAs can concoct out of thin air when they are hot to tally up convictions and beef up the budget with federal grants. Prosecutors have little regard for the truth and even less consequence for outright lying. As a person who is quite familiar with the case, I am outraged but not surprised that this husband and father was convicted based on fabrications spun out of thin air. It happens every day.
The “wrongful conviction” chorus of Mr. Dev vigorously intoned by family and friends alike, materialized in concordance with the prosecution’s abject failure to produce at trial, a scintilla of forensic evidence sufficient to substantiate beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was ever sexually assaulted once…let alone the implausible and equally unverifiable 700+ episodes heinously alleged by said defendant.
Fortunately, the Appeal’s process, along with the well-documented, legal incontinence of the Yolo County prosecutor provides Mr. Dev with a formidable riposte to his otherwise unconscionable conviction.
Memary10: “I have seen what the DAs can concoct out of thin air when they are hot to tally up convictions and beef up the budget with federal grants.”
My family is also suffering from this kind of injustice. Wrongfully accused, no probable cause for arrest. Plea bargained. And the harassment never ends.
David, are you sure you are not guilty of Paternoism, the crime of turning a blind eye to the sexual abuse of a minor?
David, Thank you for your article. I appreciate you taking the time to write about my husband’s case and keeping Ajay’s story out there. I know it took a while for you to come around, but you did. There are over 1000 people who know Ajay is innocent and have signed a petition. The legal system is not perfect. As you have commented in your article there are many innocent people in prison and Ajay is definitely one of them.
For those of you who are questioning his innocence please come to the rally on August 8 at 6:00pm in Freeman Park. We will be happy to answer as many questions as we can.
Sincerely,
Peggy Dev
Ajay Dev is an innocent man. I know this to be true not only because he is a friend but because I was at his trial, watched the proceedings and closely studied the facts before and after his conviction. One hundred and forty thousand innocent people in prison. How astounding and, Ajay is among those numbers.
http://www.advocatesforajay.com/
http://www.seekingjusticefortheinnocent.com/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/advocatesforajay/108746072551331
Mr. Toad,
Joe Paterno knew what was happening and acted like nothing happened to save his precious football program. That would be comparable to a DA prosecuting an innocent person to get higher conviction numbers. David is more like the media during the Duke Lacrosse fiasco. The DA and police believed the accuser without investigating the crime-remember she was given a scholarship by the university but the accused players lives were ruined. It wasn’t until the media began investigating what happened when HER story fell apart.