West Memphis 3 Are Going To Be Freed!

What is irrational is the fact you keep saying I said things I never said. Yep, you give non-believers a bad name. CLICK, CLICK AND CLICK! FADE TO BLACK.

If a parent wants science taught to their child then they should be able to make that choice. If they don't want it taught, they should be able to make that choice. also.

Prosecutor: ‘We made right call’ in WM3 case
By George Jared
Paxton News Bureau
Published: Tuesday, August 23, 2011 12:07 PM CDT

JONESBORO — For perhaps the first time in U.S. judicial history a death row inmate was allowed to plead guilty to three counts of first-degree murder and immediately leave the courtroom a free man.

It happened Friday morning in a Craighead County courtroom when Damien Echols, along with his cohorts, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr., pleaded guilty to killing three West Memphis youths on May 5, 1993. At the same time, the men professed to the court that they were innocent, using an arcane legal device known as an Alford plea.

Echols was on death row in the Varner Unit until Thursday afternoon when he was inexplicably transported to Jonesboro. Baldwin and Misskelley, sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, were transported from their prisons, too.

Making the deal to release the men was an easy call, said Scott Ellington, prosecuting attorney for the 2nd Judicial District.

“I feel comfortable we made the right decision,” Ellington told The Jonesboro Sun on Monday. “At the end of the day we’ve got three guilty pleas in the deaths of three dead children.”

Earlier this month, Ellington said he got a call from Arkansas Attorney General Dustin McDaniel about a possible resolution to the so-called “West Memphis Three” case. Defense attorneys representing the convicted wanted to know if the seldom-used Alford plea might stop the endless litigation, and set their clients free.

For years the convicted trio fought for freedom in state courts, arguing there was no tangible evidence that linked them to the heinous deaths of 8-year-olds Stevie Branch, Michael Moore and Christopher Byers. The boys’ nude, hog-tied bodies were found in a drainage ditch May 6,1993, one day after they disappeared.

Supporters raised millions of dollars, and high-profile celebrities lent their brands to the cause, transforming the case into the most visible in recent Arkansas judicial history.

When first approached, Ellington said he wanted to negotiate and agreed to meet with defense attorneys. During a grueling and contentious four-and-a-half-hour meeting Aug. 10, an agreement was reached.

Prosecutors agreed to not contest new trials for Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley.

At that point the prosecution would charge Echols and Baldwin with three counts of first-degree murder, while Misskelley would be charged with one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder.

The men were originally charged with capital murder.

The defendants would then enter Alford pleas. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1970s that a defendant can enter a plea in which he admits there is enough evidence to possibly convict him, but at the same time he doesn’t have to admit guilt.

Echols and Misskelley agreed to the deal almost immediately, but Baldwin didn’t, Ellington said. After haggling for several days, Ellington said he gave Baldwin until Aug. 17 to make up his mind.

“I told them (attorneys) I needed all three,” he said.

The men would be sentenced to time served — more than 18 years in prison.

Ellington admitted Monday he might have cut the deal with just Echols and Misskelley. But it didn’t come to that.

Around 5 p.m. Wednesday Baldwin’s attorneys called, and the deal was done.

“At no time did we consider anything, but guilt or innocence,” Ellington said of the cases’ ultimate outcome.

Judge David Laser met with attorneys to hammer out the final details.

New trials for all three men would likely have been ordered, and it would have been very difficult to secure convictions, Ellington said. Recent DNA evidence, deteriorated evidence and a chorus of changing stories by some who testified in the original trials are the primary reasons he allowed the men an avenue out.

The mother of a softball player who testified at trial that she overheard Echols tell friends he killed the boys, now says her daughter lied, Ellington said.

Another witness, Victoria Hutchinson, has also said she lied on the stand, according to a sworn statement.

Since 2007 more than a dozen hairs and other biological material collected from the crime scene have undergone DNA testing. Several DNA donors have been identified, but none of the tested material belongs to Echols, Baldwin or Misskelley, court documents state.

Without DNA, Ellington said it might be hard for a jury to convict any the men.

Money factored in, too.

Additional trials would have cost untold sums, and if the men were acquitted, they could have sued the state for wrongful convictions.

The agreed deal prevents a lawsuit against the state.

Less clear is if Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley can profit from their stories, Ellington said. Arkansas has a Son of Sam law, which stops convicts from profiting from their crimes. Money gleaned typically goes to the victims or their families, Ellington said.

A movie about the case is reportedly set to begin filming next year, and books and paid interviews with national media outlets are sure to follow.

But the statute of limitations may have already run out to file suit to prevent their profiting, Ellington said. It’s a topic the prosecutor said he needs to research further.

At no time has Ellington contemplated dropping charges altogether, but he admits if new trials had been ordered, he might have reconsidered, based on the daunting nature of this case.

“There’s nothing like it,” Ellington said. “It’s a case unto itself.”

Baldwin’s case would have been the toughest in which to secure a conviction, while Misskelley’s may have been the easiest, Ellington said.

A knife prosecutors said was potentially used to emasculate Byers was found behind Baldwin’s home, and fibers collected from the victims might have matched fibers in Baldwin and Echols’ homes.

The case against Baldwin hinged on the testimony of Michael Carson, a juvenile who was jailed briefly with Baldwin before his trial. Carson testified that Baldwin told him he was involved in the murders.

Carson has a lengthy criminal history, and defense attorneys don’t believe he would have been a credible witness in a new trial.

Misskelley gave a series of convoluted confessions before and after his original trial that could have been used against him.

“When you say you killed someone, that’s pretty damning,” Ellington said.

Keeping the deal under wraps until a scheduled hearing on Friday proved difficult, Ellington said. Victims’ family members and defense attorneys began to leak the story Thursday afternoon, and by Friday morning it was well known the men would be released.

State and national media invaded Jonesboro, adding to the circus-like atmosphere caused by the throngs of supporters who surrounded the courthouse Friday morning, hours before the hearing.

Since the deal, Ellington said he’s received many e-mails and messages, mostly negative, about the decision, but he doesn’t care.

“We were able to protect the decisions made by two juries,” Ellington said. “We feel good about that.”

Did you watch the video on wm3.org of the hearing Friday

“I feel comfortable we made the right decision,” Ellington told The Jonesboro Sun on Monday. “At the end of the day we’ve got three guilty pleas in the deaths of three dead children.”

Justice will truly be served when the real killer/killers are found. It may seem impossible but I'm not going to give up hope.

If there was a killer other then your heroes that was willing to kill three children in such a manner the likelihood that he only did one such deed is near zero.

because the victim was known to him, this might have have been a crime that was specifically directed at one or more of those children. Deliberate crimes of that

The victims were only 8 years old, and not 12, but you don't know anything about this case do you?
And the three teens who were convicted had no histories of violent behavior and no motive to kill these children.

First Firefly the beyond a reasonable doubt standard in favor of the defendants does not apply once a jury or in this case two juries found them guilty. To overturn a verdict of a jury you need to prove the jury wrong beyond a reasonable doubt not the other way around.That burden seem not to had been met by a county mile.

A confession that was backed up by a polygraph by one of them.

Oh, the then teenager in his confession knowing details of the crime and the crime scene.

The Alford pleas protected the state from liability,

It is not the job of the state to seek convictions where a conviction is based on dubious evidence

http://karisable.com/murdch.htm

Family Members or Acquaintances commit most of the Child Murders.

Quote:

The Alford pleas protected the state from liability,

If, IF this is the situation, it seems like malfeasance on the part of the people from the state that are involved in this. It is not the job of the state to seek convictions where a conviction is based on dubious evidence. Nor is it the job of the state to do things that are contrary to justice.

These three are citizens. If they are innocent and the state has set this deal up to protect themselves, to me, that is a very serious crime that ought to garner some serious jail time for the offending parties. IF!

Mother's request leads FBI to fugitive on run for 36 years

(CNN) -- It was the deathbed request from the mother of a longtime fugitive that finally led the FBI to William Walter Asher III.

For 36 years, Asher had been on the run -- ever since he escaped from a prison camp in 1975 rather than serve time for a deadly robbery.

But last week, federal agents caught up to him. He had changed his name, worked for a trucking company and lived with a woman who had no idea about his criminal past.

"After 36 years of looking over his shoulder William Walter Asher III, now 66 years old, is finally back where he belongs -- in prison," the FBI trumpeted in a press statement released Monday.

For years, it seemed that the FBI would never nab Asher.

In 1966, he and three accomplices robbed a San Francisco bar, shooting and then beating the bartender to death, authorities said.

Asher was 20 at the time. He fled to Chicago, hiding out for a year before he was caught.

He was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

The file would have closed there. But eight years into his sentence, Asher escaped from a prison in El Dorado County, California -- aided by a female accomplice.

The FBI tracked Asher to the Northern Territories of Canada. They learned he had assumed a different name, that he worked as a long haul trucker, that he had married and raised a family.

He eventually separated from his wife, and she didn't know where he went next.

"Interestingly enough, several years ago one of Asher's daughters contacted the FBI for information on the location of her father," the FBI said.

The trail grew cold until 2005. Shortly before she died, Asher's mother asked relatives to get in touch with her son.

"She asked various family members to assist her in using the 'secret' number to call 'Billy,'" the FBI said. Agents had been tipped off about the conversation by a source.

Armed with that information, agents scoured phone records of people who they believed may have helped fulfill the mother's request.

They found two phone calls made to a home in Salida, California, to a man named Garry Donald Webb. The calls had been made two days before the mother died.

Agents looked at Webb's driver's license photo. It resembled an older, thinner Asher.

Authorities placed the home under surveillance. They also kept a watch on a trucking business where he was said to work.

On Friday, agents saw Asher leaving the home and confronted him.

"After some initial discussion Asher admitted his true identity," the FBI said.

He had been living with a woman for more than a decade. She was unaware of his fugitive status, the FBI said.

Asher was taken into custody and to a Tracy, California, facility that processes inmates newly committed to state prison.