Two prominent legal organizations joined forces and filed an Amicus Curiae brief with the Arkansas State Supreme Court today on behalf of Damien Echols, taking the next step toward obtaining a new trial for their client, who has been on death row for the past fifteen years. Echols was convicted in 1994 for the triple murder of Steve Branch, Christopher Byers, and Michael Moore. The three eight-year-olds were found nude and bound in a drainage ditch after disappearing from their homes on the evening of May 5^th, 1993. Echols was sentenced to death, while his codefendants, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, were sent to prison for life. Misskelley’s error-ridden confession led to the arrests and convictions of the three then-teenagers, though he recanted almost immediately. There was no physical evidence linking the three to the crime scene, and they have maintained their innocence over the years.

This latest filing could at last free the way for the State of Arkansas to reconsider the validity of the Misskelley confession, which defense attorneys have long claimed was coerced. It would also allow the court to hear, for the first time, new physical and circumstantial evidence collected by Echols’s defense team over the last few years, including DNA evidence collected from the crime scene. Most incendiary of all are charges of juror misconduct on the part of Echols/Baldwin jury foreman Kent Arnold. Arnold has been accused by the defense of introducing the Misskelley confession to his fellow jurors, as well as obtaining legal advice during the trial on how to move the jury towards a conviction. Judge David Burnett dismissed Echols’s appeal without an evidentiary hearing in September of 2008. Echols originally filed his habeas petition in the Federal Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas in October of 2007, but the federal court determined that Echols had not exhausted remedies at the state circuit court level. In other words, back to Burnett. Co-defendants Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley revisited Burnett’s courtroom yet again in August, but were unable to complete the hearings due to scheduling conflicts with the state’s expert witnesses. The hearings are set to resume - and hopefully conclude - during the first week of October.

Any predictions?

The Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth (CWCY), the unique collaboration launched by the Northwestern University School of Law’s Bluhm Legal Clinic, filed the friend of the court brief. The University paired their Children and Family Justice Center, with the Center on wrongful convictions to draw attention to the special needs of wrongfully convicted youths, making it the first organization of its type in the U.S. Steven A. Drizin and Laura H. Nirider of Northwestern University are the attorneys who filed the brief. Drizin is co-editor of a new book, "True Stories of Wrongful Convictions."