To End Decades on Death Row, Inmate Makes an Agonizing Choice

<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixV6KZHYX6udTUwrMtQ0mQyVoi2aRJB0I4qIeocBR0I_8Jhkgm0e9hjy_SppBQhpAW8bOHMG97A9dbq52NRBeDD_FcoVK9x3FaNq0q4rl-v7PPGb3q8Di804A64WCeXgWrgaoE8c-iu1w/s1600/Jimmy+Dennis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Jimmy Dennis" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixV6KZHYX6udTUwrMtQ0mQyVoi2aRJB0I4qIeocBR0I_8Jhkgm0e9hjy_SppBQhpAW8bOHMG97A9dbq52NRBeDD_FcoVK9x3FaNq0q4rl-v7PPGb3q8Di804A64WCeXgWrgaoE8c-iu1w/s400/Jimmy+Dennis.jpg" title="Jimmy Dennis" width="268" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jimmy Dennis</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">After 25 years on death row for a killing he said he didn't do — and three years after a federal judge threw out his conviction — James Dennis was brought to a Philadelphia courtroom Thursday to make a harrowing choice: plead no contest to the crime and go home, or gamble on another trial.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He didn't want to admit to the 1991 shooting of 17-year-old Chedell Williams. A federal judge had already ruled he'd been condemned "for a crime in all probability he did not commit."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But that didn't guarantee that another jury wouldn't find him guilty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So he took the only path he knew would keep him from execution.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"I need to do what I need to do for my family," Dennis told his brother, Greg, before entering the plea.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As part of his agreement with prosecutors, Dennis was able to maintain that he hadn't killed Williams.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"James Dennis entered a no-contest plea, not a guilty plea, because he maintains the same position that he has maintained for 25 years: that he is innocent of this crime," one of his lawyers, Karl Schwartz, told the judge. "He and his family have made this incredibly difficult decision based on his and their strong desire to have him home and free, [in] lieu of potentially years of continuing litigation."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The no-contest plea is not uncommon in claims of wrongful conviction. It allows prosecutors to keep a conviction without a new trial. The defendant, meanwhile, acknowledges there may be enough evidence for another guilty verdict but can still claim innocence.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">To some, no-contest can seem like a good deal. To others, it can feel like less than justice.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan law professor who runs The National Registry of Exonerations, said the offer of a no-contest plea puts defendants in an agonizing bind.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Typically, when someone has been on death row or general prison population for most of his adult life and is now offered an opportunity to leave prison right away, their family and friends and lawyers ... urge them to take the plea and not take a chance," Gross said. "Quite a few refuse."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The results are impossible to predict.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gross cited the case of Terry Harrington, who was convicted with a friend, Curtis McGhee, of the 1977 murder of a retired police captain in Iowa. Both were granted new trials. McGhee took a no-contest plea and was released. Harrington chose to go to trial, but prosecutors dismissed the case instead. The dismissal resulted in his release and exoneration. But only later, after a lawyer found evidence that the prosecutors had improperly handled McGhee's plea, was he exonerated as well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lawyers also negotiated no-contest pleas in the case of the West Memphis 3 — men who were convicted of killing three Arkansas Cub Scouts in 1993. Not all of the three men wanted to enter the plea, but they agreed because one of them, Damien Echols, was suffering severely from 18 years on death row.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, who was not in office when Dennis was convicted, challenged the ruling. An appellate court sided with her in August.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">That forced Williams to decide whether to retry Dennis or drop the case. Unwilling to say Dennis was innocent, his office began negotiations with Dennis' lawyers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One of Dennis' lawyers, Stephen Cozen, said in an interview that he considered the state's witnesses as "shaky" and Dennis' alibi — that he was a on a bus miles away when the murder took place — as strong.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ultimately, Dennis agreed to the plea because it allowed him to continue to assert that he didn't kill Chedell Williams.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"Our main goal was to try to get Jimmy out of prison after having served 25 years," Cozen said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Prosecutors said they remained convinced of Dennis' guilt.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"In our system of justice, the defendant is always free to state otherwise. Under the law, however, he stands convicted of this murder," Williams' office said in a statement. "We accepted this plea not because of doubts about guilt, but because of the inherent difficulties of retrying a complex case more than a quarter century after the crime."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The remaining complication was an unrelated robbery conviction, according to Dennis' lawyers. Dennis didn't dispute that one. But that punishment remained on the books.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The two sides worked out a deal where prosecutors would recommend that Dennis receive parole, possibly in time to be home by Easter, Cozen said. He praised Williams' office for negotiating the deal.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Dennis' older brother, Greg, said the family is now planning a homecoming. But the reunion will be bittersweet.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He criticized Williams for not dismissing the case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">"We're happy that we'll get to spend some time with Jimmy and be with him, but we also feel very disrespected," he said.</div><br />Source: <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/end-decades-death-row-inmate-makes-agonizing-choice-n699561" target="_blank">nbcnews.com</a>, Jon Schuppe,December 24, 2016<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">⚑ | Report an error, an omission; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: <a href="mailto:deathpenaltynews@gmail.com">deathpenaltynews@gmail.com</a>.</div><br /><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="4" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse; border: 0px solid rgb(255, 204, 0); color: black; text-align: center; width: 100%;"><tbody><tr> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: right;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/WebDPN/" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL4sspwgGptzvuHVklum5TwxKppRN-lIC5TN8RLZFq_B4ZOtBrX1ssXPNKQ6XpSyQFRJRtVQN45HMkpt3VX0JtOW0TovwxZAurG-AV6gh98IAXo7Ip6QlpkZr9WrM3_m943Mwy-gGxBAY/s1600/Find+us+Facebook.jpg" /></a></div></td> <td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://twitter.com/WebDPN" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULIPEaT_P6oIauxAZd17XRRxljesDLS7iIjdQXT7Xct99uHeohx4IYmiAB6S044gTjMDGSy50sL2vDzOyPZ-3vJj9zwcYQ2rgzJh9v1-QDiunKAQtLLLqJ83s38qN3HABxGIC8GsIOD0/s1600/Find+us+twitter.jpg" /></a><span id="goog_1427852018"></span><span id="goog_1427852019"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></div></td> </tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><b>Opposed to Capital Punishment? 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To End Decades on Death Row, Inmate Makes an Agonizing Choice

Jimmy Dennis After 25 years on death row for a killing he said he didn't do — and three years after a federal judge threw out his convic...

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