CLIENT VICTORIES

James lamont madison

James Lamont Madison was convicted of a 1997 robbery and abduction in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Mr. Madison was sentenced to 28 years in prison.

The true perpetrator of the crime, who is currently serving time in federal prison, for multiple offenses, including murder, confessed to the robbery multiple times, including to a Newport News detective. The perpetrator swore that Mr. Madison had nothing to do with the robbery. One of the victims has signed an affidavit affirming that Mr. Madison was not present during the commission of the crime. The other victim has also explained how and why he identified the wrong man.

In 2018, we filed Mr. Madison’s petition for a writ of actual innocence based on non-biological evidence. After an evidentiary hearing before the state circuit court at which a police detective testified on Mr. Madison’s behalf, the Court of Appeals of Virginia denied the petition, in large part because the true perpetrator refused to testify under oath in court, despite having previously given a sworn statement confessing to the crime. 

Mr. Madison was ultimately released on parole on February 16, 2022. He continues to fight for his innocence.

Kevin “SUGE” KNight

Kevin “Suge” Knight was convicted of a 2002 Norfolk, Virginia murder. He was sentenced to life in prison plus 15 years.

No physical or forensic evidence connected Mr. Knight to the crime. Mr. Knight’s conviction was at least in part the result of the corrupt police work of now-disgraced Norfolk detective Robert Glenn Ford. Ford requested a $10,000 bribe to make the case go away, Mr. Knight refused, and Ford coerced witnesses and found unreliable snitches to build a case against an innocent man. Recently, key Commonwealth witnesses have recanted their testimony.

We filed Mr. Knight’s petition for a writ of actual innocence based on non-biological evidence based on those recantations and Ford’s improper tactics in 2018. The Court of Appeals of Virginia denied the petition without even an evidentiary hearing in 2020, categorizing Mr. Knight’s allegations that Ford used his well-known tactics to manipulate and coerce both Knight and witnesses against him as “bare” and “conclusory.”

We subsequently submitted a request for an absolute pardon for Mr. Knight, and on January 14, 2022, Governor Northam granted a conditional pardon to Mr. Knight. In the pardon, Governor Northam wrote that Mr. Knight“was prosecuted based on the work of Norfolk Detective Glenn Ford, who used his official capacity to extort witnesses in order to yield high solvability percentages and was eventually convicted on federal charges.” He noted that there had “been insufficient time to make a determination on Mr. Knight’s petition for an absolute pardon” and that Mr. Knight “appear[ed] to be a proper subject for clemency, specifically a conditional pardon.”

On January 17, 2022, Mr. Knight was released from prison. He returned home to his family. The fight for his innocence continues, and a petition for writ of habeas corpus is currently pending in Norfolk Circuit Court.

jervon tillman

Jervon Tillman was convicted of a 2009 armed robbery of a pizza deliveryman in Henrico. Mr. Tillman was convicted and sentenced to 25 years after a brief bench trial, based on the word of the eyewitness/victim — despite the fact that the eyewitness/victim’s initial description did not match Mr. Tillman, there was no other evidence against him, and he had an alibi.

The assailant had been described as 5’8” to 5’10” and having a muscular build; Mr. Tillman was 6’3” and 165 pounds. The defense attorney conducted no cross-examination about the difference between Mr. Tillman and the victim’s physical description of his assailant. Mr. Tillman’s defense attorney failed to present his alibi and did not put on any witnesses.

Mistaken eyewitness identifications contributed to approximately 69% of the more than 375 wrongful convictions in the United States overturned by post-conviction DNA evidence, making them the leading contributing cause of wrongful convictions in those cases.

This identification contained almost every wrongful conviction red flag in an eyewitness identification case. First, the perpetrator had worn a mask, leaving only the top part of his face visible. Second, the victim identified Mr. Tillman in a highly suggestive way — from an online database of wanted people (Mr. Tillman had committed a previous crime, for which he accepted responsibility). Third, the victim did not identify Mr. Tillman until many weeks after the crime had taken place. Fourth, the identification was cross-racial. Fifth, the crime occurred quickly (over the course of only seconds), at night, in a dimly-lit parking lot, and at gunpoint (creating the “weapon focus effect”).

UVAIP investigated the case and determined that the only evidence against Mr. Tillman lacked any value. Attorney General Herring’s Conviction Integrity Unit also investigated the case.

Mr. Tillman received an absolute pardon from Governor Ralph Northam on January 14, 2022.

gilbert merritt

Gilbert Merritt was convicted of a 2001 Norfolk murder based almost entirely on the testimony of a witness who claimed that Mr. Merritt had confessed to her in detail, and the corroborating testimony of a Norfolk detective who has subsequently been convicted of extortion and conspiracy (Robert Glenn Ford).

In 2020, many years after having served as the linchpin in the case against Mr. Merritt, the Commonwealth’s star witness recanted her entire testimony in a sworn statement. The witness now explains that Mr. Merritt’s alleged confession never took place and that her testimony was fabricated by Ford, who knew that she was facing drug charges and told her that she would be able to go home if she testified against Mr. Merritt. Fearful of dying in prison, she cooperated with the scheme.

Mr. Merritt had an alibi for the time of the crime, and neither of the two alleged co-perpetrators was ever even arrested or charged. Despite the paucity of evidence, the witness’s detailed testimony, bolstered by Detective Ford’s corroboration, carried the day.

UVAIP filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus, based on the evidence of false testimony and the suppression of exculpatory evidence, in 2020. While discovery and other related, pre-hearing litigation was ongoing, UVAIP advocated for Mr. Merritt to receive a pardon, and he was released on a conditional pardon on January 13, 2022. Mr. Merritt’s conditional pardon, however, meant that he had not been fully exonerated.

Together with the law firm McGuireWoods, UVAIP continued to fight for Mr. Merritt’s total exoneration in court on the habeas petition. In March 2022, after depositions had concluded, the Norfolk Circuit Court held a two-day evidentiary hearing in the case. In July, the Court issued an opinion vacating Mr. Merritt’s convictions. The Court found that the Commonwealth had violated Mr. Merritt’s constitutional rights by putting on false testimony and withholding exculpatory evidence.

The Commonwealth appealed the decision to the Supreme Court of Virginia. On February 15, 2024, the Supreme Court of Virginia issued an order upholding the Norfolk Circuit Court’s decision.

On February 27, 2024, the Norfolk Circuit Court dismissed with prejudice the original criminal charges, and Mr. Merritt was fully exonerated.

lamar barnes

In 2003, Lamar Barnes was convicted of first-degree murder and malicious wounding in connection with an April 2002 shooting in Portsmouth, Virginia. He was subsequently sentenced to life in prison plus twenty-eight years, without the possibility of parole.

UVAIP began investigating Lamar’s case in 2018. Ultimately, all three surviving victims recanted their eyewitness trial testimony against Mr. Barnes. Two of them, who were mere teenagers at the time of the crime, explained that they had never known the shooter’s identity and had succumbed to prosecutorial pressure to identify him at trial. And the prosecution’s key trial witness, who had been shot in the head and whose girlfriend had tragically been killed during the crime, was adamant that prosecutors had convicted the wrong man and signed a statement explaining that they had threatened him with forty years’ prison time to secure his testimony against Mr. Barnes.

Further investigation identified multiple alibi witnesses who had not been given the opportunity to testify at trial. These witnesses signed statements demonstrating that Mr. Barnes was never at the scene of the crime, that he was playing video games at an apartment complex at the time of the shooting, and that an alternate suspect had committed the shootings. The team also obtained the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s file, which revealed prosecutorial misconduct, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and that the alternate suspect was cooperating with the local police department at the time. The Virginia Office of the Attorney General’s Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) began its own review of Lamar’s case in early 2021. After months of investigation, the CIU agreed that Lamar is innocent.

In 2021, UVAIP filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in state circuit court, followed by a petition for writ of actual innocence in the Court of Appeals. The law firm Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath joined the writ of actual innocence effort pro bono. Then-Governor Ralph Northam’s administration simultaneously reviewed the case.

On January 4, 2022, Governor Northam granted Mr. Barnes an absolute pardon, fully exonerating him and noting that he “has served nearly two decades in prison for a crime he did not commit.” Lamar Barnes walked out of prison—a free man for the first time since May 2002—that same day.

eric weakley

Eric Weakley falsely confessed to murder in 2001, after law enforcement interrogated him multiple times, including at his home and at work, and showed him gruesome photos of the crime scene and victim’s body. Mr. Weakley ultimately pled guilty to second-degree murder in Culpeper, Virginia in the 1996 death of Thelma Scruggs. Mr. Weakley spent over six years in prison and was released to serve an additional seven years on probation.  Mr. Weakley was a juvenile at the time of the crime, but was charged as an adult.

Mr. Weakley’s co-defendant, Michael Hash, had his murder conviction reversed during federal habeas proceedings. The court cited “outrageous” police and prosecutorial misconduct. Post-conviction investigation revealed that a jailhouse informant who had testified against Hash received leniency for his testimony, and that the prosecution knew about it. Mr. Weakley recanted his testimony, explaining that the police had given him the details of the crime. The federal court in Mr. Hash’s case found Mr. Weakley’s recantation to be reliable and corroborated. A third defendant implicated in Mr. Weakley’s false confession was acquitted.

Because he had pled guilty, Mr. Weakley faced various procedural hurdles in court. The Innocence Project at UVA School of Law filed an absolute pardon request on Mr. Weakley’s behalf in 2018. On January 3, 2022, Governor Ralph Northam granted the absolute pardon, and Mr. Weakley was exonerated.

You can learn more about Mr. Weakley’s case, Mr. Hash’s case, and how false confessions happen here.

emerson stevens

Emerson Stevens was wrongfully convicted of the 1985 abduction and murder of Mary Harding. He was sentenced to 164 years in prison.

Post-conviction investigation has discredited all of the evidence against Mr. Stevens. The only physical evidence purportedly linking Mr. Stevens to the crime was a hair. The FBI now states, however, that the type of microscopic hair comparison used in this case is scientifically unreliable. The Commonwealth also alleged that the victim had been cut with a knife similar to one that Mr. Stevens might have owned. The medical examiner, however, reviewed the case and changed her opinion, signing an affidavit confirming that the wounds were likely caused by a boat propeller. And, the expert whose testimony explained how the victim’s body could have been found where it was (which was crucial to the prosecution’s theory linking Mr. Stevens to the crime) described his own testimony in a letter to the prosecutor as “eyewash,” or nonsense.

The lead investigator on the case has a documented history of misconduct, which led to the wrongful conviction of another individual who was later granted a writ of habeas corpus. Moreover, several of the witnesses lied under oath. One of them was even convicted of obstruction of justice for his false testimony. Other witnesses have given statements swearing that the investigator attempted to get them to lie under oath.

The Innocence Project at UVA School of Law began working on Mr. Stevens’ case in 2009. In 2016, a box of materials containing exculpatory evidence was finally disclosed. Much of that evidence was the basis of a habeas petition in state and then federal court. In 2017, Mr. Stevens was granted parole based in part of evidence of his innocence.

In 2020, in a decision allowing Mr. Stevens’ habeas corpus petition to proceed in the district court, the Fourth Circuit wrote, “the evidence as a whole overwhelmingly supports a conclusion that no reasonable jury would have convicted Stevens.”

In August 2021, Governor Ralph Northam granted Emerson Stevens an absolute pardon.

joey carter

Joey Carter was convicted in 1989 of a Norfolk murder, robbery, attempted robbery, and burglary he did not commit. His conviction was based largely on the eyewitness identification of one neighbor. Fingerprints found at the crime scene matched not Mr. Carter, but another man who cooperated with police and testified against Mr. Carter. Mr. Carter presented an alibi, as well as evidence that he had recently received a significant lump sum in a workers’ compensation claim for an injury that had left him without full use of his dominant hand.

Mr. Carter received two life sentences plus an additional 30 years. After serving more than 25 years, Mr. Carter was released on parole in 2016.

The neighbor who testified against Mr. Carter recanted her testimony in an affidavit dated September 27, 2018. The case against Mr. Carter was orchestrated by disgraced and convicted former Norfolk homicide detective Robert Glenn Ford. As summarized in Mr. Carter’s pardon petition, “There was no physical or forensic evidence tying Mr. Carter to the murder; the Commonwealth instead relied solely on tainted witness testimony obtained by disgraced former Norfolk Detective Robert Glenn Ford and his partner. Instead of taking time to sufficiently investigate the murder, or critically evaluate witness testimony, the Commonwealth permitted Detective Ford to elicit false witness testimony that wrongfully implicated Mr. Carter in a crime he did not commit.”

In August 2021, Governor Ralph Northam granted Mr. Carter an absolute pardon. In the order granting the pardon, Governor Northam noted that “Mr. Carter was an unfortunate victim of Norfolk Detective Glenn Ford, who used his official capacity to extort witnesses in order to yield high solvability percentages and was eventually convicted on federal charges.”

More information on Mr. Carter’s exoneration is available here.

BOBBIE MORMAN

Bobbie Morman was convicted of a drive-by shooting in Norfolk, Virginia based on the testimony of three eyewitnesses who gave weak and conflicting testimony.

The actual shooter himself testified at trial that he had committed the shooting, and that Mr. Morman wasn’t even in the car. Other individuals who actually had been involved in the shooting testified in Mr. Morman’s defense, and Mr. Morman presented an alibi.

At sentencing, after Mr. Morman again professed his innocence, the judge threatened to “bring this ceiling down on [Mr. Morman].” The judge then sentenced Mr. Morman to 48 years. No one had been injured in the shooting.

In 2014, the actual shooter went on the local news and again confirmed that he had committed the crime. He also signed an affidavit that Mr. Morman submitted with a 2016 pardon request.

Mr. Morman served more than 20 years and was released on parole in 2016.

Mr. Morman could not file a petition for writ of actual innocence because most of the evidence of his innocence would not be considered “new” under the actual innocence statute. Instead, Mr. Morman proceeded with an absolute pardon request. In July 2021, Governor Ralph Northam granted Mr. Morman’s absolute pardon.

More information on Mr. Morman’s exoneration is available here.

Rojai fentress

Rojai Fentress was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1996, at the age of 16. He was sentenced to 53 years in prison and ultimately served 24 years before he was released on a conditional pardon by Virginia Governor Ralph Northam in July 2020.

Since the morning he was arrested at the age of 16, Rojai Fentress has always maintained his innocence. Charged with the murder of a white man shot and killed in a Richmond apartment complex during a drug deal gone wrong, Mr. Fentress turned down plea offer after plea offer — the lowest one for five years — telling the prosecutor in his case that he was not going to take a plea. He was innocent. Mr. Fentress was never interrogated, and his home was never searched.

In 2014, another man confessed to the murder. The actual murderer repeatedly admitted to the crime, including under oath, to a Special Agent for the Virginia Department of Corrections, and to multiple news reporters. When Mr. Fentress filed a habeas petition based on this sworn confession — without the benefit of counsel — the judge deemed the confession “not credible” and denied the case without even a hearing.

The Innocence Project at UVA School of Law became involved in Rojai’s case in 2016 and filed a pardon petition on his behalf in 2017.

The only evidence connecting Rojai to this crime was an in-court, cross-racial identification by the woman who had accompanied the victim to buy crack late the night he was killed. Previously undisclosed videotape, however, revealed that this eyewitness had admitted to a detective that she was “pretty well lit” that night, and that she had identified someone else before identifying Rojai in court. At trial, she denied being intoxicated, positively identified Rojai (for the first time), and denied having ever identified anyone else. The detective also lied under oath, corroborating her false statement before the jury.

Other videotapes that were never made available to the defense revealed the same detective telling witnesses that if they didn’t identify a shooter to him — any shooter — they themselves could be charged with the murder. Faced with this evidence, in 2018 the original prosecutor even signed a statement saying that Rojai should be released. 

In July 2020, after a letter-writing campaign in support of Mr. Fentress and a change.org petition that amassed over 6,000 signatures in one week, Governor Northam released Mr. Fentress from prison on a conditional pardon.

The Innocence Project at UVA School of Law continues to represent Mr. Fentress in his fight for full exoneration.

GARY BUSH

Gary Bush was 56 in 2006 when he was arrested for the armed robbery of two Virginia banks. Each bank had been robbed by an older male with gray hair, wearing a hat and camouflage.

Mr. Bush was convicted of one robbery in 2007 after a trial. No physical evidence connected him to the crime, and he presented an alibi at trial in the form of a date-stamped record. Still, Mr. Bush was convicted based on the testimony of an eyewitness. He was sentenced to five years in prison.

Later in 2007, Mr. Bush went to trial in the second armed robbery case. This time, he chose to have a bench trial rather than a jury trial. Again, Mr. Bush presented alibi testimony; again, there was no physical evidence connecting him to the crime. And again, he was convicted based on eyewitness testimony: a customer and the bank teller both identified him as the robber. This time, Mr. Bush was sentenced to seven years in prison.

In 2016, another man turned himself in to the police and confessed to having robbed three banks, two of which were the robberies of which Mr. Bush was convicted. Later in 2016, Mr. Bush was released on parole. The true perpetrator apparently confessed due to an attack of conscience after his grandson lied about, but then confessed to, having broken some windows. That man agreed to a plea deal and was found guilty of one of the robberies.

After the true perpetrator’s confession, the Innocence Project at UVA School of Law began representing Mr. Bush in his two petitions for writs of actual innocence before the Virginia Court of Appeals. The Attorney General’s office eventually joined Mr. Bush’s petitions.

Mr. Bush was granted the writs of actual innocence and officially exonerated in May 2018.

More information about Mr. Bush’s exoneration is available here.

darnell phillips

At the age of 19, Darnell Phillips was wrongfully convicted of the brutal rape, sodomy, and malicious wounding of a 10-year-old girl in Virginia Beach, Virginia and sentenced to 100 years in prison.

In 2001, before the Innocence Project at UVA School of Law became involved in his case, Mr. Phillips filed a petition based on hair evidence that excluded him as the perpetrator of the attack. The hair evidence used against Mr. Phillips has been completely discredited in the time since his conviction, and, in fact, testing now shows that the hair used to convict Mr. Phillips belonged to someone with a Caucasian mother. His petition was denied on procedural grounds.

The Innocence Project at UVA School of Law began investigating Mr. Phillips’ case in 2008. Post-conviction investigation revealed that police had lied to the victim, the Commonwealth’s primary witness, about their evidence against Mr. Phillips. The victim, it turned out, had been unable to identify Mr. Phillips in a standalone photo (not a lineup) presented to her just hours after the attack. The victim now supports Mr. Phillips’ exoneration.

In 2015, the clinic finally uncovered long-sought DNA evidence — a rape kit and underwear. In 2017, the third lab to test the evidence (the first two could not get results because the evidence had degraded over time) discovered that at least two men had touched the underwear, neither of whom was Mr. Phillips.

In 2018, the Supreme Court of Virginia refused to hear Mr. Phillips’ petition for a writ of actual innocence based on biological evidence because it will only consider evidence tested by the Department of Forensic Science in Virginia. That law changed during the 2020 session as the result of advocacy by the Innocence Project at UVA School of Law. The same year, the Court of Appeals of Virginia denied Mr. Phillips’ petition for a writ of actual innocence based on non-biological evidence.

Based in large part on the evidence of his innocence, Mr. Phillips was released on parole in 2018, having spent over 27 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

The Innocence Project at UVA School of Law continues to represent Mr. Phillips and is working on achieving his full exoneration.

Listen to Darnell discuss his case and talk about how the Innocence Project helped free him after 28 years of incarceration.

Edgar coker

In 2007, at the age of 15, Edgar Coker was falsely accused of rape. In 2014, after a seven-year legal battle fought by the Innocence Project at UVA School of Law and the school’s Child Advocacy Clinic, Mr. Coker was finally exonerated.

Fearful of being sent to an adult detention center and facing the threat of being tried as an adult, Mr. Coker pled guilty to rape and breaking and entering, crimes he did not commit. Mr. Coker served 15 months in a juvenile detention center and was a registered sex offender for six years.

Shortly after Mr. Coker was convicted, however, his then 14-year-old accuser admitted to having fabricated her allegations. Both Mr. Coker and his accuser had IQs in the lowest 5-10% of the population.

Discovery revealed a recording of Mr. Coker’s 2007 interview with the lead detective in the case. Contrary to what the detective had claimed, Mr. Coker did not confess during the interview. Discovery also revealed numerous ways in which Mr. Coker’s trial counsel was ineffective.

In vacating Mr. Coker’s conviction, the circuit court judge noted that Mr. Coker’s trial counsel was “was not reasonably competent.”

The JustChildren program at the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, Virginia and the law firm McGuireWoods also worked on Mr. Coker’s exoneration.

BENNETT BARBOUR

Bennett Barbour was convicted of a 1978 rape based entirely on the victim’s faulty eyewitness identification. Mr. Barbour was sentenced to ten years in prison. He served less than five years, though, before he was granted parole based on evidence of his innocence that was presented by his family and friends to the parole board.

As then-governor of Virginia, Mark Warner in the early 2000s ordered DNA samples from crimes from the 1970s and 80s tested. Governor Warner eventually increased testing after results from the initial 31 samples cleared two men of rape charges, and the DNA in Mr. Barbour’s case was tested.

Testing excluded Mr. Barbour as a possible contributor to the DNA from the crime of which he was convicted; in fact, DNA taken from the crime matched a convicted sex offender who was then out on parole. Mr. Barbour’s exculpatory results existed in 2010, but he was not made aware of them until 18 months later. The day he learned of the DNA results, he called the Innocence Project at UVA School of Law, which began representing him.

Investigation revealed that even aside from the DNA, the case against Mr. Barbour had been alarmingly weak and flawed. Mr. Barbour suffered from a brittle bone condition that would have made it impossible for him to attack and restrain the victim in the case. Furthermore, Mr. Barbour had a pin in his arm at the time of the attack and had only recently been released from the hospital. Even at the time of the trial, blood typing testing excluded Mr. Barbour. There were also patterns of similar rapes in the area around the time of the attack, which were ignored by law enforcement. And, Mr. Barbour had an alibi, which was corroborated by several individuals, and he did not match the victim’s initial description of her attacker. Still, the eyewitness identification carried the day.

In May 2012, the Supreme Court of Virginia granted Mr. Barbour a writ of actual innocence.

Mr. Barbour died of bone cancer in 2013, two months after having voted in his first presidential election.