Inclusion Daily Express -- Officer's Estate Wants Earl Washington Case Retried

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Officer's Estate Wants Earl Washington Case Retried
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
June 2, 2006

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA--Earl Washington Jr. will have to go back to court again, if the legal team representing the estate of a police officer that fabricated evidence against him has its way.

According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, attorneys for the estate of former Virginia State Police Special Agent Curtis Reese Wilmore asked the judge in the case to grant a new trial just two weeks after a jury ordered the estate to pay Washington $2.25 million -- the largest civil-rights award granted to any individual in the state's history.

The attorneys want the case retried because, they claim, U.S. District Court Judge Norman K. Moon did not allow them to reject the only black juror from the jury pool. Moon had said that the defense team would have allowed the woman, who was a police officer, if she were white. Wilmore's attorneys argued that answers she gave on a questionnaire caused them to request that she be eliminated as a juror.

Washington, who is black and has been described as having mild mental retardation caused by an early childhood brain injury, spent nearly 18 years in prison after being convicted in the 1982 rape and stabbing death of Rebecca Lynn Williams. He came within 9 days of execution in 1985 before an attorney volunteered to represent him.

DNA tests done on evidence gathered at the crime scene led one governor to commute Washington's death sentence to life in prison in 1994, and another governor to pardon him and order his release in 2001. Further DNA tests pointed to a convicted rapist who is already in prison.

In the civil trial that ended in early May, Washington's lawyers argued that when Wilmore interrogated him in 1983, the officer manipulated Washington by giving him details that only investigators and the murderer knew about, and asking leading questions about the murder case that had gone unsolved for nearly a year.

Experts testified that Washington was easily pressured into confessing to the crime because of his intellectual disability. That confession was the primary evidence used to convict Washington, even though it contained several inconsistencies.

In a related story, the Times-Dispatch reported this week that Virginia taxpayers have already paid at least $532,880 in legal fees to the law firm representing the estate of Wilmore, who died in 1994. The amount does not include the costs of the recent trial.

Related:
"New trial sought in death-row civil case" (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/06/red/0602a.htm
"Fees in civil case footed by taxpayers" (Richmond Times-Dispatch)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/06/red/0602d.htm
"Earl Washington, Jr." (Inclusion Daily Express Archives)
http://www.inclusiondaily.com/news/laws/earlwashington.htm

Copyright © 2006 Inonit Publishing
Please do not reprint, forward, or post without permission.

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