man who was framed for murder and spent 18 years in jail and 9 years on death row gets $2.25 million. Original Article Federal jury awards Earl Washington Jr. $2.25 million Earl Washington Jr. By MICHELLE WASHINGTON, The Virginian-Pilot May 6, 2006 Jurors awarded $2.25 million Friday to Earl Washington Jr., deciding that a State Police agent fabricated evidence and coached Washingtons confession that sent him to death row. Washington, who turned 46 Wednesday, was convicted of the 1982 rape and murder of Rebecca Lynn Williams in Culpeper. In 2000, however, DNA evidence showed that Washington did not commit the crime. The DNA pointed to another man. In a lawsuit filed against the estate of Virginia State Police Special Agent Curtis Reese Wilmore, Washingtons attorneys said Wilmore fed Washington details about the crime to elicit a false confession from Washington, who is mildly mentally retarded. Brian Pumphrey, an attorney for the Wilmore estate, had only a brief comment. We are bitterly disappointed and have no further comment at this time, he said. Background: Freed man's lawsuit says confession was coached Washington served more than nine years on death row. Several dates were set, and he came within nine days of execution. In 1994, questions about his guilt caused then-Gov. L. Douglas Wilder to commute Washingtons sentence to life in prison. In 2000, with definitive DNA results, Washington was exonerated of the Williams murder after serving nearly 18 years in prison. Before he was released, Washington completed a sentence for an unrelated attack on an elderly woman who was his neighbor. In that case, he hit the woman with a chair and then stole a gun from her house. It was after his arrest for that crime that Washington confessed to and was charged with Williams murder. Nine jurors heard evidence in the lawsuit over two weeks in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville. Experts testified about Washingtons susceptibility to making a false confession because of his retardation and about the psychological effects of his time on death row. Washington testified to describe the nightmares he still has about the electric chair. Wilmore died in 1994. Curtis Todd Wilmore, his son, testified that his father was an honest man with a reputation for integrity. William Broaddus, one of the attorney s for Wilmores estate, told jurors that the agents report included wrong answers Washington gave in response to questions about the crime. Jurors began deliberating Thursday night and returned the verdict Friday afternoon. Washington has received no other compensation, said Debi Cornwall, one of Washingtons attorneys. Earl is thrilled, she said. Hes taking a deep breath. Weve got to figure out how much money that is. Cornwall said the money to pay Washington would come from the state of Virginia through insurance held by the State Police. Another of Washingtons attorneys, Peter J. Neufeld, said the jurys decision sends a larger message . Wilmore did not record his interrogation of Washington. For the first hour of the interrogation, he did not take notes. What this case proves is that Virginia should join all the states that require all police interrogations to be recorded, Neufeld said. Reach Michelle Washington at (757) 446-2287 or michelle.washington@pilotonline.com. http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=103758&ran=75238 Kangaroo court for Earl Washington The Virginian-Pilot May 1, 2006 As exonerated death-row inmate Earl Washington launches into a civil trial intended to win a payback for his lost years, unsettling public questions loom. Why does the state refuse to declare Washington innocent of the rape-murder for which he received an unconditional pardon from former Gov. Jim Gilmore in 2000? Why has special prosecutor Rick Moore, who is supposedly still investigating the case, never retracted the statement that Washington remains a suspect? Almost six years after Washington's pardon, the persistence of his lawyers and other advocates has shed far more light on the case than existed in 2000. We now know the identity of the convicted rapist, Kenneth Tinsley, who left semen on the bed where Culpeper housewife Rebecca Williams was murdered in 1982. Washington spent 9-1/2 years on death row for that crime. We now know that Tinsley was also the source of semen on Williams' body, even though the state forensic lab said in 2000 that he was not. We now know that the lead state police investigator falsely suggested at trial that Washington told investigators about a shirt left at the murder scene. In fact, the investigators brought the shirt up first. Lawyers representing the estate of that investigator in the current civil trial acknowledge the obvious: Washington is "factually innocent of the crimes" and was not present when Williams was attacked. Furthermore, DNA testing of semen left by the perpetrator excludes Washington and identifies Tinsley as the attacker. Washington had "no connection" with Tinsley. Is there another case in the history of Virginia in which the semen of a convicted rapist has been found on both the body and the bed of a dead woman, and yet the commonwealth allows a shadow of guilt to hover over another man? No. Mr. Moore, please put this travesty to an end. http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2006/05/04/newswashington.aspx NEWS- False confession: When the innocent admit guilt Published May 4, 2006 in issue 0518 of the HooK. By LISA PROVENCE LISA@READTHEHOOK.COM Earl Washington was nine days away from execution for a rape and murder he didn't commit. He eventually served 18 years before DNA testing cleared him and implicated a convicted rapist. Now waging a civil suit expected to end soon in Charlottesville, Washington and his plight have put a spotlight on false confessions, an emerging topic on the national scene and one that a few folks believe may have caused some local teens to be jailed indefinitely. Why would someone confess to a crime he didn't commit? It happens more often than you'd think. Take the 1989 Central Park jogger case, where five teenagers confessed to a brutal rape and beating. DNA evidence later linked the crime to a lone attacker. "We know more and more about false confessions because of DNA evidence," says UVA law prof Brandon Garrett, who represented one of the Central Park teens. "Otherwise, it's hard for a court to reverse a conviction because a confession is so powerful." In 340 exonerated cases in the United States, 15 percent of the convictions were based on false confessions, says Garrett, citing a 2005 study published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. In the federal courthouse in downtown Charlottesville, Earl Washington took the stand Tuesday, May 2 to explain how it felt to be an innocent man counting the days to the electric chair. He is suing the estate of the investigating detective, Curtis Lee Wilmore, who died in 1994, claiming Wilmore fabricated Washington's confession. Washington is said to have a low intelligence level and to be susceptible to police suggestions, even if the suggestions are entirely untrue, says Garrett. "He just agreed with what they said," Garrett says. "The detective said he volunteered statements no one else could have known, and that's why we know he did it. Now we know he couldn't have volunteered that information." Washington told police the victim was black (she was white), that he stabbed her three times (she was stabbed nearly 40 times), and that the victim was alone (in fact, her two small children were present). "Earl Washington is a textbook false confession," says attorney Steve Rosenfield, who's representing Washington and who handled another high-profile case that he believes is a false confession, though that client is sitting in jail. In February 2003, the murder of Nola Charles and her three-year-old son, and the burning of their house, horrified Crozet. Four neighborhood teens were held, and three were charged. Eighteen-year-old Robert Davis, who was in special education, was interrogated by police for five hours and denied-- 78 times-- being in the Charles home that night. He had been up for nearly 24 hours when he finally capitulated, says Rosenfield. "He was without sleep, and he had emotional issues exploited by law enforcement," he adds. Davis offered an Alford plea, in which he maintains his innocence but concedes there is enough evidence to convict him. He could serve 23 years. "I still contend, even though the judge allowed it, it's a false confession," maintains Rosenfield. "The final chapter has not been written. I think one day he will be found innocent." False confessions have been around for centuries; a prominent US example is the Salem witch trials. Saul Kassin of Williams College started studying false confessions 25 years ago and has identified three types. First is the voluntary false confession in which the confessor may be bragging or seeking attention. For example, more than 200 people confessed to the kidnaping of the Charles Lindbergh baby. The most common is the compliant false confession induced by police. "They know they're innocent, they're tired, but they want to go home," says Kassin. Third is the internalized false confession made by vulnerable people who didn't commit the crime and have no memory of it, but who, when police tell them they have evidence, actually begin to believe they committed the crime. Kassin mentions the so-called Norfolk Four, former sailors convicted in a 1997 murder to which another man eventually confessed after DNA linked him to the crime. Three of the Norfolk Four are still in prison, which their supporters blame on their coerced false confessions. "We hope-- it's wishful thinking-- one of your governors would pardon them," says Kassin. Experts believe that some people-- especially children-- can't handle the stress of an interrogation and just want to please authority figures. Some people wonder if that's what happened to the four teens convicted of allegedly conspiring to blow up Albemarle and Western Albemarle High Schools. Sources indicated that no physical evidence was introduced in their trials-- just alleged confessions to police. "He would have confessed to the Kennedy assassination," says the father of the 15-year-old Albemarle High student. The family is appealing the conviction of their son, who's been incarcerated since February 1. Detective Gary Pistulka, who interrogated the boy, did not return the Hook's call. The youth's family has expressed outrage that their son was never read a "Miranda" warning that he could remain silent nor was given the chance to have an attorney present. His father says police called him to bring the boy in for questioning, and he had to take him out of school. "I will never concede it was in fact a confession," says one of the teen's attornies, Bill Hicks. "I think [the boy] was answering hypothetical questions that the court and police interpreted as a confession. I think he got the impression that as soon as he said what the cop wanted, he could go." Hicks contends that the 15-year-old was talking about a 17-year-old Western Albemarle student, also charged in the alleged plot, who pleaded guilty. As long as the teen is not in custody, Miranda doesn't apply, says Hicks, explaining police logic with "'Heck, he's here voluntarily,' even though they pulled him out of school." In Andy Griffith's fictional town of Mayberry, parents would have taken a misbehaving youth down to the station to talk to the sheriff and clear things up, trying to scare him enough to prevent future misdeeds, and then go home to a family dinner. But in post-Columbine America, where zero-tolerance for perceived threats can mean time behind bars, Hicks says, he wouldn't allow his own son into such an interview. "No way, no how," says Hicks, "unless I have a lawyer and a letter granting full immunity for any comments my son makes." Earl Washington (left) is a textbook false confession case, says his lawyer, Steve Rosenfield. Washington is suing the estate of the investigator he says fabricated his confession. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-world064731615may06,0,2966474.story?coll=ny-worldnews-print CONFESSION IN MURDER CASE MADE UP. A federal jury in Charlottesville, Va., ruled Friday that a former state police investigator fabricated a rape and murder confession that sent a Virginia man to death row, where he came within nine days of being executed. The jury awarded Earl Washington Jr., who spent nearly 18 years in prison, $2.25 million in his suit against the estate of investigator Curtis Reese Wilmore, who died in 1994. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/06/us/06brfs.html VIRGINIA: JURY AWARDS $2 MILLION TO MAN WRONGFULLY CONVICTED A federal jury in Charlottesville ruled that a former state police investigator fabricated a rape and murder confession that sent a Virginia man to death row, where he came within nine days of being executed. The jury awarded the man, Earl Washington Jr., $2 million in his lawsuit against the estate of the investigator, Curtis R. Wilmore, who died in 1994. "I feel great and happy," Mr. Washington, left, said after the verdict. He spent nearly 18 years in prison and was pardoned in 2000 by Gov. James S. Gilmore III after sophisticated DNA testing, unavailable at the time of the crime, linked a convicted rapist to the murder. (AP)