What the Judge Ate for Breakfast

The Washburn University Law Clinic today set up an online petition to Gov. Sam Brownback as part of a clemency request for a Wichita man convicted of murder.

The online public petition seeks public support for Ronnie Rhodes, who has served 30 years in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit.

Two years ago, Washburn law students studying with professor Rebecca Woodman began looking into Rhodes’ case. They reported finding serious flaws in the investigation and evidence, which resulted in Rhodes’ conviction and a life prison sentence. The clinic also has pointed to legal concerns in the way his appeal was handled and carelessness in the handling of evidence that might prove Rhodes’ claims of innocence.

“The Washburn law students’ investigation convincingly shows that Ronnie’s conviction was the result of a miscarriage of justice, and the fact that crucial evidence that could exonerate him has been lost or destroyed only adds to it,” Woodman said.

Executive clemency allows Brownback to either pardon Rhodes or commute his sentence to time served.

“Ronnie has paid for this with over 30 years of his life, and that’s more than enough,” Woodman said.

After receiving support from more than 20 people — mostly prison officials who deal with Rhodes daily at the Lansing Correction Facility — the state’s Prisoner Review Board last summer denied the 57-year-old inmate parole for the eighth time. The review board will examine the request for clemency, then send it onto Brownback’s office with a report. The Prisoner Review Board was appointed by Brownback to replace the Kansas Parole Board.

In denying parole, the board imposed conditions, including finding a job that conflicted with Department of Corrections policies.

Rhodes said he has been repeatedly told he won’t receive parole until he “takes responsibility” for the crime.

“I will not admit to something I have not done,” Rhodes said in an e-mail from prison. “I am not a murderer, I can not kill anyone for any reason and that is just the way it is.”

A letter to Brownback accompanying the online petition stated: “Despite his unjust incarceration, Mr. Rhodes has engaged in educational and occupational pursuits to aid his reintegration to society, and is well-equipped to lead a productive life outside of prison.”

Rhodes has studied, and received, a paralegal degree through a correspondence course. He has also become a mentor to other inmates through the “Reaching Out from Within” support group, which encourages non-violent behavior.

“I have watched this place turn men into killers and heartless people full of hate and bitterness,” Rhodes said. “I refuse to allow this place, its people or the conditions to dictate the conditions of my heart, no matter how long I am here.”

Janet Weiblen, a Kansas City area pastor who works with “Reaching Out From Within,” said she has been frustrated with a lack of response by state officials to Washburn’s findings.

She said she hopes the petition will show Brownback and prison officials that others support clemency for Rhodes.

“I am beginning to think we have a system that is immovable,” Weiblen said. “I hope that’s not so. There comes a point in time where justice is justice.”

The petition is available at Change.org

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Destroying evidence in Ronnie Rhodes‘ case might have been against Wichita Police Department policy — if it had one.

“We have no policy in our very thick policy and procedural manual that states how long evidence will be kept,” said Tom Stolz, deputy chief of the WPD investigations division. “We go into great detail about how to collect it and where it goes and how to preserve it. But we have no policy that talks about how long you have to keep it.”

The Sedgwick County Sheriff’s office, meanwhile, has a detailed written policy for retaining evidence, based on a state law requiring a court order.

Such discrepancies between agencies illustrate why 33 states have passed laws mandating how long evidence should be kept.

Kansas isn’t one of them.

“Preservation laws seek to provide uniform guidance to all agencies charged with the retention of biological evidence, said Rebecca Brown, senior policy advocate for state affairs at The Innocence Project in New York.

Stolz said Wichita police follow “unwritten rules” on how long to keep evidience, which may have changed over time.

Rhodes went to prison in 1981 for Wichita murder he maintains he didn’t commit. His case came to light again after he asked for DNA testing of evidence, and it couldn’t be located. DNA testing wasn’t available during his original trial.

Students at the Washburn School of Law have since questioned the strength of the evidence that convicted Rhodes, the adequacy of his legal representation and the reasoning behind appeal and parole decisions that have kept him incarcerated.

While working with the law class, the Eagle learned most — if not all — of the physical evidence in the stabbing death of Cleother Burrell had been destroyed, despite the apparent absence of a required court order

No one currently at the WPD worked on the Rhodes case, and Stolz said the department has kept evidence from even older convictions.

“We’ve got homicide stuff from the ‘50s,’ Stolz said. “We’ve kept that essentially forever.”

While Stolz doesn’t know what the practice was in the 1980s, he said evidence in some cases was destroyed after the prosecution had been completed and the appeals exhausted.

“We had no clue at that time that DNA was going to become as viable as it has for evidence,” Stolz said. “So now … maybe we should keep stuff longer, because you never know in 20 years what the science is going to be. And once you destroy it, it’s gone forever.”

In 1989, two U.S. men were exonerated by DNA evidence. By 1992, the genetic testing of old biological material had shown 10 men were innocent of the crimes that sent them to prison.

“In the early 1990s, … people in prison, 20, 25, 30 years, we’re resurrecting DNA evidence and their appeal becomes viable. So now, we keep everything.”

Stolz said he’s assigned Lt. Ken Landwehr, head of the homicide unit, to study what other cities do and to come up with a policy for how long to retain evidence. Stoltz said the department is considering keeping biological evidence in murder cases for the life of the defendant.

More than 250 people have been found not guilty through DNA evidence, after being locked up, on average more than a dozen years. Criminologists say they have no way of knowing how many others remain in prison for crimes they didn’t commit, because evidence no longer exists.

Brandon Garrett, a University of Virginia law professor who has studied the reasons behind wrongful convictions says its not uncommon to see policies differ between law enforcement agencies.

The Sedgwick County Sheriff’s office has “a considerable written policy” on keeping and destroying evidence, said Capt. Terry Parham.

“We don’t destroy evidence unless we have a valid court order that has been reviewed by both the county attorney’s office and the district attorneys office,” said Parham, commander of the sheriff’s support services division.

That does not include evidence in homicide cases, which Parham said is never destroyed.

Ann Swegle, deputy district attorney for Sedgwick County, said that office supports keeping evidence in serious cases, such as rapes and murders, for “as long as they have evidentiary value, even after appeals are exhausted.”

Swegle said most of the time, she’s found Wichita police practices effective.

“They almost always keep evidence until they have a proper court order to destroy it,” she said.

No court orders have turned up in concerning purging of evidence in the Rhodes case.

Stolz said he doesn’t know why Rhodes’ evidence was destroyed.

“Why would you ever in a homicide case destroy anything? It’s a good question,” he said.

“We surely don’t want to convict wrong people,” Stolz added. “Nobody is in the business of doing that.”

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The U.S. Supreme Court gave inmates another way to challenge rulings preventing the testing of evidence that might prove their innocence.

In a 6-3 ruling Monday the high court said inmates have to right to sue for civil rights violations in federal court, if they are denied DNA testing on the state level. The case involved Henry “Hank” Skinner, a death row inmate in Texas.

Skinner filed a federal suit against the prosecutor who withheld the evidence and argued against its testing. But Skinner’s case had been thrown out by lower courts. The Supreme Court said his suit should proceed.

It doesn’t mean Skinner will win, but it gives inmates seeking to prove their innocence another way to get access to evidence. While 48 states, including Kansas, have laws allowing such testing, many requests are not granted by narrow readings of the law.

In Kansas, many are summarily dismissed.

Monday’s Supreme Court could also influence how hard prosecutors fight against providing such evidence, said Rebecca Woodman, adjunct law professor at the Washburn Law School.

“Allowing prisoners to maintain an independent civil rights action to vindicate their due process rights lessens the ability of prosecutors to hide behind procedural rules,” she said.

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