23 January 2008
OPEN LETTER TO SUPPORTERS OF THE WEST MEMPHIS THREE
As the lawyers who represent Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley in their respective state and federal court challenges to their 1994 murder convictions, we feel it necessary to reply to questions that have been publicly raised recently about whether conflicts have arisen between the three defense teams.
Each of us is ethically obligated to vigorously promote the legal interests of our individual clients. Nonetheless, despite the fact that the cases of our clients are in different procedural postures, we have worked cooperatively whenever legally possible because the ultimate interests of Jason, Jessie, and Damien are the same.
All three are accused of jointly committing crimes of which all three are innocent. Evidence that exculpates one therefore exculpates all. That is plainly true of the critically important DNA testing that has been conducted on behalf of our clients in recent years. Our clients obtained the court order authorizing that testing only by pledging to underwrite its cost which, given its extensive scope, has run into more than a hundred thousand dollars.
The defense has had to pay those fees thus far because the State of Arkansas has no mechanism to fund such testing, which all parties in this case agreed had to be conducted by an out of state accredited laboratory. Only the generous donations of supporters enabled the defense teams, and the State, to conduct that testing, which is on going.
Counsel for all of our clients have participated in obtaining judicial determinations as to which evidentiary items would be subjected to testing. All have benefitted from the discovery that while DNA evidence of potential suspects has been recovered from the crime scene, none of that DNA came from Baldwin, Misskelley and Echols. All of us have assisted in the development of the recent findings by the nation's leading forensic pathologists that the victims suffered pastmortem animal predation. Those findings have devastated the state's theory that the victims suffered ritualistic satanic injuries, a theory that the state employed at the trials of all three defendants.
We have the greatest thanks for all who in the past have financially assisted the legal efforts to free Jessie, Jason, and Damien. Much work remains to be done. We have complete confidence that Lorri Davis and others who have organized past fund raising efforts have done so with integrity and with the aim of seeing justice done, and we can assure supporters that arrangements are being made to ensure that future contributions will be used to meet the needs of all our clients as they prepare for further legal proceedings in state court.
Dennis P. Riordan
Donald M. Hogan
Counsel for Damien Echols
John Phillipsborn
Blake Hendrix
Counsel for Jason Baldwin
Michael Burt
Jeff Rosenzweig
Counsel for Jessie Misskelley
