Murder charge against Hash dropped in Culpeper
Published: August 20, 2012
CULPEPER, Va. — A murder charge against Michael Wayne Hash, whose 2001 capital conviction was overturned by a federal judge in February, was dropped this morning at the request of a special prosecutor.
Judge Susan Whitlock approved the motion by Raymond F. Morrogh, the Fairfax County commonwealth’s attorney who reported on his investigation so far into the 1996 slaying of Thelma B. Scroggins.
The move to not prosecute the charge means that Hash will remain free, although an investigation is continuing, Morrogh told the court.
“He’s a totally free individual,” Morrogh said.
Hunt for the wrongfully convicted continues
Published: August 20, 2012
RICHMOND, Va. —
A volunteer Northern Virginia lawyer hunting for people who may have been wrongfully convicted of crimes decades ago has a delicate task to perform once he finds them.
DNA testing of thousands of pieces of old crime scene evidence in Virginia’s long-running project to clear the innocent has identified 63 convicted people still alive for whom DNA samples are needed.
If any of the 63 is innocent, without a DNA exemplar to compare with DNA from the evidence there is no chance they can prove it. On the other hand, if they have committed other wrongdoing over the years, DNA might link them to unsolved crimes.
For the second time in Virginia’s long-running post-conviction DNA project, Jon Sheldon, a Fairfax lawyer, has offered to track people down. But, he cautions, this time it is after finding them that the difficult work may begin.
COSTS: Federal Case Reveals High Costs of Death Penalty Prosecutions
By Bill Rankin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Justice Department doesn’t often seek the death penalty, but this case appeared to be as close to a slam dunk as a prosecutor could get.
Brian Richardson was already serving the rest of his life in prison for armed robberies. Now he had methodically killed his cellmate at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta. After repeatedly stabbing and then strangling the 60-year-old man, Richardson decided to shave before alerting guards.
But the government didn’t get the death penalty for Brian Richardson. His jury could not reach a unanimous verdict so, by law, he received life without parole.
In the meantime, Richardson’s case required more than 20 lawyers and consumed thousands of hours of their time. It cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees from expert witnesses, some who cost the government $1,900 an hour but were never allowed to testify. And it derailed the careers of two federal prosecutors — one accused of defying a court order, the other caught making outrageous comments to a snitch on a recorded phone call.