VIRGIL EASTER LOSES AGAIN

Unfair trial OK, apparently. Is a retrial so much to ask under the circumstances?

Jackie McMurtrie, assistant professor at the UW School of Law, believed two of her law students could help change the fate of a man who was sentenced to life in prison without parole. They were, in her opinion, his last option. As director of the Northwest Innocence Project, McMurtrie assigned the students to defend Virgil Easter in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals two weeks ago. Started in 1996, the project is made of a group of UW law students who try to prove the innocence of convicted felons by using DNA evidence to overturn a court's decision.

Easter, who was sentenced in 2001, filed an appeal with the Washington State Court of Appeals that the court rejected. He continued to file appeals and petitions in the Washington State Supreme Court for the next three years. Easter's case was finally granted another day in court on July 6, 2004.

McMutrie said when she first read the case, she thought it would be overturned. "When I read the case, there was something that jumped out of me," said McMurtrie. "He wasn't given his right to a fair trial. With the magnitude and the number of errors, it seemed like at every level [his counsel] didn't do what they were supposed to do." Her students would argue that Easter's counsel's "lack of investigation and deficient performance at trial deprived Easter of his constitutional right to effective assistance of counsel," according to court documents. They continued to argue that at "every step of the proceeding, counsel failed to completely investigate, prepare and present" Easter's case. The students pointed out that Easter's counsel failed to interview the detective who arrested Easter and nine of 11 state witnesses, failed to obtain a visible copy of the photomontage, and did not examine an expert on eyewitness identification. "We know that eyewitness identification is the leading cause for wrongful conviction," said McMurtrie. "It is so difficult to get a conviction overturned. The odds are all against you, but we were optimistic about the case."

The students made their argument in the courtroom. The appeal was rejected. Mike Pope, a UW senior who screens all cases mailed to Innocence Project, said the court's rejection was very hard for the clinic to take. "I walked in [to McMurtrie's office] and she looked horrible -- she said come back in a couple of hours," said Pope. "This has been a really tough thing for all the clinic students." "I think it's just heart breaking because he is going to spend the rest of his life in prison for a crime that was based on such weak evidence," said McMurtrie.

Pope believes the criminal system has some fundamental problems. "Our [judicial] system is focused on getting people in [jails] and off the streets," said Pope. "I think innocence is something that gets put along the side. If one out of a thousand is innocent, it's like, 'hey, oh well.'" McMurtrie called the court's opinion cursory and brief, and maintains Easter wasn't given his right to a fair trial.

She believes he may have very few options left. "From here there is really no other place to go," said McMurtrie. "We will ask the whole court to look at the ruling, but even I realize that that is a long shot." She said that they will continue to try to get Easter a new trial. "We are kind of the lawyers of last resort," said Pope.


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