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No new trial in rape; it'd end the same, DA says

DNA evidence wrongly tossed, '87 defendant says

By Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published March 15, 2008 at 12:30 a.m.

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Moses-El was convicted despite a lack of physical evidence.

Moses-El was convicted despite a lack of physical evidence.

Morrisey: New trial would not change verdict for Moses-El.

Morrisey: New trial would not change verdict for Moses-El.

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Clarence Moses-El, who was convicted of raping a woman in the Five Points neighborhood in 1987, will not get a new trial despite lawmakers' efforts on his behalf, Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrisey said Friday.

"There is absolutely no indication, based on the totality of all the evidence and the thorough review conducted by myself and numerous judicial officials, that a new trial would result in any different outcome," Morrisey said in a letter responding to Sen. Ken Gordon, D-Denver.

Last Saturday, Gordon hand delivered a letter to Morrisey, with a request for a new trial for Moses-El or some other relief because the DNA evidence in the case was destroyed by Denver police after a judge's ordered it preserved.

Moses-El, now 52, was convicted despite the lack of physical evidence. The victim had named three other suspects before she told prosecutors that her attacker's identity came to her in a dream.

48-year sentence

Moses-El was sentenced to 48 years, and has spent the last 20 years in prison for a crime that he said he did not commit.

In 1995, after Moses-El had collected $1,000 from fellow inmates for a DNA test of the biological evidence in the case, he learned that the Denver police had thrown the evidence away.

In his response Friday, Morrisey disputed some of the issues that Gordon had raised about testimony at Moses-El's trial, including who the victim identified as her attacker.

"The evidence was packaged and marked, and was available for pickup for over four weeks," Morrisey wrote. "The defense did not pick it up during this time, and unfortunately it was destroyed through separate, independent, normal retention- and-discarding process.

"All of the concerns you express have been fully addressed in court proceedings, which themselves have been the subject of the full appeal process," Morrisey wrote. "Mr. Moses' conviction is final. It is not subject to vacation or adjustment by me, the court or the legislature on the basis of any of those concerns."

Morrisey suggested that Gordon ask Gov. Bill Ritter to commute Moses-El's sentence or have him pardoned.

Gordon said he was not surprised by Morrisey's response.

Trying for a law

But the senator and former defense attorney disagreed with the DA's assessment that a new trial isn't warranted and would not produce a different outcome.

"This is a policy question," Gordon said. "The policy I'm looking at is: Who bears the consequences of the destruction of a lot of crucial evidence by law enforcement?"

Gordon said that's the reason he introduced Senate Bill 205, which would require the court to grant a new trial if material evidence subject to court ordered preservation is destroyed, lost or otherwise disposed of by law enforcement.

Gordon said he will ask Ritter, a former DA, to either commute Moses-El's sentence or pardon him but doesn't think the governor would do either.

"The appropriate thing to do is to have a determination or not if (Moses-El) is guilty by a jury who gets to hear about the testing and how he tried to use the DNA but (the evidence) was destroyed," Gordon said.

Morrisey said he also doesn't believe that if Gordon's bill passes, Moses-El will get another day in court.

"They can try," he said. "But I'm not convinced that this law would give him a new trial."

Comments

  • March 15, 2008

    6:37 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    ham writes:

    I don't know about Mr Moses-El's guilt or innocence, but I have a question about Mr Gordon's position: Is he saying that 10 or 15 years after a conviction, if all physical evidence is not kept by law enforcement in the event of a re-trial, that the conviction should be set aside? It doesn't seem logical to me that all evidence from every case is saved in the event of a re-trial, for years and years. I don't believe that would even be possible.

  • March 15, 2008

    9:50 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    buffsblg writes:

    Ham

    The difference here is that a Court order to preserve the evidence had been entered and the police just decided to tell the court and the defendant to go to He** and destroyed it any way. We need clear rules on how long evidence is kept and what should be kept, making reasonable standards and taking into account funding and Gordon is trying to fashion that bill. However, if a DA and cops just ignore a court order, why would we beleive that they will obey a law. Morrissey's arrogance (and his political ambitions) demonstrate that he could not care less about truth, just his conviction stats.

  • March 15, 2008

    10:01 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    The_Punnisher writes:

    Morrisey:

    Just a little bit of your ARROGANCE & PRE-JUDGEMENT showing?

    This Civil SERVANT has become a Civil MASTER...

  • March 15, 2008

    11:18 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    El_Guapo writes:

    So, this man was convicted without physical evidence because his name came to the alleged victim in a dream?

    Is there any way to test dream evidence to make sure it is real?

    I dreamed last night I had sex with Cameron Diaz. It certainly seemed real. Does that make it real? If so, can I now brag about it?

    I am reminded of the Chinese sage Chuang-tzu:

    I dreamed last night I had sex with Cameron Diaz. Today I am not sure if I am a man who dreamed he had sex with Cameron Diaz or if I'm Cameron Diaz now dreaming I'm a man.

    All jokes aside, I don't know how you convict a man on evidence dreamed up by the alleged victim. Maybe she just dreamed that she was raped.

  • March 15, 2008

    11:25 a.m.

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    kevin3 writes:

    No new trial for Moses-El? That is bullsh*t! I am sure Moses-El being a poor black man has something to do with it. Get the lawyer who helped O.J. and the young black kid who was murdered by Denver Police.
    Moses-El went through the painstaking process of collecting $1000
    from fellow inmates. Moses-El himself, and his fellow inmates believe he is innocent. If his fellow inmates did not believe he was innocent they definitely would not have pitched in on his behalf. Money in prison is extremely hard to come by. To convince fellow prison inmates of your own innocence is incredible.

  • March 15, 2008

    12:09 p.m.

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    Oh_Wise_One writes:

    All of you bleeding hearts stfu. He was convicted, went thru the appeal process and there it is. How far from now is every 'black' man in prison going to need a new trial? Just let all of those bitches out now so we can get the race war on before the Obamessiah and his black liberation philosophy takes away our guns.

  • March 15, 2008

    12:24 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    kevin3 writes:

    Oh-not-so-wise-one, why don’t you go the nearest 7-11 and buy some reality and some intelligence?

  • March 15, 2008

    6:44 p.m.

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    Desertrat writes:

    It's good to hear from an old fashion gun freak racist once and a while. No patriotic nonsense there...

  • March 15, 2008

    9:14 p.m.

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    HolierThanThou writes:

    If the government can find space to put a man in prison then they can store the evidence while the man is still alive and appealing his conviction.

    Morrisey's lame excuse for destroying the evidence only suggests that they threw it away deliberately to avoid the embarrassment of being proven wrong.

    Grant Moses-El a new trail... No dream evidence allowed.

  • March 16, 2008

    8:59 a.m.

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    TeresaBinstock writes:

    I have a dream: The individuals who destroyed the DNA evidence in violation of court order ought be imprisoned, and Clarence Moses-El ought be freed with payment of damages from the evidence-destroyers' families' equity.

  • March 16, 2008

    9:02 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Desertrat writes:

    So you were in the next cell and are sure you know where he got the money. Under cover for the NRA I suppose...

  • March 16, 2008

    11:08 a.m.

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    kevin3 writes:

    aztlan99: White liberals checking the facts? What are the facts that you know about this case that is not in this article? The facts in this article are screaming reasonable doubt! How do you know he got his money "on the outs"? Someone has to watch out for the less fortunate because they tend to get screwed!
    If this guy is guilty he needs to rot in prison. But he has to be proven guilty by reasonable doubt. How would you like to be in prison for a crime that you did not commit? It happens obviously more often than we know! Example: Timothy Masters!

    By the way I seen with my own eyes when I was a young teen (early 80's) growing up in the Capital Hill neighborhood a black man being unnecessarily roughed up by the Denver Police.

  • March 16, 2008

    11:31 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    kevin3 writes:

    Oh and by the way, I am tired of people calling other people liberals just because they don’t agree with what their opinion is.
    Just because I care that someone (who in this case happens to be a black man) might not have gotten a fair trial makes me a liberal? I believe I am very patriotic for caring that someone might not have gotten a fair shake in the justice system and caring that our government treats everyone fairly!
    Oh and by the way I am a liberal...so what! Don’t label me! I also believe that if you take guns away from the citizens, only criminals will have guns. How is that for a liberal? Sometimes I believe in the death penalty. How is that for a liberal?

  • March 16, 2008

    1:56 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    kevin3 writes:

    I have to agree with you about the cow-town quality of the RMN and Denver Post. I don't agree that this is being overblown. This story will probably fade into oblivion after about a week. I also don't think that Mosel-El is Denver's Hurricane Carter.