When Convictions Create More Victims

What do you do when you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time and you’re accused and convicted of a crime you didn’t commit? What if it ends with a sentence of life in prison or worse, death? It’s a nightmare from which few innocent inmates believe they’ll ever wake up from.

According to the Texas Innocence Project, four percent of inmates in the state have been wrongfully convicted. That’s a minimum of 5,640 innocent people wiling away the hours in Texas jail cells alone. It happened to Lydell Grant in 2010 when he was wrongfully convicted of the murder of Aaron Scheerhoorn outside a Houston nightclub, but he was able to overcome the odds giving hope to other inmates in his shoes.

Victim number one: Aaron Scheerhoorn

Aaron Sheerhoorn was a member of the LGBTQ community in Montrose, a quaint neighborhood in west-central Houston. Sheerhoorn, active in his community, had a bright future ahead of him with plans to eventually start his own catering, events and promotions company.

The 28-year-old had been out in his neighborhood on December 11, 2010, when he was brutally attacked, sustaining at least seven stab wounds. As Sheerhoorn escaped his assailant and ran toward what he hoped was safety at Club Blur, he was turned away by the club’s bouncers and a bar-back, even as he screamed for help and his attacker appeared brandishing the knife. Sheerhoorn was pursued into the parking lot by the man who continued stabbing him until he collapsed. The man then calmly walked away into the night.

Sheerhoorn died very soon after the violent encounter, which was labeled as a hate crime.

Victim number two: Lydell Grant

Lydell Grant spent nine years in a maximum-security prison in Gatesville for a crime he didn’t commit, and it was up to him to set the record straight and get himself out of prison.

Statements gathered from numerous eyewitnesses showed only a vague physical description of the perpetrator who claimed they had watched Sheerhoorn’s vicious stabbing death unfold in front of them. The general description given could have included thousands of potential suspects, but police only focused on one. That same bar-back saw a man fitting the common description the following night walking down the block toward another bar.

All it took was 48 hours, a call to Crime Stoppers with his license plate number, and six witnesses picking his photo from a photo lineup to change the trajectory of Grant’s life despite having no physical evidence that he was at the scene of a violent crime.

Other factors that worked against Grant include:

• His first two attorneys being stricken with cancer causing a change of attorneys multiple times.
• Only calling one witness to testify at trial.
• Failing to call a DNA expert to refute the state’s flimsy DNA analysis that didn’t confirm Grant’s DNA under the nails of the murder victim, but could not eliminate it.

His prior criminal history combined with circumstantial evidence put him behind bars for almost a decade. The murder was eventually determined to have been committed by Jermarico Carter, a man with a lengthy criminal history already serving time in Georgia.

How wrongful convictions happen and are overturned

Under the right circumstances, convictions can be pretty easily obtained when a prosecutor is hungry enough to bring closure to a family and community where an assault or other violent crime took place.

Some ways a wrongful conviction might be achieved include:

• A younger defendant is intimidated by police and answers questions without an attorney present.
• A prior criminal history might persuade a jury of your guilty even though you didn’t commit this particular crime.
• A weak defense that failed to dig into the available facts and evidence or to uncover new evidence that exists and can prove your innocence.
• The prosecution withheld vital evidence that would have clearly shown your innocence.
• Lying by a non-eyewitness who was promised something by the prosecution in exchange for testimony.
• Eyewitness misidentification that erroneously puts you at the scene committing the crime.

To change the course of their lives, inmates must prove that they are actually innocent through presenting clear and convincing new evidence to overturn their jury verdict.

Exoneration can be achieved through:

• DNA evidence that can accurately pinpoint the right suspect.
• A confession by someone else with enough detail that proves you did not commit the crime.
• Receiving a new trial and winning by proving jury tampering or other improprieties occurred at trial.
• Witnesses recanting their initial testimony that was heavily weighted in determining your guilt.

If you have been arrested for a felony that carries a stiff penalty, your best chance of preventing a wrongful conviction is hiring a stellar criminal defense team that will leave no stone unturned in preparing your defense.

The experienced Killeen criminal defense attorneys at Mary Beth Harrell Criminal Defense and DWI Lawyers understand that even the smallest overlooked details of a case can mean the difference between a verdict of guilt or innocence.   To schedule a consultation in our Killeen or Copperas Cove office, call us today at 254-312-2523, or visit our contact page.