IQ Tests Key in Palm Beach County Trial

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Ron Chapman

The following article was published Monday, February 8th in the Palm Beach Post News, and was written by Susan Spencer-Wendel. It refers to one of my recent cases.

 

IQ tests key in Palm Beach County trial that is longest delayed death penalty case in state

WEST PALM BEACH — His is one of the longest-running death penalty cases in Florida, experts recall.

D'Andre Bannister has sat in jail more than seven years awaiting trial, after being charged with first-degree murder in the death of his stepson, 4-year-old Tarquez Woodson, whom police say Bannister beat to death in August 2002.

Today, the attorneys and judge gathered again, this time to determine if Bannister is mentally retarded and thus ineligible to face the ultimate penalty. One factor under Florida law is having a general IQ score 70 or below.

Despite Bannister scoring an IQ of 72 some years ago, a newly available intelligence test given to him in 2008 gave his defense attorneys the magic IQ score of 69.

"It may have been a blessing in disguise this long passage of time," said defense attorney Ronald Chapman outside court, adding that the new intelligence test — the WAIS-IV — was not available previously.

Testimony of three doctors who evaluated Bannister did not conclude today. Circuit Judge John Hoy could not immediately identify a time he had available to continue testimony at a later date. Hoy has said he well set the case for trial this summer.

Under testing by a defense doctor, psychologist Harry Krop, Bannister scored a general IQ of 69 in 2008.

But under the same testing by a doctor tapped by prosecutors, Bannister scored an IQ of 78 in 2009, according to testimony .

And the protracted delay may have played a part in that as well, Krop testified.

For Bannister, being in a highly structured environment like the jail has likely increased his overall abilities, Krop said.

"To his credit, he has done a lot of things to try to improve himself during the eight years he has been incarcerated," Krop said.

How could Bannister score 69 on an intelligence test and then 78 less than a year later?

Krop opined that he believed Bannister purposefully learned the answers, looking up in a dictionary, for example, some words he did not understand the first time he was tested.

The doctors who testified said that Bannister does not want think of himself as mentally retarded and doesn't want to be seen as such.

So, it's a double-edged sword for Bannister waiting so long for trial, as he may have grown smarter in the meantime — and eligible for execution.

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Atkins v. Virginia barred the execution of mentally retarded people, deciding the practice is "cruel and unusual punishment."

Two months later Bannister was arrested and charged, after Tarquez Woodson died, bruises all over the boy's body, torn internal organs and brain damage.

The case against Bannister languished under a constellation of events: a series of procedural delays, distractions, changes in judges and momentous personal events in the attorneys' own lives.

And his defense attorneys, Chapman and Evelyn Ziegler, have been in no hurry to take his case to trial, with no one forcing their hand.

The delay's multi-layered effect on the outcome is something, of course, only more time will tell.

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Death Penalty: Was an Innocent Man Executed?

Posted on September 4, 2009 by Ron Chapman

          It is becoming more and more commonplace to hear news accounts of individuals who were convicted of first-degree murder, sentenced to death, and then released years later after it was discovered (typically through DNA testing) that they were actually innocent. 

 

          Whenever a horrific story like this appears, someone who favors the death penalty invariably states that the release of such individuals is proof that the system of capital punishment that we have in the United States works properly.

 

          What follows, however, is a story about a case out of Texas in which a man who may well have been innocent has already been executed.  If his innocence is eventually proven, it will provide further powerful evidence as to why the death penalty should be abolished in our country.  

 
 
Report: Faulty fire investigation led to execution

 

By JAMIE STENGLE (AP) – Aug 26, 2009

 

DALLAS — A fire investigation that led to the execution of a man in the deaths of his three young children was so seriously flawed that its conclusion of arson can't be supported, a fire expert hired by the state said in a new report.

 

In a report to the Texas Forensic Science Commission released Tuesday, Craig Beyler said the fire investigation in Cameron Todd Willingham's case didn't adhere to the standards of care in place at the time, nor to current standards.

 

Beyler, chairman of the London-based International Association for Fire Safety Science, said in the report that the opinions of a state fire official in the case were "nothing more than a collection of personal beliefs that have nothing to do with science-based fire investigation."

 

The commission, created in 2005 to review forensic misconduct allegations, requested the independent analysis after the Innocence Project submitted claims of questionable evidence in the cases of Willingham and another man who was convicted in a similar case but was later released.

 

Commission Chairman Sam Bassett called Beyler's report "a major step" in the panel's review of both cases.

 

Before issuing its final report, the commission will seek responses from the State Fire Marshal's Office and other parties, and will interview Beyler in October, Bassett said.

 

He said he expects the commission to release its report next spring.

 

Beyler said that in both cases, "The investigators had poor understandings of fire science ... Their methodologies did not comport with the scientific method or the process of elimination."

 

He said Manuel Vasquez, a deputy state fire marshal in the Willingham case, appeared "wholly without any realistic understanding of fires and how fire injuries are created."

 

Beyler said witnesses contradicted Vasquez's arson hypothesis and that Vasquez admitted he had not eliminated other possible causes.

 

Eric Ferrero, spokesman for the Innocence Project, a New York-based organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people, said Beyler's findings on the Willingham case "confirms what several experts have found over the last five years after reviewing thousands of pages of evidence."

 

"Every expert who has looked at this case has determined there was no reason to call it arson," he said.

 

Willingham, 36, was executed in 2004. He was convicted of setting the fire that killed 2-year-old Amber and 1-year-old twins Karmon and Kameron on Dec. 23, 1991, in their Corsicana home.

 

He told The Associated Press before his execution that he was innocent. "The most distressing thing is the state of Texas will kill an innocent man and doesn't care they're making a mistake," he said.

 

Willingham's cousin, Patricia Cox, of Ardmore, Okla., said she has never doubted her cousin's innocence. Family members tried for years to free him.

 

"I would definitely like the state of Texas to take responsibility and admit in fact they wrongfully executed Todd Willingham," she said. "Is that going to happen? Probably not. I'm not optimistic."

 

Willingham's stepmother, Eugenia Willingham, called the report another step in the "long, drawn-out process" of clearing his name.

 

"He lived 12 years on death row," she said. "He went through hell, I'm telling you. It was probably worse than hell."

 

She said her husband died in 2005, the year after his son's execution, of prostate cancer and "a broken heart."

 

Vasquez investigated the case with Douglas Fogg, the assistant Corsicana fire chief. The report said they cited burn patterns on the floor of the children's room, hallway and porch, indicating an accelerant spill. Beyler said those determinations have no basis in modern fire science.

 

Ben Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Insurance, of which the State Fire Marshal's Office is a part, said he had no comment on the report, saying officials there had not yet seen it. He said Vasquez died in 1994.

 

A call to a Douglas Fogg in Corsicana was not immediately returned Wednesday.

 

In the other case cited in the report, Ernest Ray Willis was convicted in 1987 in a fatal house fire in Iraan, but was freed after 17 years on death row when a federal judge ruled that authorities concealed evidence and needlessly drugged him during his trial.
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