The Arkansas Board of Parole has decided against recommending clemency for Belynda Goff, 53, who says she is innocent of the 1994 bludgeoning death of her husband, Stephen Goff, 40.
Belynda Goff of Green Forest has served 20 years of a life sentence without parole. She refused a plea bargain and has maintained her innocence throughout her appeals process.
Goff filed a 233-page request for "commutation to time served" with the Parole Board in August.
Last week, the board announced that it found the application "without merit" based on the crime's "nature and seriousness; death of victim." The single worksheet also noted that the "sentence is not considered excessive."
The Innocence Project, a New York-based nonprofit, took up Goff's case in 2013 and filed the clemency request on her behalf. The nonprofit's website says it is "dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice."
The organization says it decides which cases to accept after determining "whether DNA testing can be conducted and, if so, whether favorable results can prove innocence."
In December 2013, Karen Thompson, a lawyer with The Innocence Project, filed a request with the Carroll County Circuit Court to DNA-test physical evidence listed in police logs.
No weapon was recovered in Stephen Goff's homicide, no physical evidence linked Belynda Goff to the crime, and according to Goff's lawyer, testimony excluded from the original trial indicates potential third-party involvement.
In June, Judge Gerald Kent Crow ordered the DNA testing, but some pieces of evidence could not be located. The last record regarding the evidence is dated Dec. 12, 2000, when documents indicate that Greg Lester with the Carroll County sheriff's office received it from the state Crime Laboratory.
In October, a court-ordered private investigator searched the sheriff's office evidence rooms. In a report to The Innocence Project, investigator Michael West noted that the sheriff's office evidence collection was stored randomly and with little documentation, leading him to believe the Goff evidence had been lost.
Last month, Thompson filed a motion in Carroll County seeking to subpoena Lester for questioning about the missing evidence.
"There are many ways that we're trying to move forward here, but the fact is the DNA case might be foreclosed just because there's nothing left to test," Thompson said.
"So the clemency petition was, we thought, one of her best chances to prove her innocence."
Goff also applied for clemency in 1997 and 2009, before being represented by The Innocence Project.
Parole Board chairman John Felts said that one member of the board (John Belken in this case) examines clemency applications and makes a recommendation to the rest of the board but that all members have access to the file.
In this case, five board members voted "without merit," and two members didn't vote.
"There's a death involved, and now she's claiming that she didn't do it, but there has been a lot of documentation on both sides," Belken said. "I personally don't feel that she was innocent of the crime that she committed and for that reason I said without merit."
Goff's clemency application file included 44 letters supporting her request for clemency, including letters from her two children with Stephen Goff, from four trial jurors and from the bailiff on duty during the sentencing portion of Goff's trial.
The file also contained 27 letters opposing clemency, including a letter from the original police investigator; the original trial judge, Tom J. Keith; and from Stephen Goff's immediate family and its friends.
The board's recommendation to the governor is nonbinding, Felts said.
Ultimately, Gov. Asa Hutchinson will decide whether to grant clemency.
If Goff's request is denied, she must wait six years before filing another request.
Metro on 05/29/2015