JONESBORO — Three men convicted in the 1993 slayings of three West Memphis boys walked out of court as free men Friday after pleading guilty to reduced charges under an unusual agreement.
Damien Echols, 36, and Jason Baldwin, 34, each pleaded guilty - even as they asserted their innocence - to three counts of first-degree murder in Craighead County Circuit Court.
Jessie Misskelley, 36, also told Circuit Judge David Laser that he was innocent before pleading guilty to one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second degree murder.
The three were convicted of killing 8-year-olds Stevie Branch, Christopher Byers and Michael Moore, whose hogtied bodies were found in a water-filled ditch near Interstate 40 in West Memphis.
A legal maneuver knownas an “Alford plea,” hammered out between prosecutors and defense attorneys over the past few weeks, allowed the three men to enter the guilty pleas while still proclaiming their innocence.
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West Memphis Murders
“It’s not perfect,” Echols said at a news conference after the hearing. “It’s not perfect by any means. At least it brings closure to certain things and some aspects. We can still bring up new evidence. We can still continue the investigation we’ve been doing. We can still try to clear our names.
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“The only difference is that now we can do it from the outside instead of sitting in prison,” he added.
The three were sentenced to the time they’d already served in prison - 18 years and 78 days - and were given additional 10-year suspended sentences. The men will remain free, but any violation of the terms during that time would result in an additional 21-year sentence.
An eclectic crowd filled the courtroom - parents of the slain boys, families of the three convicted men and celebrity musicians such as Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam and Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks.
The passage of time was reflected in the stooped frame of Misskelley’s father and the deep lines creasing the face of Stevie Branch’s dad. Echols’ mother arrived in a wheelchair.
At least 19 law enforcement officers ringed the courtroom during the hearing, echoing the courtroom scene in Jonesboro in 1994, when Echols and Baldwin were convicted during their original trial.
“I am innocent of these charges,” Echols said after the judge asked for his plea. “I am entering an Alford guilty plea under the advice of counsel. It is in my best interest.”
The Alford plea resulted from a 1970 U.S. Supreme Court decision in which a North Carolina defendant was charged with first-degree murder and could have been sentenced to death. However, the defendant said he didn’t commit the crimes and instead pleaded guilty to second-degree murder to avoid the death penalty.
Baldwin and Misskelley - who read his statement from a handwritten note on yellow paper - both said they were innocent but felt it was in their “best interest” to enter Alford guilty pleas.
Before Laser accepted the pleas, Steve Branch, the father of Stevie Branch, stood up in the crowded small courtroom and yelled at the judge.
“If you go through with this, you’re opening Pandora’s box!” he hollered before deputies led him out of the courtroom. “You’re opening the cell doors. You’re wrong, judge. You can stop this right now!”
Laser, who was appointed as a new judge in December 2010 after former Judge David Burnett was elected to the state Senate, acknowledged the emotions that have followed the case.
“We are much aware of the nature of these proceedings,” Laser said. “There are extreme emotions on both sides. It’s hard to imagine a battle that’s raged this long.”
The sudden turn of events evoked mixed reactions, the three newly freed men said during a news conference immediately after Friday’s hearing.
While relieved to be leaving prison, Baldwin said he initially refused the deal on principle.
“They’re not out there trying to find who really murdered those boys,” he said. “I did not want to take the guilt from the get-go. However, they were trying to kill Damien. Sometimes you just have to bite the gun and save someone.”
Echols then thanked Baldwin for agreeing to enter the plea.
“He did want to keep fighting. He didn’t want to take this deal in the beginning, and I want to recognize and acknowledge that he did do it almost entirely for me,” Echols said before the two embraced.
2 TRIALS, 3 CONVICTIONS
Stevie, Christopher and Michael were discovered missing May 5, 1993. Police found their bodies a day later while scouring a wooded area near a subdivision known as Robin Hood Hills.
Echols, Misskelley and Baldwin were arrested a month later.
Echols was convicted of three counts of capital murder in 1994 and sentenced to die.
Baldwin, who was tried with Echols in Jonesboro, also was convicted of three counts of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison.
In a separate trial in Clay County Circuit Court in 1994, Misskelley was found guilty of one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder
Police said the three beat the boys and sexually mutilated one. During Echols’ and Baldwin’s original trial, prosecutors contended the mutilation was part of a satanic ritual.
The men had always maintained their innocence and were scheduled to have a hearing in Jonesboro in December to determine whether they should receive a new trial on the basis of new evidence.
Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington said he was prepared to try the three men again and believes they are guilty but he felt they could be acquitted because of new evidence, the deaths of some witnesses and the “changed minds” of others.
On Friday after Laser approved the deals, Echols, Misskelley and Baldwin left the courtroom as free men at 11:44 a.m.
Thirty minutes later, they sat down together at a table to talk to the media. It was the first time in at least five years that all three had been in such close proximity and been able to talk freely with one another.
“I’m still very much in shock,” Echols said, flinching as photographers crouched below, frantically clicking shutters.
Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley - flanked by their attorneys; Echols’ wife, Lorri Davis; investigators for the defense team and others - all seemed startled by their release and were unnerved at times by the media attention.
“I spent the past decade in solitary confinement,” said Echols, whose pale skin was further accentuated by a dark jacket. “I’m not used to being around this many people.”
He said he planned to sleep once he left Jonesboro because he hadn’t slept in the four days since learning of the plea agreement.
“I’m going to go with the flow now,” Baldwin said when asked what he planned to do.
Asked if they were worried about their safety, Misskelley said, “I’m concerned, but even in prison ... you still got to be worried about your safety.”
Baldwin and Echols left the courthouse to cheers of “We love you boys” and “Freedom” from a crowd that assembled around a waiting black SUV. The cheers dwarfed those heard only moments before for Vedder and Maines as they piled into a large black van.
Baldwin and Echols were taken from the courthouse in the SUV to Memphis, where they remained Friday evening, said Lonnie Soury, the owner of a New York-based firm that acts as a spokesman for Echols and his wife.
Soury said Echols made a brief stop to obtain an Arkansas identification card. He said he wasn’t aware of any plans for Echols or Baldwin to accompany Vedder on any kind of trip, as had been rumored earlier in the day.
‘BUT HE’S COMING HOME’
After the hearing, the families of the victims and Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley expressed mixed emotions about the pleas.
“They’re innocent,” said Mark Byers, the stepfather of Christopher.
He first thought the three men were the killers but has since changed his mind. “It’s a shame that they have to plead guilty to a crime they didn’t do,” Byers said.
Jessie Misskelley Sr., the father of Jessie Misskelley, said he, too, wasn’t pleased with his son’s guilty plea.
“It ain’t what I wanted. It ain’t perfect,” the elder Misskelley said. “But he’s coming home.
“It lifted a whole lot off of my heart. It feels good. Maybe my heart will work better now,” he said.
He plans to put his son to work restoring a 1976 Chevrolet pickup that he gave him before his arrest in 1993. “I’ve got a lot of work for him to do,” he said.
After the hearing, Pam Hobbs, the mother of Stevie, sat quietly on a bench outside the courthouse smoking a cigarette, holding back tears at times as her mother, Marie Hicks, stood at her side.
Hobbs, who has maintained that she believes Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley, said she blamed the original West Memphis police investigators for allowing “somebody else ... to walk for this.”
“I want true justice, and now we’ll never know. ... Those crackerjack police officers and investigators that were on this case in 1993, they messed up, and now the state of Arkansas - it’s just like they want to sweep it under the rug,” she said. “It’s over for everybody else, but it continues to live on for me everyday.”
Steve Branch said his outburst in the courtroom was a “last ditch effort” to reverse the judge’s decision.
“They just pled guilty to murdering my son, and the judge said, ‘OK time served, you can go.’ How much time has my son got? He got the death sentence. The one who killed him should have gotten the death sentence, too,” he said.
“I think the judicial system has failed me - not just me but my son and his two little friends.”
Todd and Dana Moore, parents of Michael, were not at the courtroom Friday. Ellington said they were not satisfied with the plea agreement and told him they would not attend the hearing
Terry Hobbs, stepfather of Stevie, silently shook his head, deflecting questions from reporters outside the courthouse annex building.He then began to walk away uttering only the word, ‘No,” when asked if he thought justice had been served.
Joe Berlinger, co-director along with Bruce Sinofski, of two documentary films about the murders, said he saw political undertones in the timing of the plea deal.
“When there are political interests and perhaps Dusty McDaniel’s gubernatorial run at the end of the year and an embarrassing evidentiary hearing, it’s amazing how quickly things can change,” he said.
In a statement released Friday afternoon, state Attorney General Dustin McDaniel said he believes that the three are guilty despite their claims of innocence.
“Since the day of their convictions, the Attorney General’s office has been committed to defending the guilty verdicts in this case,” he said in the statement. “I continue to believe that these defendants are guilty of the crimes for which they have now been twice convicted.”
As the three freed men fielded questions from the media, one person asked Misskelley about a tattoo of a clock with no hands that encircles his head.
Misskelley had the clock tattooed while in prison and said before that he’d add the hands when he was released.
“What does your clock say?” the man asked Misskelley.
Misskelley smiled and looked into the crowd.
“What time is it ?”West Memphis timeline Three men convicted in the 1993 killings of three 8-year-old West Memphis boys were released Friday after nearly two decades behind bars. Here’s a brief history of the case:1993 May 5 - Three 8-year-old boys - Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Stevie Branch - disappear in West Memphis while riding bicycles.
May 6 - The boys’ bodies, hands and feet tied, are found in a drainage ditch. They died of blows to the head, police say.
May 7 - Police interview West Memphis resident Damien Wayne Echols, 18.
June 3 - Jessie Lloyd Misskelley Jr., 17, reportedly confesses and implicates Echols and Charles Jason Baldwin, 16. All three are arrested and charged. Misskelley later recants.
Aug. 4 - Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley plead innocent to capital murder.
Sept. 12 - Echols’ then-girlfriend Domini Teer bears his son, Damien Seth Azariah Echols.
1994 Feb. 4 - Misskelley is convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Michael and second-degree murder in the deaths of Christopher and Stevie and sentenced to life in prison plus two 25-year sentences.
March 18 - Jury finds Echols and Baldwin guilty of three counts of capital murder.
March 19 - Circuit Judge David Burnett sentences Echols to die by injection and Baldwin to life without possibility of parole.
Feb. 19 - State Supreme Court refuses to overturn Misskelley’s conviction.
Dec. 23 - State Supreme Court refuses to overturn convictions of Echols and Baldwin.
June 22 - HBO begins airing documentary Paradise Lost: The Child Murders of Robin Hood Hills, which raises questions about the prosecution of the case and the guilt of the three men.
1997 May 27 - The U.S. Supreme Court rejects Echols’ appeal without comment.
1999 June 18 - Echols loses appeal for a new trial when Burnett rejects argument that defense attorneys were ineffective.
Dec. 3 - Echols marries Lorri Davis in prison.
2000 June 22 - HBO releases a sequel documentary, Paradise Lost 2: Revelations.
2003 Oct. 2 - Echols’ attorneys argue for a new trial before the Arkansas Supreme Court, contending that his trial lawyer had a conflict of interest with Home Box Office and that the trial lawyer didn’t fully explore whether Echols was competent to stand trial.
Oct. 30 - The court denies Echols’ request for a new trial.
2005 Feb. 24 - Echols loses a second request to have the Arkansas Supreme Court reopen his case.
2007 Dec. 18 - Gov. Mike Beebe says he won’t pardon or commute the sentences of the three men assinger Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks leads an event in support of their appeals.
2008 Aug. 28 - Circuit judge denies new-trial bids by Echols and Baldwin.
2010 Jan. 20 - Burnett denies retrial request for Baldwin and Misskelley Nov. 4 - In a unanimous decision, the Arkansas Supreme Court says Craighead County Circuit Court must consider newly tested DNA and other evidence in the cases against Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley and decide whether the three deserve new trials on the basis of the evidence, which includes a claim of juror misconduct.
2011 March 18 - Circuit Judge David Laser schedules evidentiary hearing for December.
April 8 - Prosecuting Attorney Scott Ellington agrees to new DNA testing on evidence.
Aug. 19 - Under a legal provision known as an “Alford plea,” Judge Laser accepts a prosecution and defense deal that allows Echols and Baldwin to plead guilty to first-degree murder and Misskelley to plead guilty to the same charges he was convicted for, but continue to maintain their innocence. They are set free with credit for time served and a suspended 10-year sentence.
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Front Section, Pages 1 on 08/20/2011