May 18, 2010 marked not only a victory for the state of Arkansas but also a symbolic victory for the victims in the West Memphis 3 case: John Fogleman lost his bid for a seat on Arkansas’s highest court.

John Fogleman was a prosecuting attorney in the case against Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley.  While he “won” the case, the taint of prosecutorial misconduct still haunts the credibility of the verdict.  He accepted and used a false confession as well as argued an incorrect theory as to how the victims were killed. While Fogleman argued that a knife was responsible for the children’s wounds, the country’s leading forensic pathologists determined that a knife was not used in their murder, and most of the wounds on their bodies were in fact postmortem animal bites. As a result of his professional malpractice, Damien Echols was sent to death row, where he sits today, while the other two defendants, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin, are spending the rest of their lives in prison for a crime virtually every expert believes they did not commit.  And as new evidence of their innocence comes to the fore, their unjust conviction is cast in an even stronger light.

And so, it was more than ironic when Fogleman announced his candidacy to seek the highest position of Justice for the state of Arkansas. In a report on prosecutorial misconduct and error, the Washington, DC Center for Public Integrity said that, “Former Crittenden County deputy prosecuting attorney John Fogleman took part in at least three of the 54 cases [cited in the report from Arkansas]. In one, the court found his conduct to be so prejudicial as to require a new trial. In another, a dissenting judge would have reversed a murder conviction because of Fogleman’s tactics.”

Damien Echols, one of the three defendants in the West Memphis 3 case who sits on death row as a result of Fogleman’s highly prejudicial handling of the case, has written a letter addressing Fogleman’s defeat.  He expresses his appreciation to the people of Arkansas who have helped move their justice system in a better direction.  In Damien’s letter, he writes:

“I just want to say thank you to everyone who went out and voted […], and made certain that Fogleman didn’t win. I cannot express my gratitude enough.  There have been times when I felt that no one in the state cared about this case, or that perhaps everyone even approved of it. I do not feel that way now.  I just feel grateful.  Thank you very, very much. Fogleman’s ability to hurt more people and destroy more lives has been greatly limited.  It also sends a loud and clear message that continued corruption won’t be tolerated.  Thank you.”  (Echols’s letter can be read in its entirety, along with other letters he has written, on www.freewestmemphis3.org).

Thankfully, Arkansans did not fall for Fogleman’s political campaign and he will not be able to bring his approach to justice to the Arkansas Supreme Court.

Rachel Silverman

Terry Hobbs, stepfather of West Memphis murder victim Stevie Branch, thought he was in for a big payday after filing a federal defamation suit against Natalie Pasdar (Maines) of the Dixie Chicks for comments she made during a press conference in Little Rock in 2007……not so fast.

In fact, the US District Court ordered Terry Hobbs to pay Natalie Maines $17,000 in legal fees for the frivolous lawsuit  that he brought against her. Court order

It has been 17 years since John Fogleman led the tainted prosecution that sent Damien Echols to death row and Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin to prison for life for crimes no reasonable person believes they committed.

Today, the man who pushed past the boundaries of legal ethics to obtain those wrongful convictions seeks a judgeship on the state’s highest court, the Arkansas Supreme Court. The same court will soon decide whether new evidence in Damien Echols’s case, including the uncovering of shocking juror misconduct in the original trial, will be enough to set him free.

In obtaining convictions in the West Memphis 3 trials, Fogleman did exactly what many prosecutors would do when faced with no serious police investigation, no credible witnesses, no evidence linking the accused to the crimes: he closed his eyes to the truth and hoped the lies would convince 12 jurors to agree.

In a report on prosecutorial  misconduct and error, the Washington, DC Center for Public Integrity said that “Former Crittenden County deputy prosecuting attorney John Fogleman took part in at least three of the 54 cases [cited in the report from Arkansas]. In one, the court found his conduct to be so prejudicial as to require a new trial. In another, a dissenting judge would have reversed a murder conviction because of Fogleman’s tactics.”

John Fogleman is not the first Fogleman to be involved in a horrible injustice. As a recent CNN article notes, a prominent African-American man named Isadore Banks was chained to a tree and burned to death by a group of white citizens of Marion, Arkansas, 50 years ago, when his father Julian was the city attorney and his uncle John was the prosecuting attorney. When asked if his brother or any other legal authorities conducted an inquest into the gruesome murder, Julian Fogleman said, “I can’t tell you if they did or they didn’t.” Nor does he have any explanation why he himself did not pursue justice in the case when he became prosecutor a few years later.  When asked how he feels that the killers were never brought to justice, he says, “I don’t know what to think. It hasn’t happened, but why I don’t know, I just don’t know.”

Fifty people gathered in Marion recently to honor the memory of the murdered man and, after all these years, to seek some measure of justice.  Many believe Julian Fogleman knows a lot more than he is telling. Many believe that he and his brother John, who went on to become Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court, stood by silently while the guilty men were never brought to justice for the “lynching” of an innocent man.

Now, 50 years later, his son John Fogleman aspires to the highest judicial position in the state, where he would be responsible for dispensing the ultimate justice in cases that come before the court.

Based upon his actions during and after the convictions of Damien, Jessie and Jason, we can be sure that John Fogleman, like his father and uncle before him, cannot be expected to seek justice. He just wouldn’t know what “to think.”

Lonnie Soury