It is with great sadness that MAIP announces the death of Larry Fowlkes in his prison cell on Saturday, May 10, 2008.  Mr. Fowlkes died, apparently of natural causes, after waiting four long years for Governor Warner, then Governor Kaine, to act on his clemency petition, filed on his behalf on May 18, 2004, by lawyers recruited by the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project (“MAIP”).    

In 1995, Mr. Fowlkes was convicted of murder, attempted murder, and robbery, and was sentenced to 45 years in prison.  No physical evidence or eyewitness connected Mr. Fowlkes to the crime.  Moreover, thirteen witnesses – including a minister and police officer – placed him at church, many miles from the crime scene, during the attacks. 

Mr. Fowlkes was convicted based on the testimony of a snitch, Sheila Barbour Stokes.  Ms. Stokes claimed that she overheard Mr. Fowlkes planning the crime and later helped him clean blood out of his car.  Ms. Stokes is a career criminal with so many felony offenses on her record involving deception and fraud that she has been barred from Lunenberg County, Virginia except for court appearances.  The government dropped a felony uttering charge against Ms. Stokes shortly after she testified at Mr. Fowlkes' first trial.   

Testimony from witnesses like Ms. Stokes – criminals who only testify in exchange for favorable treatment – is notoriously unreliable.  Despite that red flag, police and prosecutors continued pursuing Mr. Fowlkes, and Mr. Fowlkes' trial lawyer failed to discover evidence that could have led to his acquittal.  Subsequent evidence – including forensic reports, business records, and her own recantation – has discredited Ms. Stokes’s testimony.  Unfortunately, no jury or court has ever considered that evidence because of mistakes made by his trial counsel and because of restrictive post-trial remedies in Virginia.  Clemency was the only option left for Mr. Fowlkes, whose health steadily and seriously deteriorated from the time he entered prison.   

Lawyers recruited by MAIP filed a clemency petition on May 18, 2004, based upon innocence and, alternatively, on humanitarian grounds, citing Mr. Fowlkes' poor health.  Governor Warner’s staff met with the attorneys on two occasions to discuss the petition, but Warner failed to act before leaving office.  Since Governor Kaine’s election, lawyers tried repeatedly to schedule a meeting with his staff, to no avail.  Mr. Fowlkes had many supporters, including the foreman of the jury that convicted him, who urged wrote a letter to Governor Kaine in which he stated that he would not have voted to convict Mr. Fowlkes if he had known what he knows today.  He urged the Governor to grant Mr. Fowlkes' clemency petition.  To read this letter, click here.  A group of former prosecutors also wrote to Governor Kaine in support of the petition.  To read this letter, click here.To read an Executive Summary of the clemency petition filed on behalf of Mr. Fowlkes, click here.  For a sample letter that you can send to Governor Kaine on behalf of Mr. Fowlkes, click here. 

Prior to his arrest, Mr. Fowlkes had worked on the grounds of the United Methodist Assembly Center in Crewe, Virginia, where he helped care for a magnificent rose garden.  It had been his dream since his arrest to return to that garden, where he would have been welcomed back into the community by his former employer and by his large and loving family.  Mr. Fowlkes never gave up that dream.  He used to tell his lawyers that giving up shows a lack of faith, and that he would never lose his faith.  In the end, it wasn’t the courts, or the governors, or the Innocence Project that freed Larry Fowlkes.  It was his faith, his God, who finally called him home. 

Mr. Fowlkes was 52 years old.  He is survived by a large and affectionate family, including his wife, Annie, his mother, his grandfather, six children, and twenty grand-children.

On April 22, 2004, former prosecutor and current University of Richmond School of Law professor Corinna Lain published a column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch urging the release of the Norfolk Four.  Drawing from her own experience in unwittingly persuading an innocent defendant to plead guilty to a crime he had not committed, Ms. Lain asks not only that the Norfolk Four be released, but that we as a society learn from their experience and implement reforms, such as the videotaping of police interrogations, designed to reduce the possibility of wrongful convictions.  To read the piece, click here.  

On April 13, 2008, the Washington Post ran a lengthy article discussing the progress of Virginia's Old Case Testing Project.  MAIP Executive Director Shawn Armbrust is quoted in the article.  To read it, click here.

On July 15, MAIP will host its first annual Awards Luncheon, at which we will honor former Virginia Governor and current Senate candidate Mark Warner for his extraordinary contribution to the cause of justice.  We hope to see you there!