On this page, we will keep you updated about concrete steps you can take to support our mission, both in individual cases and on a more global level.

Clemency Petitions

There is currently a clemency petition pending before the governor of Virginia that need your support.

The Norfolk Four 

The case involves the Norfolk Four, former Navy sailors with no criminal records who were wrongfully convicted of the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Bosko.

After the crime, police focused their investigation on a man named Danial Williams. After 11 hours of interrogation in which the police lied about evidence, told Williams that he had failed a polygraph when he actually passed it, and threatened him with the death penalty, Williams provided a false confession that did not at all match the physical evidence. DNA tests also did not match the physical evidence, but police continued to focus on Williams, trying to find his “accomplice" among his friends. Police ultimately obtained false confessions from Joseph Dick, Eric Wilson, and Derek Tice. None of their confessions matched the physical evidence, the men contradicted each other in their confessions, and none of the men’s DNA matched the DNA of the rapist, but all four men were charged with rape and murder.

While the investigation was taking place, Omar Ballard — a friend of the victim’s — bragged that he had committed the crime. At the time of his confession, he was in prison for a violent assault he had committed in the victim’s building two weeks before her murder. Ballard’s DNA matched the DNA of the rapist in the Bosko case, and other physical evidence indicates that the crime was committed by only one person, but the Norfolk Four remain in prison for a crime they did not commit. MAIP Board members Don Salzman and Des Hogan and their teams of lawyers from the firms of Skadden, Arps and Hogan & Hartson have been working tirelessly on behalf of the Norfolk Four for several years.  They have been joined in their efforts by George Kendall of Holland & Knight. 

In November of 2006, a Virginia trial court judge threw out the conviction of Mr. Tice, finding that the police violated his constitutional rights when they interrogated him. But the ruling was predicated on procedural errors and did not consider Mr. Tice's innocence, which means that Mr. Tice is still subject to retrial unless the governor grants clemency or the Commonwealth decides not to try him again.

A clemency petition relating to all four defendants has been pending before Virginia Governor Kaine since 2005. For a sample letter that you can send to Governor Kaine in support of the petition, please click here. You can also send the letter via e-mail. To send Governor Kaine an e-mail, click here and follow the directions for “Contact Via Web Form." For more information about the case, please visit www.norfolkfour.com.  

Legislative Initiatives

The Maryland legislature is currently considering two bills that are aimed at reducing the likelihood of wrongful convictions. 

The first, Senate Bill 193/House Bill 67, would require police departments to make electronic audio and video recordings of custodial interrogations in prosecutions for crimes of violence.  At a recent commmittee hearing, MAIP Executive Director Shawn Armbrust testified in support of this bill alongside Maryland advocates and a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.  To date, four states and the District of Columbia have already enacted legislation requiring the recording of custodial interrogations.  State supreme courts in four additional states have mandated such recording.  Although many law enforcement officers initially oppose policies that require the recording of interrogations, the response of officers who do record is almost universally positive.  Electronic recording of interrogations can actually assist law enforcement by (1) preventing disputes about how an officer conducted himself or treated a suspect; (2) creating a record of statements made by the suspect, making it difficult for a defendant to change an account of events originally provided to law enforcement; (3) permitting officers to concentrate on the interview, not on copious note-taking; (4) capturing subtle details that may be lost if unrecorded, which helps law enforcement better investigate the crime; and (5) enhancing public confidence in law enforcement, while reducing the number of citizen complaints against the police.   We at MAIP are hopeful that the Maryland legislature will pass this bill this year.        

The second bill being considered by the Maryland legislature this session is House Bill 103/Senate Bill 157, which would require each law enforcement agency in the state to adopt written policies relating to eyewitess identification that comply with standards identified by the United States Department of Justice (DOJ).  More than three quarters of the first 185 DNA exonerations in the United States involved mistaken eyewitness identifications.  In response to this problem, the Department of Justice has recommended that (1) in a photo array or lineup, the supsect should not unduly stand out from other participants; (2) the lineup procedure should be electronically recorded or otherwise documented; (3) lineup administrators should not provide the witness with any verbal or non-verbal cues during the lineup procedure; (4) lineup administrators should let the witness know that the suspect may or may not be in the lineup and that they will keep investigating the case if an identification is not made; and (5) immediately after the lineup procedure, the eyewitness should provide a statement in his or her own words that articulates the level of confidence he or she has in the identification.  MAIP strongly supports this bill, although we feel that it does not go far enough in taking the steps necessary to prevent misidentifications.  In particular, the Department of Justice report does not require that photo arrays and lineups be conducted sequentially, with the witness viewing the suspects one at a time, rather than as a group, nor that the procedure be "blind," with the police officers conducting the procedure not knowing which participant is the suspect.  The DOJ Guide identifies these procedures as directions for future exploration and field testing.  We believe that these procedures are an essential step in ensuring the accuracy of eyewitness identifications.   You can read the entire DOJ Guide by clicking here. 

Last July, Armbrust testified in D.C. at a public hearing on behalf of the Criminal Records Expungement Act of 2006, which would make it easier for wrongfully convicted individuals to expunge the charges for which they have been erroneously convicted. The legislation would provide tremendous help to area exonerees — like Steven Dewitt — who often have difficulties finding jobs because of their criminal records. The bill is still pending before the Council of the District of Columbia.

We will continue to keep this site updated so that you may let your representatives know how you feel about the laws and issues under consideration. To locate contact information for your local government representatives, click here.