USA - Sherrill

USA - North Carolina. Judge frees Michael Wayne Sherrill from death row

June 16, 2021:

Judge frees Michael Wayne Sherrill from death row.
Sherrill, now 65, White, was convicted 12 years ago (see HoC 23/02/2009) for the 1984 fatal stabbing and rape of Cynthia Dotson.
Sherrill walked off Central Prison in Raleigh on Wednesday evening a free man.
Earlier in the day, the man pleaded guilty via a video link to lesser charges in Dotson’s death during a highly unusual court hearing in Superior Court Judge Lou Trosch’s courtroom on Wednesday.
Sherrill’s freedom hinged on the discovery in April that several pieces of evidence, which could have strengthened his defense, had not been shared with his attorneys before his 2009 trial.
Under an agreement between the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office and the defense team, Trosch set aside Sherrill’s death sentence for the murder and rape of Dotson, a 23-year-old Charlotte waitress.
Instead, Sherrill pleaded guilty to 2nd-degree murder, 2nd-degree rape and second-degree arson. He received a new 20-year sentence.
Under the state’s previous sentencing laws, which still applied to the case, Sherrill already had served more than his expected punishment.
In previous court appearances, Sherrill had said he did not kill Dotson — even though his DNA had been found at the scene. Among the problems cited in the consent order was a missing fingerprint taken from the scene and the fact that Charlotte-Mecklenburg police had destroyed a rape kit in 1985 with material collected from Dotson’s body, calling the handling of DNA evidence into question, according to court filings.
Prosecutors with the Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s Office on Thursday stressed that they still believe Sherrill killed Dotson, but they agreed to his release “in the interest of justice,” according to a written statement.
“After a thorough review of the available evidence surrounding the defendant’s allegations, the State was not in a position to confirm or disprove the defendant’s claims,” the statement from the prosecutors’ office said.
“The State remains completely convinced of the defendant’s guilt and is pleased the defendant has now accepted responsibility for his crimes by pleading guilty,” it also stated.
Sherrill becomes the 9th N.C. inmate within the last year whose death sentence has been vacated, according to the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. Those sentences were set aside for a variety of reasons, including racial discrimination, juror misconduct, ineffective assistance from counsel and prosecutors’ failure to turn over evidence.
Sherrill was arrested and indicted for the killing a quarter of a century after Dotson’s death when detectives, operating under the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s new cold-case unit, said they found his DNA on a fingernail retrieved from Dotson’s body in 1984.
Sherrill in 2005 was also charged with the murders of three people killed in Charlotte eight months after Dotson died. Linda Taylor, Jackson Bostic and his 14-year-old daughter, Amy, were found beaten to death in their partially burned home off Old Pineville Road.
Sherrill’s trial judge allowed evidence from the 3 killings to be presented at Sherrill’s trial for the killing of Cindy Dotson. Years later, the 2nd set of murder charges were dropped.
Up until Wednesday, Sherrill had been one of 136 people awaiting execution at Central Prison as he appealed his conviction. His departure leaves four Mecklenburg defendants on death row.
Sherrill’s status suddenly changed in April during a hearing in Trosch’s courtroom. Sherrill’s appeal was built primarily on claims that his trial attorneys — Deke Falls and Bill Causey — had not effectively represented him.
During questioning by Sherrill’s current lawyers about his handling of the case, Falls testified that he never received the potentially exculpatory fingerprint taken from the murder scene, observers said. Now a federal public defender in San Diego, Falls also said he did not know during the trial that rape kit evidence had been destroyed by police a year after Dotson’s death, according to observers and court filings.
Under the so-called Brady Rule, prosecutors are required to turn over several categories of evidence to the defense, including anything that points responsibility for the crime toward another suspect or casts doubt on the credibility of police.
After hearing what Falls said about the missing evidence, Trosch immediately halted the hearing, according to people in the courtroom. The defense team then told the judge they would amend their appeal to add constitutional violations of Sherrill’s due-process rights. Prosecutors said they would investigate to determine whether any Brady violations had occurred.
In the weeks that followed, attorneys from both sides agreed to a compromise: Sherrill would be freed. But he had to plead guilty to killing Dotson first.

https://news.yahoo.com/judge-frees-man-death-row-213114241.html