Craig Coley

Last updated

Craig Richard Coley (born June 7, 1947 in Los Angeles County, California) [1] is an American man who was wrongfully convicted of a double murder in Simi Valley, California, and spent 39 years in jail. He was pardoned by the governor of California in 2017 because DNA testing, not available at his original trial, did not support his conviction. [2]

Contents

Early life

Coley was born in June 1947 and was in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. His service included several deployments to Vietnam aboard USS Enterprise and USS Bainbridge. [3] [4]

Wicht murder case

On November 11, 1978 24-year-old Rhonda Wicht and her 4-year-old son, Donald Wicht, were found dead in her apartment in Simi Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles, California. [5] Donald Wicht had been suffocated and Rhonda Wicht had been raped, beaten and strangled. The police suspected Coley was the murderer because he had been Rhonda Wicht's boyfriend for two years and the couple had recently broken up, and because a neighbor also claimed to have seen him and his truck at the apartment after hearing commotion. [6] [7]

Coley was arrested the same day as the murders and charged with the double murder. The first trial resulted in a hung jury. The second trial in 1980 led to his conviction [8] and he was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. [9] After Coley lost his final appeal to his conviction, the judge ordered all evidence to be destroyed. [10] During his imprisonment, Coley was incarcerated in the California State Prison, Los Angeles County and the Folsom State Prison. [11] [12]

New investigation

Michael Bender, a serving detective with Simi Valley Police Department, started to re-investigate Coley's case in 1989 and discovered there were problems with it. Until their deaths, Coley's father and mother, a retired police officer and teacher respectively, had been trying to free their son. [13] [14] Simi Valley Police Chief Dave Livinstone requested a new investigation by cold case Detective Dan Swanson. Det. Swanson located missing evidence, and had it forensically examined. DNA testing, not available at the original trial, showed there was no trace of Coley's DNA on the evidence, but that there was the DNA of an unknown suspect. [15] Investigators also disproved the testimony of a witness from the original trial who claimed to have seen Coley at the scene of the crime. [16] In a report to the local police, three former and current police officers testified that the detective at the time of Coley's trial had “mishandled the investigation or framed Mr. Coley.” The local prosecutor felt the original detectives decided Coley was guilty too quickly and that they were victims of "tunnel vision". [6]

Pardon

California governor Jerry Brown pardoned Coley on November 22, 2017, [17] because the evidence showed he was innocent of the murders. [6] In February 2018, the California Victims Compensation Board awarded Coley almost $2 million in compensation for his wrongful imprisonment for almost 40 years. [16] [10]

On February 23, 2019, Coley received a $21 million settlement from the city of Simi Valley. City Manager Eric Levitt said of the case that "While no amount of money can make up for what happened to Mr Coley, settling this case is the right thing to do for Mr Coley and our community. The monetary cost of going to trial would be astronomical and it would be irresponsible for us to move forward in that direction". [18] Of the $21 million that Coley would be awarded, Simi Valley city said they will pay about $4.9 million, with the remainder to be made up by other sources, including insurance.[ citation needed ]

Coley’s prison term, at nearly 39 years, is the longest in California for someone whose conviction had been overturned. Coley’s time behind bars is the 14th-longest nationwide for a proven wrongful conviction case. [19]

After Coley's release and the subsequent arrest of serial killer Joseph James DeAngelo, DNA testing was conducted to see if he was the real murderer. DNA testing subsequently cleared both Coley and DeAngelo and the actual killer remains unknown. [20] [21]

Related Research Articles

Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. The group cites various studies estimating that in the United States between 1% and 10% of all prisoners are innocent. The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld who gained national attention in the mid-1990s as part of the "Dream Team" of lawyers who formed part of the defense in the O. J. Simpson murder case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miscarriage of justice</span> Conviction of a person for a crime that they did not commit

A miscarriage of justice occurs when an unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Innocent people have sometimes ended up in prison for years before their conviction has eventually been overturned. They may be exonerated if new evidence comes to light or it is determined that the police or prosecutor committed some kind of misconduct at the original trial. In some jurisdictions this leads to the payment of compensation.

Darryl Hunt was an African-American man from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who, in 1984, was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the rape and the murder of Deborah Sykes, a young white newspaper copy editor. After being convicted in that case, Hunt was tried in 1987 for the 1983 murder of Arthur Wilson, a 57-year-old black man of Winston-Salem. Both convictions were overturned on appeal in 1989. Hunt was tried again in the Wilson case in 1990; he was acquitted by an all-white jury. He was tried again on the Sykes charges in 1991; he was convicted.

Wrongful execution is a miscarriage of justice occurring when an innocent person is put to death by capital punishment. Cases of wrongful execution are cited as an argument by opponents of capital punishment, while proponents say that the argument of innocence concerns the credibility of the justice system as a whole and does not solely undermine the use of the death penalty.

<i>The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town</i> 2006 true crime book by John Grisham

The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town is a 2006 true crime book by John Grisham, his only nonfiction title as of 2020. The book tells the story of Ronald 'Ron' Keith Williamson of Ada, Oklahoma, a former minor league baseball player who was wrongly convicted in 1988 of the rape and murder of Debra Sue Carter in Ada and was sentenced to death. After serving 11 years on death row, he was exonerated by DNA evidence and other material introduced by the Innocence Project and was released in 1999.

Jeffrey Mark Deskovic is an American man from Peekskill, New York known for having been wrongly convicted in 1990 at the age of seventeen of raping, beating, and strangling Angela Correa, a 15-year-old high school classmate at Peekskill High School.

This is a list of notable overturned convictions in the United States.

Lynn DeJac Peters was an American woman from Buffalo, New York, who spent 13 years in prison for the murder of her daughter before her conviction was vacated in 2007, making her the first woman to be exonerated of murder on the basis of DNA evidence. She successfully sued the state of New York for wrongful conviction.

Centurion is a non-profit organization located in Princeton, New Jersey, with a mission to exonerate innocent individuals who have been wrongly convicted and sentenced to life sentences or death.

This is a list of notable overturned convictions in Canada.

The innocent prisoner's dilemma, or parole deal, is a detrimental effect of a legal system in which admission of guilt can result in reduced sentences or early parole. When an innocent person is wrongly convicted of a crime, legal systems which need the individual to admit guilt — as, for example, a prerequisite step leading to parole — punish an innocent person for their integrity, and reward a person lacking in integrity. There have been cases where innocent prisoners were given the choice between freedom, in exchange for claiming guilt, and remaining imprisoned and telling the truth. Individuals have died in prison rather than admit to crimes that they did not commit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">California Innocence Project</span> American legal non-profit founded 1999

The California Innocence Project is a non-profit based at California Western School of Law in San Diego, California, United States, which provides pro bono legal services to individuals who maintain their factual innocence of crime(s) for which they have been convicted. It is an independent chapter of the Innocence Project. Its mission is to exonerate wrongly convicted inmates through the use of DNA and other evidences.

Ricky Jackson, Ronnie Bridgeman and Wiley Bridgeman are African Americans who were wrongfully convicted of murder as young men in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975 and sentenced to death. Their sentences were commuted to life imprisonment in 1977. They were imprisoned for decades before each of the three was exonerated in late 2014. Jackson and Wiley Bridgeman were released that year.

Joseph Sledge Jr. was an American man who was wrongly convicted of the murders of two women, Josephine and Aileen Davis, for which he was imprisoned for over 36 years before being exonerated by new DNA evidence. His case represents the longest duration of incarceration for a case that has been overturned by DNA evidence, and he was the longest-serving inmate to have been exonerated in North Carolina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Yarris</span> American writer and death row exoneree

Nicholas James Yarris is an American writer who spent 22 years on death row in Pennsylvania after being wrongfully convicted of murder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Semanchik</span> American wrongful conviction advocate

Michael "Mike" Semanchik is the Executive Director of The Innocence Center (TIC) and former Managing Attorney at the California Innocence Project (CIP). As part of his work with CIP, he has been involved in many cases involving the exoneration of previously convicted prisoners, working closely with the organization's director, Justin Brooks, and also preparing petitions for many of CIP's clients. After working at CIP while still a law student at California Western School of Law, following graduation in 2010 he became an investigator and then a staff attorney there.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alissa Bjerkhoel</span> American wrongful conviction advocate

Alissa Leanne Bjerkhoel is an American litigation coordinator at the California Innocence Project (CIP), a law school clinic that investigates cases of factual innocence while training law students. Bjerkhoel was born in Truckee, California, and later graduated from California Western School of Law (CWSL) after previously obtaining a B.A. degree She has been an attorney with CIP since 2008. Bjerkhoel has served as counsel for CIP on numerous criminal cases, and achieved the legal exoneration of a number of convicted prisoners. Bjerkhoel serves as CIP's in-house DNA expert and also serves as a panel attorney with the nonprofit law firms Appellate Defenders, Inc. (ADI) and Sixth District Appellate Program (SDAP). She is a member of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Bjerkhoel has won a number of awards.

References

  1. ↑ "Craig Richard Coley, Born 06/07/1947 in California | CaliforniaBirthIndex.org". www.californiabirthindex.org. Retrieved November 5, 2022.
  2. ↑ Cooper, Jonathan J. (November 23, 2017). "Man Wrongfully Convicted of 1978 Murder Is Freed From Prison". Time. Archived from the original on November 24, 2017. Retrieved November 26, 2017.
  3. ↑ "Man Who Spent Nearly 40 Years Behind Bars for Crime He Did Not Commit Speaks Out". November 23, 2017.
  4. ↑ "Hilo man a big part of exonerated friend's life". June 9, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Craig Coley". Michigan State University College of Law - National Registry of Exonerations. December 4, 2017. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
  6. 1 2 3 Nelson, Laura J.; Tchekmedyian, Alene (November 24, 2017). "How evidence once thought destroyed helped free a man after 39 years behind bars for murder he didn't commit". Los Angeles Times. ISSN   0458-3035 . Retrieved November 26, 2017.
  7. ↑ Craig Coley given $21m for false murder charge
  8. ↑ "Jury recommends prison for murderer" . LA Times. December 31, 1969. p. 53. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
  9. ↑ Cooper, Jonathan J. (November 23, 2017). "Man freed decades after double killing that rocked Simi Valley". Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
  10. 1 2 Diskin, Megan (November 24, 2017). "Wrongly convicted Craig Coley spends Thanksgiving free with the cop who fought for his release". Ventura County Star. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
  11. ↑ "Man, wrongly convicted of 1978 killings in Simi Valley, recommended for release from prison".
  12. ↑ "Record payout approved for Simi Valley man wrongfully convicted of grisly 1978 murders". Los Angeles Times . February 16, 2018.
  13. ↑ Schladebeek, Jessica (November 24, 2017). "Calif. man wrongfully jailed for 1978 double homicide freed". NY Daily News. Retrieved November 26, 2017.
  14. ↑ "Wrong man served 38 years for rape, murders; Golden State Killer link now sought - SFChronicle.com". www.SFChronicle.com. May 1, 2018. Retrieved March 2, 2019.
  15. ↑ Spang, Thomas (November 27, 2017). "Wieder frei nach 39 Jahren im Gefängnis" [Free again after 39 years in prison]. Augsburger Allgemeine (in German). Retrieved January 24, 2018.
  16. 1 2 Baird, Roger (February 16, 2018). "Man wrongly jailed for almost 40 years gets $2m payout - but says it can't make up for lost time". International Business Times UK. Retrieved February 17, 2018.
  17. ↑ Brown, Edmund G. (November 22, 2017). "Pardon - Crag Richard Coley" (PDF). Executive Department, State of California. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 18, 2017. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
  18. ↑ "Simi Valley reaches $21 million settlement with wrongly convicted man, Craig Coley". Ventura County Star. Retrieved March 2, 2019.
  19. ↑ "Longest Incarcerations". National Registry of Exonerations. February 25, 2019. Retrieved February 25, 2019.
  20. ↑ Farzan, Antonia Noori (February 25, 2019). "He just got $21 million after 39 years wrongly locked up. He has one cop to thank for freeing him". The Washington Post.
  21. ↑ "Exonerated man now works to educate law enforcement". December 5, 2019.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.