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An Oklahoma man used pandemic relief funds to have his name cleared of murder_我的网站
一 | AI摘要 中央气象台发布台风黄色预警。台风“沙德尔”将靠近浙闽沿海，可能登陆；“紫檀”将于25日至26日在广西至广东沿海登陆。 GREENWOOD, Ark. -- Ricky Dority spends most of his days playing with his grandchildren, feeding chickens and working in the yard where he lives with his son's family.It's a jarring change from where he was just several months ago, locked in a cell serving a life prison sentence at Oklahoma's Joseph Harp Correctional Center in a killing he said he didn't commit. After more than two decades behind bars, Dority had no chance at being released — until he used his pandemic relief funds to hire a dogged private investigator. The investigator and students at the Oklahoma Innocence Project at Oklahoma City University, which is dedicated to exonerating wrongful convictions in the state, found inconsistencies in the state's account of a 1997 cold-case killing, and Dority's conviction was vacated in June by a Sequoyah County judge.Now, the 65-year-old says he’s enjoying the 5-acre property in a quiet neighborhood of well-to-do homes in the rolling, forested hills of the Arkansas River Valley outside of Fort Smith. “If you’re gone for a lot of years, you don’t take it for granted anymore.”Dority is one of nearly 3,400 people who have been exonerated across the country since 1989, mostly over murder convictions, according to the National Registry of Exonerations. In Oklahoma, there have been more than 43 exonerations in that time, not including three new exonerations this year. The cases underscore a serious problem facing a judicial system in which many old convictions resulted from overworked defense attorneys, shoddy forensic work, overzealous prosecutors and outdated investigative techniques.The problem is particularly acute given Oklahoma's history of sending people to death row, where 11 inmates have been exonerated since 1981. The issue has pushed a Republican-led legislative panel to consider whether a death penalty moratorium should be imposed.In Oklahoma County, Glynn Ray Simmons was freed after spending nearly 50 years in prison, including time on death row, in a 1974 killing after a judge determined prosecutors failed to turn over evidence in the case, including a police report that showed an eyewitness might have identified other suspects.And just this week, Perry Lott, who served more than 30 years in prison, had his rape and burglary conviction vacated in Pontotoc County after new DNA testing excluded him as the perpetrator. Pontotoc County, in particular, has come under intense scrutiny for a series of wrongful convictions in the 1980s that have been the subject of numerous books, including John Grisham’s “The Innocent Man,” which he produced into a six-part documentary on Netflix. The most common causes of wrongful convictions are eyewitness misidentification, misapplication of forensic science, false confessions, coerced pleas and official misconduct, generally by police or prosecutors, according to the Innocence Project, a national organization based in New York.In Dority's case, he said he was railroaded by an overzealous sheriff and a state prosecutor eager to solve the killing of 28-year-old Mitchell Nixon, who was found beaten to death in 1997.Investigators who reopened the case in 2014 coerced a confession from another man, Rex Robbins, according to Andrea Miller, the legal director of the Oklahoma Innocence Project. Robbins, who would plead guilty to manslaughter in Nixon's killing, implicated Dority, who at the time was in a federal prison on a firearms conviction. Dority said he knew he didn't have anything to do with the crime and found paperwork that proved he had been arrested on the day of the killing.“I thought I was clear because I knew I didn’t have anything do with that murder,” Dority said. “But they tried me for it and found me guilty of it.”Jurors heard about Robbins' confession and testimony from a police informant who said Dority had changed bloody clothes at his house the night of the killing. They convicted him of first-degree murder and recommended a sentence of life without parole.After years in prison, while most inmates spent their federal COVID-19 relief check in the commissary, Dority used his to hire a private investigator, he said. Bobby Staton had mostly investigated insurance fraud, but he took on the case and realized quickly that it was riddled with holes, Staton said. He eventually turned to the university's Oklahoma Innocence Project, which assigned a law student, Abby Brawner, to help investigate.Their investigation turned when Staton and Brawner visited Robbins in the maximum-security Oklahoma State Reformatory in Granite, and he recanted his statement implicating Dority. “It was pretty intimidating,” Brawner said. “Especially when you're going in to meet someone who doesn't know you're coming and doesn't want to talk to you.”Brawner and Staton also learned the informant didn't live at the home where he told investigators Staton showed up in bloody clothes. When the actual homeowner testified at a hearing this summer, the judge dismissed the case.Dority's original attorneys were ineffective for not discovering the informant didn't live at the home, the judge said, giving prosecutors 90 days to decide whether they will retry him. That three months has been extended, and prosecutors have said they intend to ask the judge for more time for DNA testing. Dority, confident in his innocence, said he's not concerned about additional forensic testing.Sequoyah County District Attorney Jack Thorp and former Sheriff Ron Lockhart did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press. But Assistant District Attorney James Dunn, who is overseeing the case and was not in the office when it was originally prosecuted, said he agreed with the judge's dismissal after hearing the homeowner's testimony and learning a witness “was not credible.” “The last thing I want to see is an innocent person in prison for a crime they didn't commit," Dunn said. "Because that means the person who actually did commit the crime, or those persons, are still out there.” Meanwhile, Dority is learning to use a smartphone and the television remote control, he said. He's thankful to Staton and the Innocence Project and says his case proves others are wrongfully imprisoned in Oklahoma.“After they’ve done what they’ve done to me, I know there are people in that prison who are innocent that need to be out and need help getting out,” he said. “If they hadn’t gotten me out, I’d have been in there for the rest of my life.”。福建发布暴雨警报，部分区域有大暴雨或特大暴雨，福州继续发布暴雨蓝色预警。 中央气象台8月25日06时 继续发布台风黄色预警 今年第18号台风“沙德尔” 今天早晨已由超强台风级 减弱为强台风级 已进入48小时警戒线 早晨5点钟其中心位于 台湾省台北市偏东方向 约1020公里的西北太平洋洋面上 中心附近最大风力15级（48米/秒） 中心最低气压为945百帕 七级风圈半径350—400公里 十级风圈半径120—150公里 十二级风圈半径50—60公里 预计，“沙德尔”将以每小时 20—25公里的速度向西偏北方向移动 强度变化不大 26日进入东海后逐渐转向西偏南方向移动 并向浙闽一带沿海靠近 台风“沙德尔”可能于27日夜间至28日上午在浙江南部到福建沿海登陆（台风级或强台风级），但不排除27日下午到夜间登陆台湾东部沿海（强台风级）后，于28日在福建中南部沿海登陆（强热带风暴级或台风级）的可能。 虽然“沙德尔”后期路径还有不确定性，但对我国的影响是确定的，预计25日上午开始东海东部的风力将逐渐加大，27日起东南沿海等地的降雨也将陆续加强。 今年第19号台风“紫檀” （热带风暴级）的中心 今天早晨5点钟 位于广西北海市南偏西方向 约250公里的北部湾海面上 中心附近最大风力有9级（23米/秒） 中心最低气压为990百帕 七级风圈半径100—150公里 预计，“紫檀”将以每小时5—10公里的速度 向东偏北方向缓慢移动 强度变化不大 将于25日夜间至26日白天 在广西东南部至广东雷州半岛 西侧一带沿海登陆 登陆时强度为热带风暴级 （8—9级，18—23米/秒） 今年第21号台风“艾莎尼” 今天早晨在西北太平洋洋面上明显减弱 已很难确定其环流中心 中央气象台早晨05时对其停止编号 福建天气预报 福建省气象台 8月25日06时55分发布暴雨警报： 今天白天到夜间 我省部分有暴雨或大暴雨 中北部沿海地区局部特大暴雨 24小时累计雨量60～150毫米 局部300毫米 福州暴雨蓝色预警 福州市气象台 8月25日05时18分 继续发布暴雨蓝色预警信号：。
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