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Making a Case
Man is innocent of beating, professor says
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Published: November 15, 2007
The law professor who is trying to help Kalvin Michael Smith prove his innocence in the 1995 assault on Jill Marker in Winston-Salem spoke to nearly 100 people at a forum last night and called for the district attorney to free Smith.
Professor Jim Coleman of Duke University has been talking to District Attorney Tom Keith of Forsyth County for more than two years about the attack on Marker at the Silk Plant Forest store off Silas Creek Parkway on Dec. 9, 1995.
Smith, who was convicted in 1997 for a beating that left Marker with debilitating injuries, has maintained his innocence. The forum was designed to put pressure on Keith, who has been reinvestigating the case and could ask a judge to overturn Smith's conviction.
Keith has admitted that evidence that should have gone to Smith's defense attorney before his trial was not made available, which would violate Smith's constitutional rights.
"I have no doubt at all that Michael is innocent. I am absolutely certain that he had no involvement in the crime for which he was convicted," said Coleman, an adviser to the Duke Law School Innocence Project, which reinvestigated the case beginning in 2003.
"I think that (Keith) really wants to do the right thing," Coleman said. "I think it is difficult for him to admit that they screwed up another case."
Keith was not available for comment last night. He has said that he is working to examine issues that could be grounds for a new trial for Smith, and issues that might show that he is innocent. Keith also has been consulting about the case with Darryl Hunt, who was wrongly convicted of the 1984 murder of Deborah Sykes and spent about 18 years in prison before he was exonerated.
The forum at Emmanuel Baptist Church was held by the Ministers Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity and the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice.
Smith's attorneys could file a motion asking a judge for a new trial based on new evidence. The innocence-project investigation found that Smith's defense was not aware that Marker could not identify Smith the first time that a Winston-Salem police detective showed her Smith's picture in a photo lineup.
Coleman said he wants Keith to ask a judge to overturn Smith's conviction because it would get Smith out of prison quicker, and he asked people at the forum to help him lobby Keith to do it.
Coleman compared the handling of the case by Keith's office to the handling of the Duke lacrosse case by Mike Nifong, the former district attorney in Durham County.
Nifong resigned and was disbarred after the N.C. Attorney General's Office said that the three players accused of raping a woman hired as an exotic dancer at a party were innocent and victims of Nifong's "tragic rush to accuse."
"I think it's appropriate to compare the two cases," Coleman said.
Smith has been imprisoned since his arrest in 1997. He is serving a minimum sentence of 22 years and 10 months.
Coleman talked about facts in the case that he said show that Smith could not have been Marker's attacker.
Among them, he said, were that police and prosecutors ignored a witness who did not testify during the trial but whose statement refuted witnesses who said they heard Smith say he was involved.
Coleman said that the witnesses who did testify against Smith have since recanted, and said that authorities harassed them and threatened them into implicating Smith after a jilted ex-girlfriend called police to say that he was involved.
Coleman also distributed documents that he said showed the state's key witness, Eugene Littlejohn, knew nothing about the crime.
"The police knew that he knew nothing about this crime and they pursued it anyway," Coleman said.
"The good news is that Eugene Littlejohn has recanted. He has told the truth," he said. "He said that police harassed him constantly, that they threatened that they would bring charges against him if he didn't cooperate."
Coleman also slammed Keith's office for allowing Littlejohn to testify that he and Smith went into the Toys "R" Us store, next to the Silk Plant Forest, to steal games after the attack. A surveillance video at Toys "R" Us did not show that.
Coleman also talked about evidence about the initial and primary suspect pursued by police, Kenneth Lamoureux, who was seen in the Silk Plant Forest on the night of the attack and had been stalking Marker, Coleman said.
If Keith were to ask a judge to vacate Smith's conviction, Coleman said, it would not necessarily mean that Keith thinks that Smith is innocent - only that Smith deserves a new trial because all the evidence was not disclosed.
Coleman said he was not concerned about the result should Smith be tried again, saying that there was "no chance" that Smith would be convicted.
Students from Winston-Salem State University and Wake Forest University attended the forum, at which participants said that the effort to free Smith is part of the continuing struggle for civil rights for blacks.
"What we need to realize is that yes, this can be us," said Debony Jones, a senior at WSSU who made a presentation.
"Our education can't save us from injustices if we don't do anything to address them now."
Hunt has helped lead the push for Smith to prove his innocence. He told people at the forum to write letters and make phone calls.
"I think that we have a mission to go out now and demand from Mr. Keith that he release Kalvin Michael Smith," Hunt said.
"One day that you spend in prison for something you didn't do is too damn long."
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