Freedom soon for man jailed for 20 years in Durham murder case
DURHAM (WTVD) -- A Durham judge agreed to bail Friday for a man imprisoned 20 years after a double murder conviction marked by misconduct from Durham police and the prosecutor disbarred over the Duke lacrosse case.
But 52-year-old Darryl Howard did not immediately walk out of jail. There's a temporary stay while the Court of Appeals decides if Superior Court Judge Orlando Hudson has jurisdiction.
Judge Hudson held a hearing Friday on whether to hold Howard until prosecutors decide whether to try him again. Hudson previously ruled there was no physical evidence connecting Howard to the 1991 murders of a woman and her 13-year-old daughter - and overturned the conviction.
"There are things that happened in this case that I have never seen," Hudson told his courtroom Friday.
Howard was sentenced to 80 years in prison for strangling 29-year-old Doris Washington and her daughter, 13-year-old Nishonda, then burning their apartment. Both showed evidence of rape.
But at Howard's trial, former Durham prosecutor Mike Nifong and a police detective told jurors there was no evidence of sexual assault.
Attorneys with the Innocence Project are representing Howard. They point to another discrepancy-- a note from a confidential informant given to police early on in the murder investigation. They told the judge a "smoking pistol memo" given to Durham investigators claimed a drug debt was the motive for the murder and that the killers also sexually assaulted the victims.
"Mike Nifong has been disbarred and sanctioned for his misconduct in the Duke Lacrosse case for suppressing exculpatory evidence," Attorney Barry Scheck with the Innocence Projected said. "Now we have proof that he did it in this case."
New DNA tests implicate another suspect. Scheck said the killers could be members of a New York-based gang. The group is also linked to the murder of a key witness at Howard's trial who was strangled and burned, similar to the victims in the 1991 murder case in Durham.
Defense attorney Jim Cooney told Hudson that Howard should receive an unsecured bond - open to electronic monitoring and travel restrictions. But the prosecutor's office pointed out Howard's long list of prior arrests before his 1991 murder conviction and said he has prison infractions that include assault.
After Judge Hudson announced his decision, Cooney told ABC11 he was pleased with the ruling and is hopeful the appeals court will soon lift the temporary stay.
Howard's attorneys are also calling for a review of Mike Nifong's previous cases and an Integrity Unit inside the DA's Office.
Excerpts from defense's COA motion filed early July
Newly discovered evidence also reveals that Durham police received a detailed non-public statement from an informant early in its investigation. A memo reveals that police were told - literally at the beginning of the investigation - that sexual assaults were involved and the murders were committed because the mother owed money to drug dealers from New York, the defendant's theory at trial. The memo also reveals that a superior in the Durham Police Department asked D. L. Dowdy, the lead detective on Howard's case, to investigate the sex crimes as part of the murder investigation precisely because evidence of sexual assault were "hold back" facts not revealed to the press or the public, and thus information that would be known only to the police and the real perpetrators. The information from the informant describes in detail how the murders were committed, why they were committed, by whom, and also contains the key non-public fact that the victims were sexually assaulted.
ADA Michael Nifong then falsely argued to the Jury that these crimes did not involve sexual assault and that the semen in the daughter's anus was the result of consensual sexual activity.
New DNA evidence now shows that two men left DNA in the victims at the time of their deaths; neither was Howard.
New DNA evidence found in the mother was from Jermeck Jones, a serial offender with over 35 convictions.
Still more newly discovered evidence reveals that one of the State's primary witnesses at trial - - who received a $10,000 payment for her testimony - - was later murdered by the New York Boys, the gang which Howard contended committed the murders in this case. The witness was murdered by strangulation and her body was set on fire, a modus operandi identical to the murders in this case.
