Copyright © 1999, The Austin American-Statesman

Bob Herbert, 04-21-1999.

Trying to save face has caused a travesty in Texas

I remember thinking during a meeting last fall with the district attorney of Travis County, and several of his top aides that their minds were closed, that they would do anything in their power to keep a teen- ager named LaCresha Murray in prison, that they had so much invested in the case, and had reaped so much positive publicity from her arrest and conviction, that they were incapable of admitting they might have been wrong. The case no longer was about justice but about public officials saving face.

That meeting was in Austin in early December. LaCresha was some 60 miles away in the Giddings State School, where she was serving a sentence of 25 years for the beating death in 1996 of a 2 1/2-year- old girl named Jayla Belton. I had written in a series of columns that LaCresha, just 11 years old when Jayla died, had been the victim of a colossal miscarriage of justice. There was no legitimate evidence against her, no witnesses, no forensic evidence, not so much as a drop of blood or a speck of body fluid of any kind.

The absence of such evidence was an indication that someone else, somewhere else had inflicted the fatal injuries.

All the prosecution had was a statement taken from LaCresha after a lengthy police interrogation in which she repeatedly insisted she had done nothing to harm Jayla. An officer told her, ``We are going to stay here until you tell us the truth.'' Isolated, and without the help of a lawyer, LaCresha eventually came up with a fantastic scenario that even prosecutors said would not have accounted for the injuries that killed Jayla.

At the meeting in December the district attorney, Ronnie Earle, told me that LaCresha's statement was ``basically a lie.'' But he insisted that it pointed to her guilt. His office used it to get a conviction against her not once, but twice. (The first conviction was thrown out by a judge who said, ``I had a question as to whether justice was done.'')

Last week the state's 3rd Court of Appeals overturned LaCresha's second conviction. The court's three judges ruled unanimously that her statement had been obtained illegally. Under Texas law a child who is alone in the custody of the police must be taken before a magistrate to ensure that the child's rights are protected and that the child understands the proceedings that are taking place and the penalties that might ensue.

The level of LaCresha's understanding of what was going on can be gauged from a tape of her interrogation. A statement -- in effect, a confession -- had been typed up and handed to LaCresha by the police.

``What's that word?'' she asked. ``Home-a-seed?''

When she was told the word was ``homicide,'' she asked, ``What's that?' '

No one answered.

The police and prosecutors tried to explain away their failure to follow the law and get a magistrate to look out for LaCresha's interests by insisting she was not in custody when she was interrogated. The appeals court would have none of that.

``She was not free to leave,'' wrote Justice Lee Yeakel in his 28- page opinion. He described LaCresha as ``isolated and alone'' during the interrogation, adding that ``at a minimum, we cannot say that appellant's statements were not the product of fright or despair.' '

From the beginning prosecutors tried to portray LaCresha as a monster, a maniacal juvenile who inflicted a savage beating on a 2-year-old. They referred to her in private as ``La Creature.''

The injuries to Jayla were compared to those that might occur in an auto wreck. But investigators could never come up with any of the forensic evidence that usually accompanies such a frenzied attack -- the blood, the soiled clothing, the bits and pieces of human tissue, the fiber evidence. All they had was the statement that resulted from an unconscionable police interrogation of an 11-year-old. And now an appeals court has said they can't even use that.

No one knows what will happen next. Last week's ruling can be appealed. Or LaCresha could be tried a third time. Her lawyers are trying to arrange her release. But for the time being, she remains locked up at Giddings, a victim of prosecutorial zealots more interested in saving face than seeking justice.

Herbert is a columnist for The New York Times.

District Attorney Ronnie Earle said that LaCresha Murray's statement was `basically a lie.' But he insisted that it pointed to her guilt.

 

Copyright © 1999, The Austin American-Statesman

Bob Herbert, Trying to save face has caused a travesty in Texas., 04-21-1999.