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Documents & Resources
The Course
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Background: In the Spring, 2006, I taught a course called Advanced Criminal Law. The focus of that course was the jury instructions used in homicide cases in West Virginia. [West Virginia Homicide Jury Instructions Project] The second offering of Advanced Criminal Law was in the Spring, 2007. The course focused exclusively on the Jeffrey MacDonald murder case. [Advanced Criminal Law: Jeffrey MacDonald Case]. In a Spring, 2009 version of Advanced Criminal Law, the focus was on the trials and murder convictions of the West Memphis 3: Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley. In the Spring, 2010, Advanced Criminal Law focused on crime film documentaries. [Advanced Criminal Law: Crime Film Documentaries] In this Spring, 2011 version of the course we are returning to a study of the West Memphis 3 case. On November 4, 2010, the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered a new hearing in the case that will allow the defense to present evidence not presented at the trial. The Court's ruling will allow Damien Echols, a death row inmate, and Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley who are serving life sentences, to present new DNA evidence, along with forensic evidence to disprove the state's theory that the killings were part of a satanic ritual. The defense at the new hearing will also present evidence of juror misconduct. [For the Supreme Court's ruling, see: Echols v. State of Arkansas, 2010 Ark. 417] [on-line text of the opinion] [video :: oral argument on the motion for new trial] The hearing date has now been scheduled to begin December 5, 2011 at 9:30 a.m. in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The hearing before Judge David Laser is scheduled to last for three weeks. [Court Order for the Hearing Date] [Judge David Burnett, who presided over both WM3 trials and ruled on several occasions to uphold the convictions in post-trial proceedings was elected state senator and is now no longer involved in the case.] Purpose of the Course: The purpose of the course is to fully explore the West Memphis 3 murder case. In law school, you are typically, in criminal law and other courses, asked to read appellate court opinions that review a trial judge's decisions and the jury's determination of guilt on grounds that some legal error requires that the conviction be overturned. In this course, we begin, not with an appellate opinion, but with the transcripts of the pretrial and trial proceedings that resulted in the conviction of first, Jessie Misskelley, and then, at a second trial, Jason Baldwin and Damien Echols. (Echols received the death penalty.) By studying the trial transcripts we are viewing the case from the "bottom-up," rather than from the more typical "top-down" approach. We will read two trial transcripts (and review some parts of the pre-trial and post-trial proceedings). In reviewing the trial transcripts, you'll have a bird's-eye view of the decisions made by the trial judge, the prosecutors, and defense counsel in what is now one of the most well-known "innocence" cases in the country. Course Materials & Course Readings: For legal documents we will rely upon the West Memphis Three Case-Document Archive website for trial transcripts.
"Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills" (Homebox Office, 1996) [Internet Movie Database] [Preview] [John Mark Byers & the HBO Filmmakers] "Paradise Lost 2: Revelations" (Homebox Office, 2000) [Internet Movie Database] Recommended Reading: Gerry Spence, Win Your Case (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2005) [For a trial advocacy course based on the work of Gerry Spence, see: The Art of Advocacy]
Contact Professor Elkins |
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Advanced Criminal Law :: West Memphis 3 
For
commentary on the case, read: Mara Leveritt, Devil's Knot: The True
Story of the West Memphis Three (New York: Atria Books, 2002) [