By Chris Kahn, The Associated Press
ROANOKE, Va. (AP) -- Police officers who interrogated a mildly retarded farmhand did not coerce his confession to a rape and murder he did not commit, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
In a 24-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Norman K. Moon dismissed Earl Washington Jr.'s civil lawsuits against the town of Culpeper and six investigators who helped put him within nine days of execution.
“There is no evidence that the officers intentionally took advantage of Washington’s mental state at the time of the interrogation to solicit a false confession,” Moon wrote.
Washington served 17 years in prison for assaulting an elderly woman and the rape and murder of Rebecca Lynn Williams in 1982.
He was pardoned four years ago in the Williams case when DNA tests connected convicted rapist Kenneth Tinsley to the crime scene. In a final effort to clear his name, Washington’s lawyers filed a civil lawsuit in Charlottesville claiming that police fed Washington information about Williams and got him to sign a prewritten statement confessing to her murder.
Moon dismissed the lawsuits against former Fauquier County Sheriff Luther Cox, who is deceased; his deputies Denny A. Zeets, who also is deceased; and Terry Schrum, who is retired; former Culpeper Police Chief Charles Jones, who is deceased, and his officers Kenneth H. Buraker, who is retired, and Harlan Lee Hart, who is now sheriff of Culpeper County.
“I think the judge got it absolutely right,” said Jack L. Gould, an attorney representing the Fauquier officers. “These law enforcement officers did their job properly, and quite correctly, passed on to their sister jurisdiction that they had a man in custody for being involved in a crime.”
However, Moon decided there was enough evidence to pursue a jury trial against former state police Special Agent Curtis Reese Wilmore, who also questioned Washington.
Wilmore wrote in police reports and testified in court that Washington told him about a shirt left at the crime scene -- information that was not made public. After Washington’s conviction, however, Wilmore had second thoughts about his testimony.
Wilmore told Assistant Attorney General John H. McLees Jr. in 1993 that he may have informed Washington about the shirt.
“This is really a victory against Wilmore,” said Deborah L. Cornwall, one of Washington’s lawyers. “It means we’ll be going to trial.”
However, Wilmore’s lawyer, William Broaddus, said he may try to challenge Moon’s order in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In a separate ruling filed Wednesday, Moon held Washington’s lawyers in contempt of court for leaking to the media a sealed report that bolstered the case against Tinsley.
Moon ordered Washington’s lawyers to pay legal fees associated with the state’s filing of the contempt complaint. Attorney general spokesman Tim Murtaugh said his office doesn’t know yet how much the fine will be.
“We’re very pleased by this ruling,” Murtaugh said. “It shows two things: one, that it is important to protect the integrity of ongoing police investigations; and second, when judges issue orders in their courtrooms, they expect them to be obeyed.”
The report by Forensic Science Associates of Richmond, Calif., concluded that Tinsley could not be excluded as the source of sperm samples taken from Williams’ body. Combined with an earlier examination that linked Tinsley’s DNA to a blue blanket at the scene, Washington’s lawyers say the new report gives police probable cause to charge him with murder.
Washington also filed a lawsuit against Culpeper County Commonwealth’s Attorney Gary Close, claiming that the prosecutor violated state defamation laws for saying publicly that he believed Washington was guilty even though he was pardoned in 2000 by then-Gov. Jim Gilmore.
Moon refused to make a decision in that case and sent it back to state court.