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Charges dropped against Innocence Project client
Posted: 6:37 pm Tue, May 25, 2010
By Caryn Tamber
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer
From left, attorneys Michele Nethercott and Michael Fricker stand outside court with Tyrone Jones, who spent a decade
in prison for conspiracy to commit murder. With a new trial scheduled for Tuesday, the state opted instead not to
prosecute.
From left, attorneys Michele Nethercott and Michael Fricker stand outside court with Tyrone Jones, who spent a decade
in prison for conspiracy to commit murder. With a new trial scheduled for Tuesday, the state opted instead not to
prosecute.
When Tyrone Jones was arrested for murder 12 years ago, he was getting ready to go back to college, where he was
studying computer science.
Jones protested that he was innocent, but he was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison.
There he stayed for more than 10 years until January, when Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Gale E. Rasin granted him a
new trial and released him on bond. On Tuesday, prosecutors dropped all charges.
Jones, now 33, said after the court proceedings that he wants to go back to school, but not for computer science. This
time, he’s set on becoming a counselor.
“The experience I got out of this situation could help the youth,” he said.
A spokesman for the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office said prosecutors’ decision to drop the charges was not a
statement of belief in Jones’ innocence.
“The state entered a nolle pross due to the damaged credibility of important eyewitnesses from the first trial,”
spokesman Joseph Sviatko wrote in an e-mail. “It is important to note that we are not conceding that Mr. Jones is an
innocent man, only that it would be impossible to try him again.”
Jones, who had a minor drug record as a teenager, was picked up for the murder of Tyree Wright in 1998. Wright was
shot on a stoop in East Baltimore.
Jones’ clothing matched the description of what one of Wright’s attackers was said to have been wearing, and there was
some eyewitness testimony linking him to the group of men.
The primary piece of evidence against him, however, was the gunshot residue police said was on his hands, indicating
that he had recently fired a gun.
A jury acquitted Wright of murder and other charges but convicted him of conspiracy to commit murder.
Jones’ case was taken up by the Innocence Project Clinic, a collaboration between the Office of the Public Defender
and the University of Baltimore School of Law.
In a post-conviction petition seeking a new trial, Michele Nethercott of the Innocence Project argued that gunshot
residue evidence is unreliable. Nethercott and her students argued that a survey of Baltimore City’s GSR evidence
collection protocols showed widespread contamination of the area where suspects’ hands were tested, possibly causing
false positives. In Jones’ case, investigators found only one particle of GSR on his hand, they wrote.
The questions about the reliability of GSR evidence played no role in the state’s decision to drop the case, Sviatko said.
Nethercott also claimed that prosecutors violated Jones’ right to receive exculpatory evidence under Brady v. Maryland.
The prosecution did not provide Jones’ trial lawyer with a police report indicating that three people who had heard the
gunshots said right afterward that they did not see the shooters. One of them testified at Jones’ trial that he saw a
shooter’s clothing, and the other made a photographic identification of Jones six days after Wright’s killing.
Prosecutors consented to a new trial on Brady grounds, but Nethercott said they provided little response to the pre-trial
motions she filed between January and Tuesday, which was to be Jones’ trial date.
Until Assistant State’s Attorney Donald Giblin quickly dropped the charges in court Tuesday morning, Nethercott was
unsure whether the state would drop the prosecution or seek a postponement.
Only the Brady violations called the witnesses’ credibility into question, Sviatko said.
After the proceedings, sitting on a bench on the fifth floor of Courthouse East, Jones looked shell-shocked.
“I used to dream about this moment, what it would be like,” he said.
Asked about his 10 years in prison, he quickly corrected a reporter: “Ten-and-a-half.”
He said he has been working in maintenance since posting bail.
Jones said that at some point, he stopped protesting his innocence all the time because Nethercott and her team were
doing it for him.
“She convinced me that this day would happen, so I didn’t have to say it anymore,” he said.
Posted: 6:37 pm Tue, May 25, 2010
By Caryn Tamber
Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer
From left, attorneys Michele Nethercott and Michael Fricker stand outside court with Tyrone Jones, who spent a decade
in prison for conspiracy to commit murder. With a new trial scheduled for Tuesday, the state opted instead not to
prosecute.
From left, attorneys Michele Nethercott and Michael Fricker stand outside court with Tyrone Jones, who spent a decade
in prison for conspiracy to commit murder. With a new trial scheduled for Tuesday, the state opted instead not to
prosecute.
When Tyrone Jones was arrested for murder 12 years ago, he was getting ready to go back to college, where he was
studying computer science.
Jones protested that he was innocent, but he was convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison.
There he stayed for more than 10 years until January, when Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Gale E. Rasin granted him a
new trial and released him on bond. On Tuesday, prosecutors dropped all charges.
Jones, now 33, said after the court proceedings that he wants to go back to school, but not for computer science. This
time, he’s set on becoming a counselor.
“The experience I got out of this situation could help the youth,” he said.
A spokesman for the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office said prosecutors’ decision to drop the charges was not a
statement of belief in Jones’ innocence.
“The state entered a nolle pross due to the damaged credibility of important eyewitnesses from the first trial,”
spokesman Joseph Sviatko wrote in an e-mail. “It is important to note that we are not conceding that Mr. Jones is an
innocent man, only that it would be impossible to try him again.”
Jones, who had a minor drug record as a teenager, was picked up for the murder of Tyree Wright in 1998. Wright was
shot on a stoop in East Baltimore.
Jones’ clothing matched the description of what one of Wright’s attackers was said to have been wearing, and there was
some eyewitness testimony linking him to the group of men.
The primary piece of evidence against him, however, was the gunshot residue police said was on his hands, indicating
that he had recently fired a gun.
A jury acquitted Wright of murder and other charges but convicted him of conspiracy to commit murder.
Jones’ case was taken up by the Innocence Project Clinic, a collaboration between the Office of the Public Defender
and the University of Baltimore School of Law.
In a post-conviction petition seeking a new trial, Michele Nethercott of the Innocence Project argued that gunshot
residue evidence is unreliable. Nethercott and her students argued that a survey of Baltimore City’s GSR evidence
collection protocols showed widespread contamination of the area where suspects’ hands were tested, possibly causing
false positives. In Jones’ case, investigators found only one particle of GSR on his hand, they wrote.
The questions about the reliability of GSR evidence played no role in the state’s decision to drop the case, Sviatko said.
Nethercott also claimed that prosecutors violated Jones’ right to receive exculpatory evidence under Brady v. Maryland.
The prosecution did not provide Jones’ trial lawyer with a police report indicating that three people who had heard the
gunshots said right afterward that they did not see the shooters. One of them testified at Jones’ trial that he saw a
shooter’s clothing, and the other made a photographic identification of Jones six days after Wright’s killing.
Prosecutors consented to a new trial on Brady grounds, but Nethercott said they provided little response to the pre-trial
motions she filed between January and Tuesday, which was to be Jones’ trial date.
Until Assistant State’s Attorney Donald Giblin quickly dropped the charges in court Tuesday morning, Nethercott was
unsure whether the state would drop the prosecution or seek a postponement.
Only the Brady violations called the witnesses’ credibility into question, Sviatko said.
After the proceedings, sitting on a bench on the fifth floor of Courthouse East, Jones looked shell-shocked.
“I used to dream about this moment, what it would be like,” he said.
Asked about his 10 years in prison, he quickly corrected a reporter: “Ten-and-a-half.”
He said he has been working in maintenance since posting bail.
Jones said that at some point, he stopped protesting his innocence all the time because Nethercott and her team were
doing it for him.
“She convinced me that this day would happen, so I didn’t have to say it anymore,” he said.
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