MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Damien Echols of the West Memphis Three filed an appeal Monday, Jan. 7, 2023, asking the Arkansas Supreme Court to reverse a Crittenden County Circuit Court decision denying forensic testing on his behalf.
Attorneys for Echols have been pushing to use new technology to test certain DNA evidence which they said “might establish his innocence and identify the real killer(s).”
The Crittenden County Circuit Court dismissed the petition originally for lack of jurisdiction, according to Echols’ lawyers. Judge Tonya Alexander denied Damien Echols' Habeas Corpus petition in June 2022 because she said that under Arkansas law, it's only available to someone who is currently in state custody. The appeal asks the Arkansas Supreme Court to order a full hearing on the request for new testing.
Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley were convicted in 1994 of murdering three 8-year-old boys, Stevie Branch, Michael Moore, and Chris Byers. Echols spent 18 years on death row, while Baldwin and Misskelley received life sentences. The three were released from prison in 2011 on what’s called an Alford plea, after new forensic evidence was presented as part of the case.
Echols said in a news release, “Although I was released from death row, and Jason and Jesse were freed from their life sentences, we have never been free. We are convicted of murdering three children and, although we were allowed to maintain our innocence in the Alford Plea deal, we were never truly free, never declared innocent by the court, and the real killer (s) have never been brought to justice. I ask the Judges on the Arkansas Supreme Court, allow us to conduct state of the art DNA testing that might help identify those responsible for this heinous act, and hopefully exonerate the West Memphis 3.”
Jason Baldwin said, “This is a great opportunity for West Memphis, the State of Arkansas, Pam Hicks, The Byers Family and The Moore Family to have definitive proof of who murdered Christopher Byers, Michael Moore and Stevie Branch. Justice demands all avenues be pursued to identify the murderer(s). From the beginning Jessie, Damien and Jason have cooperated to the best of their ability in the investigations of these murders not limited to providing DNA samples to the WMPD for comparison pre-trial. Pam Hicks and many others also cooperated in this fashion. We have all cooperated so that the identity of the murderer(s) be discovered.”
Echols attorneys said the prosecutor has 30 days to respond to the brief, upon which Echols can supply additional comments.
