Civil Rights Groups and Survivors of Federal Law Enforcement Abuse Urge Congress to Pass Accountability Legislation During Community Safety Week

Researchers asked experienced police supervisors to rate police reports, some of which were written by humans and some by AI

MEMPHIS – The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, and Quarles & Brady LLP, filed a lawsuit today challenging the state’s denial of fingerprint testing in the case of Tony Carruthers, a potentially innocent man on death row whom the state plans to execute on May 21. The lawsuit, brought under Section 1983, challenges the recent denial of a motion to test unidentified fingerprint evidence that does not match Mr. Carruthers. The complaint also challenges the court’s refusal to consider new evidence that the prosecutors hid the fact that its main witness was a paid confidential informant as well as a 2011 statement from the now-released co-defendant exonerating Mr. Carruthers and pointing to an alternate suspect. Forensic testing in Mr. Carruthers’ case is critical to determining if the state convicted the right person. Mr. Carruthers’ conviction was based on speculative testimony of a paid informant. There has never been any physical evidence linking Mr. Carruthers to the crime and he has maintained his innocence for the 30 years he’s been on death row. Meanwhile, there is unidentified DNA on evidence found with the victims and six fingerprints recovered from the crime scene that do not match Mr. Carruthers. One of the individuals responsible for the murders stated in 2011 that Mr. Carruthers was not involved and instead pointed investigators to another man. None of the unidentified forensic evidence has ever been tested against this alternative suspect. Earlier this month, the ACLU filed a motion in the Tennessee Supreme Court demanding that the DNA evidence be tested. In September 2021, Mr. Carruthers filed a motion seeking comparison of the fingerprint evidence to the alternative suspect. The fingerprint motion was denied on April 16, with the court relying on procedural rules to ignore the significant new evidence. A decision on the DNA motion is still pending, and if the Tennessee Supreme Court denies this critical testing, the federal civil rights complaint will be amended to include the DNA claims. “The state of Tennessee cannot execute a man unless it is absolutely sure that he is guilty of the crime he is accused of. Tony’s execution would be a gross miscarriage of justice that is entirely avoidable with basic forensic testing,” said Maria DeLiberato, senior counsel at the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project. “The state holds DNA and fingerprint evidence that could help determine who committed this crime, but instead of testing it, it is prioritizing finality over the truth. This refusal is especially concerning in a case where for 30 years the state hid evidence about the status of its confidential informant, whose false grand jury testimony was the sole basis for the state to seek an indictment. Refusing to test this evidence before killing someone who may be innocent should be chilling to us all.” Key aspects of the state’s case went unchallenged at trial because Mr. Carruthers was forced to represent himself and had to proceed without a lawyer. His jury was never told about the unidentified prints and DNA, that Mr. Carruthers’ prints and DNA were not found at the house, or that the person who is most likely responsible for the crime has never been compared to the available forensic evidence. Mr. Carruthers’ co-defendant was granted a new trial directly due to the prejudice stemming from Mr. Carruthers’ forced self-representation and was later offered and accepted a plea deal to reduced charges. He was released in late 2015, while Mr. Carruthers is facing execution in less than a month. Read more about Mr. Carruthers’ case here: https://www.aclu.org/cases/tony-von-carruthers-v-state-of-tennessee Read the clemency petition here: https://www.aclu.org/documents/carruthers-clemency-petition

NEW YORK – A new report released today by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Policing Project at New York University School of Law finds that the United States’ current approach to traffic safety has failed to reduce roadway deaths, while imposing significant financial and human costs on communities. The report, Safe Roads for All: Evidence-Based Strategies for Keeping Our Roadways Safe, calls for a transformation in road safety policy to one that more effectively advances safety and equity. “Using traffic stops as a policing tool is completely ineffective in terms of reducing crime or advancing public safety, and excessive stops are a true threat to civil rights and liberties,” said Emily Reina Dindial, senior policy counsel at the ACLU. “We should not have to choose between safe roads and our constitutional rights, and this report makes clear that there are myriad road safety strategies that achieve both. Lawmakers must commit to these smarter safety strategies.” Each year, more than 40,000 people are killed and more than 2 million injured in preventable car crashes. Despite a growing body of evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of common-sense infrastructural and road design measures, traffic safety strategies in this country have largely focused instead on individual enforcement through high-volume police stops and ticketing. The report finds that this approach fails to prevent injuries and deaths from car crashes and in fact puts people at risk of harmful encounters with police. Ticketing practices that prioritize revenue generation over road safety also trap millions of people in inescapable cycles of fines, fees, and debt. "We owe it to our communities to use the most effective and equitable strategies to prioritize safe mobility for all. The ideas in this report can help us get there," said Leah Shahum, Founder and Executive Director of the Vision Zero Network. The report highlights a number of alternative approaches that can more effectively reduce crashes and save lives, such as street design improvements, incentives for vehicular safety and safe driving, thoughtful use of technology, and shifts in police responses to minor traffic issues. “Pretextual traffic enforcement is an outdated political relic from the War on Drugs that doesn't make our roads or our communities any safer,” said Scarlet Neath, Director of Reimagining Public Safety at the Policing Project. “If lawmakers are serious about preventing avoidable traffic deaths, they should prioritize evidence-based policies - like speed reduction policies and smarter roadway design - that have a proven safety impact.” The report offers a roadmap for policymakers at the local, state, and federal levels, including recommendations to: Limit incentives for, and discretion to, conduct non-safety stops Restrict ticketing practices and/or potential revenue from ticketing practices. Reduce speeds and crashes using roadway redesign and speed reduction policies. Pilot models for civilian traffic enforcement. The full report is available at: https://www.aclu.org/documents/safe-roads-for-all

MEMPHIS – The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Tennessee filed a motion in the Tennessee Supreme Court today seeking DNA testing that in the case of Tony Carruthers that could prove his innocence. The state plans to execute Mr. Carruthers on May 21 despite unmatched fingerprints and DNA evidence in his case that have never been compared to the most likely alternative suspect identified by Mr. Carruthers’ co-defendant in 2011. There has never been any physical evidence linking Mr. Carruthers to the crime and the case against him was built on testimony from jailhouse informants, widely known to be one of the leading causes of wrongful convictions. One of the individuals responsible for the murders later stated that Mr. Carruthers was not involved and instead pointed investigators to another man. Finally, within the last two years, the State Attorney finally admitted what it had successfully hid for three decades – that key State witness Alfredo Shaw was a paid career informant prior to, during, and after Mr. Carruthers trial. Meanwhile, there is unidentified DNA on evidence found with the victims that does not match Tony Carruthers and has never been compared to the alternative suspect. The motion filed today asks the court to order comparison of that unknown DNA to that suspect and to permit testing of three additional items that have never been analyzed. These items were all found with the victims’ bodies and are likely to contain evidence pointing to the person who is actually responsible for the crime. “Before the state carries out an irreversible punishment, it must answer the most basic question: did they get the right person?” said Maria DeLiberato, senior counsel at the ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project. “Tennessee has the forensic evidence that could help answer that question, and they must test it before it is too late. There is no justification for barreling towards an execution while DNA evidence that could prove who really committed this crime remains untested.” In addition to the DNA evidence, there are five fingerprints recovered from the crime scene that do not match Mr. Carruthers and remain unidentified. A separate motion seeking fingerprint testing that Mr. Carruthers filed pro se in September 2021 is still pending before the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals at Jackson. Mr. Carruthers was forced to represent himself at trial after the court became frustrated with his repeated dismissal of appointed counsel, which was due to his longstanding and well-documented mental illness. He did not ask to represent himself and instead repeatedly requested an attorney. His self-representation was found to be so prejudicial to his co-defendant that he was granted a new trial. The co-defendant, who was initially sentenced to death was allowed to enter a plea to a reduced charge, sentenced to a term of years, and was released from prison in 2015. If executed, Mr. Carruthers would be the first person in nearly a century to be put to death after being forced to represent himself at trial.