Justices deny Echols' appeal in 1993 slayings of three boys

By Seth Blomeley (Contact)

Damien Echols, who was convicted and sentenced to death in 1994 in the killing of three 8-year-old boys, lost an appeal Thursday before the state Supreme Court.

Echols was seeking a new trial on his claim that his mental competency wasn’t fully explored before his trial.

Echols relies on the affidavits of a psychologist who interviewed him in 2000, reviewed the trial transcript and watched videotapes of his testimony.

The court noted that to bring such an appeal after the Supreme Court has already affirmed the death sentence is highly unusual and requires due diligence on the part of the defendant.

Also, to stake a "coram nobis" claim, there must be new evidence or information that wasn’t known or could not have been known at the time of the trial.

"It is clear that Echols has not been diligent in pursuing the issue of his competency," Justice Donald Corbin wrote for the unanimous court.

"It has been nearly 10 years since his trial was held. The medical records upon which he now relies were not only available prior to the date of the trial, they were, in fact, offered by the defense at trial and considered by the jury.

"His claim that he was not aware at the time of his trial of the extent of his mental problems is not credible, in the face of evidence to the contrary. Indeed, Echols himself testified at trial that he had been diagnosed as a manic-depressive and that he was taking medication for his illness.

"Were we to allow Echols to raise this claim at this late date we would be thwarting the concept of finality in legal decisions."

The defense also asked for a new trial on the basis of a 2001 affidavit in which a West Memphis police officer said he heard on his police radio the day the bodies were found that a person stopped on Interstate 40 ran away after being told by police that they were looking into the murder of three young boys.

That evidence wasn’t significant enough to require reopening the case, the Supreme Court said.

The testimony didn’t point directly toward the guilt of any particular third party and raised nothing more than an inference or conjecture that someone else may have committed the murders, Corbin wrote.

Echols was convicted in March 1994 by a Craighead County jury on three counts of capital murder in the 1993 slayings of Steve Branch Jr., Christopher Byers and Michael Moore. Police found the boys’ bodies in a flooded ditch behind a truck wash on Interstate 40 in West Memphis.

Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley Jr. also were convicted in the boys’ slayings and are serving life sentences.

The state Supreme Court affirmed the convictions in 1996.