Timmy Hester is a young man who was a star witness for the state in Cameron's last trial. He was close friends with all the people involved on the other side... related to several of them.
He and members of a pseudo-gang of neighborhood kids burned Perry and Regina Carter's home just when all of this started. When they were all rounded up in the same weekend and got the usual offer "You can help yourself by helping us", they all helped by telling the whole story to the cops. Each one confessed his/her own involvement in the belief that they would get off for "ratting out" the others. There were no major discrepancies in any of the stories so conviction should have been simple.
One of the girls involved charged Cameron and another officer... and 10 or 11 other assorted people including one adult woman with having had sex with her during the two months she had been in Houston. This particular troubled young lady had a long and colorful history of making such charges and then, at the last minute, taking them back. The day she made these charges she retracted charges she had made two weeks earlier against a man in the neighborhood. The retraction and the new charges were made at the same session with a local Justice of The Peace.
After the first trial and before the second she wrote a letter to Regina Carter to apologize for burning her home. In the letter she said that all her charges were lies. Her phrase, "I lied a lot!". She had a new problem with these charges. She was not charged in the arson case (to which she had freely confessed) on the condition that she "help the state convict Todd & Crawford" (Crawford was the black officer charged at the same time). Retracting her charges this time would mean she would serve time for arson.
We had the letter (Got it from Regina) but, knowing her predicament, we thought she might change her mind when she got on the stand so we had it examined by Lillian Hutchison, a Forensic Documents Examiner from Georgetown, Texas. Ms. Hutchison has been doing this and working as an "Expert Witness" in Courts around the country for over 25 years. Her reputation is good... and she was prepared to testify that the letter was absolutely authentic... it could have been written by no one but the accuser. The prosecutor had sent the letter to The Mississippi Crime Lab in Jackson. The State Examiner, A. Frank Hicks, was not willing to appear in Court but sent a message to the effect that his findings were "inconclusive". Our lawyers were sure we would win hands down but they were mistaken.
Timmy and Jimmy Hester are twins. Jimmy was serving five years in the state pen but Timmy had made a deal to get off. Now they came to Timmy and told him that they had this forged letter and the crime lab had determined that it could only have been forged by one of the twins... Timmy denied writing it; he continued to deny it for three weeks and then when they told him that if he continued to deny it they would have to convict his brother and he would get an additional 12 years. If, on the other hand, Timmy were to "Confess" he would not be charged with the forgery and his brother would be safe. Timmy caved. In court Timmy claimed that he forged the letter himself.
The girl denied writing it but said only herself and two other women she named would have had all the information necessary to write it... sort of left Timmy out. When asked if she thought either of the other women wrote it she said "No". In spite of her denial, she was the only one left. With all that we should still have won with the testimony of our expert but she was not allowed to testify. Judge Lackey said she was not qualified. None of this occurred in the presence of the Jury... they had been sent out. The Jury never heard of the letter or any of this and they brought back "Guilty on all counts".
Timmy appeared at the County Jail.... No one knows why... and volunteered to write a statement in which he said that Cameron had been framed and that "They" made him lie about the letter... he did not forge it. The lawyer took the statement to FAX to the Supreme Court where they are due to consider our appeal for a Rehearing or new trial. However our appeal was denied on 2/7/2002. The case has been resubmitted, still pending.
For all of those who assume the handwriting expert, Ms. Hutchinson, was paid by the defendant or his family, here's a bit of information. She did the entire case Pro Bono, in laymens terms, for free. The DA, Jim Hood, implided that her testimony was 'bought-and-paid for'. Which simply isn't true. Just thought I'd clear up that matter in case other's thought that as well.
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Taken from
A Yellow Ribbon for Cameron Todd
