2006.09.02: September 2, 2006: Headlines: Crime: DNA: Justice: Chicago Tribune: A federal judge ruled this week that Jerry Mark, a former Peace Corps volunteer and self-described hippie lawyer, was denied a fair trial because prosecutors and the trial judge withheld key evidence that could have proven Mark's innocence

Peace Corps Online: Peace Corps News: Library: Peace Corps: Crime : Crime and the Peace Corps: April 11, 2005: Headlines: Crime: DNA: Justice: Chicago Tribune: DNA undercuts verdict against RPCV Jerry Marks in infamous Iowa murder case : 2006.09.02: September 2, 2006: Headlines: Crime: DNA: Justice: Chicago Tribune: A federal judge ruled this week that Jerry Mark, a former Peace Corps volunteer and self-described hippie lawyer, was denied a fair trial because prosecutors and the trial judge withheld key evidence that could have proven Mark's innocence

By Admin1 (admin) (ppp-70-251-54-81.dsl.okcyok.swbell.net - 70.251.54.81) on Tuesday, September 05, 2006 - 8:40 am: Edit Post

A federal judge ruled this week that Jerry Mark, a former Peace Corps volunteer and self-described hippie lawyer, was denied a fair trial because prosecutors and the trial judge withheld key evidence that could have proven Mark's innocence

A federal judge ruled this week that Jerry Mark, a former Peace Corps volunteer and self-described hippie lawyer, was denied a fair trial because prosecutors and the trial judge withheld key evidence that could have proven Mark's innocence

The evidence included testimony from eyewitnesses that suggested Mark was hundreds of miles away when his brother, Les Mark, and his family were slain in the farmhouse that had been passed down for generations. In some instances, prosecutors hid the identity of people who contradicted their witnesses, according to the ruling.

A federal judge ruled this week that Jerry Mark, a former Peace Corps volunteer and self-described hippie lawyer, was denied a fair trial because prosecutors and the trial judge withheld key evidence that could have proven Mark's innocence

Judge: Cain and Abel murder trial unfair
Iowa prosecutors hid facts in '75 slayings, federal jurist rules

By Flynn McRoberts and Maurice Possley
Tribune staff reporters

Published September 2, 2006

Caption: Jerry Mark is shown testifying during a hearing in 1994 on whether to grant him a new murder trial. The motion was denied. At left is Senior Judge L.D. Lybbert. Courier File Photo

A federal judge has ordered Iowa authorities to retry or release a man convicted of one of the most notorious slayings in the state's history--the murder of a Cedar Falls farmer, his wife and two young children more than 30 years ago.

The judge ruled this week that Jerry Mark, a former Peace Corps volunteer and self-described hippie lawyer, was denied a fair trial because prosecutors and the trial judge withheld key evidence that could have proven Mark's innocence.

The evidence included testimony from eyewitnesses that suggested Mark was hundreds of miles away when his brother, Les Mark, and his family were slain in the farmhouse that had been passed down for generations. In some instances, prosecutors hid the identity of people who contradicted their witnesses, according to the ruling.

Senior U.S. District Judge Donald O'Brien found that the failure of the state to turn over more than 50 pages of investigative reports was a "gross" and "flagrant" violation of the prosecutors' duties.

"This court is not ruling that Mark is not guilty of the crimes," O'Brien wrote, "only that in a careful detailed review of the cumulative effect of all the evidence that was not disclosed, Mark did not receive a fair trial."

He was convicted in 1976 and sentenced to life in prison for the gunshot slayings, in which Les and Jorjean Mark's 5-year-old daughter and 18-month-old son were both shot in the chest and head. Prosecutors invoked the biblical brothers Cain and Abel, contending at Jerry Mark's trial that he had told a friend: "My little brother screwed me out of my farm."

Dorothy Mark, who found the bodies of her younger son and his family at dawn on Nov. 1, 1975, said in an interview that she had been expecting a favorable ruling. "We were sure that Jerry was innocent," said Mark, who heard news of the ruling when her surviving son called from prison Thursday night. "We thought the judge, when he studied the case, he would rule in Jerry's favor."


Prosecutors to appeal

The Iowa attorney general's office, which is handling the case for the state, said it would appeal the decision to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "We are disappointed in the decision," said Bob Brammer, spokesman for the attorney general's office. "Mark will remain in prison . . . during any appeal."

David Dutton, Mark's trial prosecutor who now is in private practice, declined to comment, saying he was "ethically prohibited from commenting on a matter in litigation."

The case against Mark was circumstantial. It featured eyewitness testimony supporting the theory that he had driven his motorcycle from his home in California to the farm, committed the murders, then fled.

Mark admitted going on a road trip, but contended he never reached Cedar Falls. In granting a new trial, O'Brien ruled that prosecutors and the judge never gave Mark's lawyers reports of witnesses who supported his account. Some of those witnesses told authorities they saw Mark hundreds of miles west, traveling toward the crime scene after the murders.

One of them, Jean Doyle, "would have been an important witness for Mark as she would have testified that she saw him arriving from the west, and traveling east, and she witnessed all of this on Saturday morning, Nov. 1, after the murders had occurred 540 miles away."

Mark's co-counsel in his appeals, Jim Cleary, agreed that various witnesses support his client's alibi, including a waitress in western Nebraska who said she saw him a few hours after the murders. "If he was in North Platte, Neb., on Saturday morning, it would've been physically impossible for him to be [at the farm] at the time the crimes were committed," Cleary said.

Among the other withheld reports were those that undermined state witnesses, including one person whose memory had been impaired by the removal of a brain tumor 10 years before the crime. Other reports included widely different descriptions of the clothes Mark was wearing while allegedly fleeing on his Honda motorcycle. "You cannot get that many sets of clothes into this motorcycle. To not turn over these exhibits was a violation," the judge wrote.

Defense attorneys also never saw a report that cast doubt on a prosecution claim that a shoe print found at the crime scene was left by Mark.


Less forensic evidence

The case against Mark also rested on forensic evidence that has since been overturned or otherwise called into doubt. So if the case is retried, prosecutors will have far less forensic evidence to present.

For instance, at the original trial, the state said blood typing tests found that saliva on a cigarette butt inside the farmhouse matched Mark's blood type, O. But subsequent, more precise DNA tests two years ago definitively excluded Mark.

Prosecutors also used a technique that compared bullet lead at the scene to lead in bullets purchased by Mark. The process, known as comparative bullet lead analysis, has been found to be flawed and unreliable.

The case has long been contentious. During a postconviction hearing, one of Mark's trial attorneys testified that obtaining information from the prosecution "was like tooth and nail. You couldn't get anything out of them," according to O'Brien's ruling. "Nobody volunteered anything."

At the same time, prosecutors repeatedly have contended they acted properly and turned over everything required of them. But O'Brien was unconvinced. He said those claims were "self-serving" and that the evidence showed something else.

"They did not actually do what they swear they did," he wrote.

----------

fmcroberts@tribune.com

mpossley@tribune.com

Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune





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By gloria pinto (136.145.60.22) on Wednesday, January 10, 2007 - 4:19 pm: Edit Post

hola,

Mucho agradecere si guardan en archivo la pelicula, que prepare sobre mi servicio en Brazil. Año 1962-1963.
Servi de voluntaria Brazil 1 la pelicula se titula Gates of life. Les dejo mi dirección Postal. Box 5086 Aguadilla P.R. 00605


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