Ryan Matthews, A Juvenile at the Time of His Arrest, Exonerated from Death Row
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Today an innocent man who was convicted as a juvenile has been exonerated after spending five years on death row. Prosecutors dropped charges against Ryan Matthews because of evidence that defense attorneys say proves his innocence in the 1997 murder of convenience store clerk Tommy Vanhoose. Last May, DNA tests indicated no link to Ryan and implicated another man already serving a 20-year sentence for a murder that took place near the Vanhoose murder in Bridge City, La. Ryan had just turned 17 when he was arrested for the murder.
Ryan becomes the third person to be wrongfully convicted and exonerated in Louisiana in cases involving people who were arrested before they were 18.
Ryan’s 17-year-old friend Travis Hayes confessed to police - after six hours of questioning - that Ryan committed the murder while Travis drove the getaway car. Travis said he heard shots and saw Ryan run out of the store, yet he never asked Ryan what happened. Travis was convicted of second-degree murder for his alleged involvement.
A study published this spring found that juveniles are particularly vulnerable to interrogation-induced false confessions. Juveniles made up one-third of the false confessions in the study, “The Problem of False Confessions in the Post-DNA World,” by Northwestern University Professor Steven Drizin and University of California Professor Richard Leo, published in the North Carolina Law Review. Many of the juveniles described in the study reported confessing to crimes they did not commit.
“Ryan Matthews’ case is a classic example of why the juvenile death penalty should be reexamined,” said Professor Drizin. “Our study shows that juveniles are indeed vulnerable to making false confessions, which, in this case, led to a wrongful death sentence and years of wrongful imprisonment.”
This fall, the United States Supreme Court will hear the case of Roper v. Simmons to consider the constitutionality of the death penalty for offenders convicted of crimes before the age of 18. Forty-eight countries, Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, former U.S. Diplomats, and the leading American medical, religious, and legal institutions, child and victim advocacy organizations filed amicus curiae briefs July 19, 2004 calling for an end to the juvenile death penalty.
Thirty-one states and the federal government prohibit the execution of juvenile offenders, including South Dakota and Wyoming, which this spring both signed bills into law banning the juvenile death penalty.
Another study, “Exonerations in the United States, 1989 through 2003,” by University of Michigan Law Professor Samuel Gross, found that minors are especially susceptible to wrongful conviction. The study, published in May, also showed that significant racial disparities exist in the juvenile justice system.
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The Justice Project [ http://www.thejusticeproject.org ] (TJP) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that addresses issues of social justice here and abroad. TJP’s Campaign for Criminal Justice Reform is a national initiative that addresses flaws in the American justice system.
