Eddie Lee Howard

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Charge:	First Degree Murder and Rape
Sentence:	Death
Years Imprisoned:	28.8
Year Crime:	1992
Year Convicted:	2000
Year Cleared:	2021
U.S. State or Country of Crime:	Mississippi
County or Region of Crime:	Lowndes
City of Crime:
Result:	Judicially Exonerated
Summary of Case:	"Eddie Lee Howard was twice wrongly convicted of murder and rape -- first in 1994 and again in 2000 -- for the February 2, 1992 rape and murder of 84-year-old Georgia Kemp in her trailer in Lowndes County, Mississippi. Kemp's autopsy concluded she had been beaten, strangled, stabbed, and raped. The prosecution's case was based on the bite mark testimony of forensic odontologist Dr. Michael West that bite marks he found on Kemp's neck and arm were consistent with a dental mold taken of Howard's teeth, and a bite mark on Kemp’s right breast was “indeed and without doubt inflicted by . . . Howard.” Howard was arrested on February 8 -- six days after Kemp's death. During his 1994 trial, Eddie Howard represented himself, and after his conviction he was sentenced to death. In 1997 the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned Howard's conviction and ordered a new trial based on the basis he should not have been allowed to represent himself in the capital case. During his retrial that began on May 22, 2000, West again was the prosecution's star witness. The judge denied the objection of Howard's lawyer Thomas Kesler to West being accepted as an expert witness. Kesler argued to the jury about West: "If you need a gunfighter, hire me, I come and I shoot whoever you want me to shoot. ... Well that's exactly what Dr. West is. He's just a modern day gunfighter who has chosen that he wants to always work for law enforcement." After his reconviction in 2000, Howard was again sentenced to death. Post-conviction DNA testing of crime scene evidence excluded Howard. Also, the American Board of Forensic Odontology recognized that bite mark evidence is unreliable, and revised its guidelines prohibiting the use of bite mark testimony -- such as West's -- in a criminal trial. Howard filed a post-conviction petition for a new trial. On August 27, 2020 the Mississippi Supreme Court overturned Howard's conviction and ordered a new trial based on the new exclusionary DNA evidence, and the current inadmissibility of West's testimony. Howard was released on a personal recognizance bond in December 2020. On January 7, 2020, Lowndes County District Attorney Scott Colom's motion to dismiss the case was granted by the Lowndes County Circuit Court. Colom issued a statement: "After reading the supreme court's opinion, reading the trial transcripts from the two trials, reviewing the investigative files and case files of the case, I decided that we didn't have even remotely close to sufficient evidence to convict Mr. Howard beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, under my legal, ethical responsibilities, I had no choice but to dismiss the case.""
Conviction Caused By:
Innocence Proved By:
Defendant Aided By:	Mississippi Innocence Project
Compensation Awarded:
Was Perpetrator Identified?
Age When Imprisoned:	41
Age When Released:	67
Sex:
Skin/Ethnicity:	Black
Information Source 1:	"Murder charges dropped against Eddie Lee Howard, By Isabelle Altman, The Dispatch (Columbus and Starkville, MS), January 8, 2021"
Information Location 1:	https://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=85582
Information Source 2:	"Mississippi Supreme Court vacates conviction and sentence of Eddie Lee Howard, By Maggie Wade, WLBT.com, August 28, 2020"
Information Location 2:	https://www.wlbt.com/2020/08/28/mississippi-supreme-court-vacates-conviction-sentence-eddie-lee-howard/
Information Source 3:	"Eddie Lee Howard, Jr. v. State of Mississippi, 2018-CA-01586-SCT (en banc) (MS Sup. Ct., 8-27-2020) (Reversing conviction and ordering a new trial.)"
Information Location 3:	https://courts.ms.gov/Images/Opinions/CO148586.pdf
Information Source 4:	"Howard v. State, 701 So. 2d 274 (Miss. 1997)"
Information Location 4:
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Information Location 5:
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Eddie Lee Howard

Charge:

First Degree Murder and Rape

Sentence:

Death

Years Imprisoned:

28.8

Year Crime:

1992

Year Convicted:

2000

Year Cleared:

2021

U.S. State or Country of Crime:

Mississippi

County or Region of Crime:

Lowndes

City of Crime:

Result:

Judicially Exonerated

Summary of Case:

Conviction Caused By:

Innocence Proved By:

Defendant Aided By:

Mississippi Innocence Project

Compensation Awarded:

Was Perpetrator Identified?

Age When Imprisoned:

41

Age When Released:

67

Sex:

Skin/Ethnicity:

Black

Information Source 1:

"Murder charges dropped against Eddie Lee Howard, By Isabelle Altman, The Dispatch (Columbus and Starkville, MS), January 8, 2021"

Information Location 1:

https://www.cdispatch.com/news/article.asp?aid=85582

Information Source 2:

"Mississippi Supreme Court vacates conviction and sentence of Eddie Lee Howard, By Maggie Wade, WLBT.com, August 28, 2020"

Information Location 2:

https://www.wlbt.com/2020/08/28/mississippi-supreme-court-vacates-conviction-sentence-eddie-lee-howard/

Information Source 3:

"Eddie Lee Howard, Jr. v. State of Mississippi, 2018-CA-01586-SCT (en banc) (MS Sup. Ct., 8-27-2020) (Reversing conviction and ordering a new trial.)"

Information Location 3:

https://courts.ms.gov/Images/Opinions/CO148586.pdf

Information Source 4:

"Howard v. State, 701 So. 2d 274 (Miss. 1997)"

Information Location 4:

Information Source 5:

Information Location 5:

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Book Information:

Book About Case (2):

Book Information (2):

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