Hoyt Powell

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Charge:	First Degree Murder
Sentence:	Life Imprisonment
Years Imprisoned:	4
Year Crime:	1971
Year Convicted:	1973
Year Cleared:	1975
U.S. State or Country of Crime:	Georgia
County or Region of Crime:	Cobb
City of Crime:	Marietta
Result:	Judicially Exonerated Released
Summary of Case:	"James Edward Creamer, Wayne Ruff, Charles Roberts, Larry Hacker, George Emmett, Billy Richard Jenkins, and Hoyt Powell were convicted for the May 7, 1971 murder of Dr. Warren B. Matthews and Dr. Rozina Matthews during a robbery in Marietta, Georgia. All seven defendants were sentenced to life in prison. They were dubbed as the Marietta Seven by the media. The state's case was built on testimony provided by Deborah Ann Kidd, an accomplice/eyewitness under a grant of immunity. She testified that Creamer was the shooter. Kidd initially claimed to have been high on drugs and able to recall nothing. Through hypnosis, however, she recalled that Creamer had committed the murders. The Georgia Supreme Court unanimously upheld the convictions and sentences in 1974. In 1975 the Atlanta Constitution turned up evidence that the prosecution had withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense. The paper also discovered Kidd was romantically involved with one of the detectives assigned to the case. Tapes of the hypnotic sessions, which initially had been withheld from the defense, showed that Kidd at one point had confessed that she had killed the doctors. Kidd subsequently admitted lying in her trial testimony, and Billy Birt, a death-row inmate, confessed to committing the crime with two other men. The convictions of Creamer and his six-codefendants were overturned on June 17, 1975 by the granting of their federal habeas corpus petition. The charges were dismissed, and they were released in 1975."
Conviction Caused By:	Perjury by police informant and prosecutorial misconduct of concealing exculpatory evidence.
Innocence Proved By:	"Convictions overturned by a federal judge on June 17, 1975, and the charges were dismissed after the actual culprit was identified and confessed."
Defendant Aided By:
Compensation Awarded:
Was Perpetrator Identified?	Yes
Age When Imprisoned:
Age When Released:
Sex:	Male
Skin/Ethnicity:	White
Information Source 1:	"Emmett v. Ricketts, 397 F. Supp. 1025 (Dist. Court, ND Georgia, 6-17-1975)"
Information Location 1:	"http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16932293468988457898&q=James+Creamer&hl=en&as_sdt=4,11,121,253,254,255,262,263,264,265,266,267,316,317,318,325,326,327,328,329,330"
Information Source 2:	"“In Spite of Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases,” Michael L Radelet, HugoAdam Bedau, and Constance E. Putnam, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1996 pb ed. with new forward, 298 ( © 1992)."
Information Location 2:
Information Source 3:	"“Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases,” Hugo Adam Bedau & Michael L. Radelet, Stanford Law Review, November, 1987, Vol. 40, p. 108."
Information Location 3:	http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/Innocentlist.html
Information Source 4:	"James Creamer, Northwestern Law Center on Wrongful Convictions"
Information Location 4:	http://www.law.northwestern.edu/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/gaCreamerSummary.html
Information Source 5:	"Marietta Seven, Wikipedia.org (last visited October 13, 2009)"
Information Location 5:	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marietta_Seven
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Hoyt Powell

Charge:

First Degree Murder

Sentence:

Life Imprisonment

Years Imprisoned:

4

Year Crime:

1971

Year Convicted:

1973

Year Cleared:

1975

U.S. State or Country of Crime:

Georgia

County or Region of Crime:

Cobb

City of Crime:

Marietta

Result:

Judicially Exonerated Released

Summary of Case:

Conviction Caused By:

Perjury by police informant and prosecutorial misconduct of concealing exculpatory evidence.

Innocence Proved By:

"Convictions overturned by a federal judge on June 17, 1975, and the charges were dismissed after the actual culprit was identified and confessed."

Defendant Aided By:

Compensation Awarded:

Was Perpetrator Identified?

Yes

Age When Imprisoned:

Age When Released:

Sex:

Male

Skin/Ethnicity:

White

Information Source 1:

"Emmett v. Ricketts, 397 F. Supp. 1025 (Dist. Court, ND Georgia, 6-17-1975)"

Information Location 1:

"http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16932293468988457898&q=James+Creamer&hl=en&as_sdt=4,11,121,253,254,255,262,263,264,265,266,267,316,317,318,325,326,327,328,329,330"

Information Source 2:

"“In Spite of Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases,” Michael L Radelet, HugoAdam Bedau, and Constance E. Putnam, Northeastern University Press, Boston, 1996 pb ed. with new forward, 298 ( © 1992)."

Information Location 2:

Information Source 3:

"“Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases,” Hugo Adam Bedau & Michael L. Radelet, Stanford Law Review, November, 1987, Vol. 40, p. 108."

Information Location 3:

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/Innocentlist.html

Information Source 4:

"James Creamer, Northwestern Law Center on Wrongful Convictions"

Information Location 4:

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/gaCreamerSummary.html

Information Source 5:

"Marietta Seven, Wikipedia.org (last visited October 13, 2009)"

Information Location 5:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marietta_Seven

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