The Choctaw Three Sage Continues - Medell Banks Jr. Walks Free When The Murder Charge Against Him Is Dismissed

 

By Hans Sherrer (February 12, 2003)

For Justice Denied Magazine

 

                 At 5pm on Friday, January 10, 2003, Medell Banks Jr. walked out of the Choctaw County Jail a free man. One of the Choctaw Three, Medell’s release capped an intense week of pretrial hearings that preceded the start of jury selection in his capital murder trial for killing a non-existent child. He was released an hour after Circuit Judge Harold Crow accepted Medell's “best interest” plea of tampering with unspecified physical evidence, and the murder charge against him was dismissed.

                 That plea agreement was as strange as every other aspect of Medell’s case. There was no physical evidence for Medell to have tampered with, because the prosecutor admitted to New York Times columnist Bob Herbert during an August 2002 interview: “We have no physical evidence.” [1] That is confirmed by the fact the misdemeanor charge “was not even remotely connected with [Medell] causing the death or participating in the death” of the phantom child. [2] In actuality the tampering charge was as much a fabrication as the capital murder charge that was dismissed, but however undeserved, the prosecution wanted at least an ounce of Medell’s flesh. Rick Hutchinson, Medell's lead lawyer, recognized the prosecutors had to be thrown a bone of some sort, when he said of the deal that allowed Medell to immediately walk out of jail after 3-1/2 years, “It couldn't have been any better.” [3]

                 During the hearings leading up to Medell’s sudden release, “Alabama Bureau of Investigation agents and Choctaw County Sheriff Donald Lolley, whose work put Banks behind bars, testified that they lied to him to elicit a confession.” [4] Furthermore, interrogation tapes played in court during the hearings showed that even though no attorney was present in his behalf, Medell unwaveringly insisted over and over, hour after hour, “that he knew nothing about a dead baby.” [5] It wasn’t until he was totally exhausted late on the last night of his interrogation that he agreed with his interrogators suggestion that “he heard a baby cry, then said he was tired and wanted to go home.” [6]

                 So Medell never admitted to killing or even seeing a child. It was while in a state of exhaustion from many hours of intense interrogation that he merely agreed with his interrogators suggestion that he heard a “baby cry.” It was for that innocuous admission under a level of almost unimaginable stress that the State of Alabama sought to execute Medell Banks Jr. Not only did Medell’s interrogator’s plant the idea in his mind when he was in a weakened state that he heard cries of the non-existent baby, but they pressured him by lying that they had DNA evidence against him. Furthermore, during the week of hearings, Medell’s attorneys “presented psychologists and other expert witnesses who testified that law officer’s wrongly interrogated Banks, and that his mental disability prevented him from understanding his right against self-incrimination.” [7]

                 Months of critical national publicity by the Associated Press, the New York Times and Dateline NBC had failed to stop the prosecutor’s drive to execute Medell, but the accumulation of damning evidence aired in public during the week of hearings caused the prosecution to suddenly agree to stop his trial by any face saving way it could.

                 The prosecution was so panicked to find a way, any way out of the case without going to trial after the shocking revelations by their witnesses during the week of hearings, that the plea agreement contained no limitation on Medell to recovering damages from any person or governmental entity he is able to sue for their role in causing him to spend 41 months and 5 days imprisoned for allegedly killing a child that never existed. The prosecution tried to include that limitation, but caved when it realized Medell would go to trial and be acquitted before agreeing to it. As Hutchinson told reporters after Medell's release, “At no time would we waive our right to bring civil charges against anybody for the way Medell has been mistreated during all of this.” [8]

                 Medell’s release capped an almost evangelical campaign by his court-appointed attorneys, particularly Rick Hutchinson, to expose the outrageousness of his wrongful conviction. He garnered national publicity for Medell’s case, and he printed yellow and black FREE MEDELL bumper stickers and T-shirts that were distributed around Choctaw County. Medell’s other court appointed lawyer was James Evans, a former prosecutor, and Jim Sears, an attorney specializing in mental retardation who donated his time in the months leading up to Medell’s January trial date.

                 Medell’s family members and other supporters were present in the courtroom all week as the wrongdoing of the police and prosecutors in Medell’s case was exposed for all the world to see. There was never a murder case against Medell Banks Jr., and the prosecutor tacitly admitted that when he agreed on the last court day before the start of Medell’s trial to drop the charge against him from capital murder for which he could have been executed, to a minor misdemeanor charge that resulted in his immediate and unconditional release.

                 When her son was freed Medell’s mother said, “I’m just happy and thanking everybody for all this help.” [9] In his first public comment after leaving the jail, Medell Banks Jr. said: “I’d like to thank God, I’d like to thank Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Evans, my family and everybody for believing in me. I thank God I’m free.” [10]

 

Postscript

 

                 As this is written, the manslaughter convictions of Victoria Bell Banks and Dianne Bell Tucker still stand. Their convictions are just as outrageous as was Medell’s, and it is hoped that a competent and crusading attorney will take up their cause so their wrongful convictions will be cleared from their record. It is an embarrassment to every law enforcement officer, prosecutor, judge and resident in Alabama for coercive tactics straight out of Stalinist Russia to have been used to extract fabricated guilty pleas from two innocent women for participating in the murder of a child that only exists in the mind of a prosecutor who stooped to the level of taking advantage of their mental state and insecurities to gain his 15 minutes of an infamy that will be his legacy until the end of time.

 

THE END

 


[1] See, An Imaginary Homicide, Bob Herbert, NY Times, Op-Ed section, August 15, 2002, and When Justice Is Mocked, Bob Herbert, NY Times, Op-Ed section, August 19, 2002.

[2] Medell Banks set free in baby case, Carla Crowder (staff), The Birmingham News, January 11, 2003.

[3] Medell Banks set free in baby case, Carla Crowder (staff), The Birmingham News, January 11, 2003.

[4] Medell Banks set free in baby case, Carla Crowder (staff), The Birmingham News, January 11, 2003.

[5] DA: Banks Release is Victory for Prosecution, Carla Crowder (staff), The Birmingham News, January 14, 2003.

[6] DA: Banks Release is Victory for Prosecution, Carla Crowder (staff), The Birmingham News, January 14, 2003.

[7] Medell Banks set free in baby case, Carla Crowder (staff), The Birmingham News, January 11, 2003.

[8] Medell Banks set free in baby case, Carla Crowder (staff), The Birmingham News, January 11, 2003.

[9] Medell Banks set free in baby case, Carla Crowder (staff), The Birmingham News, January 11, 2003.

[10] Medell Banks set free in baby case, Carla Crowder (staff), The Birmingham News, January 11, 2003.