I just found out that a person I grew up with was given the My Cousin Vinnie treatment without the good outcome and I don’t know what can be done about it.
His name is Jason Payne and he took one of his kids to school one morning only to come home and find both his wife and stepson dead from gunshot wounds in separate parts of the home. The stepson was a disturbed young man and still had the rifle that killed him next to him. It was initially ruled a murder-suicide. Case closed until months later when the DA and forensics team came up with another scenario labeling Jason as killer. Somehow a jury bought it and gave him life in prison.
I grew up with Jason and his whole family. I am still friend’s with his sister. You can’t ever say you know anyone perfectly but to say something like that would be unheard of for any of them would be an understatement. The put a perfectly innocent person in prison for life based on nothing but conjecture and bad circumstantial evidence. I am questioning my support for the death penalty because of this case even though he didn’t get it.
There doesn’t appear to be any motive for Jason Payne to have killed his wife and stepson. There does appear to be motive for his stepson to have killed himself, and possibly others. It seems to me like he’s innocent.
I don’t know whether the guy did it or not but based off of what little I’ve read, it appears that at the very least there’s quite a bit of reasonable doubt.
An appeals court really doesn’t assess guilt. All an appeals court does is see if there were any omissions or wrongful “things” done by the prior court.
Appeals courts really are there to see if there were procedural errors made by the lower court.
And judges don’t like to overturn decisions. Remember when a judge says the other court is wrong, they are publicly correcting their colleges and in a sense saying, they didn’t know how to do their job. It’s not something they like to do.
I have connections to the Innocence Project, so I’ll see what I can do, but I have to warn you, it can be hard to prove someone’s innocence. They need to get permission from a lot of the people who put him away to do anything on it.
That would be much appreciated kimera. I really and truly be believe he is 100% innocent and so do many other people. It sounds like a good case for a group like that.
Shagnasty, out of curiosity, with this newest friend of yours, exactly now how many convicted murderers are you claiming to have grown up with?
Is your other friend, the one who is serving a sentence of “Life with NO possible chance of parole, EVER” still being released from prison EVERY DAY to work a maintenance job in the Louisiana State Capital Building (Baton Rouge) and then when the workday is over turning himself back into the prison?
(I ask because in Utah, when they tell a prisoner that he has absolutely NO CHANCE OF EVER getting paroled, they generally don’t let him out to work on his own each and every day, as I guess they figure the guy has no incentive to play by the rules, as he fully knows he will never, ever, EVER get legally released, and therefore doesn’t have anything to lose by making a break for it)
I am not sure exactly what you are insinuating here but, to answer your question, I grew up with quite a number of people later convicted of murder among other things. This is the only one that I believe is innocent. The other person you are referring to is indeed doing a life sentence. I got info on his current status from another one of his friends who joined this board just to share some things about his current status. If you are curious, I can forward you those messages. I will have to count how many other murderers I know. I worked with a couple in high school and know 5 - 10 others through various associations if I thought about it. I take it that isn’t typical.
That is all beside the point though. I am most worried about this one.
She sent the message along, but you should still contact both the Cardozo Innocence Project (which is national) and the Texas Innocence Project. Everyone in this thread who wants to help can send a message along too.
However, these projects have a huge uphill battle. I asked her for a summary of what it takes to overturn a conviction and she said that in addition to the other issues,
I know I said thanks in my last post kimera but I wanted to thank you again for giving some concrete people to contact. I just talked to his sister and even that level of hope means a whole lot. They are going to see what they can do based on the information you provided.
They were trying to collect ‘Likes’ on his advocacy of innocence Facebook page. (warning: lots of religious references). That is a feel good measure but I don’t think the justice system responds to Facebook without more solid steps. Everyone, feel free to click the ‘Like’ button on it yourself if you are a member of Facebook. It gives a wrongly convicted prisoner some reassurance at least.
The family is going to pursue the advocacy leads given.
Not sure if you realized, but the Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin recently decided to hear his appeal (it’s discretionary, just as the U.S. Supreme Ct. may decide to hear or not hear appeals). His first issue is sufficiency of the evidence. It appears the lower appeals court didn’t consider the record entirely accurately in coming to its decision. Now, the Austin court might decide the evidence is straight-up insufficient and enter an acquittal. But if it does decide the lower court didn’t properly consider the record, it might just send it back for them to do it again. Of course, there’s the possibility the CCA will just find there was enough evidence to convict based on the trial record. So that will be interesting.
His second issue is the admission of hearsay. The lower court found error was committed, but that he wasn’t harmed by it. If you know what the hearsay was from his wife’s sister-in-law, it’s seems clear it was harmful to him. So if he doesn’t prevail on the sufficiency issue, he very well could have this one go in his favor. But, that would only reverse the conviction and kick it back to the state to decide to either re-try him or offer a deal, most likely.
The CCA will hear oral arguments from the lawyers sometime in the new year. Just wanted to let you guys know.
The cloth had a small amount of Nicole’s blood on it (not the step-son’s), and it wasn’t fresh blood. Payne said Nicole had hooked herself in the hand a while back while fishing. I’ve seen in two articles about the gun having no fingerprints and the suggestion it was wiped clean, but could never find where that was made an issue in the trial record (which I read most of).
Thanks for the info gargoyle75. That sounds promising. I forwarded your responses to the family just to make sure they have all the info you do. The explanations of the legal issues are very helpful.