Rhodes v. State. Minn.S.Ct. 2/17/2016. Remember Natalie Wood?Accidently fell out of a boat, drowned? At least according to her spouse, Robert Wagner. Same thing happened to Mr. Rhodes' spouse, only unlike Robert Wagner, the state charged Mr. Rhodes with homicide and a jury convicted him of it.
The state said that Mr. Rhodes forced his wife overboard with a blow to the neck, struck her with the boat multiple times, and subsequently lied to the police about the location of her drowning. A lot of medical experts testified at the trial and at the evidentiary hearing on Mr. Rhodes' first post conviction petition. The state's medical examiner testified at trial and at the first post conviction hearing that Ms. Rhodes had received some sort of trauma to the outer surface of the skin of her neck with enough force to have caused breakage of blood vessels. The ME also testified that this neck trauma possibly had been done by a hand, used in a V position. One defense expert said that the hemorrhaging in the neck could have had been caused by some kind of pressure to the throat but equally as likely could have been caused during the drowning process. Other defense experts testified that from a review of recent medical literature they believed that the hemorrhaging was a result of a breaking of rigor mortis.
On appeal from the conviction and denial of the first post conviction petition the supreme court said that the evidence had been sufficient to support Mr. Rhodes' conviction, independent of the medical evidence. The court said this in order to reject one of the requirements to prevail on a claim of newly discovered evidence - in this case the additional expert testimony at the post conviction hearing - that this newly discovered evidence "will probably produce either an acquittal at a retrial or a result more favorable to the petitioner."
Long after the two year limitations had run Mr. Rhodes filed two more post conviction petitions. To prevail, therefore, he had to satisfy one of the exceptions; he went with newly discovered evidence that is not cumulative to evidence presented at trial, is not impeachment of trial evidence, and establishes by a clear and convincing evidence standard that the petitioner is innocent of the offense. In pertinent part Mr. Rhodes said that there was even newer medical literature on drowning forensics, which said that when a dead body is angled downwards:
hemorrhagic lividity of the soft tissue of the neck (extravascular rupture and leakage of blood vessels due to gravitational pressure after death) may occur, causing “pseudo bruises” that may lead to “misidentification of violent neck injury.
He also submitted expert affidavits that said just that.
Justice Wright, as did the post conviction court, concludes that Mr. Rhodes has not satisfied the requirements of the limitations exception on which he relied to stay in court. Specifically, this new scientific material does not establish that Mr. Rhodes is innocent. At best the Justice seems to be saying that this new information would have given the jury something more to chew on, after which it may have come back with a not guilty verdict or a guilty verdict on some lesser offense. Unfortunately for Mr. Rhodes, that was not the legal standard that he had to meet.
Perhaps more disturbing going forward is the court's characterization of this new scientific information as either cumulative of trial testimony or only rebuttal. If such new information that essentially slaps down previously accepted scientific theory, is only either cumulative or rebuttal evidence, then such new science will never be enough to obtain relief from a flawed conviction. It's as though a conviction that relied upon the scientific assertion that the earth is flat could never be upended even after Frank Borman beamed backed that famous "Earth Rise" photo from Apollo 8.
Justices G. Barry Anderson, dissented, saying that Mr. Rhodes had sufficiently alleged the existence of evidence that, if true, would establish by a clear and convincing standard that no reasonable jury would have convicted Mr. Rhodes in the face of that new evidence. Justice Lillehaug joined this dissent.
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