Arkansas Judge David Burnett is probably best known for presiding over the trials of Jessie Misskelley Jr., Damien Echols and Jason Baldwin. The three teens are collectively known as the “West Memphis Three,” whose sensational trials for Satanic ritual murder ended in convictions for all three without a shred of physical evidence presented.
The judge, who repeatedly ignored evidence of jury and prosecutorial misconduct during the trial, continued to ignore compelling evidence of innocence, even handing down rulings from retirement. One particularly disturbing move was to ignore evidence that the jury foreman in the Echols/Baldwin trial engaged in serious misconduct:
One exhibit submitted to Burnett last year may prove particularly potent. That is an affidavit by Little Rock attorney Lloyd Warford in which Warford states that Kent Arnold, the jury foreman at the Echols-Baldwin trials, disobeyed Burnett’s order not to discuss the case outside of court.
Warford also claims that the foreman told him that he persuaded the jury to consider information that the prosecutors were not allowed to introduce.
Burnett sealed Warford’s affidavit and took no action on it. It remained sealed until recently, when I was allowed to view it at the Arkansas Supreme Court.
Other evidence ignored or dismissed by Judge Burnett included evidence of improper representation, exculpatory DNA evidence, and evidence that expert testimony given at trial was flawed, misrepresented, and incompetent. Ironically, it is Burnett’s poor judgment which may allow the defendants to appeal their case to the Arkansas Supreme Court- as
