KLLF Files Wrongful Conviction Lawsuit on Behalf of Exoneree Ralph Birch
On Wednesday, December 2, 2020, Ralph “Ricky” Birch and Shawn Henning filed civil rights lawsuits against the Town of New Milford and several Town and State police officials alleging that police misconduct caused their wrongful convictions for the 1985 murder of Everett Carr. Birch and Henning were wrongfully convicted in 1989 and spent thirty years in prison. Hair, fingerprints, footprints and DNA left at the scene by the true perpetrators, who have never been identified, do not match Birch or Henning. KLLF is representing Mr. Birch with co-counsel Kirschbaum Law Group, based in West Hartford, Ct.
“Although nothing can give Ricky Birch and Shawn Henning back the decades they lost, these lawsuits seek to impose accountability on the public officials whose actions put Ricky and Shawn in prison for a crime they did not commit,” said KLLF partner David Lebowitz. “More than thirty years after they were wrongly convicted, we look forward to working to remedy this horrific miscarriage of justice.”
Last year, the Connecticut Supreme Court overturned Birch’s and Henning’s convictions, finding that they were tainted by the “false or misleading” testimony of Henry Lee, the former Director of the Connecticut State Police Forensic Laboratory and a defendant in Wednesday’s suits. Lee claimed at both men’s trials that laboratory tests performed on a stained towel found in the victim’s home after the murder were positive for blood. The prosecution argued that Birch and Henning had used the towel to clean themselves after the murder, thereby explaining how two homeless teenagers could have stabbed the victim 27 times and severed his jugular vein without leaving a trace of his blood on their clothing, car or other belongings. As the Connecticut Supreme Court found, however, Lee’s testimony was “contrary to the facts”: no such testing was ever conducted, and no blood has ever been found on the towel.
Today’s lawsuits allege that police fabricated the evidence used to convict Birch and Henning and suppressed exculpatory material to prevent the men from mounting an effective defense. The suits claim that the police, facing pressure to solve the Carr case after years of investigation produced few solid leads, coached and manipulated jailhouse informants and other witnesses to falsely claim that Birch and Henning had privately confessed. The lawsuits further allege that investigators fed witnesses details about the crime to make their claims seem credible and covered up facts that would have cast doubt on the State’s theory that the murder resulted from a botched burglary, such as evidence that the perpetrators had left cash and other valuables undisturbed in the victim’s home. And Mr. Birch alleges that officers altered their report of his 1985 interrogation, filing an “addendum” a year and a half after the questioning occurred that falsely claimed Birch had spontaneously made an incriminating remark that was not documented in the original report. In overturning Mr. Birch’s conviction, the Connecticut Supreme Court noted that “it strains credulity to think that two highly experienced detectives, when memorializing an interview they had just conducted with the prime suspect in a murder investigation, would fail to include in that report that the suspect had disclosed what one of the detectives considered to be ‘devastating’ evidence of his involvement in the murder.”
“This case illustrates the tragic consequences that result when police develop tunnel vision during an investigation,” said W. James Cousins, a Ridgefield attorney representing Mr. Henning. “Any competent investigator should have known that the case against Ricky and Shawn was absurd and it was impossible for them to have committed this crime. Thirty years later, this case cries out for justice to be done.”
Click here to read Mr. Birch’s federal civil rights complaint.