RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The Latest on an innocence hearing for a North Carolina man (all times local):
3:20 p.m.
An expert in false confessions says police used a man’s mental illness against him and pretended to be his friend in order to get him to confess to a murder in a North Carolina dormitory.
Allison Redlich of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, testified Tuesday in the innocence hearing of 66-year-old James Blackmon.
He’s serving a life sentence for second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of Helena Payton in 1979 at what’s now St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh.
Blackmon entered the courtroom in a wheelchair and dressed in orange-and-white striped jail clothes. His case is before a three-judge panel that must decide unanimously on Blackmon’s innocence in order for him to be released.
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5:20 a.m.
A North Carolina man who confessed to a fatal stabbing in 1979 is getting a chance to prove his innocence during a hearing before three judges.
The hearing for 66-year-old James Blackmon is scheduled to begin Tuesday in a courtroom in Raleigh. In November, the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission found enough evidence of Blackmon’s innocence to forward his case to a three-judge panel for review.
Blackmon’s attorneys argue that their client is a mentally ill man who wore a Superman-like cape during his confession and compared himself to Dracula.
The prosecutor agrees Blackmon has mental health and cognitive issues. However, the prosecutor says a trial judge and the state Court of Appeals determined decades ago that Blackmon was competent to stand trial in the death of Helena Payton at what’s now St. Augustine’s University.
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