good morning in may please the court my name is spencer said representing gerald howell with discourse permission i deserve two minutes for about  this court has described the conviction of an innocent person as perhaps the most grievous mistake of our judicial system contend that because of the gravity of such an affront to liberty the supreme court has recognized an untimely hayabusa petitioner who can adequately demonstrate his actual innocence they still nonetheless pursue his atheist client gerald how is such a petitioner he was convicted of a murder for which he is actually innocent for which he has been incarcerated since age eighteen serving a life sentence without parole his conviction was  credible contention of actual innocence to novo and that extended to you reliability determination and another review seems particularly appropriate here when the district court did not hold an evidentiary hearing and that's what the no better position than this court to assess think it's here they are consistent utterly plausible corroborated and they provide convincing reasons for why they lied at a trial and the commonwealth while the contest the reliability of the affidavit it to its credit evidence under the commonwealth did not address union and its brief so i assume that they did not have an issue with it but i believe under either standard of newness how the evidence is new it was certainly not presented at trial and it was certainly not available at trial so his evidence i believe is new the real number of the issue is whether it's reliable and i think that how is evidence  parnell confessional letters an affidavit but it certainly is not essential to howell's gateway contention of actual innocence because all of the other affiance here incriminate parnell all of them point the finger at par now all of them say that they lied to protect parnell and their accounts are consistent with our no history of shooting people months before alan was killed parnell shot and killed another man in a burglary attempt and hours after allen was killed parno shot another man what may have been the same murder weapon and the reasonable juror would not think that that is simply a coincidence and that point is important for another reason too because it points to a motive for why how what incriminated here since the  shooting victim that night john williams survived he figured part of the shooter which meant all police had to do to connect parnell to the island murder of compare the bullet and john williams to the bullet in alan and so far no and as i said they all point the finger at the know so well parno has apparently self serving lee disavowed his confession that really just blunts the bonus that was the part of confession i think i imagine it's fairly rare for affianced to finger someone as a true perpetrator and for that perpetrated actually said yeah it was me so the fact of how to have that may be any more arguably although we certainly can test whether that is something that can be relied is concerned about that i certainly think it could remand for an evidentiary hearing where parts are now could be called and could be cross examined on this story and we could finally get to the bottom of it you know a certain parno is not going to say i did it because there's no statute of limitations right correct and that's what that is worth pointing out that he had a motive to lie at the resentencing hearing he had a motive to lie back in  three because he was trying to avoid a murder charge so that certainly is something that i think this court should consider in assessing his confession but to get back to the there's been the flip side of that mr cite that he also ha what was that what were the cause but that was the whole point of judge sanchez pointing out that when he said those things he was he was a lifer and there was not an at all to indicate he'd be anything but a life i understand and yes that was the basis were willing to suborn perjury which is precisely what howell is alleging occurred here and arlene williams on the other hand was the mother of parnell child that she certainly had a reason to protect parno at trial court and how he'd go in two thousand and six has made clear that does not require a conclusive case of innocence one does not have to rule out evidence of guilt for example or in this case to prove that part now with the killer beyond a reasonable doubt and happened what that evidence the the state tested the base jacket in the shoes for gunpowder and blood respectively under the reasonable hypothesis that it would find nothing and the boat came back negative so the only forensic testing conducted by the commonwealth in this case seemed to favor how the state also never covered a murder weapon and never recovered the stolen ring that was the basis of howl's robbery and thus is tell any murder conviction the state's case rested almost large money that the commonwealth relied on a trial the commonwealth's suggests that how owning a base jacket is is incriminating but i don't i don't see how simply owning a jacket that many people own is necessarily incriminating especially when the jacket was tested for gunpowder and it came back negative so i think that this case really came down to teenager credibility and one of those teenagers workman was a deeply non credible witness workman changed his story at the police station he changed his story on the stand and most importantly he changed his story between his police interview and on the stand the final story that he told to police was that he and parnell were walking together and the son an identified perpetrator commit the crime at trial he said he parnell and how old were walking together and he knew as how the whole time that's a huge change and it changed the followed i might add parno being interviewed by police and testifying at the preliminary hearing to the three men group theory so a reasonable jury might reasonably wonder did darryl workman change his story to align with porn else maybe or contesting the newness it was not that the evidence as far as we can tell is not available at trial and under thirteen president president i mean it we believe that that that counts as new evidence ok and in your in a footnote in your answer that in a footnote the footnote to that you're referring to all all that the commonwealth all that we meant by that was that if the court were leaning towards granting the motion we would we would urge the court to instead hold an eviden confession but that would that would be our position well then good go ahead and if you would explain to us why when it appears that the only evidence on which this man was convicted given that he was about to be tried for murder you know what why why should we look at that and say traditional concerns about recantation not so much an issue under circumstances where well i think a couple of things for the st part the jury did find all these witnesses credible at trial and did believe their testimony at trial and they heard a lot of the inconsistency that appellant pointed out in his argument that matt workman changed his story and there that carl hurst also admitted to lying to the police well she was on the stand and the jury was unimpressed the jury still found them their trial testimony to be credible and convicted mr howe i would also statement before mr howell was arrested everyone said the shooter had coat and miss jones said she was wearing black and white adidas sneakers as well this all happened before mr howell was arrested knowledge that he was arrested and they testimony that that's what the shooter was wearing yeah and i had an anger found on him i'm not make and i thought clear and maybe dancer is there's not a link here but you you point to that it's physical evidence of the murder point out there were there were five witnesses at trial and three of them have come forward with two out of unreliable recantation you know yeah a workman is deceased but when he was alive he showed no no inclination that he was going to recant confessional testimony to warrant right we believe you know without anything out even about the additional material in our supplemental appendix would be enough for a reasonable juror to convict mr how mean i would i would argue that that the three young women saying it was part now are not at all reliable but just the fact that they say that it is not is not enough you have to look at why they said it and when they said it court and those notes of testimony are part of the supplemental appendix or he testified that he was coerced in the signings affidavit and the recant and as to the three recantation i mean i would just point out that one the fact that these are more mature people and that they really do believe parkdale not going to be in a position to hurt him i don't know has i don't think that i think that that the only thing that ties these recantations together and seem to crop up when mr howe believes he needs something and after the navy is was denied and we get the williams recantation and after the court found that on reliable reasons that if found on how unreliable i would add that some of the the trial testimony that they were camping was corroborated and that what mr i know how what was the corroboration are we recantation would specifically recite fear apart now for lying at the time are now credible we can't patient more credible because there's defying because he was going to testify against a part now and if that is true but i still don't think it adds that any particularly to the recantations because you know you don't you don't think the fact that somebody comes forward yeah i lied and here's why i lie because he would kill me by the way some other guy you to find if he did get killed you don't think that's relevant i think it i think the fact that the recantation popped up so long after the fact and without in the context of a case when on the shooter has recanted and that three of the four living witnesses have canted and one witness was shot dead  that well maybe reliability isn't easily disposed of on the basis of a presumption against reliability for late meeting him asian that's the question right yeah yes  have your two minutes for the bottle thank you your honor three quick points st the opposing counsel suggests that the jury found all of these teenagers to be credible and that's not necessarily so the st jones and williams testimony really propped up the non credible testimony of workman and now those props have been removed and the state is left with workman who as i mentioned earlier was non credible for multiple reasons nd the state suggest that the testimony would have reasonable doubt and if your did anybody know where wright is we do not know we don't even know if he's still alive but his testimony was really not not very impact ful he said that he heard how will say i got a body so given all of the other evidence that's come forward it's hard to see how a reasonable juror could look to warren right to find how will guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and my rd point is getting to questions that this caller was asking which is that this isn't the run of the mill recantation case with a single recanting witness that maybe doesn't counter key testimony this is a case where we have multiple we can thing witness a criminal a critical mass of affiance who are eliminating key testimony consistently fingering kind of parnell a man who was unquestionably there who shot another man hours later with what appears to be t a weapon and who did so he had to kill darryl workman after attempting to suborn perjury from him so this is a unique case and i think it calls out for at least at the very least an evidentiary hearing because we're trying to