DAMIEN WAYNE ECHOLS

DOB: December 11, 1974
Race: White
Gender: Male

County of conviction: Craighead
Number of counts: 3
Race of victim: White
Gender of victim: Male/Male/Male
Date of crime: May 5, 1993
Date of sentencing: March 19, 1994

Trial Counsel:

Val Price
Scott Davidson

Current proceedings:

• Stay of current habeas pending completion of DNA testing in state court.
   
• Habeas petition pending in U.S. District Court E.D. Ark., Case No. 5:04-CV-391 (before Wilson, J.).
   
• Motion for additional DNA testing pending in circuit court.

Last judicial decision:

• Order by the District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas denying respondent's motion to dismiss and staying the petition until petitioner has exhausted DNA claims in state court.  August 8, 2005, Case No. 5:04-CV-391 (before Wilson, J.).

Current counsel:

Deborah Ruth Sallings
Cauley Geller Bowman & Coates, LLP
P O Box 25438
Little Rock, AR 72221
501-312-8500

Theresa A. Gibbons
Dennis P. Riordan
Donald M. Horgan
Riordan & Horgan
523 Octavia Street
San Francisco, CA  94102
415-431-3472

Reported Opinions:

• Denial of Motion to Recall the Mandate and Petition for Rehearing in Echols v. State, 201 S.W.3d 890 (Jan. 20, 2005).
   
• Denial of post-conviction relief affirmed by Echols v. State, 127 S.W.3d 486 (Ark.  2003).
   
• Coram nobis denied by Echols v. State, 125 S.W.3d 153 (Ark. 2003).
   
• Stay of execution granted by Echols v. State, 84 S.W.3d 424 (Ark. 2002); stay continued by Echols v. State, 120 S.W.3d 78 (Ark. 2003).
   
• Denial of post-conviction relief affirmed in part, reversed and remanded in part with orders for trial court to specifically resolve all issues raised by Mr. Echols' petition. Echols v. State, 42 S.W.3d 467 (Ark. 2001).
   
• Conviction and sentence affirmed on direct appeal, following remand, by Echols v. State, 936 S.W.2d 509 (Ark. 1996), cert. denied, 520 U.S. 1244 (1997).
   
• Direct appeal remanded to circuit court to determine competency of defendant to waive penalty-phase claims on the direct appeal. Echols v. State, 902 S.W.2d 781 (Ark. 1995).

Significant legal issues:

• jurors' knowledge of confession by alleged co-conspirator Jesse Misskelley, who was tried separately because of the confession.
   
• alleged conflict of interest based on relationship between trial counsel and the producers of an HBO documentary about the case
   
• admissibility of purported expert's testimony that the murders in question were consistent with occultism and satanism, together with evidence that Mr. Echols possessed a book about witches and had been seen months before the crime with a friend wearing a long black coat and carrying a long stick or staff
   
• trial court's exclusion of evidence suggesting that one of the state's witnesses could have been the murderer, including prior bad acts of the witness and the inclusion of his name as a possible suspect in a police laboratory report
   
• death threat directed at jury foreman's daughter, and a threatening phone call directed at a juror, during the pendency of trial
   
• competence to stand trial
   
• DNA testing still in process

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