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CASE INFORMATION - DAVID DAWSON - DEATH ROW
I'm always reading about people, spending years on death row, until they find someone who cares enough to prove their innocence by having a DNA test done despite the evidence that convicted them.
Maybe I'm missing something, is this DNA test just for other states and not Delaware? I have concerns with lawyers. The lawyers usually use their legal issues to get new penalty hearings and I can understand the lawyers concern to have our lives saved, but they just don't realize when a person is innocent. A new penalty hearing is still a lost battle. To an inmate, even if he is given a life sentence, it still feels like being on death row.
Is there anyone with the power to help me? I've watched friends on death row fight and they are dragged to their death and if you can get someone to hear my voice, please who ever you can get to hear me, help me. I don't want to die. I don't agree with lying...
I am pretty much alone
when it comes to my case. My story begins when three other inmates, Larry
Nave, Mark McCoy, and Richard Irwin, escaped along with me on December
2, 1986.
I was caught still wearing
the prison clothes. I was charged with first degree murder. The victim
was stabbed twelve times. The prosecutor said that I acted alone. At the
murder scene, a head hair was found on the victim's chest and a pubic hair
was found underneath the victim's fingernail. DNA testing was done and
it proved that these two hairs didn't belong to the victim or the family
and they also proved not to belong to me, David Dawson. I don't
want to be convicted and sentenced to death.
The prosecutor gave their star witness, Kathy Nave, the sister of Larry Nave, a pardon for perjury. In 1986, Kathy Nave gave a statement on a cassette tape that said she had not been involved with helping the escapees afier we escaped. She swore to God on this tape, a number of times, that she told the truth. The week or so before trial, Kathy Nave, gave a different testimony than the one on tape and she swore to God this statement is the truth.
By law, when there are two conflicting statements, it's perjury and it doesn't matter which one is the truth or a lie. If these statements were turned around and in favor of the defendant, the prosecutor wouldn't allow a witness to change their statement or the defense would seek perjury charges. I'm not allowed to seek perjury charges because the prosecutor has given a pardon to Kathy.
At the first trial, a police officer testified that the head hair was tested against the other three escapees and that it didn't match and so they assume the pubic hair wouldn't match either, so they didn't bother to test it. They never showed any documents showing when they came to get the hair sample from the three other escapees, nor did they show any results of testing the hair against these three men. I have the FBI results of those tests with me.
These three other men went to trial on different charges that took place on December 2, 1986. They were caught two or three weeks later. The murder weapon was never found and the knives that were found on these three men were never tested to see if one of those knives had been the murder weapon. I went to trial in 1988, and my lawyer raised the issue of the knives not being tested. The prosecutor told the court that the knives had either been stolen or disposed of and felt there was no need in testing the knives because the State claims that I, David Dawson, acted alone. If they felt that strongly about not testing those knives, then why did they claim they had tested the head hair against those three men? I had a Rule 16 hearing around or about 1996-97. The police officer claims there was no testing of that head hair against those three men.
When we escaped, we stole a car by hot wiring it. It broke down a couple of miles from the prison. While the three others went to make a phone call at a pay phone, I was looking for another car to steal. A gas station attendant saw these three men at the payphone. Larry Nave was the only one who made a phone call. He called his sister, Kathy Nave, and she refused to come pick us up. We decided it would be best to back track, because we left the stolen car on the main highway and it wouldn't be long before they found it and would figure we were still heading North. Once we got back to where we started from, in the town of Smyrna Del, we stole another car with the keys in it. We ditched the car on a back road and went on foot. While we were resting in a wooded area behind a couple of houses, I decided to go by myself to see if I could get in one of the houses. I stole five or six pocket watches, coins and a black leather jacket. The only reason I took the jacket was because it had pockets with zippers and if we had to run, I wouldn't lose any of the items I had taken and I was the only one who wasn't wearing a prison coat.
We ended up in another wooded area beside one house. There was a car and pick-up truck at this house. I figured that since I was wearing the leather jacket and a leather hat, that I had while in prison, I would go to the house and knock on the doors. When no one answered, I started to look for a way into the house. When I came to the back of the house, the lady of the house was standing in the kitchen. I asked her if I could use the phone. She opened the sliding glass door just enough to hand the phone to me. I tried to call an old girlfriend and when I couldn't get an answer, I handed the phone back and forced the sliding glass door open with my right hand and ran inside the house and grabbed the lady by the hair. I told her who I was and that I wasn't going to harm her. I just wanted the keys to the car and some money. She asked where the others were. I told her they were outside in the woods. She led the way to the bedroom and gave me a glass, half full of coins. I told her I would have to tie her hands so that we could get away and to wait until she felt that we were far away before she called the cops.
After her hands were tied, she sat on the edge of the bed. I asked her what town I was in and she said "Kenton." After a couple more questions, I saw fear come all over her face. She was looking toward the bedroom door. I looked and the other three guys were standing there. One of them asked if I knew where we were and I told them the name of the town and that there was a store right down the road where we could fill the car up with gas and get anything else we needed. Someone wanted to know what to do with the lady and I told them that she was tied up pretty good and to leave her alone. Finally, we decided that I would go and fill the car with gas while they tied her feet to the bed. We were afraid that if we all went to get the gas someone might see and recognize us and call the police.
I remember hanging around this area years ago and I thought someone might have known me and then I thought, the house isn't that far from this store and someone may notice the car. I decided to go somewhere else, so I went to a town called Camden. When I got back to the house, the others weren't there. I found the lady dead on her bed. She had been stabbed and there was blood everywhere. Her bathrobe was pulled open and one of her breasts was showing. The bottom of her bathrobe was pulled up and she wasn't wearing any underwear. I pulled her bathrobe down to cover what was showing. I walked beside the bed and I looked down at her, my legs gave out and I started crying and when I looked at her I told her, "I am really sorry lady." I should have never left her with them.
I left and went to see if I could find them walking down the road. I went to the end of the road and they were nowhere to be found. I then thought that I need to get something to drink and to figure out what to do, but I couldn't get my act together. All I could do was drink and I kept seeing that lady laying there the way I found her. All the plans I had for escaping were no longer in my head.
I had given a handwritten statement of what happened and in that statement I mentioned an attempt of rape on this lady. The reason that I gave that statement was because of the way that I found her, with her bathrobe pulled up. I felt that the others had raped her, but I had pulled her bathrobe down and I didn't attempt to rape her and I wanted them to check to see if she had been raped. I knew if she had, they would find out I wasn't the one who raped her, but one, or two, or all three of the others. That's what happened on December 1, 1986. I pray for help every day and I thank you so much for listening to my story.
David Dawson
DAVID DAWSON STORY UPDATE :
On July 25,2000, my lawyer had oral arguments in the U.S. Court of Appeals in the third circuit. He urges the following basis for reversal:
[His] right under the sixth and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution were violated when the State failed to preserve evidence that may have been favorable to him.
[His] right under the sixth and fourteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution were violated when the State failed to provide pretrial discovery of exculpatory evidence available to it.
[His} right under the sixth and fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution were violated when his counsel rendered ineffective assistance at trial.
As administered in Delaware and applied in [his] case, The Delaware death penalty statute violated his rights under the eighth and fourteenth Amendments.
The Delaware statute permits arbitrary imposition of the death penalty.
Lethal injection offends evolving standards of decency in violation of [his] rights under the eighth and fourteenth amendments and the Delaware statute is pre-empted by Federal Law. The retrospect of Delaware's revised death penalty statute to crimes, which, [he] allegedly committed and was convicted of prior to the enactment of the revised statute violates the Constitutional prohibition against ex post facto laws.
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals deny the arguments on September 21, 2000. The lawyer filed for a re-hearing with the Third Circuit Court on September 21, 2000 and that re-hearing has been denied. Now the lawyer will file for a 60 day delay on sentence in the State Court.
Maybe I'm wrong, but at the oral arguments in the Third Circuit, my lawyer argued about the knives not being tested. He argued about the second statement the prosecution's star witness gave. That version was the same version I gave on December 1, 1986.
He didn't mention the evidence about the hairs that were found and proven not to belong to the victim, the family of the victim and me. I feel that not to mention the hairs was not bringing evidence out in the light of day. To mention the other stuff, was useless.
Now as I wait for the 60 days to end and receive an execution date, I have to prepare my family and friends of my death. I haven't even prepared myself for it. How do even the guilty prepare themselves for death, let alone the innocent. I look forward to weekends, holidays, because legal mail is given to us through weekdays. I don't have to worry so much of receiving bad news concerning my appeal on weekends. Every night, when I lay down to go to sleep, I think to myselt, "I've made it through another day, but what about tomorrow?"
I've never considered suicide, but if I was able to overdose, I have no doubt in my mind that I would end this mental torment. At least my family and friends could understand that, than to try and understand why their innocent loved one was executed. I'm not voicing any judgment on anyone, but if O.J. Simpson had the hairs as evidence, such as I do, people wouldn't believe he was guilty as they do now, even though he was found "not guilty." Hopefully, God will answer my prayer through someone who cares and wants to help me. I don't know what will become of me in the next 6 or 7 months, but I may be executed. They have committed murder, with God above, as my witness, I AM INNOCENT. I thank everyone for allowing my voice to be heard. The current status of my case; is that 60 days from now my lawyer is asking the Court to give my case to the Supreme Court to hear, before they set an execution date. If they deny my appeal, may God forbid this from happening, I will be history.
David Dawson.
My outside contact is
my sister, Brenda Lee Lints
e-mail:blints@aol.
com
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