State Supreme Court Rules Against Hilton

by Laura Glesby

The state Supreme Court has closed the door on a key route for James Hilton to challenge his decades-old murder conviction.

The court issued that opinion on Tuesday in the case Hilton v. Commissioner of Correction, ruling against Hilton’s challenge to a lower court’s ruling on his habeas corpus lawsuit.

In a statement, Division of Criminal Justice spokesperson Alaine Griffin wrote, “The Division of Criminal Justice is satisfied with the Supreme Court’s decision.”

Meanwhile, Hilton’s local lawyer, Alex Taubes, said he will continue to pursue other avenues for Hilton to get out of prison, possibly including a sentence commutation. He insisted that Hilton is “completely innocent.”

With respect to the criminal justice system itself, Taubes said, “My faith is definitely shaken and my doubts are given a better footing.”

He also connected the case to the upcoming Democratic gubernatorial primary between incumbent Ned Lamont and challenger Josh Elliott. A staunch Elliott supporter, he noted that the governor is responsible for naming appointees to the state Supreme Court as well as the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Taubes said that Hilton is “still maintaining his resolve, as I would expect.”

Hilton had sought for the judicial system to take seriously a forensic pathologist whose analysis undercut the ballistic analysis behind the conviction — the late Cyril Wecht, known for publicly weighing in on high-profile murder cases, whom Hilton discovered while watching an episode of Dr. Phil in prison.

Hilton was convicted of the July 14, 2000, murder of 19-year-old William Ariel Rodriguez near the intersection of Truman Street and King Place in the Hill. He maintained that he was present at the scene of the murder but innocent of the crime — that in fact, he tried to save Rodriguez’s life. Two witnesses testified that they had seen Hilton shoot Rodriguez point-blank, right at Williams’ temple. Taubes, for his part, has questioned the consistency and reliability of those witnesses’ statements.

A jury sided against Hilton in 2001. He was sentenced to 65 years in prison at the age of 33 — effectively a life sentence.

More than 15 years later, Hilton saw Wecht on TV. He personally wrote to the pathologist and secured the funds for him to evaluate his case. Wecht offered a differing opinion from the other pathologists who weighed in on the case, concluding that the gunshot wound “could not have been a tight contact wound,” that the bullet was “fired from a distance beyond twenty-four inches.”

But habeas judge Corinne Klatt decided that Wecht was “not credible,” writing that he “did not review all relevant evidence.” Klatt denied Hilton’s bid for a new trial.

In their case before the state Supreme Court, Taubes argued that Klatt used the wrong legal standard to assess the significance of Wecht’s forensic conclusions. He argued that the judge should not have simply been evaluating whether Wecht was credible — that she should have been considering whether a jury could have reasonably come to a different conclusion, given the totality of the evidence of the case.

Or, as the state Supreme Court’s summary of the case put it, “Whether appellate court correctly concluded that habeas court properly declined to apply Lapointe v. Commissioner of Correction for evaluating an expert witness’ credibility.” 

Though the case centered around a highly technical question about the application of case law, it also touched on a question at the heart of so many criminal justice cases: How much doubt should be enough to shake the court system’s faith in a conviction?

In some ways, reflected Taubes, this degree of uncertainty may be less relevant to many modern criminal convictions due to the increasing prominence of video footage and DNA evidence. Hilton’s case, by contrast, rested on witness testimony and wound analysis.

Still, an opinion published this week and written by Justice Gregory D’Auria, with which the other court justices concurred, stated that “the state’s evidence of guilt in the present case was not weak” in Hilton’s case.

“The Appellate Court has twice taken note of the strong and overwhelming nature of the state’s case against the petitioner, once in his direct appeal and a second time in his appeal following his first habeas trial,” D’Auria wrote, “and we have no reason to disagree with those assessments of the evidence.”

He also wrote that Wecht’s “testimony would not have overcome the state’s overwhelming eyewitness and forensic testimony, as well as evidence of the petitioner’s motive.”

D’Auria’s ruling concluded by affirming the Appellate Court’s prior decision.

Reflecting on the process, Taubes said that he wishes he had approached arguing the case differently. He said he regrets not subpoenaing the witnesses involved in the case and contextualizing Wecht’s opinion with his additional questions about the witnesses’ reliability.

The fact that Hilton was present at the crime scene, Taubes said, is one reason he believes Hilton has had a harder time convincing others of his innocence. “People want that perfect, perfect story,” Taubes said.

Hilton’s story doesn’t involve anything as concrete and definite as an airtight alibi or a DNA exoneration. To everyone other than those present at the scene of the crime, his story can only introduce doubt — in the science underpinning the state’s wound analysis, in the reliability of the two witnesses’ testimony. Now, the court system has concluded that the doubt raised wasn’t enough to warrant another look at Hilton’s conviction.