Introduction
Jason Payne is INNOCENT. He received a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a crime he did not commit. Jason was falsely accused, wrongfully arrested, indicted, convicted and incarcerated.
The jury’s verdict in this case was wrong, but don’t blame or crucify the jury as they did their job based on the evidence they heard; it’s the evidence they didn’t hear that resulted in their verdict.
The Staggering Number of Wrongful Convictions: The Innocent Project, based on their research in a recent study stated there are over 100,000 innocent people in U.S. prisons today; some people believe this number is much higher. In a latter study conducted by Ohio State University they stated that 10,000 innocent people are wrongfully convicted of serious crimes every year; these are staggering numbers that few people are aware of, and numbers many in the general public either don’t want to believe or don’t want to hear. What these numbers mean is that tens of thousands of juries came back with the wrong verdict and wrong jury verdicts are issued thousands of times every year. Jason Payne is one of those 100,000+ innocent people in U.S. prisons and one of the 10,000 wrongfully convicted people in 2010. Texas leads the nation in executions, wrongful convictions and exonerations. Jason is one of Texas' wrongful convictions and soon will become one of their exonerations.
There are six victims in this case: Nichole Payne who was murdered; Taylor Wages who shot and killed his mother Nichole and then committed suicide by shooting himself; Jason Payne who was wrongfully convicted for the murders of Nichole and Taylor; Jason and Nichole's' two young children and stepson Danny who have lost both parents in this tragic case of injustice. Justice needs to be rectified so Jason can be reunited with his two young children and stepson Danny.
The Forensic Case
The heart of the prosecution's forensic case of double homicide revolved around two theories. Theory #1: the State had to convince the jury that Taylor Wages was shot sometime in the early morning hours of December 11, 2007 by Jason Payne before the shooting of Nichole Payne occurred. If the reverse was true and Nichole was shot first than the crime was a homicide suicide in which Taylor shot Nichole and then took his own life. Theory #2 actually consists of two parts. The Tucker Theory was that Taylor was shot by Jason in some location other than Taylor's bed in the garage and that Jason moved the body back to the bed, and staged the scene to look like a suicide. The Bevel theory was that Taylor's body was not moved and he was shot on the bed, but his head was rotated in such a manner that when Jason fired the rifle it had the same trajectory as a suicide. Although the jury bought into the prosecution's two theories our review and analysis of the forensic evidence will prove it couldn't have possibly happened the way the prosecution said it happened. The prosecution took their two theories and manipulated the evidence so it fit their version of the crime, a double homicide. Manipulating evidence to fit the crime is a common occurrence in wrongful conviction cases Read on to see the truth behind the forensic case.
The Circumstantial Case
The prosecution put on a convincing circumstantial case, based on character assassination made stronger by the defense not attacking or refuting any of the prosecution’s circumstantial evidence. The problem with the prosecution's circumstantial case is it wasn't true. Circumstantial evidence is a part of a case where prosecutors get to take liberties, weave unproven and misplaced theories into a story filled with innuendos and built on inferences with no evidence to back them up. There are many, many innocent people in prison based solely on circumstantial evidence. Read on to see how the prosecution’s circumstantial case just doesn't hold up under close scrutiny.
Conclusion
The defense put on a stronger and more compelling forensic case of murder suicide than the prosecution's case of double homicide. The prosecution's case of double homicide, when looked at beyond the evidence presented at trial just doesn't make sense; it had too many unanswered questions and was full of holes. There could be a number of reasons why the jury choose to believe the crime was a double homicide. Very possible is the convincing circumstantial case put on by the prosecution and not refuted by the defense. There are many innocent people in prison today convicted on circumstantial evidence; Jason Payne happens to be one of them
