1. Educational background

2. Prominent cases
    Timothy Atkins  Edward Contreras  Uriah Courtney  Michael Hanline  Kimberly Long  Raphael Madrigal  Guy Miles  William Richards 

3. Positions and opinions
    Opposition to the death penalty  Criticism of eyewitness identifications  Position on DNA testing  Position on videotaping police  Support for DA conviction integrity units  Support for reimbursement for the wrongly convicted 

4. Other organizations

5. Appearances, publications, lectures and awards
    Broadcast and print media appearances  Publications  Lectures  Awards 

6. References

7. External links

As counsel for CIP on numerous criminal cases, he has helped achieve the legal exoneration of a number of convicted prisoners. Among the cases he has worked on are those of Timothy Atkins,^[4][5][6][7] Uriah Courtney,^{[8][9][10][11]} Kimberly Long^[12][13][14] and Michael Hanline,^{[4][6][15][16][17]} the longest-serving inmate in California history to have had his conviction overturned.^[6][17] A member of the San Diego County Bar Association and the Hawaii State Bar Association,^[4] Simpson has also served as director of Street Law San Diego^[4][18] and as a panel attorney at Appellate Defenders, Inc.^[4]

Simpson has appeared on behalf of CIP and his clients many times in both print^{[15][19][20][21][22][23]} and broadcast^{[24][25][26][27][28]} media. He has presented expert testimony before the state legislature on the topic of capital punishment.^[29] He has published scholarly articles on a number of legal topics relating to post-conviction exoneration.^{[2][3][5][30][31]} He has been voted a “Top Attorney” by the San Diego Daily Transcript^[2][3][4] and “Post-Conviction Lawyer of the Year” by the Board of Directors of the Criminal Defense Bar Association of San Diego.^[2][3]

Educational background

Alex Simpson received his B.A. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1999.^[3][4] He graduated in 2003 with a J.D. in Criminal Law from California Western School of Law, and received his LL.M in Trial Advocacy in Federal Criminal Law from the same institution in 2005.^[2][3][4] During his student years, he worked as an intern for CIP,^[2] as well as for Federal Defenders of San Diego.^[4]

Prominent cases

Timothy Atkins

In July, 1987, Atkins was convicted of one count of murder and two counts of robbery from an incident that occurred in Los Angeles in 1984. The police were led to Atkins when a woman named Denise Powell, a prostitute, told police that Atkins had confessed to her to being an accomplice in the killing of a man who had been shot in the chest during an attempted carjacking.^[5] Powell later recanted her testimony. Simpson was part of the CIP legal team that challenged Atkin's conviction.^[4] In his decision, the judge stated that Powell's recantation, together with the "unreliable and changing [eye-witness] identification" led him to believe that “no reasonable judge or jury would have convicted Atkins.”^[7] He was exonerated in February 2007 after more than 20 years in prison.^[6][7][32]

Simpson has also engaged in a long and frustrating attempt to gain monetary compensation for Atkins for having spent decades in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.^[32] He co-wrote an academic article, “Find the Cost of Freedom,” in which he recounts the Atkins case and reviews the country's complex compensation statutes for wrongfully convicted individuals, suggesting legislative changes to streamline this process.^[5] Simpson has called Atkins “the poster child” for exonerated ex-prisoners deserving of such compensation.^[32]

Edward Contreras

Contreras, who is currently incarcerated, happened to be at a barbecue in which the victim, an associate of his, was killed and dismembered by another man. Both the chief prosecution witness and the convicted killer himself later claimed Contreras was not involved in the victim's murder.^[33][34]

Simpson identifies Contreras as one of the “California 12,” a group of convicted inmates in California who have been identified by the CIP as innocent, and for which the organization is asking for clemency from Gov. Jerry Brown. “The tough thing about the California 12,” said Simpson, “is that these twelve individuals we’ve identified… not just that they’re innocent, but they don’t have any legal avenues to present their innocence anymore.”^[33]

Uriah Courtney

Courtney was found guilty of the kidnapping and rape of a young woman in November 2004, based almost entirely on eyewitness identifications. At the time of his trial, DNA evidence taken from the victim's clothing proved inconclusive. However, subsequent advances in DNA technology prompted CIP to request that the victim's clothes be tested again, and the profile of a male was obtained.^[10] That profile was run through the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), resulting in a positive identification of a local man with, as CIP said in a press release, “a striking physical resemblance to Courtney.”^[10][11] Courtney was released from prison in June 2013.^[10][11]

A book co-authored by Courtney references Simpson as part of his legal team.^[8] In an article he authored, Simpson made the case for a new law that would streamline DNA testing, making it easier for wrongfully convicted prisoners such as Courtney to go free.^[9]

Michael Hanline

Hanline was suspected of having murdered truck driver J.T. McGarry in November 1978, with the help of an accomplice, because he and McGarry had both been involved with the same woman. Largely on this woman's testimony, Hanline was sentenced to life without parole in 1980.^[17] The CIP eventually discovered that a since-deceased attorney had attempted improperly to implicate Hanline. In addition, DNA testing pointed to Hanline's innocence.^[17] In November 2014, Hanline was released from Ventura County Court a free man, and in April of the following year, a judge dismissed all charges against him. Having served 36 years behind bars, Hanline was the longest-incarcerated person whose conviction was reversed in the history of the State of California.^[6][17]

Simpson has discussed this case in the media in relation to the problem of false identifications.^[6][15] He has praised Ventura County's district attorney's office for taking seriously the new evidence CIP presented about Hanline, as well as the new Ventura County conviction integrity unit, which might assist in achieving exonerations in cases similar to Hanline's.^[15]

Kimberly Long

Kim Long was convicted of murdering her boyfriend in 2003 in a second trial, after the first had resulted in a hung jury.^[14] The prosecution's case hinged on the testimony of a single witness, a friend of Long's who said that, on the night of the murder, he had dropped her off at the apartment which she and the victim shared. (This witness died shortly after providing his testimony, so the defense could not cross-examine him.)^[14][35] The prosecution claimed, based on the dead witness’ timeline, that Long would have had sufficient time to commit the crime and conceal her involvement before calling 911 to report the victim's death.^[14][35]

However, CIP provided forensic proof that the victim had been killed prior to the earliest possible time of Long's return to the apartment.^[14][35] Furthermore, even if the victim had actually been killed after that point in time, she wouldn’t have had enough time, according to the CIP, to murder her boyfriend and hide evidence of that fact from police. DNA from an unknown male was also recovered at the crime scene.^[14][35] The evidence of her innocence was so compelling that the very same judge who heard the original case reversed the conviction in June 2016.^[14]

At the time of her release on bail pending a possible third trial, Simpson was quoted as saying, “We hope the case is over today.”^[12] However, in May 2018, following the D.A.’s office’s appeal of the judge’s ruling which overturned the conviction, the 4th District Court of Appeal reversed that ruling, letting Long’s original murder conviction stand.^[36] Long has appealed her case to the California Supreme Court.^[36] The case was profiled on the ABC program 20/20, which described CIP’s involvement.^[35]

Raphael Madrigal

Madrigal was convicted in 2002 of first-degree murder for a drive-by shooting. However, during the trial, his employer revealed that he couldn’t possibly have been at the scene of the crime, providing an airtight alibi, though the employer was never called as a witness.^[37] In addition, Madrigal’s co-defendant, also convicted of the murder, confessed to his girlfriend on tape that Madrigal had never been involved. This tape was never entered into evidence.^[37] Due to the efforts of CIP, Madrigal was released in October, 2009.^[37] Simpson has said the Madrigal case is an example of how flawed eyewitness lineup identifications can be.^[19]

Simpson attempted to obtain compensation for Madrigal as a result of his wrongful incarceration.^[23] Simpson also cited Madrigal’s case in advocating for a law which would speed up compensation to the wrongfully convicted.^[38]

Guy Miles

Guy Miles was wrongly convicted of a 1998 robbery, despite the fact that numerous witnesses provided an alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the crime, and that the three men who were indisputably guilty of the robbery confessed that Miles had had absolutely nothing to do with it.^[39][40] The judge in the case refused to exonerate Miles, maintaining that the eyewitness identifications were strong and rejecting the argument of California Innocence Project attorneys that they were not. A second hearing, however, reversed Miles’ conviction.^[39][40] Miles was freed in June 2017 after 18 years in prison.^[40]

Simpson was named as one of Miles’ attorneys in an article that stated how a new law permitted a different habeas standard to be applied to Miles’ case.^[39]

William Richards

Bill Richards was convicted, after two trials resulting in hung juries, of the August 1993, murder, in a desert area of San Bernardino, of his wife, Pamela Richards. Police and detectives had failed to conduct routine time-of-death testing to determine whether Pamela might have been killed while Bill was still at work.^[41] Police had charged him with the crime essentially because they had no other suspects, despite his having no injuries suggesting he had struggled with his wife and despite the lack of a confession. He was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison.^[41]

The CIP established at a 2009 hearing that there were DNA traces from the crime scene that belonged to neither Pamela nor Bill. They also produced two bite mark experts who had testified against Richards at his original trials, who now claimed that current science exonerated Richards.^[41] A Superior Court judge reversed his earlier conviction.^[41] However, the district attorney appealed the judge's decision to the California Court of Appeal, which reversed the exoneration.^[41] In 2012 the California Supreme Court refused to overturn the appeals court's judgment, stating that Richards failed to prove that the bite mark testimony was false because “experts still could not definitively rule out [his] teeth as a possible source of the mark.”^[42] Two years later, the CIP successful introduced legislation that allowed experts to recant their testimony in California trials.^[41] As a result, in May, 2016, the California Supreme Court reversed Richards' conviction. In the following month, Richards walked free after 23 years behind bars.^[41]

Simpson observed, “There were so many things [about the case] you see that are common in wrongful convictions.”^[43] Simpson praised a legal clinic at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law for helping pass the legislation that led directly to the reversal of his client's conviction. “It takes a lot of legwork behind the scenes to make this happen,” he said.^[44] Simpson also authored an academic article, “Blood Sugar Sex Magik” (named after the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ album of the same name), which examined legislation about DNA testing in the context of the Richards case.^[31]

Positions and opinions

Simpson has frequently appeared in print and broadcast media, expressing CIP’s positions or his own opinions relating to legal justice issues that are relevant to the cases he has handled for the CIP.

Opposition to the death penalty

Simpson, on behalf of the CIP, has frequently expressed opposition to the death penalty in print and broadcast media. He has argued that the error rate for death row inmates who are executed “is not zero,”^[26] that “there’s no question” that people found guilty of capital crimes have later been declared to be innocent,^[26] and that there's no inherent aspect of a death penalty case that would imply that the legal system is more likely to “actually get this right” than for a non-capital case.^[27]

He claims that the frequent argument that the death penalty is a deterrent is a “false claim,” because most people who perform such crimes don’t analyze the consequences.^[26] He has cited a California judge who argued that the death penalty was unconstitutional on the grounds that it was arbitrarily applied,^[27] and has also made the case against it on the basis of its enormous cost to taxpayers, claiming that the savings from abolishing the practice could be used to hire additional law enforcement personnel and other civil servants, such as teachers.^[26][27][45] Commenting on a botched execution in Arizona, he has stated, “this [death penalty] process is just simply broken.”^[28]

Simpson has testified before a joint committee of the California State legislature against the proposed Death Penalty Reform and Savings Act of 2016 (popularly known as Proposition 66).^[29][46] He argued that speeding up the death penalty process, which the act proposed, would “dramatically increase the likelihood that we are going to execute somebody for something that they didn’t do.”^[29]

Criticism of eyewitness identifications

Simpson, in speaking about the case of his client Richard Madrigal (see above), stated that the case demonstrates how powerful eyewitness identification evidence can be in court, and argued that they should be less strongly relied upon by the courts. “This is as much about ensuring that correct convictions are not challenged as it is about ensuring that wrongful convictions don’t occur,” he said.^[19]

In response to the case of a man who was cleared of a sex crime conviction brought about by eyewitness identification, after DNA testing exonerated him, Simpson said, “This happens all the time. The No. 1 factor in wrongful convictions across the country is mistaken eyewitness identification.”^[25]

Position on DNA testing

Simpson claims that “DNA has become the foremost technique for conclusively identifying and excluding criminal suspects in cases where biological material is left at a crime scene,”^[9] and that proper DNA analysis is “not debatable” as proof.^[45] He praised the exoneration of his client Uriah Courtney (see above) as “a tremendous win for criminal justice. It showed how DNA testing should work – with cooperation from prosecutors and law enforcement to find evidence and run DNA profiles against the database.”^[9]

Simpson has argued that the law should specify that evidence for convicted persons must be preserved even after all appeals have been exhausted, because scientific methods (such as for DNA) may evolve to an extent that might lead to the future exoneration of the convicted person.^[47]

Simpson, in evoking the Uriah Courtney case (see above), has advocated for California bill SB980, which would allow streamlining of DNA testing. “Over the past two decades, DNA technology has revolutionized the nation’s criminal justice system… With SB980, more innocent people will be free from prison, and more guilty people will be identified, prosecuted and convicted for their crimes.”^[9]

Position on videotaping police

On the controversy over people videotaping police while they deal with suspects, Simpson states, “Officers should welcome the technology and scrutiny as a way to protect themselves from lawsuits and use for future prosecution. Theoretically, the officer[s] are doing everything by the book and doing everything with proper procedures. They should feel totally comfortable being videotaped.”^[48]

Support for DA conviction integrity units

Simpson considers the recent emergence of conviction integrity units in district attorney offices to be a step in the right direction. He noted that the national Innocence Project has developed a set of guidelines or best practices for them. The project suggests that the people assigned to these reviews work on them full-time, and an independent panel consisting of a prosecutor, a public defender and a neutral party is also recommended.^[15]

Support for reimbursement for the wrongly convicted

Simpson is a strong supporter of state reimbursement to the wrongfully convicted and has sharply criticized the current process of determining such payments. He has claimed that wrongly convicted people often don't apply for reimbursement because of the high cost of hiring an attorney to essentially retry their case, and the low chances of success.^[22] He personally argued for compensation for his client Raphael Madrigal (see above), stating to a three-judge panel that the reason Madrigal's conviction was overturned was that he had a solid alibi from his employer, not because (as the panel claimed) of the alleged incompetence of his legal counsel.^[23]

Simpson has advocated for legislation, California State Senate bill SB681, which would make it easier for wrongfully convicted persons to receive reimbursement. The bill, as he put it, represented “an attempt to correct some of the perhaps more-unanticipated consequences and interpretations of how the law should be applied to make sure… it’s more consistent with the courts who reverse the conviction.”^[22] Later, he championed a similar bill, SB1094, requiring the Victim Compensation Board to automatically approve payouts to exonerated individuals whenever new evidence leads to a ruling that the original conviction was a mistake. Said Simpson, “This bill is trying to get rid of this weird process that we’ve injected into what should be a simple claim of wrongful compensation. Then you get your check.”^[38]

With Justin Brooks, Simpson co-authored, for the San Diego Law Review, a paper entitled "Find the Cost of Freedom," which discusses the case of Timothy Atkins (see above) and reviews the country's complex and disparate compensation statutes for wrongfully convicted individuals who seek redress, suggesting legislative remedies to effectively streamline the compensation process.^[5] With Brooks and Paige Kaneb, Simpson also co-authored, for the Albany Law Review, "If Hindsight Is 20/20," a paper that reviews how states have approached post-conviction relief claims based on newly discovered evidence.^[30]

Other organizations

Simpson is director of Street Law San Diego, a one-term course in which law students teach local high school students about the aspects of the law they need to know both in their lives and as they become adults.^[4][18][49] Since beginning the program in 2004, he has expanded it to reach more than 400 at-risk high school students a year.^[4] Said Simpson, “These young people have really had their eyes opened… It’s kept some from getting in trouble, made almost all of them better students, and intrigued others enough that they’ve decided they want to go to college and become lawyers.”^[18]

From 2008 to 2011, Simpson served as a panel attorney at Appellate Defenders Inc.^[4]

Appearances, publications, lectures and awards

Broadcast and print media appearances

Simpson, on behalf of CIP, has made many statements and appearances in print and broadcast media. Among the broadcast media outlets on which he has appeared or spoken have been ABC 10 News,^[24] NBC Los Angeles,^[25] KPBS News,^[27] KCRW^[6] and RT America.^[26][28][50] Among the print media that have quoted him on legal issues have been The Los Angeles Times,^{[19][20][23][44][51]} The Ventura County (VC) Star,^[15] The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, California,^[12][21][36] the San Francisco Chronicle,^[22] The Sacramento Bee^[32] and The San Bernardino Sun.^[43]

Publications

Simpson has published, as noted above, the following abstracts on various legal topics:

• "If Hindsight Is 20/20, Our Justice System Should Not Be Blind To New Evidence Of Innocence: A Survey Of Post-Conviction New Evidence Statutes And A Proposed Model" (with Justin Brooks and Paige Kaneb), Albany Law Review, Vol. 79 (2016), pp. 1045–1090;^[30]
• "Find the Cost of Freedom: The Struggle to Compensate the Innocent for Wrongful Incarceration and the Strange Legal Odyssey of Timothy Atkins" (with Justin Brooks), San Diego Law Review, Vol. 49, Issue 3 (2012), pp. 627–668;^[2][3][5]
• "Blood Sugar Sex Magik: A Review Of Postconviction DNA Testing Statutes And Legislative Recommendations" (with Justin Brooks), Drake Law Review, Vol. 59 (2011), pp. 799–866.^[2][3][31]

Lectures

Simpson has guest lectured on legal topics at events organized by the Innocence Project and other organizations. For example, at the 2015 Innocence Network Conference in Orlando, Florida, he gave two lectures: “Federal Litigation of State Convictions: Practice and Pitfalls” (with Dana Delger)^[52] – a discussion of some of the difficulties and hurdles of federal habeas work in innocence cases – and “Recantation Evidence: How to Get the Most Out of Your Witness's Statement and How to Win in Court”^[53] – a review of some of the best practices in obtaining a recantation from a witness.

Awards

In 2006, Simpson received the “Post-conviction Lawyer of the Year,” a joint award, from the Board of Directors of the Criminal Defense Bar Association of San Diego.^[2][3] In 2009, he was recognized by the San Diego Transcript as a “Top Attorney.”^[2][3][4]

References

External links

• [https://californiainnocenceproject.org California Innocence Project]
• [https://www.cwsl.edu California Western School of Law]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRYUi-8WEi0&t=1s Michael Hanline Released After 36 Years Wrongful Imprisonment]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbx8O9koBKE Alex Simpson death penalty testimony (beginning at 9:00)]

• Sudan Scouts Association
• Sudan Social Development Organization
• Sudan spinach
• Sudan stain
• Sudan Tribune
• Sudan Tribune website
• Sudan TV
• Sudan under Muhammad Ali and his successors
• Sudan Univeristy of Science and Technology
• Sudan University College of Engineering Sciences
• Sudan Village
• Sudan Yellow 3G
• Sudapak
• Sudapet
• Sudarat Keyuraphan
• Sudare
• Sudar Oli
• Sudarshan
• Sudarshana
• Sudarshana Chakra
• Sudarshan Agarwal
• Sudarshan Aggarwal
• Sudarshan Agrawal
• Sudarshan Akarapu
• Sudarshan-Glauber P representation