Alfonzo Hubanks 108514
WRC PO Box 220
Winnebago, WI 54985
Letter from Alfonzo Hubanks Trial Attorney to His New Attorney Tells the Story
click to view full letter with on PDF
February 28, 1995
I am writing to provide some background and
introduction for Alfonzo Hubanks,
a.k.a. Aiphonso Hubanks, because I understand he is requesting assistance from your organization in his efforts
to prove that he was wrongly convicted
of four counts of sexual assault, one count of armed robbery, and one count of abduction, all in Milwaukee County
Circuit Court. For these offenses, which
all allegedly arose from a single incident, he was sentenced to 120 years in prison.
I represented Mr. Hubanks in unsuccessful postconviction
proceedings and direct appeals
through the state system, culminating in a petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court,
which was denied. My work on Mr.
Hubanks's has left me troubled about this case. I believe that the proceedings leading to Mr. Hubanks' s conviction
were unreliable and unfair. He adamantly,
and with great sincerity, continues to maintain that he is innocent. Although there was sufficient circumstantial
evidence to support his conviction in
a strict legal sense, I believe that the state's evidence had significant weaknesses and that other important evidence
indicating that he is innocent was never
presented at trial.
The
facts of this case are briefly summarized as follows. The state charged that Mr. Hubanks and another, unidentified, man
jumped into the 15-year-old victim's
car and drove off with her in the back seat. Her mother had left the car
running while she ran into a store to buy some cigarettes. The two men put a
hat over the girl's face so that she
could not see them. They then sexually assaulted her several times, stole her jewelry, dropped her off on a corner, and
drove off in her car. Several hours
later police arrested Mr. Hubanks and another man, Charles Trunnell, when they observed them
attempting to start the victim's car, which
was then parked on a city street. They had the victim's car keys and jewelry in their possession.
The victim could not make a visual identification of her attackers. At a lineup, however, she picked out Mr. Hubanks based on his voice, which she described as frog-like. She did not identify Mr. Trunnell, and he was never charged. The state never charged a second assailant.
In addition to this
evidence, the state also offered evidence at trial showing that crime lab tests of the semen taken from the
victim's underpants were somewhat
inconclusive. The state crime lab expert testified that Mr. Hubanks was included within the group of men who could
have been the source of the semen. However, approximately 1/3 of all black me
also could have been the source. The
state, did no DNA testing on the semen.
Additionally, at
trial, the state asked the court to order Mr. Hubanks to say to the victim during trial, in the presence of
the jury, for purposes of an in-court voice
identification, words allegedly spoken during the assault. Specifically, the state asked the court to order Mr. Hubanks to say:
"Do you want to feel good or die?"
and "Don't let me have to kill you." Mr. Hubanks's trial attorney objected and indicated that Mr. Hubanks intended
to remain silent at trial. Mr. Hubanks
offered to speak for voice identification, but only if the identification were done fairly. He offered to participate in an
in-court voice lineup, involving a group
of men, and in which all of the men would be shielded from the victim's view, and all would say the same things, as a test
of whether she really could identify
her attacker's voice. The court denied the defendant's request for a voice lineup, and instead instructed the jury
that Mr. Hubanks had been asked to speak for purposes of identification,
had declined to speak, and that the jury could
give that declination the weight they felt it deserved in determining Mr. Hubanks's guilt. The court did not tell the jury
that Mr. Hubanks had volunteered to
speak for voice identification as part of a line-up.
Defense counsel at
trial called no witnesses and presented no defense. Instead, defense counsel simply argued to the jury
that Mr. Eubanks was innocent and
was found at the victim's car only because he was casing the car to attempt to steal it.
This was not the defense that Mr. Hubanks had
provided to the police, to his
probation officer, or to the court at sentencing. It was also not the defense
he said he gave to his trial
attorney. Instead, Mr. Hubanks maintained himself throughout that he had obtained the car and
jewelry in a trade on a street corner with
a man named "Red" for some lactose, which he told Red was cocaine. Although the police reports indicated that this
was what Mr. Hubanks told police had happened, defense counsel made no attempt
to investigate this defense.
After conviction I was appointed and I attempted to investigate this defense. I located another individual, Wiley Stubblefield, (who was at the time of the postconviction proceedings himself in jail on another matter) who testified that he saw Mr. Hubanks obtain some jewelry from another individual on a Street corner in the area and on the night in question. This witness's credibility was enhanced because he had not spoken to Mr. Hubanks prior to the postconviction hearing, and testified against his will; he preferred not to become involved in the case.
In the postconviction proceedings and then on
direct appeal I raised numerous issues challenging the conviction, including
claims of ineffective assistance of
trial counsel and a challenge to the in-court voice identification procedure. I believe Mr. Hubanks is sending you the
appellate briefs and decision, which
set forth these facts of the case and the specifics of these arguments in more detail. The court of appeals
first certified this case to the Wisconsin
Supreme Court (indicating that it believed it involved important issues of first impression that warranted that court's
review). When the supreme court declined to accept the case at that point, the
court of appeals proceeded to affirm the
conviction, and dodged some of the more difficult legal questions by finding that trial counsel had failed to raise adequate
objections, and had thereby waived some
of the issues.
After the direct appeal process had concluded I
began trying to find new evidence upon
which I could base a new postconviction motion. My investigator finally located Mr. Hubanks's cousin
Earl, whom Mr. Hubanks had told us
about from the very beginning, but whom we had been unable to locate previously. Earl Hubanks gave us a statement
indicating that at the time of the assaults
in this case he was at a bar with Mr. Hubanks, and that he left Mr. Hubanks after the time the assaults allegedly
concluded, but before Mr. Hubanks was
arrested with the car later that night. Earl's statement, providing a direct alibi, was never heard by the jury or any court.
Additionally,
while the direct appeal was still pending I attempted to obtain from the police the physical evidence,
including the collected semen samples,
so that I could have DNA tests done on the evidence in hopes that the tests would exclude Mr. Hubanks. Milwaukee County
police and the District Attorney's
Office gave me a run-around for months (around nine months as I recall), during which not only did they refuse to
turn over this evidence, but they even
refused to tell me if it still existed. Finally, after many months, the police informed me that all of the evidence I was
seeking had been destroyed by police while
the case was still awaiting final disposition on direct appeal. The only evidence still in police custody consisted of a
paper bag full of cassette tapes that Mr.
Hubanks allegedly had removed from the car, and those tapes were scheduled to be destroyed as well.
I then requested that the police at least allow
my expert to examine the bag and the
cassettes on the remote possibility that he might be able to find trace evidence. Despite the fact that the police
intended to just destroy the evidence, they
nonetheless would not allow me to have access to these tapes, and began another drawn-out run-around.
At that point a
new decision was handed down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court making it clear that Mr. Hubanks could not file the new
postconviction motion we were contemplating unless a court were to find that I
had provided ineffective assistance of counsel
during the direct appeal by not raising all of Mr. Hubanks's new issues during the direct appeal. Accordingly, it became
necessary for me to cease representing Mr.
Hubanks and transfer the case to a new attorney who would be free to file a
claim of ineffective assistance of counsel against me. Attorney Robert Dvorak in Milwaukee has now been appointed to represent
Mr. Hubanks, and is in the process of
reviewing the case. Mr. Dvorak has informed me that he would welcome your involvement in the case. He can be
contacted at the following address and phone
number:
Robert Dvorak
Dvorak & Fincke, S.C. 823 N. Cass Street
Milwaukee,
WI 53202
(414) 273-0554
There are of
course many more facts and complications in this case, but this I hope gives
you an outline of the case. This is one of those cases that leaves me feeling that justice has miscarried. Mr. Hubanks is a very pleasant
individual who has always been
appreciative of my efforts to represent him, but who is suffering greatly because of his conviction in very suspect proceedings for a
crime that he adamantly maintains he did not
commit.
I hope this information is helpful to you in evaluating this case. If I
can provide any additional information please
let me know.
Sincerely,.
KEITH A. FINLEY Assistant State Public
cc: Mr. Robert Dvorak ,
Mr. Alfonzo Hubanks ----------------------------------------------------------
WIP (Wisconsin Innocence Project) tries To help him fi2nd witnesses and new evidence- click to view in PDF form.ch 2 letters in intellus search here. 2pages from forensic scientist -evidence missed page one Page 2
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