FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

Greenville, South Carolina (May 14, 2018) — “It’s quite clear her trial attorney made significant errors,” said Steven Holiday, publisher and advocate. “To say that she can no longer claim ineffective assistance of counsel because she waived her right to it on a prior appeal in 2009 is wrong. Only in 2016 did she finally receive her case files and that was because her attorney was disbarred and had to send the files. Over the years she tried many times to get her case files to no avail. Why would he keep ignoring a legal request from a prior client? You cannot make an informed decision if you’re never presented with all the information. She was never presented with all the information about her case, about what her trial attorney did and did not do.

“Her trial attorney also handled her appeals and that should never have happened. By handling her appeals he effectively blocked her from looking into his inadequate defense at trial and he wrongfully advised her in 2009 to waive that right and pursue a different avenue to challenge her conviction. He was looking after his own best interests. She has her case files now but over 30% of her case files are missing. What was given by the State, what she should have is no longer there. She should be entitled to have her complete case files and whatever’s missing the State should furnish duplicates. Is this really how South Carolina’s criminal justice system works? Take a look at the conditional order to dismiss. Nowhere does the presiding judge give an opinion about the arguments her new attorney Charles Grose presented. Two affidavits to rebut the State that further explained when, how and why were seemingly ignored. And it’s my understanding that they switched judges at some point and somewhere along the lines the new or old judge couldn’t find the materials filed. So we don’t even know if the judge had all the materials to look over. All the judge did was rubberstamp the State’s motion.”

Regarding the case Steven Holiday goes further saying, “This woman’s lifestyle was on trial and that lifestyle shouldn’t have mattered. Her trial attorney neglected to bring up over 20 arguments relating to evidence of innocence and all they had for guilt was a police coerced interrogation in which they constantly lied, confused and berated her for over 15 hours. They started lying to her that very night, within 5 hours of the shooting and would deny that she was a suspect until much later. Now you tell me if it’s routine police procedure when interviewing someone after a crime has occurred, immediately after it occurs, to start feeding that person lies and start psychologically pressuring them to confess? That is something you do with a suspect, someone you think committed the crime, and they started doing that, treating her like a suspect within 5 hours and not much later as they testified at trial. They never accepted her repeatedly and emphatically telling them no, and in the end they threatened to take her 2 year old daughter from her. This was a 21 year old emotionally and sexually abused woman, a young mother, vulnerable to coercive interrogation tactics, who never was in trouble with the law before. All she did was have an affair, something that half of all married couples have done.”

Over the last two decades many studies have been made relating to police induced false confessions. In 1998/1999 there was little evidence that false confessions could happen. The field was not studied as much as it is today. Only after the last two decades of DNA exonerations of people who confessed did they realize there was a problem with interrogation tactics, namely the Reid Interrogation Technique, which instead of physically abusing the suspect to confess, they psychologically abuse the suspect to falsely confess. Kimberly Renee Poole was subjected to over 15 hours of psychologically abusive interrogation tactics. A juror even said that they would have admitted to shooting JFK after all that she went through. Now toss in one of the nation’s most sexist judges, an unnecessarily rushed 3 day murder trial, a woefully inadequate and negligent defense, prosecutors who used tactics akin to misconduct and what you get is a woman judged guilty from bias because she had an affair and worked as an exotic dancer. Her case should be studied further. Indeed the 2015 Chicago Kent Law Review, Volume 90 Issue 3, mentions the Kimberly Renee Poole case and the many problems with her conviction.

Kimberly Renee Poole is being represented Pro Bono by Charles Grose of The Grose Law Firm, 864-538-4466, charles@groselawfirm.com

The National Committee to Free Kimberly Renee Poole is an advocacy group dedicated to raise awareness about the case and wrongful conviction of Kimberly Renee Poole, info@freekimberly.com