Status July-October 2008

1.   An Additive
Amendment [24] to original Habeas Petition [1] was filed with the court on July
7, 2008 along with eight Exhibits to support the issues raised and motions
presented to the District Court. Three new grounds
were raised with facts to support those grounds in addition to the three
original grounds presented by Rodney Zell.  Also, an Actual Innocence
Miscarriage of Justice claim was presented to the court as an “Additional Issue
to be Decided Through a Finding of Fact and Conclusion of Law”.

2.   In addition to the
Additive Amendment, I also filed a Motion for Evidentiary Hearing [21], a
Renewal of Motion for Appointment of Counsel [22] and a Motion for Limited
Discovery [23].

3.   The Motion for
Limited Discovery centers around Safe Path documents that shows that the State
experts and detectives involved in this case misled the jurors concerning the
method used for conducting forensic interview on the children. The method of
interviewing the children was one of the key material issues argued at trial to
be decided by the trail jury,. Those documents contained both exculpatory and
impeaching evidence vital to my defense and without its availability for the
jury to consider them it highly prejudiced my defense and denied me of a
constitutional fair trial.

4.   The Motion for
Evidentiary Hearing was presented so that the complete Safe Path documents,
obtained through the granting of discovery, can be presented to the District
Court for proper consideration. It would also be the first opportunity for a
court to review the forensic interviews of the non-accusing children in the
presence of the defense/petitioner and by an expert in the field so that an
explanation to the court can be given of the impact of impeaching statements or
the significance of exculpatory evidence by the non-accusing children.

5.   The first request
for an appointment of counsel [16] was denied by Magistrate Judge Johnson
because at that time, his order [18] states, the need of an evidentiary hearing
had not been established nor requested. So the renewal of Motion for
Appointment of Counsel was filed in light of the motions for limited discovery
and evidentiary hearing that now have been filed with the District Court.
Federal courts can appoint counsel when an evidentiary hearing is warranted.

6.   One of the exhibits
that was included with the Additive Amendment was an Affidavit
by Dr, Maggie Bruck, Exhibit E, that contained her expert opinion on
certain issues concerning this case that have now been presented to the
District Court. Dr. Bruck is a national and international foremost expert in
the field of suggestibility of children and adults.

7.   On October 7, 2008,
Magistrate Judge Johnson issues an order [25] to Respondent to response within
30 days to my motions and to the additional claims that I raised in the
Additive Amendment to the Habeas Petition “because petitioner has raised
non-frivolous matters in his additional pleadings”.