Notre Dame exoneration clinic notches third victory in 15 months

When she entered law school, she had hoped to one day work in administrative law, possibly with the Environmental Protection Agency. “And then I started working at the clinic, and I became interested in criminal law,” she said. “I’m going to go into criminal defense after graduation, so it absolutely impacted my career path.”

While the clinic provides students with valuable experiential learning, it also allows the law school to have a positive impact, helping disadvantaged, marginalized members of society.

Murphy, who worked in Chicago as a business litigation attorney, was the first full-time attorney hired, taking a substantial hit in salary so he could help such clients.

“I had done a little bit of pro bono wrongful conviction work,” he said. “I felt like that was a calling for me.”

As his work with exoneration cases intensified, Gurule, who had worked as a prosecutor for nearly a decade, researched wrongful conviction cases more thoroughly and became concerned about the statistics.

“Today we have over 3,700 documented exonerations in this country since 1989,” he said.

One primary reason for wrongful convictions, he said, falls on prosecutors withholding key evidence.

Technological advances, such as DNA technology, cellphone data and even surveillance cameras, have aided some of the wrongfully accused. But with many older cases, evidence has been destroyed, impairing the ability to mount appeals using better technology. For that reason, the clinic worked with the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law’s Wrongful Conviction Clinic to enact legislation that requires DNA testing and analysis be preserved for 20 years after a conviction.

The Notre Dame clinic typically learns of cases from the inmates themselves. Gurule said he personally reads each request. If he sees a reasonable innocence claim a thorough vetting process begins, starting with an intake team that performs a preliminary investigation. After a decision is made to accept the case, an investigator is assigned for a deeper look.

“The staff lawyers have to be convinced that the individual is innocent,” Gurule said. “And it’s not just that he or she is innocent, but there are viable avenues to prove his or her innocence.”

Despite the challenges with older cases — witnesses often die, for example — the clinic has had significant success. The Hubbell case is the third major legal victory in 15 months. And it is the most high profile case the clinic has handled.

In September 1997, 18-year-old Eckart’s shocking disappearance became national news. After working a shift at the Walmart in Franklin, Indiana, her car was found at an intersection, the keys still in the ignition. Eventually, evidence showed Overstreet had abducted her in a white van, removed her shoes and taken her to the Atterbury Fish & Wildlife Area, where he strangled her with a ligature made from her own clothing.

DNA evidence confirmed Overstreet was the killer, and he was sentenced to death in 2000.

A little more than a month after Eckart’s body was found, Myers, missing since May, was also found dead at Atterbury. She too had her shoes removed and had been strangled with her own clothing.

The similarities were “striking,” Franklin Police Chief Harry Furrer told the Johnson County Daily Journal in November 1997. “They are attention getters.”  

Despite those commonalities, investigators in the Myers case focused on Jason Hubbell, who worked with Myers at automotive parts manufacturer Arvin Industries.

Hubbell, investigators theorized, was upset at Myers, who worked in human resources, over an insurance benefit he was denied. 

Myers was last seen arriving at work on May 13, 1997. One witness saw Myers and a man walking in the parking lot, as the man held the back of her neck. While Hubbell had called in sick that day, the witness made a mental note of a white van she believed the two entered, and the plates matched Hubbell’s.

But as Johnson County law enforcement investigated Overstreet for the Eckart case, they shared things they had learned about him with Bartholomew County investigators, thinking he could be a suspect in the Myers case as well.

Overstreet had used a white van in the Eckart case. Witnesses said he had talked of having an affair with a woman named Sharon in Columbus, and there was the day he returned home in a white van, covered in blood, after telling his wife he was going to Columbus to apply for a job.

Yet the Myers investigators didn’t follow those leads, and Hubbell’s defense attorneys never had access to that evidence, which could have provided jurors with a reasonable doubt.

During recent evidentiary hearings with the Notre Dame clinic, Dennis Knulf, the lead investigator for the Columbus Police in the Myers case, acknowledged he omitted evidence that implicated Overstreet.

“Knulf had his sight on one suspect only and that was Hubbell,” the court wrote in the order to vacate. “This tunnel vision led to Knulf and the CDP withholding material exculpatory evidence that either implicated Overstreet in the Myers homicide and/or linked Overstreet to Myers.”

Knulf had been removed from the active case after he spoke to the media because he was upset that the prosecution wavered on whether to charge Hubbell.

No DNA, hair, blood or fingerprint evidence ever connected Hubbell to the Myers murder, and the witness description of the man in the parking lot with Myers didn’t match Hubbell. But the prosecution has argued that even if the withheld evidence had been admitted, Hubbell still would have been convicted.

Hubbell also made incriminating statements to a cellmate and told an investigator it might have been possible he committed the crime during an episode.

“When I asked him to explain further he states he knows that he does things during his episodes that he can’t remember,” an investigator wrote in his report, “so he always has doubts now about things he could have done.”

In a 2019 evidentiary hearing, Bartholomew County prosecutor Kathy Burns said the Overstreet case “has nothing to do with this case.”

The state, calling the Overstreet connection a “fishing expedition,” said Overstreet was “thoroughly investigated at the time” and ruled out as a suspect.

Nonetheless, the court vacated the conviction and ordered a new trial.

“The state’s failure to disclose the material exculpatory evidence undermines the confidence in Hubbell’s guilty verdict and deprived Hubbell of his right to a fair trial,” the judge wrote.

The ruling was well received at the exoneration clinic.

“I felt like all of our hard work over the years had been recognized, and I also felt like Jason got his day in court,” said Ragland, who worked on the case.

During Hubbell’s evidentiary hearings, Overstreet exercised his right to not testify. He continues to be held on death row at Indiana State Prison in Michigan City, Indiana, but in 2014, he was declared incompetent for execution.

Hubbell, who was sentenced to 75 years in prison, remains incarcerated as the prosecution prepares for an expected appeal.  If the prosecution loses the appeal, it will then decide whether to retry the case.

“We advocated strongly on behalf of our client, and we believe justice was done with the judge’s ruling,” Gurule said.