[cctalk] Computer Museum uses GreaseWeazle to help exonerate Maryland Man

Museum Staff Helps Exonerate David Veney January 19, 2023, Hunt Valley, MD — Staff members of the System Source Computer Museum recently completed a project that helped exonerate David Veney, wrongly convicted of rape in 1997. In 2005, after Mr. Veney sought a new trial, the state found irregularities in the prosecution, released Mr. Veney from prison, and declined to re-prosecute. Maryland is one of 35 states that provides compensation for wrongly incarcerated people. But quirks in the law kept the law from applying in Mr. Veney’s case. In 2021, the Maryland law was amended, making Mr. Veney eligible for partial compensation for the nearly nine years he spent in prison. Still, Mr. Veney had not been exonerated.. In June 2022, the Computer Museum at System Source in Hunt Valley, MD, was contacted by Patrick Gilbert, Senior Assistant States Attorney and Chief of the Prosecution Integrity Unit, who asked “Can you read data from a 5.25” Floppy Disk?” Bob Roswell, curator of the museum, quickly replied “Of course!” It wasn’t quite that simple. In theory, the diskette contained the court stenographic records from the 1992 rape trial of Grant Jones. The transcript was thought to contain evidence that would exonerate both Mr. Jones and Mr. Veney, but the printed transcripts from 1992 had been lost. Unfortunately, the diskette was neither IBM- nor Apple-compatible. It had been written on a DEC PDP-11 minicomputer using the RSX-11 Operating System. Although the museum has a PDP-11 in its collection, it had not yet been restored and could not be started. Brendan Becker, who runs the BLOOP museum inside the Computer Museum, jumped on the problem. Brendan set up a “Greaseweazle,” a device that reads the magnetic flux transitions on the floppy disk without regard to operating systems, disk formats, or errors. The process returned a file containing long binary strings of ones and zeros. Brendan was able to decode the file structure and found that disk (despite some unreadable parts) contained the raw keystrokes that the court stenographer had recorded in the 1992 rape case using a Stenograph machine from the era. An operator of a Stenograph machine uses chords to rapidly encode conversation by creating keystrokes to represent words, syllables, and phrases. While there is some standardization, each stenographer has his/her own “theory,” which results in individual styles for different stenographers. Luckily, Patrick Gilbert was able to obtain the services of the stenographer from the original trial (now retired). Together, they were able to substantially reconstruct the transcript from the 1992 trial, using the data provided by Brendan. The recovered transcript showed weird similarities to Mr. Veney’s case. On March 4, 1992, Alice Arroyo claimed to have been raped while walking home from volunteering at homeless shelter. In her account, the assailant grabbed her shirt, ripped it open, and scratched her chest with his nails in a long, vertical raking motion. Ms. Arroyo provided police with a detailed description of her assailant including the jacket he was wearing. The following day Grant Jones walked into the Salisbury Police Department (in Wicomico County, MD) to report that his wallet had gone missing from the homeless shelter. Mr. Jones matched the description of the assailant, was arrested, and was convicted of assault with intent to rape. On September 24, 1996, Salisbury Police responded to a complaint at the home of Alice Arroyo, who stated that she had been raped. Again, she provided a detailed description of the assailant and described suffering scratches on her chest in a long vertical raking motion. On October 3, 1996, David Veney, a former neighbor, was charged with rape. He was 20 years old at the time. Mr. Veney’s first trial in April 1997 ended in a mistrial. The hung jury consisted of four jurors voting to convict and eight declaring him innocent. In September 1997, Mr Veney was retried and found guilty of various charges, including burglary, assault, battery, and rape. He was sentenced to 25 years for rape and concurrent sentences for the other offenses. In 2005, Mr. Veney sought a new trial on the basis of ineffective representation. (That lawyer was later disbarred.) When the State reviewed the case, substantial doubts about Mr. Veney’s guilt arose, including the eerie similarity in Ms. Arroyo’s testimony in the two cases. Mr. Veney was released from prison, and the State declined to re-prosecute. The reconstructed transcript of Mr. Jones’ 1992 trial proved vital in establishing Mr. Veney’s innocence. On January 13, 2023, Judge Teresa Garland awarded Mr Veney approximately $730,000, along with medical, housing, and educational benefits. The staff of the Computer Museum at System Source is proud to have played a small part in Mr. Veney’s exoneration. Bob Roswell, Curator, later learned that the state had contacted numerous other technology firms, who were unable to render assistance, before asking the Museum for assistance. The Amendment to Maryland Law Regarding Compensation for Wrongful Convictions: https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2021rs/Chapters_noln/CH_76_sb0014t.pdf Greaseweazle: https://decromancer.ca/greaseweazle/ Stenography Theories: https://www.artofchording.com/introduction/theories-and-dictionaries.html The System Source Computer Museum: Bob Roswell https://museum.syssrc.com/