Tucson lawyer frees convict
He uncovered key evidence in ’88 murder case
When he was arrested for murder in 1988, he was just 19 years old, and his name was Charles Robins. A Clark County, Nevada, jury sent him to death row for allegedly beating to death his then-girlfriend’s 6month-old baby girl.
On June 7, his cell door opened and he walked out of the prison in Ely, Nevada, two months shy of his 49th birthday and answering to the name Ha’im Al Matin Sharif.
According to Sharif, a devout Muslim, “Al Matin” means “steadfast” in Arabic, and “Sharif” means “truthful and virtuous.”
“Ha’im,” he says, is an Arabic variant of the Hebrew word “chaim,” which means “life.” It was suggested to him by an aunt who introduced him to Islam as a child.
So, after 29 years in prison, Robins, now Sharif, gets to live the rest of his life freely — and hopefully steadfast and virtuously — because of a legal miracle performed by a Tucsonbased attorney.
Sharif had been accused of torturing the in-
fant. Her autopsy showed broken bones and multiple hemorrhages. Sharif denied the abuse, and although his then-girlfriend initially told police that Sharif was not abusive, she changed her story and testified against him in court.
“I was confused as to the nature of the injuries they described, because I had done nothing,” Sharif told The Arizona Republic.
The jury found him guilty of first-degree murder, however, and he thought that was the end of it.
“I pretty much resigned myself to the idea that I was going to be put to death,” he said.
But Cary Sandman, an attorney with the Federal Public Defender’s Office in Tucson, unearthed a forgotten caveat for “battered child syndrome” investigations: Once-common childhood diseases like rickets and scurvy can mimic symptoms of child abuse and must be ruled out first.
Sandman found medical experts to review the dead child’s X-rays. They agreed the child probably had scurvy. Sandman also got the girlfriend to recant her testimony. She claimed she was coerced by law enforcement into blaming Sharif for the death when they threatened to take her other children away.
The Nevada Supreme Court considered the “compelling nature of the new medical evidence,” ruled that Sharif had “a colorable claim” and sent the case back to trial court.
Rather than go back to trial, the Clark County District Attorney’s Office grudgingly amended the charges against Sharif. It agreed to ask the court to pronounce Sharif guilty of second-degree murder and sentence him to time served.
The office refused to dismiss the case altogether and exonerate Sharif.
“I think he absolutely committed the crime,” said Clark County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steven Owens. “I don’t think there was evidence to prove he didn’t do it.”
But the American judicial system requires that prosecutors gather sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did do it, and prosecutors decided that might be difficult.
“He’s done (nearly) 30 years in prison,” Owens said, which is more than the standard 20-25 years of a life sentence for murder.
“Is it worth the cost of continuing (legal) proceedings?” he asked.
Nor were Sharif and his attorneys willing to spend five or more years of incarceration and trial, only to run the risk that a jury could send Sharif back to death row.
They all signed the deal, and Sharif last week walked out of prison into a car headed for Phoenix, where he would spend the next several days in a detox of sorts before flying to Washington state to live with a relative.
“I was in a dreamlike state,” he told The Republic, “and still questioning whether it was real or not.”
Sharif doesn’t know what lies ahead. He’d like to get job training in construction or welding or computer programming. “I have a level of optimism,” he said. “But I’m cautiously optimistic.”
Sharif had been accused of torturing an infant. Her autopsy showed broken bones and multiple hemorrhages. But once-common diseases like rickets and scurvy can mimic symptoms of child abuse and must be ruled out first.