When former Virginia commonwealth’s attorney Paul H. Thomson was arrested January 11 by federal agents in Winchester on drug, witness and evidence tampering charges, the lid flew off of the tightly sealed Pandora’s box containing cases he had won. The U.S. attorney said Thomson tested positive for cocaine use, which was more forensic evidence than he had to send Jeff Washington to prison for 70 years for the 1994 murder of local drug dealer Carlos Marshall. Thomson is reportedly a nephew of legendary state senator Harry Flood Byrd, whose Democratic “Organization” consisted of a statewide courthouse clique that controlled Virginia politics for 50 years. Remnants of the crony-run Byrd Machine can still be found in courthouses throughout the state.
Franklin Washington spent the last 16 years trying to free his adopted son, whom he insists is innocent. The retired factory worker refused to give up after several strokes forced him to stop picketing the Winchester courthouse. Despite a grade-school education, he eventually uncovered a trove of new evidence in what a court observer called the “most fouled up case I’ve ever seen.”
