CASE STUDY #2: Bennett Barbour
Ronald Cotton’s case study is only one from hundreds of people who have been sent to jail for a crime they did not commit. Bennett Barbour, a 22-year-old man whose wife was pregnant with their first child was put in jail even when all the evidence was going against him except for the eyewitness. On February 7, 1978, a nineteen-year-old girl and Mary were sexually assaulted at gunpoint. After the incident, the victim called the police and gave a detailed description of the assailant. She told them that he weighed about 145 pounds and was about 5’6 tall. A week passed by and the victim was called to identify the assailant out of the photo lineup she chose Bennett’s photo, and then she chose him again from the live lineups. The next day
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After Barbour was arrested, the police did many tests with him, the hair found at the crime scene did not match Barbour’s. The victim's Blood type of A, while Barbour's blood group of type B. Barbours did not match the victim's initial description and no physical evidence supports his presence at the crime scene. At the final trial, all the evidence was going against Barbour except for the eyewitness of the victim. The investigators from the case still had doubts on Barbour’s guilt and continued to investigate further. After spending almost five years in prison, Barbour was released on parole the first time he came up for consideration. Soon after he was released on parole, the
The name of my prisoner is Marshall Perkins, he is 59 years old. Marshall Perkins was born on March 2, 1886 in Higginsville, Lafayette County. He was arrested by Kansas City Police Department, under charge of investigation for statutory rape. He was charged by the Sheriff’s Office in Jackson County, Kansas City with statutory rape and habitual criminal act. Convicted of raping a young white female, about 13 years of age, girl (Gladys Jeffries) was returning home around 11 p.m. after seeing a show at Vista Theater, Kansas City with another female (friend).
The book Monster, by Walter Dean Myers, tells the tale of two young men being on trial for felony murder. Sixteen year-old Steve Harmon and twenty-two year-old James King are accused of participating in a robbery that caused the death of an innocent man. That innocent man’s name was Aguinaldo Nesbitt, and he owned a drugstore in Harlem. The Prosecutor, Sandra Petrocelli claims that Steve Harmon served as the lookout in the robbery, and also says James King was the one who pulled the trigger on the gun that killed Aguinaldo Nesbitt. Steve Harmon’s Attorney Kathy O’Brien does a great job of making Steve appear as a regular, respectful, smart kid, and seems to have a great interest in film which his teacher George Sawicki points out in his testimony. James King’s attorney, Asa Briggs, tries her very best to make King look innocent, but there isn’t much evidence that doesn’t put him at the crime scene. The state calls two witnesses that are very significant in deciding whether James King is guilty, and why Steve is not, and those witnesses are Richard “Bobo” Evans and Lorelle Henry. And the defense ( Kathy O’Brien) calls George Sawicki to the stand and he preaches about how great of a student and person Steve is, so it makes him look even more innocent to the jury. All of these witnesses make James King look
Just recently, a middle-ages man has been captured by the local police. Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Thomas Gilliland reported to the Houston Chronicle, ‘…that the relationship between Conley and the victims — who ranged in age from 6 to 50 — remains unclear.’ After the discovery, deputies applied capital murder to the bodies of six-children—ages 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 13. A David R. Conley was allegedly involved in an upset with the deputies that ended after the accused killer was persuaded to give in to the demands of the Harris County authorities. On a tip, deputies entered the residence to confront the abusive killing. However, according to sources—at a news conference Sunday afternoon—Chief Deputy Rim Cannon announce that the degree of
Scenario: John is a 4 year-old boy who was admitted for chemotherapy following diagnosis of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). He had a white blood cell count of 250,000. Clinical presentation included loss of appetite, easily bruised, gum bleeding, and fatigue. Physical examination revealed marked splenomegaly, pale skin color, temperature of 102°F, and upper abdomen tenderness along with nonspecific arthralgia.
As a member of management Clive Jenkins is responsible for boosting employee morale to ensure that company goals are met
When a law enforcement officer or other public employee is accused of potentially criminal conduct, they may face three different kinds of interviews or interrogations. If an officer is interviewed as a criminal suspect, they have the absolute right to decline to answer any questions, or to insist that they have a lawyer of their choosing to attend the interview. The first is type is during a criminal investigation; the second is during a disciplinary investigation and finally during the course of civil litigation where there has been damages. During a criminal interview, there is no professional, ethical or moral duty to participate especially without the assistance of an attorney to represent the officer under investigation. It has come to a surprise that many experienced officers will waive their right to silence and give the investigators an audio recorded statement. Some of the inexperienced criminals do not make incriminating statements. The motive for cooperation is to avoid unfavorable publicity.
In 1978 Bennett Barbour was accused of a sexual assault of a 19 year old William and Mary college student. He was picked out a line up by the victim despite the fact he didn’t match the discerption given by the rape victim. Bennett Barbour was a 22 year old handy man at the time of these charges, close to his arrest he and his wife was expecting a new born child. Bennett Barbour served 5 years in prison before making parole. Even though all the evidences showed that Mr. Barbour couldn’t have committed this crime he was still convicted. In May 2012 Mr. Barbour was formally cleared of the rape charges but has not yet been compensated for it. Bennett
On September 2, 2015, Charles Kendrick, a student in Criminal Justice 105 presented a personal experience he had with the law. Charles Kendrick explained to his classmates about a graphic situation that occur to him when he was sixteen. Kendrick’s older brother was shot and killed in front of his own eyes. Due to the amount of anger Kendrick had inside him, he decided to grab a bat, and take matters into his own hands. Charles Kendrick was arrested that night, for assaulting someone with a weapon. He shared with the class, about his experience being behind bars. Kendrick explained, that during his time behind bars, he only had two hours outside of his cell. He also shared that everyone had to wake up around four in the morning for breakfast;
The criminal justice system is meant to protect the innocent, and punish those who are guilty of a crime. However, no system is perfect, and as a result, sometimes the innocent become victims of the system that was meant to protect them. How exactly do these innocent people become victims of the system? Sometimes the person gets framed, and the crime scene is staged to point a finger at them. Sometimes, there is no strong physical evidence against them, yet circumstantial evidence is used by the crown to put them away. This happened to a 17 year old boy named Adnan Syed in Baltimore, Maryland, who was imprisoned for life, for the alleged murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Lee. Throughout the Serial podcast, Sarah Koenig is able to critically analyze information which proves Adnan’s innocence. Firstly, Asia’s letters gave Adnan an alibi for the time of the murder. Secondly, Adnan’s innocence can be demonstrated through the lack of any strong evidence and the prosecution’s use of circumstantial evidence which can be disproved. Thirdly, Jay’s constantly changing testimony is not credible evidence of Adnan’s guilt, making him innocent.
Timothy Cole was a 24-year-old student at Texas Tech University. After completing two years of college, he had enlisted in the army for two years in hopes of serving his country. Timothy was an ordinary man with dreams of getting married and having children, but that dream never materialized. Upon his return to Texas Tech in 1985, he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the rape of a 20-year-old girl named Michele Mallin. Mallin, then, a student at Texas Tech University Lubbock, was walking to her car when a man approached her and held a knife to her neck. He forced himself into her car and drove her to the outskirts of town where he raped her repeatedly. The next day the police investigator showed Michele pictures of the suspect where she pointed at Timothy Cole. When police showed her a lineup, again she picked Cole. “I was positive,” she said. “I really thought it was him,” but in fact she had accidently robbed an innocent man of his freedom (Lavendra 2009).
Miscarriages of justices occur due to many variables including faulty or wrong confessions, faulty identifications, wrongful DNA evidence, and the police’s overreach of power. On February 9, 1978, a student from the College of William and Mary, located in Williamsburg, Virginia was sexually assaulted at gunpoint. When the police arrived at the scene, she described her assailant as an African-American male about 5’6 in height and weighing around 145. Having gathered this information, the victim agreed to identify her assailant through photo arrays at the police station. Bennett Barbour was identified arrested and in the span of about two months was charged with rape on April 14, 1978. Despite having an alibi, not matching the victim’s description, and having brittle bone disease Barbour was declared guilty by a jury. Barbour’s case is representative of the many cases in which wrongful eyewitness testimony produces miscarriages of justice. Bennett Barbour served 5 years in prison and 29 years of parole until he was cleared of his charges due to DNA evidence when the Virginia Supreme Court cleared his charges.
In the video “The Confessions” presented by Frontline, a murder of a women that was committed by one man, quickly resulted into a false gang murder-rape scene committed by eight men. The victim, Michelle Bosko, was seen to be raped and killed in her apartment in Norfolk, Virginia. From the video, it has been proven that seven out of the eight men that confessed were innocent, but somehow they all received an unequal punishment. Because the innocent men admitted to a murder that they didn’t commit out of fear, they were all sentenced to some time in prison. The head detective, Glenn Ford, intimidated the men so much that they either were convinced that they were at the crime scene or they told him every detail that he wanted to hear.
Mr. Melnikoff, manager of Montana’s state crime laboratory said, “When we went through the trial in 1987, there was no evidence in the case that would have convicted Jimmy… then they came forward with the hair” (Liptak). This is important because the only possible evidence there was to convict him was the hair that was only similar to Bromgard’s. In preparation for the trial there was little evidence that possibly tied Bromgard to the attack, the main evidence was a 60 percent sure identification on the suspect by the victim. In the trial the victim was asked how sure she was that it was Bromgard and she said, “I am not too sure” (Liptak).
The applicants are morally correct as long as their action promotes their long term interest. If their action produces or will produce for them a greater outcome of good, versus evil in the long hall than any other alternative, than that action is the right one to act on, and the individual should take that to be a moral act. An Assessment of Morality by Ethicsinbusiness.net
After an inmate attempted to prosecute the system, the court ordered that rape “is not part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses”. Unfortunately, this case built strong “barriers to establish the culpability of corrections staff” (Brook), thus discouraging prisoners from reporting sexual assault.