Virginia knows it has DNA evidence that could exonerate many men. Why won't they say who they are?
Bennett Barbour was convicted in 1978 of a rape he didn’t commit. At trial, he had an alibi supported by several witnesses. He didn’t match the victim’s description of her attacker. Barbour suffers from a severe bone disease that would have made it nearly impossible for him to be the assailant. Police found no physical evidence connecting him to the crime, beyond the eyewitness identification by his alleged victim. Barbour was handed an 18-year sentence and paroled after nearly five years.
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The Commonwealth of Virginia learned that Bennett Barbour was innocent nearly two years ago, when DNA testing cleared him of the crime. Virginia authorities, however, never informed Barbour of his innocence. (State officials claim to have mailed a letter with the test results to Barbour’s last four known addresses, but none of those letters ever reached him.) Barbour learned of the DNA tests that proved his innocence only last month, on Feb. 5, when he received a phone call from Sheldon. “I was with my nephew playing cards, and Mr. Sheldon called my mother’s house looking for me,” says Barbour. “He said the authorities stopped looking for me because they couldn’t find me. But Sheldon found me in two days using the Internet.”
Actually, that’s not true. It only took Sheldon a few hours.
Bennett Barbour is one of the fortunate ones. He, unlike what may ultimately amount to dozens of other men wrongly convicted and incarcerated by the state of Virginia, knows that his innocence can be conclusively proved. His lawyers at the University of Virginia’s Innocence Project filed paperwork last week to have the state formally declare him innocent. The trouble is that Barbour is one of only a handful who have enjoyed this vindication. Years ago, Virginia authorities realized they were likely convicting innocent men. The state’s officials know their criminal justice system is riddled with errors. As they investigated the depth of the problem, they have found that indeed many more men—at least dozens, maybe more—might be exonerated using DNA tests. But the state’s authorities did not move quickly to suspend these sentences or contact the individuals or families involved. They did not publicize their findings. Indeed, they denied Freedom of Information Act requests that would have shed light on the problem. Rather, Virginia state officials appears to have devised a system of notifying current and former convicts that is almost guaranteed to lead to the fewest number of exonerations.
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Much more: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/03/bennett_barbour_exonerated_of_rape_in_virginia_how_the_state_is_botching_the_dna_retesting_and_notification_of_old_cases.html
Yeah, it's a justice system alright.
This set my hair on fire. ASSHOLES!
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