An Alabama loss of life row inmate’s homicide conviction has been referred to as into query by current forensic assessments that present one other man’s DNA on the sufferer’s physique. A long time after he was initially discovered responsible and sentenced, a federal choose ordered a brand new trial for Christopher Barbour in a ruling final week.
Barbour, ow 56, was convicted within the 1992 lethal stabbing of Thelma Bishop Roberts in Montgomery. His confession, wherein Barbour admitted to serving to one other man rape Roberts earlier than killing her, was a key a part of the state’s case towards him. However court docket paperwork present he later recanted and has lengthy mentioned that police coerced him into confessing, with Barbour’s former authorized counsel alleging a detective bodily assaulted Barbour as a way to do this. Barbour has maintained his innocence since recanting.
New DNA testing finished in 2021 revealed that semen on the sufferer’s physique belonged to Roberts’ neighbor, who’s at present incarcerated for a distinct, unrelated homicide.
Barbour’s attorneys argued in an earlier court docket submitting that “Mr. Barbour’s innocence is patently clear.”
Within the order granting Barbour a brand new trial, Chief U.S. District Choose Emily C. Marks mentioned that Barbour’s conviction was tainted as a result of prosecutors didn’t flip over bench notes from the preliminary forensics report that excluded Barbour, in addition to the person he mentioned raped the sufferer, because the supply of the DNA. That info, Marks mentioned, might have used to solid doubt on Barbour’s confession, which was the first proof towards him at trial.
“Barbour has proven that the prosecution’s figuring out use of false proof might have had an impact on the end result of the trial,” Marks wrote within the ruling final week, which discovered that the prosecution violated Barbour’s constitutional rights to due course of beneath the 14th Modification.
The state had argued that the DNA outcomes don’t exonerate Barbour. A spokesman for Alabama Lawyer Basic Steve Marshall mentioned the state plans to attraction the choice.
The ruling got here in a civil case that Barbour filed difficult his conviction on the grounds that his rights have been violated. Marks gave the state 90 days to start preparations for a brand new trial.
Marks didn’t rule on Barbour’s innocence declare however wrote that he can now “argue as a lot to a jury.” Marks wrote in a ruling final yr that the brand new DNA info “is highly effective proof that Barbour’s confession is fake, and that Mrs. Roberts’ homicide didn’t happen because the prosecution introduced it at trial.”
Barbour has been on Alabama’s loss of life row since 1994.
