Confronted with DNA, Alabama offers theory that ‘defies logic’ to keep Christopher Barbour on death row
Confronted with DNA, Alabama offers theory that ‘defies logic’ to keep Christopher Barbour on death row
Christopher Barbour tried to take back his confession more than 30 years ago. Now, new DNA points to someone else.
More than 30 years ago, Barbour confessed to police that he killed a 40-year-old single mother in Montgomery and helped another man rape her. Almost immediately he tried to take back the confession — he said later that he didn’t do it nor even know the woman — but it was too late.
Barbour remains on Alabama’s death row.
But now, new DNA testing points to someone else — a man who’s already in prison for an unrelated murder. Yet there is no cinematic rush to release Barbour. Instead, there is a push by prosecutors to explain away the DNA.
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The state’s latest theory — though they write that it’s not their responsibility to offer one — is laid out in court records. The state said a “likely theory” is that the single mother also had sex with Jackson, who was a neighbor and a teenage friend of her son, that same day. That was just before being raped and killed by a group of homeless men hours later.
The judge said “any reasonable jury” would doubt that a 40-year-old churchgoing woman would have consensual sex with a boy younger than her own son.
"You see, Your Honor, after being murdered the victim had sex with a teenage boy, whose sperm washed away the other sperm"
Any official that behaves like this should be arrested and tried for attempted murder, or murder in the first degree should the execution be carried out. There can be no wiggle room in society for such deliberate, premeditated homicidal injustice.
"In cases of legitimate botched prosecution, the state has ways to shut that whole thing down."