USA - Arizona. Federal Appeals Court Grants New Trial to Barry Jones

Federal Appeals Court Grants New Trial to Barry Jones, an Arizona Death-Row Prisoner Who May Not Have Committed Murder. The reversal is based on medical evidence suggesting that he may not have committed the murder for which he was sentenced to death. On November 29, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit threw out Jones’ convictions for child abuse, sexual assault, and felony murder of his girlfriend’s four-year-old daughter amid doubts about the prosecution’s claims that Jones had battered and sexually abused the girl and then caused her death by failing to obtain necessary medical care. Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Circuit Judge Richard R. Clifton said that Jones’ lawyers unreasonably failed to investigate and present medical evidence that the injuries that ultimately killed Rachel Gray in May 1994 could not have been sustained during the time period in which prosecutors said Jones had been alone with the girl. On July 31, 2018 (see) U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess vacated the murder conviction, and today the appeal court rejected the state’s appeal.