Victims of the State
BAB - BAU

Name Index

Maouloud Baby was convicted of raping an 18-year-old Montgomery College student, identified as J. L. The alleged victim had consented to intercourse with Baby, but told him that he needed to stop if she said so. During intercourse, J. L. requested the intercourse stop because of the pain it was causing her. However, she said he continued for “five or so seconds” more. Baby, who was a 16-year-old high school student at the time of the incident, said he stopped immediately. Baby was tried as an adult. His first trial resulted in a hung jury, but he was convicted at a retrial in 2004. At the end of Baby's retrial, the judge defined rape for the jury as “the unlawful intercourse with another by force, or threat of force, and without consent.” He then had the jury decide whether Baby committed rape. On appeal in 2006, the Maryland Court of Appeals overturned Baby's conviction on the basis that under Maryland law a man cannot be convicted of rape once a consensual sex act has commenced.  (Appeals)  [9/08]

Nick Donald Bagley was convicted of the murder of Donald J. Davis. Davis operated a retail meat store on Falls Road in Baltimore City. Around 7 a.m. one morning, he was found in his store lying in a pool of blood with a gunshot wound to his head. A revolver belonging to Davis was on the floor close to and pointing toward the left side of his head. He died four days later. The medical examiner reported that his findings indicated a typical self-inflicted wound.
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Robert Ballard Bailey was sentenced to death for the murder of Charleston tavern keeper Rosina Fazio. Fazio, 56, was found badly beaten and died three days after being robbed of cash and diamond jewelry. Before she died, Fazio reportedly told three witnesses that her assailant was “Bob, the glass cutter,” whom the state contended was Bailey. However, Bailey had an solid, although unflattering alibi. Numerous witnesses who knew Bailey attested to his being very drunk at the time of the murder and to being the driver of the car that careened madly down the roads, hotly pursued by the police. None of the witnesses who identified him as the murderer knew him. Following Bailey's conviction, his trial judge, Jackson Savage, who not convinced of Bailey's guilt, was in tears as he pronounced Bailey's mandatory death sentence. In 1951, after an investigation by the Court of Last Resort, Bailey's death sentenced was commuted to life imprisonment. In 1960, Bailey was released after being granted a conditional pardon, and in 1966, the conditions of Bailey's pardon were dropped, effectively giving him a full pardon.  (CWC)  [7/05]

David Cullen Bain was convicted of murdering his mother Margaret, 50, his father Robin, 58, sisters Arawa, 19, and Laniet, 18, and brother Stephen, 14. All had died from .22 gunshot wounds to their heads. The murders occurred at 65 Every Street, Anderson's Bay, Dunedin. Twenty-two-year-old David was arrested four days after making a frantic 111 call from the family home. Police responding to the emergency found him huddled in the house babbling incoherently. At trial, David's defense argued that his father Robin killed the family then himself while David was out doing his early morning paper run. David has consistently maintained his innocence.

The evidence against Robin appears to be greater than that against David, but since none of it is especially strong, one can assume that the evidence against both is evenly divided. Depending on the weight one puts on various pieces of evidence, it is possible to believe either one of them is the likely perpetrator. However, reasonable doubt attaches to David because a plausible case can always be made that Robin is the perpetrator. The motive evidence is stronger against Robin. Other evidence shows the perpetrator had fought with Stephen, and Robin had six recent abrasions on his hands. These abrasions were alleged to be due to Robin's replacement of spouting at the family home.

After exhausting his appeals in New Zealand, David appealed to England's Privy Counsel, and in 2007 it quashed his conviction as a miscarriage of justice, based on new evidence that the Crown reportedly disputes. David was subsequently released on bail by the Christchurch High Court. Two 1997 books were published on the Bain case, the pro-defense David and Goliath by Joe Karam, and the pro-prosecution The Mask of Sanity by James McNeish.  (NZCity) (NZ Herald) (FJDB)  [10/08]

Edward Baker spent 26 years in prison for the robbery and murder of 75-year-old Steven Gibbons. The murder occurred during a robbery of Gibbons' home in the 1200 block of South 24th Street. Prodded by a Centurion Ministries investigation, the state's star witness, Donahue Wise, remorsefully told a judge in 1996 that he was the real killer and that he had falsely incriminated the then 17-year-old Baker to avoid a life sentence. A new trial seemed imminent. However, the district attorney eventually decided not to retry the case after Centurion Ministries uncovered 11 witnesses who provided alibi testimony for Baker. Baker was freed in Dec. 1999.  (CM) (City Paper)  [5/05]

Eunice Baker, a baby sitter with a 70 IQ, confessed under police coercion to killing 3-year-old Charlotte Kurtz. Eunice signed a statement confessing that she had been planning on killing the baby for “the last two days” and had “turned up the thermostat at about 9:00 p.m.,” because she “thought that if [she] could get [the baby's] body temperature up high enough [she] could kill her.” The statement also added that Eunice “wanted [the baby] to die because [she] couldn't stand her.” The baby was found unconscious in her room at 2 a.m. The temperature in the baby's room was measured at 130 degrees even though the thermostat only went up to 88 degrees. At trial, a police technician admitted finding a short circuit in the wires leading to the thermostat, a fact, which caused the heater to run continuously. Nevertheless, Eunice was convicted and sentenced to 15 years to life imprisonment. In 2004, an appeals court released her after reducing her second-degree murder conviction to that of criminally negligent homicide.  (ES/NA)  [5/05]

Lena Baker, a black woman, was convicted of murdering Ernest B. Knight, a white grist mill owner. After Knight hired Baker to care for him while he nursed a broken leg, a sexual relationship developed between the two. Following Baker's attempts to break off the relationship, Knight found her and forced her to go with him. Baker managed to escape, but Knight found her again and locked her in a gristmill. Later, according to Baker, during a tussle between the two over a gun, the gun went off killing Knight. Baker was executed in the electric chair on March 5, 1945.

In 1998 while the director of a prisoner's rights group, John Cole Vodicka, was visiting the Randolph County Courthouse, the Court Clerk asked him if he wanted to look into Baker's case. The clerk gave him the court file, which included the 10-page trial transcript. Vodicka later came into contact with a great-nephew of Baker, and in 2003 helped in the filing of a pardon application for her with the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. Vodicka expressed confidence that “almost any lawyer could have pled Lena Baker not guilty by reason of self-defense.” The Board of Pardons and Paroles apparently agreed with him and granted Baker a posthumous pardon on Aug. 30, 2005. A 2001 book about the case was published entitled The Lena Baker Story.  (Justice: Denied)  [10/08]

In August 1985 Ricky Lynn Pitts, Marcella Pitts, Wayne Dill, Jr., Grace Dill, Wayne Forsythe, Colleen Forsythe, and Gina Miller were convicted of 377 counts of child abuse and conspiracy. A total of 2,619 years of imprisonment was handed out to the defendants in sentences. All convictions were reversed in 1990 because the trial and closing arguments were marred by prosecutorial misconduct that was unprecedented in the Court's experience. By 1994, all of the child witnesses had recanted and claimed their testimony was coerced.  (Wash. Post) (People v. Pitts)  [7/05]

Leonard Baldauf was convicted of the murder of his married girlfriend, Paige TenBrook. He accepted a plea deal in which he did not have to admit guilt and only had to serve a 24-year sentence. The victim's estranged husband, Scott TenBrook, who lived in Oregon, confessed to committing the murder to his girlfriend's son. The son reported the confession to the Medford, Oregon Police Department. Nevertheless, the husband and Pueblo County prosecutor Scott Dingle were old friends and Dingle refused to charge TenBrook. Post-conviction DNA test results indicate that a person who was neither Baldauf nor TenBrook committed the murder. This evidence suggests that TenBrook hired a killer. Under his plea agreement, Baldauf is not allowed to appeal his conviction, but he is trying to withdraw from the agreement.  (JD29)  [2/07]

Brian Keith Baldwin, a black male, was executed for the torture and murder of 16-year-old Naomi Rolon, a white female. On Mar 12, 1977, Baldwin, 18, and Edward Dean Horsley, 19, escaped from a youth detention center in North Carolina. Within hours of their escape, the two hitched a ride with Rolon in Hudson, NC, and drove to Alabama. Presumably Rolon went to Alabama involuntarily as her original plan was just to drive across town. Baldwin got out in Alabama and stole an El Camino pickup truck, while Horsley drove off with Rolon. The two males may have planned to release Rolon and drive away in a car Rolon could not identify. Rolon was subsequently found murdered, and a day afterwards, Horsley and Baldwin were captured by police.
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Jason Baldwin - See West Memphis Three

Timothy George Baldwin was convicted of the murder of Mary James Peters, an 85-year-old West Monroe woman. Peters was a former neighbor of Baldwin and also godmother to his youngest child. Peters was severely beaten in her home on April 4, 1978, apparently in the late evening hours. She was found at noontime the next day by a Meals on Wheels worker who went to her home to serve her lunch. Although the assault left Peters with some brain damage, she remained conscious following her discovery. Even though she knew Baldwin well, she did not identify him as her assailant. Peters died the day after she was found.
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John Ballard was convicted of murdering Jennifer Jones and Willie Patin in their apartment, an apartment in which Ballard was a frequent guest. Ballard was convicted due to fingerprint evidence found in the apartment and the fact that hairs found in the victims' hands were consistent with his hair. In 2006, Ballard was released after the Florida Supreme Court vacated his sentence due to insufficient evidence.  (FLCC) (JD)  [12/06]

Robert Baltovich was convicted in 1992 of murdering his 22-year-old girlfriend, Elizabeth Bain, even though her body was never found. Bain was last seen Tuesday June 19, 1990 on the University of Toronto's Scarborough Campus. Her car was found the following Friday, parked at an auto body shop near campus. Blood was pooled on the floor in the back, suggesting she was murdered.

No physical evidence connects Baltovich to the alleged murder. According to the crown, Baltovich killed Bain by 7 p.m. on the day of her disappearance. However, Baltovich was seen waiting to meet her outside a 9 p.m. class that she took. The crown also argued that Baltovich drove Bain's car after 1 a.m. Friday morning to Lake Scugog, an hour's drive north of Toronto. He then allegedly buried her body in the mud of the lake before returning to Toronto by 6 a.m. However, Baltovich reportedly could not drive Bain's car because it had a manual transmission.

Since Baltovich's conviction, his lawyers have argued that serial killer Paul Bernardo is a stronger suspect than Baltovich in Bain's murder. At the time of Bain's disappearance, Bernardo was known as the Scarborough rapist. An award winning book called No Claim to Mercy by Derek Finkle was written about Baltovich's case in 1998. Following a hearing in September 2004, the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered a new trial, citing an unfair and unbalanced charge to jury during the first trial. At retrial in 2008, the crown presented no evidence and urged the jury to acquit Baltovich, which the jury promptly did.

The crown's sudden decision not to retry Baltovich was apparently prompted by one of its witnesses. Four days before the retrial, the victim's father, Rick Bain, told the crown that his daughter told him of an imminent rendezvous with Baltovich on the day of her murder. Since the witness had never mentioned this conversation before, he presumably was planning to perjure himself in an effort to convict Baltovich. Disclosure rules forced the crown had to inform the defence of the conversation. Even if the witness stuck to his previous testimony, the defence could use his reported conversation to undermine his credibility.  (IB) (Wiki)  [4/08]

Arvind Balu and Brendan Loftus were convicted of raping a teenager.  Balu was a UC Berkeley student. The “victim” did not tell anyone about the alleged crime until nine months after her trip to the Konocti Harbor Resort where she said it had occurred. She then gave implausible and inconsistent accounts of the assault. She said that Balu had cut her and drank her blood. After the victim's account was reported to authorities against her will, she immediately destroyed pages of her diary relating to her trip to the resort. Loftus was sentenced to five years in prison but was completely cleared of the charges within two years. Balu served 8 years in prison, three of them in solitary confinement, before he was cleared.  (DP Focus) (People v. Balu)  [2/09]

Jeremy Bamber, 25, was convicted of the shooting murders of his father, Ralph Nevill Bamber, 61, his mother, June Bamber, 61, his sister, Sheila Caffell, 27, and his twin nephews, Daniel and Nicholas Caffell, both 6. Jeremy was adopted by his parents as was his unrelated sister. The killings occurred at White House Farm in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex. At 3:36 a.m. on August 7, 1985, Jeremy called the police from his cottage in Goldhanger, 3 1/2 miles away, to tell them that Nevill had phoned him and said that Sheila, a paranoid schizophrenic, had “gone crazy” and had got a gun. Sheila was known to have considered ending her life and expressed an intention to kill her sons. After calling police, Jeremy drove to White House Farm and met up with officers who were already there. Police staked out the farmhouse for several hours before entering it at 7:34 a.m. where they found five people shot to death. Sheila was found shot twice under the chin with a rifle in her hand. Police initially thought Sheila had committed the murders before turning the gun on herself.
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Delma Banks was convicted of murdering 16-year-old Richard Wayne Whitehead and sentenced to death. The U.S. Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution 10 minutes before his scheduled execution in 2003. In 2004, the same court overturned his death sentence because of prosecutorial misconduct. According to Banks' attorney, “The state allowed its key witnesses to repeatedly lie to the court and jury, and urged the jury to trust without question all the perjured testimony.” Texas has doggedly defended the conviction on the Kafkaesque procedural ground that Banks' lawyers discovered the hidden illegalities of the prosecution too late to raise them in court.  (TruthInJustice) (TIJ2) (ODR)  [11/05]

Jerry Banks, a black man, was sentenced to death for the murders of Marvin W. King and Melanie Ann Hartsfield, both whites. King was a local band director and Hartsfield was a 19-year-old ex-pupil of his. While rabbit shooting in a wooded area, near Stockbridge, GA, Banks came upon their two dead bodies. He then hurried to a nearby road, flagged down a motorist, and told the motorist to call the police.

Police withheld witness statements from people who happened to be near the scene of the murders when they occurred. At least one of these statements was from a law enforcement officer. All witnesses reported they heard several gunshots fired in rapid succession. Banks's gun – a broken, single-action shotgun – could not have fired those shots. Police also withheld the name of the motorist who backed up Banks's claim of finding the bodies. In addition, they withheld the name of another suspect who happened to be a law enforcement officer.

Police confiscated Banks' shotgun for test firings. Two shells found at the crime scene did not match shells from Banks' gun. About a month later a third shell was found at the crime scene that did match a shell from Banks' gun. Banks was subsequently convicted.

It was later determined that the lead investigator in the case, Phillip S. Howard, had a history of falsifying evidence. He had even “tampered with and manipulated evidence involving [shotgun] shells” in another case. Howard said he found the third shell the day before he took Banks' gun for test firings. However, credible evidence indicated that the shell was found after the test firings. It was believed that the third shell came from the test firings. At the time of this finding, Banks was facing a third trial. The DA decided to drop charges. Banks was released in 1980.  (TWM)  [4/08]

Medell & Victoria Banks - See Choctaw Three

Bernard Baran, a gay 19-year-old, was an aide at Pittsfield's Early Childhood Development Center and was caught in the wave of false abuse allegations that swept the nation in the early 1980s. In 2006 his conviction was overturned and charges against him were dropped in 2009.  (www.freebaran.org) (JD)  [3/05]

Joseph Barbato was sentenced to death for the murder of Mrs. Julia Musso Quintieri. The victim was found by her six-year-old son, Joseph, upon his return home from Sunday church. Quintieri was reported as being Barbato's common-law wife. Police said Quintieri, 25, had roomed one time at Barbato's lodging house at 3215 Fifth Ave. but had moved to 2403 Cambreleng Ave. in the Bronx where she was strangled after rejecting Barbato's advances. Barbato contended his confession to the crime was coerced, a contention that police denied. However, the Court of Appeals overturned his conviction in 1930 due to evidence that his body was covered with bruises and his eyes were blackened. Charges against Barbato were subsequently dropped.  (News Articles) (People v. Barbato) (MOJ)  [9/05]

Arthur Barber was convicted of the murder of Elijah Williams, a neighborhood numbers runner, and was sentenced to life in prison. In 1975, nearly ten years after Barber's arrest, a federal judge released Barber on the ground that police obtained his confession to the crime with severe beatings and “a pattern of lawlessness that shocks the conscience.” Police denied beating Barber, but the judge said the “brutal treatment” was supported by medical reports, court documents, and witnesses. The judge also found that police had arrested Barber without probable cause, questioned him for an extended period before arraignment, refused to allow him to call a lawyer, failed to advise him of his right to remain silent, and searched an apartment for the murder weapon without a warrant.  (News Article) (Innocent)  [1/10]

Jason Barber was convicted of the shooting death of Johnny Escalante, 15. Escalante was shot in the back of the head while sitting in the passenger seat of his brother's truck. At the time of the shooting, Escalante and his brother were leaving a party at a Barber family property. Barber was sentenced to 35 years of imprisonment. Barber's attorney later received a tip about the gun used to kill Escalante, which was found under a barn in Upshur County. The gun convinced experts that Barber had not fired the shot that killed Escalante. Barber was released in 2000 and police arrested a different man for the crime.  (AP News)  [7/07]

Kenneth Barnes was charged with sexual assault after the 8-year-old sister of his girlfriend claimed he had raped her. In 1998, prior to trial, Barnes' mother (and court-appointed guardian) met with his attorney, Warren Brown. Brown explained a prosecution offered plea agreement in which Barnes did not have to admit guilt for which he would receive no jail time, only probation. It seemed like a good deal so Barnes took the plea. However, the defense attorney never explained that Barnes would be branded a sex offender for life and have his name, picture, and address placed on the Maryland Sex Offender Registry.

In 2005, Barnes, who is mentally ill, was given a suspended sentenced for being days late in failing to register a change of address. Months later he was jailed for a year and a half for maintaining a separate address. In 2007, Lydia Fitzsimmons, the owner of a Tropicool Italian ice stand on Falls Road in Roland Park, found that Barnes lingered near her business before and after ordering an ice and then sat in his car watching customers. Many of the customers were children. Barnes may have been watching the young mothers, though no one really knows. He denies having a prurient interest in children. After being told by a customer that Barnes was on the sex-offender registry, Fitzsimmons called the police. Since watching customers was not a crime, police could not do anything, but Fitzsimmons wrote a letter to Barnes' parole board asking them to incarcerate him. Parole officials complied on the grounds that Barnes was in a “pre-contemplative state of re-offending.”

Later that year, the girl who made the rape allegation against Barnes was located and she admitted Barnes did not rape her. The girl, named Marian, then age 20, said she accused Barnes because she was jealous of her older sister's closeness to him and wanted to break them up. Those who support Barnes are seeking to get his conviction overturned so that it cannot be used as an excuse to incarcerate him at will for alleged non-crimes.  (City Paper) (2) (3) (4)  [12/09]

Odell Barnes, Jr., was convicted of the murder of Helen Bass, his friend and lover. He was sentenced to death. Bass, 42, was beaten and stabbed with a kitchen knife, then killed with a gunshot to the head. While driving by in a car, witness Robert Brooks claimed to have seen Barnes, wearing coveralls, hurdle a fence in Bass's backyard at 10:30 p.m.  Brooks allegedly witnessed this event under bad lighting conditions from 40 yards away while wearing tinted glasses. He first made this statement before it was known that Bass did not arrive home from work until 11:30 p.m. In addition, Brooks barely knew Barnes. According to the prosecution theory, Barnes kicked in her back door at 10:30 p.m. and waited an hour for her to return home. Such a theory seems dubious given Barnes's relationship with Bass and the fact that Barnes's mother was picking up Bass from work at 11:15 p.m. A shoe print found on the back door and mentioned in a police report, was wiped clean. Given Barnes's 14EEE shoe size, it easily could have been used to identify or exonerate him.
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Steven Barnes was convicted in 1989 of the rape, sodomy, and murder of 16-year-old Kimberly Simon. Witness testimony indicated the following: (1) Barnes was near his pickup truck about 6 p.m. on Sept. 18, 1985. The truck was parked adjacent to Mohawk St. in Whitesboro, NY. (2) Simon was seen walking along Mohawk St. and was also seen in a pickup truck which was about to enter Mohawk St. No witness could say with certainty that Barnes and Simon were together, nor could any witness say Barnes had ever met Simon. The following day Simon's dead body was found near a gravel pit off of Mohawk St.

Forensic testing revealed that hairs found in Barnes's truck were similar to those of Simon, soil samples from his truck were similar to those taken from the place where her body was found, and an imprint in dirt, lifted from the fender of Barnes's truck, was consistent with the fabric of the jeans worn by Simon at the time of her death. Additionally, Robert Stolo, an inmate at the Oneida County Jail, contended Barnes made an admission of guilt him. According to Stolo, when he, Barnes, and another inmate were discussing “some girls,” Barnes said, “You mean the one I killed” and then said “I mean the one I am accused of killing.” Barnes was exonerated of the crime in 2009 after DNA tests proved his innocence.  (People v. Barnes) (IP)  [2/11]

Lee Max Barnett was sentenced to death for the torture and murder of Richard Eggett. Barnett blames prosecution witness Bill Cantwell and his biker associates for the murder. The prosecution did not provide much of a motive for the killing. Its witnesses were admitted lawbreakers who were subject to prosecution deals in exchange for their testimony. In what Barnett terms a “farce of a trial,” his attorney insisted on arguing diminished responsibility despite the fact that Barnett testified to his full innocence.

More than 5 years after the murder, Cantwell confessed to Kenneth Clumpus that he had killed Eggett. Clumpus later told Cantwell that he had taped the conversation. Cantwell replied that he was not prepared to go to prison for the murder and he soon committed suicide. As of this writing, Barnett has assembled a large amount of material in his defense, including sworn statements from several witnesses attesting to his innocence and Cantwell's guilt.  (TIJ) (JD)  [2/08]

Cortni Mahaffy accused three men of raping her, including 18-year-old Kevin Baruxes. She said that Baruxes, a skinhead, had shared his views about race with her. “He told me that he liked me as a person, but when the race war came, he would have to kill me” because, as a Sicilian, she was not “pure white.” Baruxes was convicted of rape, and because of the racist element, he was given an aggravated sentence for committing a “hate crime.”

Mahaffy's ex-fiancée, Mike Chaney, wrote an email to the DA's office saying he thought Mahaffy had helped to falsely convict Baruxes. It is unclear whether a rape ever took place. Baruxes received a court finding of factual innocence after many witnesses came forward to emphasize that Mahaffy was a habitual liar and after Mahaffy recanted. Baruxes was awarded $265,000 ($100/day) for wrongful imprisonment.  [4/07]

“Gregory Bashirov was wrongly convicted in October 2003 of [the 2002 murder of Igor Dvozhinov, 25, in Rishon LeZion,] Israel. Three witnesses who knew Bashirov gave conflicting statements to police that they saw him stab the man, but they also said they saw another man, Fuad Mordov commit the murder. After Bashirov was arrested, Mordov left Israel. Bashirov was prosecuted without Mordov ever being questioned. With Bashirov the only available suspect, he was prosecuted, convicted of the murder, and sentenced to life in prison. He appealed, and in a decision announced June 3, 2006, Israel's Supreme Court overturned Bashirov's conviction, citing their was reasonable doubt of his guilt. The Court stated that the physical evidence pointed to Mordov, and that the witnesses identification of Bashirov was unreliable – ‘A lot of pressure was exerted on the witnesses ... pressure on this type of testimony was liable to have led to an undesireable result, even to the point of incriminating someone who did no wrong.’ Bashirov was released after three years of wrongful imprisonment.” – FJDB

W. L. Bates - See Vaught, Stiles, & Bates

Chester Bauer was convicting of raping a woman, identified as D.K., after the victim and her husband identified Bauer. Crime lab technician Arnold Melnikoff testified that hairs found at scene matched Bauer. Later it was learned that none of the hairs matched Bauer. DNA tests exonerated Bauer in 1997.  (IP)  [10/05]

Raymond Andrew Baugh was convicted in 2002 of the capital sexual battery of a 7-year-old girl, identified as C. P.  Baugh lived with Rachel, the girl's mother.  C. P. said he molested her behind a locked bedroom door. She subsequently told investigators that Baugh had molested her 12 previous times. There was no physical evidence supporting the molestation. A month later, C. P. told her mother that she had lied. She said she was mad at Baugh and wanted to get him in trouble, but not too much trouble. She claimed she initially maintained her story about Baugh because she was afraid of what her mother might do if she found out that she, C. P., had lied. At trial, C. P. testified there was never any molestation. However, the prosecution presented the girl's previous statements that she had given. Baugh was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. The 2nd District Court of Appeal subsequently upheld Baugh's conviction, based on prosecution claims that the girl's original accusation was more believable than her recantation. However, in 2007 the Florida Supreme Court quashed Baugh's conviction on the grounds that such claims were simply inadequate to support a conviction.  (SP Times) (03) (07)  [10/08]

James Scott Bauhaus was convicting of the murder of Jefferson Dee Hunt. According to the state, the victim and his wife returned home and found Bauhaus in the process of burglarizing their home. Bauhaus then shot and killed the victim. The victim's wife positively identified Bauhaus. In addition, a bystander outside the home identified Bauhaus as the individual running away from the direction of the victim's home shortly after the crime.

Bauhaus alleges that the testimony of the two eyewitnesses was procured by police misconduct, and that blood and fingerprint evidence retrieved from the crime scene could reveal the real killer if it was analyzed by modern forensic technology. The state has refused to test this evidence and the courts have refused to order such testing. A police sketch of the perpetrator does not match Bauhaus.  (www.jamesbauhaus.org)  [5/08]