{"id":27542,"date":"2022-01-08T14:58:23","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T14:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=27542"},"modified":"2022-01-08T14:58:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-08T14:58:23","slug":"northam-grants-full-pardon-to-man-convicted-in-2002-portsmouth-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/08\/northam-grants-full-pardon-to-man-convicted-in-2002-portsmouth-killing\/","title":{"rendered":"Northam grants full pardon to man convicted in 2002 Portsmouth killing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> [ad_1]<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Gov. Ralph Northam this week pardoned a man convicted in a 20-year-old Portsmouth murder case, as his office says he\u2019s trying to rectify injustices in the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n<p>The governor granted the \u201cabsolute pardon\u201d to Lamar Edward Barnes, now 40, who received a life sentence in the 2002 slaying of a pregnant woman and the shooting of another man.<\/p>\n<p>Such full pardons are granted \u201cwhen the governor is convinced that the petitioner is innocent of the charge,\u201d Northam\u2019s office said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis absolute pardon reflects Barnes\u2019 innocence of the convictions handed down to him in 2003, for which he has been incarcerated for nearly the last two decades,\u201d Northam\u2019s office said in a statement Wednesday, adding that there were also \u201cdue process violations\u201d against Barnes.<\/p>\n<p>Barnes was charged in the April 2002 slaying of Amy McRae, and the shooting of her fianc\u00e9 inside a house on Turnpike Road in Portsmouth. While McRae died, her unborn baby daughter and her fianc\u00e9 both survived.<\/p>\n<p>Barnes, who was then 20, maintained from the outset that he didn\u2019t commit the crime.<\/p>\n<p>But following an August 2003 jury trial in Portsmouth Circuit Court on first-degree murder, malicious wounding and gun counts, he was convicted of all charges and sentenced to life plus another 28 years behind bars.<\/p>\n<p>Fast-forward nearly two decades, with the case in recent years taken up by the Innocence Project at the University of Virginia\u2019s law school.<\/p>\n<p>The Innocence Project said this week that the Virginia Attorney General\u2019s \u201cconviction integrity unit\u201d also looked into the case over the past year and agreed that Barnes was innocent.<\/p>\n<p>Northam\u2019s office said that a \u201cthorough investigation\u201d found that Barnes had a \u201ccorroborated alibi\u201d at the time that was \u201cdisregarded at trial.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Petitions from the Innocence Project say Barnes told investigators in 2002 that he was at the London Oaks apartment complex in Portsmouth with two other men, though that evidence wasn\u2019t introduced by Barnes\u2019 lawyer at his jury trial.<\/p>\n<p><button class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp caas-button collapse-button\" aria-label=\"\" title=\"\" data-ylk=\"elm:readmore;slk:Story continues\">Story continues<\/button><\/p>\n<p>The governor\u2019s office said Wednesday that eyewitnesses who testified for the prosecution against Barnes at the trial have since \u201crecanted their identifications\u201d of him. That included the slain woman\u2019s fianc\u00e9, Mark King, who was shot in the head.<\/p>\n<p>The Innocence Project said that someone gave Barnes\u2019 name to King as the man who shot him. But though he initially went with that to investigators, he lacked an independent memory of the shooting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs his memory came back, he became more and more unsure, and then ultimately became convinced that it was not in fact Mr. Barnes who was the shooter,\u201d said Jennifer L. Givens, a U.Va. law professor and director of the school\u2019s Innocence Project.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe made repeated attempts before trial \u2014 and after trial \u2014 to right that wrong, and to make sure that Mr. Barnes got out of prison,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause he felt horrible that an innocent man was behind bars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Givens said prosecutors with the Portsmouth Commonwealth\u2019s Attorney\u2019s Office at the time \u201cignored\u201d his pleas and \u201cproceeded in the case against Mr. Barnes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>King, who was indigent and didn\u2019t have much family in recent years, died in 2020 of unknown causes. Before he passed, he spoke to the Innocence Project multiple times, including in a video statement.<\/p>\n<p>Though he had been shot in the head and lost his fianc\u00e9, \u201che made it his life\u2019s work to try to exonerate Mr. Barnes,\u201d Juliet B. Hatchett, an assistant professor and the U.Va.\u2019s Innocence Project\u2019s associate director, said Friday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the many tragic things about this case is that he didn\u2019t live to see this exoneration happen,\u201d Hatchett added. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty unusual that we get a victim who comes forward and works so hard to try to right a wrong of false testimony.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The man the Innocence Project contends committed the crime has not been charged.<\/p>\n<p>Immediately upon getting the absolute pardon from Northam Tuesday, Barnes was released from the Sussex State Prison in Waverly the same day.<\/p>\n<p>Givens said with the quick turnaround time, Barnes didn\u2019t go through the normal months-long Virginia Department of Corrections release programs, which are designed to help inmates learn to re-integrate back into society.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce the governor has decided that they agree that the man is innocent, they\u2019re reluctant to keep them in prison anymore,\u201d Givens said.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, she said, it\u2019s a shock to inmates to be \u201cthrown out on the street\u201d after decades behind bars, with few resources to help them out. Barnes is not yet ready to speak with the media about his incarceration and release, she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a little shocked at this point,\u201d Givens said. \u201cThe adjustment for these clients is really intense. So we try to just be a little protective.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>Staff writer Dave Ress contributed to this story.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>Peter Dujardin, 757-247-4749, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/mailto:pdujardin@dailypress.com\" data-ylk=\"slk:pdujardin@dailypress.com\" class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp\" rel=\"noopener\">pdujardin@dailypress.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>[ad_2]<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/innocent-man-behind-bars-northam-134000804.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ad_1] Gov. Ralph Northam this week pardoned a man convicted in a 20-year-old Portsmouth murder&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-cj-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27544,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27542\/revisions\/27544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}