State Should Pay $500,000 to Men Cleared After 30 years of Wrongful Imprisonment
The Clarion-Ledger reports on the court proceeding in Hattiesburg on Thursday where two men who were in prison for thirty years were released after DNA tests proved that another man committed the rape and murder that the men “confessed” to. Phillip Bivens and Bobby Ray Dixon were released. A third man, Larry Ruffin, died in prison in 2002. Rob McDuff of Jackson represented the trio.
Jimmy Carter was the President when these men were put in prison. The Iranian Hostage Crisis (remember that?) had not begun. Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino had yet to play a down of college football. Brett Favre was 9 years old.
I was 12 years old and finishing up the sixth grade.
These men were in prison for a long time.
It sounds like there was always evidence that these men were innocent:
In addition, the eyewitness in the case, Patterson's 4-year-old son, Luke, told authorities there was one assailant, not three.
The three men didn't even know each other and confessed under apparent heavy police coercion to avoid the gas chamber:
Bivens, a native of California who had briefly visited his brother in Mississippi, said he never knew Dixon until somebody pointed him out in a jail cell.
He said he decided to plead guilty to a crime he didn't commit because he didn't want to go to the gas chamber.
Incidentally, Dixon has lung cancer and a brain tumor.
The D.A. in 1979 disputed that the men were beaten:
The district attorney, who was in office in 1979, disputed statements that Dixon and Ruffin were beaten, saying he knows the authorities involved in the case.
Well, at least he can finger them—since he “knows” them. Those men deserve to be the subject of police interrogation—and possibly prison—themselves.
Mississippi law allows those who were wrongfully imprisoned to recover $50,000 per year up to a $500,000 maximum. The State should immediately pay $500,000 to Bivens, Dixon and Ruffin's estate. The men should not even have to hire lawyers. The state should pay the money and apologize.
