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http://www.news.com.au/world/north-america/joseph-buffeys-bungled-rape-case-mirrors-steven-avery-conviction/news-story/b88f888df10b3dddb701c0e65c7034db Joseph Buffey’s bungled rape case mirrors Steven Avery conviction
A DOCUMENTARY about a so-called innocent man serving time for rape and murder is taking the internet world by storm, but another bungled case could be ever more disturbing.
Making a Murderer, the Netflix-driven 10-part series about the wrongful incarceration of Steven Avery, has sparked calls for a presidential pardon and more than 200,000 signatures demanding his release.
But Avery’s case is not unique. Others have been betrayed by the justice system in America and Joseph Buffey says he is one of them.
In a cell in West Virginia serving a 70-year sentence, Buffey says he never did what he was accused of — the violent rape of an 83-year-old grandmother in her home. All the evidence suggests he’s right.
There was no DNA linking Buffey to the rape. The 19-year-old had a concrete alibi. Another man’s DNA was even found inside the victim. None of it mattered when, under advice from his lawyer, Buffey pleaded guilty.
He was told he would likely receive a 15-year sentence, but if he didn’t confess he could get 300years. When the sentence was handed down, it was a crushing blow: 70 to 110 years in a tiny prison cell.
Thirteen years later, Buffey’s case has been handed to the same people who looked into Avery’s case. Lawyers from the Innocence Project, a group “dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted individuals”, say Buffey shouldn’t be in jail. They won’t rest until he’s free.
The crime Buffey is accused of was terrifying and violent. According to court records, the mother of a local police officer was sleeping soundly in her bedroom in Clarksburg, West Virginia, on the morning of November 30, 2001. She woke and “saw an intruder standing beside her bed”.
The victim, known only as Mrs L, told police the man was a white male brandishing a large knife and a torch. She said he forced her from her bed by demanding: “This is a robbery, I need your money”.
The pair went to her purse where she handed over $9. The attacker reportedly told his victim: “I’ve been here before” then returned to her bedroom where he raped her three times and forced her to perform oral sex on him.
Mrs L had her hands tied behind her back and was told to stay quiet. She escaped and phoned police who, one week later, arrested Buffey on three unrelated break-ins and pinned the rape on him for good measure.
Cracks began to appear in the case almost immediately. The biggest problem, according to Buffey’s lawyers, was that DNA from a rape kit did not belong to the 19-year-old.
Lieutenant Brent Myers from the West Virginia State Police Forensic Laboratory found six weeks before Buffey’s guilty plea that “DNA did not belong to (Buffey)”, according to court documents.
The report, however, was not provided to the defence until after Buffey was sentenced. Because Buffey pleaded guilty, the case never went to trial, and the evidence was therefore not factored in.
Things were looking up for Buffey in 2012 when lawyers won the right to retest the DNA found inside the victim. The New York Times reported the results produced a match, but it wasn’t Buffey’s. It belonged to a man named Adam Bowers who was 16 at the time of the attack and lived a few blocks from the victim.
Bowers was found guilty in May of 2013 but, instead of releasing Buffey, prosecutors successfully argued that Bowers and Buffey both committed the crime, despite Mrs L’s testimony that she was attacked by only one man.
Buffey’s alibi has also been ignored by the courts. He said he checked in to a motel on the night of the rape but his confession, though later retracted, carried more weight.
The Times reports that Buffey said he “broke into this old lady’s house” after nine hours of interrogations without food. Within minutes he took it back but it was too late.
“You really want to know the truth?” the 19-year-old can be heard saying on tape. “I didn’t do it. I made up a story (because you were) breathing down my neck, telling me I did it.”
Buffey’s case is before the Supreme Court where lawyers are appealing his conviction. As that happens, Steven Avery’s case has struck a nerve with the public, thanks mainly to the Making a Murderer documentary.
Avery, a Wisconsin man with an IQ of 70, was sent to prison in 1985 for the sexual assault of Penny Ann Beernsten.
He was released in 2003after DNA evidence proved he was innocent.
But two years later, when he was trying to sue Manitowoc County law enforcement for $US36 million for “wrongful conviction”, he was again accused and then convicted for the murder of photographer Teresa Halbach.
The father-of-five has always maintained his innocence. He is currently serving a life sentence.