A Case Involving Evidence Used To Convict or Exonerate a Defendant

A Case Involving Evidence Used To Convict or Exonerate a Defendant

Introduction

This paper studies and describes a case in which evidence was necessary to prosecute the case. The paper describes the crime that took place in brief. The paper subsequently provides description as to how the evidence was vital in the case at the time of conviction and for sentencing the person. The evidence was not only important at the time of proving the person guilty but it was of more importance in proving the innocence of the person and giving them exoneration.

Background of the case

On 23 of November 1979, a couple went to a liquor store in Dallas. The male went inside the store to buy the liquor whereas the female went to the nearby payphone to make a call. She noticed that two African American came to the payphone next to the one that she was using. Later when the couple went towards their car, those two men held the male friend at gunpoint and forced the couple to get into the car (Anonymous, 2011). The two men also entered the car and asked the male to drive the car towards the highway.

The men robbed the couple and forcibly threw the male friend out of the car while prevented the female from escaping. The two men then stopped the car in a park and raped the female one by one on gunpoint and also took her rabbit fur coat. The female victim then ran away to the nearest road and fell unconscious. A patrol car noticed her and took her to the police station (Anonymous, 2011).

Identification of the offenders based on evidence

One week after the incident of crime, the police stopped two men, named “Cornelius Dupree” and “Anthony Massingill”, alongside the road which was close to the place of attack. The police stopped them based on the claim that they both resembled to the description of the offenders being provided by the victim of the case of sexual assault (Watkins, 2011). The police searched and investigated both Dupree and Massingill. Dupree was found unarmed whereas Massingill possessed a gun which was also comparable to the gun possessed by the offender in the case.

The two men were taken to the police station and their photographs were included in the identification lineup. The male victim did not identify Dupree and Massingill in the photo lineup whereas the female victim identified them as the two offenders who raped her. The photos were also showed to the two women working in the store where the perpetrators attempted to vend the rabbit fur coat of female victim. The women identified neither Dupree nor Massingill as those men who came to sell the coat (Watkins, 2011). On Forensic analysis of the examination of female victim's rape kit confirmed the recall by the female victim that offenders had ejaculated in the rape. Moreover, since the blood type of the sample matched that of the female victim, ...