Found guilty in 1979 slaying, Larry Ruffin exonerated by DNA after his death

Larry Ruffin

The late Larry Ruffin has become the second person in the U.S. to be formally exonerated posthumously, thanks to DNA testing.

"It's wonderful," said Ruffin's daughter, Nikki Ruffin Smith, who was less than a year old when her father was arrested in the case. "It can't bring him back, but justice is served. So is the truth."

On Friday, Circuit Judge Robert Helfrich filed an order throwing out Ruffin's capital murder conviction for the 1979 the rape and murder of Eva Gail Patterson of Eatonville.

"Larry Ruffin is officially exonerated and declared innocent of the crime of capital murder for which he was convicted in 1980 in Forrest County," Helfrich wrote. "That conviction is null and void."

In 2002, Ruffin, while serving a life sentence, was accidentally electrocuted and died of a heart attack in prison. The Innocence Project in New Orleans had pushed for the DNA tests and the exonerations of Ruffin and others.

In September, Helfrich exonerated Bobby Ray Dixon and Phillip Bivens, who had each pleaded guilty in the case. Dressed in a red prison jumpsuit, Bivens said then all he could think was "Thank God. Thank God."

Bivens, 59, is now living in New Orleans in a transitional home provided by the non-profit organization Resurrection After Exoneration. Last month, he attended his first NFL game, watching the New Orleans Saints lose to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

"He's doing well," said Emily Maw, director of the Innocence Project in New Orleans. "He's trying to get a job gardening."

Dixon, who was suffering from terminal lung cancer and a brain tumor, died months after being exonerated.

In 2009, Tim Cole, who died in 1999, became the first person exonerated posthumously. A judge threw out Cole's conviction after DNA cleared him of the 1985 rape of a Texas Tech University student.

Cole and Ruffin likely won't be the last people exonerated posthumously, Maw said. "There are lessons for everyone in this. Red flags were ignored in this case. You want to make sure you're not developing tunnel vision. It's so innate in all of us. Our human nature can lead us to do things that have such significant consequences."

During the original investigation into Patterson's murder, her 4-year-old son - the lone eyewitness in the case - told authorities there was one assailant, not three.

DNA tests have implicated Andrew Harris, 50, already serving a life sentence for a 1981 rape in the Hattiesburg area. A Forrest County grand jury has since indicted Harris with capital murder in Patterson's slaying.

Before the indictment, Harris had been eligible for parole.

"In this case, the person had escaped punishment for the crime," Maw said. "We're about catching the real person who did the crime."

In Cole's case, Jerry Wayne Johnson confessed to the rape in 1995 - after the statute of limitations. But DNA tests weren't run until after Cole's death.

Johnson is serving a life sentence for abducting a 15-year-old girl from her high school and raping her. He is also serving a 99-year sentence for raping a 20-year-old woman.

Ruffin's sister, Teresa Strickland, said the family cherishes the fact her brother has been cleared, and that it came during Black History Month.

"My mama said she wants everybody to know that she believed her son was innocent, that we believed in our brother," she said.

Bivens and Dixon "both got to hear they were innocent, both got to see their names cleared," she said. "My brother never got to have that chance. Their testimony sent him to prison. That's the hurting part of it."

At the 1980 trial, Dixon initially testified Ruffin raped Patterson and Bivens slit her throat, but then backed off that testimony, telling jurors he had never seen Patterson before, according to the trial transcript.

"Bobby Ray Dixon, did you stand before this court in Hattiesburg and plead guilty to the murder?" asked then-District Attorney Bud Holmes.

"Yes, I pleaded guilty," Dixon said.

"And was it free and voluntary?" Holmes asked.

"It wasn't free and voluntary," Dixon replied.

In an interview before his death, Dixon told The Clarion-Ledger he had nothing to do with the crime and was coerced to testify.

Maw said she hopes Ruffin's family "can begin to heal from the tragedy - a tragedy that began with Larry's wrongful arrest at age 19 and was compounded by his untimely death in prison, convicted of a crime he knew he was innocent of."

Source: ClarionLedger.com, J. Mitchell, Feb. 22, 2011

_________________________

Use the tags below or the search engine at the top of this page to find updates, older or related articles on this Website.

Comments

Kansas AG urges governor to deny clemency to 8 sentenced to death

TOPEKA — Attorney General Kris Kobach on Tuesday urged the governor to deny clemency to Kansas inmates who have been sentenced to death. Eight of nine people sentenced to death in Kansas formally filed clemency requests in May, according to a press release from the Attorney General’s Office. Kobach urged Gov. Laura Kelly to reject them.

Alabama | Judge bars nitrogen gas execution, says method is unconstitutionally cruel

MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- A federal judge on Tuesday permanently blocked Alabama from executing an inmate with nitrogen gas after declaring it violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. U.S. District Judge Emily Marks issued the ruling hours after an appeals court reversed her initial finding that the method was constitutional. Marks permanently enjoined the state from executing Jeffrey Lee, 49, by nitrogen gas. He was scheduled to be executed Thursday. The decision, for now, blocks the use of the controversial new execution method that the state has championed since 2024, but the issue will likely end up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Idaho will soon turn to firing squad executions. Police will pull the triggers

Trained members of Idaho law enforcement with demonstrated firearms proficiency are expected to fill slots for carrying out the death penalty by firing squad as the state prison system transitions to the controversial execution method next month. Six volunteers certified for no less than three years apiece through Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST, will be recruited to ensure the Idaho Department of Correction is ready to comply with a state law that prioritizes shooting prisoners to death over lethal injection starting July 1. No one on the team may have faced disciplinary action over firearms, use of force, or related conduct over the prior year, according to new execution protocols the prison system released this week.

SCOTUS: Alabama can’t execute Jeffery Lee by nitrogen; Thursday execution called off

After a week of legal volleyball, Alabama death row inmate Jeffery Lee’s execution—scheduled for Thursday evening—was called off after federal courts called the state’s nitrogen gas execution method “likely unconstitutional.” The state took the fight to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping Lee could still be put to death tonight. In an order issued at 8:10 p.m., the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that it would not lift a ban on Alabama executing Lee via nitrogen . In a short court order, the justices denied Alabama’s motion to go ahead with the execution. Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch would have granted the appeal and let the execution proceed, according to the order.

US | Army lays groundwork for death row executions if Trump gives approval

The Army is preparing to carry out the executions of the military's four death-row inmates if ordered to do so by the president, according to an internal planning document reviewed by ABC News. If carried out, it would mark the first time the military executed convicted American inmates in more than a half-century The plan, dubbed "Operation Resolute Justice" and issued internally in February, directs Army officials to coordinate with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to transfer condemned prisoners from the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to the federal execution facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the Justice Department carried out a series of non-military federal executions during President Donald Trump's first term.

With nitrogen gas blocked, Alabama seeks to execute inmate by lethal injection

Jeffery Lee, who successfully challenged his scheduled Thursday execution by nitrogen gas, argued that execution by firing squad would be less painful. The Alabama Attorney General’s Office Friday sought to put an Alabama death row inmate to death by lethal injection a day after the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed the state’s attempt to execute him by nitrogen gas. In a filing with the Alabama Supreme Court Friday afternoon, the state sought an expedited motion to set a new execution date for Jeffery Lee, 49. The state said that with a permanent injunction in place against nitrogen gas, the method by which the state intended to execute Lee on Thursday, it could execute him by lethal injection or the electric chair.

Texas | Tanner Horner now incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit

Convicted child killer Tanner Horner has now taken up residence in one of the most brutal death row prisons after being sentenced to die by a Texas jury last month. Horner is incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit, an infamously restrictive prison outside Houston where the state's death row inmates are housed in an all-solitary confinement wing and spend at least 22 hours a day in their 60-square-foot cells. The former FedEx deliveryman, 34, was booked at the notorious prison on May 5 within hours of being sentenced for the gruesome murder of Athena Strand, 7, whom he admitted strangling while delivering a Christmas gift to her home in November 2022.

20 Minutes to Death: Witness to the Last Execution in France

The following document is a firsthand account of the final moments of Hamida Djandoubi, a convicted murderer executed by guillotine at Marseille’s Baumettes Prison on September 10, 1977. The record—dated September 9—was written by Monique Mabelly, a judge appointed by the state to witness the proceedings. Djandoubi’s execution would ultimately be the last carried out in France before capital punishment was abolished in 1981. At the time, President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing—who had publicly voiced his "deep aversion to the death penalty" prior to his election—rejected Djandoubi’s appeal for clemency. Choosing to let "justice take its course," the President allowed the execution to proceed, just as he had in two previous cases during his term: Christian Ranucci , executed on July 28, 1976 and Jérôme Carrein , executed on June 23, 1977. Hamida Djandoubi , a Tunisian national, was sentenced to death for killing his former lover, Elisabeth Bousquet. He was execu...

Texas | Death Row Inmate Gets Resentenced to Life

Harris County district judge recommends compassionate release for Clarence Jordan A 1977 convenience store robbery that resulted in a clerk’s death landed Clarence Jordan on Texas Death Row, where he remained for decades even though he was declared incompetent for execution. On Monday, a judge recommended that the disabled man be released. Harris County District Court Judge Katherine Thomas resentenced Jordan to life with the possibility of parole and suggested that he be considered for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Medically Recommended Intensive Supervision program, also known as compassionate release.

New Mississippi billboard warns criminals: ‘Firing squad is legal’

DESOTO COUNTY, Miss. (WREG) — A billboard standing on Interstate 55 southbound as you cross the Tennessee state line and enter Mississippi from Memphis is sending a grim message to those coming into the state. DeSoto County District Attorney Matthew Barton recently announced the new billboard campaign, which features the sign reading, “WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WHERE THE FIRING SQUAD IS LEGAL. THINK TWICE.” It references Mississippi’s law permitting execution by firing squad under certain circumstances for inmates sentenced to death. Barton says this campaign is aimed at deterring violent crime and sends a direct message to criminals entering Mississippi.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog