"The
Jeff Havard case in Mississippi is attracting more international
attention. Havard has seen support coming from a growing list of
countries in recent years, including (but not limited to) Australia,
Canada, Italy, New Zealand, and the UK. He can now add France to the
list. French anti-death penalty advocate,
Louis Richard, has taken great interest in Havard’s case and is leading a call to action. Havard
has served nearly thirteen years on death row in Mississippi for the
sexual assault and murder of his girlfriend’s six-month-old daughter,
Chloe Britt. Havard has strongly proclaimed his innocence from the time
of his arrest, and his supporters will tell you that he was wrongfully
convicted for a crime that never happened. Havard has stated from
the beginning that the infant slipped from his arms while lifting her
from the tub, causing her head to hit the bowl of the nearby toilet. The
infant’s death was an accident, not the heinous crime the State claims
it to be. Richard reviewed the evidence of the case, concluding
that Havard is innocent. He has now set out to deliver a message of
support through social media, encouraging people to write letters on
Havard’s behalf. Supporters in the US are thrilled to see Richard’s
efforts and are hoping his involvement will encourage more people
worldwide to speak out in support of Havard’s innocence. Havard’s
supporters believe that anyone who reads the facts of his case will
conclude that he should be granted a new trial. They are confident that
new expert evidence has clearly established that a sexual assault never
occurred and that the injuries to the infant resembled that of a short
fall. Multiple experts have now reviewed Havard’s case and their
findings all support Havard. In fact, there are now five experts that
refute the prosecution’s case. Dr. Stephen Hayne, the State’s only
expert to testify at trial, has gone on record declaring that the State
got it wrong. There are currently no experts who support the State’s
theory of the accused crime. The defense learned in January of
2014, 12 years after the conviction, that Hayne had looked at tissue
sections under a microscope and found definitively that there was no
evidence of sexual assault. In a case where suspicion of sexual assault
only arose when ER doctors and nurses noticed what they believed to be
physical evidence of sexual abuse. Hayne’s microscopic findings were
clearly exculpatory, and would have positively shown that the doctors
and nurses had simply misinterpreted what they saw. Hayne has now
stated that he told the State before trial that he saw no sign of a
sexual assault. The state withheld this evidence from the defense and
also failed to tell the doctors and nurses who testified. The
State of Mississippi chose to ignore their expert’s findings, and pushed
forward to prosecute Jeff Havard for murder during the course of a
sexual assault. As a result, an innocent man now sits on death row for a
crime that never took place. Chloe Britt’s death was tragic, but it was
not a murder. In April of this year, the Mississippi Supreme Court finally granted Havard permission to request an
evidentiary hearing
based on new evidence. This is good news for Havard and his supporters,
and may very well be the reason why the case is now catching the
attention of advocates like Louis Richard. Here is the letter campaign being promoted by Louis Richard on
Facebook: (View Louis Richard’s original post
here)........."
http://www.groundreport.com/the-jeff-havard-death-penalty-case-attracts-international-support-with-letter-campaign/