GIST: In 1976, a Wilson County jury
convicted Charles Ray Finch of shooting a gas station owner in a robbery
gone wrong, connecting him to an eyewitness description of a
shotgun-wielding assailant wearing a long coat and hat. But Finch, now 80, may soon walk free after four decades. The U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has granted Finch a new hearing on his
case, citing problems from the 1970s so strong that jurors today would
doubt his guilt. In its ruling, the three-judge panel noted trouble with
the murder weapon, eyewitness testimony, an “unduly suggestive” police
lineup and pressure to implicate Finch. “The totality of the evidence
would prevent any reasonable juror from finding him guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt,” the court wrote, “such that his incarceration is a
miscarriage of justice.” The court’s 19-page opinion,
filed Jan. 25, comes after nearly two decades of work from Duke
University’s Wrongful Convictions Clinic, which first interviewed Finch
in 2001 and retraced much of the evidence. James Coleman, Duke law professor
and the clinic’s co-director, said he will ask N.C. Attorney General
Josh Stein to essentially dismiss the case. Given the federal court’s
detailed ruling, Coleman said, “I don’t think there’s any way for the
state to prevail.” The federal court noted that
prosecutors offered one eyewitness, Lester Floyd Jones, as the “bedrock”
of their case. Jones worked with Richard Linwood Holloman at a
combination gas and grocery in rural Black Creek, where the population
is now 769. In its ruling, the court noted testimony that Jones “had
cognitive issues, struggled with alcoholism and had issues with
short-term memory recall.” In February 1976, Jones later
testified, he and Holloman were closing up the store when three black
men came toward the station from the highway, one of them staying back
out of the light. The man Jones later identified as Finch wore a
three-quarter length coat and a woman’s stocking on his head for a hat. A second man in a checkered shirt
and red toboggan asked to buy some Alka-Seltzer, Jones testified, and
when Holloman went to get it, Finch said, “And your money, too.” Jones
testified that Finch then pulled a sawed-off shotgun from under his coat
and shot at Holloman, who had been holding a revolver and returned
fire. The clerk added that he dove under a counter after the first shot
and identified the gun by its sound. A second witness, Noble Harris,
told police he bought a beer and a quart of wine at the gas station on
the night of Holloman’s murder and saw Finch there getting out of a blue
Cadillac. In 2003, the court’s ruling said, Harris said he later had
doubts about the brief meeting and told Chief Deputy Tony Owens about
his misgivings. “Harris recounted in his
affidavit that Deputy Owens and the prosecutor pressured him into
sticking to his original story,” the ruling said. Later on the night of the
shooting, court documents said, officers in Wilson caught Finch in his
blue Cadillac. Finch agreed to a search, and officers found a shotgun
shell in the ash tray of the rear door. Later, Finch’s son would testify
that he had found the shell while cleaning the Cadillac, a used model
bought four months before, and put it in the glove compartment. After Finch’s arrest, the ruling
said, officers placed him in a series of three lineups in the Wilson
County jail, using seven black men in casual clothes. Jones picked Finch
all three times. But while Deputy Owens said he
placed Finch’s hat and coat on another man, the record shows
differently, the judges’ opinion said. In one of the lineups, Finch was
the only man wearing a hat. “We had a picture of the lineup,” Coleman said, “and Ray Finch wore a coat in every one of them.” Coleman said the Wrongful
Convictions Clinic viewed the autopsy during its investigation and
suspected the fatal wounds did not come from a shotgun. The medical
examiner found the doctor who performed the original autopsy, who then
declared it inaccurate and agreed Holloman had been killed with a
handgun rather than shotgun, Coleman said. The court also noted that the shell found in Finch’s Cadillac did not match those recovered at the crime scene. “The new evidence showing that
Holloman’s wounds were not in fact caused by a shotgun significantly
undermines this crucial factual determination that Finch was the
shooter,” the court wrote. Three witnesses appeared for
Finch during his 1976 trial, all of whom said he could not have killed
the gas station owner because he was playing poker at Tom Smith’s
Shoeshine Stand at the time of the shooting, court records said. In
their ruling, the judges wrote that these alibi witnesses “would seem
more credible.” Laura Brewer, a spokeswoman for the attorney general, said Stein has heard from Finch’s attorneys and is reviewing the case."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article225291430.html
PUBLISHER'S
NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles
Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my
previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put
considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith
and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's
forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section
which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can
be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
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